Oscar Nominations 2025: Post 1 of 10

Every year I post about each of the films nominated for Oscars—this year there are 35 features plus 15 short films (exactly the same as last year). Usually, I see all of them except for the documentaries (I am just not that interested in documentary film; I'm not sure why), but I'm also going to do myself a favor and skip the live-action short films. As a group they tend to be terrible every single year, and then for some reason the worst one usually manages to win.

This year with the enormous amount of political turmoil in our country and the ascendance of fascism in the U.S., it feels so stupid to be posting about movies. And for that I apologize. The state is murdering its own citizens in the streets, and I'm here to talk about Diane Warren... it's frivolous; I admit. But I write about politics in other places—I write about state violence, prison, racism, homophobia, and torture—and we all need an occasional break from thinking about the end of US American democracy. (Fucking gerrymandering, by the way, is anti-democratic; the fact that we just accept it as a political exigency is totally absurd. People should be represented in the government. The United States purports to be a government by the people and for the people. I live in a district that has been so viciously and cynically gerrymandered that I have no representation in Congress. It's a helpless state of affairs that serves the self interest of a political ruling class instead of the people.) 

In any case, I'm gonna post about the Oscars as usual. It makes me feel less alone, and crossing these movies off my list makes me feel like I can accomplish something in a state where I am nearly powerless because of the corruption of my government.

This is a good year. I will have more to say about this as we go through the nominees, but the Academy did really well this year, I think. My top ten for 2025 looks much closer to the Academy's than last year, and part of the reason for that is that the Academy's nominees look much more international than usual. This is due to the much more international Academy—an excellent state of affairs. My own list is always going to veer more international than the Academy's, and it's always going to be a good deal gayer, too, but that's a whole other story.

One thing I fundamentally believe, however, is that the Oscars are a jumping-off point for discussion rather than the final word on anything... So let's discuss!

I will go film by film discussing each movie individually rather than by category—beginning with the movies most beloved by the Academy this year. If the nominee has been nominated for Oscars previously, their previous nominations will be listed next to their name in parentheses. This year's nominees are:

Sinners

16 nominations

• Picture
• Director: Ryan Coogler (1st time nominee)
• Actor: Michael B. Jordan  (1st time nominee)
• Original Screenplay: Coogler (1st time nominee)
• Supporting Actor: Delroy Lindo (1st time nominee)
• Supporting Actress: Wunmi Mosaku (1st time nominee)
• Film Editing: Michael P. Shawver (1st time nominee)
• Cinematography: Autumn Durald Arkapaw (1st time nominee)
• Production Design: Hannah Beachler (Black Panther) & Monique Champagne (1st time nominee)
• Original Score: Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer, Black Panther)
• Costume Design: Ruth E. Carter (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Black Panther, Amistad, Malcolm X)
• Casting
• Sound
• Visual Effects
• Makeup & Hairstyling
• Original Song – "I Lied to You": Göransson (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) & Raphael Saadiq (Mudbound)
  

Director: Coogler

Cast: Jordan, Miles Caton, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O'Connell, Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Benson Miller, Lindo, Li Jun Li, Yao, Lola Kirke, Peter Dreimanis

This is a record-breaking number of nominations, as I'm sure you've heard by now. Part of the reason for this is the new Oscar category for casting, but more important is that Sinners garnered nominations in all the below the line categories as well as its three acting nominations. This is is an unusual state of affairs. More typically, a film that everyone loves will do great below the line (think Avatar or The Fellowship of the Ring) without having any real support from the acting branch. In fact, this is what most everyone expected of Sinners but then here we are, and it crushed the competition on the morning of the nominations. I loved this movie, and I think it deserves all of its accolades. It's a bit of an unusual fit for Oscar, but I think what Ryan Coogler has proved so beautifully is how rich a genre picture can be. This is a full-out vampire revenge adventure–suspense thing. It's a delight from start to finish, and yet it feels like a prestige picture, even though its main goal is entertainment. This is is Coogler's incredible strength as a filmmaker, and I'm here for it. Most of the film's nominees are first-timers—including Delroy Lindo, Michael B. Jordan, and Coogler himself. The old-timers here are Ruth Carter and Ludwig Göransson, both winning previously for another Coogler film. I can't say enough good things about this movie. It's not the Academy's normal fare, but I'm so glad it's here. For this reason, and because of this enormous, record-breaking shakeup, I think this movie is going to pull ahead and win Best Picture.

