Oscar Nominations 2024: 7 of 11

Another group with one of my top films of the year in it. See, the Academy did some things right:

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (دانه‌ی انجیر معابد)

1 nomination

• International Feature: Germany (The Teacher's Lounge, All Quiet on the Western Front, Never Look Away, Toni Erdmann, The White Ribbon, The Baader Meinhof Complex, The Lives of Others, Sophie Scholl: the Final Days, Downfall, Nowhere in Africa, Beyond Silence, Schtonk, The Nasty Girl)

Director: Mohammad Rasoulof

Cast: Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Setareh Maleki, Mahsa Rostami, Niousha Akhshi, Reza Akhlaghirad, Shiva Ordooie

This is one of the best movies of the year. The Seed of the Sacred Fig is not fucking around. This is a tense, extraordinary thriller about the present moment in Iran. This is a film invested in justice and truth and opposed to the theocratic regime in Iran. It stages really brilliantly the way that patriarchy as an ideology must insist upon controlling others, the way it damages the world, and the way patriarchy cleverly and insidiously frames everything as "for your own good" and "really doing this all for you" because those who are not "adult" (whatever that means) and "male" (they're happy to exclude people from this category as well) couldn't possibly make decisions for themselves and couldn't possibly understand the world that we all live in. Mohammad Rasoulof's film is not only tense and exciting and smart, it also analyzes this world and this ideology, taking it to its logical conclusion. The movie itself was made in secret and then smuggled out of Iran, but the film's editor—who, frankly, also deserves an Oscar nomination—has edited in smartphone footage of protests, police violence, forced disappearances, and killings that were taken by people in Iran living under this regime. Although the movie takes a slight turn toward melodrama and chase scenes by its final act, I can't say I minded at all. The movie already had me in its grip long before that.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #6 out of 98

Pigen med Nålen (The Girl with the Needle)

1 nomination

• International Feature: Denmark (Flee, Another Round, Under the Sand, A War, The Hunt, A Royal Affair, In a Better World, After the Wedding, Memories of a Marriage, Pelle the Conqueror, Babette's Feast, Harry and the Butler, Paw, Qivitoq: the Mountain Wanderer)

Director: Magnus von Horn

Cast: Vic Carmen Sonne, Trine Dyrholm, Besir Zeciri, Ava Knox Martin, Joachim Fjelstrup, Tessa Hoder, Benedikte Hansen, Per Thiim Thim

I am honestly stunned that this movie was nominated for International Feature. Not that it isn't a good movie; it's a good movie. But it's a really rough watch. As I wrote in my earlier review of this movie, I loved the score of this, and I loved it's insanely expressionist visuals. I also adored the central performances—particularly Trine Dyrholm's—but this is a bleak, dark, terrifying post-war portrait, and it doesn't really see a way out of the terror it portrays. Like... is there any way a movie called The Girl with the Needle isn't about murdered infants? Because that is definitely what this is about. What Magnus von Horn does so well, though, is to create in addition a kind of wonderful visual puzzle, where we see things in a distorted way: faces overlap and begin to look like other faces, we hallucinate along with the main character as she drugs herself, the world of the film reflects the distortion already present in society. I certainly appreciated this; I'm just not sure there's much to enjoy, if you know what I mean. It's just a really strange choice for the Academy. I was surprised it made the December shortlist, and I'm surprised it made the list of nominees. Anyway, it has no chance of winning the Oscar, and I find its inclusion here really shocking.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #42 out of 98

Gladiator II

1 nomination

• Costume Design: Dave Crossman (Napoleon) & Janty Yates (Napoleon, Gladiator)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington, Connie Nielsen, Fred Hechinger, Joseph Quinn, Matt Lucas, Derek Jacobi, Tim McInnerny, Lior Raz, Peter Mensah, Alexander Karim, Yuval Gonen

Although I thought this movie was sort of bland and generic—I thought the same about Ridley Scott's last movie, Napoleon, as well—all of its technical elements were fairly wonderful. I loved Harry Gregson-Williams' score; I loved the production design; I loved the costumes; I even loved the special effects (except for those fucking sharks in the naumachia). I also really enjoyed (most of) the acting. Fred Hechinger and Joseph Quinn were very good, and Denzel chewed the scenery in the most pleasurable way. The movie itself has lots of problems, but it isn't quite bad. It just doesn't really live up to the promise of a fun romp through the Roman empire. It's not quite fun enough, you know? But this costume design nomination is well deserved, and actually I'm a bit surprised this didn't land one or two more below-the-line nominations. It at least should have gotten more nominations—three—than Napoleon did last year. Not that it will win anything. It won't.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #59 out of 98

More 2024 posts:

1. Emilia Pérez, The Brutalist, Wicked

2. A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Anora

3. The Substance, Dune: Part Two, Nosferatu

4. I'm Still Here, Sing Sing, The Wild Robot

5. Nickel Boys, The Apprentice, A Real Pain

6. Flow, September 5, Maria

8. Inside Out 2, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Memoir of a Snail

9. Animated Short Films

10. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Alien: Romulus, Better Man

11. A Different Man, Elton John: Never Too Late, The Six Triple Eight

Gladiator II (2024)

Gladiator II doesn’t quite work in all the ways it wants to, but it works in a lot of those ways. This is a big, soulless spectacle in the vein of Ridley Scott’s most recent outing, Napoleon, but to be generous, Gladiator II is much much better than last year’s Ridley Scott film. Still, this thing is big and nonsensical and soulless, and one even has trouble figuring out who to root for. 

