Ivory Tower Musings

Best Films of 2025

2026-02-09T21:23:00.000-08:00

Best Films of 2025

1. Hamnet, directed by Chloe Zhao. I had read Maggie O’Farrell’s tearjerker novel on a plane back from Chicago, so I knew what I was walking into when I saw this film. The book had choked me up, and I was certain that a cinematic version of the closing sequence would devastate me. I was correct but did not know to the extent that I would find myself sobbing at the end of this imagined telling of Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne Hathaway. The central performance of Jessie Buckley is a masterclass of control. This witchy woman who occupies the margins of early modern Avon must constrain herself and rely on only herself. She is then broken apart by the deepest grief a woman can experience, and it is only in the final sequence that we watch her healed by the power of her husband’s words in Hamlet. A staggering achievement that Buckley has achieved here. We can quibble with that coda—no, the “to be or not to be? Soliloquy was not delivered in those first performances by Hamlet sitting at the edge of the stage (what gen z bs is this, I thought), since those seated up top in the gods would not hear what was being said. So much of the performance would have been declamatory and gestural, but we can lose that for the emotional immediacy and the affirmation that the plays of Shakespeare even four hundred years later are still transformative.

2. One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. This film is just a series of inexplicable dopamine hits sent directly to your brain. Leo being funny and unable to come up with his password; Benicio del Toro’s “few small beers”; Teyana Taylor telling a crusty Sean Penn that her “pussy don’t pop for you”; that car chase scene on the hilly terrain. Has everyone certifiably lost their mind in the film? Of course. Did it also feel subversive that we had a movie about revolutionary leftist guerrillas in the year of our lord 2025? Oh, it did; I am convinced that my name now exists on a list of people who saw this opening weekend in blue cities. Anderson will finally win his Oscar—belatedly—but I approve of him winning for this ode to the California ethos as seen through a rather bonkers adaptation of Thomas Pynchon.

3. Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie. The Brothers Safdie have constructed a trilogy of stressful little indie gems: Good Time, Uncut Gems, and now Marty have given us a set of stellar performances from Pattinson, Sandler and Timmy. This film is such a clear elevation of Safdie’s work. The 1980s aesthetic is so strong with this, and not simply because of the synth-heavy score. References abound to Spielberg, Boorman, Scorsese, de Palma, etc. This is such a rich tapestry in the effort to construct a narrative about an almost entirely unsympathetic competitive ping pong player. Timmy walks the line of being compelling and deeply unlikable. Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin O’Leary occupy the screen in perhaps the most bizarre movie marriage of the year, if not the decade. I would have appreciated a couple more scenes for Fran Drescher and Sandra Bernhard, but I will wait for the Criterion director’s cut.

4. Sentimental Value, directed by Joachim Trier. Oh, how I love a moody Scandinavian drama. The unspoken trauma, the rifts between decades-long married partners, the muddled expectations of parents on their children, the barely contained rage are all hallmarks of the works of Bergman, von Trier, Dreyer, and Kaurismäki. Joachim Trier who directed a great “woman on the edge” film with Renate Reinsve in 2020, “The Worst Person in the World,” has delved deeply into Bergman territory here, where a patriarchal director (very Bergmanesque), played by the great Stellan Skarsgård, must convince his daughter to play the lead in his upcoming film. She refuses, so Elle Fanning is cast, much to everyone’s chagrin. The family dynamics are complicated yet laid out in such a clear delineation. There is no room to be confused here. Once again, a satisfying ending brings together several storylines that seemed unrelated at first demonstrate the complicated webs we weave with our families.

5. Heated Rivalry, created by Jacob Tierney. Yes, gay hockey smut can be cinema. Are you a Shane thirsting after a Kip? Are you a Scott who feels trapped in a closet of your making? Or are you an Ilya who just cannot bring your walls down? These are the questions we have all been posing to one another since the beginning of December. We all cried at the end of episode 5, and then we all went to the cottage. It is indicative of how limited the representation is for queer characters that this has caught on so strongly, but the love that straight women have for this demonstrates the need for a myriad of new ways to discuss sexuality across the spectrum, even for those who may not be actively participating in the acts themselves.

6. K-Pop Demon Hunters, directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Applehans. For no truly discernible reason, I put off watching this for months. Even after the song Golden had taken over the Billboard pop charts, and after every one of the children in my life had sadly shaken their heads at me when I informed them that I had sadly not yet watched this, I finally put this on the Netflix a few weeks ago. You know what? I had a great time. A BTS concert tribute movie meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, why, yes, I am into this. The music is some of the best pop music of the year, and the dueling girl group vs the evil demon boy band is an entertaining conceit. Maybe, like all those kids I know, I, too, will watch this a couple dozen times as well.

7. Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley. Denis Johnson’s cerebral novella did not strike me as terribly cinematic, but this adaptation has done a phenomenal job of breaking this story out of the main character’s head. This bleak, desolate story of a lonely man living on the outskirts of civilization is somehow life-affirming, even with one of the darkest final shots in a film in the last decade. Joel Edgerton has been given the chance to portray a multifaceted character that he has rarely been given the chance to construct. This film has probably the finest cinematography of the year, and with its 4:3 aspect ratio, it feels simultaneously claustrophobic, old fashioned, and expansive. It is a real tightrope of a performance by those cameras.

8. No Other Choice, directed by Park Chan-wook. This may not be a masterpiece on the level of Park’s The Handmaiden or Oldboy, but it is one of the finest exegeses of late-stage capitalism we have. Fascinating to call a movie about the failures of capitalism, constantly predicated on the freedom of choice, we are told, ‘no other choice” because, in fact, capitalism denies us choice. Here in this twisty tale of a man who will do absolutely anything to get a job and save face in front of his family. We find a society crumbling under the pressure of keeping up appearances through consumption and the disappearance of labor to robots (sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it?). The film asks a pleading and sorrowful question: how can we even maintain relations with other humans in this environment? The answer, even after an ending that provides a false sense of happiness and hope, seems to be rather negative.

9. Song Sung Blue, directed by Craig Brewer. A movie about a Neil Diamond impersonator sounded patently ridiculous to me. I may be a fan of “Solitary Man” and ‘Forever in Blue Jeans,” but I thought I would have a hard limit on how much of Hugh Jackman with feather bangs I could take. Turns out, I possess no such limit. I cried through the last section of this movie as if I had wandered into another showing of Hamnet. I had never seen the doc upon which this was based, so I had no idea what I was walking into. For some reason, I was deeply touched by this pair of misfits (and a touching performance by Kate Hudson, rightfully nominated for Best Actress), who attempt through strife, trials and obligations to live a life of the arts. As long as they have each other and their music, they will be able to survive. Touching and poignant, even for someone like me with a cold, dead heart.

10. It Was Just an Accident, directed by Jafar Panahi. Manohla Dargis of the New York Times referred to this as a dark comedy that becomes absurdly funny. I did not find this film about Iranians discovering their past prison torturer by mere happenstance to be in any true way funny, but this may be indicative of our current global political moment. Look at what was nominated for best comedy at the Golden Globes: OBAA, Marty, No Other Choice, Bugonia. What happened to those funny films of my youth. The Bridesmaids, the Stepbrothers, the Knocked Ups. Can we have at least one or two of those again. I am sick of calling a dark movie about torture a comedy because I chuckled when the torturer being flung into a bridal trousseau, or a woman hitting an annoying guy over the head with a backpack.

11. Nouvelle Vague, directed by Richard Linklater. Linklater received much more acclaim and attention for his biopic of Richard Rodgers collaborator Lorenz Hart, “Blue Moon,” this year, but Nouvelle Vague is a much finer piece of filmmaking from our most lowkey American auteur. This loving ode to the making of Godard’s “Breathless” does an admirable job of capturing the French zeitgeist as film broke wide open with the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd, i.e. Varda, Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer. Aubry Dullin, cast as the great French heartthrob Jean-Paul Belmondo, looks so eerily like the classic star that I was convinced at some point that generative AI was behind it. A delightful romp about the behind the scenes of one of the greatest films made in the 20^th century. Unlike the stagey and staid Blue Moon, this movie beats with life.

12. Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler. Michael B. Jordan is great in a double part, some of the music is a lot of fun, and the cinematography is beautiful, but I had some real problems with this movie. It feels like two movies smashed together: it starts off with a tale about twin brothers fleeing the Chicago mob and coming back home to the Mississippi Delta, and then vampires show up. Ok. I was also troubled by the racial politics of this. Is this film arguing that any real cross-racial coalition is impossible? I don’t want this to be something argued during Trump 2.0, thank you very much. Also, Hailee Steinfeld as the primary sacrificial victim plays into a set of Jim Crow-era tropes about mulatto women that were not sufficiently subverted or analyzed here not to feel like a simple retread. But, hey, it got me thinking, so that’s something.

13. Warfare, directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza/Friendship, directed by Andrew DeYoung. We have been told for the last year and a half that masculinity is in crisis, as a shocking amount of young men have drifted to the right politically. However, masculinity is always in crisis. It was in the 18^th century, in the 19^th century, after WWII, after 9/11. There is nothing new under the sun. These two films take very different tacks to understanding what it means to be a man. We have a harrowing tale of warfare in Iraq as a battalion is caught in a barrage of violence and they must escape with their wounded brethren. Then we have Tim Robinson striving diligently to be friends with Paul Rudd. These two approaches show not only the variety of masculine performativity, but also the pitfalls of any type of maleness that can lead to abject loneliness or disconnection. These films may seem unlinked but both are asking similar questions of how to define a man today.

14. History of Sound, directed by Oliver Hermanus. This is a combination of Brokeback Mountain and Songcatcher. Two homosexual ethnomusicologists are sent off into New England woods to discover long forgotten Scotch-Irish folk songs. While on the way, they fall in love. Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor yearn over the course of years. Mescal, who has become the great portrayer of longing, shines here as the man carrying a torch for a rather toxic man he fell in love with when he was 22. Many of us can relate.

15. Sorry, Baby, directed by Eva Victor. A delightful film about academia (especially in contradistinction to Luca Guadagnino's bizarre ode to sexual harassment at Yale, "After the Hunt"). It may make some mistakes about the ivory tower and the precarity of adjunct faculty, but the film's central story of a woman seeking to recover from a traumatic encounter and her relations with her friends and her cat is endearing.

16. Bugonia, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. I hated the ending of this movie, but I loved the send-up of Emma Stone as a very Elizabeth Holmes-like healthcare startup CEO. Her meandering speech about how the firm is now 9-5, to encourage her employees' work' life balance, except for those working under deadline, or those who just love their jobs so much, is pure satirical brilliance. I wish I had turned it off before the last fifteen minutes, because I would have finder feelings for the film as a whole.

Best Films of 2024

2025-02-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

Best Films of 2024

1. Perfect Days, dir. Wim Wenders. In 2020, the son of the founder of Fast Retailing (the parent company of Uniqlo), Koji Yanai, funded a series of bathrooms in Tokyo in preparation of the 2020 Olympics, designed by famous Japanese architects, including Shigeru Ban and Tadao Ando. Because of the strict COVID protocols in place in the summer of 2021 that limited the audiences allowed into Japan for the Games, few, if any, saw the bathrooms that Yanai funded. A year later, Yanai provided funding to the Toyo Film Festival, where Wim Wenders was chairing the jury panel, Yanai asked Wenders if he would be interested in making a short documentary about the bathrooms, since so few had seen them during the Games. Wenders toured the 17 bathrooms built in the Shibuya district, and told Yanai that he would not make a documentary, but he was intrigued about making a narrative film imagining the life of the janitor that would clean these bathrooms every day. Sounds like a strange idea for a movie (and Yanai was not convinced that it would work or even be completed), but in crafting a story around a toilet cleaner (played to perfection by the talented character actor Koji Yakusho), Wenders in Perfect Days has helmed an almost perfect movie. Fittingly, the worldwide success of the movie, after premiering to acclaim at Cannes in 2023, has prompted surging interest in Yanai’s toilets.

2. Babygirl, dir. Halina Reijn. Nicole Kidman, in the latest chapter of her rather storied career, has continued to take risky, unorthodox roles. Additionally, she is one of the few actresses who has made it a priority to work with female directors. Because of her star power, her attachment to projects from Susanna Bier, Karyn Kusama, and Jane Campion attracts financing and has helped boost the visibility of these filmmakers. Reijn, a classically trained Dutch stage actress who had previously directed the comedy horror Bodies Bodies Bodies, directs Kidman here as a CEO who entangles herself in a lusty affair with an intern in her company. The film delves into female sexuality, freshly told by and for women here, who feel unable to communicate their needs to their partner and experience ecstasy in increasingly forbidding circumstances. Kidman and the British heartthrob shine in this tale of forbidden love that becomes a morality tale of offending HR policy. The ending may feel anticlimactic, but in true ironic fashion, Nicole finally experiences an orgasm in the contained space of her home. The film reasserts the power of the domestic sphere as the container of female sexuality. Perhaps, retrograde, but it’s worth it for Harris telling her: “I think you want to be told what to do,” as Nicole drinks an entire glass of milk.

3. Conclave, dir. Edward Berger. Who knew that we needed a papal election thriller in the year of our Lord, 2024? A movie that feels like a throwback to the 90s that became one of the greatest meme generators of last year, Conclave provides bitchy, campy fun as the Dean of the College of the Cardinals (in a triumphant performance from Ralph Fiennes) tries to hold the Cardinals together to vote for a new pope. There are reactionary conservative cardinals and liberal ones, and everyone is jockeying for their votes. Isabella Rossellini is the only one who can operate an email or a copy machine, and she provides much of the intrigue and comedy of this film, as she attempts to undermine the electoral desires of some of these Cardinals. There’s a twist at the end, too, which feels earned and on point for a film that, in many ways, feels quite old fashioned.

4. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, dir. Johan Grimonprez. It was established during the Church Committee investigations of 1975 that the CIA had carried out numerous attempts to assassinate the freely elected leader of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Congo, a former colony personally held by King Leopold II of Belgium, was in the midst of a strong push towards decolonization, which proved a destabilizing force to African politics during the heat of the Cold War. Because of Congo’s holding of uranium resources, American and European forces were petrified of the Soviet Union engaging with Lumumba and the Congo. This documentary, a frontrunner for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, narrates the story of Lumumba and Congo from the perspective of Black jazz artists, such as Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Ornette Coleman, who penned songs about Congo or who had traveled to Africa and Eastern Bloc countries, under the auspices of the State Dept or in more nefarious circumstances, the CIA itself, to celebrate race relations in the U.S., mostly to contradict Khruschev, who railed against the perceived hypocrisy of Americans who held a self-righteous moral superiority over the world, when it seemed blatantly apparent that the Americans were mistreating its own citizens of color. The film provides an excellent overview of this history, and with its deployment solely of archival footage and extensive footnotes, it provides anyone interested with a wealth of primary sources they can consult after viewing.

5. Challengers, dir. Luca Guadagnino. This love triangle seems to make explicit Eve Kosofky Sedgwick’s argument in Between Men that the Victorian novel was predicated on a relationship between two men whose simultaneous interest in a demure lady was often masking their own desire for each other. Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor are promising tennis players, who are both enchanted by an even more talented Zendaya, and compete with each other to win her affections. Faist wins her hand in marriage, but then her career falls apart after an injury. She molds her husband to be a champion, but his playing hits a slump, and she manipulates O’Connor to come back into the picture to spur on her husband to his previous capabilities. The sexual politics are intriguing, and the swift editing, and thumping beats of Trent Reznor’s score create one of the great crowd pleasers of this year.

6. The Brutalist, dir. Brady Corbet. Yes, it is too long. And yes, the second half not only fails to resolve much of the first half, it simultaneously overcomplicates the plot even further; but the sheer audacity of this three-and-a-half-hour epic merits a viewing. An Hungarian architect (Adrien Brody, in his second tour de force Holocaust performance of his career) comes to America after surviving the labor camps to rebuild his life and send for his wife. He was trained by Bauhaus and now sets out to make a new architecture for the postwar world using raw concrete (béton brut, the etymological origin of the term Brutalism). Guy Pearce chews up the scenery in a dastardly, mustache-twirling role of Brody’s patron, a role that becomes darker and darker as the film progresses. The film may want to cover every aspect of the postwar world, and it may fail in providing a sense of completion, but Corbet has made a Movie (with a capital M) that demands engagement.

7. The Substance, dir. Coralie Fargeat. Margaret Qualley is borne from Demi Moore’s spine after she drinks a potion she picks up from a locker in the Inland Empire. It is disgusting and gross, but Demi, who has been fired from her fitness show due to the horror of turning 50, has made a Faustian bargain that her newly created ideal younger self will obtain her stolen glory. Unfortunately, no one respects the balance, and her ideal self wrests control of the substance and further degrades Demi’s body in an iconic battle of wits, wills, and bodies. Body horror has now been told through a feminist lens.

8. Dune: Part Two, dir. Denis Villeneuve. The complicated evolution of Paul Atreides is further covered in the second chapter of the Dune movies. With a powerhouse performance from Rebecca Ferguson as his manipulative mother, we see the darkness growing within Paul. Does he see himself as the messiah that he denied throughout the first iteration of this story? Will he force a reckoning with the Empire. Will he become the dictator that Zendaya fears he will become? Dune II seemed to be a frontrunner for awards attention when it was released in February, but faded into the background as the year progressed, and must resign itself to only a handful of nominations, almost entirely in the production categories. Villeneuve will need to helm a final third part to this trilogy that reignites audiences in order for it to receive its due.

9. Wicked, Part 1, dir. Jon Chu. This is the only film in the top ten of the 2024 domestic and international box office that is not a sequel. In a market awash in reboots, sequels, and caped crusaders, we got a blockbuster musical reboot of The Wizard of Oz telling a sympathetic origin story of the much-maligned caped witch. And it has been split into two parts, with Part II scheduled for release next year. So maybe, just like the other nine top-grossing movies, it is a reboot and serialized movie about a caped crusader. However, it sated an unmet need for a blockbuster geared towards women (and gay men) starring a Broadway powerhouse and pop diva (respectively, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande). And although the cinematography is washed out, seeing this film fleshed out from the Broadway production was the screen’s biggest crowd-pleaser of the year.

10. A Real Pain, dir. Jesse Eisenberg. Two cousins travel to Poland to see the house that their grandmother lived in before she was transported to Auschwitz. Hijinks and comedy ensue. Yes, this may sound like the start of a Woody Allen sketch, but Jesse Eisenberg has directed a sentimental and sweet flick about the ways families love each other and drive each other crazy. Kieran Culkin, in a reminiscent fashion to his performance on Succession, is manic and exasperating, but constrained just enough to still be endearing.

11. Anora, dir. Sean Baker. It is a Cinderella fable for the 21^st century, wherein a stripper is picked up by a Russian oligarch’s son to be whisked away to a Vegas chapel to be married, only to discover that his parents are dead set against these nuptials? The film suffers when the son disappears and it is turned into a caper flick, but the star-making turn of Mikey Madison makes up for some of the contrivances in the second half of the film. It also doesn’t hurt that the bodyguard portrayed by Yuri Borisov is true eye candy.

12. The Wild Robot, dir. Chris Sanders. I did not expect this to be the tearjerker of the year. A robot is accidentally dropped into the middle of a forest and becomes the adoptive mother to a gosling. A touching morality tale of the families we choose. The animation is charming and the payoff is forceful.

13. The Bikeriders, dir. Jeff Nichols. This does feel a bit like the motorcycle gang version of Challengers. Once again, a love triangle involving Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer, and Austin Butler erupts across the backdrop of a real-life Midwestern gang called the Vandals. Much of the imagery is based on the photography of Danny Lyon, who chronicled this world in the 1960s. In line with these stills, Butler’s character is filmed in almost golden auras, demonstrating his status as the object of affection in this cinematic world. The currents of desire and violence are intertwined and wrapped around the engines of the motorbikes.

14. Nosferatu, dir. Robert Eggers. Do we need another Dracula movie? A crowded field, there is no doubt, especially with entries from Herzog and Coppola, alongside those black and white classics helmed by Murnau and Browning of the early 20^th century. There are many out there that would tend to agree that we may not have needed Eggers’ version of this story; however, the moody cinematography, tormented performances from Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp, and Nicholas Hoult, and delightful hideousness of Bill Skarsgård (our generation’s Lon Chaney) all working in concert to make explicit the ties of our bloodsucking vampire and female sexuality are delightful reasons to revisit this classic tale.

15. Dahomey, dir. Mati Diop. This innovative documentary follows 26 royal treasures of Dahomey being returned to Benin after being on display at the Parisian Museum of Quai Branly since the looting of a palace in the late nineteenth century. The film follows the artifacts as they return to West Africa and asks what this means for the nation and people of Benin. A fascinating film that ponders the questions now rattling the art world.

16. The Apprentice, dir. Ali Abbasi. The release of this film seems most ill-timed. The film is far too nuanced about Donald Trump to be embraced by either his supporters or by his opponents, and in the lead up to the 2024 election, we were all firmly in one of those two camps. The film, however, posits that Trump became a monster only after his mentorship from Roy Cohn (performed by Jeremy Strong in his usual full-Method way), and such a monster that even Cohn didn’t recognize him after his transformation. Thus, you have a film that begins with a sympathetic portrayal of Trump that transmongrifies itself into a pitiful representation of the death of Roy Cohn. An odd experience to view this of a man who is now taking a wrecking ball to the federal government.

17. Maria, dir. Pablo Larraín, and A Complete Unknown, dir. James Mangold. Two musical biopics, one year. It is a study in contrasts: one is staid portrayal of the final years of the 20^th century’s greatest opera singer, and the other is a dynamic, if constrained, portrayal of one of the great shifts in American popular music when the greatest folksinger went electric. Do Callas and Dylan require this type of attention? They have both become icons, almost untethered from their earthly forms. The films seem intent on not humanizing them but explaining why it is that we have idolized them. As the biopic genre becomes the most reliable vehicle for actors to become Oscar winners, and for studios to engage in prestige filmmaking, these will only be mere episodes in the apotheosis of this sub-genre.

18. Sing Sing, dir. Greg Kwedar. A theater troupe in a prison puts on a mélange of a show that involves vaudeville and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Colman Domingo is surrounded by an actual prison troupe of actors and rises to the occasion. The film is inherently rough around the edges—by design—with a heavy-handed and trite moral of art’s transformative power, but it does pose some real questions of what, if any, purpose is served by mass incarceration.

19. Nickel Boys, dir. RaMell Ross. Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer prizewinning novel told the depressing story of a segregated juvenile delinquent facility in Florida of the 1960s. Two young men are bonded at Nickel, only to have tragedy and despondency visit them. The novel was a fast-paced and almost cinematic tale; RaMell Ross’ film is set on telling this story in an almost operatic style through a forced perspective and TV aspect ratio. It makes the film version more ponderous and sluggish than the original book; however, it tells a devastating story.

20. The Last Showgirl, dir. Gia Coppola. Pam Anderson delivers a nuanced and shaded performance of a Vegas showgirl whose show is closing for a new iteration of Cirque du Soleil. There is a rather tired sub-plot involving a daughter ashamed of her mother’s work, but the film shines when Jamie lee Curtis and Pam are reliving their glittering pasts among the glitz and glamour of old Vegas.

21. Emilia Perez, dir. Jacques Audiard. Is it a bit of a mess? Yes. Does it contain a musical number that contains the immortal line: “From penis to vagina? From man to woman?” Yes. Does Selena Gomez deploy some truly broken Spanish? Certainly. Have many objected to both the representation of the trans characters and to the portrayal of cartel violence in Mexico? Umm, most vocally have critics decried this. Has Karla Sofia Gascon become a bit of a pariah for a set of misguided, racist tweets? Also, yes. Do I still think it’s worth watching on the Netflix? Yeah, sure.

The Best Films of 2023

2024-01-23T22:14:00.000-08:00

The Best Films of 2023

With two high-powered guild strikes this year, it seemed that the cinema of 2023 would be limited. Much anticipated projects, such as the sequel to Dune and a tennis menage-a-trois with Zendaya, were delayed until 2025. Without stars able to promote movies, would anyone show up to see anything over the summer? While some films did suffer this fate, Hollywood was saved by two sophisticated flicks about a nuclear physicist and a 60-year-old doll. Sequels and Marvel installments struggled at the box office, but other original films succeeded beyond expectations. In fact, Miyazaki's latest film has made more at the American box office than every other film he has ever made. The tales of cinema's demise seem greatly exaggerated, especially when we have such greater access through streaming to the magnificent cinema outside of the States. If only we could convince Hollywood to provide us with original and fresh stories, rather than remakes, retreads, and sequels. Maybe that's the task we set ourselves in 2024.

1. Anatomy of a Fall. Dir. Justine Triet. Can a courtroom drama be innovative and fresh? After 20 seasons of Law and Order: SVU, can this seeming moribund genre be revived. In fact, yes, it can. Triet's fascinating film is exceedingly well structured, almost classically so: a virtually blind child discovers that his father is dead on the frozen ground, having fallen from an upper story of the house. Did he fall, kill himself, or was he murdered? And if he was murdered, was it his German wife, a respected novelist? It could not be anyone else, since their chalet is secluded on a hilltop. The trial proceeds to deconstruct the relationship and its petty jealousies and traumatizing tragedies. The court scenes display a French legal culture far removed from what we are used to on Law and Order. The defendant will interrupt testimony. Lawyers will talk over each other, and Americans will shout at the screen: "Objection, your honor, badgering the witness" to no avail! This window is doubly compelling for the way language serves as a framing device. The wife is not comfortable defending herself in French, so she will shift to English. The languages reveal aspects of her personality as she tries to claim her innocence and maintain her son's trust in her. Even after watching this twice, I cannot assert confidently who did what to whom, but I have not stopped thinking about this complex portrait of a marriage torn asunder behind closed doors.

2. All of Us Strangers. Dir. Andrew Haigh. Perhaps, I should have read a synopsis of this before going off to see it. I thought it was a little gay drama where I could watch Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal make out. That was enough for me to sign up; however, that was only one small piece of this film. Instead, a gay screenwriter, while toying with a project based around his parents who died when he was 12, somehow conjures them back to life and tell them all that has happened in his life since their demise. It is devastating. It is overwrought and melodramatic, but deeply effective for audiences. It is structured as a piece of catharsis and the flood of tears—that could be heard emanating from numerous members of the audience with whom I sat—provides an emotional release that I have only rarely experienced in cinemas.

3. The Zone of Interest. Dir. Jonathan Glazer. In the 1990s, partly thanks to Spielberg's Schindler's List, a genre of Holocaust films emerged that attempted to portray the heinous acts of the Holocaust. But what film of the Shoah is possible ethically and how does one represent those events? Glazer in his portrayal of the Hoess family, who lived next to Auschwitz as he managed the logistics of the camp for much of the war, refuses to stage any acts of violence. Rather, he portrays the mundane life of the camp manager, as he orders supplies and casually orders the highest-powered crematoria he can find, while his wife tries on pilfered fur coats and serves coffee to guests. Screams, gunshots, and the constant rising of black smoke are seen in the background, but not once do we see the grotesque things occurring behind the wall. The film argues that we can all desensitize ourselves to even the most cruel behavior in order to achieve material comforts. It is a disheartening and shocking movie.

4. Oppenheimer. Dir. Christopher Nolan. If someone were to say to me that a three-hour biopic about a nuclear physicist would gross $950 million worldwide, I would have stared blankly. Impossible, I would say, but Nolan pulled it off. This morality tale of a peace-loving leftist creating the most powerful weapon known to man at the time struck a nerve with audiences who had grown bored with the Marvel Universe and the series of sequels that have bombarded us since the pandemic. Cillian Murphy proved that he was not simply a character actor with cheekbones that could cut glass and an Irish accent that could melt hearts, but that he is a true leading man and one of our finest screen actors. The event of Barbenheimer weekend proved that audiences do crave movies, but movies of substance and style. There need to be films of impact and import to pull us off our couches from the never-ending streams of contents on our home screens, and this film with an ensemble of sophisticated performers telling a story of history and ethics did just that.

5. Past Lives. Dir. Celine Song. Do we all carry torches for those first loves from our early lives? And if we were given the opportunity to talk to those past loves, what would we say? Celine Song's heartbreaking meditation on the lives we could have led posits that this contemplation can lead to an emotional crisis. Anchored by the quietly powerful performances of Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, Past Lives examines how two souls separated by time and place bear a connection that can no longer be sustained when they reunite twenty years after being teenaged sweethearts. A character-driven independent like this is usually reliant upon strong writing and acting, but the cinematography here is striking and gorgeous. The attention to the camera solidifies the emotional journey through physicality. One of the real gems of the year.

6. Barbie. Dir. Greta Gerwig. Is it a feminist treatise or an ode to a 60-year-old corporate product? Barbie's staunchest supporters and fiercest critics may claim the film does much more than it actually does, but this piece of fluffy pink cotton candy did have substance behind it and created a Barbie-centric world that clashes fundamentally with humanity. Patriarchy may be inescapable, but Barbie never experienced it in her doll house or corvette. A movie that could have been an incoherent parade of costumes and accessories, instead insisted on having a point of view on gendered relations. And last summer we all learned that we are Kenough.