Will win: Picture, Original Screenplay, Score, Costume Design

Could win: Director, Actor, Editing, Casting

My rating: #5 out of 88

One Battle after Another

13 nominations

• Picture
• Director: Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza, Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood)
• Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio (Once upon a Time... in Hollywood, The Revenant, The Wolf of Wall Street, Blood Diamond, The Aviator, What's Eating Gilbert Grape)
• Adapted Screenplay: Anderson (Licorice Pizza, Inherent Vice, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, Boogie Nights)
• Supporting Actor: Sean Penn (Milk, Mystic River, I Am Sam, Sweet and Lowdown, Dead Man Walking)
• Supporting Actor: Benicio del Toro (21 Grams, Traffic)
• Supporting Actress: Teyana Taylor (1st time nominee)
• Film Editing: Andy Jurgensen (1st time nominee)
• Cinematography: Michael Bauman (1st time nominee)
• Production Design: Anthony Carlino (Babylon) & Florencia Martin (Babylon)
• Original Score: Jonny Greenwood (The Power of the Dog, Phantom Thread)
• Casting
• Sound

Director: Anderson

Cast: DiCaprio, Chase Infiniti, Penn, Del Toro, Taylor, Regina Hall, Wood Harris, Tony Goldwyn, D.W. Moffett

This has been the frontrunner for many months, and it probably still is the frontrunner—the love it received from the acting branch is evidence of that. It's also just flat out great, though this film, like Sinners, is also basically a genre picture. This is a shoot out, action–comedy thing that feels very unlike, in the first place, a film that the Academy would normally like and, in the second place, unlike a typical Paul Thomas Anderson film. (The truth is, though, that Anderson surprises us constantly, switching without any seeming effort between comedies and very serious art-house fare.) This is one of my favorite movies of the year, and I think its timeliness (the fascist cops on the street rounding up protestors and trying to find immigrants) makes this movie feel like it just understood the year 2025 in a way that doesn't usual seem possible in the cinema. My main gripe about this film is that the white supremacists in it are too silly. It is true that white supremacists are absurd, of course, but they're also deadly, and because Anderson's film is a comedy with a very silly group of white supremacists as its chief antagonists, it feels like it doesn't quite take this fascist agenda quite as seriously as it ought to. I expect this to do very well on Oscar night. I don't think it will win Best Picture anymore, but I think Anderson will and should win Best Director. It's his fourth nomination, and he's earned it.

Will win: Director, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actress 

Could win: Picture, Actor, Film Editing, Score, Casting

My rating: #3 out of 88

Affeksjonsverdi (Sentimental Value)

9 nominations

• Picture
• Director: Joachim Trier (1st time nominee)
• Actress: Renate Reinsve (1st time nominee)
• Original Screenplay: Trier (The Worst Person in the World) & Eskil Vogt (The Worst Person in the World)
• Supporting Actor: Stellan Skarsgård (1st time nominee)
• Supporting Actress: Elle Fanning (1st time nominee)
• Supporting Actress: Inga Ibsdotter Illeaas (1st time nominee)
• Film Editing: Olivier Bugge Coutté (1st time nominee)
• International Picture: Norway (The Worst Person in the World, Kon-Tiki, Elling, The Other Side of Sunday, Pathfinder, Nine Lives: the Story of Jan Baalsrud)
  

Director: Joachim Trier

Cast: Reinsve, Skarsgård, Illeaas, Fanning, Andreas Stoltenberg Granerud, Øyvind Hesjedal Loven, Anders Danielsen Lie, Cory Michael Smith, Catherine Cohen

This movie is so good. It’s about family in a way that is decidedly unsentimental, despite its title, and it gets at ties between family members that don’t really make sense but repeat or resurface. It’s about trying to tell a story or find the words for feelings or intuitions that don’t have words for them. In many ways, it's also a movie about a house, or at least it tells its story from the perspective of the house. It's a brilliant stroke of writing. I am sorry that Joachim Trier standby Anders Danielsen Lie's part was too small to sneak him a Best Supporting Actor nomination (and Stellan Skarsgård is decidedly committing category fraud running as a supporting actor). The fact that this did so well with the Academy is wonderful Trier has been making excellent (maybe even perfect) movies for a long time, and it's great that people are catching up to that! I don't think this can win anything on the big night except Supporting Actor (although it may also get International Feature). But almost everyone here is a first-time nominee, and they're all gonna just be happy to be there. 

Will win: Supporting Actor

Could win: Original Screenplay, Editing, International Feature

My rating: #10 out of 88

All 2025 Oscar posts:

1. Sinners, One Battle after Another, Sentimental Value

2. Marty Supreme, Frankenstein, Hamnet
3. Bugonia, The Secret Agent, Train Dreams

4. F1, Blue Moon, It Was Just an Accident

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. Live-action Short Films

10. Jurassic World: Rebirth, The Lost Bus, Kokuho, The Smashing Machine

11. The Ugly Stepsister, Diane Warren: Relentless, Viva Verdi!

Oscar Nominations 2021: 3 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

 

CODA

3 Nominations

• Picture
• Adapted Screenplay: Siân Heder
• Supporting Actor: Troy Kotsur

Director: Heder

Cast: Emilia Jones, Eugenio Derbez, Daniel Durant, Kotsur, Marlee Matlin, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Amy Forsyth

Can CODA win Best Picture? I think this is the question everyone is asking. This is a sweet, heartfelt film with a very good cast (except for Eugenio Derbez, if you ask me. I don't know what he's doing with his performance). And I get why this movie has become a kind of sentimental favorite, but the favor it's being shown is much, much more than I think anyone expected. People love this movie. I think its complete lack of irony and total sincerity and earnestness make it a kind of breath of fresh air in this evil world. It's also about a hatred of bureaucracy and a valorization of entrepreneurship, so maybe that has something to do with it. In any case, Troy Kotsur is going to win Best Supporting Actor, and it might be wise to bet on this film winning Best Adapted Screenplay and maybe even Best Picture.

