Oscar Nominations 2021: 7 of 9

1. The Power of the Dog, Dune, Belfast, and West Side Story
2. King Richard, Drive My Car, Don't Look Up, and Nightmare Alley
3. CODA, Licorice Pizza, Being the Ricardos, and The Lost Daughter
4. The Tragedy of Macbeth, Encanto, No Time to Die, and Flee
5. Tick, Tick... Boom!, Parallel Mothers, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and The Worst Person in the World
6. Cruella, Spencer, The Hand of God, and Lunana: a Yak in the Classroom

Cyrano

1 Nomination

• Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran (Little Women, Darkest Hour, Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Turner, Anna Karenina, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) & Massimo Cantini Parrini (Pinnochio)
  

Director: Joe Wright

Cast: Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ben Mendelsohn, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Dolan, Joshua James

 

Oh shit. This had no right being as bad as it was. I love Joe Wright, and I just can't figure out why he did this. I cannot believe that people were talking about Peter Dinklage possibly getting an Oscar nomination. Sure. If Russell Crowe deserved an Oscar nomination for Les Misérables. This Cyrano exists in some kind of no-man's-land nation that is fighting an unnamed war, and not one moment of it is believable in any way. The entire thing feels artificial. This is made even more absurd by singing and dancing. Like, maybe this could have been something if it did not also ask us to take these characters singing and dancing seriously, but then it does. The characters erupt into song in ways that feel completely unmotivated. Worse still, Peter Dinklage is a terrible singer... I just don't understand what this movie was doing. This movie is laughably, almost hilariously, bad. I want to say something else about this: if you adapt Cyrano de Bergerac into a musical, then you make a transposition: Cyrano must cease to be a poet. Cyrano's poetry exists in this film in addition to the songs, and so the poetry is supposed to be the most beautiful thing in the movie, but of course what needs to be the most beautiful thing in the movie is the music. If you're going to adapt this text into a piece of musical theatre, then you make Cyrano into a singer. He must be a singer with a beautiful voice but an ugly face while Christian, his rival, can't sing a lick but looks beautiful. Or you make Cyrano a lyricist and Christian a singer. Something. But this Cyrano doesn't use the form at all. Instead it tacks tacky songs onto a very old plot for one of the worst movies of the year.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #57 out of 59

The Mitchells vs the Machines

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature
  

Director: Michael Rianda, Jeff Rowe

Cast: Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Michael Rianda, Eric Andre, Olivia Colman, Beck Bennett, Fred Armisen, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend

I know that everyone loved this movie, and I really wanted to like it, but it was not for me. I just absolutely cannot get behind the old narrative that family is everything. Family is not everything. This dad is a dick to his daughter all the while she is growing up, and then the robot overlords come and there is a near apocalypse, and suddenly what this girl learns is that... even though her dad has been kind of a dick and not cared about her interests for the last decade, her family really is the most important thing in the world. Like... ok, but that seems like a rather facile point of view. To be fair, Mitchells has many good jokes, and the animation style is quirky and fun. It deserves its nomination, for sure. I just didn't care for the movie.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #52 out of 59

Luca

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature
  

Director: Enrico Casarosa

Cast: Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, Saverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph, Marco Barricelli, Jim Gaffigan, Peter Sohn

On the other hand, I really liked Luca. This is really, really cute. I think I enjoyed this more than it really deserved, but it has some awesome moments. Luca is pretty obviously an allegory for sexuality. The kids are really aquatic fish monsters, and they show their true colors when they get wet. But Casarosa's treatment of this is charming. The non-fish-monster girl is hilarious and adorable, and the film really got me a couple of times. There's a true clutch-your-pearls moment at the end of act two that had me shook. I enjoyed this a lot.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #27 out of 59

Raya and the Last Dragon

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature
  

Director: Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada

Cast: Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Izaac Wang, Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong, Sandra Oh, Jona Xiao, Lucille Soong

I have to confess to being a little surprised that this film made the final cut for nominations in this category. This was a very strong year for animated features. I saw many more than I usually see because I've been on kind of an animation kick, and I kind of expected Hosoda Mamoru's Belle or Patrick Imbert's Summit of the Gods to appear in this slot. Both were better than Raya, although it is fine, and it has dragons – I love dragons. Instead, the Academy went with a second Disney movie (for the record, this doesn't happen very often – more usually each studio gets one nomination). But Belle and Summit of the Gods are both excellent films, so I guess they just went with the big name. In any case, it's an also-ran here. It can't win a thing. Not against Encanto, dragons or no dragons.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #43 out of 59

8. Spider-man: No Way Home, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Free Guy

9. House of Gucci, Coming 2 America, and Four Good Days

Oscar Nominations 2018: Part 2 of 12

Back to Part 1.

My Best of 2017.