7. American Fiction. Dir. Cord Jefferson. The experimental fiction of Percival Everett would not seem terribly well suited to cinematic adaptation. His novels are weird, meta, and self-referential, but Cord Jefferson crafted a charming comedy of manners (and errors) from his novel Erasure. Centered on a Percival-like novelist, played to a tee by Jeffrey Wright, navigates his crumbling family situation as he seeks a publisher for a weighty and bloated novel that even his agent thinks will never see the light of day. After attending a reading of the publishing sensation of the year, a gritty ghetto drama that exploits the worst of white fears and desires about the Black community, our hero writes his own satire of this stereotype, only to discover that his joke becomes the celebrated novel of the year. This deeply funny account of the ways our personal and professional narratives intersect with society's expectations of our disparate identity groups exposes how intricately tied our desires are to our context.

8. The Holdovers. Dir. Alexander Payne. This anti-Dead Poets Society is focused on an uncharismatic classics teacher and his unsympathetic students. There are no rousing speeches of "O Captain, my Captain." Our story begins with Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa locked in a battle of wills during winter recess when they are trapped on their campus together alone, save for the kindly cafeteria lady, who is suffering her own lonely Christmas season. These three share an unlikely familiarity and grow into an unsteady friendship. It is a charming fable, and these deeply unsympathetic characters turn out to be some of our must charming spiritual avatars of the year.

9. Saltburn. Dir. Emerald Fennell. While Emerald Fennell's latest does not hit cinematic highs of her previous Oscar winner, Promising Young Woman, Saltburn delights as this year's most bonkers and incoherent piece of filmmaking. It doesn't make a lot sense, and it is deeply cynical about social relations, but through a gorgeous cast of characters brimming with unintentional wit and some of the weirdest kinks, this movie constructs an undeniably compelling study of the rich and their foibles.

10. May December. Dir. Todd Haynes. This one may hit a little too close to home for much of Hollywood. Perhaps the reason it fared poorly in much of the industry awards. A television actress with little talent visits the home of a couple who faced the scandal of an illegal love affair where a woman with a teenage lover gives birth to her paramour's child in prison (à la Mary Kay LeTourneau). This middling actress exploits the family to deepen her characterization for her low-budget TV movie. Once again, we have Natalie Portman brilliantly playing a terrible actress, as she did previously in Black Swan and Vox Lux. The glue of the film, however, is the brilliant Charles Melton, who himself had been toiling in streaming purgatory in Riverdale, as the now middle-aged husband who plays into the clutches of this C-level celeb. It is a rather searing comment on how our biopic-industrial complex exploits lived experience for entertainment.

11. Dream Scenario. Dir. Kristofer Borgli. I loathe Nicolas Cage with a deep, abiding passion. I have hated him since the early 2000s when he continued to make trifles that belied the serious talent that he possessed. The trifles turned from inoffensive treats like Con Air and the Rock into bloated and dumb projects about ghost-riding motorcycles, snuff films, and stolen copies of the Declaration of Independence. Dream Scenario seemed to continue into this illustrious company. Oh god, I thought to myself, as I was subjected to the trailer for this films several times in the fall, here we go again with a dumb Cage conceit that he appears in everyone's dreams. That would certainly be a nightmare for me. However, I must eat my hat and confess how much I enjoyed this searing take on academia, cancel culture and social media. A struggling academic biologist discovers that everyone is dreaming about him; he goes viral but then flies too close to the sun to come crashing back to Earth when the dreams become literal nightmares and he is swiftly canceled. It's a delightful little allegory.

12. Maestro. Dir. Bradley Cooper. Bradley takes himself very seriously and has followed up the colossal success of 2017's Star is Born with a serious piece of cinema, a biography of legendary composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein. There are some real flashes of brilliance in this portrayal: the scene where he conducts Mahler's Resurrection symphony in Ely Cathedral on Easter Sunday, the luminous Carey Mulligan as Lenny's long-suffering wife Felicia, and the searing fight scene that takes place as Macy's Snoopy float lumbers in the windows of their conjugal bedroom. Unfortunately, the film suffers from an episodic quality that cannot quite capture all of Bernstein's work, successes, and failures. Nor has Bradley crafted a performance that has much of an arc: he is Lenny the witty raconteur and musical prodigy in scene one and a slightly more weathered (and sweaty) version at film's end. Carey provides virtually all of the emotional heft of the film, and she is glorious, but it is frankly impossible to capture all that was Lenny in a film like this.

13. Killers of the Flower Moon. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Scorsese has not shot any film that he doesn't cherish. His films are growing increasingly longer in this act of his storied career. Here he has fashioned a historical crime epic, not unlike Goodfellas or the Irishman, and his posse of actors returns again. The film charts the real-life murders of the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma as they became the richest per capita group in the nation when oil was discovered on their reservation lands. With this wealth circulating, a deep conspiracy to murder the Osage and steal their oil-rich lands. Shockingly, several of the perpetrators of the killings were Osage women's white husbands. Scorsese treats this material with a deft hand, and even though it does not need to be three and a half hours long, the film is a fascinating rendition of these chilling events.

14. Passages. Dir. Ira Sachs. Oh, what tangled webs we weave. A German filmmaker abandons his gay husband for a woman he meets on a dance floor at the wrap party for his latest art house piece. When he moves in with his inamorata, he discovers that this new affair isn't all that it's cracked up to be. He then follows the stages of grief as he bargains with his ex, proposes a throttle, and simply blows up his life beyond recognition. Everyone moves on, except for him. It;s an exhausting tale, but one with a very satisfying quality.

15. Beef. Dir. Lee Sung Jin. This year's most intense story was about a road rage incident parlaying itself into a deep feud that transmogrifies into a codependent standoff. Our two road ragers may inhabit very different social positions, but they are bonded through hatred and come to an uneasy understanding of each other, even if the violence becomes more baroque as the limited series progresses. The bloodbath culminates in an operatic ending where the blood bathes the screen and few are left standing.

16. Napoleon. Dir. Ridley Scott. Is it historically accurate? Is it particularly good? Is Jaoquin Phoenix well cast? To all of those questions, I would have to answer no. It opens with the execution of Marie Antoinette, which is poorly staged. Napoleon is standing there watching; he was not there. She looks as if she has just come out of the Petit Trianon, even though we have famous contemporary drawings from David as to what she looked like. They can't even manage to stage the guillotine correctly. And this is the opening shot of a two-and-a-half-hour-long movie. My biggest problem with the film is that it is focused simultaneously on his political rise and his relationship to Josephine de Beauharnais, and manages to pay short shrift to both. I fear that most people after finishing this movie would wonder, "how did this Napoleon guy conquer most of Europe? He seems kind of dumb." I uttered a loud guffaw when in one scene and aide-de-camp tells Napoleon that he must leave the arms of Josephine to return to the battlefront. Joaquin quite petulantly slams his fist into a pillow and shouts: "I hate war. I am a man of peace." What is this interpretation? As Europe and America are gripped by fears of authoritarianism and strong men, Scott had an opportunity to stage this biopic as a treatise and warning to what could happen, but instead we have this withering account of a man that comes off as punch-drunk for a woman above his station and not seemingly competent. A missed opportunity.

17. Rustin. Dir. George C. Wolfe. Colman Domingo does his fiery best to bring to life the legendary civil rights leader, who remained in the shadows out of fear that his homosexuality would reflect poorly on Martin Luther King and his circle. Wolfe's directing, however, provides a relatively lifeless account of a key figure in the March on Washington and a key interlocutor of MLK. Wolfe is a talented director and has brought to vivid life numerous landmark plays on the stage; however, he has never broken through adequately to the visual aspects of the medium. His films, including Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and the execrable Nights in Rodanthe, always feel as if a camera has been placed in a stage rehearsal. They feel staid and uninspired, and, sadly, Rustin is no different with its stated reverence for its character, stifling him and making him feel lifeless.

18. Air. Dir. Ben Affleck. This was the year of the commodity biopic: Barbie, the Flamin' Hot Cheetos movie. Blackberry, Tetris. A set of films interested in the origin stories of these products. What would Marx have said about these? Are they simply the latest version of commodity fetishism? These films portray the products as inspired creations by individuals overcoming the adversity of capitalism, in order to achieve monetary gain and fame through partaking in the system. All these films, including Affleck's film about Nike's relationship with Michael Jordan, limit the portrayal of the way these corporations work, and erase the aspects of its creation that may be odious (unfair legal contracts, outsourced sources of labor, manufacturing woes, etc.), thereby achieving the fetish in a digital age. The actual capitalist origins of the product are erased to fashion a timeworn story of individualist triumph, in line with an earlier generation's films about scientists, such as Madame Curie, Louis Pasteur, and Alexander Graham Bell. A bizarre phenomenon of 2023.

19. Priscilla. Dir. Sofia Coppola. When the most famous man in the world trains his eye on a 16-year-old girl, can she ever withstand the charisma, the fame, and the power of such a man? Coppola's film argues that it would be impossible. Not only does Elvis Presley represent a viable escape for a teenage girl living with her parents on a military base in Germany, lonely and homesick for the States, but he represents the male libido personified for a girl coming into her sexual awakening. The most desired man in America desires her. It's an intoxicating cocktail too strong to resist. Sadly, the second half of the film shifts from this fascinating negotiation of sexuality that blossoms and withers under the glaring light of celebrity to what feels like a retread of Baz Luhrman's year old Elvis biopic.

20. Jury Duty. A man reports to jury duty and finds himself in a circus. His fellow jurors include a man who invents things that no one wants or needs (such as chair pants made out of crutches and attached to his pants) and James Marsden. Over the course of a week of a trial involving the vandalism by an employee of his employer's warehouse, our Everyman navigates the colorful characters of the trial and helps exonerate the defendant whose own attorney seems to assume his guilt. It is the feel-good show of the year, and demonstrates that reality tv can still surprise and even find some endearing individuals out there.

21. Poor Things. dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. Poor Things narrates what happened to Barbie after she left her gynecologist. Although it has created a bizarre and fascinating world of human experimentation and flying vehicles in a fin-de-siecle environment, the film with a too heavy hand crafts the figure of Bella Baxter as the vessel of male fantasies and the voice of female reason and agency. Her subjectivity is crafter through her, but her agency never feels to be an object created by her. And maybe that is the point, we are all socially constructed, but the male characters do not appear to have the same influence of their surroundings. Emma Stone has brought to the screen the skits that worked so well on SNL, but it is not as successful in this venue.

THE TOP FILMS OF 2022

2023-02-21T15:56:00.003-08:00

The 95th annual Academy Awards are upon us, and we have seen the movie industry struggle to re-emerge from the pandemic. Although several films have performed admirably at the box office (notably "Top Gun 2" and "Avatar 2"), several obituaries have been written for the mid-range, character-driven films that had been the bread and butter of the Oscars. When one needs only to wait a handful of weeks for a film to appear on HBOMax, Netflix, or Hulu, where we can watch it on our 65-inch or 85-inch television, why even bother with going to a movie theater, especially when the ticket prices are now hovering around $18? But what does this mean for the state of cinema, if the movie theater becomes solely the abode of Marvel movies and other effects-driven pieces? This has driven more of the fare that we have come to accept as "Oscar-worthy cinema" to streaming platforms, but Academy rules still state that films to be eligible must have a one-week theatrical run, and if the film is episodic, it is immediately disqualified from contention. All in all, this has led to a year of films that feels down-right like slim Pickens. Even high-profile productions, like Tár and Banshees of Inisherin, have grossed less than $15 million at the box office and surprise Best Actress nominee Andrea Riseborough appears in a film that made $27,000 (yes, less than a car in this current economy).

There are no certain answers, but the way that we engage with film is changing. This may require the Oscars to adapt in dramatic fashion, but an institution such as the Academy may not be able to change fast enough.

1. TÁR (dir. Todd Field). Not since Margo Channing have we received such an iconic portrayal of an artist that is intersected with persuasive portrayals of a woman's place in the arts, sexuality, a touch of the Gothic, and a dash of camp. Lydia Tár may not be the actual conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, but we engage on such a deep level with her artistry, that this film feels like a sophisticated biopic, much more incisive than Bohemian Rhapsody or Baz Luhrman's Elvis. Cate Blanchett occupies Lydia with the fierceness we expect from one of the greatest actresses of her generation. She is a consummate technician, but the performance is rooted in a shaded compassion that forces us to wonder whether Tár is culpable of unspeakable acts, or even question whether she is fully sane. Few films can skewer the world of classical music with such a rapier wit. And just as Marvel movies assume their audience's deep knowledge of the universe of the Avengers, Field expects his viewers to know their Mahler, Bach, and Michael Tilson Thomas. He seems to taunt us when he refuses to explain jokes. And Cate conspires with him in what may be one of the greatest performances of her life.

2. Everything Everywhere All at Once (dir. The Daniels). Initially, I had been hesitant to see this film. Yet another multiverse movie that opened on the heels of a Marvel Spiderman movie that had all the past Spidermen actors meet in some parallel universe, and opening shortly before Dr. Strange had to control these multiverses from exploding. Did I need to see yet another movie with colliding versions of characters spread across the fabric of space and time? Reader, I was wrong. "Everything Everywhere All at Once" is this year's most compelling, heart tugging family drama of the year. Evelyn Wang's life is a constant struggle to keep her head above water with her flailing laundromat. She and her daughter are constantly bickering, and she appears deeply unsatisfied with her meek but loyal husband. As she is audited by a supercilious IRS agent, Evelyn questions whether there is a world where her life has a more appealing sheen. An evil avatar of her daughter is seeking her mother in an attempt to end the hurt feelings. We then are launched on a journey to explore all the universes where these characters intersect. The film never loses its pace or its place within this multiverse, and everything everywhere is held together by Michelle Yeoh, in a part that finally gives her the ability to portray a complex, shaded character. She turned herself into a superstar in this one performance that was originally written for Jackie Chan. It doesn't hurt that her supporting cast consists of Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis, all of whom, including Yeoh, received Oscar nominations for their performances. It is a film that provides a sentimental family drama in a truly innovative framing.

3. Triangle of Sadness (dir. Ruben Östlund). This artsy European film was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival last May. It is a deeply cynical, but hilarious, look at the world's superrich. Weapons manufacturers rub shoulders with Russian oligarchs and social media influencers on a yacht embarking on a rather troubled journey, with a drunken Woody Harrelson at its helm. After a harrowing, and rather disgusting, voyage, the ship capsizes. It is in the third act of the film when the drama truly begins and is held together by the performance of Dolly De Leon, playing a "toilet manager" on the yacht, who becomes captain of the rich survivors because only she can forage, fish, and keep them alive on this deserted isle. It brilliantly exposes the vapidness of the rich and demonstrates the class politics undergirding the global economy.

4. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (Dir. Dean Fleischer Camp). The most touching film of the year was a stop-motion animated feature about a talking mollusk. Marcel the Shell has been separated from the entirety of his family, save for his grandmother (voiced by Isabella Rossellini). He must embark on a quest to find them and he enlists the man living in his airbnb and legendary 60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl. Following the spunky crustacean on his journey, we are led through a bevy of emotions, and tears are consistently. This is a moving meditation on the meaning of family.

5. Three Thousand Years of Longing (dir. George Miller). An academic literary critic, self-identified as a "narratologist," travels to Istanbul for a conference. While in a souk, she purchases a glass vial that she discovers contains a djinn. This djinn has millennia worth of stories of his attempts to gain his freedom from containment in a bottle, but every valiant effort is thwarted through the centuries, whether it is with the Queen of Sheba or the Ottoman Turks. A fantastical story told by Miller, with illuminating performances charged with chemistry from Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, it bristles with insights about love and life. This allegory is meditation on how we search for meaning in life and we craft our identities through the stories we tell. Although this film did not engender the same breathless embodiment of the zeitgeist that Miller's previous film, Mad Max: Fury Road, may have, but this smaller film is somehow weightier and more ambitious.

6. Women Talking (dir. Sarah Polley). Sarah Polley's "Women Talking" seems to posit Spivak's immortal question, "Can the subaltern speak?' The film follows the aftermath of a closed cult-like religious community that has been roiled by the realization that many women and young girls of the community have been sexually molested by male members of the congregation. The movie focuses on the discussion these women have as the men bail out the accused, and they ponder their place in a community that has refused to educate them, or even accord them the dignity of personhood. Unlike the similarly titled "She Said," Polley's film trades in a nimble and complex narrative formula. This is a film that will have a long afterlife, and I assume that it will be adapted as a stage play in the coming years.

7. All Quiet on the Western Front (dir. Edward Berger). When a classic is remade, one must always ask if such a re-examination is warranted or necessary. The 1929 adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's blockbuster novel has become a cinematic classic, not just for its sensitive pacifist politics, but for some of the technical mastery of its sequences. The final shot of a hand reaching out for a butterfly that has alit in the trenches is a heartbreaking summation of the novel. Edward Berger's reimagining of the novel (which is a bit more faithful than Lewis Milestone's version, but still diverges from the text in numerous instances) has provided us with a war movie replete with the technical visual effects and explosions required of a war film today, but with an eye that simultaneously holds the macro view of our once-enthusiastic protagonist with the macro view of the negotiations to create peace that is effected by the German and French governments (and hindered by von Hindenburg). This allows the film to comment on the numerous levels of which a war is experienced, and leads its viewers to query: to what end is all of this destruction?

8. Living (dir. Oliver Hermanus) When I learned a remake of Kurosawa's breathtaking "Ikiru" was being filmed, I was dubious. Why try to recreate the magic of what is a beautiful existential meditation on the meaning of life? When I learned Nobel laureate Kazoo Ishiguro was adapting the screenplay, an adaptation, in turn, of Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich, I was intrigued. In this tale of a lonely bureaucrat who experiences the gamut of experience as he faces down death, Bill Nighy gives a finely shaded performance, and he rightly received his first Oscar nomination for this film. There may be more sentiment to this than Kurosawa's original, but the sentiment is so well placed and gives a beautiful view of London in the postwar years.

9. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (dir. Sophie Hyde). A sex comedy that is aimed at an adult audience? How refreshing! Emma Thompson is a recently widowed Briton who has decided that she wants to explore her sexuality by ordering a sex worker, played by the objectively gorgeous Daryl McCormack, to meet her at a hotel. She reveals that she has never experienced an orgasm and has (and has had) a fraught relationship with her own sexuality. The series of meetings between these two transform into deep conversations about the meaning of sex and its relationship with one's identity, and how damaging a refusal to attend to one's desires can be for an individual, their family, and society. The ending may be a bit glib and offer a vision of a society where everyone suddenly experiences their body, but seeing Thompson and McCormack play off each other is a welcome exercise in the deepening of our own relationship with our own bodies.

10. White Lotus, Season 2 (Dir. Mike White). Who would have thought that a satire of the ultra-rich on vacation in Sicily would become the show that made everyone tune into television at the same time on Sunday nights. We rushed home from dinner to see what would happen to Jennifer Coolidge ("These gays are trying to murder me!") before Twitter could spoil it for us. We reacted alongside Aubrey Plaza as she sneered at her vacation companions, and wondered how dumb Albie was to fall for a hooker who haunted the hotel bar. This is the Love Boat for the millennial generation, and it is the best that we can expect.

11. Emily the Criminal (dir. John Patton Ford). Aubrey Plaza had quite the year. After emerging in pop consciousness as the snarky civil servant of Pawnee, Indiana's Parks and Rec department, she appeared in numerous supporting turns as a snarky friend (and an excellent leading turn in "Ingrid Goes West"). But this year, she earned her dramatic acting chops both with White Lotus and Emily the Criminal, wherein she plays a woman down on her luck. She is drowning in student debt, which is doubly worse because she was never able to complete her degree after a felony conviction kept her from her studies. The conviction and the debt conspire to keep her from finding a job or keeping her head above water, so what is she forced to do? Commit crime. Petty thievery turns into run-ins with organized crime and even murder. It is a harrowing story, but Aubrey keeps you with her until the last frame. And once she goes bad, she may never return to a life of upholding the law.

12. X and Pearl (Dir. Ti West). It is fitting that a woman named Mia Goth gave us the spookiest set of horror protagonist/antagonist of the year. X which premiered first follows a rag-tag team of porn filmmakers to a ranch to shoot their latest extravaganza. Unfortunately, this farm house is occupied by two elderly pensioners who seem to have perverted designs on their guests. The film is high camp and involves the horror at a crone's sexuality (akin to this year's Barbarian, as well) and a man-eating crocodile. It is silly and serious all at once. In the film's prequel, we learn of the journey that brought Pearl to feel such dissonance with her society. We see her in 1918, as her husband is off at war in France, and she suffers under the thumb of her controlling mother. The film seems to eschew any desire at historical exactitude (films of 1918 did not look like the musicals shown in this film), but we are given a more than five-minute monologue by Pearl as she lays out her plea to be heard. It is a devastating speech and its incoherence demonstrates that she will never escape her demons.

13. Matilda: The Musical (dir. Matthew Warchus). There is nothing more frustrating than a film adaptation of a musical that feels static and is nothing more than a film of a stage performance. When Matthew Warchus, the director of the West End and Broadway renditions of this show, was announced as the film's helmer, I thought this would be a serviceable but unimaginative version of Roald Dahl's classic, paranormally gifted child character; however, I was very wrong. The film breaks open the staginess and provides each character an arc that feels more realized than what happened on stage. The filming of "Revolting Children" is a master class in how to stage the 11 o'clock number of a hit musical. And it gave us Emma Thompson as a cruel headmistress. Who can ask for more?

14. Spoiler Alert and Fire Island. Although the Judd Apatow produced Bros was supposed to be the big screen gay romcom we all wanted, the film flopped with a thud. Who was this film for--the straights or the gays? The answer was no one liked it. In the lead-up to its release, its star and writer Billy Eichner kept speaking as if he had thrown the first brick at Stonewall, and even dismissed "Fire Island" because it was on Hulu and wasn't a studio film released to theaters. However, Fire Island, a gay adaptation of Pride and Prejudice set at the gay vacation destination, had more heart than Bros. Additionally, 'Spoiler Alert," the type of old-school, three hankie weepie that is no longer made, gave us a gay Terms of Endearment, even though it made virtually nothing at the box office. Maybe skip Bros, and see one of these instead.

15. Elvis (dir. Baz Luhrmann). Is it bombastic, over the top? Yes, most certainly. Does it take a rather white-kid glove approach to the life of America's first true rock superstar? Yes, there are only slight references to Ann-Margaret, and the true depths of his addictions and struggles are only casually portrayed. But is it one heckuva a ride? Also, yes. Austin Butler has made a star-making turn simply because he is able to occupy and portray some of the charisma of one of our greatest entertainers. Many have quibbled with directorial choices and the presence of Tom Hanks in a fat suit with an undecipherable accent, but if this film accomplishes anything it is spurring you on to come home and watch the 1968 comeback special on Youtube, or find an old vinyl of Blue Suede Shoes. In that, if nothing else, it is a success.

16. The Woman King (dir. Gina Price-Bythewood). Although the film is not terribly historically accurate, "The Woman King" gives us one of our first studio productions of West African history. It follows the real-life female warriors of the real life Kingdom of Dahomey, as they battle rival states in the seventeenth century, the same moment when Europeans, led by the Portuguese, are interacting with these regional leaders in order to accrue the individuals needed to quench the insatiable need of slavers in the new world. The film argues that Dahomey saw itself as a state that refused to engage in the slave trade. That is false, but perhaps I should not hold this film to a higher standard of historical accuracy than Braveheart or Gladiator, which both have some real doozies in their scripts (Commodus did not murder his father Marcus Aurelius). The film allows Viola Davis to give a strong performance as a woman warrior with moral conviction, and she occupies a place that is rare in historical pieces like this: a woman with a mind and little deference to the men around her.

17. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (dir. Anthony Fabian). I will always have a fondness for a 1990s TV movie of Paul Gallico's novel that starred Angela Lansbury, Diana Rigg, and Omar Sharif, but a big-screen adaptation with Lesley Manville and Isabelle Huppert will do just as well. Mrs. 'Arris has saved her pennies and can afford to buy a Dior gown in post-war London. She encounters a lot of obstacles to getting her dress, but once she has donned her couture creation, she has transformed the lives of everyone she has come in contact with. Just a charmer of a picture.

18. Babylon (dir. Damien Chazelle). What a mess of a movie. I mean a mess. The dialogue is almost uniformly atrocious. And I think Jean Smart was actually bad--was that supposed to be her accent? The first time I saw this three-hour epic, I wasn't even sure what the point was. We already had a classic movie about the transition from silents to talkies in Hollywood, and the last scene of the movie has our protagonist watching 'Singin' in the Rain', inexplicably. On the second viewing, it seems that Chazelle is making a point about how every technological leap forward in cinema, whether its towards sound, color, or digital processing, will destroy whole swathes of the industry, but those left in the wake of this immolation are afforded one lasting reward: immortality on the screen. Even with the absolute mess that this movie is, I can say I was never once bored. It may have angered, perplexed, and even disgusted me, but Babylon was somehow always interesting.

19. Pinocchio (dir. Guillermo del Toro). The stop-motion animation of Guillermo del Toro's latest is simply stunning. A featurette on Netflix is available, and I insist you watch that; it demonstrates the absolute endless work needed to create even the shortest sequence in the film. I am still unsure as to whether we needed an adaptation of Pinocchio that is framed as an allegory of fascism (which was clearly not a part of Collodi's book from 1881), but the artistry and technical dazzlement seen in this film is well worth the watch.

20. Aftersun (dir. Charlotte Wells). A.O. Scott of the New York Times stated that Charlotte Wells is "very nearly reinventing the language of film." If that sounds like utter hyperbole to you, I agree. This intimate story of an estranged father and daughter on holiday in Turkey is affecting because of the power and charm of its two leads, Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio. Although I do not see this film reinventing the language of cinema (it is a series of flashbacks, how is this innovative?), Aftersun does demonstrate that Wells will be a serious auteur in the coming years.

21. The Batman (dir. Matt Reeves). I was the first to ask whether we needed another Batman flick. And was Robert Pattinson the right choice to succeed Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, or even Ben Affleck? I wasn't sure about that either. After another three-hour commitment, I came away from a film that stresses the vigilante nature of Bruce Wayne, which holds even more weight after the insurrection at the Capitol. And we have a quirky and independent Catwoman, played by Zoe Kravitz. It's a light entertainment, with some serious themes.

22. The Northman (dir. Robert Eggers). Eggers has such a keen eye for framing a shot and an attuned ear for creating an eerie atmosphere. "The Northman," an adaptation of a legend that helped inform Shakespeare's Hamlet, doesn't quite add up to his earlier features (The Witch or The Lighthouse), nor is either able to achieve the dazzling aesthetic highs of those movies, but this gives us a warped perspective into Norse legend that seems to posit that our current political factions are not that much different from those when marauders ruled the North Seas.

Notable entities that don't make the top twenty.

Avatar: The Way of Water. If James Cameron previously gave us a version of "Dances with Wolves" with blue people, this one is clearly "Waterworld." Should we expect Avatar 3 to be a mash-up of Kevin Costner's other big hits, Field of Dreams and the Bodyguard. The effects in this film are awe-inspiring. Animating the water so the audience feels like its drowning is masterful. The story telling, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired.

Top Gun: Maverick. The sequel to a movie made almost forty years ago did not seem to augur certain success, but this became the biggest hit of Tom Cruise's long career. It became the film that everyone left their house to see this past summer. Cruise, who is now over 60, still resembles a spritely adolescent, and he was paired by a group of young actors, including Miles Teller and Glenn Powell; it is almost a handing over of the torch. The real heart of the film is Cruise's meeting with Val Kilmer's Ice, a moment rich in sentiment as Val Kilmer's personal health struggles are clearly evident. That said, is it really a Best Picture contender?

The Fabelmans. There are things to like here: the first sequence feels like an homage to Cinema Paradiso, David Lynch as John Ford is an inspired piece of casting. But did I really need a two-and-a-half-hour movie about Spielberg being bullied in high school? I think not. And then at the one moment when the film picks up and gets interesting, the young Spielberg walks into the sunset on a studio lot and it ends. I would have much preferred a film about what happened when he got to the set, instead of this dime-store psychological approach to Speilberg's frustration with his mom having an affair with his father's best friend.

Top Films of 2021

2022-02-25T21:39:00.002-08:00

The Top Films of 2021

And here we are, still wrapped up in a pandemic, but seemingly able to start returning to life. We spent another year mostly confined to our houses, turning our home theaters into the focus of our labor, leisure, and entertainment. Box office receipts may never recover to the levels we saw before COVID, but our time spent watching and streaming content has never been greater. The benefit of this rather strange environment is that we now have easier access to art house movies, foreign films, and experimental features, which all may have struggled to find audiences and financial viability. The amount of foreign films garnering Oscar nominations in categories outside of International Feature is extremely high this year: Flee, Worst Person in the World, Drive My Car, and Parallel Mothers all received multiple nominations. This augurs the possibility of the Oscars becoming a truly international film honor. This is certainly not to say that not every year has a set of audacious, stirring films from around the globe, but Americans' aversion to subtitles has made their incursion into the domestic market a rare feat. The proliferation of streaming platforms provides a venue by which these films can be viewed by broad audiences. If this could provincialize American films and open our eyes to the wider world, then all the better for all of us.

