The Gold-laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain (2018)

Ridham Janve's The Gold-laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain (सोना ढ्वांदी भेड ते सुच्चा पहाड़) is slow and contemplative and has some breathtaking photography. Its slowness began to wear on me after a while, though, and as the film headed toward its conclusion (the revenge of the god!) I sort of started to drift into sleep.

The Wild Boys (2017)

Well Les Garçons Sauvages (The Wild Boys) is fucking bananas. Bertrand Mandico's highly theatrical and gender-bending film is dense as hell, totally campy, very weird, and filled with references to other things that reward pondering.

I watched this back in August 2021 with the unseen movie club. (It was not even my selection, although it seems like it should have been.)

El Ángel (2018)

El Ángel is the true story of a pretty teenage sociopath in Argentina. It's really slickly made, and very fun to watch. I had a great time. I also found the film shallow, to be honest, but I didn't really mind that so much. It's a fun, queer ride. So much so that at some point late in the film he kills some people and I had to remind myself that he is a sociopath. I also wanted a little more weird sexuality. There are lots of explanations for this killer's behavior that cite deviant sexual attraction, but there honestly isn't too much of that in El Ángel.

Being Impossible (2018)

Yo Imposible is a Venezuelan film about a person named Ariel who discovers she is intersex. It's a really difficult watch. Ariel is in pain for the majority of the movie; couple that with the treatment of the medical establishment, the treatment of others, the treatment of her family... it's a lot. I can't say I liked this movie very much, but it feels like an important movie for people who don't know much about intersex, especially because the main narrative is intercut with testimonies from intersex characters whom Ariel will meet later in the story.

This film never made it to a U.S. theatrical release but it was Venezuela's submission in the Best International Feature category for the Oscars, and you can watch it now on HBO Max.

Let the Sun Shine In (2017)

Wow I loved Un Beau Soleil Intérieur (Let the Sun Shine In). Claire Denis's exploration of a woman looking for love and trying to find someone who isn't an idiot and can be kind and selfless and communicate with her is sensitive and sweet and sad. Juliette Binoche is luminous and brilliant. I do not believe she has ever looked more beautiful. And the other actors are great too, especially Nicolas Duvauchelle and Bruno Podalydès. This movie is just so smart.

Ruben Brandt, Collector (2018)

Listen when I tell you that Ruben Brandt a Gyűjtő (Ruben Brandt, Collector) is not to be missed. This animated film is done in a surrealist style while also referencing more works of art than I could count as well as many, many films. One of the main characters drinks whiskey out of a glass with an Alfred Hitchcock ice cube. This is an animated heist movie that is way more fun than you'd imagine. I really, really liked it.

Sicilian Ghost Story

I really, really liked Sicilian Ghost Story. It's a romantic, spiritual meditation on something really terrible that happened in Sicily in the 1990s. The performances of the two leads are just perfect, and the film is beautifully written and beautifully shot. This is great.

Never Look Away (2018)

Never Look Away is a fine melodrama.

But, I dunno... it's just not that interesting. It feels like it's already been done. The script is at times stellar, and Tom Schilling and Paula Beer are both great.

Sebastian Koch – who is a brilliant actor and first billed here – really doesn't have enough to do. And this is in a three-hour movie!

The real takeaway from Never Look Away, though is Caleb Deschanel's photography, which is truly extraordinary. The film deserves a view if only for that.

Postcard from London

I still love Harris Dickinson, and I am clearly the ideal audience for this movie, which was aimed directly at me, but Postcards from London does not work. It's this weird set of references to Fassbinder and Caravaggio and Oscar Wilde. Fine, but it's made cheaply and its tone never jells, and it has no score! This is boring and awkward. Dickinson and Jonah Hauer-King deserve better.

The Guilty

An excellently made melodrama. This is a one-sided phone-call drama – like Locke – with a great central performance and a tight script.