Darkest Hour

6 Nominations

• Picture
• Actor: Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
• Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel (Inside Llewyn Davis, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement), Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie))
• Production Design: Sarah Greenwood (Beauty and the Beast, Anna Karenina, Sherlock Holmes, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) & Katie Spencer (Beauty and the Beast, Anna Karenina, Sherlock Holmes, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice)
• Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran (Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Turner, Anna Karenina, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice)
• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Joe Wright

Cast: Oldman, Lily James, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn, Stephen Dillane, Ronald Pickup, Nicholas Jones, Samuel West

This is the most traditional Oscar-bait movie of the year. It's a very good movie that is beautifully directed, gorgeously designed, and finely realized with some lovely performances. Early on in the year, it seemed poised to do very, very well with the Academy, but then most awards bodies ignored Darkest Hour with the exception of Gary Oldman's extraordinary central performance. But the Academy came through after all, and Joe Wright's excellent World War II drama got 6 nominations (a ton if you haven't been counting), including a Best Picture nomination. It deserves all of these nominations – I really liked this film – and will win two well-deserved Oscars.

Will Win: Actor, Makeup & Hairstyling

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #14 out of 78

Lady Bird

5 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Greta Gerwig
• Actress: Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn, Atonement)
• Original Screenplay: Greta Gerwig
• Supporting Actress: Laurie Metcalf

Director: Gerwig

Cast: Ronan, Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Beanie Feldstein, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Lois Smith, Stephen Henderson, Jordan Rodrigues, Marielle Scott, Odeya Rush, Jake McDorman, 

Lady Bird for the win! I think that of the most likely winners of the Best Picture Oscar – and it is still very much up in the air – I would be happiest with this one. Lady Bird is an absolute delight, and most importantly: this is a hilarious movie. Unlike most "comedies" that do well during awards season, this one is actually very funny. It also feels true and honest, and at times it becomes quite moving. Its cast is absolute perfection, and it boasts excellent, very very funny performances by the entire ensemble. It's also worth saying that this cast works as an ensemble rather than all simply being good in the movie. They are in tons of scenes together, and each actor manages to steal a scene or two. They are great together. To be honest, I wouldn't have nominated Greta Gerwig in the director category. I love her, but there were many directors who did stronger work than Gerwig this year (Luca Guadagnino, Ruben Östlund, Julia Ducournau). Still, I ain't mad about it.

Will Win: Supporting Actress

Could Win: Picture, Actress, Original Screenplay
My Rating: #11 out of 78

Blade Runner 2049

5 Nominations

• Cinematography: Roger Deakins (Sicario, Unbroken, Prisoners, Skyfall, True Grit, The Reader, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, No Country for Old Men, The Man Who Wasn't There, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Kundun, Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption)
• Production Design: Dennis Gassner (Into the Woods, The Golden Compass, Road to Perdition, Bugsy, Barton Fink)
  
• Visual Effects
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Effects Editing

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, Ana de Armas, Jared Leto, Sylvia Hoeks, Mackenzie Davis, Dave Bautista, Lennie James, Edward James Olmos, Carla Juri, Hiam Abbas, Barkhad Abdi, Wood Harris

I really really liked this movie, and thought that mostly no one else did – it didn't do very well at the box office – but the Academy really liked it, and here it is with five below-the-line nominations. Compare that with several blockbusters like Wonder Woman or Thor: Ragnarok that didn't get any nominations. So I am very happy this showed so well. You can read my review here. Will Deakins finally win his Oscar? It is well deserved, certainly, but as it does every year, it rather seems unlikely again this year, even though I am going to bet on him. It doesn't much matter, I don't think. He will keep doing incredible work, and he will be nominated again in a year or two.

Will Win: Cinematography

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #19 out of 78

Get Out

4 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Jordan Peele
• Actor: Daniel Kaluuya
• Original Screenplay: Jordan Peele

Director: Peele

Cast: Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, LilRel Howery, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Marcus Henderson, Betty Gabriel, Lakeith Stanfield, Stephen Root

I was sort of baffled by all of the love this received. It's obviously clever, and it's fairly well made, and LilRel Howery is really really funny. But despite an extraordinarily awesome opening scene, I found myself underwhelmed by this movie, and I remain shocked at the way critics and the Academy have embraced it. This is a serviceable horror-comedy film. I liked it, but it also has lots of strange problems. My main take on this movie is that it is a kind of staging of the experience of black American paranoia around white people in chiefly white spaces. This fear is obviously justified – just turn on the news – but for me the movie never moves into really imaginative territory or past this initial bit of cleverness, and Get Out doesn't really have anything new to say about this experience. But that's just me, and I'm not interested in hating on a movie everyone loved. If you loved it, you go right ahead loving it.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Original Screenplay
My Rating: #49 out of 78

Darkest Hour, Roman J. Israel, Disaster Artist, and the Best Actor Oscar

Last night I saw Joe Wright's Darkest Hour, the Winston Churchill-leading-up-to-Dunkirk movie, and I am here to tell you it is really, really strong.

Gary Oldman plays the cantankerous old Prime Minister, beginning his fight against fascism, and his performance is just pitch perfect the entire time. He's under a large amount of makeup, of course, but this doesn't seem to get in the way of the work he is doing at all. Churchill emerges as a rich, nuanced, fascinating figure filled with doubts and attempting to balance two warring political factions at home while making the right decisions about the soldiers fighting the Nazis in France and Belgium.