Gladiator II's ostensible protagonist, Hanno, tells us very little about what he wants, and so although we admire him, he is hard to love. There's also Pedro Pascal's general something-or-other, but he's not a character who makes much sense, actually. He strains credibility in that he's a ruthlessly bloody general working in the service of Rome who seems to have no ambition except to do the right thing. The film’s most compelling character is Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, and even when he’s behaving very badly, it’s difficult to turn on someone so charismatic. Perhaps this makes me more of an ancient Roman than a morally upstanding US American in 2024, but I would vote with Macrinus. He knows what he’s doing and he played the game well. 

There is more to say about Macrinus (who was a real emperor of Rome after he murdered emperor Caracalla). Denzel ate. He chewed. He feasted on this part. He’s a pleasure to watch. My companion thought Paul Mescal lacked charisma, but I don’t know. I thought he was fine. I blame Ridley Scott. The whole thing feels sort of bland and generic (and, frankly, if I remember correctly from 24 years ago, I think that was mostly true of Gladiator itself). Gladiator II is epic, though, and I enjoyed most of it. I like it when people quote Virgil and Cicero and Seneca. And it's fun to watch muscled dudes play with swords and fight wild animals. For me this was better than the critics said it was. I was not bored.

I have more to say. I’ll believe lots of things: gladiators riding rhinoceroses wearing bespoke saddles, fine; gladiators fighting starving baboons, fine. But sharks? Sharks??? In a naumachia? How? You’re telling me they caught a half dozen sharks from the ocean without injuring them and transported them from the sea (in what vessel?) and then let them loose in the Roman Coliseum after flooding it? I do not believe it.

Oscar Nominations 2023: 3 of 9

We're jumping to a slightly lower tier with the next four movies:

Napoleon

3 nominations

• Production Design: Arthur Max (The Martian, American Gangster, Gladiator) & Elli Griff
• Costume Design: Janty Yates (Gladiator) & Dave Crossman 
• Visual Effects

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Rupert Everett, Tahar Rahim, Edouard Philipponnat, Mark Bonnar, Paul Rhys, Riana Duce, Ben Miles, Ludivine Sagnier, John Hollingworth, Youssef Kerkour, Miles Jupp, Scott Handy 

The best thing about this movie was its visual effects, so I'm glad it got honored there. I've written about this movie already and what I thought about its interminable running time, its real lack of adventure, and its deep pettiness toward the emperor at its center. I was not surprised to see it appear in the production design and costume categories. Both are excellent achievements, but I do wonder why this branch bothered with this movie. There are actually more interesting costumes and production designs in other places. Also, it's hilarious to me that the Academy split the Art Directors branch so that the Costume Designers had their own branch (this happened in 2013), and yet here both branches are nominating the same 5 films in their respective categories. Boring. Also Napoleon won't be winning anything. And I am very sorry that this movie is not better.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #63 out of 72

Past Lives

2 nominations

• Picture
• Original Screenplay: Celine Song

Director: Song

Cast: Greta Lee, Yoo Teo, John Magaro, Moon Seung-ah, Yim Seung-min, Yoon Ji-hye, Choi Won-young, Ahn Min-young

This is one of the most original films to come out this year, and it is probably also one of the most critically acclaimed films this year. It deserves all of its accolades. This movie is a real exploration of the multiverse. Our past lives or other lives really do exist, they live on in our memories, and they pop up suddenly with the arrival of a former lover or a memory of something that might have been. Celine Song's movie explores the singular heartbreak of meeting someone with whom one could have had a whole entire life except that your choices have taken you in different directions. If you haven't seen this film, you should. I am very glad it managed a Best Picture nomination. It deserves it, despite it being what seems like a "small" movie next to something enormous like Napoleon or Oppenheimer.

Will win: N/A

Could win: Original Screenplay

My rating: #4 out of 72

Nyad

2 nominations

• Actress: Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right, Being Julia, American Beauty, The Grifters)
• Supporting Actress: Jodie Foster (Nell, The Silence of the Lambs, The Accused, Taxi Driver)

Director: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

Cast: Bening, Foster, Rhys Ifans, Eric T. Miller, Anna Harriette Pittman, Nadia Lorencz, Karly Rothenberg, Luke Cosgrove, Marcus Young, Ethan Jones Romero, Jeena Yi

This is much better than it should be. I was very surprised to like this as much as I did. But this is, in the first place, quite a fun time, and in the second place, pretty damn inspirational. I am actually surprised that Annette Bening got a nomination here. I know she was nominated in all precursor awards shows, but I thought for sure she'd be a sort of also-ran in the category. She's s solid in this, but she does spend most of her time in the water being pummeled by exhaustion and jellyfish, so we spend most of our identificatory energy on Jodie Foster, who I adored in this movie. The real standout of Nyad is the return of Jodie Foster! And it heralds her new appearance on TV in True Detective. She's back, baby, and she's so good. (But this isn't going to win any Oscars.)

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #30 out of 72

La Sociedad de la Nieve (Society of the Snow)

2 nominations

• International Feature: Spain (Pain & Glory, The Sea Inside, All about My Mother, The Grandfather, Secrets of the Heart, The Age of Beauty, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Course Completed, Double Feature, Carmen, Begin the Beguine, The Nest, Mama Turns 100, That Obscure Object of Desire, My Dearest 'Señorita', Tristana, Bewitched Love, Los Tarantos, Placido, La Venganza)
• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Juan Antonio Bayona

Cast: Enzo Vogrincic, Agustín Pardella, Matías Recalt, Esteban Bigliardi, Diego Vegezzi, Fernando Contingiani, Esteban Kukuriczka, Francisco Romero, Rafael Federman, Valentino Alonso, Tomas Wolf