1. The Power of the Dog. Jane Campion's strange, disturbing depiction of Montana in 1925 sets forth the tale of dueling male archetypes in the Wild West. The film is imbued with an ominous atmosphere, nothing is right in this mountainous territory. The landscape may be stunning, but there lies rottenness at the core. Benedict Cumberbatch's erudite, Yale-educated rancher embodies a certain Whitmanesque vision of manliness and he is repulsed and attracted to the long-limbed, awkward adolescent who is son to a widow innkeeper. The tension between these two threatens to explode, especially after Cumberbatch has driven the Twink's mother to the bottle and has subdued her to the point of oblivion with his mind games. The way Campion turns her incisive gaze on these competing men, who both understand deeply that they fail as men, is an illuminating and disturbing vision of how these demands to uphold masculinity can eat one's soul.

2. Drive My Car. A three-hour movie about a recently widowed Japanese theatre director who is helming a multi-lingual version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya with much of the plot taking place in his chauffeured Saab sounded like a slog. I was dreading seeing this. I was told repeatedly by several that no one was forcing me to see this, but the reviews were rapturous. It is undeniably long; the opening credits do not appear until the fortieth minute (!). The emotional payoff at the end is worth the time devoted to watch this tale of a man overcoming the ambivalent emotions that come from grief. Each detail becomes crucial to understanding the emotional trajectory, and each supporting character is shaded in surprising and unique ways. The film is thematically and visually rich. Even if it is difficult to set aside three hours and the intense concentration needed for this narrative, it is well worth the investment.

3. Flee. This Danish animated documentary is visually rich and remarkable in detailing the experience of a gay Afghan refugee who fled Afghanistan after the Soviet War of the 1980s. The film is animated to mask the identity of the film's subject, but so much is added in telling his story in this inventive fashion. The impact of escaping war and suffering human trafficking is made immediate through Jonas Rasmussen's deft direction. On top of the trauma he faces, he must face his emerging sexual identity and how his culture demonizes it. For a film that follows such dark instances of human failure, the film ends on a surprisingly hopeful note. Maybe we can all muddle through this thing we call life.

4. The Lost Daughter. Maggie Gyllenhaal never struck me as the next actress that would become an auteur, but with this adaptation of an Elena Ferrante novel, we have our latest female gaze. Olivia Colman, in yet another layered, complicated performance that she can whip out so effortlessly, is struggling on a new book project and gathering her thoughts on a Greek island vacation, but this trip surfaces many of her uncomfortable memories of her previous marriage and its demise and her true, deep ambivalence to being a mother. The film does a superb job of giving us female characters who are unsure of their relationship to their children and yet does not demonize them. We have spent decades watching movies about terrible fathers who are somehow still sympathetic, but the bad mother is always a monster. This film quite simply asks what if she's just human? It's a revolutionary question to pose.

5. Passing. How Ruth Negga is somehow not the leading contender to win Best Supporting Actress for her fine-tuned performance of a woman passing in 1920s New York, I will never know. I may have been surprised that Maggie could turn in such a precise film with the Lost Daughter, but I was bowled over by Rebecca Hall's directorial debut. Her adaptation of Nella Larsen's novel had a very personal meaning to her because it allowed her to understand her mother, the operatic soprano Maria Ewing, who passed for white for much of her life. Tessa Thompson runs into an old school acquaintance and realizes that she has now passed her life as white and has even married a man with deep racist sentiments. The beautiful cinematography lends an elevated light and casts everything in black and white, but those shades of gray are where we all live.

6. Tick, tick boom. A musical biopic of Jonathan Larsen based on his incomplete musical one-man show seems like a tough sell for a movie, but with Andrew Garfield in the lead and the deep care brought to bear by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the film became an ode to Broadway. This is worth watching for the beautiful act one finale that references Sondheim's Sunday and marches in a bevy of Broadway stars, including Andre deShields, Chita, and Bernadette. Garfield is the energetic master of this film, and he proves that he can lead any movie. Along with his complicate and sympathetic portrayal of Jim Bakker, this is really his year.

7. Worst Person in the World. Why do we always assume women have it more together than men? This Norwegian film follows a young woman just emerging from her adolescence and years in college to realize that the real world is not a lark. She finds herself in a complicated relationship, only to realize that she isn't thrilled with this. Nor does she love her retail job, but when she ditches one man for another, she realizes that the grass ain't greener, and she realizes that life is just a series of weird choices and you'll never know if you're doing anything right. At one point she surmises, "the things I always worried about were never the things that caused me pain." Joachim Trier has done a remarkably fine job subverting the male gaze, and gave Renate Reinsve a star-making turn.

8. Encanto. We may not talk about Bruno, but we should. What a delightful Disney family flick. This tale of an enchanted family who has one misfit daughter who sticks out for her lack of magic is a simple delight, and shows that Disney can still harness its specific brand of movie magic. It looks like Lin-Manuel Miranda will become our latest EGOT this year, when he picks up the statuette for Best Song; however, I wish the music branch had nominated the Bruno song for that honor.

9. Mass. This dark character study follows the aftermath of a mass shooting at a high school, but the incisive writing and acting allows us a firsthand look at how the damage of such a shooting affects the families of the victims and the perpetrators. Is forgiveness even possible? A quartet of great character actors (Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd, Reed Birney, and Jason Isaacs) dominate the screen as they struggle to come to terms with their loss, their grief, and their unfathomable anger at what disaster has been unleashed. the nuance is in itself a marvel and provocative on its own terms. It avoids easy sermons, and leaves you uneasy as to what your own reaction to this situation would be.

10. Summer of Soul. Questlove had long been fascinated with a Harlem Arts Festival that took place in the summer of 1969, but was long overshadowed by Woodstock. He spent years piecing together videos of the concerts and gave us this delightful documentary of a forgotten moment in the history of black excellence. Hundreds of thousands of denizens of Harlem gathered together to see Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Fifth Dimension, Sly and the Family Stone, and Nina Simone play their greatest hits. At the very same instance, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon. When reporters asked them why they weren't at home watching history being made, festival goers would say, "why watch all that money being spent to go to the moon when we have so many problems down here?" Virtually, the same sentiment my generation argued when the US became deeply enmeshed in endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.

11. The Green Knight. This interpretation of a medieval text slipped by most audiences. This retelling of Sir Gawain and his hero's journey to rediscovery demonstrated how these texts still have the power to rouse us today. It felt relevant and compelling (and more so than Joel Coen's rather lugubrious Macbeth), and gave us a sumptuous visual feast with a layered performance from Dev Patel, proving that historical film can, in fact, have a colorblind cast.

12. Dune. It appeared impossible that we would ever have a decent cinematic version of Frank Herbert's sci-fi saga of imperialism and mysticism. Jodorowsky could not get financing for his vision; David Lynch failed mightily in his David Bowie-Ziggy Stardust fantasia. Denis Villeneuve, however, managed to craft an adaptation that held true to the original while bringing it into our century in a changing artistic medium. Although this is the first part and it could have been culled a bit--Zendaya was only in a handful of minutes of this film if you delete all her appearances in Timothée's dreams--but we have an encouraging take on how sci-fi can be both more cinematic than the endless stream of Marvel movies, and grapple with some serious philosophical issues.

13. The French Dispatch. Wes Anderson does as Wes Anderson does. If you do not like fey characters, in twee settings, you will never like these set pieces, but oh the notes he can strike. This homage to the world of The New Yorker is delightful and is embedded with performances from Anderson's stable of stock players (Tilda, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson) and some turns by recent additions (such as the winsome turn from Benicia del Toro as a troubled and incarcerated outsider artist). The visuals are neat, and the cast has fun with what they are given. There are some troubling weaknesses; the final storyline does not add much value, but why not surround yourself in his aesthetic for 110 minutes?

14. The Hand of God. Paolo Sorrentino's ode to his childhood in Naples may have divided some audiences, but this tale about an awkward teenager spending a summer devoted to soccer and film in the early 1980s presents an enthralling bildungsroman narrative. This coming-of-age tale combines the beauty of the world with the concomitant agony that comes with life. They're both necessary for us to feel connected to anyone else. That's the power of a well-told story: allowing us to accept that truism.

15. Parallel Mothers. Oh, how I love a film following a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown. And this year, we had a trio of such masterpieces. Lost Daughter, Worst Person in the World, and Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers brought us complicated female characters who were having difficult experiences and attempting to bring a semblance of sanity to their uneven lives. In Parallel Mothers, we find Penelope Cruz becoming accidentally pregnant, but difficulties ensue when she discovers that she didn't give birth to the baby she's raising. The film interweaves her trauma and grief with Spain's trauma as it continues to come to terms with the generation of men killed by fascists during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. so clearly linking personal trauma with historical national pain could have resulted in a confusing, heavy-handed narrative, but Almodóvar has the light (but at times camp) touch to make this balancing act work.

16. The Humans. This film, based on a play by Stephen Karam, shortlisted for the Pulitzer, brings us a mess of a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by a struggling young couple in Manhattan's Chinatown. They are both eking out a living: one in grad school for social work, the other attempting to pursue creative work. Her family has driven down and the internecine warfare of family members continues apace. It turns out everyone thinks they hold on a monopoly on misery, but each member of the family is equally depressed. Amy Schumer is surprisingly good in a dramatic role, and she holds her own in a talented cast headed by Richard Jenkins, Steven Yeun, and Tony winner Jayne Houdyshell. But beware, this is a real downer.

17. The Mitchells vs. the Machines. I loathed "Don't Look Up." Just hated it. How can I take a satire of our modern media landscape when several members of the cast and crew (I am looking at you, Tyler Perry, Leo, and Adam McKay) are as implicated in that landscape (and profit handily from it)? Further I prefer my satires to be humorous. The Mitchells vs the Machines manages to satirize our media landscape in a way that is illuminating, surprising, and funny. The Mitchells are a rather sad bunch, who cannot get their acts together, but when a big tech company somehow unleashes a robo-apocalypse on the globe, the Mitchells are the only family that can save humanity. They manage to do it, and you feel better for having watched this family unite to battle evil.

18. CODA. Last year, Sound of Metal was one of my favorite films, but the deaf community had some serious concerns, especially in the fact that CODA Paul Raci played deaf. In this film, we have three deaf actors, including Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, surrounding a hearing child, and the ensuing dynamics and drama of such a family provided us with one of the sentimental hits of the year--and far superior to Branagh's "Belfast." The film is marred by its rather silly and fantastical storyline of this girl somehow getting into Juilliard based on a lackluster rendition of Joni Mitchell, but the heart wrenching scene where she bids farewell to her family as she sets off to college should wring a tear from even the coldest, stoniest hearts.

19. Licorice Pizza. PT Anderson has long been the bard of the San Fernando Valley. He had branched out to far-flung territories with his complex portrayal of a British fashion designer in 1950s London in "Phantom Thread." He returned to his homeland with this year's comedy, Licorice Pizza. This may be Anderson's chance to win an Oscar for writing after nominations for "There will be Blood" and "Boogie Nights," but this film a bit lightweight after the complicated themes and imagery he has navigated in his previous work. However, the undeniably delightful set piece of driving a delivery truck backwards through the canyons as a crazed Jon Peters chases these water-bed merchants gave us one of the pure visual delights of the year.

20. Nightmare Alley. Guillermo del Toro's remake of a 1947 film noir attempts to restore the devilishly dark ending to this tale of a group of misfit carnival barkers. In the original film, Tyrone Power is redeemed at the last possible second by his girlfriend and saved from a life of alcoholism and becoming a sideshow spectacle. That, however, betrayed the darkness of the original novel. Del Toro has restored the bleak finale of the novel to this film, which is a powerful image. I just wish I could have foregone having to watch Bradley Cooper for two-and-a-half hours. Cate Blanchett is a devious, fascinating femme fatale, portraying a lady psychologist who deploys her Freudian theory in an effort to play Bradley Cooper. I just wish I could have plopped the suave Tyrone Power in the stead of Cooper. Now, that would have been a sideshow to which you could have stepped right up.

21. Luca. Pixar's charming fable about sea creatures who can exist on land (as long as they don't touch water) was a charming visual tale with its own little queer sensibility. Luca and Alberto are a type of male friendship we rarely encounter in animated films. Wise beyond their years, yet naive to the human world surrounding them, they risk danger to experience human connection in the Italian Riviera. As Pixar has cornered the market on sentimentality with a streak of well-earned wisdom, Luca is now just the latest addition to their library of valuable films.

22. Cruella. Who knew that one of the freshest most enjoyable films I would see in the theater this year would be a live action remake of 101 Dalmatians, especially when we had two of these in the 1990s with Glenn Close. I went into this just thinking that it would be a distraction from the world and it would be fine, but this delightful romp through the London fashion scene with the dueling Emmas (Stone and Thompson) defied expectations. There was high fashion, there were high jinks, there was comedy, and a compelling backstory for one of our favorite villains.

Films that failed to thrill me.

Old. Exactly what we needed this year: a movie about evil clinical trials on a secluded island that mysteriously ages people. What a mess.

West Side Story. The critics fell over themselves to praise this, and it garnered multiple Oscar nominations. But what did it do that the original film did not. Making everyone's backstory so explicit was dull, and even though some of the camerawork was stunning (but why so many lens flares?!?) and could not have been attempted in 1961, the film felt lifeless. And let us stop trying to make Ansel Elgort a leading man, please.

Belfast. Of course, Judi Dench can do no wrong in my book, and I was thrilled to see her receive her 8th Oscar nomination this year, even if it was for this weird, vacillating movie. The film manages to give one whiplash as the audience is led down the travails of a Catholic family facing violence in Protestant Belfast, but then interspersed with bizarre zany family anecdotes. If the film built to the trauma of sectarian violence, or if the humor was handled as a strategy to cope with the devastation, that would make sense. The way it is currently structured, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Don't Look Up. I just hated it. Everything about it. Loathed it. I hated the acting--I think Meryl was not good in it. I hated the editing. I hated the wink, wink, nudge, nudge tone. All of it. Hated it.

House of Gucci. Now this camptastic mess was actually enjoyable--just not in the way intended. What did Ridley Scott do? It was as if every actor was in his/her own little universe. Adam Driver valiantly tried to create a subtle characterization, as Jared Leto in a fat suit went around sobbing in a bonkers Mario Bros. accent. Jeremy Irons who plays one of the heads of the Gucci family decides no Italian accent for him, since I guess he is Jeremy Irons. And then there's Gaga. She's actually fine, but her desperate, blatant attempt to get an Oscar nomination was such a sad, strange thing to witness that it actually made the performance seem sillier as she told any interviewer who would listen how she used every Meisner, Adler, Stanislavsky trick she could find. Her greatest line may have been in an LA Times Zoom round table where she asked several other actresses: "Do you guys ever get drunk off the prop drinks?" Umm no, said everyone in unison.

The Best Films of the Annus Horribilis of 2020

2021-04-23T18:36:00.002-07:00

The Best Films of the Annus Horribilis of 2020

It has never taken me until late April to compile my best films of the previous year, but then again I have not lived through a global pandemic previously. However, the protracted awards season has brought us one unqualified positive: the widespread availability of most of this year's nominees on streaming platforms, even live action shorts, independent features, and documentaries. This will be a strange Academy Awards, regardless of who wins, and Hollywood seems deeply worried about a cratering of the ratings. But without further ado: my top films of the odd year that was 2020.

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Director Céline Sciamma constructed a beautiful film following the passionate affiar of two women in 18th-century France.Stolen glances, furtive touches, veils, windy beaches, portraits in candlelight! It's almost too much beauty to bear. With Sciamma's penetrating eye, we have scenes of lesbian passion that never feel framed by the male gaze. The film sidesteps much of the characters' politics, which could have made for some interesting storytelling in a film set in the deacades leading up to France's great internal conflagration, but that is a complaint akin to "you didn't make the movie I wanted you to make." Rather taken on its own terms, the film upends the stories we expect about female sexuality, and it opens up the door to new ways to fashion such narratives, even in the rarefied world of the costume drama.

2. Sound of Metal. Riz Ahmed gave one of the finest performances of the year as a heavy metal drummer who loses his hearing virtually overnight. The film's intricate and stunning sound design manifests the experience of sudden hearing loss in a terrifying manner. The terror and desperation faced by this character whose life has been predicated on music seems to be slipping away. His fast rejection of the advice of the deaf people with whom he is brought into conflict leads to the real tragedy of the film as he fights futilely against his new reality. This film may have the finest final shot of any film this year, when Riz Ahmed sits in a park and for the first time experiences the silence. A truly remarkable film and performance.

3. Promising Young Woman. I was shocked to discover that Emerald Fennell, who wrote and directed this incisive and witty riposte to our culture of sexual assault, plays Camilla Parker Bowles on the Crown. Most of my surprise came from the fact that she ceded this brilliant part to another actress, rather than giving it to herself (à la Damon, Affleck, Billy Bob, Costner). However, when that actress is the sublime Carey Mulligan, I can understand the sentiment. Shockingly, Fennell had to fight for this casting; studio executives and financiers kept pushing for Margot Robbie, because they felt that the part was only believable with a hotter (?!) actress. Carey Mulligan, who received an Oscar nomination over a decade ago for the charming and serious An Education, shines as Cassie who is set to avenge herself and her best friend for crimes they suffered while in medical school. She pretends to be drunk to entice seemingly "good guys" to take her home to see if they attempt to take advantage of her vulnerability. They invariably do, when she then pounces on them seeming to awaken from her stupor to ask: What are you doing? It is such a clever, shocking device. The film clearly has a political edge for this moment, but it questions intentions and the ethics of it all. It is a complex, fascinating tale that ends up raising more questions than providing any firm answers.

4. Minari. This touching story of Korean immigrants attempting to make it in the farmlands of Arkansas was more melancholic than I expected, but it is buoyed by a stunning performance from Yuh-Jung Youn as the cantankerous grandma of the clan. The film's vitality comes from its attention to how this family negotiates not only its presence in this seeming alien land of the southern midwest, but how it also transforms their relations with each other, fraying the bonds of some and bringing together others. The alst half hour may have one too many plot twists resulting in feeling overwhelmed--and then the conclusion is a tranquil shot of trimming the Minari plants that seemed jarring--but the film tells us a truly American story that we have never seen before.

5. Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Eliza Hittman's harrowing look at a teenager seeking an abortion is anchored by two outstanding performances from Sidney Flanagan and Talia Ryder, as the camera follows them from Pennsylvania (where state law mandates that parents must sign off on the procedure) to Manhattan, where even in deep-blue New York waiting periods must be followed. Every male character in this film is a potential threat and unwilling to live up to any responsibility. The film ends as a searing indictment of our current policies around choice and demonstrates conclusively that women will always suffer for policy choices that are sold to the populace as "common sense," when in fact they are reactionary moves that end up denying women the ability to make medical decisions over their own bodies.

6. I Care A Lot. This dark comedy provides an extraordinary vehicle for Rosamund Pike to display her gifts. Pike plays a despicable guardian of the state to elderly patients that she has conned into signing over to her their power of attorney. She has crafted an ingenious way to defraud the elderly while wrapping her avaricious ways in a seemingly benign cloak of caring and protecting those who cannot care for themselves. This all goes awry when she attempts to prey on Dianne Wiest, who unbeknownst to Pike, is the mother of a Russian mobster. It is a tense and taut thriller pierced with some much needed humor, and leads to an unexpected, sardonic ending. Sometimes the most entertaining rides are taken with some of the most vile characters.

7. Mrs. America. In a year where we streamed everything, the lines between television and film became even more blurred. Can anyone precisely label a film, miniseries, or television movie with any accuracy anymore? No. Gloria Steinem may not have enjoyed this expansive look at the unwieldy influence that Phyllis Schlafly wielded in the GOP during the 1970s, but the miniseries that depicts the women's liberation movement and the backlash generated by the proposed Equal Rights Amendment provides detailed portrayals of the many voices in support and against that landmark legislation (which was never ratified, thanks partly to Schlafly). With an all-star cast that saw Uzo Aduba as Chisholm, tracey Ullman as Friedan, Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug, and Cate the Great Blanchett, there was always some fascinating detail in the performances to provide insight into this historical moment that we never truly left behind.

8. Pieces of a Woman. Another harrowing story about pregnancy in America. The film opens with a thirty-minute saga of Vanessa Kirby having a difficult birth with only her husband (Shia) and her doula on site. The complications worsen and finally the baby dies shortly after birth. The rest of the film, based on a Hungarian play, follows the dissolution of the extended family as they grapple with the effects of this trauma. Kirby's mother, played by Ellen Burstyn in a performance almost as explosive as her Oscar-nominated part in Requiem for a Dream, demands justice for her dead grandchild, while her daughter has more ambivalence towards this, and Shia just flutters in the background unsure of everything. It concludes as a story of a woman putting the pieces of her life back together, and mostly without the aid of anyone around her.

9. Quo Vadis, Aida? This movie about the massacre of Srebrenica in July 1995 demonstrates what a great film can accomplish. It educates about a terrible historical incident, but moreover it deepens the understanding by relating that story through the affecting story of one of its victims. We follow a UN interpreter (played by Jasna Djuricic, who should have been nominated for Best Actress), as she fights to have her family protected from the invading Serbain forces led by convicted war criminal General Ratko Mladic as he begins his methodical killing of Muslim men in Bosnia. Spoiler alert, it does not end happily, but the film does portrays the terror and grief of this trauma poignantly. The film will stay with you for days and weeks after you finish it.

10. Ammonite. This year's other historical lesbian melodrama. This time Kate Winslet is a 19th-century paleontologist in Lime who collects fossils at the beach. She is saddled with the ailing wife of a rich gentleman scientist (played by Saoirse Ronan, in the type of waifish but steely women that she has now cornered the market on). Once again, furtive glances, stolen touches, Kate draws her by candlelight (is this a nod to Titanic??), and they engage in several very graphic sex scenes. This film was made for me, and perhaps only for me.

11. The Mole Agent. The most charming documentary of the year follows a recently widowed senior in Chile who responds to a help wanted post in his local newspaper in order to take his mind off his grief. He is tasked with infiltrating into a nursing home to investigate whether any elderly abuse is taking place. He finds a nursing home that is run competently, but filled with aging women who feel abandoned and alone. He becomes a calming presence and friendly ear to these ladies. It is a charming, heartwarming piece that provides you with a few glimpses of the best of humanity in a year where that appears to be in short supply.

12. Another Round. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you went to work every day really drunk? Well, then this movie is for you. Mads Mikkelson convinces a group of his fellow teacher friends that they would be better at their jobs if they just got really drunk before classes started. It all starts out as a bit of a hoot and holler, until in normal Danish fashion we take a turn for the worst, and everything goes awry. Afterwards, my inclination to grab another drink diminished in a statistically significant way.

13. Crip Camp. This inspiring documentary that charts a summer camp created for disabled children in the 1970s ends up becoming a detailed history of the disability rights movement and the passage of the Americans with Disability Act. Many of the kids who attended this camp realized that a world that accommodated them was possible and radicalized and galvanized them to effect substantial changes to how disabled Americans are treated in this country.

14. Palm Springs. If I had seen this movie in the summer of 2019 at a movie theater on a warm July night at the Arclight before grabbing a drink in Hollywood, it would have hit different than when I watched it on my couch after sitting staring at these same four walls for almost nine months. I would have thought this quirky comedy that is Groundhog Day meets string theory was just a cute little flick; however, after months and months of living our own weird feedback loop out of which we cannot escape, this film took on much deeper philosophical implications. Maybe like Andy Samberg, I am sick and tired of being trapped here, but simultaneously the comforts of home provide real solace, and perhaps I don't want to venture out of this pandemic. In short, this movie shook me.

15. News of the World. Hollywood has created a bit of cottage industry of making revisionist Westerns. Westerns used to be one of the most popular genres in classical Hollywood, with their own set of stars (and a superstar in the form of John Wayne), but as the Native American rights movement gained momentum, these flicks began to appear more and more offensive. Starting with Little Big Man in 1970, Hollywood started asking, are the heroes of these movies the real heroes of these stories? News of the World, from Paul Greengrass, follows in the tradition set by Unforgiven, Dances with Wolves, and Hostiles (2017). This follows a Civil War vet (Tom Hanks) as he ekes out a living by traveling around Texas reading newspapers to mostly illiterate crowds who are too far removed to hear what may be happening in areas far removed from them. He gets saddled with a young girl of German descent who years before had been kidnapped by the Kiowa tribe. She had been raised by the tribe and now only speaks Kiowa and does not wish to be carted off to her only surviving white family, whom she has never met. The flaw of this film is the constant insistence on protecting this white girl's "purity" (read virginity). Would we have structured this tale in the same way if she had actually been Kiowa? Doubtful. The performance by Helena Zengel as this misunderstood captive to her circumstances is stunning.

16. Nomadland. On one hand, Chloe Zhao has marshaled her considerable talents to compose an epic story of the American pioneer myth that persists to this day. She utilizes her signature touches, such as the incorporation of non-actors into key roles of the film, and tender cinematography that captures the American landscape luminously, to tell the story of a group of nomads who travel to Amazon warehouses and national parks to make ends meet so they can commune with nature. However, the book on which this film was based was a scathing indictment of the American economy where a corporation can bankrupt their workers' pensions and leave these people high and dry, forcing them to forage for pittance in the years where they had thought they would be fully retired. Although the film addresses this in the beginning, this narrative is sidelined into one where Frances McDormand rejects offers from friends and family to house her in order chase her liberation. Jessica Bruder's reporting demonstrated just how devastating and labor-intensive are the jobs of the gig economy, and pointed out how the destruction of the social safety net has left some of our most vulnerable citizens in an untenable situation. I just wish the film had followed some of this reporting.

17. On the Rocks. Bill Murray is Rashida Jones' salacious, gossipy art dealer dad and is convinced his daughter's husband is cheating on her. He insists they must investigate. This film follows the pair as they romp through Manhattan following him in a red convertible roadster as they drink champagne and eat caviar while staking him out. It may have a bit of an anticlimactic ending, but the relationship between these two (and the appealing chemistry of our two actors) is more than worth the watch of Sofia Coppola's latest.

18. The Prom. This was one of the first movies I saw in 2020 where I wished I had been able to see it in the theater. I wanted to experience that communal high of watching actors sing and dance in an unbelievable musical number , and laugh and clap, rather than sitting on my couch in three-day-old PJs, while eating ice cream out of the carton. Of course, the film suffers from some of Ryan Murphy's usual heavy-handed insistence on originary gay trauma, and the miscasting of James Corden (wasn't Nathan Lane available??), but watching Andrew Rannells kick up his heels in the Northridge Mall, Nicole Kidman zazz it up, and Meryl chew up all the scenery was just a delight. And also, how pissed off was Patti LuPone that Meryl's character was clearly based on her and to add insult to injury, she didn't even get to play the part?!

19. The Father. What a downer. Anthony Hopkins is suffering from the effects of advancing dementia and he is beginning to lose his mind, and he realizes it. The film does an excellent job of making you realize how jarring it would be to feel as if you are swimming in quicksand. All that is solid melts into air; there is nothing to grasp. What you are convinced of is reality is simply a mirage. There is very clever production design here, too: all the sets resemble his apartment, so the audience is never certain of space and time. Hopkins is superb--and could be a big upset winner at the Oscars, but the film itself never reveals what is or isn't real, and not in a way that feels revelatory, rather you just keep thinking about the film and realize it just doesn't quite all add up. This may be the point, but this could have been constructed in a more definitive manner.

20. Emma. I sometimes resent the imposition of millennial pink and our current aesthetic obsessions on historical dramas or films based on the literary canon, but when it's Emma, it works. Anya Taylor Johnson, who found superstardom with the Queen's Gambit later in 2020, made her first mark as Jane Austen's conspiratorial, gossipy heroine. As one would expect with any Austen adaptation, the social preening of obnoxious men and the audacity of these women seeking marriages that won't wear down their souls are on full display. And you get the added kick of Josh O'Connor (who has somehow made us sympathetic to Prince Charles on the Crown) is delicious as the obsequious vicar. It's a film that tastes like candy.

21. Judas and the Black Messiah. Fred Hampton was only 21 when he was murdered in an illegal FBI raid on his home in an attempt to limit the reach of the Black Panthers. The FBI's greatest asset in gathering intel on Hampton was a teenager who they coerced into being an informant after he was captured trying to steal a car while impersonating an agent. It is a dramatic story (and shameful chapter of American history). Kaluuya is effective and Hampton, and Lakeith Stanfield has finally received the mainstream acclaim he deserves. However, these actors are clearly not teenagers, and the story has a much different impact when you think these are men in their 30s (the age of these actors). When you realize that a teen was coerced to infiltrate the Black Panthers to build a case against another teenager, the framing of the motives and intents of these characters in the film would have a much different perspective. Although I felt these performances and the film overall was quite effective, I wonder what was missed by not casting more age appropriate actors in these roles.