Oldman is superb, and he is definitely the best part of the film, but this is only because he is so good. Wright's filmmaking is also just excellent, the script is smart if it occasionally veers off into the overly sentimental, and the camerawork and editing are wonderful. Oh, Dario Marianelli's score is great, too, keeping the mood intense even when what we're watching doesn't seem to be about the stakes of human lives in peril.

Darkest Hour is also total Oscar bait. It's a WWII movie with a great performance at its center. It's (obviously) way better than The King's Speech (in fact, Darkest Hour has it's own King George VI – Ben Mendelsohn – who is great), and it maintains a sort of regal, important tone throughout.

It earns all of this, though, and the movie works very, very well. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I hope Oldman does win his Oscar.

* * *

While I'm talking about this year's Best Actor Oscar, let me just go all the way in. The SAG nominees are out, and the Golden Globe nominees are out, so that means the field is pretty well established.
Here is how it looks to me.

The Screen Actors Guild nominated:
Timothée Chalamet for Call Me By Your Name,
Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour,
James Franco for The Disaster Artist,
Daniel Kaluuya for Get Out, and
Denzel Washington for Roman J. Israel, Esq.

The Golden Globes doubles up its nominees. To the list above they added the following five names:
Tom Hanks for The Post,
Daniel Day-Lewis for Phantom Thread,
Steve Carell for Battle of the Sexes,
Ansel Elgort for Baby Driver, and
Hugh Jackman for The Greatest Showman (haha).

I think the Golden Globes Drama list – Chalamet, Day-Lewis, Oldman, Hanks, Washington – is the top five. I would say there only really two alternates for those top five spots and those are Daniel Kaluuya and James Franco. But the SAG skews young, and it is also going to skew toward films that have come out earlier. It makes sense that movies like The Post and Phantom Thread, which are only now just being seen by everyone, are not on that SAG list. I don't see either Kaluuya or Franco breaking into that top five. It could happen, but I don't see it.

* * *

As for Roman J. Israel, Esq., it's surprisingly good! I was sort of expecting it to be just a star vehicle, but Dan Gilroy (who also made Nightcrawler a couple of years ago) is trying to deal with ethics in Los Angeles, and he has crafted a script that explores social justice and law in the U.S. in interesting ways. The movie is too long, and it has an oddly uplifting, hopeful ending, but perhaps this just reflects the fact that Gilroy believes in the possibilities of change a bit more than I do.

And Denzel Washington is great in this part. It is a really beautiful performance that often feels new and intriguing, and Roman J. Israel, Esq. is very different from other parts that he has played recently. It's a de-glammed, non-powerhouse part that (paradoxically) packs an interesting punch. I really enjoyed the film, and after seeing the performance really feel confident that he will get nominated.

Oh! And Colin Farrell is also in this movie, doing his usual excellent supporting work. He is just a fantastic actor. I am glad he works so much. At some point, I am sure people will wise up to just how good he is, but for now I guess he can just keep churning out great performances.

* * *

I have also seen Franco's The Disaster Artist, and I can tell you that I also think Franco is great in the movie. The movie itself is... well, I think it is for people who really like The Room. I'm not one of those people, so I didn't think the film was nearly as funny as it thought it was. Also, and this is the part that doesn't really sit well with me, The Disaster Artist's treatment of Tommy Wiseau strikes me as mean-spirited, even ugly. For all of the brilliance of Franco's mimicry – and it is brilliant – The Disaster Artist thinks Wiseau is a total fucking joke. So the entire film, which is about the making of a terrible film, is busy making fun of Wiseau. The film thinks he's a sexual deviant; it is baffled by how rich he is but also happy to cash his checks; and it is laughing at him to his face.

What is fucked up about The Disaster Artist is that this is all done under the pretense of really loving Wiseau. The movie even begins with various actors speaking to the camera in documentary style about how brilliant the film is. We love Tommy Wiseau, everyone in the movie seems to be saying.

The Disaster Artist, in other words, wants to have it both ways. It wants to make fun of Wiseau while pretending that it is paying tribute to him or some such business. It all feels disingenuous to me. The Disaster Artist isn't really interested in getting to know Wiseau, in exploring what's going on with him or how he works or what he thinks. It's content, instead, simply to look at him as a curiosity, a bizarre, wealthy clown. It reminded me a bit of the way last year's Stephen Frears's film looked at Florence Foster Jenkins: this person is a freak and nothing more. We might feel a little bit sorry for these people, but we certainly can't identify with them. Both of those films allow us to believe that we normal people are nothing like those weirdos.

I didn't dislike the film, really, but it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.

* * *

My own preferences for Best Actor this year lean toward Robert Pattinson, Claes Bang, Harris Dickinson, and Jeremy Renner – but that's another story, and I haven't seen Call Me By Your Name, The Post, or Phantom Thread yet, so the jury's still out.