Will Win: Supporting Actor

Could Win: Picture, Adapted Screenplay

My Rating: #31 out of 56

Licorice Pizza

3 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood)
• Original Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson (Inherent Vice, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, Boogie Nights)

Director: Anderson

Cast: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Skyler Gisondo, Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Christine Ebersole, Benny Safdie, Maya Rudolph, John C. Reilly, Will Angarola, Griff Giacchino, James Kelley

This movie is very, very funny and also totally weird and quirky. The Academy loves Paul Thomas Anderson sort of unabashedly now, and I always think it's surprising that they do because his movies all seem so... idiosyncratic. But, I mean, even Inherent Vice got a Best Screenplay nomination! I really enjoyed Licorice Pizza, although I think I never stopped thinking it was weird. This is the portrait of one very eager teenager's childhood, and it's completely charming and very well directed. I really don't have anything negative to say about it except to remark on the overwhelming whiteness of its gaze. Still, it's one of my favorite movies of the year, and it makes sense that Anderson just went full-in on his own memories and his own picture of Los Angeles in the 1970s. It was a very different time in the world, and this film feels like it gets to the truth of that in some fascinating ways. Is this the year for Anderson to win the Original Screenplay Oscar? He doesn't have one yet, and his competition seems thinner than usual. I'm betting on him. 

Will Win: Original Screenplay

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #10 out of 56

Being the Ricardos

3 Nominations

• Best Actor: Javier Bardem (Biutiful, No Country for Old Men, Before Night Falls)
• Best Actress: Nicole Kidman (Lion, Rabbit Hole, The Hours, Moulin Rouge!)
• Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Cast: Kidman, Bardem, Simmons, Nina Arianda, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Jake Lacy, Clark Gregg, Brian Howe, Jeff Holman, Ronny Cox, Linda Lavin, John Rubinstein

This is one of the worst movies I saw this year, but I think people must like it? J.K. Simmons' nomination was a big surprise, and the fact that he got nominated means that the Academy actually likes the movie a lot more than anyone thought. Indeed, Nicole Kidman ended up taking home the Golden Globe award for Best Actress, so it definitely has some support behind it. But, like, if you're home and need a movie to watch, don't watch this one. It's absurd. And there are actual good movies nominated this year. Kidman could win a second Oscar here, but I don't think she will. I'm hoping everyone has figured out by now that this movie is a mess.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #55 out of 56

The Lost Daughter

3 Nominations

• Actress: Olivia Colman (The Father, The Favorite)
• Adapted Screenplay: Maggie Gyllenhaal
• Supporting Actress: Jessie Buckley

Director: Gyllenhaal

Cast: Colman, Dakota Johnson, Buckley, Ed Harris, Paul Mescal, Jack Farthing, Peter Sarsgaard, Dagmara Dominczyk, Oliver Jackson-Cohen

From the ridiculous to the sublime. The Lost Daughter was a total surprise to me. It's beautifully, terrifyingly directed, and its protagonist is a fascinating, incredible character. This movie is scary all the way through – scarier than The Power of the Dog, if you ask me – and the film is very well acted. This is one of my favorite films of the year, and honestly I can't say enough good things about it. It's on Netflix, and if you haven't watched it yet, you really must. Gyllenhaal's adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel is excellent, and this is a very good movie, even though I don't think it'll take home any statues on Oscar Sunday.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #9 out of 56

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
7. Cyrano, The Mitchells vs the Machines, Luca, and Raya and the Last Dragon
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 1 of 12

Oscar nominations are here! Actually, they came out last week.

Every year I post about each of the films nominated for Oscars (this year there are 39 + 10 short films). I see all of them except for the documentaries (I am just not that interested in documentary film; I'm not sure why).

As always, a large number of the films in my own top 10 for the year were passed over (A Ghost Story, Frantz, Lady Macbeth, Raw), but some of them scored a nomination or two (Coco, The Square, Loveless), and three were nominated for Best Picture (Dunkirk, Phantom Thread, Call Me by Your Name). In other words, as there is every year, there is a lot for me to appreciate here, even if I am more impatient with the Academy's choices this year than usual.

My main complaint – and I am sure this will come up in my commentary in the following weeks – is that Academy voters (and guild voters, too) just don't see enough movies, especially films from other countries. A slate of nominees like the International Cinephile Society's list for 2018 is way better than the one that Oscar made. And I honestly think it's just that the voters in the ICS just see more movies. But I am done expecting the Academy to vote for really really good stuff. They will always skew toward the mediocre, I think. And that is just how it goes.