This movie is so good! Do not be deterred by its long running time and its troubling subject matter. It's wonderfully shot and beautifully acted, and it packs a powerful emotional punch. This is on Netflix, so unfortunately most of us won't be able to see it on a big screen, but if you can, you should. The plane crash in the film's first act is one of the best I've ever seen put in a movie. It's edited impeccably, and one has a sense of every single thing that's happening. Then the movie shifts into an almost completely different mode as we suffer with the passengers the long wait in the mountains with the hope that someone will come rescue them. Somehow Bayona is able to manage the shift from intense action to contemplative, philosophical film. It's quite a feat, and Society of the Snow is really not to be missed. Enzo Vogrincic is extraordinary in this, and the entire company is amazing. Honestly, I'm surprised this wasn't nominated for more awards. Right off the bat, I can say that I really wish the Music Branch would stop hating Michael Giacchino; his score for Society of the Snow is absolutely beautiful and memorable, and it'll be in your head for days afterward.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #28 out of 72

More posts coming soon:

1. Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, Maestro

2. Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, The Holdovers, American Fiction

4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, The Creator, Rustin, May December

5. The Color Purple, El Conde, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

6. Animated Features

7. Godzilla Minus One, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Golda, American Symphony, Flamin' Hot

8. Animated Short Films

9. Perfect Days, The Teachers' Lounge, Io Capitano

Napoleon (2023)

Insofar as Napoleon is about a petty and capricious emperor, bent only on military conquest and (apparently) producing a male heir, Ridley Scott’s film about Napoléon Bonaparte has several surprises up its decorated sleeves and boasts quite a few excellent battle sequences. As a film, however, Napoleon is frequently tedious, frustrating, and boring. The trouble is that the film doesn’t like its central character very much at all. In fact, Napoleon’s screenwriter thinks Bonaparte was a classless butcher, intent on destroying most of the citizens of Europe. Frankly I’m inclined to agree, but then the direction and the screenplay are rather at odds. The story of Napoléon Bonaparte has been given lavish, extraordinarily expensive treatment, and all of the character’s petty decisions and erotic peccadilloes have been presented in exquisite detail. All for us to judge him. The film seems especially and pruriently focused on his sexual inadequacies. 

Now, I am not so sure I know how to feel superior to the emperor of France, personally, but the film certainly does: it lets us know that the rulers of Austria, Prussia, and England are much more suited to governance than this grasping, ambitious Corsican, and it reduces Bonaparte, finally, to a series of mocking jokes.

The Seventh Curse (1986)

The Seventh Curse (原振侠与卫斯理) is gory and insane and makes not one lick of sense. It’s a kind of Hong Kong Indiana Jones fantasy with practical effects. It has a murderous monster baby and a crypt keeper that transforms into a Ridley Scott alien. It also stars a young Chow Yun Fat (that's him with the pipe) and a young Maggie Cheung (all the way to the left). Honestly everyone should see this. 

I should also mention that Lam Ngai Kai's movie about a blood curse... in 1986. It’s very obviously about coping with the terror of HIV/AIDS.

My unseen movie club watched this gem in a dubbed version – we couldn't get ahold of a Cantonese version – but it was still worth the watch. 

Oscar Nominations 2021: 9 of 9 (with Final Predictions)

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
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

House of Gucci

1 Nomination

• Makeup & Hairsyling

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, Jack Huston, Reeve Carney

 

Father, Son, and House of Gucci. I'm not saying that this was the worst movie of the year, but it was the worst movie I saw this year (neck and neck with Being the Ricardos, actually). I've already written about how terrible I thought this was so I don't think I'll belabor the point too much. But I felt really confident that Lady Gaga was going to end up with another undeserved Oscar nomination, and I think her not getting one back in February was a very big surprise to everyone: she campaigned very hard to get it. The Screen Actors Guild had, in addition, nominated Jared Leto for best supporting actor for what is, perhaps, one of the most baffling performances of the year. I am very grateful that the Academy saw fit to do otherwise and give this film one nomination only – for Jared Leto's makeup.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #60 out of 60

Coming 2 America

1 Nomination

• Makeup & Hairstyling
  

Director: Craig Brewer

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Wesley Snipes, Jermaine Fowler, Shari Headley, Leslie Jones, Tracey Morgan, KiKi Layne, James Earl Jones

Another movie I really enjoyed. I have said before how funny I think Eddie Murphy is. This man makes me laugh like no other, honestly. I love him. This movie – like many Eddie Murphy movies – has scored an Oscar nomination for its makeup. Murphy plays several characters in the film, and so the (excellent) prosthetics that differentiate his characters almost always score a nomination. But C2A is really funny! I had a great time. And honestly I think it deserved a second nomination: for Ruth Carter's costumes. They are absolutely incredible. Some of them had my jaw on the floor. Her work in this is astounding. I know she has an Oscar, but her work is just consistently so imaginative and awesome, and she deserves to be getting nominated every damn year. 

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #38 out of 60

Four Good Days

1 Nomination

• Song: Diane Warren (The Life Ahead, Breakthrough, RBG, Marshall, The Hunting Ground, Beyond the Lights, Pearl Harbor, Music of the Heart, Armageddon, Con Air, Up Close & Personal, Mannequin)
  

Director: Rodrigo García

Cast: Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Stephen Root, Carla Gallo, Carlos Lacamara, Michael Hyatt

The Diane Warren effect. Every single year I end up watching a movie I never would have watched otherwise because Diane Warren wrote a song for the movie and it ended up with an Oscar nomination. She literally gets nominated every year – she has for the last 5 years straight – and she has never won. She ain't gonna win again this year either because this Reba McEntire song is fine, but the movie is terrible. I usually love Rodrigo García's work, but Four Good Days is literally just two grown women yelling at one another for 90 minutes. It's painful. I am not sure why this is supposed to be pleasurable or insightful for anyone, but for me it was neither. Most of the film is actually absurd – there's an insane sequence where Mila Kunis visits a classroom full of kids to talk about addiction for reasons that make no sense at all. (Or maybe it's just so she can give a "heartwarming" monologue.) I really don't know what is happening with Glenn Close right now. She's in her irascible grandma phase for some reason, and I just don't get it. Why isn't she playing the kinds of parts Emma Thompson is playing? Instead she's saying immortal lines like "no shit, Sherlock" and "kiss my ruby red asshole". Who would have predicted this for her? In any case, this movie goes to the near bottom of the list, just above Cyrano, Being the Ricardos, and Father, Son, and House of Gucci.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #56 out of 60