22. Soul. As one expects with any Pixar film, the animation is stunning. The jazz score deployed in this film following a musician who somehow gets trapped in purgatory right before his big musical break is catchy, whimsical, and thoughtful. It may not provide the same emotional wallop we have become accustomed to with these films, but nonetheless it is touching.

23. Trial of the Chicago 7. I understand most of the Twitterverse hates this movie, and it does come with every trick that Aaron Sorkin has concocted in the last 25 years (walking and talking, courtroom reveals, idealistic characters who are confronted with their inabilities to function), but it did tell the story of the seven activists brought up on trumped up charges after the 1968 Chicago democratic convention with effective concision. There may be too many soapbox moments for these characters, and it may play with the chronology a bit too much, but tell me that JoGo's final scenes in the courtroom didn't make you reach for your handkerchief.

24. Mank. You know, it was fine. Nice sets and costumes. But to be frank, I wish it had been 110 minutes long and was called Marion and we just followed Amanda Seyfried around as she drank champagne and made fun of Hearst and Mankiewicz. Now that would have been a good movie.

25. Ma Rainey 's Black Bottom. The cinematic adaptation of one of America's great landmark plays falters from being a bit too faithful to August Wilson's play. viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman are excellently cast. There are times where the performances could have been pared down a bit to add a bit more nuance. The one great disappointment of the film is that Davis is not allowed to sing and the voice chosen to be that of Ma Rainey does not match in any respect the timbre of Viola's earthy tones. It is just so jarring to hear. It really removes one from the experience of the movie as you wonder whose voice it is because it ain't Ma and it ain't Viola.

And the worst of the year:

Hillbilly Elegy. Ron Howard's misguided attempt to bring to the screen the memoir of JD Vance, the self-appointed savior of the GOP, is laughably bad. For instance, Glenn Close, in the most bizarre makeup job she has ever endured in her long career, lays in a hospital bed after a mild heart attack. Her grandson stands next to her pleading with her not to die. "JD," Glenn intones, "No one knows when they're going to die." JD exclaims before a smash cut: "Native Americans do!" Excuse me, what now? Also, pay attention to the scene where Amy Adams steals her first two Vicodin that begins her crushing addiction to opioids. She steals them from a patient and then is so high that she roller skates through the hospital. That's not how oxy works, Ron!

Music. It would be so bad it was good, if it wasn't centered on a truly offensive portrayal of an autistic child. Sia's directorial debut probably should not have been seen by the world, but it received an unexpected boost when the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., in their infinite wisdom, nominated it for Best Picture and Best Actress (at the Razzies, it won Worst Director and Worst Actress). Moreover, the film isn't even focused on the autistic teenager (played to horrifying stereotypes by child dancer Maddie Ziegler). Rather, we are following how the autistic child inspires Kate Hudson on her path to sobriety and responsibility. What I want to know is how are we supposed to buy that Kate Hudson who is in her 40s is the older sister to this teenager? "Oh," Kate exclaims when pouring out a box of legos, "playing with these when we were kids." Umm, when you were 22 and she was an infant? This doesn't make any sense.

Dick Johnson is Dead. Here's an idea, your father is descending into dementia, why don't you make a movie where you, as his daughter, direct his death in ever-increasing bizarre scenarios. Sounds like a great way to honor your ailing father! Who wants to give me funding? Cringe.

Best Films of 2019

2020-01-09T16:32:00.001-08:00

Best Films of 2019

I was afraid that I would be unable to come up with twenty films for 2019 that represented the best in American cinema. After seeing 33 movies in the past two weeks, I am proud to say that 20 was an attainable number. And there are still some acclaimed foreign films that I have yet to view (the latest from Almodóvar, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, etc). I offer you here below the films that made me think that in these troubled times, films can still bring us together to feel something.

1. Little Women. We have seen this tale adapted for the screen repeatedly. Kate Hepburn (1933), June Allyson (1949), Winona Ryder (1994) have all been acclaimed for their performances as Jo March, one of the great American literary heroines. PBS aired a miniseries with Angela Lansbury as Aunt March just two years ago. Why more Alcott now? Greta Gerwig does a masterful job tweaking our beloved novel to make it as relevant as ever. She cleverly adds some details from Alcott’s travails trying to publish her roman a clef as some of the final scenes of Jo’s narrative. Laura Dern’s Marmee tells Jo that her everlasting patience is an act that covers up her failed dreams and ambitions. Saoirse, Florence, and Timothée emote, overact, and tenderly pull at the heartstrings. I left once again affirmed in my love for Jo March.

2. Parasite. Bong Joon Ho’s analysis of class conflict in Seoul is necessary viewing for 2019. A family living in a rather wretched basement apartment schemes its way into a wealthy family’s abode designed by a world-renowned architect, replacing their entire household staff. The labyrinth even contains a secret bomb shelter unknown to the owners that contains an even more abject societal reject. The film pops off the rails in the last act and the simmering violence blows up into a perhaps unearned ritual sacrifice, but rarely does a piece of contemporary film portray the fissures among classes in such an intelligent fashion.

3. 1917. Sam Mendes is an actor’s director, to the point that when he had begun his directorial process for American Beauty, quite a bit of film had to be tossed out because he had yet to grasp the technical aspects of cinema. However, twenty years later, Mendes has teamed up with Roger Deakins to give us one of the great technical marvels of the year. A two-hour film that feels like one uncut take. Deakins and editor Lee Smith have seamlessly created a film that is breathtaking in its pacing and vision. It is like Dunkirk and Darkest Hour, another British film celebrating British aloofness in the face of war, but yet there is something more here. I would be hard pressed to say the narrative structure enlightens its audience about the experience of war, but the technical marvels allow one to feel the terror and anxiety in the closest simulacrum imagined, one that Baudrillard himself would appreciate. This is a film worth seeing on the big screen.

4. Hustlers. J. Lo does a pole dance to Fiona Apple’s ‘Criminal’ in her first appearance on screen. She walks off the stage clutching an armful of money to her bosom and walks by Constance Wu, muttering: “Doesn’t money make you hard?” That scene sets the tone for the finest performance I wager J. Lo will ever give us. As Ramona, she mentors Constance, wrapping her up in a chinchilla coat on the roof of a Manhattan nightclub on a chilly night, and the audience is treated to one of the great films about sisterhood and female alliance that has been seen outside the great women’s pictures from Warner Bros. in the 40s. I left the theater feeling empowered myself, and pushed open the double doors of the theater in the Valley with more confidence than I have ever had to one of the ushers snapping at me telling me to “work it.” I did, and so did J. Lo.

5. Chernobyl. The categories of film and television are so blurred in this platinum era of streaming that I am now including a miniseries in my cinematic rankings for the year. There were few pieces of cinema more relevant, more masterfully crafted, and more intelligently researched than this five-hour film from Craig Mazin and Johan Renck. With a glorious ensemble cast and a deft script that expertly teases out the multiple failures that allowed for the greatest nuclear catastrophe of the twentieth century, this is an expert piece of historical recreation and a warning that small policy failures can in fact wreak disaster.

6. Apollo 11. A documentary with no voiceover narration and not one single talking head, yet the most fascinating and cinematic documentary of the year. Previously unseen 70 mm footage from NASA was incorporated into this film tracing the Apollo 11 mission to the moon led by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. There were some liberties taken with the order of some of the footage, but it provides a first-hand account of the events of the moonwalk with the closest approximation to what the astronauts experienced.

7. Bombshell. Charlize Theron looks and sounds like Megyn Kelly so much in this film about the downfall of Roger Ailes that I spent the entire film wondering how she did it. Were there prosthetics? Not really. Was she CGI’d? I don’t think so, since Nicole Kidman simply looks like Nicole wearing a Gretchen Carlson wig. I think Charlize is just that darn good. And John Lithgow makes for a creepy Ailes encouraging Margot Robbie to “demonstrate her loyalty.” Blech.

8. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino’s alternative histories are predicated on his moral vision that the bad guys must be punished for evil deeds. We are given an ending where Sharon Tate survives and is even unaware of the terror that befell her. However, we also have a film that glorifies Manson’s acolytes burning alive, and we have very little agency allowed for Margot Robbie’s version of Tate. Everything Tarantino does has its issues, but he is never boring. (Well, Hateful 8 could have lost 30 minutes without any issue.)

9. Two Popes. Benedict is not one of my favorite people, but Anthony Hopkins in a splendid performance makes even the former Nazi and ultra-conservative pope and interesting, if flawed, character. The imagined conversations between he and the soon-to-be-anointed Pope Frank show two different Catholic worldviews as they come together in a perilous moment for the Church. It is to Benedict’s credit that he realized that the Church would need to take a different direction if it wanted to continue its existence into the 21^st century.

10. Jojo Rabbit. A comedy where Hitler is a young boy’s imaginary friend? Oh, yes, this sounds like a great idea for 2019. For the first twenty minutes, I kept wondering how this film got financed, but by the end, I was applauding through happy tears. I was as aghast as you are. The child actors are great and director Taika Waititi is the best Hitler since The Producers. This may have been the most heartwarming film of the year.

11. Midsommar. Some of this film is preposterous. If your entire family dies in a murder-suicide pact, perhaps guilt tripping your weird, passive-aggressive, inattentive boyfriend to take you on his cultural anthropology in northern Sweden should not be on the top of your list of things that have to be done. However, the visuals of this weird cult-like group in summertime in Sweden are spectacular (and the score, although heavy handed, sure adds some drama to the ambiance). The final shot of Florence Pugh smiling as she watches the barn go up in flames (I will avoid spoiling who was in the barn) is one of the most satisfying of the entire year.

12. Us. An allegory about the persistent effects of slavery on the American psyche, Jordan Peele’s latest film demonstrates that cinematic horror need not be ephemeral. Peele ensures that his films are imbued with a deeper sense of history, identity, and myth. The film is rooted in Lupita Nyong’o’s performance of a bourgeois wife and mother and her double from the underside. This film stays with you.

13. Booksmart. There was quite a bit of consternation when this smart directorial debut from Olivia Wilde underperformed at the box office. The film may have suffered from the glut of films that came out in the summer and the inertia that is now endemic from the amount of entertainment at our fingertips on the multiple streaming platforms. This tale of two overachievers, who, on the final night of high school, decide to let loose, is a wild romp in the vein of Hangover, Bridesmaids, Superbad, etc. Led by Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, the narrative follows their exploits and does an excellent job playing with the expectations of the genre. Wilde’s acclaimed film makes her performance in Eastwood’s anti-media, anti-FBI, misogynistic flick about Richard Jewell even more inexplicable.

14. Marriage Story. “I can’t believe I have to know you forever,” shouts ScarJo at Kylo Ren, who then punches the wall. It is a fight scene that is imbued with pathos but also inflected with the hindsight humor that comes from some of our most meaningful and simultaneously petty fights. The memes satirizing this film have been great, my particular favorite being the makeup tutorial YouTuber who is filming a vid next door as this fight happens: “maybe if you can’t be together without punching a wall, you shouldn’t be together.” Amen, sister.

15. The Souvenir. Joanna Hogg’s bildungsroman (bildungsfilm?) about her education as an artist follows Tilda Swinton’s daughter (whose mom is played by Tilda) as she embarks on art school and a relationship with a mess of a man who may or may not be employed by the foreign service; however, he is most certainly a heroin addict. I rejected the final shot where she opens a soundstage door to go walking out in to some park—what a thrilling, original metaphor!—in favor of the preceding one, where Honor Swinton breaks the fourth wall and stares intently at the viewer, seeming to challenge us to understand she is now in control of the gaze thrown at her. It is a powerful visual.

16. Good Boys. I love me a gross-out, dumbass comedy, and this tale of three prepubescent boys as they prepare for their first party in the sixth grade where they may have to (gasp) kiss a girl delivers. The sex toys mistaken for parts of some unknown adult version of dungeons and dragons, a drone held hostage for ecstasy, and the camaraderie of three boy as they enter puberty creates a light, but not lightweight, comedy of the year.

17. Uncut Gems. Adam Sandler has not given us a dramatic performance since PT Anderson’s “Punch-Drunk Love,” which is a shame because some of the work he has done in the last decade has been pure drivel (Jack and Jill, anyone?). If a role is shaped for his strengths, he can deliver a serious performance, and this Safdie Bros. film has been crafted to highlight Sandler’s every strength as an anxious jewelry merchant trying to convince Kevin Durant to buy a rare African black opal (likely illegally obtained), having a tiff with The Weeknd for hitting on his girlfriend, and battling Idina Menzel for being a bad husband. This high-octane flick makes for some white-knuckle moments from the audience who are unsure if Sandler’s character will live through this.

18. Last Black Man in California. Joe Talbot’s gorgeous ode to the Bay Area upends every assumption and expectation you may have about this film. It begins as a serious take on gentrification and the pushing out of African Americans from urban centers, but turns into a sober investigation into the myths we invent for our families and how the unmasking of these legends as nothing more than convenient lies leads to a the shocking realization that one’s identity is precariously grounded.

19. Judy. Renee Zellweger had a rough patch this past decade. She was not getting a lot of work and she went viral for the worst reason ever, when all of Twitter wondered aloud: “What happened to your face?” In many ways, this gave her the best preparation for playing Judy Garland in her final year. She sings, she cries, she falls apart. It is quite touching.

20. Rocketman. A strange biopic of Elton John told as a jukebox musical. It uses the John discography to narrate a story, rather than the more typical approach we saw in Bohemian Rhapsody. This allows for some inventive fantasia with the musical numbers, and Taron Egerton is just fantastic, doing his own singing (unlike Rami).

21. The Farewell. This film suffers from a bit of over-hype. It is not much of a comedy, and the roles of the parents are predicated on stereotypes and emoting, but Awkwafina shines as a granddaughter figuring her way in the world. However, does this film turn on her expectation that she was going to win a Guggenheim? Ummm…

22. Knives Out. The best ensemble cast of the year. It's worth seeing just for Daniel Craig's weird southern drawl, and Jamie Lee Curtis' annoyed smoking.

The Best Films of 2018

2019-01-23T16:40:00.000-08:00

The Top Films of 2018

This past year showed a greater than 5% increase in box office receipts from the previous year, and it gave us a slate of popular films that were met with critical acclaim. The overall feeling of the industry, however, seems to be one of crisis. Beyond the increasingly lengthy list of men being faced with lawsuits and criminal indictments for allegations of harassment and sexual assault, the industry has shown little real progress in diversification. The proliferation of online streaming platforms has eaten into the number of tickets sold and the freedom granted to filmmakers in this new platinum age of television allows stories to be told over ten hours, rather than limits of 120 minutes. What compels anyone to leave the house to patronize the neighborhood movie theater these days? The tent-pole films of this age seem to be spectacular superhero movies that can appeal to the widest audience, both domestically and internationally. I have listed what I believe are some of the best films of the year below.

1. The Favourite: Yorgos Lanthimos has not directed a corpus of film that is known for accessibility. His narratives are often interested in the violence prevailing under a sheen of bourgeois respectability. He revels in the uncomfortable, pushing his actors from Nicole Kidman to Colin Farrell to engage in pause-laden scenarios of seething hatred. He is not one for easy conclusions or pat endings. When it was announced that he was directing a film about the court of Queen Anne, I worried that any attempt of historical accuracy would be tossed out the window. The results, however, are a surprisingly fresh rendition of the early eighteenth century. Not everything is accurate, especially those dances that are certainly not a gavotte or quadrille, but the cast of Rachel Weisz (as Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough), Emma Stone (Abigail Hill), and the indomitable Olivia Colman as the Queen have presented us with an excellent rendition of the events in the last years of her troubled reign. We may not know whether lesbian acts were committed by these women, but we do know that Sarah accused Abigail of "acts of tribadism." The film is rich with humor and intriguing takes on the courtly protocols of a rarefied air. And it is a costume drama that does not feel like homework. (I wasn't even ambivalent about Emma in this one.)

2. Roma: Alfonso Cuarón’s lovingly told reminiscences of his childhood in the eponymous neighborhood of Mexico City does have its detractors, but the masterfully crafted and shot narrative holds a compelling vision of a city riven by distinctions of class and ethnicity. The exquisite black-and-white cinematography captures the city in its post-68 era in a part of the city that was hit hard by the 1985 earthquake (and the earthquake that hit in 2017, as well). Yalitzia Aparicio has been the breakthrough star of the film, becoming only the second Mexican to be nominated for Best Actress (the first was Salma Hayek for Frida). As the maid who caters to her middle-class employers, she serves as the film’s conscience (even if critics allege that Cuarón fails to present her without objectification), and the harrowing centerpiece of the film is almost exclusively focused on her. The hosting of a foreign film of such depth and magnitude on Netflix has its drawbacks. This is a film that deserves a big-screen viewing; however, providing widespread access on a streaming platform of foreign films may actually encourage the viewing of more such films by the broadest audience possible.

3. Cold War: This haunting tale of the love affair of a singer and her musical director seems to give credence to the axiom that "the personal is political." They are often separated by the vagaries of Polish communism and its place behind the Iron Curtain situated between the East Germans and Soviets. The musical director's dissidence of his country and escape set the stage for a story of over a dozen years of being separated and coming together. The film is worth watching both for its romance set in a time of simmering tensions (much like Casablanca) but also for its staggering lead performances and the simply stunning cinematography. This is a modern classic. Every shot is composed in a manner that harkens back to the Golden Age of Hollywood, French New Wave, and yet never sacrifices Pawel Pawlikowski's unique perspective and voice. I may just watch it again tonight.

4. Green Book: Look, I know this is Driving Miss Daisy in reverse. It has its issues, and trades in clichés, but it serves as the best exemplar of what I term a “Mom movie.” You can take your mother to lunch and then see this as a matinee, and she will think it is charming and that Mahershala and Viggo are delightful. It is the type of heartwarming Hollywood tale that doesn’t receive financing any longer, but the film provides an excellent platform for Mahershala Ali to display his many gifts as an actor. In addition, the exposure that audiences are receiving of the work and legacy of Don Shirley is an unheralded benefit of this film. Don Shirley struggled to gain respect as a classical pianist and he often felt himself relegated to playing what audiences expected of a jazz pianist (blues, and popular hits from Berlin and Porter), while he sought to master technical virtuosity. The musical sequences of the film restore Shirley as a visible marker in the tradition of black pianists from Ellington to Herbie Hancock. Regardless of whatever dumb things screenwriter Nick Vallelonga has said on the Twitter machine, a film that celebrates Shirley with a sensitively crafted performance from Mahershala is worthy of your time.

5. Eighth Grade and Mid90s: I am cheating here, but these two coming-of-age films mesh so well that they can be slotted in the same place. Bo Burnham and Jonah Hill (yes, that Jonah Hill) have helmed directorial debuts that provide a new perspective on the bildungsroman. There is no compulsion to identify the awkward age of middle school as simply a step on the ladder to adulthood but to provide a glimpse into those years that are often tormented and tormenting. With skilled child actors in both parts, these first-time directors structured their films in a way that respect the characters. These are touching, complex figures, and rarely are eighth graders presented in that way, even if we all remember the lack of understanding from our families during that time or our own struggles in communicating the ever-shifting emotional terrain of those years.

6. Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Lee Israel was a respected biographer with a drinking problem who faced a bit of a cash-flow problem, so what did she do? She forged letters from literary luminaries, such as Noel Coward and Dorothy Parker, and sold them to unsuspecting collectors, until the FBI caught up with her. It is a true story that beggars belief. Melissa McCarthy plays the part with pathos, without sacrificing humor, and is paired with Richard E. Grant in the type of role that allows him to break free from the stilted costume drama he was almost pigeonholed into in the 1980s and 1990s. This is the type of character-driven movie that you expect to be in full supply in awards season, and yet this year they seemed to be few and far between.

7. RBG and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?: Cheating again. This was a phenomenal year for non-fiction cinema. I could throw into this category Three Identical Stranger, Whitney, Reversing Roe, and those Fyre Festival docs. This could actually be a golden age of documentaries. Not only is the supply gargantuan, but they are making money (Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Grossed over $20 million at the North American box office). These particular films focusing on Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Fred Rogers seemed to speak to discontented liberals irate with the Trump administration and the fraying of all norms of political life. These films gave us a sense that perhaps this national nightmare could someday end and we could return to a sense of normalcy where kindness and expertise were once again possible.

8. Black Panther: I often find myself increasingly frustrated at Marvel movies. I sit there often trying to remember what happened three Iron Man movies ago, or wondering why I am learning about Captain America’s parents in a Thor movie (and then expected to remember this detail at the next Captain America movie two years from now!). Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther did not raise my hackles in the same way. It felt like a standalone film that did not require intense understanding of the minutiae of the Marvel universe. Additionally, it felt like the event film of the year, and, unlike all Marvel films previously, it contained a political edge. There on the screen were gathered some of the finest black actors of our generation in a film about a mysterious African nation with the most advanced technology. It may not have quite achieved the radical status of Afro-futurism, since it came clothed in Disney capitalism, but it may be the closest we come for a movie that grossed $1.3 billion worldwide.

9. The Wife: This is a perfect film for our current #MeToo moment. A prominent American novelist is awarded the Nobel Prize. As soon as the early-morning call from Stockholm arrives, something seems amiss in his marriage. A foreboding sense of unease pervades the first three-quarters of the film, until all is upended in a masterful twist. The film is marred by the presence of Christian Slater (what is he doing there in Sweden? I mean, who paid for his flight?? How does he know any of this? What is his backstory? I don’t understand!), but Glenn Close is Glenn Close in all of her nuanced glory. If she doesn’t win the Oscar this time (her seventh nomination!), I may just scream.

10. Isle of Dogs: Another film with many detractors. Allegations of cultural appropriation and insensitivity have run rampant. Several of these criticisms are very valid. Wes Anderson's work embodies the problematic category of precious, as well. Yet I connected formatively to this tale of a young boy who has gone searching for his dog who has been exiled to an island with all the other dogs of this Japanese prefecture. The animation is visually stunning. I cried multiple times--multiple times.

11. If Beale Street Could Talk: I found Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Moonlight disappointing. It has some beautiful photography, stunning performances from Stephen James and Regina King, and a script adapted from a fantastic James Baldwin novella, but it failed to hang together. There were tonal shifts that felt jarring. Regina King needed a couple more scenes to shade her role, and Kiki Layne’s blandness failed to capture the layers of Baldwin’s character. There is no denying that Jenkins has a definitive voice and viewpoint, and his fortitude and directorial grace merit attention.

12. Boy Erased: I am all in for this new phase of Nicole Kidman’s career where she plays steely moms whose cracking under pressure somehow leads to renewed invigoration. IT is akin to the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with molten gold. She has done this now with The Beguiled, The Killing of the Sacred Deer, and now with Boy Erased. I am still confused as to why a cast and crew of Australians (Director Joel Edgerton, Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Troye Sivan) decided to make a movie about gay conversion therapy in Texas, but it is an earnest and serious film. It may be a little heavy on the moralization, but Lucas Hedges has proven himself to be a formidable actor. However, it is Nicole who stood out and softened to moralistic tone with her quiet glamor.

13. A Quiet Place: From Crazy Rich Asians to the latest iteration of Mission: Impossible, a group of high-budget and high-grossing films hit that cinematic sweet spot of critical and commercial acclaim. Besides the aforementioned Black Panther, I would also list John Krasinski’s literally quiet horror film as one of the year’s best. A harrowing tale of a family living in some wretched, horrifying post-apocalypse, where sounds trip off alien invaders to your presence and imminent death. The anxiety is almost immediate because Emily Blunt is pregnant early on. How it god’s name is she going to give birth silently? Brace yourself for white-knuckle viewing.

Honorable Mentions:

Hereditary: So weird, so strange, perhaps a bit nonsensical, but oddly compelling.

Colette: A sober, and yet very pretty biopic of the French novelist, most famous for Gigi. Keira Knightley has cornered the market on these types of historical personages.

Vice: Just for the makeup and Bale’s transformation. The movie itself is a mess.

The Top 20 Films of 2017

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Caveats: I am desperately behind with this year’s slate of foreign films (sorry, Diane Kruger), and have yet to see Coco, which I am told would be in my top ten.

1. Phantom Thread: P.T. Anderson’s dark comic examination of a mid-century couturier has been a divisive work among viewers. There is a consensus that the film is beautiful with a shaded performance from Daniel Day-Lewis in what he claims to be his final role. (I’ll believe that when Cher actually retires.) The film begins as a rather nostalgic, languorous view of a staid, repressed fashion designer with a set of odd neuroses and a prim sister who runs the front of his couture house. He discovers a new muse waitressing in a local pub and begins to craft a new line around her. The third act, however, clearly goes off these classical Hollywood rails and the film delves into Oedipal fissures that cut through the relationships of this triad. For some, the jarring exploration of complicated sexual desire may not fit what feels like a Merchant-Ivory film, but this rather shocking tonal shift demonstrates why this will remain a standout work within Anderson’s catalog and indicative of his approach to narrative and sexuality.

2. Mudbound: It has been reported that this penetrating look at sharecroppers’ lives in the Mississippi Delta around the second World War faced few offers for distribution deals when it was on the awards circuit. Some have argued that this was because several studios did not feel that there was a sufficient audience to see in theaters a two-and-a-half-hour film that can be rather bleak and trying at times. Netflix bought it and aired it on its streaming platform, providing viewers with a chance to watch it at their leisure. The film succeeds in its evocation of its context. One feels mudbound while watching it, the thick, dark mud of the Delta is everywhere. In addition, the air hangs heavy with outright brutal, violent racism. The perceptive representation of specific forms of white privilege is masterfully handled by Dee Rees’ adaptation and able, sure directorial hand. To put it one way: you will need a shower after viewing, both to scrape off the mud that you are sure is caked on your back and in your hair, and to scrub the vile prejudice that you have experienced for that 150 minutes.

3. I, Tonya: “The Tonya Harding Story” would be a wonderful Lifetime movie. It could have been cast with former stars from daily soaps and had an earnest portrayal of “a girl born on the wrong side of the tracks, tempted by the alluring world of competitive figure skating.” Director Craig Gillespie threw that playbook out the window and crafted an ironic send up that interrogates our fascination with fallen celebrities and the myriad ways we deem it suitable to label and dismiss categories of poor white people. The film does not try to answer the questions of who knew what when. Rather, it constructs a narrative through the web of lies, deceit and narratives individuals construct that contradict the stories they are well aware are being told of the same event. Allison Janney gives a one-note performance of Harding’s ill-tempered mother, but Lord have mercy, what a note it is. Janney maintains a consistent disregard for her child at the same time as holding an unfailing certainty in her self-righteousness.

4. The Disaster Artist: I am just as shocked as you are that I have included James Franco’s directorial telling of the making of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, a film that I have held dear to my heart for almost 15 years. This could have gone so wrong in so very many ways. The piece manages to maintain the hilarity of the world’s best worst film while demonstrating the earnestness of the filmmakers involved. Clearly, the best shots in the film are the side-by-side recreations of scenes from the Room. “Oh hi, Mark.”

5. The Post: This is the anti-Trump movie that your Aunt Rita has been asking for all year. She probably even wore her pink pussy hat to the theater to see Queen Meryl and Tom be directed by Spielberg. The film was impressively thrown together and filmed in a matter of months. The wooden performance of Hanks can be forgiven only if you have never seen Jason Robards as Bradlee in All the President’s Men, but you are treated to a captivating bit of theater by Ms. Streep as she (gasp!) plays a woman who has little capability of being decisive. The final shot linking the Ellsberg paper SCOTUS decision to Watergate is such breathtakingly good cinema that I stood and clapped in my living room. It is just so satisfying.

6. Lady Bird: Oh, there are stories to tell about Sacramento. That’s neat. When did Laurie Metcalf become a celebrated tragedienne? She won a Tony this year for an imaginary sequel to Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and could win an Oscar in March. I still only think of her as Roseanne’s sister. She does give a shaded, nuanced performance of a mother that has a tumultuous, troubled relationship with her daughter. Saoirse Ronan goes from the beatific angel she played in Brooklyn to a pretentious, contemptible teenager, but manages to elicit sympathy because she is just that darn good.

7. Victoria & Abdul: I don’t care what anyone says about empire nostalgia or the historical inaccuracies in this film. I have no patience for the hateful things people say about Dame Judi trying to reclaim lost glory for replaying the part that gave her an initial taste of Hollywood respect and glamour. She has never lost any glory! I do not care what any person says to disparage this film. I will watch this movie again and again. I will laugh in the same places and get choked up at the end every single time. Judi can do no wrong.