As usual with these posts, I will go film by film discussing each movie individually rather than discussing categories, beginning with the movies most beloved by the Academy this year. If the nominee has been nominated for Oscars previously, he or she will be listed next to his/her name in parentheses).

This year's nominees:

The Shape of Water

13 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Guillermo del Toro
• Actress: Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)
• Original Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro (El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)) & Vanessa Taylor
• Supporting Actor: Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
• Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures, The Help)
  
• Film Editing: Sidney Wolinsky
• Cinematography: Dan Laustsen
• Production Design: Paul Denham Austerberry & Jeff Melvin & Shane Vieau
• Score: Alexandre Desplat (The Imitation Game, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Philomena, Argo, The King's Speech, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Queen)
  
• Costume Design: Luis Sequeira
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing

Director: Del Toro

Cast: Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Doug Jones, Jenkins, Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Nick Searcy, David Hewlett, Martin Roach, Morgan Kelly, Nigel Bennett

Well this is obviously the frontrunner, and I think everyone expected that it would be the frontrunner. In many ways, I have to concur with a large number of these nominations; as I said in my own review of this, for me, the design elements – the score, the production design, the costumes, the cinematography – took over the film, turning what might have been a Del Toro picture into something other than the monster movie I wanted it to be. (I love monster movies. Why can't this be one?) At first I was sort of annoyed that this got so many nominations, but looking at the list above, what you can see is that almost all of the nominees are first-time nominees. This makes me think of The Shape of Water as a little bit of an underdog, and it makes me happy for everyone nominated. No matter, everyone loves this movie, and it is going to take home its share of little gold dudes on the first Sunday of March. But not too many.

Will Win: Picture, Director, Production Design

Could Win: Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Cinematography, Score, Costume Design

My Rating: #32 out of 76

Dunkirk

8 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Christopher Nolan
• Film Editing: Lee Smith (The Dark Knight, Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World)
• Cinematography: Hoyte van Hoytema
• Production Design: Nathan Crowley (Interstellar, The Dark Knight, The Prestige) & Gary Fettis (Interstellar, Changeling, The Godfather: Part III)
• Score: Hans Zimmer (Interstellar, Inception, Sherlock Holmes, Gladiator, The Thin Red Line, The Prince of Egypt, As Good as It Gets, The Preacher's Wife, The Lion King, Rain Man)
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing

Director: Nolan

Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy, Tom Glynn-Carney, Barry Keoghan, Damien Bonnard, Jack Lowden, Kenneth Branagh, James D'Arcy

I loved this movie. I do not normally care for Christopher Nolan movies – I tend to find them soulless and machine-like – but this film always chooses people over strategy, and I can't say enough good things about it. In the first place, Dunkirk is a gorgeous technical achievement. It follows three plots at three different time schemes (it wouldn't be a Nolan movie without a puzzle), and each of these plots is emotionally wrenching, powerful stuff. I was especially moved by the sequences in the boat with Mark Rylance, but each of the plots is great and each allows us to look differently at the others. What is especially wonderful about this film is the way that it gives us the story of Dunkirk from the perspective of those who lived through it on the mole (and in the air, and in the water). Darkest Hour, for example, gives us a story of Churchill and the political and military moves that Dunkirk represented for the British. But Dunkirk isn't interested in backroom politics or Hitler or even what the war might mean for the world. This film focuses on what it means to the young men who fought and lost their lives. It's deeply moving and it is, I think, Nolan's best film to date. I hope he keeps making movies like this one. The Academy does not usually like Nolan, and his nomination is a little bit of a surprise here. Expect Dunkirk to win in lots of technical categories.

Will Win: Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing

Could Win: Cinematography
My Rating: #4 out of 76

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

7 Nominations

• Picture
• Actress: Frances McDormand (North Country, Almost Famous, Fargo, Mississippi Burning)
• Original Screenplay: Martin McDonagh (In Bruges)
  
• Supporting Actor: Woody Harrelson (The Messenger, The People vs. Larry Flynt)
• Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell
• Film Editing: Jon Gregory
• Score: Carter Burwell (Carol)

Director: McDonagh

Cast: McDormand, Harrelson, Rockwell, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage, Caleb Landry-Jones, Sandy Martin, Samara Weaving, Clarke Peters, Željko Ivanek, Amanda Warren

Well, this was the frontrunner for a while – the surprise frontrunner – and so it has gotten its share of backlash. I honestly can't fault too much of this backlash; the film is a very strange movie, and in its sentimentality, it throws forgiveness around a bit too easily perhaps. I really liked it on its own terms – I even liked it more than Shape of Water – but, then, I don't normally like McDonagh's work, so I am probably not liking it for the same reasons McDonagh fans like it. I guess the question now is: Can Three Billboards sustain its momentum through the end of February and pick up a ton of awards? This seems likely to a point. I expect it to win the two acting awards it has been winning (McDormand and Rockwell), and it managed to get a nomination from the film editors, too (seriously, guys???), but a lack of a Best Director nomination for McDonagh here (he didn't deserve one) seems to indicate that at least one branch of the Academy would rather give their top prize to Get Out or Lady Bird or Phantom Thread than to Three Billboards. Can't say I blame them.
Will Win: Actress, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor

Could Win: Picture

My Rating: #25 out of 76

Phantom Thread

6 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)
  
• Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln, There Will Be Blood, Gangs of New York, In the Name of the Father, My Left Foot)
  
• Supporting Actress: Lesley Manville
• Score: Jonny Greenwood 
• Costume Design: Mark Bridges (Inherent Vice, The Artist)

Director: Anderson

Cast: Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Manville, Gina McKee, Brian Gleeson, Jane Perry, Harriet Sansom Harris

Love love love! And what a surprise that this got six nominations! I don't think anyone was expecting this, especially that Best Director nod. It is well deserved, and I am delighted that this has happened. This is one of my favorite films of the year. It's strange and creepy and a little bit sick, but it's also about the unicity of a particular relationship – how it might work to love someone who is very, very difficult. It's gorgeously made, of course, as PTA's films usually are. This is a film much closer in spirit to The Master and There Will Be Blood than to Inherent Vice or Boogie Nights. Other important surprises: the music branch finally nominated Jonny Greenwood for original score. His score for Phantom Thread is the most beautiful he has yet conceived: it's lush and beautiful and haunting and rich, and I've been listening to it for weeks. I think it is the best score of the year, and I also think it will win. Can Mark Bridges also win? That seems possible. The costumes here are high couture, and the Academy has had a preference for that lately. Perhaps the biggest, most welcome, surprise, though, is the nomination for Lesley Manville, who is a standout as Day-Lewis's sister. She was passed over for a nomination a couple years ago for the Mike Leigh film Another Year (the Academy ought to be embarrassed – and they ought to see more movies), but this is some kind of redemption. I will be happy with any and every Oscar this film takes home.

Will Win: Score, Costume Design

Could Win: Supporting Actress
My Rating: #8 out of 76

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 4 of 12

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.
Part 4 of 12:

Selma

2 Nominations

• Picture
• Original Song: Common & John Legend

Director: Ava DuVernay

Cast: David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson, André Holland, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Common, Wendell Pierce, Lorraine Toussaint, Giovanni Ribisi, Tim Roth, Stephen Root, Colman Domingo, Stephan James, Trai Byers, Oprah Winfrey

This is one of the best films of the year. It is my #10 for 2014. It's excellent; it's hard hitting. It is also – and this is quite an achievement – a film about the past that is also fundamentally a film about the present. DuVernay has made a film about the importance of the Voting Rights Act to USAmerican politics. This is hugely important – the Supreme Court, just two years ago, gutted the Voting Rights Act, declaring (is that the correct term? no.) cynically pretending, with its head firmly in the sand, that people of color are not systematically kept away from the polls in Southern states. DuVernay's film is superb, and anyone who has seen her previous work knows that she is only going to get better. There are more things that need to be said about Selma and Oscar, though. Here it is in the Best Picture category, but its director, lead actor, screenwriters, and costume designer didn't get nominated. Many people have cried foul, and I am inclined to join them. The Best Actor category was crowded: it almost always is, in fact. As for director... the Directors branch was clearly being foolish this year because nominating Morten Tyldum in this slot over Ava DuVernay was short-sighted and silly. The Imitation Game is an asinine piece of calculated feel-good Oscar machinery, and Selma is a hard-hitting historical exposé that speaks to our contemporary moment. But, you know, the Academy is mostly old white men (and their old, white wives). I will say, though, that Selma was way too late to the party. This film and others that were released on or after December 25 (A Most Violent Year, Cake, Still Alice) did not do well with the Academy. They need time to watch those screeners, and these films need time to build buzz. Selma's campaign was mismanaged. I blame racism for a lot of things, and racism was surely partially to blame for Selma's weak showing with Oscar. But this is also the fault of Selma's publicity team. This was a mismanaged campaign; do not mistake it.

Will Win: Song

Could Win: Picture

My Rating: #10 out of 76

Wild

2 Nominations

• Actress: Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line)
• Supporting Actress: Laura Dern (Rambling Rose)

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée

Cast: Witherspoon, Dern, Thomas Sadoski, W. Earl Brown, Keene McRae, Michiel Huisman

This movie was a surprise to me; I had no idea it was going to be as good as it turned out to be. It is an unimaginative nominee here, though. Witherspoon is hardly giving a notable performance here. It's a nice role and a smart movie, but not anything brilliant. Dern is brilliant here, and I was so happy to see her name on nomination morning that I actually cheered quite loudly in my apartment. She is the best thing about the movie, and my companion and I left the film praising Laura Dern and remembering all of the great work she has done over the years. Neither woman has a chance of winning on Oscar night, but I will be rooting for Laura Dern nonetheless.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #27 out of 76

Inherent Vice

2 Nominations

• Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood)
• Costume Design: Mark Bridges (The Artist)