Final Predictions:

Picture: Power of the Dog

Director: Jane Campion, Power of the Dog

Actor: Will Smith, King Richard

Actress: Kristen Stewart, Spencer

Adapted Screenplay: Siân Heder, CODA (this is a change)

Original Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza

Supporting Actor: Troy Kotsur, CODA

Supporting Actress: Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

Film Editing: Joe Walker, Dune: Part One

Cinematography: Greig Fraser, Dune: Part One

Production Design: Patrice Vermette & Zsuzsanna Sipos, Dune: Part One

International Film: Japan, Drive My Car

Costume Design: Jenny Beaven, Cruella (I changed my tune about this, too)

Animated Feature: Encanto

Sound: Dune: Part One

Visual Effects: Dune: Part One

Makeup & Hairstyling: Dune: Part One

Song: Beyoncé & DIXSON, King Richard

The Fall of the House of Gucci

Jesus Christ what a long, meandering mess. Adam Driver and Al Pacino are doing their best, I think, but the script is ridiculous, and Jared Leto is... honestly I have no idea what he's doing. It's clear that the character he's playing (Paolo Gucci) is a very silly nut of a man, but the whole thing feels like a weird bit, and the lines he says are so out of place – he's the only character who speaks like this – that he feels like he's just in another movie altogether. The worst part is that this movie just doesn't care about the Guccis themselves. It doesn't even really care about Maurizio (Driver's character); the film just likes him more than the others, which isn't much at all. House of Gucci doesn't really make fun of the Guccis, but it thinks this insane story of betrayal and murder is more interesting than them as people.

And then there's Lady Gaga, who is much much worse than she was in A Star Is Born. I've always thought that in that movie Cooper and his team edited around her in very smart ways, but here she's front and center, and although the movie thankfully sort of forgets about her for a stretch of act three, she's clearly the centerpiece of the film, the reason for it to exist, even. And she just can't really act. Sure, she can move around and say lines and wear clothes fabulously, but there's really nothing there that she's doing or giving away. She is, like Jared Leto, just doing a kind of long bit. It's crazy because the part is honestly perfect for her. But she just doesn't give the character any kind of life. Patrizia doesn't quite feel like a cartoon – although she is very silly and I laughed out loud several times – but she also never feels like she's a human at all. Just a kind of image of a person. It's a very bad performance in a movie that never works.

(Tom Ford makes an appearance in this movie, as a character, and he has the role of saving the Gucci brand. Ford has apparently said in interviews that he didn't like this movie either.)

Oscar Nominations 2018: Part 6 of 12

Back to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, or Part 5.

My Best of 2017.

Logan

1 Nomination

• Adapted Screenplay: Scott Frank (Out of Sight) & Michael Green & James Mangold
  

Director: Mangold

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Dafne Keen, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Merchant, Boyd Holbrook, Eriq La Salle, Elise Neal, Quincy Fouse, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Richard E. Grant

The absolute best X-men movie we've ever had. I cannot believe this got an Oscar nomination, but goddammit it deserves this. The strongest component of Logan is, of course, its script, which is smart and poignant and (actually) quite moving. But the quality that makes Logan stand out from other X-men movies specifically and other superhero movies in general is that this superhero movie is rated R. The R rating made Logan into what it is. We've never seen Wolverine's claws wreak the bloody havoc they wreak in this movie. We've never seen the pain that Logan feels, the agony he experiences as bullets rip through his flesh, before. Mangold's willingness to do this, to go there – as well as Fox's willingness to allow this – elevates the level of the film to the level of something important. This isn't a stupid action movie where no one gets hurt. In this film, people are bodies. They get wounded, they hurt, they break apart. It's not only an ethical move for a superhero movie, it also makes for great storytelling. This is one of my favorite movies of the year.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #16 out of 81

The Big Sick

1 Nomination

• Original Screenplay: Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani

Director: Michael Showalter

Cast: Nanjiani, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Zoe Kazan, Adeel Akhtar, Anupam Kher, Zenobia Shroff, Bo Burnham, Aidy Bryant, Kurt Braunohler, David Alan Grier

This is funny and romantic and I really liked it. I am really happy it got this nomination, too, because the entire enterprise is cute and very funny. Holly Hunter is also excellent in the movie. I can recommend this to everyone. I don't think there's anyone who won't like this movie. It isn't going to win the Oscar, but this nomination is great news for Nanjiani's career.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #23 out of 81

The Florida Project

1 Nomination

• Supporting Actor: Willem Dafoe (Shadow of the Vampire, Platoon)

Director: Sean Baker

Cast: Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Dafoe, Christopher Rivera, Aiden Malik, Valeria Cotto, Mela Murder, Josie Olivo, Caleb Landry Jones

Ugh. I have already detailed my experience with this film, which I so wanted to be good. But The Florida Project is not good, and I have, frankly, been completely baffled by the love that so many American critics have shown this shallow, meaningless movie. Sean Baker is a filmmaker that deliberately tries to avoid saying anything, and so his movies finally provide no insight into the characters he has created. I felt this with Tangerine and it is true again with The Florida Project. I am an empathetic person, and so I find this entire enterprise incredibly frustrating. It's just all so shallow, and actually it begins to feel sort of hostile after a while. The more that I think about how The Florida Project works, the more I feel as though it is contemptuous of its intriguing characters. But I guess I am supposed to be talking about Willem Dafoe... Dafoe is excellent in this movie, and not only because he is an actor among non-actors doing excellent work (he also has a superb scene with Caleb Landry Jones, who is an actor and is also in Three Billboards). Dafoe's characterization is beautiful and humane and I would be totally pleased if he won the Oscar for this. But fuck this movie.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Supporting Actor