Life and Nothing More (2018)

Wow. Life and Nothing More is a quiet, brilliant little film. It's a slice-of-life drama with a powerful emotional effect as we spend more and more time with the two main characters. It's about precarity in the Southern U.S. and it's also a very personal story about the relationship between a mother and her teenage son. I really, really liked this.

My old pal Hudson Meeks has a small role in the movie, which was a nice surprise. And I also managed to meet the director, Antonio Méndez Esparza, last Thursday on campus. He currently teaches at the film school here – which I didn't know before I saw the movie – and he's a lovely guy. We talked about Sorrentino and Malick and the fact that he didn't like Guardians of the Galaxy.

Journey's End (2018)

I already thought Sam Claflin was a brilliant actor before this movie, but Journey's End really drove that home in a new way. Damn is he good in this. The other actors – Paul Bettany, Asa Butterfield, and Tom Sturridge – are very good too.  

Journey's End is based quite closely on a play by R.C. Sherriff from 1928, but it does wonders with that old chestnut of a script. It's an excellent movie. I really liked it.

Night Comes On (2018)

Night Comes On was pretty good. The central role, played by Dominique Fishback, is an intriguing one, and Fishback is very good. But the film doesn't quite know what it wants to say. My sense is that it feels that this particular story that is worth telling. Yes. Fine. But I think perhaps that this movie thinks that telling the story of a person with a particular subject person – lesbian, black, incarcerated – is enough for a compelling film. That isn't quite true if the film doesn't also have an interesting narrative. I liked the movie, but it doesn't do enough.
Max Casella appears in a small part and is unrecognizable and kind of amazing.

A Prayer Before Dawn (2018)

A Prayer before Dawn was really, really good. I was surprised at how good. But Joe Cole is excellent, and this movie has tons of twists and turns up its sleeve. As you know, I love a prison movie. This one's set in a prison in Chiang Mai and involves a ton of boxing. Sign me up.

Oscar Nominations 2019: Part 11 of 11 & Final Predictions

Part 1: Roma, The Favourite, Vice, A Star Is Born.
Part 2: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Part 3: Mary Poppins Returns, First Man, Cold War.
Part 4: Can You Ever Forgive Me?, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Part 5: Never Look Away, Mary Queen of Scots, Isle of Dogs, The Wife.
Part 6: Detainment, Marguerite, Skin, Madre, Fauve.
Part 7: At Eternity's Gate, First Reformed, Shoplifters, Capernaum.
Part 8: Spider man: into the Spider-verse, Incredibles 2, Mirai, Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Part 9: Bao, Animal Behaviour, One Small Step, Late Afternoon, Weekends.
Part 10: Avengers: Infinity War, Solo: a Star Wars Story, Ready Player One, Christopher Robin.
Part 11:

A Quiet Place

1 Nomination

• Sound Editing

Director: John Krasinski

Cast: Emily Blunt, Krasinksi, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cade Woodward, Evil Aliens

This is harmless and tight, but it is certainly not a reinvention of the genre. In fact, A Quiet Place is quite the opposite of a reinvention, referencing numerous films as it goes along. This film would not have been possible without the genre it supposedly reinvents. I found this to be more of a set of quotations than a real movie, if I'm honest, and it contains some really serious plot holes and clunky exposition. Still, I love monsters in movies, and this one has a really cool-looking bunch of monsters. I was into that, and rather enjoyed myself.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #41 out of 71

Gräns (Border)

1 Nomination

• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Ali Abbasi

Cast: Eva Melander, Eero Milonoff, Jörgen Thorsson, Ann Petrén, Stan Ljunggren, Kjell Wilhelmsen, Rakel Wärmländer, Andreas Kundler, Matti Boustedt, Tomas Åhnstrand, Josefin Neldén, Henrik Johansson, Ibrahim Faal