Oscar Nominees 2013: Part 9 of 13

A Royal Affair

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Denmark (In a Better World, After the Wedding, Waltzing Regitze, Pelle the Conqueror, Babette's Feast, Harry and the Butler, Paw, Qivitoq)

Director: Nikolaj Arcel

Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Alicia Vikander, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, David Dencik, Trine Dyrholm, Harriet Walter, Cyron Melville, Charlotte Rampling

An intriguing and opulent political thriller involving madness, a ridiculous amount of prostitution, and the writings of Voltaire. This is the kind of movie that Patrice Chéreau or Régis Wargnier used to make – the type of movie that used to do really well in this category and usually starred Isabelle Adjani or Gérard Depardieu and occasionally both of them. A Royal Affair's attractiveness is also due to its excellent acting talent. Its lead actor is international film star Mads Mikkelsen, and the other lead roles are played by Alicia Vikander (who was in Joe Wright's Anna Karenina this year) and Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, whose performance I've praised here and here. The acting is excellent, the plot is fascinating, and the location is sumptuous. All of this is quite a winning combination – not for Oscar, mind you, but you will enjoy the film if you rent it. Competition in this category is way too steep for Denmark to win again so soon.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #24 out of 64

No

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Chile

Director: Pablo Larraín

Cast: Gabriel García Bernal, Antonia Zegers, Alfredo Castro, Néstor Cantillana, Jaime Vadell, Marcial Tagle, Luis Gnecco

A very funny political thriller about the plebiscite in Chile in 1988, this film also stars an internationally known acting talent, Mexican star Gabriel García Bernal. Pablo Larraín's movie is the first film submitted by Chile ever to be nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. The whole thing is quite a coup. But No is a bit of a difficult film, an artistic experiment in returning to 1980s-style filmmaking that many viewers might find irritating. In any case, Chile, I am sure, is simply happy to be invited to the party. I found this film to be a fascinating perspective on an important historical period in South American history. That it is also quite a funny film is a testament to Larraín's considerable filmmaking skill.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked – 2013 Release

War Witch

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Canada (Monsieur Lazhar, Incendies, Water, The Barbarian Invasions, Jesus of Montreal, The Decline of the American Empire)

Director: Kim Nguyen

Cast: Rachel Mwanza,Serge Kanyinda, Ralph Prosper, Alain Lino Mic Eli Bastien, Mizinga Mwinga, Diana Uwamahoro

This movie is excellent and is also about an important international phenomenon – the use of child soldiers in warfare. War Witch is Canada's third nomination in this category in as many years: they have clearly hit upon a winning formula for choosing films that will be selected by the Academy. And this one is the best of their selections since Deepa Mehta's Water. War Witch is deeply moving, beautifully filmed, and also incredibly theatrical, using storytelling techniques that reminded me of Alejandro González Iñárritu's superb Biutiful. Kim Nguyen's film is not uplifting or about "the indomitable nature of the human spirit" or anything like that. Instead, it's simply good storytelling about inhuman violence. Side note: Rebelle, War Witch's original title in French, is also the title Disney used when it released the cartoon-adventure Brave in France. Du plaisir pour toute la famille!

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked – 2013 Release

Oscar Nominees 2013: Part 4 of 13

Beasts of the Southern Wild

4 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Benh Zeitlin
• Actress: Quvenzhané Wallis
• Adapted Screenplay: Benh Zeitlin & Lucy Alibar

Director: Zeitlin

Cast: Wallis, Dwight Henry, Gina Montana, Jovan Hathaway, Levy Easterly, Lowell Landes, Pamela Harper

This is my favorite film of the year, and it surprised big on nominations morning when Benh Zeitlin managed a well-deserved Best Director nod. Clearly there is a lot of for this film around, especially for the film's star, director, and screenwriter. With its Malick-inspired photography and sensibility, its insightful class critique, and its perspective on the material effects of climate-change, this is the must-see film of the year. It also manages to be an emotionally charged narrative about familial relations, childhood, imagination, and bravery. I can't say enough good things about this movie. It probably won't win any Oscars on awards' night, but I am glad Beasts of the Southern Wild was invited to the party. Go see this film.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #1 out of 61

Anna Karenina

4 Nominations

• Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey (Atonement)
• Original Score: Dario Marianelli (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice)
• Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice)
• Production Design: Sarah Greenwood (Sherlock Holmes, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) & Katie Spencer (Sherlock Holmes, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice)

Director: Joe Wright

Cast: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kelly Macdonald, Domhnall Gleeson, Matthew Macfadyen, Alicia Vikander, Emily Watson, Olivia Williams

Joe Wright's film version of Tolstoy's novel is set in a theatre, and though this conceit does not always work, it is always interesting. What interested the Academy even more, however, is how beautiful this film looks. Four nominations means that the Academy didn't dislike this film nearly as much as some of the people with whom I've chatted about the movie. In fact, it looks as though they rather liked it. Seamus McGarvey's nomination, for example, means that the film had broad support among the below-the-line folks. And the categories of Costume Design and Production Design have been going their own way lately – they are not linked nearly as strongly as they have been to Best Picture. I am expecting Anna to take home both awards, though Costume is the likelier of the two. (And they will be well deserved. Durran has yet to win, and really ought to.)