My Rating: #76 out of 81

All the Money in the World

1 Nomination

• Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer (Beginners, The Last Station)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, Plummer, Romain Duris, Charlie Plummer, Timothy Hutton

This film is surprisingly slow, and I am not sure I understand what it is trying to do. I think that's because this movie isn't quite sure what it is trying to do. Is this a meditation on wealth and greed, and perhaps on how being totally greedy keeps one from having real feelings toward family or real relationships with those one supposedly loves? Or is this an action-movie-slash-heist-movie about a kidnapping and rescue. As it turns out, All the Money in the World does both of these things halfway, and doesn't do either of them very well. Michelle Williams spends the whole movie doing a kind of Natalie-Portman-in-Jackie accent that – even if it's accurate – sounds stilted and strange and made me doubt her sincerity. Mark Wahlberg is completely and totally miscast, like a bull in a strange china shop. And then there is the Kevin Spacey–Christopher Plummer debacle (or is it a saga?). Plummer is fine in the part, but the ghost of Kevin Spacey, who was fired while the movie was in post-production, haunts this whole enterprise. It would feel like more of a triumph if the movie were any good, but it's mostly not.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #68 out of 81

Am I in Cryo Sleep or Is This Film Boring?

It's a shame about Alien: Covenant. It has two or three really awesome scenes, but mostly it just doesn't jell. The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that Ridley Scott directed this installment of the Alien franchise (this is #6, right?). The film seems to have been heavily edited and re-molded by producers. It is very clearly a big-studio film that the producers thought was too long or too slow or too confusing. What it is now is not too long, but it is definitely too slow, and it is way more confusing than it needs to be, on top of being so totally predictable that it actually began to bore me.

Honestly, the poster is cool

The trouble is, I think, that the alien that has been the subject of the previous five Alien films has ceased to surprise. These are prequels to the original 1979 film, and Prometheus was about the evolution of the alien, and in this film the alien is a kind of contagion that behaves exactly as we expect it to behave and know that it will behave. There is one really great sequence in which an alien hatches out of Benjamin Rigby's back – it's incredibly cool and the film's best scene – but otherwise the monster is totally predictable.

In fact, the entire film is predictable, from start to finish. The third act is supposed to have two really big surprises. These plot twists are tired, generic reversals that could only fool a viewer who'd never seen one of the other Alien movies. You'll see both "surprises" coming from a mile away.

This leaves the film's relationships as the real interest of the film... except that the film's relationships aren't at all interesting. Covenant skips all exposition about its central characters. There is absolutely none. We begin with the death of the ship's captain and the entire crew weeping for his death. We, of course, cannot share in their grief because we do not know him at all. This is a strange storytelling tactic, and I feel pretty certain that this wasn't the way the film was written. The captain – we find out in a recorded video – was played by James Franco, so presumably his part was larger in some earlier version of Covenant. In addition, there had been early press that Covenant was going to introduce a gay male couple into its storyline. They're there in the movie, but their relationship is completely unclear, as though entire sequences had been excised from the final cut of the movie.

Covenant's best sequence – Mr. Rigby's back

Which isn't to say there is not a long, boring, expository scene because there is one of those – one in which we see Guy Pearce talk to Michael Fassbender, not about things we needed to know for the film to work, but about whether or not there is a god or whether we all need a father or something. I didn't care, and it was a ridiculously static way to begin an action–horror movie.

The alien, as usual for these movies, is totally disgusting, and this film had two or three really gross, cool sequences that I enjoyed, but overall I think the Alien series doesn't seem to have any more surprises up its sleeve. I was bored for most of this movie. In fact, I thought the Alien knockoff Life was more fun than Covenant – and I think the reason for that is that I never really knew what the sociopath alien in Life was going to do. I never really figured that little motherfucker out. With Covenant, I knew all of the moves the alien was going to make. This plot was hatched a long time ago.

Androids Dreaming of Electric Dads

Blade Runner 2049 is a long film. That is probably the first thing you ought to know about it. It clocks in at a totally unnecessary 2 hours 45 minutes. This movie is taking its time doing what it wants to do.

The next thing – and you already know this – is that the film is visually stunning. Its production design, costume design, cinematography, and visual effects are all award-worthy, awesome achievements. It just looks so good. The photography and lighting, honestly, are even better in the movie than you can tell from the trailer. There are sequences that are absolutely visually breathtaking.

And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her and opened her womb. –Genesis 30.22

But Blade Runner 2049 is a self-important, pretentious movie, that expects its audience to do a lot of intellectual labor. It doesn't clearly articulate the ethical questions at the center of its filmic puzzle, either, so that if the characters are thinking through questions of right and wrong, or if they're making bold decisions that contradict their programming or their caste in society, we don't really have much access to the thought processes (or perhaps software processes) that lead to those decisions. In short, the movie doesn't really let us in to the characters. Even if I loved Ryan Gosling's character K, I only rarely felt like I understood the conundrums with which he was struggling. (Robin Wright and Carla Juri's characters are notable exceptions to this.)

More than that, the film's characters are obsessed with, and long for, natural things like wood, water, air, and animal life. But Blade Runner 2049 doesn't make this clear enough, and the audience never shares the characters' wonder at the real. So things that seem wonderful or awesome to these people in 2049 are completely ordinary to the film's viewers. And how could they be anything else? Blade Runner 2049 doesn't spend enough time setting up the world for us; it avoids allowing us into how the characters feel about the slum slash police state in which they live.