8. Three Billboards…: Martin McDonagh is a strange man. I have now seen two of his films and three of his plays. His aesthetics of violence are interesting but troubling. There is a Tarantino flavor to them: cycles of violence are dictated by revenge. But in Tarantino, the bad guy is always defeated, there is a moral universe of right and wrong that can be known. McDonagh does not think the cycles can ever end, nor that we can know what is necessarily right and wrong. This adds an interesting, complicated nuance, but he never pushes the question to understand exactly what purpose is the violence serving: if we cannot always know what is right, then why does everyone continue to be the aggressor (and everyone is an aggressor in McDonagh’s world). I cannot say I loved this film, but it leaves you with a plethora of questions. And Frances McDormand, even more than Gal Gadot, is the heroine we need this year.

9. Manifesto: This little-seen art film from Julian Rosefeldt cuts and pastes over two dozen manifestos from prominent artists of the last two centuries into 13 monologues for Cate Blanchett to perform. Each situation is unique and provides Cate the Great (why isn’t she a Dame yet?) an opportunity to demonstrate why she is one of the greatest actresses alive. I actually don’t know if Meryl could pull this off as gracefully and in as controlled a fashion. These 13 different characters were filmed over twelve days, for god’s sake.

10. Patti Cake$: A young Jersey girl on the more zaftig side wants to be a rap star. Yawn, you say? No, you are in for a treat. A diverse and wild set of characters sets out to put together her first EP with some beats provided by a nihilistic teenager who eschews hip-hop for punk and an Indian pharmacist who provides his own rhymes. There is a clichéd mother character trying to keep her daughter from pursuing the same dreams that she witnessed crushed years ago, but the ending scene where both are vindicated is just truly heartwarming. At least one song from this romp should be nominated for an Oscar. Also, watch for the unheralded return of Beverly D’Angelo. For an additional delightful, underseen indie of the year: Ingrid Goes West provides a witty yet sensitive portrayal of a woman obsessed with those she cannot have.

11. The Beguiled: Sofia Coppola’s remake of a Clint Eastwood vehicle clad itself in millennial pink and propped up Nicole Kidman in one of her numerous comebacks of 2017. The film queers the original by privileging the women’s experiences over Eastwood’s as the previous vehicle had portrayed the original women as closer to harpies than humans. However, the original had a breathtaking scene where Geraldine Page imagines Eastwood as a battered Christ fallen from the cross that links her religious upbringing to her sexual identity. Couldn’t we have allowed Nicole to reinterpret that?

12. A Quiet Passion: Terence Davies’ telling of the life of Emily Dickinson is a bizarre bird. The dialogue is written in Dickinsonian meter and slant rhyme, which for the first twenty minutes is jarring and often painful. Once you grow accustomed to that (or if), the film turns into a penetrating psychological portrayal of one of our greatest poets, who was both constrained and liberated by her situation. She published only a handful of poems while she was alive, and since she never chased fame her collection of poetry was one of the truest collections ever amassed by a visionary simultaneously repressed and freed by a society that shunned and from which she herself recoiled. Cynthia Nixon, who has been shut out from awards consideration, should truly be a leading contender.

13. Call Me By Your Name: I had abnormally high expectations for this movie and they weren’t quite met. I shouldn’t blame the film for that, but I just left with a sense that there was a bit of a missed opportunity here. This film, penned by James Ivory, directed by Luca Guadagnino, could have been a sumptuous erotic view of young men in love in the Veneto. It came off to me more like two frat boys fumbling around in the dark.

14. Get Out: Clink clink. I am still sure that some white people left the theater thinking: wait now why was Brian Williams’ daughter dating that man? There are academics in American Studies programs across this country who will be spending their career examining this flick. This and The Big Sick did point to the abilities of genre films to speak to wider cultural issues in serious ways that could be accepted as serious films.

15. The Big Sick: Here was the rom com we needed for the year of #MeToo. Was Kumail always a stand-up guy? No. Did he treat his future wife rather shabbily? Yes. Did his mom, played by an ever-forceful Holly Hunter, disdain him for such missteps? Yes, rightfully so. Here we had a strictly genre movie that managed to speak to a wide(ish) audience about some serious political and cultural concerns and not sacrifice comedic timing or character delineation.

16. Shape of Water: A pretty film, intentionally derivative with allusions to the Black Lagoon, Astaire-Rogers, and Alice Faye. Richard Jenkins gives a delightful performance and shows us again why he should be cast in more films. Octavia gets to be a sassy janitor. And Sally Hawkins is mute. (I thought she was deaf at first which I found confusing because I kept thinking why do these people keep talking to the back of her head?? She can’t hear YOU!) Is the creature a metaphor? And what is driving Michael Shannon to be so evil? I wished parts of it congealed better.

17. The Florida Project: An interesting film that suffered from an ending that felt false and tacked on (and shot clearly on an iPhone). I had thought Willem Dafoe was gliding to his first Oscar on this balanced performance that gave us a male character who protected the motley crew of tenants in his motel, but pushed them to help themselves. It was a character seemingly devoid of toxic masculinity, but now it seems that one of our most toxic male characters in a toxically masculine movie (Sam Rockwell in 3 Billboards) may beat out Dafoe. That would be a shame.

18. Darkest Hour: We have all seen this movie before, at least thrice on PBS. Churchill hated Hitler. We get it. He saved Britain from the brink. We get it. Britain would have capitulated without Churchill. We get it. He was ornery. We get it. Give Oldman his lifetime achievement Oscar now. The makeup is very good. I don’t understand how they got his jowls to move and bounce like that.

19. Wonder: No one is celebrating the fact that Julia Roberts had her biggest hit since Ocean’s 11 in this touching adaptation of a young adult novel about a kid with a facial deformity facing loneliness, banishment and bullying, yet emerging triumphant. This is the type of movie that we don’t see much of anymore, earnest, intentionally manipulative, but a well-made movie. It is not art, but if you aren’t crying at the end, you may not be human.

20. Wonder Woman: Why not?

2017-02-01T13:03:00.002-08:00

The Top 20 Films of 2016

1. Hidden Figures. This rather traditional Hollywood drama about the black female scientists at NASA who helped propel John Glenn into space feels like a reverberating bomb of political resistance in these trying times. After a brutal election campaign and the opening days of an increasingly autocratic ruler, a movie about the quiet pursuit to fight against entrenched systemic racism and conventional wisdom seems to be an antidote to “alternative facts” and fake news. Centered around three fantastic performances from Taraji Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monae, the film seems radical by not calling into question how refreshing it is to have a film about black women where nary a one is playing a maid, but rather are serious, qualified bureaucrats and intellects. Every time the film finishes in top five grossing films of the week, America shows that its civic values may still be in place, even if the new Fuhrer seeks to destroy them.

2. La La Land. Damien Chazelle exploded onto Hollywood’s radar with Whiplash in 2014. The small independent film, which won several Oscars for editing and best supporting actor, demonstrated Chazelle’s unique talents for filming music. He had an uncanny knack for bringing the vitality of jazz to the screen with some quick cuts and beautifully composed shots. His latest film is a musical ode to Los Angeles and the millions who migrate here for the weather and chance for stardom. Emma Stone and Ryry Gosling may not be of the caliber of Astaire/Rogers or Judy and Gene, but their (literal) missteps demonstrate the hard work necessary to make such a complex musical set piece work. Their errors erase the fetishized perfection of MGM musicals and give us a sense of the fragility of our labor. The third act has far too much talking, and should have been punctuated with a musical number, but the opening number filmed on the 710 Freeway on a blistering day in July and the coda with its references to An American in Paris, Moulin Rouge, and Les Girls are some of the best Hollywood had to offer this year. Additionally, I quite enjoy the fact that the Westside is virtually absent from the film. Long live downtown!

3. Moonlight. This expertly crafted and beautiful take on one man’s life growing up in Miami does what few films can offer: a unique perspective on the world that changes its audience’s view of that same world. Barry Jenkins’ film does not shy away from violence, but refuses to sacrifice the humanity of his characters. Jenkins has the confidence to allow his camera to wordlessly frame and narrate his characters without manipulation or triteness. A fabulous ensemble cast, including this year’s frontrunner for Supporting Actor, Mahershala Ali, and the incomparable Naomie Harris, bring into focus a community often critiqued and criticized but never fully understood.

4. Elle. Paul Verhoeven is a much-maligned filmmaker. In many cases, rightly so. His casual sexism and distaste for female sexuality that is unconfined seems to posit women as driven mad by their own desire. In his latest flick, we have the usual Verhoeven set up: a masked intruder brutally rapes a woman in the opening scene, and the trauma of the event transforms her into something almost subhuman. What saves this troubling narrative is the stellar performance of the famed French actress Isabelle Huppert. She fights the descent to madness that Verhoeven craves. She maintains her rationality and her anger through her trauma. Her pursuit of her rapist is twisted by her own desires of sex and revenge, but she is aware of this, not blithely unaware, as Verhoeven’s previous heroines have. The beautiful final scene opens a new possibility free of male predators where women have found allegiance.

5. Manchester by the Sea. Kenneth Lonergan is a master of understated, character-driven dramas. Ever since he was nominated for an Oscar for You Can Count on Me (a film that made Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo into bona fide film stars), Lonergan has crafted tight narratives of loss and identity. In this touching film about the effects of grief, Casey Affleck gives a restrained performance with such a powerful arc that critics have fallen over themselves to praise him. The tension that explodes near film’s end is palpable, and even as one of the saddest films of the year, it inspires in its pursuit of relief from the loss and the consequences of our own mistakes.

6. Lion. A film about Google maps? That can’t possibly be good. Oh, how wrong you are, my friend. Based on a memoir by a young Australian man of Indian descent who was adopted by white Australians in the 1980s, the film follows his quest to find his birth family by using, you guessed it, Google Earth. Dev Patel, a reliable, quirky romcom lead (as seen in Slumdog Millionaire and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), shines in the shaded layers of conflict he feels about his adoption and his multiple levels of identity. Nicole Kidman displays her talents in two quiet, but devastating, scenes. This is the tearjerker of the year about the families we create and sustain.

7. 20^th Century Women. Mike Mills’ charming portrait of his eccentric mother is evocative of 1979 America and the political and cultural crises washing over the country. Mills somehow manages to create a film as memoir. Of course, aspects are fictionalized, but there is a sense of the competing voices seeking to narrate the travails and triumphs of a struggling, non-conformist family. Annette Bening, who was shamefully overlooked for an Oscar nomination, portrays a woman emboldened but also confused by the growth of her son and the world transforming around her. This film also had one of the best uses of a Talking Heads song in recent memory.

8. OJ: Made in America. Two people, who have absolutely no interest in football, were shocked when they discovered I had not yet watched this eight-hour documentary about OJ. I replied: I watched the Ryan Murphy miniseries. Isn’t Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark enough? No, they emphatically replied. Thus, I doggedly decided to try it one night, and I found myself awake until 2 am on a school night because I watched three back-to-back episodes. This is not simply a documentary about the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and the subsequent trial of Orenthal James Simpson for said crime, but a history of Los Angeles and its race relations. How did OJ become the darling of a white and conservative university like USC, and then how did he suddenly transform into a symbol of oppression for the black community? It is incisive and fascinating.

9. The Handmaiden. This Korean erotic thriller by Park Chan-wook is based on a novel by Sarah Waters set in Victorian England. This film transposes that novel to Korea under Japanese occupation. This masterful adaptation brings to light the particular sensibilities of Korea in the 1930s. The twists and turns of its plot is narrated through each of the main characters, and the performances of Kim Min-hee and Kim Tae-ri crackle with sexual subversion and intensity.

10. Hell or High Water. This riveting tale of bank robbers narrates the plight of the common Trump voter, but it points liberals to the way that these voters can be shown how the powerful world-order espoused by Trump actually harms them. The film maintains its tension through withholding the motives of its robbers until the very end, when Jeff Bridges, as the intrepid US Marshal, cracks the case in one of the most satisfying endings of a film this year.

11. Weiner. When Anthony Weiner allowed a film crew complete access to his bid to be mayor of New York, he should have probably foreseen what a terrible decision that was going to be. Unfortunately for Weiner (and the Democratic party), he is so myopic and stubborn that he didn’t even conceive of the possibility of his Twitter sexting rearing its ugly head all over again. And boy, did it. His twitter handle of Carlos Danger is revealed and everything proceeds to collapse around him instantaneously; all of it captured on film. Huma Abedin looks pained and angry as her marriage continues to face an array of personal problems. It seems patently obvious that she would have rather not have any of it filmed. Let us hope she is happier alone.

12. Love & Friendship. Whit Stillman’s ingenious take on a piece of Austen juvenilia sparkled with the type of wit that is often devoid from your common BBC costume drama. Charming performances from Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny (“Hello, America, I’m Chloe Sevigny”) demonstrated the relevance of Austen to American audiences in the 21^st century, especially with quotes, such as “Facts are such horrid things.” We probably shouldn’t allow the Trump staff to see this one, except the characters are pretty dismissive of the ingrate Americans.

13. Hello, My Name is Doris. Sally Field stars as a hoarder who falls in love with her very young co-worker, played by Max Greenfield. His hipster friends see her eccentric tastes that mark her as an outsider to her peers as symbols of her non-conformity. Finally, a woman in her sixties is allowed to feel sexual desire and not be portrayed as a blood-sucking vampire. She doesn’t end up with her younger man, but she is nonetheless transformed by her encounter.

14. Zootopia. If Disney did anything right this year, it was making a film for children that instructed them about racism. We will need to show this one to our kids frequently for the next four years.

15. Jackie. Pablo Lorrain’s at times overwrought and melodramatic interpretation of Jackie Kennedy’s days following the assassination of her husband displays a deft hand at narrative and camerawork. The pounding score and breathtaking shots follow Jackie as she washes the blood from her hair and battles LBJ’s incoming staff on the proper way to honor her recently deceased spouse. Natalie Portman seemed to be the leading contender for Best Actress, and that seems to have faded, but this will stand as one of her finest performances.

16. The Lobster. Singletons are sent to some sort of camp to be paired with someone or risk being turned into the animal of their choice. It is an odd and charming piece about the demands of compulsory coupledom, and the unreachable demands and expectations we place on ourselves and those around us. Forster exhorted his readers to “only connect,” and The Lobster echoes that. In order to that, we must dismantle the psychological barriers we place before others.

17. Eye in the Sky. This drama about drone warfare, helmed by the director of Tsotsi, exposes the fraught decisions at the heart of this new, impersonal way of battle. Additionally, it handles the legal and diplomatic issues during such elevations of hostilities in a nuanced way. Helen Mirren, as always, provides a portrait of a military commander both surprising and honest.

18. Toni Erdmann. This German film tracing the troubled relationship of father and daughter is strange, and too long at over two-and-a-half hours, but it is rather haunting. It poses a rather vexing ethical question: in late industrial capitalism can we even achieve fruitful relationships?

19. Captain Fantastic. Viggo Mortensen leads a rebellious left-wing family on a journey to bury his wife. With civil liberties now eroding, this film gives us a romantic portrait of what our communes will look like when we disengage from the grid.

20. Hunt for the Wilderpeople. A troubled Maori boy is adopted by a white New Zealand couple, and all seems well. Then the adopted mother drops dead of a heart attack. The rather gruff husband, played by the underrated Sam Neill, must now take charge of this boy, except Child Protective Services wants to take him back. In order to escape, they flee into the hills and forests. There is a troubling anti-government narrative in here, but the bonding between these two men who seem so distant is lovingly portrayed.

Oscar Predicitons: 2016 Edition

2016-02-26T10:51:00.001-08:00

Oscar Predictions: 2016 Edition

In a couple of days, a large group of white people are going to gather and celebrate a bunch of films starring and about white people. Here is what is likely to win.

Best Picture: The Revenant. Of the nominated films, Iñárritu's revenge epic has all the trappings of a bona fide Oscar hit. it has grossed over $160 million; it is beautifully shot; it required Leo to suffer as an actor. Basically, it is David Lean-lite, and the Academy eats this stuff up.

Best Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu. As the sole non-white winner in a big category, Iñárritu will be carrying the night's racial weight on his shoulders. It is unclear whether he will address the situation, since he deferred at the BAFTAs two weeks ago, but it is clear that this win would be a spectacular achievement for the Mexican director. The last time a director won back-to-back Oscars was when Joe Mankiewicz did it in 1950-51.

Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant. There was a period where it seemed as if DiCaprio was going to turn into our generation's Burton or O'Toole, constantly nominated, but never invited to the podium to accept the golden doo-dah. Finally, the universe has conspired to bring together a perfect storm for the Academy to shower praise on Leo. The film is respected and successful, and there is a sense that he does deserve it for the brutal, physical performance he was able to muster.

Best Actress: Brie Larson, Room. Larson has won virtually all of the big prizes, from the Golden Globe to the SAG Award and the BAFTA. This undeniably good streak gives her sure-fire odds to repeat her win on Sunday. I hope that the Oscar win will prompt more people to see this viscerally charged performance that has as much raw physical power as DiCaprio's.

Best Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl. The film received mixed reviews, but even critics who were unimpressed with Redmayne and the rather muddied and muddled script of the film praised Vikander for her nuanced, finely wrought performance. Additionally, she gave a fine performance in Ex Machina this year, as well. She could win simply by exploding into the cinematic consciousness this year, much in the same way that Jim Broadbent was able to win for Iris in 2001, after he made star-making performances in Moulin Rouge and Bridget Jones' Diary in the same year.
However, nostalgia and sentimentality could get the better of the Academy and the award could go to Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs. Although the film was not a critical or commercial success, and Winslet's performance was marred by a wandering accent and a terribly written third act, who doesn't want to see Winslet and DiCaprio win Oscars on the same night?

Best Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone, Creed. I am less sure about this prediction than I was a week ago. Mark Rylance, a fine theatrical actor, is nominated for Bridge of Spies, seems to be gaining some momentum. Although his performance is subtle and keen, he does not have a lot of screen time, nor does he have a scene that established a major emotional impact. Stallone would be a sentimental win for playing a faded, wiser version of Balboa. In this case, it could go either way. Or these two could divide the vote and allow Tom Hardy to win.

Best Original Screenplay: Spotlight. In December, Spotlight seemed to be the frontrunner for Best Picture. It was amassing critical awards, and slowly building an impressive total at the box office. Then, the Revenant crashed onto the scene. Spotlight will win this award as its consolation prize.

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Big Short. Adam McKay who made a career directing sophomoric Will Ferrell vehicles has reinvented himself in order to direct a serious film about the 2008 financial crisis. The screenplay is noted for its handling of explaining the technical details of credit-default swaps and the different tranches of high-risk debt without losing its eye for comedy. Since the film has also grossed almost $70 million, it is also a testament that a smart, funny film need not be a film that is solely seen on DVD or streaming platforms.

Best Documentary Feature: Amy. About a decade ago, I bemoaned the fact that documentaries about pop culture never seemed to break through in this category. Fine pieces about Dylan, Wilco never seemed to receive nominations, while every single one that did win involved war or the Holocaust. Now, it seems the pendulum has swung the other way, and serious films about genocide in Indonesia, sexual assault in the military lose to slight, ephemeral pieces about back-up singers or long-forgotten pop singers. Amy follows the tragedy that was Amy Winehouse and is notable for demonstrating how those closest to her enabled her addictions, and in some cases even hid, encouraged, and supported them. It is touching, and of those nominated this year, is the best.

Best Animated Feature: Inside Out. As the most successful animated film of the year, both critically and commercially, Pixar has its lock on this category yet again. It will win because of Bing Bong, and it should.

Best Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul. It's a Hungarian movie about the Holocaust. Enough said. This will be Hungary's first win at the Oscars ever.

Best Cinematography: The Revenant. Emmanuel Lubezki will pick up his third consecutive Oscar, after winning for Gravity and Birdman. Revenant, regardless of what you think of its revisionist history, or celebration of white-male hegemonic masculinity, is a beautiful film.

Best Editing: Mad Max: Fury Road. Mad Max became a surprise summer hit and a rallying cry for third-wave feminists. If Revenant was not the main contender this year, this movie could conceivably win Best Picture.

Best Costume Design: Carol. Many are predicting Mad Max will win this, and it did win the BAFTA, but Carol's careful attention to the delineation of its characters had so much to do with the exquisite clothes that I am rooting for it to win here.

Best Production Design: Mad Max. I would probably rather see Danish Girl best the competition here, but Max's desert apocalypse is worthy.

Best Make-up: Mad Max. Although I am very pleased that the little seen Finnish movie, The 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and wandered about outside, received a surprise nomination here, Mad Max clearly has to win here.

Best Score: Hateful Eight. I am torn here: I would love to see Morricone finally win a competitive Oscar (he was given an honorary Oscar in 2007), but his score for Hateful Eight is not entirely memorable or extensive. For me, the best score of this year was Mad Max's harrowing drum and guitar-riff-heavy pounding score that riveted you in your seat for two hours. However, it failed to secure a nomination.

Best Song: "Til It Happens to You." Lady Gaga has a lot of good will towards her right now (she will also be the first person EVER to perform at the Oscars, Grammys and Super Bowl in the same year). Also, Diane Warren has never won an Oscar. I do prefer the lushness of Sam Smith's Bond theme, and it did win the Golden Globe, but this song is attached to a documentary about sexual assault on college campuses, and has the sort of social consciousness and critique that the Academy prefers (and needs, since we have no actors of color nominated).

Sound Effects Editing and Sound Mixing: I am sending these Mad Max's way. Watch for Mad Max to be the big winner with up to 5 prizes to its name for the evening.

Visual Effects: The Revenant. Simply for the Bear. Simply for the BEAR.

Best Documentary Short: Body Team 12. It's a brief (mercifully) look at medical workers who had to clear bodies from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Best Animated Short: Bear Story.

Live Action Short: Shok. It's about two boys surviving during the war in Kosovo.

Top Films of 2015

2016-01-26T12:01:00.000-08:00

Top Films of 2015

1. Brooklyn—I have here chosen a problematic film for this year as my top choice. Yes, this is the whitest movie of a very white year of Academy nominations. Here we have an old-fashioned, safe, innocuous story of love found and questioned by an Irish immigrant in post-war America. This charming narrative, however, is riven by our very present concerns of inclusion and diversity. Here we have a story of a New York borough where the only diversity comes from Italians and Irish girls trying to deal with their own xenophobia. How have we created a vision of Brooklyn in the 1950’s that erases the presence of blacks, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Jews? This film in its technicolor glory and its superb, tight script by Nick Hornby (based on a novel by Colm Toibin) exposes the blindness of all aspects of the Hollywood studio system; it serves as an indictment of a system that refuses to change. As Viola Davis stated in her Emmy acceptance speech in September, “the only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.” With a slate of films that investigate, probe, or sometimes simply celebrate whiteness, we have not overlooked black actors (except in the case of Idris Elba), we have simply ignored them in casting them in anything other than a funny sidekick, a nefarious criminal, or faces to bring in local color. Although Brooklyn is the most charming film of the year, it is a film that demonstrates how far we have yet to go to create an American culture of inclusivity that respects and honors the voices of those that live outside the confines of whiteness, however broadly defined.

2. The Revenant—In a masterful revisionist western, Alejandro G. Iñárritu has constructed a view of the harsh, violent reality of the nineteenth-century frontier. Following the trials and tribulations of Hugh Glass, who experiences some of the most brutal details of survivor narratives, the film exposes the racism, aggression, and fear that undergirded the experience of these explorers and furriers. The “whoosh” of arrows, the dark unknown beyond the trees, and the constant terror of dangers both manmade and natural around every corner create the tense atmosphere of a slasher film; however, what Iñárritu achieves is a radical re-assessment of the Western. These are not the Indians of Hopalong Cassidy; this is not the honor system of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven; this is a brutal world of male exhibitionism that simply masks a culture of death and dread.

3. Mad Max: Fury Road—In another revisionist Western, George Miller has outfitted the legendary Australian outback post-apocalyptic with a refreshing feminist lens. Eve Ensler famously served as a consultant on the film to provide the female characters with such shocking things as motivation, delineation, and desire. Charlize Theron has become one of the most complex frontier women since Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge dueled in Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954). She rages; she cowers; she storms. The plot may have a few problems: they travel a very long way, only to decide to turn around and go back the way they came. The interplay between a set of well-defined characters brings this franchise into the 21^st century.

4. Carol—Todd Haynes’ quiet adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel traces the lines of desire between two women divided by class and upbringing in 1950’s Manhattan. Cate the Great Blanchett constructs a woman of fragility and passion masked by a façade of icy superiority. Rooney Mara shines as an upstart store clerk, unsure of her own feelings. In this film, the men are brutes unaware of their selfish demands that see women as merely the accessories of their successful lives. The drama emerges from this conflict of women wishing a fulfilled existence that negates the presence of men. These men fight these tendencies but with absolutely no understanding of the pleas of these women with whom they wish to outfit their homes of domestic bliss. Cate’s final monologue is a master class in poise and control.

5. Spotlight—A superb ensemble cast led by Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian D’Arcy James relates the story of the Boston Globe’s attempts to expose how the pedophilia scandal of the Catholic Church reached into the highest echelons of the structure of the institution in the fall of 2001. The desires of this journalistic team to expose a story and to give voice of the victims of sexual abuse comes into a direct conflict with their editor (Live Schrieber) who is certain that the story is deeper and bigger. The uncovering of how the Church moved priests time and time again to different parishes leads to an explosive set of stories that no good Catholic in Boston could ignore. The scandal was at every level of the Church and it was not a mere example of a bad apple or two.

6. Room—A harrowing film based on Emma Donoghue’s novel about a woman kept imprisoned for years in an environment of rape with her son bred of this assault is a fine example of cinematic relation of trauma and resilience. How do we imagine a child who has known only two individuals for his six years of life would be reintegrated into a society he has never known? Brie Larson’s finely crafted and raw performance takes an interesting character in a novel into a fully-fledged example of pain, persecution and survival. She does deserve the Oscar. The film has not performed terribly well at the box office (currently grossing only $7 million in the North American market), but it is a film whose power is undeniable, even if it proves for difficult viewing material.

7. Beasts of No Nation—Cary Fukunaga is a master of crafting narratives that take characters whose motivations may seem morally repugnant and investigating exactly how such individuals can rationally come to make such decisions. Here we find Idris Elba (in a role for which he should have been nominated) playing a commandant of a small army of child soldiers in Ghana during a brutal civil war. Although the film does not do enough to trouble the narrative of the exceptionalism of African violence, we do witness the story of a brutal commander who sees his role as a protector and savior for the nation and his children, even if that paternal role results in the sacrificing of children to the horrors of war or to his own sexual desires. It is a complex and complicated piece.

8. Ex Machina—The film industry managed to create a set of films that questioned the received structures of genres, such as the western, the boxing film, and here a scifi piece. We see a cyborg created with emotional human tendencies, including deception and self-aggrandizement. Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander perform off one another’s strengths in a tug-of-war of power. Isaac, who has become one of our most prominent actors (without being labeled and pigeon-holed as a Hispanic actor), delights in a performance that hovers around a morally ambiguous center but never fully disposes of humor. His vacillations keep both the other characters and the audience uncertain of what may happen next.

9. Inside Out—Pixar created a bold vision of how the emotions in our head battle each other for prominence, only to learn that they all must work together in order to create the individual whom they drive. If you fail to feel anything at Bing Bong’s last scene, you are dead inside.

10. Straight Outta Compton and Dope—Two fine hip-hop films demonstrated the pressures of the film industry to craft films that relate the black experience without pandering to the audience. Straight Outta Compton’s brash, big Hollywood-style portrayal of the rise and fall of NWA harkens back to musical biopics from the 1950s about Lorenz and Hart, Lillian Roth, Jane Froman or Cole Porter. These stars witness a meteoric rise, only to encounter obstacles created by the industry, their relationships with one another, and the demands of fame. Some fail to rise again, while others adapt. Dope, on the other hand, took a quiet approach to following a group of youths who revel in nostalgia for early 90’s hip-hop, unsure of where they fit in their neighborhood and culture. This small indie, which was a huge hit at Sundance, made only a fraction of Compton’s box-office intake, but, in fact, broke through more stereotypes in its crafting of characters forging their own identities that appear to be in conflict with those around them.

11. The Martian—I have become a huge fan of having a big space movie every fall. First, it was Gravity’s technical prowess that stunned us, then Interstellar demonstrated a perhaps pretentious but fascinating narrative of spiritual angst in the universe. Ridley Scott’s film doesn’t quite achieve either of those two films’ high aspirations, but it does tell a rollicking good story guided by a tongue-in-cheek performance from Matt Damon. It is fun, and it is relevant with our latest discoveries from Mars that demonstrate that perhaps in Interstellar McConaughey should have just taken his group to Mars rather than going through wormholes.

12. Creed—Rocky Balboa punched his way into the American consciousness in 1976. Nearly forty years later, Stallone comes back to train the son of his former rival, Apollo Creed. This is a fine example of a genre film that makes us question the usual structures of that genre. Ryan Coogler, who became an indie darling with Fruitvale Station, has now demonstrated soundly to Hollywood that he can direct a big-budget film as well.

