Back on Track

Last night’s Oscars ceremony was excellent, and spoke to the importance of setting the right tone up-front.  Jimmy Kimmel was perfect for the job – calm, congenial, and above all high road, with excellent jokes that weren’t mean-spirited.  He had them at Hello. 

Moving the start time to 7 pm ET instead of the customary 8 pm, was fantastic and somehow made the ceremony seem shorter.  But the real winner of the Oscars this year was the writers.  The ceremony was flat-out well written.  Almost all of the presenter bits were not just good – they were great!   

The ceremony started out on the right foot with the award for Best Supporting Actress.  All five nominees were introduced by five prior Supporting Actress award winners, a practice that continued for all the acting nods.  The speeches were interesting, and almost all of them really connected with the nominees.  (Especially Jamie Lee Curtis to Jodie Foster and, later, Nicholas Cage (!) to Paul Giammati.)

Winning the first award of the night for her superb work in The Holdovers, Da’Vine Joy Randolph gave an emotional, beautiful speech where at the end she thanked her publicist, which set off a raft of subsequent acknowledgements to publicists, a fun riff throughout the evening.

There were no production numbers which lengthened the ceremony, and I don’t think there was a Lifetime Achievement award, another timesuck.  In most cases presenters presented two awards, this also helped move things along.  The Best Song performances were great, and it was wonderful to see Billie Eilish’s joy when she received a standing ovation.

Noteworthy Presenters

There were a number of on-the-nose presenters in which the bits directly spoke to the award being presented.

• Emily Blunt & Ryan Gosling’s “Barbenheimer” rivalry.
• A nod to the famous Oscars streaker back in the day, John Cena presented the award in a state of dishabille for … costumes, speaking to the importance of clothing!  What a great idea.
• Kate MacKinnon and America Ferrara spoke about documentaries … and dinosaurs.
• Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer had an awkwardly phrased exchange until they started reading the prompts from the writers, driving home the importance of writing.
• John Mulaney’s random but kinda brilliant narration of the entire Field of Dreams plot had absolutely nothing to do with the category he was presenting for but was so good it didn’t matter.

Of Note

• Loved the occasional shots of the Anatomy of a Fall dog “sitting” at the ceremony.
• Loved the backstage shots of all the Oscars on the shelf.
• There were only two flubs.  There was a weird bit with Guillermo Rodriguez handing out drinks in the audience.  The “In Memorium” section was shown with dancers and musicians, which made it hard to see the screen and identify who was being honored.

The Winners

We had … an upset!  Over the course of the evening, Poor Things deservedly won a number of awards, including Production Design.  As a result, I wasn’t all that surprised when Emma Stone upset Lily Gladstone for Best Actress.  Emma Stone’s performance really was extraordinary and although Lily Gladstone was great as well, the movie was long and clearly the Academy was underwhelmed, as it didn’t win anything.  As expected, Oppenheimer won for Best Picture and even though I’m not a huge fan of the movie, it has merit and Christopher Nolan has certainly made a number of wonderful movies (check out Memento.). I generally don’t get too into who wins and who deserves to win but The Zone of Interest had extraordinary sound and I was glad it won.

The High Point

Ryan Gosling going for broke with “I’m Just Ken.”  It was joyous and silly and perfect.

Something New!

After many years of lobbying, an Oscar for Casting has been created and will be handed out starting next year.  This is long overdue.  Casting Directors are usually women, and have been shut down by (mostly) male directors.  Good casting can elevate poor material (think Will Ferrell and basically everyone else in Elf), and bad casting can absolutely destroy a movie (think Sofia Coppola in Godfather 3).

My Movie Reviews

I mourn the loss of the middle – movies with decent budgets and actors we have heard of.  Nowadays most movies are either independents or the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  For a while it seemed like streaming services would fill the void left by the studios, but I think Netflix and Amazon have vastly cut their investment in marquis movies.   The writers’ and actors’ strike didn’t help, there will fewer releases in 2024 because of the work stoppage.

I have seen all of the Best Picture nominees and they are all worth seeing.  They are listed in order of my preference.

Poor Things is a super polarizing movie – people either love it or hate it.  Having disliked director Yorgos Lanthimos’ two prior movies, The Favourite and The Lobster, I thought I would hate Poor Things. Imagine my surprise when – I loved it!  Poor Things is funny and weird, with killer production design, fantastic costumes and a journey of self discovery story.  Emma Stone is crazy good in this movie, which is all about women, sex, and power!

American Fiction is also wicked smart and funny yet also at the same time heartwarming.  The story is a subversive look at stereotypes – black academic writes a “black” book filled with racial tropes that becomes a breakaway hit (sort of a riff on The Producers). The film is creative and the backstory, all about his family and his, well, journey of self discovery – is wonderful.  Sterling Brown and Jeffrey Wright are superb.

The Zone of Interest is about the Commandant of Auschwitz and his family who lived next to the camp.  The family enjoys luxuries and comfort while, over the fence, the unspeakable occurs.  We don’t see the camp itself or the prisoners.  Instead, we see the smoke and, more powerfully, we hear the train, the gunshots, the machinery.  The movie is not perfect – nothing really happens in the movie.  Despite this, I think this was the movie from 2024 that will stick with me the most. 

I greatly enjoyed Barbie, especially the production design of Barbieland.  Loved the pink, the costumes, the plastic, thought it was fab.  As many others have commented, it was a surprisingly subversive script for a big budget movie backed by Mattel.  Not all of it worked, but it was entertaining and funny and smart and creative.  Much better than the typical blockbuster.

The Holdovers is set in a New England boarding school in 1970.  It’s about a teacher, a student and a school cook who spend time together over the holidays.  Each character experiences personal growth along the way.  It’s a quiet movie, and very well acted, but what is really amazing about the movie is the production design. It looks like it was filmed in 1970.

Anatomy of a Fall is a French did-she-or-didn’t-she courtroom drama about a women charged with murdering her husband.  The movie is well written and well acted, and as I mentioned earlier one of the best scenes is played by a dog!  This movie builds slowly but pays off.