The King

There is a famous robot play by Karel Čapek – the man who invented the word robot – called R.U.R. or Rossum's Universal Robots. This is also an overly long story, and it aims at questions similar to Blade Runner 2049: viz. What if robots could reproduce? What might it mean for two androids to have a child? R.U.R. is mostly a problem play, and it spends its time talking us through the various ethical and emotional questions involved in having robots working as slaves (the word robot in fact means slave). In other words, there is much to discuss and therefore much time is needed for the play to do what it wants to do. Blade Runner 2049, by contrast, squanders its time, seemingly extending every sequence by at least 45 seconds so that the camera can drink up more of the gorgeous production design. This makes for a ponderous film that is nearly emotionally empty. (A part of this is due to having Ryan Gosling as the lead. He goes for stoic and silent in these kinds of roles – an obvious heir to Harrison Ford's famous sullenness – but this film needed emotional vulnerability in order to stop itself from being one of Christopher Nolan's soulless adventures.)

But it is visually and aurally stunning, and now that I've laid out all of my problems with the movie, all of the reasons that I know the film is not great, I can't say that I cared very much about any of these objections. I really liked Blade Runner 2049. Do I wish Villeneuve had made a better movie? I do. But I was delighted, astounded, even shocked by this one. Roger Deakins' cinematography feels completely fresh in every sequence. The neon-red-on-one-side-neon-blue-on-the-other-side visual that you can see in seemingly every movie – and about which I have complained before – never happens in Blade Runner 2049 even if it is used on the poster. Instead, Deakins' use of color feels inventive, novel, even revelatory. Now, one might easily object: but in service of what, exactly? and this objection would make sense, but for me these images were actually enough. They evoked plenty of emotion for me as colors and light: It was like staring at a Mark Rothko or a James Turrell or a Doug Wheeler.

So, I guess I can't really recommend Blade Runner 2049. If I really liked it, I know that I liked it for very specific reasons. I expect that for most people, this film's self-importance and pretenses will weigh more heavily against it, and those people are – sigh – probably right.

Oscar Nominees 2016: Part 1 of 11

Every year in the weeks leading up the Academy Awards ceremony, I post my thoughts on all of the nominees, although I exempt myself from the documentaries because I don't really like documentaries all that much. For me that means 47 films this year (3 fewer than last year). I said that 2015 was even stranger than 2014, but it seems to me that the 2016 awards seem somehow even more strange. Many people are complaining that the Oscars are too white (they are – more on this soon). But because my favorite thing about all of this movie hubbub is the surprises, I am still blogging this Oscar season, even though I wasn't a fan of a lot of the movies the Academy loved.

A while ago I did post an elaborate set of reasons for why I still pay attention to the Oscars, I want to amend this in light of a philosophy I developed regarding the foreign language films:

I hear a lot of complaints about which films should have been nominated, which films were passed over and "snubbed", etc. (I myself still plan to complain about Beasts of No Nation and Creed not getting enough nominations.) But here's what I will say: if there are movies that you loved that you are sad didn't get nominated, comfort yourself by reminding yourself that you've already seen those movies! Use the Academy, instead, to draw your attention to movies you haven't seen. For the folks who saw Carol and loved Carol, you already know that you loved Carol. Let the Oscars direct you toward a hidden gem that you haven't seen yet. I've already, for example, been completely surprised by the Animated Feature nominee Boy & the World, which I found absolutely magical, and also by Kenneth Branagh's really charming Cinderella, which I expected to be Disney fluff (it is, but it is charming fluff). Even when the Academy creates a mess, they're still going to point us toward some great movies.

Finally, and I say this every year, but most of the films in my top ten for the year were passed over (White God, Beasts of No Nation, Saint Laurent), but most of them scored a nomination or two (Son of Saul, Mustang, Youth, 45 Years) and two were nominated for Best Picture (The Revenant and Spotlight). In any case, this is a bizarre year, and I am excited for what is going to happen.

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 Revenant

12 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman or the Unexpected Value of Ignorance, Babel)
• Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street, Blood Diamond, The Aviator, What's Eating Gilbert Grape)
• Supporting Actor: Tom Hardy
• Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki (Birdman or the Unexpected Value of Ignorance, Gravity, The Tree of Life, Children of Men, The New World, Sleepy Hollow, A Little Princess)
• Film Editing: Stephen Mirrione (Babel, Traffic)
• Production Design: Jack Fisk (There Will Be Blood) & Hamish Purdy
• Costume Design: Jacqueline West (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Quills)
• Visual Effects
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing
• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Iñárritu

Cast: DiCaprio, Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck, Duane Howard, Arthur Redcloud, Melaw Nakehk'o, Fabrice Adde, Lukas Haas

I loved this movie. I loved it for so many reasons, but primarily for all of its Malickian choices, which make it feel derivative at times, but also such a great tribute to the master. I am surprised at how well the Academy likes this movie, though. It's artistry is certainly front and center, but that doesn't always matter for the voters. In any case, I am delighted that the Academy likes it so well. Huge congratulations, too, are in order for Iñárritu, who has made a story about revenge and some kind of generic triumph of human will into a movie about violence and colonialism and masculinity, and about the thoughtless extermination of American native peoples. The Revenant beautifully brings together strains from many of Iñârritu's earlier films, and he's made a simply gorgeous movie. ...And right now it's looking like it's going to win everything. If he does win director, it will be the first time a director has won twice in a row since Joseph L. Mankiewicz won back-to-back Oscars in 1950 and 1951. I am not really a huge Leo fan, and I don't think he ever really does much in this movie, but I expect him to win. Lubezki also seems poised to win his third Oscar in a row. In many ways this is a big studio creation filled with big contributors, and honoring it means honoring the big studios for the kinds of things they can occasionally churn out. It's hard for me to feel mad about that, though, when I loved the movie as much as I did.