Director: Anderson

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Katherine Waterston, Joanna Newsom, Owen Wilson, Josh Brolin, Hong Chau, Jena Malone, Benicio Del Toro, Eric Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Michael Kenneth Williams, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short

A stoner movie that is way, way more than a stoner movie. This is a film about how mass culture is sold to us and how – in the best tradition of socialist critique – everything is immanent to capitalism. It's also fun and trippy and has plenty of what-the-fuck moments. I found the script difficult, as well, but I loved it for its difficulty and its complexity, and I loved the difficult, conflicted characters at this film's center. I'm not going around recommending Inherent Vice, but I enjoyed it thoroughly, and the script is incredibly good; its nomination was well deserved.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #34 out of 76

Ida

2 Nominations

• Cinematography: Ryszard Lenczewski & Łukasz Żal
• Foreign Language Picture: Poland (In Darkness, Katyń, Man of Iron, The Young Girls of Wilko, The Deluge, Promised Land, Pharaoh, Knife in the Water)

Director: Paweł Pawlikowski

Cast: Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Dawid Ogrodnik, Adam Szyszkowski, Jerzy Trela, Halina Skoczyńska

Easily one of the best films of the year and currently available on Netflix Instant. This is a tight little gem of a film; it's short at 90 minutes, and it is cruel and cold and unsparing, as well as gorgeous and clear and always surprising. I cannot say enough good things about it. It's my number two movie for the year and when I saw it in the theatre I had to sit in my seat for a solid five minutes after the movie ended before I was able to talk to my friends or think about moving around. This is superb filmmaking. Oddly enough I don't think it is going to win the Best Foreign Language Oscar. We'll see. I haven't yet seen Leviathan, but it currently seems to have the buzz on its side. None of that matters, though, move Ida to the top of your Instant queue. It is shockingly good.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: Foreign Language Picture
My Rating: #2 out of 76

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

As Regards The Master

I have been delaying a post about The Master for a while.

Often, when I feel like a film is a little smarter than I am, or when a film overwhelms me, I just avoid posting altogether. Sometimes, I feel like a film is just too good, and I don't have anything to say except the (rather boring) oh-my-god-I-loved-it. Films like Biutiful and The Reader and The Wrestler left me without words at the time, though, for the record, I could now probably regale anyone with numerous reasons why I love those films.

But I haven't been avoiding discussion of The Master because it's too good. It is, rather, that The Master left me feeling very conflicted. I didn't love The Master, and this isn't because it is not excellent. It is excellent. But I found The Master also to be deeply flawed.

In many ways, The Master is a kind of continuation of Anderson's previous masterpiece There Will Be Blood. If you remember, Blood was a kind of giant metaphoric battle of wills that pitted (evil) capitalism against (evil) religion. There Will Be Blood is a morality tale dressed up as a personal drama. It uses dual character studies as a cover for an exploration of what Anderson (via Upton Sinclair, who wrote the source material) sees as competing sets of lies that trap human beings and blind them to their own lives and the lives of others. I found it difficult not to see Anderson's big-picture metaphors in There Will Be Blood, but they didn't bother me even a little bit, so taken in was I by the story, the character studies, and the sheer audacity of Anderson's filmmaking.

(Further, There Will Be Blood was an enormous departure for the director, whose previous films had been stories of late-twentieth-century life, saturated with color, filled with urban ennui, but possessing an underlying faith in the good intentions of his characters.)

The Master is also a battle of wills between two characters, each of whom symbolizes a way of life or a system of lies that traps human beings. Joaquin Phoenix (who is just absolutely genius in this movie) is a wayward alcoholic, who can't keep a job down, who has no direction in his life, who is impulsively and dangerously violent, and who mixes his own unique brands of hooch using shall we say unconventional ingredients (in the first few minutes of the film he uses – in different brews – jet fuel, paint thinner, and what looked to me like acetic acid).

His foil is the eponymous Master himself, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (with his usual obstreperousness), an L. Ron Hubbard-type figure who believes in past lives and who performs something called "processing" on people willing to undergo his pseudo-psychoanalytic treatments.

Both characters are very, very interesting, and it is a testament to how convincing both characters are that my companion and I both considered the self-destructive alcoholic to be the one to have gotten in with the dangerous crowd and not the other way around. There are also some absolutely phenomenal sequences. Joaquin Phoenix's first processing session is easily some of the bravest, best acting he's ever done. It's incredible, actually. Anderson's direction of actors is flawless. His eye for detail is extraordinary. The Master is breathtakingly shot (by Francis Ford Coppola's cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr.), and Johnny Greenwood's score is haunting, intelligent, and engaging.

But... The Master outstays its welcome. Anderson is not satisfied with the film's first ending, and tacks on two or three more (depending on how you count). And the larger evils for which his (admittedly fascinating) characters stand in – alcoholism and religion – come to seem simple, trite, obviously flawed. Too soon I sensed my own feelings of superiority for these characters – one an aimless, disaffected alcoholic, the other an unapologetic, destructive charlatan. It felt easy to say Well why can't he simply get his life together? and How dare this man behave with such shameless arrogance?