Will Win: Costume Design, Production Design

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #5 out of 61

The Master

3 Nominations

• Actor: Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line, Gladiator)
• Supporting Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt, Charlie Wilson's War, Capote)
• Supporting Actress: Amy Adams (The Fighter, Doubt, Junebug)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast: Phoenix, Hoffman, Adams, Laura Dern, Jesse Plemons, Rami Malek, Ambyr Childers, Christopher Evan Welch

This film clearly did not take off with the Academy, although Joaquin Phoenix is so good in it, that he was simply not to be ignored. The Master in a lot of ways is a retread of There Will Be Blood, and though the Academy loved that movie, this one is more flawed and certainly less lovable. And in reality P.T. Anderson has never been everyone's cup of tea. He is storyteller haunted by intense, epic tragedies, and he is fascinated by characters who often make very bad decisions, sometimes over and over and over again. These films have often rubbed people the wrong way. So it isn't really a surprise that The Master didn't quite connect with audiences the way TWBB did. Still, I'm glad Phoenix and Adams were nominated; their work really is excellent (Phoenix's in particular), and I am surprised that the film's cinematographer was ignored by the Academy. Oh yeah, and one more thing: Jonny Greenwood's score for this movie is perhaps the best film score of the year. Check it out.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #10 out of 61

An Appreciation of Supporting Actors

I am not one to rant about whom the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences decides to nominate for its big awards. I think the nominations really are the coolest thing about the whole Oscar process. Because the nominations are given by peers who are working in their fields, I really do believe that it's an honor just to be nominated.

First-time nominee Bradley Cooper

This year, there were four actors nominated for the very first time – Bradley Cooper, Hugh Jackman, Quvenzhané Wallis, and Emannuelle Riva. This is an incredibly small number by any standard. Last year there were nine actors with first-time nominations. In 2011 there were eight. In 2010 that number was a whopping twelve.

Two thoughts. First, it is to the Academy's benefit to nominate a large number of new people every year, to give a kind of official blessing to actors who have been working hard for many years and to enable them to get more and better work (like Jacki Weaver or Shohreh Aghdashloo or Octavia Spencer or Sophie Okonedo), and when they fail to do this, they really fail a whole bunch of good, hard-working performers. Second, what this small number of first-time nominees demonstrates even more fully is an absolutely astounding lack of imagination. Instead of nominating a bunch of truly amazing supporting performances, they chose to nominate in both supporting categories ten actors who have all been nominated before. All of them. For the men it's even worse. Every single one of the nominees for supporting actor has won an Oscar before. Each and every one of them has an Oscar. Robert De Niro, in fact, has two.

Now it is true that in Silver Linings Playbook De Niro probably gives his best performance in the last fifteen years. Broad love for the film meant that he was definitely getting a nomination. But is it really an astounding performance in any way? Tommy Lee Jones, Philip Seymour Hoffman (who I think is always overwrought), and Christoph Waltz? All of whom already have Oscars? Why is it that 4 of the 5 nominations in this category come from Best Picture nominees? Last year that ratio was 2 out of 5. In 2011 only 1 out of the 5 was in a movie nominated for Best Picture (eventual winner Christoph Waltz).

My favorite performances of the year from supporting actors – apparently – had no shot of a nomination. Most have never been nominated for Oscars before, I guess, and so they're on nobody's radars. A true shame because there were some really wonderful performances by hard-working, excellent actors happening on the sidelines of this year's movies. I will stop complaining for the rest of this post and (instead) talk about some of these great performances.

Tom Holland is great in The Impossible. This true (but totally preposterous) story of a family separated and battered by the tsunami in 2004 is an emotional rollercoaster and is filmed in gruesome detail. Holland plays the eldest of a trio of boys who are separated when the giant waves hit. Holland's character Lucas manages to locate his mother (played by Naomi Watts) and though she is very badly wounded, he helps her to safety, rescues a random baby, and then while he's in this hospital filled with refugees, he starts to help people find their family members, going from room to room calling out names in the hope that people will be reunited. As I say it is incredible, but my generally skeptical heart of stone melted constantly when Holland was onscreen. His performance is honest and beautiful and completely believable, and as we follow the ups and downs of his narrative of loss and terror, the overwhelming nature of what he is going through also manages to be our way of going through it. It is an excellent performance.

Nate Parker in Arbitrage plays a young man named Jimmy who gets embroiled in the dealings of Richard Gere's scheming, criminal businessman Robert. Gere's character basically foists his entire problem onto Jimmy, and Jimmy has to deal with the difficult ethical question of whether or not to turn Gere's character in to the police or to protect a man to whom he feels indebted. Richard Gere's performance created quite a lot of buzz during Awards season, but Nate Parker is a revelation. His moral quandary and his total desperation as the noose around him and Robert tightens are beautifully performed, and – given that he is also the ethical center of the film – his decisions resonate deeply with the audience. Arbitrage, at key points in its narrative, asks us to put ourselves in Jimmy's shoes, and Parker's performance has a suppleness and power that makes that identification riveting and deeply emotional.