13. Clouds of Sils Maria—Kristen Stewart received heaps of praise for this film, including becoming the first (?!) American actress ever to receive a competitive César Award (the French equivalent of the Oscar). However, it is not Stewart that dominates this complicated tale of an actress revisiting one of her earlier successes in a new film. Juliette Binoche commands her presence, and her generosity as an actor allows Stewart to appear more human than she ever has on screen. Binoche occupies a storied place among French actresses, along with Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, only Marion Cotillard rivals her for force and variability.

Honorable Mentions:

Noah Baumbach has softened his navel-gazing ways in a recent stream of movies. Although his characters are still troubling narcissists, his films have become more highly attuned to competing desires and narratives with a keener eye for visual ingenuity and more satisfying structures. This year, he told the stories of a set of rather bumbling misfits in Mistress America and While We’re Young that form an interesting trilogy with Frances Ha.

The Big Short narrates a complicated set of events that underpinned the collapse of financial markets in 2008. Adam McKay, who previously directed Will Ferrell gross-out comedies, has not traded in comedy for serious Oscar fare, but rather has directed his eye towards more sophisticated stories while still maintaining that comedic flare.

Far from the Madding Crowd is typical Thomas Hardy fare. Love triangles, missed connections, returns of ghosts, and a woman who is faced with obstacles that verge on the sadistic. Carey Mulligan’s intensity is on display yet again, and its timid portrayal marks her as someone who should be more highly sought after than she is.

My hatred for Apple knows no bounds

2015-04-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, a video went viral of a woman having a meltdown in an Apple Store. Condemnation of the woman's entitlement was swift and vehement. This was my initial reaction, as well. A privileged white woman who, god forbid, has to wait her turn to be helped with her broken iPhone. Let's watch the video again:

Since I have been dealing with a MacBook that seemingly cannot be fixed, I have more sympathy with this woman. I have had two Apple laptops, and all they do is cause me problems. They make me livid. I pride myself on my calm demeanor, but when this stuff doesn't work, I lose my mind.

Here's the story: I was raised on Apple computers. Every single desktop and laptop computer I have personally owned has been some sort of Mac, going all the way back to those lego-like Centris computers in the 90's. However, I may just be emerging out of some sort of consumerist Stockholm Syndrome, and I am willing and able to throw off the shackles of my psychological imprisonment.

Apple products are, undeniably, beautifully designed specimens of technological expertise. But are they great computing devices. The next time you run into a computing engineer, coder, or hacker, ask her (it will most likely be a him, but there are many women engineers and hackers out there) what kind of computer she has. She will most likely respond with some sort of very specific PC, with specifications I cannot even begin to imagine. Why do we consumers, most of whom understand nothing about code, logic boards, or even computing, spend countless sums of money on Apple products? I term this problem the "Louis Vuitton fallacy." We tend to think that because something is pretty and expensive, it must be inherently more valuable. certainly Louis Vuitton luggage is pretty, and it sure is expensive, but it is probably less functional than Samsonite luggage, and an LV purse does no better functional job than a leather bag from an Italian handmade store, which would be a fraction of the price of that LV purse. This same fallacy applies to Apple products: because Apple has this impressive and persuasive marketing campaign, and they look so pretty and cost so much, they must be the best out there.

I was a victim of this fallacy for years. I thought no PC could ever come near an Apple product in its abilities to get work done. But like a cog in the great capitalist machine, I was hoodwinked by marketing and design.

The damn things don't work.

Maybe, it's just me. I have begun to refer to myself as the "Bermuda Triangle of Apple Products." I must have some sort of electrical charge running through my fingers that just causes these things to die. My last laptop went through a couple hard drives while it was still under warranty. This new one, only a year old, had its hard drive replaced just months ago in January, and, while installing a software update last night, it crashed terribly yet again. I have been unable to reboot it.

What do I do on my computers that causes them so much distress? Do I make movies, music, do I hack into the Pentagon? Of course not. I surf the web and write blog posts like this. I tend to keep myself from even doing actual work on this thing, because who knows if it will crash in the middle of me working on a spreadsheet or compiling a powerpoint.

I thus use my laptop for two applications: Word and Safari. And it still don’t work.

So this begs a question: Why does a $1500 computer (make that $1700 when you add in the NECESSARY Apple Care and other sundry devices) not function when asked to operate two of our most basic computing needs of humanity in the form of word processing and internet surfing.

Because these things are useless, that's why. On top of that, have you tried to get a product, still under warranty, fixed by these Apple people? I love that they require input of a serial number to even schedule an appointment to speak to someone. I find humor in this because my laptop will no longer boot up, so I have no way to ascertain what my serial number may be. When I did mention this to one of the purported geniuses of Apple they told me the serial number was on the box it came in. Oh, I see, I am supposed to be a hoarder and keep the box. Well, thanks, “genius.”

In January, my computer froze and refused to boot up. I went through an entire day (a Saturday, I might add) trying to get this thing to work and trying to contact someone to get it scheduled for a repair. I have been through this enough to know when a hard drive is fried. Now, of course, my most recent laptop is somehow not registered with my Apple ID. Why? I don’t know. The old laptop, which died a similar tragic death is the only registered to this Apple ID. Thus, after I go through this rigamarole of logging into the Apple ID system, which always goes wrong and requires me resetting my password again, it tells me my computer is no longer under warranty. In order to speak to a human being, I would have to fork over $29.99.

Let me get this straight: I am already apoplectic with rage because I cannot turn on my computer, so I am using my iPhone to troubleshoot, and you have the nerve to tell me that my eight-month-old machine is not under warranty? Yes, that does not help in the anger management department. This is why I now have sympathy for that woman screaming in the Apple Store. It is a frustrating, humiliating, dehumanizing experience to simply get your damn device fixed, even when you have the goddamn extended warranty.

There are days when I want to take a hammer to it and every Apple product, and I would receive that one touch of satisfaction of just destroying the shit out of it. If I were to do this, I would quote the Bhagavad-Gita while pounding away: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." I would feel empowered for once over these beastly technological devices.

I was on the phone with Apple techs who could do nothing, so I asked them to schedule a genius bar appointment for me. A seemingly simple question, but no. At first, the tech balked at that, but have you tried to book a genius bar appointment on your phone? It's a pain in the ass. Of course, I could find no appointment for the next couple of days at any Apple store near me, so traveled far and away to drop it off. At every step in the road, you have to explain what you were doing when the thing died. I always get this sense that they are fishing for illicit details of hacking or figuring what copious amounts of kinky porn I may have been watching when it crashed. Well, in fact, I was watching Downton Abbey on Netflix when this thing imploded. When I think kinky porn, Downton Abbey is at the top of my list.

An amusing anecdote: on the last computer crash back in January, one of these so-called geniuses came over to look at my computer. He, like so many of his colleagues, had that endearing condescension to his manner and speech. There is a quality to these hipsters that seems to say, “oh, mortal, what have you done now?” Well, when he ran a diagnostic test on the dumb, piece of crap it flashed a bright red banner that said “FAILED.” The only response he could muster was: “I haven’t seen that before.” These people, dear mortals, are referred to by a multi-national corporation as geniuses.

Now, just a handful of months later, I was installing a new software update. When it was completed, my computer could not reboot. Once again, I find myself with a computer that doesn’t turn on. I am struggling to get someone to talk to me on the phone, but because my correct serial number is not registered, who knows if that will happen?

This brings me to my liberating conclusion: Apple products are junk. I have been hoodwinked, tricked and fooled to fork over massive amounts of money for these devices that don’t actually do anything. So, I am now willing and able to cast off this yoke, throw this POS into the garbage, head to Best Buy and buy a Dell. The Dell may not work great either, but, hey it was a fraction of the cost, so who cares?

Then again, Tim cook may show up with some new touch-screen, retina display module that cooks soup while it bathes you, and I will go and buy version 2.0 pf that thing and in a year be all pissed off all over again.

Capitalism has sucked me into its never-ending cycle of planned obsolescence.

Thanks, Tim Cook.

Or should I blame Obama?

Thanks, Obama.

Oscar Predictions -- 2015 Edition

2015-02-21T12:20:00.001-08:00

As the Hollywood elite are in the midst of primping and cleansing for tomorrow's big event, I shall run down the categories and over assorted prognostications. Unlike the past several years, where the top categories seemed fairly predictable (save for Best Director in 2012, when Ang Lee surprisingly won), there are several categories this year that seem like toss-ups between two favored films. Then, there are a handful of categories where there is no question who will win. Thus, we could have a night with several surprises, or afterwards we will all shake our heads and say, "well, I saw that one coming."

Best Picture: Birdman

Boyhood was clearly the front runner in this category just a month ago. It had won a slew of critics' awards and also the Golden Globe. At the Globes, Birdman's solitary prize was for screenplay. Then, surprisingly, the guilds awards all went for Birman. The PGA, DGA, and SAG all honored the hectically paced backstage drama about a washed-up action star. Although Boyhood could still eke out a win here, it seems as if Birdman has momentum behind it. But there is another wrinkle to this: with the preferential ballot system for Best Picture, I wonder if these two could divide the vote in such a way that The Grand Budapest Hotel or Imitation Game wins the big prize. I assume that American Sniper has no chance here, but I thought the same for Crash in 2005, so I could be wrong yet again.

Best Director: Richard Linklater, Boyhood

Although González Iñárritu is nipping at Linklater's heels for this prize, I do believe that Linklater's scope and tenacity in bringing this production to fruition will ultimately win.

Best Actress: Julianne Moore, Still Alice

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Julianne Moore will easily triumph in this category. This is her fifth nomination and she is well respected in Hollywood. My only twinge of sadness about this stems from the fact that Moore will not win the award for some of her truly seminal work in films such as The Hours, The End of the Affair, Far from Heaven, Magnolia and Boogie Nights. Moore is fantastic as a Columbia linguistics professor facing the diagnosis and encroaching symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer's, but the film is marred by a terribly pouty performance from Kristen Stewart as her whining daughter who longs to be taken seriously as an actress. I wish this win was for Far from Heaven 2: Loving the Gardener, again.

Best Actor: Michael Keaton, Birdman

Eddie Redmayne is clearly the leading contender for this prize, having already won the Globe, SAG, and BAFTA for Best Actor. I am personally biased against Redmayne (I just don't like him), but I am resistant to giving the award to such an Oscar-baiting performance. it just all seems so obvious: he is playing a real-life crippled, tortured and unlucky-in-love brilliant scientist. Can't we give it to something that isn't so obvious. The layers of Keaton's performance and the numerous gestures towards his own life, creates this complex performance of signs (signifiers and the signified) and even the notion that Keaton himself is the far-off referent in all of this.

Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Whiplash wowed the crowds at Sundance last January and, in a very limited release, created some serious word of mouth. Ultimately, it shocked everyone for some big nominations at the BAFTAs and Oscars, including Best Picture. The film narrates a struggle between teacher and student that is anchored by two great performances from Miles Teller and Simmons. Simmons, being the longtime character actor, familiar from Law & Order, Juno, and those Farmers Insurance commercials, will get some respect from his peers tomorrow night, for a performance everyone believes deserves it.

Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

I have been flummoxed by some of the critical reaction to Arquette's performance. Most critics have noted how "brave" she was to allow herself to expand (in terms of her weight, not her craft), age and wrinkle before our eyes in this film. That misses the point that Arquette has created a performance that fights against the very androcentric gaze of this film--it's called boyhood, for god's sake. Arquette's mother fights for recognition, love, and respect, as she makes mistakes, fails, and, in the end, triumphs. Although I have a bit of a desire to see Keira Knightley win here, I am fully on board with the Arquette bandwagon.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Damien Chazelle, Whiplash

This may be Imitation Game's only chance for a big prize--or any prize, in fact--but the bizarre story around Chazelle's screenplay may have garnered it enough attention to win the Oscar. Channel films a piece of his screenplay in order to raise financing for the production, but because of this brief filmed piece that was used to shop the screenplay around the writers' branch deemed the screenplay adapted, even though the screenplay was written first! A similar situation occurred to Billy bob Thornton with his Sling Blade script.

Best Original Screenplay: Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel

Two months ago, I was convinced that Birdman would only win one big prize and it would be in this category. Now, that seems not to be the case, and I think Anderson's well-liked and successful trifle that depicts love, baking, hoteliers, among the rise of totalitarianism to win his first Oscar.

Best Animated Feature: How to Train Your Dragon 2

Since Lego Movie is not nominated and the Dragon sequel won the Globe and BAFTA, I assume it will win here, too. The first film was inventive and charming; I found myself lost in the sequel (though I enjoyed the addition of Cate Blanchett), but since Big Hero 6 has no momentum, this has to win.

Best Documentary Feature: Citizenfour

Laura Poitras' look at Edward Snowden will premiere on HBO on Monday night, so I have yet to see it. The film has rave reviews and seems to offer the fullest portrait of our NSA leaker, since Glenn Greenwald's work.

Best Foreign Language Film: Ida

Leviathan, a Russian film about small-town corruption, may win here, but I want this beautiful Polish film about a young novitiate search for answers to what happened to her family during the Holocaust (spoiler alert: they died) is one of the most breathtakingly gorgeous films of the year.

Best Song: "Glory" from Selma

Wouldn't it be nice for a truly good hip-hop song win in this category that doesn't have pimp in the title, or isn't written by a white dude? I think it would be. It would also give Selma a chance to shine, after being willfully ignored by the Academy in every other category, save Picture.

Best Score: Alexandre Desplat, The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Icelandic composer, Johann Johannsonn, created a lush string-filled score for Theory of Everything, and that may win here, but Desplat's careful work that has garnered him eight nominations (with zero wins, and two nominations this year), I think should finally compel the Academy to award him this year.

Best Costume Design, Make-up/Hair and Production Design: The Grand Budapest Hotel

The costumes and sets for Anderson's delightful romp will do a repeat of Great Gatsby and win these prizes handily. What was done to Tilda Swinton will win the award for Makeup.

Best Cinematography: Birdman

This may be the most difficult category for me to call. It is filled with nominees who are all serving. Roger Deakins, who has made a career of working with the Coen Brothers, has yet to win. Mr. Turner and Ida are two gorgeous films; Grand Budapest continues Anderson's aesthetic project of juxtaposition of numerous shooting styles to create a vibrant tableau. I assume because of the technical mastery required to film the precisely choreographed scenes of Birdman will bring Emmanuel Lubezki his second consecutive Oscar, after winning for Gravity last year.

Best Editing: Whiplash

This prediction may seem to be out of left field, especially since Birdman and Boyhood seem to be the two obvious choices here. Boyhood had 12 years of footage to sift through. Birdman had to be edited so carefully that it appeared there was no editing. However, Whiplash's musical sequences are so wonderfully filmed and carefully edited that I, like the BAFTAs, want this film to be awarded here.

Best Sound Mixing: Whiplash

To ensure that the drumming was heard loud and clear, and didn't simply fade into the background required quite a bit of technical mastery. If I am correct, Whiplash may be one of the biggest surprise winners of the evening with four awards.

Best Sound Editing: American Sniper

I am willing to give the Eastwood jingoistic flick this award, and that is all.

Best Visual Effects: Interstellar

Nolan's latest sci-fi epic faltered a bit at the box office, and there was some serious criticism leveled at the film about its gender and racial politics, but the powerful worlds created by Nolan's team were imaginative and impressive (even if the sound mixing in the movie was terrible).

Best Animated Short: Feast

Feast was the Disney short ahead of Big Hero 6. It is about a dog's love of food, so why not?

Best Documentary Short: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

HBO's documentary about working on a suicide helpline for Veterans is harrowing and powerful, and calls for much-needed resources to be sent towards the mental health of returning combatants from our decades-long wars.

Best Live Action Short: The Phone Call

Another film about suicide hotlines, but this time with Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent. It is rare to see major star power in a short like this, and it could garner some attention from Academy voters due to that. The other contender in this category appears to be Butter Lamp which is a loosely confederated set of images of Tibetan nomads.

Best Films of 2014

2015-01-17T21:31:00.001-08:00

BEST FILMS OF 2014

1. "Selma" -- On Thursday morning, we awoke to the shocking news that "Selma" was nominated in only two categories and its director, Ava Duvernay, and its stars, David Oyelowo and Carmen Ejogo, were locke out of nominations. The only other nomination it received was for its song, penned by Common and John Legend. The last time a film was nominated for Best Picture and was not nominated in a large top-five category, such as for acting, directing, or writing, that I have determined is 1944 when "The Ox-Bow Incident" was nominated solely for Best Picture. There seemed to be issues with distributing screeners, and there may be "racial fatigue" among Academy voters since they awarded "12 Years a Slave" last year; however, this does seem to represent a serious travesty, since no film this year has aligned so well with the political discourse of our moment. As protests have swept the country over events in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City, it seems appropriate for a major film to be made that addresses the hard-won fight to enfranchise African Americans in this country and demonstrates that work is still not complete. Some have criticized the film for historical inaccuracies, but, in fact, the film has done a rather refreshing job of portraying the competing factions of the civil rights movement. On the question of LBJ, I am rather convinced that in January of 1965, Johnson did not want to engage in another civil rights bill, when he had passed a large bill that previous summer. Regardless of these criticisms, "Selma" succeeds on a powerful script and impressive performances. This is a film that benefits from a communal viewing in a theater.

2. "A Most Violent Year"--In just a handful of years, J.C. Chandor has created three well-reviewed films, "Margin Call," "All is Lost," and now, "A Most Violent Year." None of these has succeeded quite at the hoped for level at the box office, but Chandor is now poised to become a major force in Hollywood. Chandor's strength lies in his commitment to create films that have crisp and clear stories with complicated characters who are somehow still sympathetic. In "A Most Violent Year," Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain run an oil-distribution business, and have run into a rather delicate financial situation. Refreshingly, this married couple has its passive-aggressive moments, but they are portrayed as a partnership and, lo and behold, they do not appear to be unfaithful. Unlike our current fetishization of dark characters making poor choices, Chandor's flick revolves around a sympathetic character who is trying to make the right decisions.

3. "Grand Budapest Hotel"--If people are convinced that Wes Anderson cannot make a commercially successful film, you can point those individuals to this film that took in almost $60 million at the domestic box office. Many pundits, including me, were convinced that by releasing this film in March, it would lose all hope of securing a single nomination. Fortunately, it remained on critics' top-ten lists and in the minds of audiences and garnered nine nominations, including Wes Anderson's first as Best Director. This light romp actually confronts serious issues of warfare, totalitarianism, and terror, while focusing on a set of eccentric characters. Yet again, Ralph Fiennes, who has made himself into one of the most dependable character actors of the last two decades, was overlooked yet again for an Oscar nomination. That may be as big a snub as failing to nominate Oyelowo.

4. "Whiplash"-- Damien Chazelle's directorial debut was a tight, rollicking film about a drummer in a music conservatory facing an enemy in the guise of a teacher. With a standout performance from Juno's dad (J.K. Simmons), "Whiplash" succeeds as a morality tale of how much of ourselves we lose by attempting to achieve perfection. The film is worth watching for the superb editing and camerawork in its series of filmed musical performances.

5. "Ida"--It is hard to recommend a bleak Polish Holocaust movie. The film follows a young nun, as she attempts to uncover what happened to her parents in the war (spoiler alert: it was the Holocaust; they died horrifically). Powerful performances coupled with the superb Oscar-nominated cinematography takes this bleak tale and transforms it into a transcendent film about how the past continues to haunt succeeding generations.

6. "Birdman, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance"-- Iñàrittu's film about a man who sounds a lot like Michael Keaton attempting to make a comeback, starring Michael Keaton, has become one of the most successful films from Hollywood about actors. The long takes, coupled with precise and complicated dialogue and choreographed camerawork, set a fast pace for a piece that grapples with notions of failure, artistry and the search for validation.

7. "Imitation Game" -- Benedict Cumberbatch has secured his place as the go-to actor for intense, mildly autistic white man. In fact, much of this year has seen films where mildly autistic white men are celebrated for their very lack of social graces. White privilege certainly is powerful. But back to "Imitation Game": although its final monologue from Keira Knightley is beautifully filmed and performed, it is an anachronistic moment that marks exactly how we want to view the past and the history of sexuality. Keira can tell Benedict, with tears in her eyes, that damn the normal people, it is those who aren't normal that change the world for the rest of us. It is a beautiful sentiment, but no one in 1957 would have uttered such a speech. The film is marked by some wonderful performances and beautiful production values, but "Imitation Game" would have most likely have made more impact a decade ago when our consciousness had not been raised by films like "Brokeback Mountain," "Milk," or "A Single Man."

8. "Mr. Turner" -- Mike Leigh's films can sometimes feel inaccessible and a random string of inside jokes and improvised performances. Other times, he creates a work of art that is astonishing and beautiful. "Vera Drake" told the heartbreaking story of a woman who faces prison after she attends to a botched abortion in mid-twentieth-century Britain, and "Mr. Turner" tells a simpler tale of the British Romantic painter, J.M.W. Turner. Following the last 25 years of Turner's life, Leigh has constructed a film about art where Turner's vision and eye is at the forefront. With a standout performance from Timothy Spall, "Mr. Turner" allows its audience to experience the creation of an artist and his work.

9. "Boyhood"-- Linklater's work may be more interesting for the way it was filmed, rather than for its story. Although its directorial choices are clearly innovative, its story resembles the most staid family melodramas. By having his actors age over a dozen years, Linklater has provided the chance for Patricia Arquette to shine brighter than she has ever been allowed up to this time.

10. "Lego Movie"-- When I first heard that a movie was going to be made around legos, I was convinced this was the end of American civilization. How crass and cynical does it sound that a movie would be made about toys that are simply built? What would Marx say about this? He would be sickened. When I actually saw it, the film does a deft job of navigating around things Marx himself discussed, the fetishization of the commodity, and the concomitant loss of identity in an industrial society. In many ways, this is one of the more interesting Marxist films to gain such widespread viewings. And bosh to you if you claim there is no Marxism in this piece; I will ignore you and listen to "Everything is Awesome" one more time.

11. "Only Lovers Left Alive"--Jarmusch made a movie about vampires with Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton? Why yes, he did. It is delightful and John Hurt plays a pitch-perfect Kit Marlowe.

12. "Gloria"-- Sebastian Lelio's bittersweet story about a middle-aged woman navigating the terrain of being single in Santiago, Chile, is simultaneously harrowing and beautiful with an intrepid performance from Paulina Garcia.

13. "Pride"-- A charming, if sentimental, story of a group of homosexuals driving up to Wales to help striking coal miners in 1984, "Pride" tells a little-known story about the power of alliances and coalitions. It may ignore a set of racial politics and tensions between these groups, the film succeeds as a heartwarming tale that did result in the adoption of a gay-rights platform within the Labour Party.

14. "Belle"-- Gugu Mbatha-Raw made a splash this year in both "Belle" and "Beyond the Lights." Her subtle performance in what I have termed the sweet version of "12 Years" shaded a complex historical figure of whom very little is known. By recreating the trial of the infamous Zong ship, Belle portrayed a moment of prime historical import while framing it with a romantic and sentimental love story.

15, 16, 17. "Cake,""Wild," "Still Alice"-- I place these together as the handful of films that decided it would be a good idea to focus on a female character. Have you noticed that all but Selma of the best actor nominations focus on a straight white man who has some personality quirks? All of them. And Selma still has a man at the forefront of his film. Two actresses often dismissed as light and frivolous, J. Anniston and Reese, surprised critics with a pair of finely crafted dramatic performances. Julianne Moore seems to have locked down her first Oscar, after four other nominations, in a film about a linguistics professor losing control over her mind as she slips into Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, the film is hurt by the terrible casting of Kristen Stewart as a pouty teenaged daughter who wants to be a serious actress. Watching Kristen Stewart try to deliver the final monologue from Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" was truly disturbing. Couldn't we have hired Emma Watson instead?

18. "Theory of Everything" -- Eddie Redmayne is in the Oscar bait performance of the year: crippled, brilliant real-life character. I usually loathe Redmayne, ever since "My Week with Marilyn" irked me with its self-indulgent quackery, but what makes this movie shine is Felicity Jones' beautiful performance as Hawking's wife who finds that she cannot find happiness in a marriage where she is solely the caregiver. John Nash's wife actually divorced him, too, but Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman could not bear the thought of having Jennifer Connelly walk out on Russell Crowe. Fortunately, this film takes on a deeper shade of meaning by showing Jones' character struggling against the role she is supposed to accept graciously.

19. "Nightcrawler"-- I have said this time and again: losing or gaining a lot of weight does not constitute a great performance. I suppose Jake Gyllenhaal assumed he would not be taken seriously if he were too pretty. The movie does succeed as a tightly wound tale of intrigue within the world of journalism running to catch up with the morally ambiguous success of TMZ. I also enjoyed that two of the neighborhoods of LA that I know best were portrayed as crime-ridden hellholes, including a shootout at the Chinatown Express at 3rd and Western.

20. "Into the Woods" -- Someone should inform Rob Marshall that making a musical cinematic does not mean that every single song has to be shot in extreme close-up. The film loses a bit of steam in the second act, but Emily Blunt is surprisingly good as the Baker's Wife.

21. "Gone Girl" -- Fincher's revenge tale, penned by novelist Gillian Flynn, engages in some truly bizarre gender politics, but Rosamund Pike was finally able to secure herself a part that has made her into the star that she deserves to be.

Oscar Predictions for 2014!

2014-03-01T14:10:00.000-08:00

Because the Oscars did not want to be put against the Closing Ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics, we have had a particularly long awards season. The Globes were over a month and a half ago; the Baftas a couple weeks ago. Are we in statuette fatigue yet? I am now compelled to say that the length of this season may lead to one of the most spectacularly predictable Oscars in recent memory. With L.A. still under a flood watch, this may prove to be Oscar's soggiest year.

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave

McQueen's directorial adaptation of Solomon Northrup's memoir of 1853 (notice the date: before Dred Scott, John Brown or, even, Bloody Kansas) has been criticized, analyzed, praised. Melissa Harris-Perry and bell hooks had a rousing discussion about this movie, where Harris-Perry thought the film did and admirable job of exposing the daily brutalities of slave life, while hooks was convinced the film offered nothing for African Americans. I see the film as playing a particularly important role in the current political discourse, where the Right is firmly convinced that the civil War was not waged over slavery, where Obamacare is "a new form of slavery," a prominent libertarian can write jokingly that slavery and the Civil Rights Act are not that far away, and state legislators can tell African Americans that it is time "to get over slavery." Although Reconstruction ended in 1877, the American nation is still grappling with this past. Of course, the most heartbreaking moment of the piece is the brief written postscript that informs us that we are not sure as to the events of the last decade of his life, or even his exact date of death. McQueen's great intervention in making this film was to use the visual language of the glamorized South portrayed in Hollywood films, such as Jezebel or Gone with the Wind. This film is sumptuous and makes its statement in the same way that Cukor or Fleming would, creating his own equivalencies of this universe. With the breathtaking cast of Ejiofor, Sarah Paulson (in a particularly gruesome portrayal that exposes the limits of sisterhood), newcomer Lupita Nyong'o and Michael Fassbender, this film offers a biting critique of the mythology of the lost cause told in stunning technicolor.

Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

Many have complained that Gravity is light on story and heavy on technical effects, but, oh what technical effects. The breathtaking vision we get of loneliness with a pacing that keeps one's knuckles white throughout is a technical feat of achievement that few directors can achieve. I would have, in fact, preferred even less back story for Bullock's character, and more moments of the sublime loneliness of space (something JC Chandor accomplished in his version of Gravity awash at sea, All is Lost). Films set in space changed drastically after Kubrick's 2001, and now after Gravity, no space film will be the same.

Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Writing the above words made my skin crawl. I should admit that I enjoyed Jean-Marc Vallée's piece about the debates surrounding AZT in the mid-1980's and the efforts of one man in Texas to try to combat the slow-going processes of the FDA. McConaughey showed a depth to his characterization that we have not seen and this may just be his annis mirabilis (Mud and True Detective have also garnered the drawler a mountain of praise). I just don't like him. He is going to ascend the stage and chant, "All right, all right, all right," and then I shall wretch. I would love to see Leo win instead, but the controversy around Wolf of Wall Street has hindered his chance at receiving his long-coveted award.

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

For a brief moment, I wondered whether the renewed outrage over Woody Allen was going to affect Cate the Great's chances of winning, but it appears as if any such fears were misplaced. Her performance is so deftly layered, complex and campy that no one can compete with it. Blanchett has taken a character with so little empathy and somehow made her a touch sympathetic. Her delusions are so strongly held that by the last pathetic shot, the audience is convinced this woman will descend into complete madness. I have never left a movie theater wanting a stiff drink and shower so desperately. I must admit that I would love to see Judi win for an equally complicated performance (but far less showy) in Philomena, but Cate who lost the Oscar for both Elizabeth I and Bob Dylan will win her second this year.

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

All I gotta say is that he is playing a drug-addicted transsexual dying of AIDS. If that role doesn't win you an Oscar, you're doing something wrong.

Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave

Please, dear Academy, I beg of you: do not give it to J. Law. Please. Please. I beg of you. Please. This may sound desperate because it is. Jenny from the block won last year, she is fine. Can we please award this to the ingenue who graduated from Yale Drama School and made her feature film debut in a searing critique of slavery wherein she serves as the moral compass of the movie. Please, as the ad campaign for 12 years says, "It's time."

Best Original Screenplay: Spike Jonze, Her

Spike Jonze has not yet won an Academy Award. Enough said. However, Her paints a portrait of a future LA that I would love to inhabit. No cars, nice burnt orange slacks, talking computers. There is a tinge of a complete dystopia on the horizon of this movie, but the lives we could carve out in this universe would be fulfilling for that brief moment in time.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Philomena

12 Years a Slave will likely win here, but I want to see the witty, charming adaptation of Martin Sixsmith's journalistic expose by Steve Coogan to garner the prize. A film that could have been overwhelmingly sentimental and bleak, instead, turned into a message piece with a light touch and deeply abiding sense of humor.

Best Foreign Film: The Great Beauty

Haven't seen it, but I adored Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo about former Italian PM Andreotti. This is in the top of my queue.

Best Documentary Feature: The Act of Killing

Some pundits argue that 20 Feet from Stardom (about back-up singers) will be the victor in a repeat of last year's victory for Searching for Sugar Man (about a forgotten singer who unknown to him was a cult favorite in South Africa). I believe the surreal masterpiece that is The Act of Killing will still triumph. This film, which in fact as an uncut version on youtube with a running time of over 3 hours, examines the massacre of thousands of purported Communists in the year following the collapse of Sukarno's government in Indonesia in 1965. These men who have been hailed as heroes by their nation are ecstatic about sharing gruesome details of each act, even going so far as to re-enacting their murders in the style of Robert DeNiro gangster films.

Best Animated Feature: Frozen

Surprisingly, Disney has never won since this category was inaugurated in 2003. The first Disney animated film co-directed by a woman exploded at the box office this past year (it appears that it has a chance of grossing over $1 billion worldwide). The film that demonstrates that Aretha and Annie Lennox were correct and that sisters are doing it for themselves looks to have locked this category down.

Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Score: Gravity

With the technical expertise of Gravity, we shall hear a lot of thank yous directed to Cuarón durign that middle section of the awards. Even those handful of people who loathed this movie must admit that it is deserving in these technical categories.

Best Song: "Let It Go," Frozen

Pharrell's "Happy," which just ascended to the top slot on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, could be the big upset here, but "Let it Go" finalyl gave Idina Menzel her first top 20 hit, after two albums where she attempted the same by distancing ehrself from Broadway. Her retread of "Defying Gravity" (ironic with this year's nominees) will be a major crowd pleaser at the show on Sunday. Let's just hope that she can hit that high note.

Best Costume Design and Production Design: The Great Gatsby

You cannot deny that the film was pretty, even if the adaptation had a host of flaws. Everyone looked great and I need to get that tailor down the street to make me a couple of those suits.

Best Makeup: Bad Grandpa

Yup, I want the John Knoxville movie to win an Oscar. Now hear me out on this: Bad Grandpa makeup designers actually came up with a new type of paper-thin silicone that would be translucent and reflect the movement of skin more accurately. Channels had to be carved out in the latex so Knoxville's sweat could be funneled off his face because silicone does not breathe. Over sixty sets of this facial makeup had to be produced because each day of filming required a new application of the make up. It is a truly technical feat. If voters are too creeped out by voting for this, they will go with Dallas Buyers Club.

Best Animated Short: Get a Horse!

Mickey Mouse makes his triumphant return to the big screen.

Best Documentary Short: The Lady in Number 6

This set of interviews with the oldest known Holocaust survivor (she passed away just a few weeks ago) is poignant and touching and perfect Oscar fodder.

Best Live Short: Avant que de tout perdre (Just before losing everything)

I encourage everyone to try to find a copy of this on the interwebs. It is a terrifying, minimalist horror film. I don't know if it will win (this category is difficult to predict because those who can vote actually have to attend a screening of them, making the voting pool an infinitesimal fraction of the actual 6,000 members of the Academy), but it should.

Best Films of 2013

2014-01-21T23:25:00.001-08:00

There are, as always, a stream of foreign films that I should have seen already, but I have not (e.g., Farhadi's "The Past," "The Great Beauty," "Blue is the Warmest Color"), so take that into account when perusing what I feel are the best films of the past year. 2013 proved to be quite a strong year, with some great entries from some of our most talented directors.

1. "Only God Forgives"--You will see this movie on no one's top-ten list this year, I swear it. Nicolas Refn's bloody romp through the underworld of Bangkok received some of the worst reviews of the year. It was simultaneously booed and applauded when it premiered at Cannes this past spring. "The Guardian" posted diametrically opposed reviews of the film: one calling it revelatory, the other insisting it was mere revenge porn. The way I felt about this film was the way many fanboys felt about Harmony Korine's "Springbreakers:" I was in love and watched it 3 times in one 24-hour period. The film has no viewers who are ambivalent: it is either full-on fascination or disgust. What no one denies is that the film is gorgeous. Refn and his cinematographer Larry Smith have created an amazing succession of beautifully composed scenes. I would argue that you could pause the movie at any point and find yourself a wonderful tableau. Many critics have missed the wonderful use of camp in this piece. Kristen Scott Thomas plays a terrifying matriarch, who is clearly Lady Macbeth tinted with the spray tan of Kris Jenner. It is this character who has the most dialogue in the entire film, even delivering the fiercest Oedipal monologue you have ever seen. This universe is upheld and set in motion by the strange Thai Javert-like police lieutenant who says little, but delivers some stirring karaoke performances and beats the heck out of Ryry Gosling. It is available streaming on Netflix. Watch it now.

2. "Gravity"--Alfonso Cuarón's cinematic artistry has never been questioned, whether it was "Y tu mama tambien," or the 3rd Harry Potter, Cuarón has been able to inject a singular directorial vision into all of his work, even within the Potter universe. "Gravity" is thin on story; he fought with his studio to avoid placing flashbacks for Bullock's character that would have explained in a literal fashion her desire to be in space. But this avoidance to spell out the details leads to some of the tensest 90 minutes of cinema you will ever see. I realized partly way through that I had not let go of the arm rests of my seat because I was convinced that I, too, would go hurtling towards the earth, if I let go. Cuarón's technical feats, which are many, are complemented by the fact that he chose to cast a woman in the lead, rather than Clooney in the main role. In a day and age, when even I think to myself, I can wait for that to come out on Netflix, Gravity forced people out of their home entertainment systems and back out to theaters.

3. "12 Years a Slave"--bell hooks and other scholars have certainly criticized the sentimental aspects of this narrative, but I would argue that the sentimental structure of this piece helps lead to its political importance. By taking on "Gone with the Wind" with its own language, Steve McQueen has succeeded in creating a vision of slavery contained within the very universe of Scarlett and Rhett. The luscious cinematography and fine performances forces us to rethink the mythology of the "Lost Cause," simply because we can imagine the scenes of brutal oppression happening in the universe of Roots, GWTW, or Raintree County. This film demolishes any notion that women on a plantation could form alliances between races, mostly through the vital and powerful performances of Lupita Nyong'o and Sarah Paulson, who expose the various forms of oppression and misery on an antebellum plantation. Even the putative "kind" slaveowner is implicated in a gross system of continual denial of the humanity of its victims. I always think of the adjective "necessary" being appended to a description of a movie as hyperbole, but here I think it is fitting.

4. "The Act of Killing"-- Another real upper. This time we follow the lives of several paramilitary leaders in Indonesia who massacred supposed Communists after Sukarno's fall in 1965. In most such films, the director would have interviews where the alleged criminals would deny any wrongdoing, or a set of excuses that would range from Nuremberg to twinkie defenses. Not here; rather, these men celebrate their crimes, seeing them as necessary to the nation's security. They are excited to tell of their murders. When Joshua Oppenheimer does mention that they are being filmed and could be brought up on charges in The Hague, these men become even more excited, proposing to Oppenheimer that they re-enact their crimes, so it can be more like a De Niro gangster picture. It is a disturbing and important movie demonstrating how much work is to be done in the arena of human rights.

5. "Her"--Spike Jonze's film about a man falling in love with Siri on his 10th generation iPhone is a powerful meditation on how we fall in love with the reality we construct in our minds. Joaquin Phoenix's character has structured a deep, romantic relationship with a cyborg with whom he only speaks. When only one sense is involved, it allows that individual to imagine a reality that exists nowhere outside of his mind. All of us are susceptible to imagining our realities in such a way that they can never be achieved. This movie takes a powerful look at the dangers of trying to achieve that reality.

6. 'Philomena"--Stephen Frears and Steve Coogan collaborated on a movie that sounded like a Hallmark TV movie: an Irish widow goes searching for the son she gave up for adoption. Instead, this piece maneuvered very deftly the territory between tragedy and comedy, never losing its sense of humor in the face of very dark circumstances: Irish nuns actually sold Philomena's child, and many others, to the highest American bidder. Judi Dench has proven herself, yet again, to be one of the great actresses, in a performance of heartbreaking subtlety. Although Cate the Great's performance in "Blue Jasmine" is far showier, Dench demonstrates the very difficult terrain of resignation, hope and emotional solidity in the face of grand obstacles. No other actress could have pulled it off and kept you laughing when she says for the millionth time: "I wouldn't have imagined it in a million years."

7. "Blue Jasmine"--No other Woody Allen movie since "Interiors" has ended on a such dark note. As I said when I left the theater: 'That movie makes me want a strong drink, a Xanax and a shower." The entire film rides on Cate's powerful performance of a 21st-century Blanche Dubois, flittery and fey, unable to focus, but a victim of tragic circumstances. Cate's performance seems to fight against Woody's attempts to showcase the silliness of the character. Cate has committed to the tragedy of this woman, and somehow your sympathies are with her, something solely attributed to this powerful performance. I truly wish I could give Oscars to both Cate and Judi this year.

8. "All is Lost"--Correct, this is "Gravity" in water, but watching Robert Redford attempt to navigate his tiny yacht through the Indian Ocean as it slowly sinks makes for some powerful cinema. Unlike Zemeckis' "Castaway" that focused on the context of someone being lost at sea and the consequences of that separation on the loved ones once he returns, JC Chandor's film has no interest in backstory or context, he simply asks: how would someone try to survive? There is no volleyball to talk to, no one to miss and long for, it is an old man and the sea. Robert Redford has never been better, and yet again he was passed over for an Oscar nomination. This is not the first time: in 1985, Jon freaking Voight was nominated for "Runaway Train," over Redford in "Out of Africa."

9. "Saving Mr. Banks"--Another film that suffered in the avalanche of Oscar love that went to Russell's "American Hustle." Emma Thompson, who could have easily phoned in a performance that would have been good, was actually electrifying in her performance of PL Travers. Her emotional restraint covered her traumas that were revealed slowly and masterfully. John Lee Hancock's overly sentimental direction gave a bit too much time to his never-ending flashbacks, but Emma holds the movie together showing us a woman with little heart who gave the world a great literary character of depth and heart.

10. "The Wolf of Wall Street"--The film has been a lightning rod of discussion. Some have criticized its misogyny and its celebration of hedonism. I am not sure that Scorsese is advocating for either of those. In fact, Scorsese has given us an incisive and penetrating (in all senses of the word) representation of white male privilege. Jordan Belfort treated his women like valuable possessions to be showed off, and Belfort, after serving time in prison, returned to American society without much repercussion becoming a bestselling author, motivational speaker, and now the subject of a Scorsese biopic. That is the American dream, right there: fuck up and end up getting rewarded with a movie made about you. Of course, the great irony is that Belfort's dealings were small fry in comparison to the large systemic greed implemented by the financial giants at Goldman Sachs, AIG, Countrywide, Lehman, etc., leading up to our great crash of 08.

11. "Inside Llewyn Davis"--I am actually surprised that this film has underperformed in Oscar nominations and in commercial receipts. The film highlights the numerous traits of the Coen Bros.: their ability to gain sympathy for rather unsympathetic characters, their brilliant use of John Goodman, the creation of a lush T Bone Burnett soundtrack (along with the brilliance of "Please, Mr. Kennedy"). Somehow in as crowded a year as this, the Coen Bros. get ignored completely.

12. "Frozen"--Disney has not had an animated movie garner over $300 million at the domestic box office since the Lion King (barring Pixar movies). The movie has some problems: its marketing campaign made it seem like it was a tale about a snowman and a reindeer, it is a movie with musical elements but not a full-blown musical. When Frozen shines, it sparkles. "Do you wanna build a snowman?" is the most heartbreaking movie in animated cinema since the opening of "Up," while the snowman's aria is one of the most uplifting moments in cinema this year.

The rest:
13. "Nebraska"--I avoided this for weeks, but ended up enjoying it because of the fantastic June Squibb. "I loved her, but what a whore!" Best line of the year.
14. "Fruitvale Station"--Complex and complicated, ethical but not moralistic. Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan will go on to great things.
15. "At Berkeley"--I watched all four hours (!) of Wiseman's documentary about a day in the life at the famed California institution of higher education and loved it. If you have any interest in the operations of a university at its highest level of administrative (mal)functioning, this is a must see.
16. "Frances Ha"--Gorgeous cinematography, a deft performance from Greta Gerwig, and an ending that pays off the frustrations of the first hour.
17. "Before Midnight"--Although I think Ethan Hawke is no better than James Franco--pretentious, arrogant, not as talented as he believes--the third part of this trilogy shows the continued navigation that a couple must face as they continue to age and fight the inevitable growing apart that eveyr couple endures.
18. "Museum Hours"--A charming tale of the sort of romance between a Dutch museum guard and an American tourist.
19. "Short Term 12"--The lead male character irritated me as the writer-director's own self-idealization, but Brie Larson's complex performance makes up for some of the problems in character delineations.

A word about "American Hustle:" I am in full Russell backlash mode, much like last year with "Silver Linings Playbook," or "The Figher," two years before that. Each time I have fallen for the hype, convinced I will view a vital, even necessary, piece of American cinema. For the first thirty minutes of a Russell movie, I believe that this time he has pulled it off, this will be his masterwork, but, inevitably, by the end I am confused, irritated and convinced that Russell has failed me yet again. No different with "American Hustle." Here we have two great actresses at the top of their game and the only brief scene they are given is to argue over a fat, bald Christian Bale. It was a failure of the Bechdel test at its most epic level. So much that was set up in the first act went nowhere: why was everyone contributing voiceover narration, only to vanish by minute 45; the only moment of tension dissipates over a rather comedic set piece. I did, however, love the wigs, thus I am surprised that it failed to get a nomination for makeup and hair.

All in all, this year gave us a crowded field. There are certainly ten performances in each of the leading acting characters that deserved nominations. A powerful set of films on the long list for Best Documentary and Best Foreign Language Film. We will be catching up with our Netflix queues for several months.

Oscar Predictions 2012

2013-02-21T17:22:00.001-08:00

And time for my annual summation of what and who will win this year's Academy Awards

Best Picture: Argo--A pattern has emerged as to how likely winners for the Best Picture Oscar come about. There is a film that seems to be the insurmountable victor in early December (eg, Social Network, Descendants, Avatar), and by the week before the awards another film has all but sent that other movie to the poor house (eg, King's Speech, The Artist, Hurt Locker). This year's contestants in that race were Spielberg's Lincoln and Affleck's Argo. In December, after mountains of critical praise and surprisingly strong box office, it seemed that "Lincoln" would sweep all the award shows, but then Ben Affleck's little movie about the Iranian hostage crisis began to pick up steam, and now has won every single large prize out there, with only the Oscar left. Also, the Academy loves when good-looking actor types turn into critically respected directors (cf. Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, and Clint Eastwood, whose only awards have come as directors).

Best Director: Spielberg, Lincoln. There is a wrench thrown into this race: there is no Affleck nominated. He has won the DGA, the film has won the Golden Globe, BAFTA, PGA and SAG, but Affleck was shut out of the Director race, as was Tarantino, Bigelow, and Tom Hooper. Everyone seems to concur that Spielberg will receive his third award for "Lincoln," but without any other precedents there could still be an upset here. I don't believe Ang Lee or David Russell stand a chance, but there is a possibility that Haneke who directed this year's finest and most depressing film, Amour, could pull it out.

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln. Although he has already won twice, it really is a spectacular performance. He will triumph again.

Best Actress: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour. I think many Americans think this race is pitting Jessica Chastain against Jennifer Lawrence. Although both are quite respected and Lawrence had that little movie called the Hunger Games, I think the Academy will go with the legendary French actress, who first became a star with 1959's Hiroshima, mon amour. She gives a breathtaking performance as a piano teacher felled by a stroke and she is a legend in France. She won the BAFTA two weeks ago, and the British awards have proven to be the clearest indicators of who will take home the Oscar (much more so than the SAG awards: see Marion Cotillard vs. Julie Christie; Meryl Streep vs. Viola Davis).

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained. Prognostications are all over the place for this category. Partly due to the fact that this is (I believe) the first time everyone nominated in an acting category has won before--the closest parallel I can think of was Best Actor of 2002, when everyone had won previously, except Adrien Brody, who ended up winning. Some say DeNiro will win his third, I truly doubt that Academy will give three threefers out in one night (along with Daniel Day and Spielberg). Many believe that part of what made Arkin great in Argo was John Goodman, who yet again failed to be nominated. Tommy Lee Jones hasn't won in twenty years, but his sourpuss face at the Golden Globes probably did not help. I will predict Waltz simply because he is the star of Django. He is in every scene and without him, you would have only had Jamie Foxx in the movie, which would have been painful.

Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, Les Miz. Although I would love to see Sally Field deliver some off-color acceptance speech, it will not happen. Hathaway is considered the standout of the almost three-hour epic that is Les Miz, and this will be the film's largest honor on Sunday night.

Best Original Screenplay: Tarantino, Django. I am not completely convinced that this will happen, but Tarantino who was the enfant terrible of 1994 has grown into a bankable and respected director. He has not won since Pulp Fiction and this will be his chance to get some proper respect. He will probably make an insufferable speech, heads up.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Tony Kushner, Lincoln. Although critics are predicting that David Russell will win, I refuse to believe it. I refuse to award Russell (who by all accounts is a jerk of the highest degree) for writing a screenplay that ends like every single Drew Barrymore movie since 1994, especially if he would be beating one of America's most respected playwrights. I refuse to see that happen.

Best Animated Feature: Wreck-It Ralph. Although Brave made more money and won the Golden Globe, the best animated feature of the year (and one of the year's best films, period) was Wreck-It Ralph.

Best Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man. The charming tale of a guitarist forgotten by the world, who somehow gained cult status in South Africa, is the feel-good flick of the year, and has relaunched Rodriguez's career. He just had his fifth tour throughout South Africa and will be appearing at Coachella in April. This category is always a pain because such different films are put up. This year, all are deserving: Kirby Dick's piece on sexual assault in the armed forces is stunning and devastating; The Gatekeepers provides the most incisive view into the world of the Israeli Defense forces; and How to Survive a Plague walks a fine line of incisive critique and a hopeful future.

Best Foreign Film: Amour. Michael Haneke was heavily favored to win in this category three years ago for The White Ribbon, but lost to the Argentinian film, Secrets of their eyes. His critically acclaimed film that won several prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, Cache, failed to be nomianted. This will be Haneke's night to triumph.

Best Cinematography: Life of Pi. I was not particularly enamored with this Ang Lee movie, but I must admit that there is an hour of the movie, which is one of the most beautiful and spectacular films that I have ever seen ever. It deserves this award without any qualifier.

Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi. See above. It is always nice to see a film use its visual effects for something other than blowing stuff up.

Best Editing: Argo. Part of Argo's success comes from its masterful pacing. Although you know the ending, you are on the edge of your seat for the last last half hour. Kathryn Bigelow is also a masterful director who thinks about editing, but Zero Dark Thirty will probably lose here, too.

Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina. I only need to mention one thing: Fur hats with veils.

Best Production Design: Les Miz. The few built sets were keenly aware of historical details, including the famed elephant of the Bastille as Gavroche's hideout.

Best Makeup (and Hairstyling): Les Miz. Everyone looked dirty, even the extras. That takes a lot of time.

Best Score: Life of Pi. I would prefer to see Anna Karenina win here, but Mychael Danna's (God, even his name is pretentious) Orientalist score for Ang Lee's film has been the most predicted, so I suppose that will happen at the Oscars as well. sigh.

Best Song: Skyfall. Let's give an Oscar to Adele! This will be the first Bond theme song to win an Oscar, which is slightly shocking thinking of classics like "Moonraker," "Goldfinger," "Diamonds are Forever," and "Nobody Does it Better."

Best Sound Mixing: Les Miz. Even people who loathe this movie do respect the amount of work to layer the different sound levels required with the amount of live singing done during filming.

Best Sound Editing: Life of Pi, I suppose.

Best Animated Short: Paperman. You can watch all of the shorts on youtube, this year. Disney's charming fable about animated paper, seems to be the clear favorite. I really appreciated the Up-like Head Over Heels, but Adam and Dog is getting attention from others. I have a feeling that its biblical overtone swill put off some Academy voters. It also drags, making its 15 minutes feel much longer.

Best Documentary Short: Innocente. Haven't seen any of them, but this apparently is the front runner.

Best Live Action Short: Curfew. Once again. I have seen none of them, but this is apparently the front runner.

The Best Films of 2012

2013-01-14T13:33:00.002-08:00

I write with this with the following caveat: I have yet to see PT Anderson's "The Master" or "Rust and Bone," two films that very well might make it onto this list. Here is the list as it stands without those.

1. "Amour" -- This may be the first time I choose a film that I don't like as the best of the year. This beautifully wrought and acted film is stunning and powerful, but I never want to see it again, nor have I been able to recommend it to anyone. I made the mistake of watching it Christmas morning, and the rest of the day I was in a state of existential angst. I wondered aloud to family members: why do we even bother continuing to live. Michael Haneke is famous for a series of dark, intense pieces that explore the underside of humanity. "Cache," "White Ribbon," and "Funny Game" are stripped of all sentimentality and pose the ease with which humans can fall into violent, aggressive behavior. The films border on the artistic, are always interesting, and never comforting. I believed "Amour" would be different. A movie called Love and focusing on a decades-long married couple in their 80's would just be heartwarming, bittersweet and heart-tugging. And thus how Hollywood has blinded me. If Spielberg had directed this film, "Amour" would have been "The Notebook, Part Deux;" however, Haneke's fascination with our dark side means that this pair of octogenarians will exhibit behaviors that are compelling but uncomfortable. The film unites two icons of post-World War II French cinema, Emmanuelle Riva from "Hiroshima, mon amour" and Jean-Louis Trintignant from "Z." They give career-capping performances that are brilliantly and subtly rendered. I am hoping that Riva can beat Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain for the Oscar. I would tell you to see this movie, but I just can't.

2. "A Separation" -- This film deservedly won last year's Foreign Language Film Oscar. I did not see it until this past March, so it will go on this list. Asghar Farhadi's eloquent tale of a couple seeking to divorce in Tehran captures the vibrant lives of families divided by class and gender. This is not a film about how awful the revolutionary regime is in Iran, nor will it appeal to those self-righteous people who believe that Iran is on the brink of destroying the world. Rather, this film explores how families live amongst the turmoil of a changing society. The brilliance of this work is that Farhadi is able to present four individuals who continuously make bad choices, but the audience never loses sympathy for any of them. There are no good/bad guys: they are four complicated people, and sometimes they screw up. Truly, this is an example of wonderfully structured character-driven drama.

3. "Argo" -- Ben Affleck came on the scene as a talented director with the release of "Gone Baby Gone" in 2007. The film received positive reviews, but had a rather meager box office. He went on to direct the commercially successful "The Town" in 2009, grossing over $90 million, and this year "Argo" became a critics' darling and surprise hit. For a film revolving around the Iran's 1979 Revolution to earn close to $115 million seems rather incredible. Most credit goes to Affleck's directorial eye that keeps the pace of this thriller to the end, even if you know how the story ended. With a final voice-over from Jimmy Carter during the credits, Affleck's liberal bona fides come through as he argues that this was a success of the Carter Administration. It is a story that would be laughable if Le Carre or Greene wrote it, but knowing our CIA, it is fully plausible. The only thing shocking is that the CIA's wild and crazy plans worked out positively for a change.

4. "Lincoln" -- Tony Kushner took four pages from Doris Kearns Goodwin's 750-page tome, "Team of Rival,"(pp.686-690, to be exact) focusing on Lincoln and his cabinet conspiring to get the requisite number of votes in the House to pass the 13th Amendment, and turned it into a two-and-a-half-hour movie. That is par for the course for Kushner, the surprise is that under the sentimental eye of Spielberg, transformational and transcendent performances from Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, and Gloria Reuben, and some beautiful cinematography this very stagey piece became one of the greatest successes of 2012. Unlike when Meryl did Thatcher, or Langella did Nixon, a viewer is never taken out of the film by thinking, "wow, that is good acting." It is hard to recognize this consummate method actor. As he constantly says, "I do not act, I am." He sure did that again.

5. "Anna Karenina" -- If this had been marketed as Tom Stoppard does Tolstoy, it may have done better than by the advertising campaign that basically read: Keira Knightley does another classic heroine with Joe Wright. In fact, this remarkable re-imagining of Tolstoy's epic love story was one of the most inventive and ingenious ways to stage the piece. Stoppard, in his usual profundity, pointed to the artifice that pins together so much of the realism and naturalism of the nineteenth century. The novel is literally staged with people walking off stage or back into the audience, which makes all those scenes with Anna and Vronsky in the theater, so very powerful and illuminating. And all of the fur trim and hats with veils, too!

6. "Les Miserables" -- Of course, Les Miz makes my list. Unlike the subpar cinematic version of "Phantom," where certain scenes seemed significantly less spectacular on screen than stage (e.g. that awful version of "Masquerade"), Les Miz succeeds as a film because it is just so big. The film's success lies in its ability to go from the grandeur of the barricades scene to the small, intimate moments where Fantine is stripped of all dignity. Having the actors sing live, with piano piped in through an ear piece, allowed them to act with each other, instead of a three-hour lip syncing fest. Even Russell Crowe didn't bother me, and that is saying a lot.

7. "Moonrise Kingdom" -- Some may not enjoy Wes Anderson's rather snarky takes on humanity, but he has one of the most well-defined aesthetics in current popular cinema. His colors are so precise; his camerawork lingers on his actors' faces. One cannot help but to want to frame screen captures from his films. In "Moonrise," a tale of forlorn adolescent love, Anderson combines much of his cynicism with a healthy dose of youthful idealism, the world as seen through two teenaged misfits. They may seem silly but we have all had those impulses and desires. Anderson may be one of the best directors of child actors out there.

8. "Wreck-it Ralph" -- Pixar's "Brave" disappointed this year; it was a rather stodgy retread of Disney's middling "Brother Bear" but set in Scotland, rather than the American West. One exotic people were traded for another. Disney's 'Wreck-it Ralph," however, was surprisingly successful. With a wonderful cast of vocal talent (Sarah Silverman, John C. Reilly, Jane Lynch, and Kenneth from 30 Rock), the story of the characters inside the 8-bit video games of the 80's and 90's came to life. The final scene where Vanellope embraces her glitch is one of the great tear-jerking scenes of the year.

9. "Bernie" -- Richard Linklater's homage to the new genre of mockumentaries is a witty take that somehow combines trenchant wit with a sure eye for cinema verite. With Jack Black as the fey funeral director of a small Texas town who strikes up a rather odd relationship with a widowed millionaire (played by the inimitable Shirley MacLaine, who has made quite a comeback this year), the narrative is interspliced wih interviews with the town's members. The most underrated film of the year.

10. "Django Unchained" -- It is difficult to love a Tarantino, but they are always interesting. His aesthetics of violence and universe where good guys always finish on top after destroying the baddies in the bloodiest fashion available create films that are often disturbing and uncomfortable. His take on slavery as told through the exigencies of spaghetti westerns and blaxplotiation films has proven controversial (especially premiering a week after the school shooting in Connecticut), and it should. His depiction can be rather facile at times, but with some brilliant performances from Christoph Walz, Leo, and Samuel Jackson, in perhaps his best performance ever, the film has become a crucial viewing piece for this holiday season.

11. "The Queen of Versailles" -- What an apropos film for 2012. The documentary follows a couple who have decided to spend their fortune made in timeshares to build the largest residential home in the nation (90,000 sq ft.!). Unfortunately for them, the 2008 meltdown hit them hard and the house was never completed. The documentary becomes a tale of the richest 1% falling on hard times. However, their hard times bear no resemblance to the hard times of countless other Americans. Jackie, the rather clueless matriarch, exposes her unflappable ability to misunderstand her situation repeatedly. In one particularly ghastly scene, she tells her son: "I would tell you what time it is, if I could afford a watch." The son stares at her and says: "You're going to say that while wearing a mink coat?" Modern Family could not have written a better line.