This is an audacious, exciting movie that I completely loved. It was Sweden's submission for the Foreign Language Picture Oscar, but it didn't make the shortlist, and it was not nominated in that category. There are lots of reasons for this, one of them being the explicit sexuality of this film and the true discomfort that this film has the ability to generate. I cannot wait to talk about this film with other people who have seen it. It's a weird, weird movie, and you would do well to go into it completely blind, knowing nothing more than that I'm telling you I loved it. (Of course, me telling you that it is super weird and that I loved it should mean for many of you that you ought to stay away.) This is a really, really smart film, despite its ostensible generic trappings. Oh, did I mention that this movie is also really sexy? It's really sexy, although after you see it you'll probably think I'm very strange for saying so.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #10 out of 71

RBG

1 Nomination

• Song – "I'll Fight": Diane Warren (Marshall, The Hunting Ground, Beyond the Lights, Pearl Harbor, Music of the Heart, Armageddon, Con Air, Up Close & Personal, Mannequin)

Director: Julie Cohen, Betsy West

This was a sweet little piece of hagiography, and I am inclined to believe in Ginsburg's sainthood. As a film this isn't really interesting, but it was nice to learn more about Ginsburg's early years of marriage and the way she put her husband through law school while he was battling cancer while also doing her own work in law school. What an impressive human being! As for Diane Warren, she had about 15 years where she was not nominated all, after being nominated year after year in the 1990s. Well, now she's back and she gets nominated almost every year. She will have to lose yet again (her 10th nomination without a win) this year because her old writing partner from The Hunting Ground, Lady Gaga, is going to win. Maybe next year, Diane.

Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: Not Ranked

Final Predictions:
Actor in a Leading Role: Christian Bale, Vice
Actor in a Supporting Role: Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Actress in a Leading Role: Glenn Close, The Wife
Actress in a Supporting Role: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Animated Feature Film: Spider-man: into the Spider-verse
Animated Short Film: Bao
Cinematography: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma
Costume Design: Sandy Powell, The Favourite
Director: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma 
Documentary Feature Film: Minding the Gap
Documentary Short Subject: End Game
Film Editing: Barry Alexander Brown, BlacKkKlansman
Foreign Language Film: Mexico, Roma
Live-action Short Film: Detainment
Makeup & Hairstyling: Vice
Music - Original Song: Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando & Andrew Wyatt, A Star Is Born
Music - Original Score: Marc Shaiman, Mary Poppins Returns
Production Design: Eugenio Caballero & Bárbara Enríquez, Roma
Sound Editing: Black Panther
Sound Mixing: A Star Is Born
Visual Effects: First Man
Writing - Adapted Screenplay: Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk
Writing - Original Screenplay: Deborah David, Tony McNamara, The Favourite
Picture: Roma

Oscar Nominations 2019: Part 10 of 11

Part 1: Roma, The Favourite, Vice, A Star Is Born.
Part 2: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Part 3: Mary Poppins Returns, First Man, Cold War.
Part 4: Can You Ever Forgive Me?, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Part 5: Never Look Away, Mary Queen of Scots, Isle of Dogs, The Wife.
Part 6: Detainment, Marguerite, Skin, Madre, Fauve.
Part 7: At Eternity's Gate, First Reformed, Shoplifters, Capernaum.
Part 8: Spider man: into the Spider-verse, Incredibles 2, Mirai, Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Part 9: Bao, Animal Behaviour, One Small Step, Late Afternoon, Weekends.
Part 10:

Avengers: Infinity War

1 Nomination

• Visual Effects

Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Cast: Josh Brolin, Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Chris Pratt, Tom Holland, Bradley Cooper, Karen Gillan, Anthony Mackie, Chadwick Boseman, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Peter Dinklage, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Letitia Wright, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, William Hurt, Winston Duke