Maestro is an enjoyable movie and Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan elevate the material.  It’s a little arty, but it is interesting to learn about Leonard Bernstein.

Killers of the Flower Moon is long.  And sad, as is the history upon which it is based.  The first half is very tough to watch.  The second half of the movie is better than the first, after old-reliable character actor Jessie Plemons shows up as an FBI agent. 

I think I have seen too many Christopher Nolan movies to appreciate Oppenheimer.  Like all his other movies, he plays with time.  I thought going-back-and-forth between the Manhattan Project and his struggle for a security clearance was an ineffective framing technique.  I was much more interested in the Manhattan Project history than the security clearance issue, and think the movie should have had had a more straightforward story.  I also vehemently disliked the overwrought soundtrack.

I saw Past Lives on a plane, where it can be hard to appreciate a movie.  It is a road-not-taken movie about a love triangle where no one is the bad guy and everyone behaves honorably.  I love Greta Lee on The Morning Show and she is very good here as well.  It’s just a bit slow.

Other Notable 2023 Movies also listed in order of my preference.

Are You There God It’s Me Margaret – This was probably my favorite movie of the year.  Loved, loved loved it.  Was sad Rachel McAdams wasn’t nominated, she was wonderful as Margaret’s mom.

Theater Camp – could not stop laughing, so silly and fun.

Nyad – Inspirational sports/swim movie.

Rustin – Very enjoyable movie about Bayard Rustin, gay civil rights leader who organized the March on Washington.  Great soundtrack, zippy pace.

The Hustlers – Adam Sandler is likable in a basketball movie.

Saltburn – interesting take on the toxicity of old money but be warned it’s super pervy. 

May/December – well acted, also pervy (but not as bad as Saltburn).

Thank you all, as always, for reading.  Please let me know what you thought of the movies – comment on blog, send me a text, FB, email, phone, whatever.  So glad the ceremony was worth watching this year, and there were no major snafus (slaps, etc.). Please go see movies at the movie theater – it is a much better viewing experience and I selfishly want theaters to stay in business.  Until next year!

Cringy

Hello Everybody!

The Golden Globes are … back.  A bit unrecognizable, but back.  First, some backstory.  The Golden Globes was the Award show for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which was plagued with corruption and poor management issues for years and finally DISBANDED last year after it was discovered that none of its ~80 members were Black.   

According to the press release for the new organization, there are now 300 members from 76 countries, 47% of whom are women and 60% of whom are racially and ethnically diverse.  But who are they?  There was virtually no announcement and explanation that the Golden Globes this year has a completely new voting entity.  Some of the winners didn’t get the memo, thanking the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which again was DISBANDED.  No official came on, which might have been reassuring given the total reset. But I guess it didn’t matter. The Golden Globes, for better or worse, generate ratings and publicity, and so Hollywood Showed Up.

So my initial confusion was about – what does this award even mean? 

And then there’s the show itself.

I’m sorry to say that the opening monolog, by Jo Coy, was the worst opening monolog I have ever seen in the history of award shows.  It was so bad he started identifying jokes he wrote – as long as they didn’t tank.  The jokes were truly terrible.  A rocky start.

The presenters were saddled with this very weird background.  Instead of the tried-and-true approach of presenting to the audience in front of them, they had to pivot and present with the audience behind them.  The audience background was weird and distracting for viewers and I have to think this threw the presenters.

In many cases it took a really long time for the presenters to wiggle their way between the tables and get to the stage.  There was no clear pathway.  Some of the winners’ trips to the stage were longer than their speeches.  I have to think this threw the winners.

So basically what I am saying is there were a lot of bad production decisions (no explanation of new voting body, terrible opening monolog, awkward camera angles, tripping hazard table setup) that were made before we even got to the ceremony.

Saddled with all these problems, it is unsurprising that the Golden Globes were not very interesting and not very good.

The Presenters

Although the writer’s strike is over, the theme of bad writing extended well past the opening monolog.  Most of the presenting bits were super-awkward and bad.  Kevin Costner and America Ferrera were particularly cringy.   Kristin Wiig and Will Ferrell were the rare exception, as they managed to elevate their weird material and make it work.

The Winners

The Golden Globes were super early so it was the first awards show of the season. The winners haven’t yet started to coalesce around a favorite few.  Despite that, I wasn’t surprised by the main winners – Oppenheimer, Anatomy of a Fall (which won at Cannes), and acting nods for The Holdovers leads. On the TV side Succession, The Bear and Beef won big.  I have gotten a little tired of Christopher Nolan’s playing-with-time directing style, but it was good to see how well-regarded he is in the industry.

The new “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement” award unsurprisingly went to Barbie and Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig were super appreciative and fun. I loved Robbie’s ending line “we made it for you, we made it with love, thank you for loving it back.”

The Speeches

Acceptance speeches that are worth YouTubing are Robert Downey Junior, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Lily Gladstone.  The best line in a speech came from Ayo Edebiri, winning for The Bear, who at the last minute thanked all the assistants to her agents and managers who actually read her emails and took her calls. It was a great detail, fun to think about how the pecking order of Hollywood actually works for up-and-coming actors.

Coming Soon

I have a lot of thoughts about the state of movies and I am working my way through seeing all the major contenders prior to the Academy Awards so stay tuned. Thank you, as always, for reading. Please let me know your thoughts!

Random Aside

Earlier in the day, Hugh and I saw The Godfather at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, where the Grand Rapids Symphony performed the score live to the movie. Seeing The Godfather made me realize they truly don’t make them like that any more. All of the movies I have seen in the last few years pale in comparison to this masterpiece. And if you have a chance to see a movie with a live orchestra do it – it’s the best.

Business As Usual

Hello everyone!  Welcome to my annual Oscar ceremony writeup.