12. "The Sessions" -- This quirky comedy about a man crippled by polio who seeks to unlock his sexual potential succeeds almost entirely due to the superb performance by John Sessions. Sessions, who shined in Winter's Bone, was unfortunately passed over for a Best Actor nomination, which is a shame because his heartfelt, sincere performance was one of the year's best.

Things in films that I liked, even if the films had some issues:

Quvenzhane Wallis in "Beasts of the Southern Wild" -- I found Benh Zeitlin's film rather disjointed and unsure of its tone, but the critics are correct in lauding the six year old who gave a breathtaking performance. She was fierce and proud, even if her circumstances were unimaginably dark and dire.

The visual effects in "Life of Pi" -- The film had some issues: the unnecessary framing device, the utter misuse of the brilliant Irfan Khan, but I have to admit that there was an hour of that film that was one of the most beautiful and visually enthralling things that I have ever seen on screen. So rent the Blu-ray and fast forward an hour and stop before the last thirty minutes, and you will enjoy quite the visual treat.

The plane crash scene in "Flight" -- If you are scared of flying, never (I repeat never) see this movie. Denzel's pilot is an alcoholic and drug addict who on a routine flight to Atlanta watches everything go wrong. The plane at one point is completely upside down, with a poor stewardess being thrown into an overhead bin. It is briefly righted only to crash into a field. The resolution of the film is far too precious, and the storyline of the female heroin addict whom Denzel befriends goes nowhere, but the first 30 minutes are indicative of what Robert Zemeckis can do best: heart-pounding action.

The first half hour of "Silver Linings Playbook" and the last half hour of "Zero Dark Thirty."

Rachel Maddow's "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power"

2012-04-06T12:47:00.002-07:00

Rachel Maddow has become the adored authority of the American left. With her charm, trademark black-rimmed glasses, infectious laugh, and other noted attributes, Maddow is our big sister who joshes us, and will serve up a killer cocktail, along with a brilliant zinger. Since the start of her eponymous talk show on MSNBC during the 2008 election season, she has combined a mischievous sense of humor, dry wit and exhaustive research to become a cable news host very different from those either on her network or those on the right from FoxNews.

AS Jon Stewart noted when he interviewed Maddow recently, it seems that she has written a serious book and invested a serious amount of research. She responded in passing, "I treated it as a second job." In Stewart's droll way, he said, "Well, you are making all of us look bad." When you look at the books from other talk-show hosts, the title usually resembles: "Why and How ____ (One political party) is Destroying America" or any of the vitriolic, hyperbolic titles of Ann Coulter ("Godless," "Treason," "Slander," "If Democrats Had Any Brains..."-- truly, titles that will provoke constructive and interesting debate). Bill O'Reilly's recent book on the assassination of Lincoln has been ridiculed by historians who have pointed out numerous factual errors (eg O'Reilly frequently refers to Lincoln pondering his decisions in the Oval Office, except the Oval Office did not exist during Lincoln's presidency). The books of Sean Hannity, Coulter, or Keith Olbermann on the left do not make arguments, they simply yell, scream and argue. These polemical publications do nothing but sell copies, provoking no genuine discussion or thought. Maddow, however, constructs an argument based on evidence, logic, and reason, something that surprised Janet Maslin in her rave review in "The New York Times."

In her new book, "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power," Maddow employs a visual metaphor of American military policy set adrift in the ocean of twenty-first century foreign policy. The ship has set sail with no control, and, in her ominous tone, it sounds as if it is heading straight for an iceberg. The narrative begins in the age of Vietnam and how Johnson sought to deploy troops without calling up the National Guard or Reserves, because that would be too politically dangerous to the White House. (This was how G.W. Bush avoided any conflict during the war.) When Vietnam was beginning to wind down after 1973, Congress realized that they had been duped and their power, clearly laid out in the Constitution, had been sidestepped. The framers of the Constitution were clear in their desire to have war declared by the legislative body, not by the executive branch. A President, who could solely declare war, would inevitably become a tyrant, distracting from domestic issues in order to unite his citizens with a common, foreign enemy. By having Congress be responsible for declarations of war, this heady responsibility would be required to go through endless debate and be in the hands of many, rather than one. The clandestine operations that the US employed in the Cold War Era sought to avoid the political calamity of public debate. Mossadegh was brought down with the aid of the CIA in 1953. The Guatemalan president was deposed in 1954. Patrice Lumumba was killed in 1961, after Belgian and CIA operative funneled cash to his enemies. Che was assassinated in 1967. Congress did not authorize, nor even debate, a single one of these occurrences.

The 1973 War Powers Resolution Act sought to right a ship that had gone off course (to continue the usage of the naval metaphor). Under this act, the President must notify Congress within forty-eight hours of the deployment of military troops. These forces cannot remain for more than sixty days, without Congress authorization or a declaration of war. Nixon and his Cabinet was apoplectic at such a law, which they believed mocked and humiliated the executive branch. Gerald Ford's cabinet, which housed later notables, such as Cheney and Rumsfeld, were further incensed by such Congressional chutzpah. However, this act simply reiterated what was stated in the Constitution. No serious challenge could truly be posed to this law and never was.

Things began to change during the Reagan administration. Reagan comes under the most sustained attack in Maddow's book. The Iran-Contra affair nearly brought the Administration to doom, and those of us on the left have always said that the charges laid at Reagan's feet were far more impeachable than lies about engaging in sexual congress with a consenting adult. Reagan's melodramatic imagination saw the world drawn along a Manichean division of good and evil. The evil Soviets were infiltrating anywhere and everywhere, especially in latin America. The honor-clad Americans with our liberty and freedom were the only ones who could defeat such nefarious enemies. What Reagan failed to see was the often illegal and morally suspicious tactics he utilized in order to weaken the Soviets (who at this point were weakened by years of non-productivity and failing infrastructure). Although Reagan came into office despising the Iranian regime for holding Americans hostage, he was able to turn around only years later and funnel large amounts of cash and weapons to them because it would help Nicaraguan Contras.

Under Clinton, the use of private sector contractors exploded. In order to have some involvement in the Balkan conflict that left millions dead from genocidal murder, Clinton found a way around the perceived political harm that could be done by committing troops to the region and instead supplied contracts to American companies. These contractors are supposed to save money, they don't. John McCain used to rail against the structure of military contracts (who knows if he does any more), because they were sucking money away from what the military actually needs.

The surprising aspect of the Maddow book is the lack of full-bodied discussion about the Bush II White House. For those of us on the left, 9/11 represents a significant turning point in many of these debates. The Patriot Act, Gitmo, the Department of Homeland Security hold an Orwellian place in our imagination. The intellectual maneuvering of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales to allow the executive powers not guaranteed to it are frightening but find little place in Maddow's book. Does she demure on such topics because of their controversy (that seems unlikely)? Or, is it that authors have covered this material in depth (especially Jane Mayer and Naomi Klein)? However, covering this territory in the context of this book would have created a full appreciation to what this decade has done not just to unmoor American military policy but send it spinning out of control.

Regardless of the lack of another fifty-page chapter, what is present in Maddow's book is well worth reading. At times, her cutesy asides can detract from the intellectual rigor of her research, but it breaks the monotony of a rather withering account of the largest military (and largest organization, period) in the the world. If only, all talk-show hosts had Maddow's key talents, we would have a much firmer, fuller debate in this country about policy issues. But let's be honest, if all talk-show hosts had Maddow's curiosity and intelligence, Fox News would not exist. Sigh.

Oscar predictions 2011

2012-02-25T14:28:00.000-08:00

The year was rough in terms of box office (off over 15% in ticket sales from 2010, and the nominees for Best Picture this year made a fraction of what last year's set of films made. However, a small group of films that paid homage to early cinema ("The Artist" and "Hugo") and a few well-made dramas and comedies rounded out some pretty fierce categories this year.

Best Picture

"The Artist"
As obvious as it may sound, it is pretty shocking that for the first time since 1927 a silent film will win Best Picture. The adulation the film pays to the early cinema of Hollywood has been taken as a due love letter by many critics and Academy members. With the money and power of Harvey Weinstein behind it, this film looks unstoppable.

Best Director

Michael Hazanivicius, "The Artist"

I am rooting for Martin Scorsese to win here for "Hugo," but with wins from the DGA and BAFTA, it seems as if the French director will triumph here.

Best Actor

Jean Dujardin, "The Artist"

With his surprise win at SAG and BAFTA, Dujardin best known for a series of French spy capers may become the first French actor to win the top prize. George Clooney could sneak in here, but the goodwill felt towards Dujardin and Uggie seems fit to propel the man and his dog to the stage of the Kodak Theatre tomorrow night.

Best Actress

Viola Davis, "The Help"

Though the film is controversial and seems to argue that black people will do jsut fine if they ally themselves with white people, no one can argue that Davis' performance is not a tour de force. since no one has seen Glenn Close's "Albert Nobbs," and Meryl's "Iron Lady" has languished, Davis will triumph here.

Best Supporting Actor

Christopher Plummer, "Beginners"

He has won virtually every award this season and this will serve as a lifetime achievement award for the "Sound of Music" vet.

Best Supporting Actress

Octavia Spencer, "The Help"

I desperately want Janet McTeer of "Albert Nobbs" to win, for that was the best performance by far put on the screen this year. However, it seems that academy members have not been fast in rushing to see this particular indie and it has no steam behind it. Spencer's comic part in "The Help" has been popular with audiences and even some critics have noted that her performance gives an actual edged black voice to the film. With wins across the board, Spencer in her breakthrough part will take home the statuette.

Best Original Screenplay

"Midnight in Paris," Woody Allen

Allen has not won an Oscar since "Hannah and Her Sisters" in 1986. Allen's ode to American modernism and the City of Lights has become one of the most successful films of his career and the Academy will anoint him again for it.

Best Adapted Screenplay

"The Descendants," Alexander Payne

There was a point in November when it seemed "Descendants" was going to be the film to beat. It was the favored candidate for Actor, Director, Screenplay and even Picture. Now that we are at Oscar weekend the only category where it seems poised to win is in the screenplay category.

Best Song

"Man or Muppet," "The Muppets"

Since the music branch, which has been a mess since the 1970's, decided to nominate only two songs in this category, it seems pretty evident that Kermie and the gang will triumph here. It's a shame that songs from films like "Gnomeo and Juliet," "Albert Nobbs," and "The Help" couldn't be nominated, so we could have some music performances at this year's awards.

Best Score

Ludovic Bource, "The Artist"

With the hoopla over Kim Novak saying she felt "raped" by the makers of "The Artist" because they referenced part of Herrmann's theme for "Vertigo," the score of the silent was necessary for the film and made people think about sound in a way far different from your typical blow-em-up flick.

Best cinematography

Emmanuel Luzbeki, "Tree of Life"

Even though Terence Malick's film had more detractors among its viewers, the film was admittedly beautiful, and should triumph in this category. Luzbeki has been nominated several times before and this should be his first win.

Best Editing

"The Artist"

To make a silent film palatable to today's audiences, it needs a tight script and even tighter editing which allows for the easy comprehension of the plot without dialogue.

Best Visual Effects

"Hugo"

A gorgeous film that believes that effects aren't always about explosions.

Best Art Direction

"Hugo"

The recreation of the turn-of-the-century Gare Montparnasse is breathtaking.

Best Costume Design

"Jane Eyre"

Academy voters love period pieces for this category and "Jane's" moody clothes told an appropriate story about its characters.

Best makeup

"Albert Nobbs"

Glenn Close's and Janet Mcteer's transformations looked so normal and unassuming that it looked almost as if there was no makeup.

Best Sound Editing

"Drive"

I think Fincher's "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" will win here, but since "Drive" was my favorite movie of the year, I want it to win in the sole category for which it was nominated.

Best Sound Mixing

"Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

Sound and camerawork conspired to create one creepy view of Sweden.

Best Documentary Short

"Saving Face"

This heart-wrenching look into Pakistani women who were the victims of acid attacks (usually by husbands or scorned lovers) and the attempts to repair their injuries through plastic surgery may have issues with its first-world view of third-world women and the concomitant epistemological and ethical quandaries arising from the imposition of western rationality on "Oriental" issues, but the film sheds light on the problems of women who are denied their voice (cf. Gayatri Spivak).

Best Documentary Feature

"Pina"

This category is difficult. The directors of "Purgatory 3" actually through their tripartite series on the 'West Memphis 3" helped them attain freedom from a prison sentence imposed on innocent young men painted as satanic murderers. The Academy, through its mission statement of helping bringing new understanding of the world through film, found a movie that can be argued had a real-world impact. Wim Wenders, however, crafted one of the most beautiful films about dance in 3D, expanding our vision of how the human body can be represented on screen. I will go with Wim.

Best Animated Feature

"Rango"

I am thrilled that the dull, clunking "Tintin," helmed by Spielberg failed to make it into this category. Thankfully that means the cute and well-crafted Gore Verbinski piece, "Rango" will be able to take its well deserved award.

Best Foreign language Film

"A Separation," Iran

The Iranian family drama seems like a surefire bet in this category, but this category is notoriously difficult to predict because to be able to vote one must be certified as having seen all 5 films and special screenings, thus a small portion of members actually vote in this category, throwing all tools for prediction out the window.

Best Live Action Short

"The Shore"

Enjoy the show, folks!

Mourning Whitney: The Melancholic Diva

2012-02-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

Whitney Houston's ignominious end on Saturday afternoon was a tragic but somehow fitting end to a life touched with talent and so much pain. Discovered in a bathtub at the famous Beverly Hilton, Houston's submerged body was lifeless and at 48, her end came in the most melodramatic way possible, just a day before the music industry's biggest night, the Grammys. At the annual awards, artists poured on the praise and artists Adele and J Hudson seemed to be crowned Whitney's successors, with the former winning six prizes (including all three top categories) and the latter performing a rousing rendition of Whitney's signature song, "I Will Always Love You."

The articles that have appeared have told the now familiar tale of Whitney's rise to stardom from a family of music insiders, mother Cissy Houston, the famed gospel singer; cousin Dionne Warwick, the muse of Burt Bachrach; and godmother Aretha Franklin, the so-called Queen of Soul. When discovered by Clive Davis of Arista Records, Whitney became a superstar virtually overnight with rousing ballads and dance anthems, attaining seven straight number one hits, a feat unmatched by any artist since Whitney. She maneuvered herself easily from kiss-kiss songs to kiss-off songs of heartbreak. She achieved her greatest success with the soundtrack to her Hollywood melodrama, "The Bodyguard" (1993). With her slick version of Dolly Parton's original, "I Will Always Love You," Houston proved that her unique mezzo voice could belt out a song with emotion and power.

Many commentators have stated that we should eschew a sensationalist rattling of Whitney's addictions and public disgraces, but with a diva of Whitney's stature, her public success is deeply intertwined with her private defeats, the two are inextricably linked. And in many ways, this is the pattern for many of the past century's greatest female talents. From Maria Callas and Judy Garland, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, to Amy Winehouse, Mariah Carey and now Whitney, these women have lived within the realm of feminine excess, pushing the boundaries for acceptable female behavior. The strong voices they create in their films and music seep into their quotidian lives, usually ending in erratic behavior, addictions and careers littered with innumerable peaks and valleys. Every hit has a concomitant flop, and every time that they have faded from the limelight, there is the possibility of a comeback.

This cycle of success, failure and comeback becomes the narrative of redemption that so many hunger for. Mariah Carey proved that even a woman who crashed and burned very publicly was welcomed back with a new album. In fact, Mariah's 2005 album, "The Emancipation of Mimi," contained the biggest hit of her entire career, "We Belong Together." She won her first Grammy since she was crowned Best New Artist in 1990. Mariah trudged through the valley of the shadow of death and emerged unscathed on the other side, more popular than ever. Unfortunately, these type of stories are few and far between, and Whitney was not able to repeat it.

Whitney attempted the comebacks. She succeeded in 1998 with her album, "My Love is Your Love," which featured two top-ten hits: "It's Not Right, But It's Okay" and "Heartbreak Hotel." The album had a more urban sound than her earlier work, utilizing new producers and having guest spots from Enrique Inglesias, Deborah Cox, and Kelly Price. In the early 90's, Houston had been criticized for songs such as "Didn't We Almost Have it All?" for sounding too "white." At one NAACP Image awards of this time, her nomination for best female r&b singer was actually booed. In many ways, her marriage to Bobby Brown was a calculated move to win back some of this audience and gain some credibility with the audience that she felt she should have on her side. This album allowed a smooth return to the R&B urban charts "It's Not Right" became her biggest hit in years and won her the last Grammy of her life. It became a dance-floor anthem for people dumped and one of the finest kiss-off songs of the decade.

But after that, the drug use increased. At a 2001 Michael Jackson concert, she appeared so thin--anorexic, even--that her bone-thin arms were actually digitally thickened. Her 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer became an ominous warning to celebrities of the pitfalls of fame. She spoke of herself in the third person dropping such witty bon mots, as "Whitney Houston makes too much money to do crack;" "Crack is whack;" or my personal favorite, "Show me the receipts, Diane Sawyer." The problems with her hubby became the fodder for comedians with the antics of her ridiculous reality show, "Being Bobby Brown." Houston was reduced to a supporting character, often appearing bemused and befuddled, shouting, "Bobbbby!" at the top of her lungs, the only use of her famed vocal pipes on the entire show. Arrests of Bobby for beating ensued, and the marriage finally ended in 2007.

Unfortunately, the break with Bobby did not broker a new, reinvented Whitney. The attempts at sobriety failed. The last album in 2009, "I Look to You," showed how the years of drug abuse, smoking, boozing and carousing had ravaged her voice. Even the best song of the album, "Million Dollar Bill" (penned by admirer, Alicia Keys) did not display the range that "I wanna Dance with Somebody" had exposed in the early days of her career. The R. Kelly song, "I Look to You," which was supposed to be her next ballad, showed a voice that did not have the strength it had only a decade before. The succeeding tour was a disaster. At a London show, a critic wrote that at "one point, Ms Houston said her soprano friend did not show up tonight. Her mezzo or contralto friends failed to show up either."

She was supposed to be recording a new album and star in a remake of the 1976 film musical, "Sparkle." But the true tragedy of Saturday's news was that few people were truly shocked. Just like Amy Winehouse, this past summer, it seemed these women were doomed to an early death. The roller coasters of their lives seemed inevitably leading to disaster. Whitney's attempts to curry favor with those surrounding her only led to her self-destruction to be carried to its logical conclusion. At least, we still have the music from those early days. We will continue to dance and sing along to those ballads and disco tracks. Whitney would be happy about that.

Addendum to the Best Films of 2011

2012-01-30T18:27:00.000-08:00

I forgot to name "Margin Call" as one of my favorite films of the past year--a major oversight! The film follows the members of an investment firm over the course of a night where they realize their holdings are about to be devalued and have to be nefariously dumped onto the market. The tense and terse atmosphere is aided by a remarkable ensemble cast that spans generations, from Jeremy Irons and Kevin Spacey to Demi Moore to Zach Quinto, the insulation of the setting and time (one night in one firm) adds to our understanding of the contingencies that led to the financial meltdown of 2008. The ending is rather abrupt and could have had a coda to give some sort of emotional closure, but this may be disingenuous: have any of us felt any closure from this global recession?

The Best Films of 2011!

2012-01-28T17:41:00.000-08:00

The Best Films of 2011

2011 has served as a rather complicated year for cinema. Hollywood witnessed one of the least attended years since the mid-1990's. The top ten grossing movies of the year were all derived from comic books or sequels. Many of these sequels performed poorly in comparison to their predecessors (e.g. Pirates 4, Kung Fu Panda 2, Transformers 3, Happy Feet 2), begging explanation as to why they are continuously made even if the demand for them within the domestic market has dried up. (However, their grosses overseas have made most of these films profitable). "The Help" and "Bridesmaids" demonstrated the strength of female audiences and the benefit of word of mouth this past summer. The awards season has been littered with over bloated fare that have performed rather poorly, and, unlike last year's "King's Speech" or "True Grit," no massive hit has emerged from the pack. There were several films this year that posed interesting perspectives to themes on human relations, even though many of these have been ignored by the Academy.

1. "Drive"--Nicolas Refn's adaptation of James Sallis' novel takes viewers on a winding, high-intensity tour through the streets of Los Angeles, as we follow a stunt driver (given no name during the course of the film) who helps a neighbor with one last heist. The heist goes terribly wrong and the characters are faced with an intricate web of relationships and vindictive vengeance to navigate themselves out of a seemingly impossible situation to resolve. With a star turn from the smoldering Ryan Gosling and a subtle, yet evil Albert Brooks, "Drive" is a film of images. The film has slight dialogue and the bass 1980's synth pop created for the soundtrack adds a flair to the numerous scenes of fast cars in the fast streets of Hollywood. The Danish director has crafted an ode to Hollywood car chase cinema (most notably "Bullitt") that surpasses all of the films emerging from Hollywood in the past year.

2. "The Artist"--To think that the most innovative movie of the year was a black and white silent film about Hollywood in the 1920's seems far-fetched, but French director Michel Hazanavicius (best known for a series of spy romps) has managed such a feat. Following the antics of a matinee idol, played to delightful effect by the dashing Jean Dujardin, the film, much like "Singin in the Rain," analyzes the shifts of film-making from a silent method of production to new sound technologies and the careers which this innovation ended. The star of the film is the Jack Russell terrier named Uggie, who was robbed of an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. With a brilliant score that references the love theme from bernard Herrmann's score to Hitchcock's "Vertigo" and some of the most interesting sound effects editing of the entire year, "The Artist" succeeds as the year's most loving homage to cinema.

3. "Hugo"--Martin Scorsese wanted to direct a film that his young daughter could watch without censorship and, within the acclaimed fillmmaker's oeuvre, that is simply not possible with the violence of his gangster films or the subtle sophistication of his literary adaptations. "Hugo," however, allows audiences to revel in the early days of cinema in France--a period that far precedes the 1920's of "The Artist." The movie has been divisive for some, but the film is a touching evocation of Paris in the decade after World War I, as Georges Mélies toils in a toy shop in the Gare Montparnasse. His career faded into oblivion by 1914, and the film follows as a young orphan, who sets the clocks in the train station, helps revive the career and memory of the aging Melies (played to the hilt by Sir Ben Kingsley). With wonderful footage of Mélies' films contained, "Hugo" succeeds as bringing a period of cinema seemingly consigned to the wastebin of history vibrantly back to life.

4. "Midnight in Paris"--Woody Allen's latest film has been the most successful critically and commercially since his apex in the 1980's. In an imaginative tale of an American writer in Paris, the film navigates around the meanings of nostalgia and Paris' importance to the psyche of American novelists for the past century. When Gil, played by Owen Wilson in his everyman sensibilities, discovers that at the stroke of midnight on a certain street of Paris one can actually travel back in time and have drinks with Fitzgerald, Dali, Gertrude Stein, or Josephine Baker. The film ends by telling us that nostalgia has its pitfalls and dangers and makes us miss the pleasures of our present, a point of prescience that Allen would not have necessarily made in the 1970's, but Allen has matured and blossomed in this new stage of his career.

5. "Bridesmaids"--When I first saw the preview of this film, I was convinced that it was nothing more than a tired derivation of "The Hangover" in order to lure in female audiences. I was wildly incorrect, however. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo have created a delighful, if raunchy, wedding comedy that innovates by having few male characters (save for Wiig's love interest) in a film about matrimony. And it is a platitude that women care more about nuptials than men, but weddigns can also strain the relationships of female friends and break apart bonds through the act of marrying two other individuals. With a supporting cast of talented improv artists, "Bridesmaids" may usher in a bold sea change in Hollywood where women can call the shots in the usually male-dominated world of comedy.

6. "Melancholia"--Lars von Trier's oeuvre is dedicated to women on the edge, females unable to cope in a world where their personal situations have become unbearable. From "Dancer in the Dark" to "Dogville," Trier has taken on women ambivalent towards the men in their lives and "Melancholia is no different, except this time the world is about to end as a large planet is about to collide with the earth. Kirsten Dunst, in the best performance of her career (but it's still Dunst, so it's not that good), has married someone, while this planet is hurtling towards our planet. The family's last hours are dedicated to fighting and attempting to resolve familial issues to no avail. The opening and ending montages are particularly striking and gorgeous.

7. "Tree of Life"--There are numerous ties between Trier's film and Terence Malick's meditation on life, earth and even dinosaurs (yes, T. Rex and brachiosauruses!): gorgeous cinematography and haunting scores and attempting to answer all of the philosophical questions of life in one film. Malick who has made only a handful of films in his long career has attempted to fashion a history of the world through the narration of one family's troubled domestic space in 1950's heartland America. The movie grates on the nerves of many filmgoers for being pretentious, and it is most certainly that, but the film tells a haunting tale of the perseverance of violence through networks of kinship as resentment replaces the ability to communicate effectively.

8. "Shame"--British artist Steve McQueen (not to be confused with the now dead American actor) has been known for a body of work (much of it video art) analyzing oppression, usually deploying humor, in the UK. His first film, "Hunger," retold the story of a hunger strike among Irish political prisoners in Thatcherite Britain. "Shame" looks at the effects of an obsession with sex on the psyche of a man who cannot build sustainable relationships. The film ventures into territory that can be interpreted as sex-phobic, but McQueen is not dismissing the sexual acts as problematic but this character's inability to relate beyond the orgasm and the emptiness he faces in a life with no true emotional attachments and only a vast collection of porn.

9. "The Help"--Many believe this feel-good movie should be called "Makes White People Feel Good About Racism," and it is true that the movie like the Kathryn Stockett novel upon which it is based is deeply problematic. I don't understand why the maids in the movie would agree to be interviewed, when they would have faced persecution and perhaps even death from the fact that they spoke of their white employers in less than glowing terms. The cast of actors, most especially Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, have been able to fashion characters far more profound than anything Stockett was able to write. Davis gives a profound performance that elicits emotional responses from the audience in a deeper way than anything Spielberg has created in the last decade.

10. "The Descendants"--I believe Alexander Payne's new film is deeply flawed: his main character faces little emotional growth over the course of the film and to have the work's main conflict be between a man and his comatose wife leads to a very one-sided approach to marital discord. In a stronger year of cinema, this movie would not have made my list, a rather sad fact of this year in cinema. The film does treat Hawaii as the colonized space that it is, analyzing the effect of such a tropical space on its colonial elite as their decadence begins to wear on the islands. I did appreciate that attention to political context, usually devoid in any film about white people in Hawaii.

(I do, however, admit that I have yet to see the Iranian film, "A Separation," or the trans-drama "Pariah")

Oscar Nomination Predictions 2011

2012-01-11T15:57:00.000-08:00

The films of 2011 are a hodgepodge of films. Unique, inventive pieces, such as "The Artist," exist alongside the top ten films of the year, which are all comic book adaptations or sequels (or both!). Many of these sequels have performed with lessened commercial impact than their predecessors (save for "Fast Five" and "Harry Potter 7 vol. 2"). "The Help" and "Bridesmaids," however, proved that audiences are willing to flock to character-driven pieces. Hopefully, next year will see more films like "Bridesmaids," rather than "Bridesmaids 2: The Ladies are Back!" or "The Help, Vol. II: A New Job."

This year, with a set of new rules governing how Best Picture nominees are chosen, has made it far more difficult to predict what the honored films will be, simply because we will not know if there are five, six, eight or even ten films nominated until they are announced. I will assume that this year has been a bit too weak to name ten films, but there are more than five, so I shall eight.

Best Picture
The Artist
Midnight in Paris
The Descendants
Hugo
The Help
Bridesmaids
War Horse
Tree of Life
(I really hope "Moneyball" will not sneak in here)

Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius, "The Artist"
Woody Allen, "Midnight in Paris"
Alexander Payne, "The Descendants"
Martin Scorsese, "Hugo"
Terence Malick, "Tree of Life"

Best Actor
Jean Dujardin, "The Artist"
George Clooney, "The Descendants"
Brad Pitt, "Moneyball"
Leo DiCaprio, "J. Edgar"
Michael Fassbender, "Shame"
(Ryry Gosling could replace Fassbender for "Ides of March," however I would prefer Ryry in "Drive")

Best Actress
Glenn Close, "Albert Nobbs"
Meryl Streep, "Iron Lady"
Viola Davis, "The Help"
Michelle Williams, "My Week with Marilyn"
Tilda Swinton, "We Need to Talk about Kevin"

Best Supporting Actor
Christopher Plummer, "Beginners"
Kenneth Branagh, "My Week with Marilyn"
Albert Brooks, "Drive"
Nick Nolte, "Warrior"
Jonah Hill, "Moneyball"

Best Supporting Actress
Octavia Spencer, "The Help"
Janet McTeer, "Albert Nobbs"
Shailene Woodley, "The Descendants"
Berenice Bejo, "The Artist"
Jessica Chastain, "The Help" (she should get it for "Tree of Life")

Best Adapted Screenplay
"The Descendants"
"Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
"Hugo"
"Moneyball"
"The Help"

Best Original Screenplay
"Midnight in Paris"
"The Artist"
"Young Adult"
"Bridesmaids"
"50/50"