There are a million people in this movie. Ok. So, honestly, I started watching this movie, got five minutes in, and realized I had no idea what was going on. In order to understand this film, one needs to have seen three movies that I had not seen – Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. I've seen tons of these Marvel movies, and had seen the most recent one – Black Panther – but apparently this was not enough. This was a behemoth of a thing. There were way too many plots, and most of the time I felt myself wondering why I was supposed to care about what the filmmakers were asking me to care about. One of the central problems with this universe is that the characters in these films all have magic powers, but it is not really clear how much power the, you know, beams of light that come out of their hands or whatever are actually worth. Is Hulk and his muscles more powerful than Captain America's shield? Why are the evil zombies who work for Thanos apparently stronger than Dr. Strange who literally has one of these infinity stones around his neck? This just doesn't work for me. Someone needs to explain to me why so many superheroes are so weak and can't defeat 2 or 3 bad guys, but that same number of people can put up a series fight against Thanos and his 4 magic stones. I don't get it. A bright spot in this movie, though, is Tom Holland. His Spider-man is really wonderful. He has tons of great lines and he delivers them brilliantly. His last scene in the film is the most heartfelt sincere moment in the entirety of this monstrosity.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: Visual Effects
My Rating: #62 out of 70

Solo: a Star Wars Story

1 Nomination

• Visual Effects

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Paul Bettany, Joonas Suotamo, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Linda Hunt, Erin Kellyman

I honestly thought this was cute. I love Alden Ehrenreich, and he's great here. There is not too much to complain about with this. It's honestly identical to the rest of these Star Wars movies, and I don't think I have any objection to this. No one liked this movie, apparently? Or maybe that's just, like, crazy Star Wars fans (whom I do not understand). I think everyone's dislike for this film, though, is really just because Solo foolishly was released in summer instead of in December, which is when Star Wars films are usually released. Audiences just weren't ready for a summer Star Wars picture.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #41 out of 70

Ready Player One

1 Nomination

• Visual Effects

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, Mark Rylance, T.J, Miller, Simon Pegg, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen, Ralph Ineson, Susan Lynch

Oh jeez. Well, I want to say that I still love Tye Sheridan, but this movie is really, really bad. The script is just terrible. I think Lena Waithe is also pretty awful here. Her performance is strangely flat, and all of her scenes have a lot of trouble. But mostly it's just the writing. The visual effects look cool, but the world-building kind of sucks (I expect that's better in the book...?), and I was super bored.

Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #65 out of 70

Christopher Robin

1 Nomination

• Visual Effects

Director: Marc Forster

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Bronte Carmichael, Marg Gatiss, Oliver Ford Davies, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Nick Mohammed, Peter Capaldi, Toby Jones, Sophie Okonedo, Sara Sheen

I mean, honestly. Why does this film exist? In case you're wondering, the moral of the story is that you shouldn't lose sight of the magical being that you are when you are a child. Adulthood isn't all its cracked up to be, and your relationship with your imaginary friend is actually much more important than your life as a grown up. Adulting is hard, this movie seems to say, and who can argue with such a statement? The ham-fisted clunker of a lesson here is that the "important things in life" are actually family, fun, and a childhood sense of wonder. And you shouldn't become a stodgy old person who only cares about "success" and "work". No one needs to learn this lesson, so I can't imagine why anyone thought this dumb film was a good idea. I will say that I really love the voice of Pooh. There's something about it that is comforting and sweet. Not sweet enough for me to enjoy this stupid film, but sweet nonetheless.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #61 out of 70

Western (2018)

Western is a slow burn, but its analysis is fascinating, and it brims with menace for its entirety. I really liked it.

Oscar Nominations 2019: Part 9 of 11

Part 1: Roma, The Favourite, Vice, A Star Is Born.
Part 2: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Part 3: Mary Poppins Returns, First Man, Cold War.
Part 4: Can You Ever Forgive Me?, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Part 5: Never Look Away, Mary Queen of Scots, Isle of Dogs, The Wife.
Part 6: Detainment, Marguerite, Skin, Madre, Fauve.
Part 7: At Eternity's Gate, First Reformed, Shoplifters, Capernaum.
Part 8: Spider man: into the Spider-verse, Incredibles 2, Mirai, Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Part 9:

Bao

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Domee Shi

This is very cute and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. I really love the strange – even slightly creepy – comparison of children to dumplings. I really enjoyed this in its entirety. It's sort of the perfect thematic pairing to Incredibles 2, with which it screened in cinemas, but its also smarter than that film in many ways, and I think smart in general about parenthood and its discontents. I was really into this. Also it made me want dim sum. Actually, I always want dim sum.
Will Win: Animated Short Film
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #3 of 5

Animal Behaviour

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: David Fine, Alison Snowden

Cast: Ryan Beil, Taz Van Rassell, Leah Juel, Andrea Libman, Toby Berner, James Kirk, Snowden

Ugh. This one had a few good jokes, but this has nothing new to say about animals, about group therapy, or anything else. It's just a set of inane jokes (half of them about assholes (seriously) or overeating, for some reason). Also, the animation is not very attractive. If I laughed occasionally through this, I also just felt icky afterward. I dunno... people's psychological problems just kind of aren't that funny to me at the moment. This is silly, and I should probably just have let myself go and enjoyed it, but this really isn't my kind of humor.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: Animated Short Film
My Rating: #4 of 5

One Small Step

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Andrew Chesworth, Bobby Pontillas

Ok. This one is the most boring of the five, but it's also probably the most heartwarming of the five, as well. This is about a girl and her father. He repairs her shoes (one small step) and she wants to go to the moon (one small step, indeed). Her name is Luna, so I really feel like it was probably this young woman's destiny to go to the moon; don't know why she ever doubted herself. In any case, One Small Step is the kind of do-it-for-dad sweet little bit of emotional fluff that feels totally predictable at this point in history. You will see every single plot point coming a mile away.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #5 of 5

Late Afternoon

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Louise Bagnall

Cast: Fionnula Flanagan, Bagnall, Niamh Moyles, Aislin Konings Ferrari

So, so good. This movie is absolutely lovely. It's beautifully animated and beautifully acted. The animation is honestly just gorgeous. I loved it. This is a story of a woman with Alzheimer's as she tries to remember some events in her past. This inability/ability to remember is animated with beautiful large colored blobs as our main character soars amid the colors and snatches of memory come to her as she floats. It's a beautiful little film.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #2 of 5

Weekends

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Trevor Jimenez

This was my favorite of the five. It's a deeply personal film – or at least feels deeply personal. A boy goes back and forth between his father and his mother, and we see his experiences in both locations. The film is about space and how spaces become homes, but it's also about growing up with parents who don't quite pay attention to you as much as you'd like them to, and it's about figuring out how to carve space for yourself within their self-absorbed worlds. Weekends is a lonely, occasionally very sad film that is run through with a lovely, innocent, and wonderful sense of humor. It is purely Chekhovian in the way that it couples laughter and sadness together. The animation is done in gorgeous watercolors, and every single piece of this feels beautifully considered and carefully constructed. I absolutely loved it.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #1 of 5

Oscar Nominations 2019: Part 8 of 11

Part 1: Roma, The Favourite, Vice, A Star Is Born.
Part 2: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Part 3: Mary Poppins Returns, First Man, Cold War.
Part 4: Can You Ever Forgive Me?, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Part 5: Never Look Away, Mary Queen of Scots, Isle of Dogs, The Wife.
Part 6: Detainment, Marguerite, Skin, Madre, Fauve.
Part 7: At Eternity's Gate, First Reformed, Shoplifters, Capernaum.
Part 8:

Spider-man: into the Spider-verse

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

Cast: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Zoë Kravitz, Lily Tomlin, Kathryn Hahn, Liev Schreiber, Chris Pine, Nicolas Cage, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn

I loved this film so much. I wasn't expecting even to like it – an animated Spider-man film? Don't we get enough Marvel on our screens these days? – but Into the Spider-verse is no ordinary Marvel movie. It's a moving comic-book with clear references to the style of comic books themselves and an ability to use that style to generate quality humor. Spider-verse has fresh, funny jokes and an irreverent approach to the save-the-world obsessions of these types of films. This is a great movie. It's in my top 5 for the year.
Will Win: Animated Feature
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #4 out of 68