If The Master is complicated, rich filmmaking – and it undoubtedly is – it also settles for answers that seemed to me too easy, and its moral compass is less complex than the intricate, humane storytelling that Anderson is able to achieve.

Marty's Kids' Movie. In 3D!

The more I think about Hugo the less I like it. I have mentioned before that I have never felt like Scorsese movies really have anything that connects them – there have been a lot of good movies, but he doesn't have an aesthetic voice like Spielberg or, say, P.T. Anderson or Nolan or the Coens. When I watch one of their movies I know I'm watching one of their movies, whereas Scorsese's movies sometimes feel to me like they could've been directed by a whole variety of people. (This might be a good thing. I am not criticizing; just noting.)

I said earlier on here, also, that I kept thinking Tintin Hugo was an animated film. It's not. Well, it's partially not. There is so much CGI in Hugo that at times I thought it would've been better as an animated film. Hugo is also as candy-coated as Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie, but lacks the real magic of that picture.

Hugo follows a small orphaned boy who repairs clocks in the train station in Paris. And he lives in the train station and scrounges for food and tries not to get caught by the local security guard (played by the impossible-not-to-like Sacha Baron Cohen). He is trying to repair a little metallic automaton who he thinks can write him a message from his dead father, so he is stealing little machine parts from the toy vendor in the train station.

There are all kinds of charming side characters, as well, not one of whom is developed beyond a line or two. This is a particular shame because they are played by Frances de la Tour, Richard Griffiths, Christopher Lee, and Emily Mortimer.

Okay, well, the plot begins to revolve around this mystery. Who is this toy-maker (Ben Kingsley) really and what secrets does he hold? The trouble with this is that we know that Ben Kingsley knows the solution to the mystery from the beginning of the film. So all of the machinations of the film, the running around, the near-death experiences, the crying, the run-ins with Sacha Baron Cohen's giant dog, could easily be avoided simply by coming clean to Ben Kingsley about what they know. Instead, Hugo and his playmate do not, and we have a movie. I say this to say that I spent the whole movie waiting for Mr. Scorsese to tell me the information that I knew he was keeping from me. This made the whole thing excruciatingly predictable.

Hugo has been referred to as a love letter to the movies by many critics, and they are right. There are long sequences where we watch very old films. All of those sequences work like gangbusters. They are fabulous. And I would've preferred them put together in a documentary film narrated by Martin Scorsese instead of in this film that looks, for all the world, like a film by Frank Capra.

There is much more to say about this picture, I suppose. I loved Helen McCrory in it, and Dante Ferretti's production design is just gorgeous, occasionally breathtaking, even. Howard Shore's score is lovely and may even be nominated for an Academy Award (His scores for Scorsese are almost always disqualified by AMPAS because Marty uses well-known music in all of his films for the really important sequences. He does that only once in Hugo, as far as I could tell, using one of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies at a key moment.) Mostly, though, I just thought this film was slow, like its timing was just off for the entirety of the picture. It was pretty, and the old films were nice, but it was more predictable than Thor.

Another December Day in Los Angeles; Another Great Movie

Today I saw There Will Be Blood, the new Paul Thomas Anderson film. PTA is the director of four very good films to date (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch-drunk Love), but There Will Be Blood is a huge departure for Anderson, who has used most of the same actors and musicians in the last four films. Blood is a Western, and a strange, intense, fucked-up Western at that.

Daniel Day-Lewis is a fiercely competitive oil magnate, who is also almost psychotically misanthropic. The role fits Day-Lewis to a tee, but its Anderson's style (in both writing and directing) that really make There Will Be Blood the bizarre masterpiece that it is. I actually don't want to say too much about the film. It's an intensely weird experience, and it may not be everyone's cup of tea. It certainly isn't as irreverent or sad as Anderson's other movies, and it doesn't hook you emotionally in his usual ways. Instead, Blood is creepy, suspenseful, chilling.

It reminded me, more than anything else, of Jean-Pierre Melville. If the opening ten minutes of There Will Be Blood is like the opening ten minutes of any other film I would say it is like Melville's Le Samouraï, and it isn't just because it lacks dialogue for so long. Blood begins with a bizarre, confusing sound, which I can only imagine is intended to jar its audience, much like the out-of-focus opening of Le Samouraï.

I don't want to say anything more about There Will Be Blood. I need to see it again. And probably a third time.

The Oscar Race

So now that I have a little time, I thought it might be interesting to discuss some of the critics awards that have been released over the last couple of days. Everything will change very visibly with the Golden Globe nominations on Thursday, but here is what everyone's talking about right now.

BEST PICTURE
American Gangster
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Bucket List
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
Juno
The Kite Runner
Lars and the Real Girl
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
Sweeney Todd
There Will Be Blood

It seems very likely that no other film will emerge as a frontrunner for awards, and that the five Best Picture nominees will come from this list. It's a huge list, so that shouldn't be too shocking. Most frequently mentioned here are No Country for Old Men, of course, and The Diving Bell and Butterfly, which is getting mentioned as most critics' Best Foreign Language selection. It is ineligible for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, but it could emerge with a Best Picture nomination. If it's lucky. This seems unlikely.

BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson (L.A.)
Tim Burton (Nat'l Board of Review)
The Coen Brothers (N.Y., San Francisco)
Julian Schnabel (Boston, L.A.)

The additional directors mentioned by the BFCA are: Sidney Lumet (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead), Sean Penn (Into the Wild) and Joe Wright (Atonement). The top four here are Anderson, the Coens and Schnabel. I expect Lumet to get an Oscar nomination too. Not sure about slot five.

BEST ACTOR
George Clooney (NBR, San Fran)
Daniel Day-Lewis (L.A., N.Y.)
Emile Hirsch (NBR)
Frank Langella (Boston, L.A.)

The BFCA also includes Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd), Ryan Gosling (Lars and the Real Girl) and Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises). Viggo Mortensen's performance is one of the best of year--no question. Not sure if he can score a nomination, though. I think Hirsch's chances are iffy, too. He is very young for a Best Actor nomination. Could James McAvoy (Atonement) place?

BEST ACTRESS
Julie Christie (NBR, L.A., N.Y., San Fran)
Marion Cotillard (Boston)
Anamaria Marinca (L.A.)
Ellen Page (NBR)

THE BFCA adds to this Amy Adams (Enchanted), Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: the Golden Age) and Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart). They aren't included here, but I think Laura Linney (The Savages) and Keira Knightley (Atonement) could also place.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck (NBR, San Fran)
Javier Bardem (Boston, N.Y.)
Hal Holbrook (L.A.)
Vlad Ivanov (L.A.)

The BFCA adds Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson's War) and Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton). The field is not completely wide open here, but only Bardem is really set in stone here. And everyone was talking about Max Von Sydow (The Diving Bell and Butterfly) last week...

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Ryan (NBR, Boston, L.A., N.Y., San Fran)
Cate Blanchett (L.A.)

The only name anyone is mentioning is Amy Ryan and this is stupid. Not because she's bad in the movie (although I wasn't particularly over the moon about her performance), but because the critics have a chance to influence the discourse. The only actress anyone wants to talk about is Amy Ryan, and they could be choosing instead to promote some other cool performances. The BFCA adds Catherine Keener (Into the Wild), Vanessa Redgrave (Atonement) and Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton). But what about Kelly Macdonald (No Country for Old Men), Charlotte Gainsbourg (I'm Not There.) or Leslie Mann (Knocked Up). I can think of another three or four actresses whose supporting work impressed me. It is a little ridiculous that no critics organizations can think of any.

REVIEW: Garden State

I saw my favorite movie of the year so far. It is called Garden State, and it was directed by Zach Braff who is on a TV show called "Scrubs", I guess.
The movie stars Mr. Braff, Natalie Portman, the always great Peter Sarsgaard and Ian Holm. (Look for a cameo by George C. Wolfe, as well). I am not sure if I know how to accurately describe Garden State. It is about a young man who returns home from Los Angeles to New Jersey for his mother's funeral. It is, however, not a realistic movie, by any means, and I think has more in common with P.T. Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind than anything else. But it is a simple story of friendship and new love and learning to forgive.
I wish I could describe what the movie meant to me. I saw it with my friends Justin and Elizabeth, and I don't think they liked it quite as much as I did, but it meant something else to me. It grabbed me in a very different way. It captures something about people in their early twenties. The protagonists are twenty-six, and there is something about these people my age who are struggling to find meaning, to find a goal. The movie is just incredible. I'm going again, and I'm going to take as many of my friends as I can. There is some chord in this film: the music, the surrealism, the numbness that just got me and meant more than anything I've seen so far this year.

Go see it. This is an extraordinary film that just... feels like home.

Quick Review

This afternoon I headed down the street to (finally) see Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes.  My cousin, Angela, gave it a good review, so I thought I would check it out.  I've been meaning to since it came out in—what: May (?).

The film is not so much a film as a collection of short films which all revolve around cigarettes and (mostly) coffee.  The good ones are about coffee and cigarettes. 

I have to say that I just didn't care for the film.  The first couple of films are really great.  My personal favorite is the one with Iggy Pop and Tom Waits.  They almost get into an interesting discussion, even, about the 'coffee and cigarettes generation' versus the 'pie and coffee generation.'  There are some other interesting ones: I really liked the Steve Buscemi film and the Bill Murray film.  The Cate Blanchett film is interesting, too, and the final film with William Rice and Taylor Mead is almost transcendent compared to the rest of the picture.  But the problem with the film is that it isn't at all cohesive.  We are continually reminded that this is an extended film exercise.  There is a recurring coffee/cigarettes/checkerboard/black-and-white theme, but there isn't much else that the film itself has to say.  The truth is, if you want to know about coffee and cigarettes as a combination, the film that you need to watch is P.T. Anderson's freshman effort: Hard Eight.