The Ceremony

Unfortunately, I thought this year’s Oscar ceremony was extremely boring.  Usually with live TV you get crazy fun moments of spontaneity.  There were few.  There was no big production number to kick off the proceedings, which typically adds a jolt of energy.  As host, Jimmy Kimmel was amiable.  He had a few good jokes, my favorite was (renown composer) “John Williams turned 91 last night and is still scoring.”   But for the most part his opening monologue was flat, nothing like Gerrod Carmichael’s razor-sharp wit at the recent Golden Globes.  Come to think of it, most of the show was flat.  Oscar front-runners Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan had both won a number of awards leading up to the Oscars and had given better emotional acceptance speeches elsewhere.   All Quiet on the Western Front won quite a few awards, and every time it won its depressing music cast a pall over the proceedings.  It was pretty clear up-front that Everything Everywhere All at Once was going to win Best Picture since the movie won a bunch of earlier awards.  When it won for Best Picture, I was a bit tired of seeing these likable guys up there, and they had run out of things to say!

The eight “behind the scenes” awards that were not televised live last year were back, which was good.  The ceremony had a disastrous (and mercifully short) “Ask the Stars Questions” segment.  The song performances were better than usual. “Naatu Naatu,” the song from RRR, won and the winner bizarrely and entertainingly sang his acceptance song to the tune of the Carpenter’s “Top of the World.”  Lady Gaga (very stripped down) and Rhianna (very glammed up) were both worth watching, they are pros.

Jamie Lee Curtis is also a pro.  She gave by far the best speech of the night. Her “we just won an Oscar” refrain, graciously inviting all the other people she has worked with over the years to share in the award, was the high point of the ceremony.  Unfortunately, it was early, after that there was little else.  Presenters Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant were enjoyable, he is always funny and charming and self-deprecating.  Elizabeth Banks accompanied by a cocaine bear of sorts was also kinda amusing.  Brendan Fraser’s acceptance speech for Best Actor was heartfelt if a bit odd. 

It has been a tough year for movies and the Oscars relentlessly tried to promote the benefits of seeing movies at the theater.  Ironically the two people most responsible for getting people into the theaters this year, Tom Cruise and James Cameron, did not attend the ceremony. 

The Movies

This year there were very few movies this year I loved.  Normally I just review the movies nominated for Best Picture, but I’m going to add in a few movies nominated for other categories that I liked in the interest of providing more recommendations of movies worth seeing!

Alice’s Movie Reviews

LOVED

Women Talking

Fantastic movie, so well written and acted.  You wouldn’t think a movie about, well, women talking, would have so much dramatic heft, but it does.  Although about a wrenching topic, the movie is watchable.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (Best Animated Feature Film)

So sweet.  So creative.  So fun.  See it!

EO (Best International Feature Film)

This is the movie about a donkey, from the perspective of a donkey.  It doesn’t always make sense, but the whole point of movies is to show life from another’s perspective.   An amazing achievement.

Glass Onion:  A Knives Out Movie (Best Adapted Screenplay)

Wish I had been able to see this in the theater, so irritated that movie runs are so short due to streaming deals.  Very fun!

LIKED

Everything, Everywhere All at Once

I am glad this movie won.  Women Talking was never going to win and EEAAO is an inventive, out of the box movie.  Some of the Metaverse threads work and some don’t and the movie definitely could have used some editing. But the movie has an emotional resonance.

Tar

Cate Blanchett is wonderful in this movie, about the abuse of power in the rarefied world of classical music.  You don’t always know what is really happening and what is not happening in this movie, kind of like…

Aftersun (Best Actor)

A really interesting and beautiful movie about childhood and memory and loss from first-time director Charlotte Wells.

Top Gun: Maverick

Fun popcorn movie.  That it got the rave reviews it did speaks to the lack of big release films that aren’t about the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Star Wars. 

The Fabelmans

Steven Spielberg’s reminiscence about his childhood.  As a Spielberg movie it is of course well constructed, acted and filmed.  But it never really takes off.

The Banshees of Inisherin

I liked this movie until it jumps the shark (those who have seen it will get what I am referencing). Very well acted and beautifully filmed.

DISLIKED

Triangle of Sadness

OMG I hated this movie.  This is a movie about profoundly unlikable privileged people.  It is tough to watch.  The dialog is endless. I abandoned ship.

Elvis

I have never been a fan of Baz Luhrmann movies, I find them more like music videos than movies.  I know lots of people loved this movie.  It just didn’t do it for me.  I abandoned this one also.

Avatar

Way.  Too.  Long.  I didn’t abandon it but wish I had!

DIDN’T SEE

All Quiet on the Western Front

In Conclusion

To sum it all up, I’d say this year was Business as Usual.  For the most part, there was little drama. The show went on. The front runners won.  No slap. No Best Picture mixup.

Thanks for reading.  Let me know your thoughts on the ceremony and/or the movies via the blog comments, facebook, or email. Until next year!

Love the Love

Hello everybody!  Welcome back to my Golden Globes blog post.  Sorry this is a day late – I actually forgot it was on on Tuesday!  I had a media embargo yesterday, and watched the Awards last night without having read anything about the winners, the highs/lows, or the ceremony overall.

As you intrepid entertainment fans know, last year the Golden Globes were not televised after it was revealed that none of the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association were Black.  The embattled organization promised to make changes…

…and boy did they ever.  This year we had a Black producer, a Black host, and a substantial number of the presenters were Black, including the recipient of one of the top two awards, Eddie Murphy.  And a good number of the winners were Black.  Progess!

In this year’s post I am going to focus on the ceremony and save my thoughts on the movies (and I have many!) for my Oscar ceremony writeup. 

Loved loved loved this year’s Golden Globes.  It may be my favorite award show ceremony ever.  (Although the La La Land/Moonlight Best Picture debacle was my favorite MOMENT in award show history.) 

The ceremony had sweetness and sincerity.  Winners were genuine – and grateful.  Maybe it was that due to the COVID weird zoom years, as well as the ceremony not being televised last year, everybody was glad to be in the same room together.  All award shows give entertainment junkies like me a window into the inner workings of Hollywood.  The Golden Globes are better than the Oscars for this because you see who people sit with at the premium tables.  Guillermo del Toro, winning for his animated film Pinocchio, said “We are happy to be back in person.  Some of us are drunk.  What could be better?” 