Will Win: Picture, Director, Actor, Cinematography, Film Editing

Could Win: Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Makeup & Hairstyling

My Rating: #8 out of 58

Mad Max: Fury Road

10 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: George Miller
• Cinematography: John Seale (Cold Mountain, The English Patient, Rain Man, Witness)
• Film Editing: Margaret Sixel
• Production Design: Colin Gibson & Lisa Thompson
• Costume Design: Jenny Beavan (The King's Speech, Gosford Park, Anna and the King, Sense and Sensibility, The Remains of the Day, Howards End, Maurice, A Room with a View, The Bostonians)
• Visual Effects
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing
• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Miller

Cast: Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Melissa Jaffer

I was not into this movie, and I continue to be surprised by everyone's absolute love for it. The success of this film should indicate to us all that the popular voice at the Academy is still being heard loud and clear (we saw this last year with American Sniper's popularity with Oscar); fanboy culture is completely mainstream, in case you hadn't noticed. I expect it to win most of the below-the-line stuff here, and I could say that it probably deserves a lot of them, too. The look of the film is unique and very cool. It might be worth noticing, in passing, that although Leonardo DiCaprio is probably going to win an Oscar for an action-hero performance in The Revenant, Charlize Theron's similar action-hero performance in this movie got basically no buzz at all. Not even at the Golden Globes.

Will Win: Production Design, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Makeup & Hairstyling

Could Win: Cinematography, Film Editing
My Rating: #49 out of 58

The Martian

7 Nominations

• Picture
• Actor: Matt Damon (Invictus, Good Will Hunting)
• Adapted Screenplay: Drew Goddard
• Production Design: Arthur Max (American Gangster, Gladiator) & Celia Bobak (The Phantom of the Opera)
• Visual Effects
• Sound Mixing
• Sound Editing

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Benedict Wong, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean, Donald Glover

I've started to dislike this movie more now that it has gotten so many nominations. In truth, it isn't terrible; it's just so annoyingly smug. I would say that its seven nominations seem a bit inflated here, too, but I had singled out The Martian's gorgeous production design in my own review of the movie, and the film really does look very cool technically. As for Matt Damon, we should all be embarrassed that this has happened. He didn't get nominated for The Talented Mr. Ripley or The Bourne Supremacy or even that old Oscar bait nonsense The Legend of Bagger Vance, but we'll throw him a nomination for The Martian?! People be crazy.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #38 out of 58

Spotlight

6 Nominations

• Picture
• Director: Tom McCarthy
• Original Screenplay: Tom McCarthy (Up) & Josh Singer
• Supporting Actor: Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher, The Kids Are All Right)
• Supporting Actress: Rachel McAdams
• Film Editing: Tom McArdle

Director: McCarthy

Cast: Michael Keaton, Ruffalo, McAdams, Brian D'Arcy James, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, Len Cariou

This is my favorite of the Best Picture nominees, and one of my favorite films of the year. It probably shouldn't be, because it is a mostly conventional potboiler that is set in a newsroom, and it's about doing detective work and figuring something out that in fact we all already know about, but I didn't mind one bit. In fact, I just was with it the whole time. It helps that the acting is great and it's about big, big issues about which I care a great deal. At one time this was the frontrunner for Best Picture, and it is still clearly in the big top five, but I think upon reflection Spotlight can start to feel more and more underwhelming next to the larger-than-life grandeur of The Revenant, Mad Max, and The Martian. I think we're looking at one Oscar only.

Will Win: Original Screenplay

Could Win: Picture, Film Editing

My Rating: #5 out of 58

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11.

Bryan Breaks Down The Martian's Golden Globe Win

Bryan: Bigger miscarriage of justice: Steve Avery or The Martian winning best comedy? Ok, maybe that was too soon.
Aaron: Haha. Too soon?? Too flippant, maybe, but I don't mind. Fuck The Martian. But the Golden Globes are so stupid anyway.
Bryan: Seriously.
Aaron: They're just a bunch of starfuckers. Is The Martian even a comedy? Shut the fuck up.
Bryan: But doesn't this mean The Martian basically has to get a Best Picture nod? ... I fear for this nation.
Aaron: No it does not. I mean, it might anyway, but I don't think it's a sure thing at all. This is a very odd year. But The Martian is not showing up a lot with the guilds. I honestly think Sicario has a better shot at Best Picture than The Martian.

Bryan: I'm for The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials over The Martian.
Aaron: Hahaha. I don't think I am. But I would vote for Insurgent over The Martian.
Bryan: I would definitely be for Maze Runner 1 over The Martian; that's not even a question.
Aaron: I love Maze Runner 1. But Maze Runner 2 is kinda dumb. Zombies??
Bryan: Yeah.... but I really wanted to see how those characters developed.
Aaron: Which? Are we still talking about The Maze Runner? This is the longest any two adult males have ever talked about The Maze Runner.
Bryan: True – Did you notice the dude spinning poi in The Maze Runner 1? Festival aesthetics. Just sayin'.
Aaron: Totally. Maze Runner 1 was great. That hybrid-robot-brain thing was the tits.
Bryan: The main dude was really enthralling when he ran too.

Aaron: Seriously. I love a film with running people. This is why I like those Divergent movies too. Just keep running, small children!
Bryan: Watch it again. He's really good at looking back with intensity as shit explodes behind him without breaking stride.
Aaron: Hahaha. I don't believe I'll be watching it again. Anyway, there's a third film on its way: I'll watch that.