Incredibles 2

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Brad Bird

Cast: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Catherine Keener, Bob Odenkirk, Samuel L. Jackson, Huck Milner, Eli Fucile, Brad Bird, Sophia Bush, Phil LaMarr, Isabella Rossellini

Eh. This is totally forgettable. I think because it's basically a re-tread of The Incredibles. There are a couple of really great sequences – one with the little baby and a racoon that is cute and a great montage in which Mr. Incredible begins to succeed at being a stay-at-home dad – but... this is just not very inventive. The big plot-twists (and Incredibles 2 is for some reason invested in plot-twists) is obvious from the very beginning of the movie, and the action sequences aren't nearly as fun as they ought to be. This is harmless, but definitely a let-down of a sequel.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: Animated Feature
My Rating: #35 out of 67

Mirai (未来のミライ)

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Hosoda Mamoru

Cast: John Cho, Rebecca Hall, Jaden Waldman, Victoria Grace, Crispin Freeman, Stephanie Sheh, Daniel Dae Kim, Yakusho Kōji

This movie is perfection. If Spider-verse weren't as great as it was this would easily be my favorite animated movie of the year. As it is, it is in my top ten for this year. It is worth saying, too, that I tend to be biased against animated features. I consistently resist ranking them really high for some reason, but this year, we have Mirai and Spider-verse and I am in love. This is a gorgeously drawn and beautifully made film about family and history and learning new ways of being in the world. I know it's tough for most people to see right now – I got really lucky and was able to see a screening – but as soon as it is on DVD you're all going to see it and love it. I promise.

Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #6 out of 68

Ralph Breaks the Internet

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Phil Johnston, Rich Moore

Cast: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Taraji P. Henson, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Alfred Molina, Ed O'Neill, Sean Giambrone, Flula Borg, Timothy Simons, Ali Wong, Hamish Blake

Honestly I don't understand why stuff like this exists. Why people give things like this awards is even more unfathomable to me. This film is not funny at all, and it seems entirely designed not to make its audience laugh but to make us nod our heads in knowledgeable ways about how the world works. But who is this even for? In this film, Ralph, if you don't know, goes into a materialized version of the internet. Unbelievably, this image of the internet is not the least bit visually interesting. It's like these filmmakers didn't even try. There is more to say about Sarah Silverman's saccharine performance, about the stupid emotional lessons about friendship and betrayal that this film thinks it's "teaching" us, and about the ridiculous plot. But this is a phoned-in sequel that isn't worth anyone's time. Ralph is at the absolute bottom of my list.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #68 out of 68

Oscar Nominations 2019: Part 7 of 11

Part 1: Roma, The Favourite, Vice, A Star Is Born.
Part 2: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Part 3: Mary Poppins Returns, First Man, Cold War.
Part 4: Can You Ever Forgive Me?, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Part 5: Never Look Away, Mary Queen of Scots, Isle of Dogs, The Wife.
Part 6: Detainment, Marguerite, Skin, Madre, Fauve.

Part 7:

At Eternity's Gate

1 Nomination

• Actor: Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project, Shadow of the Vampire, Platoon)

Director: Julian Schnabel

Cast: Dafoe, Oscar Isaac, Rupert Friend, Emmanuelle Seigner, Mads Mikkelsen, Mathieu Amalric, Niels Arestrup, Anne Consigny