I was previously unfamiliar with host Gerrod Carmichael but I liked his opening monolog, which was edgy, starting with his acknowledgment of the weirdness of the hosting gig: “you’re invited to be the Black face of an embattled organization.”  After that, he showed up in fabulous fun outfits.  I was particularly partial to the pink suit.

The ceremony ran long.  The first two winners, Ke Huy Quan and Angela Bassett, gave emotional speeches, his because he struggled to get cast for so many years, and hers because of Chadwick Boseman’s passing.  That seemed to embolden everybody else to throw brevity to the wind.  And despite the producers trying to “play out” the speeches, it didn’t really work – everybody just talked over the music.   Which was just fine.  If the speeches are good, it’s ok to go long.  When Austin Butler won for Elvis and they started to play him out he quipped “you could at least play Suspicious Minds.” 

Brad Pitt. He did not present.  Nominated for Babylon, he did not win.  He did not speak.  But he was seated front and center.  A bunch of winners shook his hand on their way up to the podium.  Brad Pitt has been in the business a really long time.  He is very active behind the camera, producing lots and lots of smaller films.  The camera angle was such that we could see him react to the speeches.  We saw his delight for and support of all the award recipients.  And it became a thing, peeps who clearly didn’t even know him (for example Quinta Brunson, winning for Abbott Elementary, said “hi Brad Pitt!”  It was fun.  Yay Brad!  (I’ve always been Team Brad instead of Team Angelina, she seems crazy and mean.)

Jennifer Coolidge was up there twice, first as a presenter and then as a winner for White Lotus.  Both times, but especially when she won, her deadpan yet sincere delivery slayed.  Like Ke Huy Quan, she eked out a career for many years.  She brought down the house.

Other notable, emotional speeches worth watching for you YouTubers out there are below.

White Lotus showrunner Mike White – who had just been thanked by Jennifer Coolidge for changing her life – was drunk (!) and grateful and sweet.

Michelle Yeoh has been in the business for a very a long time without a whole lot of recognition in the U.S.: “It was a dream come true until I got here.”  So glad she is finally getting her due.

The Banshees of Inisherin winners – Collin Ferrell for Best Actor in a Comedy and Martin McDonaugh for Best Comedy.  Both were funny, humble, and articulate.  You could feel the love.

Justin Hurwitz won for his Babylon score and had a nice callout to the importance of having public schools that offer music classes.

Natasha Lyonne was hilarious as she talked about how the ceremony was running long – in a very lengthy, drawn out way.

Ryan Murphy gave the best speech of the night.  The winner of the Carol Burnett award, the top award for TV, he had time to prepare.  Billy Porter, resplendent in a fuchsia tux gown, introduced him.  Showrunner for so many TV shows (from Glee to The People vs. OJ to all the American Horror Story Shows), he graciously called out some of the  gay, lesbian and trans actors he has hired and the importance of representation. 

Of course the evening wasn’t perfect.  Some of the bits, such as the supporting actors from Top Gun, and Regina Hall’s weird reaction to Kevin Costner sheltering in place in Santa Barbara due to weather (was she drunk?) misfired.  But that’s ok.  Loved the ceremony.  Loved the vibe.  Loved, well, the love.  Let me know your thoughts in the comments, or send me an email.  Thanks for reading!

Fight Club

The Fight

We’ll start in the middle, as the major headline coming out of this Oscars is unquestionably the fight between Chris Rock and Will Smith.  For context:  Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, who is currently bald, auditioning for GI Jane II.  Pinkett Smith apparently suffers from alopecia and shaved her head because of this.  She grimaced.  Will Smith then went up on stage, took a swing at Rock, returned to his seat, and swore at Rock repeatedly.  (International feeds show the unbleeped exchange).  Chris Rock is rattled but since he’s a pro from thousands of hours of standup, he moves on.  This whole thing absolutely upstaged everything else about the Oscars.  It was not Smith’s finest moment.  And then in a rambling acceptance speech for King Richard, he apologized to the academy – but not to Chris Rock.

Back to the Beginning

The ceremony started on the Compton tennis courts, with an elaborate production number of Beyonce’s Oscar-nominated song for King Richard.  I loved the opening.  Everything – the tennis courts, Beyonce, the musicians, the dancers, and even the instruments – was tennis-ball-neon-green.  The dancers’ costumes made them look like human tennis balls.  It was a fun and inventive beginning.

The Hosts

After last year’s challenging, set-in-a-train-station ceremony, this year things were back to normal, thank goodness.   Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall co-hosted.  The three had nice chemistry and a good opening and Amy Schumer then delivered a killer monolog, she’s amazing. As is typical, some of the jokes landed, such as “this year the academy hired three women to host because it’s cheaper than hiring one man.”  Some of the jokes didn’t work as well – particularly the riff in which Regina Hall patted down/felt up single male stars on a COVID protocol pretext.  But generally the hosts kept things moving along and all three are so likable that the audience was clearly rooting for them.

Shortening It Up

Eight “minor” awards were announced prior to the ceremony and edited versions of the winners’ acceptances were shown.  I prefer the old format, as often there are fun or quirky speeches from the behind-the-scenes folks, but I am an Oscar die-hard so maybe this helped retain more casual viewers.  And the lifetime achievement awards were announced, but there was no introduction of the honoree and acceptance speech.  I would have thought that these changes would have shaved a ton of time, but the ceremony was 3.5 hours long, only a half hour shorter than normal. Honestly if the Super Bowl can be 4+ hours, why can’t the Oscars?

The Speeches

For the reasons described above, there were fewer speeches to evaluate.  The speeches that really landed were about inclusion.  Ariana Debose, who is openly gay and won Supporting Actress for West Side Story, stuck the landing with the late great Sondheim’s immortal words “There’s a Place for Us.”  It was wonderful to see Troy Katsur sign his acceptance speech.  And Jessica Chastain killed it at the end with a beautiful speech about accepting and embracing LGBTQ+ people as Tammy Faye Baker did.