In A Royal Affair, Mikkel Bøe Folsgaard plays the crazy Danish/Norwegian king Christian VII in eighteenth-century Denmark. The performance already won the 2012 Silver Bear at the Berlinale, and his work is really impeccable. Folsgaard manages to play this young monarch with a vulnerability and humanity despite his truly ridiculous and oftentimes violent and cruel behavior. And as much as the audience is alternately disgusted with him and terrified of him, I found myself sympathizing with this young man, who has no control over his irrationality, and needs more than anything else someone to attempt to understand him. It is completely due to Folsgaard's excellent work that the performance doesn't descend into Tom-Hulce-in-Amadeus craziness. Instead, King Christian is a character we want to succeed, whom we want to forgive even when he behaves erratically.

In Monsieur Lazhar, a primary-school teacher kills herself in her classroom and in the morning, she is found when the school bell rings. The film is no great shakes, honestly, but Émilien Néron, who plays the young boy who discovers his teacher's body, and who harbors an enormous amount of guilt about his teacher's suicide – he blames himself. Néron is superb in this part. He communicates his character's terror and disaffection perfectly. This kid will break your heart; I promise. I couldn't watch him without welling up. It is exactly the kind of performance that deserves to be honored, and it isn't just me who thought so: Néron won the 2012 Jutra Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Monsieur Lazhar.

In the excellent Beasts of the Southern Wild there is more than one standout performance. Everyone is understandably talking about young Quvenzhané Wallis's fabulous work in the movie, but Dwight Henry as Hushpuppy's father is also wonderful, and in a true supporting fashion that never overshadows or eclipses Wallis. In many ways, Henry's character is the conflict of the film, pulling his daughter in various directions and teaching his daughter the things she needs to know before he goes. It's a desperate performance of parental anguish and physical agony. If the film is as intensely moving as it is, this is not due only to Wallis, director Benh Zeitlin, and the excellent script, score, photography, etc. (it really is the best movie of the year) but also due to Dwight Henry's performance and the fierceness with which he approaches this role.

And you already know how much I loved Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained since apparently I can't seem to shut up about how good he is in that movie. In fact, Jackson steals the movie from all of his co-stars. Jackson's role, granted, is the best written role in the film, but the actor's skill at playing Tarantino's dialogue to the hilt, his genius at knowing just what kind of film he is in, and his way of making a role into something iconic illustrate that Jackson is not only one of the most exciting actors to watch onscreen these days, he is clearly also one of the most shrewd. The performance is over-the-top while managing to be empathetic and surprising, and it's completely, totally, perfect for Django.
 

And there are more. Anna Karenina's earnest farmer Levin is played with mannered intensity and timid passion by Domhnall Gleeson. His performance is eager and honest, and it is perhaps the most emotionally charged work in what I thought was a beautiful film. And Christopher Walken's sad, aging dog-napper in Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths also deserves mention. It's an excellent performance of a profoundly tired character dealing with great loss. There is also Irrfan Khan as the adult survivor of a great adventure in Life of Pi, and Javier Bardem psychopathic villain in Skyfall.

No matter how you look at it, there were some beautiful performances by supporting actors this year. Some of these performances were the best things in their films, and some simply made excellent films even better with their honest work. In any case, I had a great time watching these actors at the movies this year, and I hope they stay on all of our radars, Oscar nomination or no.

Anna Karenina

I realize I haven't really posted about Joe Wright's insane adaptation of Anna Karenina. And I sort of want to be clear that I am not really recommending Anna Karenina to the majority of people. Nevertheless, I loved this movie. ... Which is not to say that I think it's a great movie or even a good movie, but I loved it, and it is definitely going to be near the top of my list at the end of the year.

(This should give an insight into how I formulate my end-of-year lists, by the way: I don't put "good" movies at the top of the list; I put movies I loved at the top of the list.)

This is why Wright's Anna is sort of insane: he's set the entire novel inside of a theatre. St. Petersburg, Moscow, train-stations, the race-track: they all take place inside of a theatre inside of the film. The poetics of this are rather obvious, of course. Anna and Vronsky's relationship is on display; people are always watching what's going on between them, and Russian society is also theatrical, made for display and rather phony when it all comes down to it.

This approach to filming the novel works for these thematic reasons and several others. Early in the film, Anna's brother-in-law Levin goes to find his brother in the less expensive area of town. He walks out of the main part of the theatre, into the wings, climbing up to the theatre's catwalk. As he walks, Wright's camera finds people working. They're theatre-workers, making the "magic" of the theatre possible via their backstage labor. What this did for me was remind me not only of the class differences in Imperial Russia – those were obviously existent – but also that the magic and the theatrics of the high society activities in the novel are only made possible by the labor of others. Every time we watch an "important" scene in the novel, the film makes clear that that melodramatic scene is supported by the work of other, poorer people. I loved this.