This is really uneven. There are some extraordinary sequences when Van Gogh goes off into the woods or into the fields and the music swells and we just sort of experience nature with Van Gogh – these sequences work great. The rest of the movie is less successful. Schnabel tries to give us the experience of a kind of descent into madness. This works ok, or it would work ok except that for Schnabel, madness means repeating all of the dialogue we've just heard in the previous sequence and then overlaying that on a sequence where we watch Van Gogh crumble. It's just that the written dialogue in this movie is really bad! Every single line spoken by any one of these great actors actually landed for me with a thud. It's a stilted, clunky script, and we have to hear a lot of it more than once. This nomination was a big surprise on January 22nd, and while I am perhaps less surprised now that I've seen the movie, I certainly wouldn't have nominated this performance. Dafoe is a great actor, but he's miscast as Van Gogh. He's much too old for the character, and this means that the queer nuances that Schnabel tries to explore in the film with Vincent and Théo (his brother) and with Vincent and Paul Gauguin don't work for this reason. Language in this movie is also really strange. At Eternity's Gate is, like Mary Queen of Scots, quite a theatrical film in the way it just assumes the audience will go with whatever is onscreen. But listening to characters who are speaking French simply switch into English was jarring to me. I needed the film to help me with this. Similarly, people pronounced Vincent's name numerous ways depending on which language they were speaking. This all struck me as directorial inexactitude.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #50 out of 68

First Reformed

1 Nomination

• Original Screenplay: Paul Schrader

Director: Schrader

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Cedric the Entertainer, Amanda Seyfried, Philip Ettinger, Victoria Hill

I was into this movie for a while... and then I wasn't. It's just a little too ponderous and too self important for my taste, I think. It works for a while and then it stops working. It seems likely that Ethan Hawke just missed a best actor nomination for First Reformed, and if Paul Schrader keeps directing things like this, I think we'll see him in this category again soon. I don't think there's much else to say about this movie. This was on many, many critics' top ten lists for the year, and it references lots of film history, but I didn't love it.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #36 out of 68

Shoplifters (万引き家族)

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Japan (Departures, The Twilight Samurai, Muddy River, Kagemusha: the Shadow Warrior, Sandakan No. 8, Dodes'ka-den, Portrait of Chieko, Woman in the Dunes, Kwaidan, Koto, Immortal Love, The Burmese Harp, Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto, Gate of Hell, Rashomon)

Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda

Cast: Lily Franky, Andō Sakura, Kairi Jyo, Matsuoka Mayu, Kiki Kirin, Sasaki Miyu, Ikematsu Sōsuke

My favorite movie of the year. I cannot say enough good things about it. As always, Kore-eda is excellent at getting beautiful performances out of children, but Andō Sakura, who plays the mother, is just incredible in this film. I loved everything about this. It's a perfectly calibrated story with surprises and twists, as well as a moving film about poverty in Japan. As with many of Kore-eda's films, this is also a movie about family, about what makes a family, and about how to keep a family together. I loved this movie. It isn't going to win the Oscar, and that's ok. It's already won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and a great movie is its own award.

Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #1 out of 68

Capernaum (کفرناحوم‎)

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Lebanon (The Insult)
  

Director: Nadine Labaki

Cast: Zain Al Rafeea, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, Yordanos Shiferaw, Kawsar Al Haddad, Fadi Yousef, Haita Cedra Izzam, Alaa Chouchnieh, Nadine Labaki, Elias Khoury

I really liked this movie. I don't really think it has a chance of winning, though. The foreign language category this year is filled with powerhouses, including one film that's nominated for best picture and two films that are nominated for best director. This is as it should be. I have been complaining for years that the Academy is way too Anglophone in its scope. It has skewed toward films made in the U.S. and the U.K. for as long as I can remember. To my mind, the Academy needs to expand its way of thinking. We need more foreign films in all categories. I took my older sister to see Capernaum in the theatre. She doesn't watch foreign films very often. She loved this movie, and her response when it was over was "I forgot they weren't speaking English. I didn't even notice." She is exactly right. I've never understood people who say that they don't want to read a movie. It's not at all like reading. Your brain keeps up! The new Academy, which has enlarged its ranks by inviting a larger, more diverse group of people to be a part of its numbers, is much more international, so I think perhaps this is why we are seeing the foreign language films doing better in other categories. As far as I'm concerned this is all to the good. P.S. I love Nadine Labaki, and I'm glad she's finally getting some Academy recognition: her film Caramel is wonderful.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #24 out of 68