The Reunions

The ceremony offered a number of cast “reunions” which were super-fun, great idea!  Uma Thurman, Samuel Jackson and John Travolta came on for Pulp Fiction and it was great to see Thurman and Travolta shimmy onstage. DeNiro, Coppola and Pacino looked a bit ossified but I love me anything Godfather. Wesley Snipes, Rosie Perez, Woody Harrelson came on for White Man Can’t Jump.  And then at the end Lady Gaga and Liza Minelli presented Best Picture! Liza was a great surprise Presenter, it’s the 50th Anniversary of Cabaret in addition to The Godfather.

All In All

Honestly with the Reunions, the Hosts, the Fight, and Shortening It Up, the evening flew by. My guess is that ratings will be up. Is the moral of the story to have a fight to boost ratings? More seriously, the bigger challenge is getting people to go to the movie theater for a movie other than SpiderMan. The Oscars are trying to promote movie-going at a time when, let’s face, it, no one is going to the movies. So here are my movie reviews for the Best Picture nominees. I encourage everyone to go see a movie at a theater! It’s a much more enjoyable, immersive experience. Plus there’s popcorn.

Alice’s Best Picture Movie Reviews

LOVED

West Side Story

I am a huge fan of live musicals.  Unfortunately, movie versions of musicals almost always fail to convey the excitement and energy of song and dance on stage (Cabaret is a notable exception, and, though not a musical, the first 10 minutes of All That Jazz are perfect.)   Spielberg is a master with the camera.  The movie soars. 

Drive My Car

This movie is not for everyone.  It is three hours long.  But I loved it and I’m not really sure why.  Don’t let the Uncle Vanya theme deter you – I don’t know anything about Chekhov and it still worked for me.  It is a slow-moving movie about love and loss, most of which takes place in a cheery red Saab.  Sort of a Driving Miss Daisy or Green Book.  But better.

Dune

I really wish I had seen this movie in the theater.  The Director, Denis Villeneuve, has a very distinctive visual style.  This movie is similar to his other Sci Fi movie, Arrival, but with a much bigger budget.  It is an epic movie, and it deservedly won most (all?) of the technical awards.  So glad to see a big movie that is thoughtfully made and NOT a superhero or Star Wars movie. 

LIKED

CODA

CODA is a heartwarming movie about a mostly deaf family.  It was well acted but had a somewhat cheesy and implausible plot.  But it is easily the most enjoyable movie of all the nominees.  I don’t think it should have won, but I am glad it beat the other front-runner, The Power of the Dog.

King Richard

King Richard was a better sports movie than most.  As others have noted, we had a whole lot of the Dad in the movie, which would have been better with more of the Mom, superbly played by Aunjanue Ellis.  She slays it in her one scene.

Licorice Pizza

Spencer and I saw this movie in Memphis on our BBQ road trip.  We both thought it was overrated.  It rambles.  There are a lot of scenes in which the characters are running for inexplicable reasons. However, the scene in which Alana Haim drives a truck is amazing.  And Bradley Cooper has a killer cameo. 

Don’t Look Up

End-of-the-world comedies are a tough genre.  Even Dr. Strangelove is tough to watch at times.  This movie is polarizing – people either hate it or love it.  I was one of the few in the middle.  With such a starry cast, you can watch the movie and not worry about, well, the end of the world.

Belfast

A cute but overrated movie that shows the violence in Northern Ireland through the eyes of a small child.  Filmed in black and white, the much better black and white movie this year was Passing which was, ahem, passed over in the nominations.

DISLIKED

Power of the Dog

I get that this is a beautifully made, well-acted movie.  But it is about a bully.  And therefore tough to watch.  I had to force myself to get through it.

DIDN’T SEE BECAUSE I DON’T DO HORROR – Guest Review from Spencer Morgan

Nightmare Alley

Good movie, definitely not great. Cooper, Blanchett, and Dafoe all give fantastic performances and the cinematography, camera work, and direction were also very strong. The first half is very cohesive while the second half is not. The movie particularly falls off  towards the end of the movie, but for the most part, it was a good movie with an intriguing plot about something I previously knew nothing about. It could have been great if the script was narrowed down and simplified.

SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED

Passing & The Lost Daughter

These movies were by well-known actresses, Rebecca Hall and Maggie Gillenhaal, who wrote and directed their first films.  Both are amazing debuts worth seeing.

THANKS FOR READING. UNTIL NEXT YEAR!

Oscars So Blue

2021 Academy Awards Review

Greetings to all who read this blog.  I hope all of you are staying safe and have the opportunity to get vaccinated soon.  Hugh and I got our second shot last Wednesday!

The Background

This year’s Oscars were certainly a departure from the norm on many, many levels.  Initially I was quite hopeful about the ceremony when I learned that Steven Soderbergh, renown director of Ocean’s Eleven and many other great films, had signed on to produce.  But this ceremony managed to be – with one exception, shown in the photo above – almost entirely joyless.  I understand that this has been a difficult year.  But the point of movie Awards Shows is to celebrate the escape and entertainment and artistry that movies provide.   This year’s Golden Globes ceremony – though weird, to be sure – succeeded on this front.  This year’s Oscars failed. 

The Beginning

The ceremony started with Regina King determinedly strutting down the blue carpet – a blue carpet, instead of a red carpet!  Initially loved the visual cue that this was a different kind of ceremony, hadn’t yet figured out the obvious symbolism that Blue = Depressing. And the Oscars started with … end credits, which listed the names of upcoming presenters.  Nice touch!  It piqued my interest to know that celebrities such as Reese Witherspoon and Harrison Ford would be presenting.  The Union Station venue was attractive.  I was hopeful.

Departures from the Norm

No effort was made to curtail the length of the acceptance speeches.  So the speeches were longer than usual.  Many dragged.  But it was a more respectful approach.  The In Memorium segment honored many more people than is customary by speeding up the presentation of names, which was a good idea.  The biggest change was that Best Picture was not the last award, Best Picture was followed by Best Actress and Actor.  So after Best Picture I wondered if I had fallen asleep and missed the main acting awards.  Best Picture should be at the end – it is the most significant award and because of this provides closure, which is sorely needed given that nowadays ceremonies lack hosts.