Bryan: I did see a play once, and I'd read the play, and the play was stupid. But when they staged it – this stupid existential dialogue – they just had two main characters running around in a circle the whole time... and it was in a group of one-acts that were all existential dialogues. But the fact that they were running really made that one stand out. I see an essay: "The Hustling Body in Performance".
Aaron: THE HUSTLING BODY! I love it. Did you actually see #2?
Bryan: Yeah, haha. I actually watched it last night

Aaron: I think the whole Haha! What you didn't know is: This was a test too! thing is out of control. But I liked Giancarlo Esposito.
Bryan: Oh for sure... he was great. I think they should have been put in another maze in 2 – like in Taken 2, where the premise is literally the same as Taken. Or Hunger Games. 
Aaron: I know! I needed them to be in a new maze too. Instead there was that pseudo-maze sideways-building thing. Which was not a maze.
Bryan: They could have done more with the sideways building. Did they have to pay a royalty to Inception?
Aaron: Haha.
Bryan: At least the art director.

 Run, Dylan O'Brien! Just. Keep. Running.

The Martian

I won't say I disliked Ridley Scott's new film, exactly. I didn't. I rather liked it.

I mean, The Martian is so milquetoast, so contrived, so thematically conservative, so filled with A-listers, so diverse, so generic, so outright plucky, that it would be difficult to dislike it with any real fervor. Instead one feels as though one got exactly what one bargained for. Yes, this is how a big Hollywood movie that takes place in space is supposed to work, this is what is supposed to happen, this is where Twentieth Century Fox's big dollars went, listen to the disco music, sit back, and enjoy yourself. And try to stay awake.

But, as I say, I didn't really dislike it. The Martian is enjoyable enough, and at any given moment during the movie there's usually something fairly cool to look at. The performances, too, are just fine: my favorites were Donald Glover, Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor (always good) and Sean Bean, each of whom looked like he spent time thinking about who his character was before he got started. Michael Peña was good, too.

The problems with The Martian, to my mind, all stem from its self-satisfied quality. The movie is just so sure of itself, so shallow, so obviously doing its Hollywood thing, telling jokes that it just "knows" audiences are going to eat up – "space pirate" and "science the shit out of this" indeed – that its smugness started to wear on me.

For real though: Is anyone watching this movie ever actually concerned as to whether or not Matt Damon will be able to be rescued and returned to Earth safely? The characters in the movie seem occasionally concerned with this, but I couldn't muster any identification with the emotions I was seeing onscreen; Damon's rescue, his success, his total triumph over the implacable, uncaring powers of the universe, seemed a foregone conclusion before his team ever even left him on the red planet. And who can identify with Jessica Chastain's guilt over having left him there when a) we already know he's alright and b) everyone else in the film has already told us that it isn't her fault at all? I just couldn't get into these people with their phony feelings. Are you guys scientists or characters in a nineteenth-century melodrama? (Maybe this was why I liked Benedict Wong and Donald Glover; they play their characters like big giant nerds who don't actually know how to act around regular people.)

I want to say a couple more things that I thought about while watching this movie. Two years ago, when Captain Phillips came out, I got really stuck on all the money that I was seeing up there on the screen. Within the plot of Phillips it is perfectly logical to spend millions of dollars to rescue a single guy who has been kidnapped by pirates. This happens in The Martian, too, and it is a little more justified in The Martian's case, because its main character is actually an employee of the U.S. government and is on an interplanetary mission for that government, but watching NASA expend this enormous amount of effort to rescue this dude (and it really is a completely extraordinary amount of time and money), started to irk me after a while. This annoyance moved into overdrive for me when Damon dismantles a spacecraft in act three and just tosses the very expensive equipment into the Martian dust like so much detritus. This is, of course, a fictional story, but, then again, this is precisely what governments do. Certainly spending all of this money to save this one guy is sentimental and clearly politically advantageous (the film stresses this last point), but I can't help thinking about the lives that don't matter in this world, particularly in the U.S. So, save the martian, by all means, but why this guy? What is it about this guy's life that is so worth saving when there are so many lives we don't value at all, when we in fact spend time passing laws so that their lives are destroyed?

I have one more criticism, and this one, too, is a criticism of the film's politics. During the denouement of The Martian, Damon gives this speech about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, making things work, solving problems, and depending on your ingenuity. Now, I don't completely object to ingenuity or solving problems – in fact anyone who knows me will tell you that my chief priority in life is to make myself smarter and to work at improving myself – but the idea that this Martian did all of this stuff "by himself" is patently absurd. Although the film seems to want to stress that the NASA scientists were a bunch of interlopers, giving Damon bad advice about his potato-growing techniques and only being able to come up with the idea of punching a hole in the roof of his Rover, the movie still makes it quite obvious that this character could not have figured out how to get to the Sciaparelli Crater without talking to the guys at JPL. In fact, the Martian has literally hundreds of people working to help him, and even within this film's individualist narrative, the U.S. team would also never have been able to do what they did without the help of Chinese funds and ingenuity, as well. Even the stuff that Damon figures out on Mars when he is by himself is only possible because the writer has given our protagonist (like the eponymous hero of Robinson Crusoe) everything he needs to be able to survive all of the reversals the writer plans to throw at him. Individualism in this movie is a total myth, a myth that the movie seems to believe in, but not a position that is even remotely tenable.

Finally, let me return to one thing that I noted earlier: this film looks beautiful. In fact, whoever designed Mars for this movie did a spectacular job. I don't think the red planet has ever looked this gorgeous in a movie. The designs are at times deeply moving and occasionally even breathtaking. They top even the best of the images in the other big desert movie of the year, Mad Max: Fury Road.

But this is indicative of the film's chief priorities. The Martian is all about surfaces and not at all about substance. The Martian's tears are, in the end, only as real as his faux-dislike of disco music.