And then when the film actually leaves the theatre, as it does once or twice, the effect is extraordinary. From the hyper-produced world of the theatre to the "real" world (it's obviously still a film, which is why I'm giving you the ironic quotation marks), the change is bracing. Going back and forth between the "real" and the theatrical is, to my mind, a fascinating approach to telling this story, dependent as Tolstoy's novel is on the differences between city and country, real labor and paperwork, high society and honest, generous, human interaction.

Joe Wright's Anna Karenina doesn't always work, but I didn't care. By the time we were a half hour into the film, I loved Wright's movie rather fiercely. I felt committed to the approach and to just going with it, even when the film's logic didn't always jell.

The performances are very good. The ensemble includes Olivia Williams, Matthew Macfadyen, Kelly Macdonald, and Emily Watson, and they are all very good. Jude Law is an excellent Karenin – a strange role for a leading man, but Law is capable and honest. Keira Knightley is a truly strange choice to play Anna – she's obviously much, much too young – but I love watching her, and Wright has a way of directing her that elevates her work wonderfully. Aaron Johnson is an odd Vronsky, as well. His casting struck me as wrong through and through, but Alicia Vikander as Kitty and Domhnall Gleeson as Levin are really wonderful. Gleeson (Brendan's son) gives my favorite performance in the movie (and, of course, their story is one of learning, nobleness, and the kind of life Tolstoy idealizes).

The last thing to say about the film is that it is beautiful. The art direction is superb, the cinematography (as usual for Wright's films) is clever and self-referential, and the costumes are, in a word, gorgeous. Look for Jacqueline Durran to win her first Oscar if Academy members are paying attention; it would be well deserved.

Demon Barbers and Little Liars

Brittney and Wahima and I went, the other day, to see Tim Burton's film of Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It's a good Tim Burton film, too, but I don't think much of it as a production of Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim's play. See, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, good actors though they are, just cannot sing the roles for which they are cast.
The result of this lack of singing ability is that the film never really gets off the ground. The really emotional songs seem flat or American Idol-esque in style. The funny songs seem far too serious, and the stuff that's truly insane seems explainable. My favorite song "Epiphany" is almost completely lacking in power.
It's an odd mix. Burton's technique is excellent and his ways of making the play more cinematic sometimes work well. At other times, though, he can't quite imagine directing a musical, and the film gets stuck in that barber shop. Burton has, for instance, cut all of the crowd sequences: "More Hot Pies," the crowd sequence with Pirelli, and my personal favorite, the madhouse stuff where all the inmates sing "rats in the streets" or whatever that song is. I can imagine a couple of very clever ways of doing each of those sequences that film would facilitate rather than hinder, but Burton has decided to cut them out completely. Because of this, the film (paradoxically) seems smaller than stage show, as though London were a city inhabited by only ten or twelve people.
A couple of things work very well, though. Tobias has been recast as a younger boy, about twelve or thirteen, and this choice is great. The young man is instantly loveable and it allows a real relationship to develop between him and Mrs. Lovett. I also really liked the second "Johanna" number, which is one of my favorite songs in the show. The camera follows Antony as he searches for Johanna in the streets, and then cuts back and forth between Sweeney in the barbershop and the beggar woman below. I liked the film alright, I guess, but I would never listen to the soundtrack. Thankfully I can listen to Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury when I get back home.

Today I saw Joe Wright's Atonement and I'm moving it to the top of my list. It's epic, romantic, and powerful. I think it's a good film about the ravages of war, but the romantic plot is an incredibly moving saga. I cannot tell you how many times I cried watching this film, and I know when I see it again I'll probably cry even more. Wright's Pride & Prejudice was a great movie, and it was in my top ten a couple years ago, but Atonement is superb. His skill as a filmmaker should, by now, be evident to everyone. Atonement is subtle, slick and builds slowly and comically, with a sweet, romantic tension. And then the movie shifts and becomes a powerful epic about trying to make a life together amid tragedy. I loved it. Go see it. Bring a handkerchief.

Becoming Bored

I've seen bad remakes before, but this takes the cake. Tonight, I went and saw Julian Jarrold's Jane Austen nonsensical biopic Becoming Jane and... it's terrible.

It's unrelentingly boring, there isn't a single surprising plot twist in the film, and the acting is mostly tepid. The reason for all of this is that while you are watching Becoming Jane you may have the sneaking suspicion that you've seen all of this before. That would be true. You have: if you've watched any of the filmed versions of Pride & Prejudice (the 1940 classic, the very good 2005 remake, or the 1995 BBC miniseries). The writers of Becoming Jane thought it would be funny or clever or something to just invent a little story of how Jane Austen came to become Jane Austen.

In case you're wondering how you write a book like Pride & Prejudice, the answer is that first you must live it. All of this turns out to be incredibly boring. Austen's literary talent would seem to be reduced to simply re-writing events in her own life. I call bullshit.