A Short Ceremony Which Seemed Long

The ceremony was arguably the shortest in recent history, clocking in at about 3 hours and 15 minutes.  But this came at a cost.  There were no clips from the films nominated for Best Picture.  There were no performances of the Best Song nominees.  There were no film montages promoting movies.  There were no jokes.  There was very little promotion of movies in a year in which the industry needs all the help it can get.  There were a few promos – one for Steven Spielberg’s upcoming West Side Story and one for Lin Manual Miranda’s In The Heights – but they were so rare maybe they were paid spots.  There was an overlong tribute to a charity that helps people in the movie industry. So although the ceremony was 45 minute shorter it was so monotonous it actually seemed longer than usual.

The Speeches

As is customary most of the speeches were forgettable, but several hit home.  One called out the toll of police violence in America, three people a day get killed by police officers, a disproportionate number of them Black.  The Director of Another Round (which is worth seeing, very fun!) dedicated the film to his daughter, who died right before he began shooting the film.  When Emerald Fennell won the Oscar for Original Screenplay she said of her statue, “He’s so heavy! He’s so cold!”

The One Bit of Fun

… was when Questlove, who was serving as DJ (not sure why a movie award show had a DJ but anyway), asked celebs whether various songs from back in the day had been Oscar Winners, Oscar Nominees, or Neither.  Glenn Close proved to have a surprisingly deep knowledge of hip hop, and gamely danced “Da Butt” after losing her record 8^th Oscar.  Given how dull the ceremony was, it was clear that this would be the main headline.

The Upsets!

The momentum for Best Actor did seem to be shifting to Anthony Hopkins for The Father – and it was an extraordinary performance, to be sure – so I wasn’t too surprised when he won instead of the late Chadwick Boseman.  The big upset was when Frances McDormand won for Nomadland.  Although I loved her performance, since this was her third Oscar I was a bit disappointed that Carey Mulligan or Viola Davis didn’t win.  Also, her speech was really weird – why did she howl like a wolf?  I looked it up this morning and learned that this was a tribute to the Nomadland sound mixer Michael Wolf, who died by suicide.  It would have been good to explain this.  And then, since there was no host, this lead to a very unsettling ending.

The Best Picture Movies – listed in order of preference

• Nomadland – amazing, soaring, beautiful.  I loved it but full disclosure this is kind of a movie person’s movie and many people will find it a bit slow. 
• Promising Young Woman – one would not expect a movie about date rape to be enjoyable.  This movie is whip-smart and Carey Mulligan delivers an amazing performance. 
• The Father – a knockout of a movie about dementia with superb production design.
• The Sound of Metal – although some of the plot points are underdeveloped, it is a thought-provoking movie about hearing loss and addiction that I absolutely loved.
• The Trial of the Chicago 7 – fun, snappy, loved Sacha Baron Cohen’s performance.
• Minari – a worthy movie but a bit slow.
• Judas and the Black Messiah – great performances but choppy editing made it hard to follow.
• Mank – yet another overlong naval-gazing movie about Hollywood. 

The Theme

Full disclosure: I watched the ceremony from sunny Florida, where Hugh and I have been staying with friends for the weekend. Seeing the Oscars at a different locale certainly changed my viewing experience, so maybe it changed my evaluation. But in the end my takeaway is this. From the carpet, to the mood, to Glenn Close’s dress, shown above during the single moment of levity, the 2021 Oscars were blue from start to finish.

P.S.

I hope we all can get back to seeing movies in movie theaters soon. Please let me know what you thought of the Oscars, and thank you for reading!

Low Expectations

2021 Golden Globes Review

The best Golden Globes joke was not at the ceremony, but in the ads leading up to the ceremony, in which Tina Fey quipped, “expectations have never been lower.” Yes indeed.

Hello to my friends, family members, and others who read this blog!  In this post I will write about the ceremony and nominees, but also the state of movies and I think we may need to tiptoe into the year itself.

The Ceremony

They tried.  And honestly the tech wasn’t horrible.  It was entertaining and interesting to see the nominees at home.  There was an enormous range of prep/lighting/backgrounds, from folks in full hair makeup and black tie, to some nominees watching in screening rooms with family, to really terrible backgrounds and no makeup. For example, why was Jeff Daniels in front of so many doors?

The biggest point of confusion was wondering “who is that again?” when they would cut to other nominees watching from home.  The cuts were awkward and didn’t work.  (I didn’t figure out it was Gillian Anderson, who was for some reason frequently spotlighted, until she won.)  And there was this excruciating sequence in which the nominees would “chat” with the other nominees from their respective screens.  It was super weird, and at home we couldn’t hear anything which was probably for the best.

Tina and Amy gamely tried to keep things moving along and they both are so charming that we were rooting for them.  Their opening monolog was decent and I did like the jokes about how to tell the difference between TV and movies given that, well, there isn’t much of a difference nowadays.  (It used to be movies were better. That is no longer the case.  They wisely didn’t go there.)

There was a pre-recorded bit asking toddlers about the movies which didn’t do much.  There was a pre-recoded bit in which celebrities had telemedicine appointments with doctors which also didn’t do much, except for Andrew Rannells –  anytime I see him I’m happy except for The Prom (see below).  Jane Fonda won the Cecil D.  DeMille award and gave a great speech, she is a pro, as did Norman Lear for the TV equivalent, the Carol Burnett award.

The “playing out” of the nominees was much more distracting and rude than it is live, but to be fair the nominees went on way too long.  And the speeches.  Ack.  Nominees have a one-in-five shot of winning.  Write an acceptance speech, people!  Most didn’t, and wound up sounding idiotic, even the cerebral Jodie Foster sounded like a bubblehead – and why was her partner wearing pajamas?  Daniel Levy had great lighting AND a fantastic, thoughtful and clearly well-prepared acceptance speech about the importance of inclusivity and acceptance.  (And if you haven’t seen Schitt’s Creek, watch it!  Start on Season 2, and give it a few episodes.  It is the perfect show for these polarized times.)

