2. Marty Supreme, Frankenstein, Hamnet
3. Bugonia, The Secret Agent, Train Dreams
F1
Blue Moon
Un Simple Accident (یک تصادف ساده)
3. Bugonia, The Secret Agent, Train Dreams
This year's nominees are:
4 nominations
- Picture
- Film Editing: Stephen Mirrione (The Revenant, Babel, Traffic)
- Sound
- Visual Effects
Cast: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Kim Bodnia, Sarah Niles, Will Merrick, Joseph Balderrama, Abdul Salis, Callie Cooke, Samson Kayo, Simon Kunz, Liz Kingsman
This is great. It hits every beat it needs to. The sound is amazing. The script is perfect Hollywood nonsense, but it cleverly avoids most of the worst traps. And this movie has Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem and Kerry Condon. So the acting is just fuckin stellar. All three are absolutely pitch perfect. Damson Idris is great in the Miles Teller part. Sarah Niles is wonderful. The whole thing just sings. And, sure, it’s a retread of Maverick. I mean, yeah fine: it’s mostly about the same thing and it’s mostly a similar script, and the director’s the same, and it’s giving older-guy-bucks-the-system-and-blesses-the-young-people-with-his-wisdom. But I didn’t care one bit. I saw this on a gigantic screen and it felt like I was on a ride the whole time, and this rocked. Great score, great soundtrack, great editing. I was into it. Now, I have heard a great many complaints about the fact that this got a Best Picture nomination. I am baffled by these complaints. In the first place, F1 is very good. In the second place, F1 is appreciably better than Frankenstein. I defy anyone to tell me that Guillermo del Toro's movie is better than Kosinski's, and yet no one is complaining that Frankenstein made it into one of the Best Picture slots because it's a drama and not a genre picture like this one is. (In fact, to my mind F1 is better than Bugonia and Hamnet, too.) In the third place, the reason we have ten Best Picture nominees is exactly for movies like this. The ten slots were designed so that the Academy would make room for genre movies like this one. The Dark Knight was the reason for the change back in 2009 when it missed out on a nomination; then they switched to ten and action movies have consistently benefited and been included. To give just a few examples: District 9 (2009), Inception (2010), Hell or High Water (2016), and most significantly Black Panther (2018). In any case, I'm kind of baffled by anyone saying this movie doesn't deserve its slot. It absolutely does. It's one of the most fun movies of the year. To my mind, Kosinki scored again.
Will win: Film Editing, Sound
Could win: N/A
My rating: #18 out of 91
2 nominations
- Actor: Ethan Hawke (Boyhood, Training Day)
- Original Screenplay: Robert Kaplow (1st time nominee)
Cast: Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott, Jonah Lees, Simon Delaney, Patrick Kennedy, Giles Surridge, John Doran
I am going to tell you right now that when I saw the trailer I said "Oh no. Absolutely not. This looks horrible." But then my friend Greg told me I needed to watch it, so I went to the theatre and... this is utterly surprising. It’s very, very theatrical and it’s mostly just lots and lots of talk, but it works its way under your skin and it winds up being quite moving. This movie will be especially poignant for theatre people, of course—since it’s about the opening night of Oklahoma! from the perspective of Lorenz Hart, the lyricist and former writing partner of Richard Rodgers who didn’t work on the show. But there is honestly a great deal to enjoy here, and Ethan Hawke is pretty wonderful. I want also to note that some gay men I know have complained about the way the film, in their view, transforms the gay Lorenz Hart into someone who spends the entirety of this movie trying to get close to Margaret Qualley's character. I guess this might have bothered me if I believed in such a thing as sexuality, but, well, I don't. Blue Moon is based on real correspondence between Hart and that character, and in any case the film is quite clear that Hart is gay. I say go see this movie. It's a mannered, overly talkie theatre thing, and it's great.
Will win: N/A
Could win: Actor
My rating: #27 out of 91
It Was Just an Accident
2 nominations
- Original Screenplay: Mehdi Mahmoudian & Jafar Panahi & Shadmer Rastin & Nader Saïvar (all 1st time nominees)
- International Feature: France (Emilia Pérez, Les Misérables, Mustang, A Prophet, The Class, Joyeux Noël, Les Choristes, Amélie, The Taste of Others, East-West, Ridicule, Indochine, Cyrano de Bergerac, Camille Claudel, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Betty Blue, Three Men and a Cradle, Entre Nous, Clean Slate, The Last Metro, Une Histoire Simple, Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, Madame Rosa, Cousin Cousine, Lacombe Lucien, Day for Night, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Hoa-Binh, My Night at Maud's, Stolen Kisses, Live for Life, A Man and a Woman, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Sundays and Cybele, The Truth, Black Orpheus, Mon Oncle, Gates of Paris, Gervaise, Forbidden Games, The Walls of Malapaga, Monsieur Vincent)
Cast: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr, George Hashemzadeh, Delmaz Najafi, Afsaneh Najm Abadi
This is my favorite film of the year. It's absurdly funny and deadly serious at the same time. The ending is incredible. Mostly, though, I think I was struck by the film’s portrait of people living with difficult memories, of surviving violence and learning to do the next day’s activities—falling in love with someone, buying pastries, listening to your mom complain about you, helping a neighbor. Panahi's beautiful film manages this without sentiment and always with an eye on what these people have gone through at the hands of an unrepentant state. Un Simple Accident, of course, won the Palme d'Or, so I guess it doesn't need a Best Picture Oscar, Directing Oscar, or even an International Feature Oscar or a Screenplay Oscar. But it sure would have been well deserved. This movie is so good. In fact, while we're here we should say that the International Feature nominees this year are all stellar, with four of the five getting more than one Oscar nomination. It's really a banner year for the Academy's attention to international movies.
Will win: N/A
Could win: N/A
My rating: #1 out of 91
More Oscar posts:
5. Sirāt, Avatar: Fire and Ash, K-Pop Demon Hunters
6. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Song Sung Blue, Weapons, The Voice of Hind Rajab
7. Arco, Elio, Zootopia 2, Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
8. Animated Short Films
9. Jurassic World: Rebirth, The Lost Bus, Kokuho, The Smashing Machine
10. The Ugly Stepsister, Diane Warren: Relentless, Viva Verdi!
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