The acting in this movie is pretty poor as well. Julie Walters gets one scene which she uses to terrific, if predictable, effect. James Cromwell is unremarkable. James McAvoy (so great in last year's The Last King of Scotland) is boring here: earnest and unromantic. Anne Hathaway's casting is a total mystery. Her dialect isn't really good enough to pull off Jane Austen, and the role is so poorly written, that though the actress is plucky, she's working too hard for it to be enjoyable. Maggie Smith is funny in all of her scenes, but she is given very little to do, and (as with all the characters in the movie) I watched Judi Dench play that same part two years ago in a far superior film. I should take time out to make note of Helen McCrory, though, who gives the best performance in the film as the novelist Ann Radcliffe. It's only a cameo, really, but as the camera moved away from McCrory, I knew I had seen the best acting this movie had to offer.

If you love yourself, you will avoid this total nonsense of a film and rent Pride & Prejudice. Becoming Jane feels like nothing better than a community theatre version of a film that's not even two years old.

*Update*

I think I figured out why this movie is so bad! The director's name is Julian Jarrold. 6 letters in Julian. 7 letters in Jarrold. Plus Jane Austen.
That's 6 + 7 + 4 + 6. It's the number 23 again! Actually, I liked Becoming Jane even less.

Oscar Nominees: Part One

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

8 Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score

The Academy's favorite film of the year, and it's hard to find fault with this drama. It's respectable, well-acted and emotionally affecting. I loved this film, but I am surprised it's taken off as much as it has. I say more power to it and I'm crossing my fingers that it takes home more than two Oscars on the big night.
Will Win: Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay
Could Win: Cinematography, Score
My Rating: #2 out of 81 films

CRASH

6 Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song

The Academy's second favorite film of the year, and Brokeback's only real challenge for the big prize. This film about race relations and interwoven storylines in Los Angeles has appealed to a lot of people. Jean Oppenheimer called it one of the best American films she's seen in years.
Will Win: Original Screenplay, Editing
Could Win: Song
My Rating: #65 out of 81 films

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.

6 Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction

The Academy loved this film more than anyone could forsee: more than critics loved it, too, I'd say. They love George Clooney, too. The man is everywhere. The film's appeal is easy to see, too. When I saw it, the audience applauded after the film's end.
Will Win: Nothing
Could Win: Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction
My Rating: #3 out of 81 films

MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA

6 Nominations: Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing

Snore. The Academy must've liked this movie more than everyone else did. It had pretty embarassing box office and was widely panned by critics. This movie is tediously boring and obvious Oscar-bait material. It looks so pretty but sounds so stupid.
Will Win: Costume, Art Direction
Could Win: Cinematography, Score
My Rating: #71 out of 81 films

CAPOTE

5 Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay

This critically lauded indie surprised tons of people (those not paying attention) by actually being nominated for Best Picture. Many have called it slow and boring. It's a very thought-provoking and intelligent film, to my mind, but I understand people's aversion. After all, it is, more than anything else, a film anchored by a star-turn from a fabulous actor.
Will Win: Actor
Could Win: Adapted Screenplay (in an upset)
My Rating: #9 out of 81 films

MUNICH

5 Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing
Will Win: Nothing
Could Win: Editing, Score
My Rating: #74 out of 81 films

WALK THE LINE

5 Nominations: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Recording
Will Win: Actress, Sound
Could Win: Editing
My Rating: #37 out of 81 films

KING KONG

4 Nominations: Best Art Direction, Best Sound Recording, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects Editing
Will Win: Visual Effects, Sound Effects
Could Win: Sound
My Rating: #46 out of 81 films

THE CONSTANT GARDENER

4 Nominations: Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score
Will Win: Supporting Actress
Could Win: Editing
My Rating: #11 out of 81 films

PRIDE & PREJUDICE

4 Nominations: Best Actress, Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction, Best Original Score
Will Win: Nothing
Could Win: Nothing
My Rating: #4 out of 81 films

Films of 2005

1. Good Night, and Good Luck.
2. Pride & Prejudice
3. Me and You and Everyone We Know
4. A History of Violence
5. Junebug
6. The Constant Gardener
7. Capote
8. Kingdom of Heaven
9. Thumbsucker
10. Jarhead
11. Downfall
12. The Beat That My Heart Skipped
13. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
14. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
15. Batman Begins
16. Millions
17. The Upside of Anger
18. Cinderella Man
19. Walk the Line
20. In Her Shoes
21. 3-iron
22. Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
23. Bee Season
24. Shopgirl
25. Kung Fu Hustle
26. Wedding Crashers
27. Melinda and Melinda
28. 2046
29. Walk on Water
30. The Dying Gaul
31. Mysterious Skin
32. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
33. Broken Flowers
34. Last Days
35. Heights
36. Proof
37. Prime
38. Monster-in-law
39. Sin City
----------------------------------------
40. Ladies in Lavender.
41. Steamboy
42. Chicken Little
43. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

*
I saw Pride & Prejudice just this evening and I have to say that though I have never been a fan of Ms. Knightley and do not consider myself sold on her charms just yet, I am pleased to report that the film is indeed--as was reported in The Los Angeles Times--a joy from start to finish. I say this with complete sincerity. I loved the film. It is one of the most romantic things I've seen in ages and I found myself positively bursting with joy by the end.