The Nominees

I saw three of the five films nominated for Best Drama:

• Mank – way too long.  But Amanda Seyfried was delightful.  So glad to see her getting better parts, for far too long she was stuck, à la Matthew McConnaughey, with romantic comedy drivel.
• The Trial of the Chicago 7 – thoroughly enjoyable, well acted, and such an interesting topic.  Sacha Baron Cohen steals the show as Abbie Hoffman.  Aaron Sorkin is a master storyteller.
• Nomadland – my favorite movie of the year.  Short on dialog but beautifully filmed, this movie is an elegy to people in the West living on the margins.  Loved it.  Was surprised and happy that it won. Check out director Chloé Zhao’s prior movie The Rider. 

Of the Musicals/Comedies nominated again I again saw three of five:

• Hamilton – although I am a huge Hamilton fan, this was NOT a movie, a crew spent three days filming the Broadway musical.  It should not have been nominated.
• Palm Springs – worth seeing.
• The Prom – one of the worst musicals I have ever seen.  I turned it off.

The State of Movies

I went to one movie in the theater since the pandemic, the political documentary The Way I See It, three days before the Election.  I loved it. I miss the theater experience.   I so hope COVID doesn’t kill theater distribution.  Watching a movie from home is not the same.  You miss so much.  Like many movie buffs I am a big Godfather fan, Hugh and I used to watch it every year on TV.  Then we saw it at The Michigan Theater.  And I discovered Marlon Brando is stroking a cat in his office during Connie’s wedding!  I never even noticed the cat at home!   And nothing beats watching The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on the big screen and listening to Ennio Morricone’s soaring score. 

The Year

I probably shouldn’t go here but what the heck.  We have now had a full year of COVID.  There was a great article in The Atlantic about the importance of low level connections.  I miss my fellow-movie goers – I  don’t even know who you are but I miss you.  I miss working in the West Branch of the Ann Arbor Library around other people.  Over the past year I have tried to keep up with friends and family.  It has been a horrible year.  Several close friends have passed and the restrictions due to COVID has made it so difficult to mourn and offer comfort.  I don’t mean to take this post into a dark dark place but I do hope we get through this with our humanity intact.  Be kind to one another.  Call one another.  Reach out.  Send flowers.  Let’s help each other get through this. 

Oscars So Woke

Where to begin.  Usually the Oscars are a snooze, self-indulgent, and plod along with precious few moments of fun or sincerity.  But not this year.

The 2020 Oscars were entertaining, energetic and at times exuberant!  From the rousing opening number by Janelle Monáe to the rousing win by Parasite for Best Picture, the Oscars were a rollicking good time.

The producers of this year’s Oscars wisely concluded this year that the best defense was a good offense.  Faced with only one African American nominated for an acting role out of 20 possible slots, and faced with the fact no woman was nominated for Best Director despite a number of great films this year directed by women, the Oscars telecast, very pointedly, tried to address this by featuring a diversity of performers and presenters.

The Performers

I’ve already called out Janelle Monáe’s wonderful opening number.  Utkarsh Ambudkar (he was in Pitch Perfect, people, I looked it up) nimbly rapped about the winners 2/3 of the way in – how did he do that?   Loved the montage about the interplay between a good movie song and a good movie which led to an awesome surprise performance of “Lose Yourself” by Michigan’s own Eminem!  Loved that many young people in the crowd were singing along.  Loved that Martin Scorcese looked vaguely horrified.

The Presenters

The two best pairs of presenters were hilarious.  Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph hammed it up, “acting” and singing, when presenting for Production Design and Best Costume.  Will Ferrell and Julia Louis Dreyfus played the parts of narcissistic actors to a T.  And being a huge fan of Something’s Gotta Give, I so enjoyed Keanu Reeves’ very weird, arguably cringy presentation with Diane Keaton (shoutout to her outfit also).  Steve Martin and Chris Rock were amiable and engaging as “not hosts.”  Olivia Coleman was charming and funny as always.  Loved that Jane Fonda closed it out!

The Details

There were a few twists this year.  The acting nominees’ clips were interspersed instead of shown sequentially, which made them more fun to watch.  Loved that they played snippets from the Best Score nominees, this is such an important category (second shoutout: the pulsing score from Uncut Gems should have been nominated.)  Didn’t think many of the elaborate Best Song productions showed well on TV.

The Winners

Part of what made this awards show great was that 1917, despite having won almost all of the precursor awards, did not, as expected, win Best Director or Best Picture.  And the crowd (myself and Spencer included) were thrilled to see Parasite, a sleeper movie from South Korea, win the big prizes.  Although there were no surprises in the acting categories, the rest of awards were fairly evenly distributed and less predictable than usual.  It was fun that the person we saw speak the most during this year’s Oscars was the translator for Bong Joon-ho.  By the time he won for Best Picture, having already won for Best Director, Best International Feature, and Original Screenplay, Bong Joon-ho had flat-out run out of things to say. His callout to Martin Scorcese, and the standing ovation that resulted, was a generous, genuine, sweet moment.

The Speeches

There were a number of good speeches, or parts of overlong speeches that were good.  Loved the Bombshell Makeup & Hairstyling winner’s nod to Charlize Theron, so sweet.  Loved The Hair winner’s callout for greater representation in animation.  Renee Zellweger took some time to get going, but she kindly called out the importance of Judy Garland and other people who inspire us.  Liked the way Laura Dern honored her parents.

The Movies

Here is my take on the Best Picture noms, listed in order of preference (note that I did not see, and do not plan to see, The Joker).

• Little Women: I loved how Little Women sagely predicted that it wouldn’t receive the acknowledgement it deserved because it is about “domestic struggles.”  Although full disclosure it is hard for me to be objective about this movie because I so adore this book and read it over and over throughout my childhood.  Little Women was hands-down my favorite movie of the year.  I saw it twice!
• Parasite: What a creative movie.  It is funny, it makes a point, it does a great job showing the interplay and awkwardness between rich people and poor people, and the acting is amazing.
• JoJo Rabbit: This movie is interesting because it is a movie that people love and critics find “treacly.”  I guess I’ll never be a movie critic because I loved this movie.  When I first learned it was a Nazi satire I thought there is no way they are going to be able to pull it off.  But they pulled it off!  An original, funny yet heartwarming film.
• Marriage Story: A surprisingly watchable movie about a divorce, or really about the impact of divorce lawyers on divorce.  Slow build of a movie which ends on a surprisingly hopeful note.
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Parts of this movie are beautifully filmed and I was glad the movie won for Production Design.  And there is nothing Hollywood likes more than a movie about, well Hollywood.  But the typical Tarantino history revision/bloodbath conclusion doesn’t really do it for me.
• The Irishman: Do we really need another mob movie starring Robert De Niro, and Al Pacino?  I would argue that we do not.  Although overlong, The Irishman is worth watching (especially if you watch it over two days.)  Joe Pesci is wonderful.  The digital effects used to make all the actors look younger are creepy.
• Ford v Ferrari: Boys and cars.  Like many of the movies, it was too long and, despite being about car racing, dragged.  An entertaining story, and Tracy Letts steals the movie as Henry Ford II.
• 1917: A gimmick.  Although in theory an “important” film about Word War I, this is really an action movie, spliced together to look like one continuous take.  If you want to see a movie that really was one continuous take, other than when they had to change the film roll (so it was 11 “takes”), see the Hitchcock gem Rope.

In Conclusion

Until next year, people.  Please let me know what you think in the comments, or send me an email.  One of the winners (forgot who) said “A well told story is a powerful thing.”  Indeed.  Thanks for reading!

 

Killjoy

He said he didn’t care.  He wasn’t kidding.

Five-time Golden Globe Award host Ricky Gervais kicked off the 2020 Golden Globes with a tasteless, profanity-laced screed.  This is typically how this guy rolls, but the problem was he made fun of the speeches – in advance.  I don’t recall the actual verbiage but he basically said  don’t get all political, just thank your agent, get over yourself, etc.

The problem with this intro is that it made many of the winners extremely self-conscious when they accepted their awards and gave their speeches.  The point of being a host is to be a cheerleader.  It is not to make the acceptance speeches worse.  It was kind of ironic that Gervais was the host given that the two people who received Lifetime Achievement awards, Ellen DeGeneres and Tom Hanks, embody decency and kindness.

So the Golden Globes trundled along.  There were very few bring-down-the-house moments but I will list those that stuck with me.

• Kate McKinnon’s intro to Ellen DeGeneres’ winning the Carol Burnett award was very moving, she talked about growing up gay and how important Ellen was to her.  Charlize Theron also gave a heartfelt intro to Tom Hanks’ Cecil B. DeMille award.  And DeGeneres and Hanks both gave lovely speeches.  Normally honestly the Lifetime Achievement awards aren’t the high point of the award show, they’re the snoozefest, but again, this was sort of a weird show.
• Awkwafina gave a funny yet moving speech when she won for The Farewell. Michelle Williams was again the queen of acceptance speech prep.  Having provided an impassioned speech at the Emmys when she won for Fosse/Verdon about the importance of supporting women in the workplace, this time her speech was rousingly pro-choice.  Everyone was very happy to see Brad Pitt win for Supporting Actor, who truly does seem like a shockingly decent, humble, gracious person.
• The Actor/Actress in a Drama winners, Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweger, both gave weird rambling speeches that got played out. Phoenix’s was incoherent.  Zellweger’s was heartfelt but got off to a strange beginning when she talked about how it was good to be back after a long break from acting but the audience didn’t seem particularly happy to have her back.
• There were various callouts to the horrible brushfires in Australia, which at the end Ricky Gervais ridiculed.
• 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood were the big movie winners, and Succession and Fleabag the big tv winners. I don’t keep up with all these tv shows (preferring obscure Australian tv shows like Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries).  Spencer is back from college and he and I have been on a tear watching movies, but 1917 hasn’t opened yet.  So I haven’t yet seen it and I also haven’t had the patience to slog through yet another Scorcese-directed very long mob movie starring Robert De Niro.  Sigh.

Now is time for a screed of my own.  Little Women is one of the best movies I have seen in years and that it wasn’t nominated for Best Drama or Best Director is pretty much rock-solid evidence of sexism in Hollywood.  The Director of Little Women, Greta Gerwig, sagely predicts this in the movie itself, when Jo March’s editor informs her that “domestic” stories aren’t considered worthwhile.  The movie is a fantastic achievement, true to the book yet still breathtakingly original, and is accessible to lovers of the book and people who are entirely unfamiliar with it (Spencer, again, and Lisa Bell!)

Over and out.  Until the Oscars, or perhaps I will become motivated to begin blogging my movie reviews again before then.  Let me know what you think in the “Comments” section or send me an email.  Thanks for reading!

Gloria Bell

Ladies – the movie biz is not a charity.  Film studios finance movies in the hopes that they will make money.  Therefore, we as moviegoers, need to show up.  I make this point because when I went to see Gloria Bell, shortly after it opened at our local movie theater, there were precisely 4 people in the theater.  OK it was a 4 pm show but still.  If we want to see movies about older women, we need to show up.  Gloria Bell is about a 50something divorced woman making her way in the world.  I suppose very little happens.  It is an unglamorous, unflinching and above all unhurried look at living alone, after the kids have flown the coop, looking for love, and compromising out of sheer loneliness.  We see our heroine singing along in the car.  We see her at work.  We see her washing her bras in the sink.  We see her dancing at a club.  OK the movie is not a toe-tapper (well maybe the dancing part is).  But it is also about resilience and the power of the human spirit.   And the end is killer.  Gloria Bell was directed by Chilean director Sebastián Lelio, and is apparently a remake of his award-winning 2013 film Gloria.  And Julianne Moore, as Gloria Bell, gives an amazingly nuanced performance.  This is the kind of movie that causes me to get annoyed that the Academy Awards typically go to actors starring in biopics, or movies about “big” characters such as monarchs or politicians.  Playing a regular person, with all the frailties, complexities and foibles that this entails, is much harder.   See Gloria Bell.