The Menu (2022)

  This wasn't nominated for anything but Hong Chau was nominated for her performance in The Whale so that's kind of related.

Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) is on a date from hell.  Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) is a foodie and obsessed with Chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) and his super-exclusive restaurant, Hawthorn.  The restaurant can only be accessed by boat, it seats 12 guests, and prices out at $1250 a person.  Margot is not a foodie but is willing to go along for the experience.  Chef Slowik, however, has planned a meal no one will forget and Margot represents an unwelcome deviation.

This has been called a horror movie but I'd classify it more as suspense/thriller than true horror.  That being said, I loved loved loved this movie.  It was great from the opening frame to the final credits.  I loved that it's divided by courses, that it treats the food as almost its own character, and that it really draws out the tension even when it has told you exactly what is going to happen.  I don't want to ruin it because I think it works best when you can be surprised by it.  It's so good, though.

The Menu is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Turning Red (2022)

Nominated for Best Animated Film  This was very cute.  

Meilin (Rosalie Chang) does her best to always be a dutiful daughter.  She gets straight A's in school and helps take care of her family's temple every afternoon.  But Meilin is changing, growing up, and soon discovers that when she experiences an overwhelming emotion, she transforms into a giant red panda.  This is a trait passed down from her ancestor, shared by all the women in her family.  There is a ceremony to lock it down but it can only be performed on the day of a red moon.  The same day Meilin's favorite boy-band, 4-Town, is coming to town.  She desperately wants to go to the concert with her friends but it would be seen as an act of incredible disrespect to her mother (Sandra Oh).

This makes a fun companion piece to Everything Everywhere All at Once.  Like seeing the mom's perspective and then the daughter's.  

It's Pixar.  It's sweet, funny, beautifully animated, all the hallmarks we've come to expect from the studio.  It is obviously the frontrunner for Best Animated Feature.  We'll see how it goes, though.  There are some heavy-hitters in this category this year.  Turning Red is currently streaming on Disney+.

Elvis (2022)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume, Best Hair and Makeup, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound  The obligatory biopic!  Like recent years, this is about a famous musician but it is less Rocketman and more Nightmare Alley: The Musical.

Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) is a carnival grifter, a snowman, as he calls it.  He is constantly looking for the next big con, an act that thrills and titillates.  He finds it in Elvis Presley (Austin Butler), a young singer with a unique act:  he can sing Black people's music while being white.  Elvis grew up dirt-poor in the Black section of town, dreaming of becoming a comic book superhero.  He was influenced by gospel, rhythm & blues, and country western music and had released one record that was getting airplay.  Parker saw a boy filled with fear and knew he could mold him into a star.  But as the money and the fame grew, Elvis became bolder, wanting to expand across the globe, which threatened to expose Parker's deepest secret.

I think this is the first truly depressing Baz Luhrmann film.  Like, Moulin Rouge was a tragedy in the classical sense but Elvis is a downer.  And I'm going to be frank here, it's the first Baz Luhrmann where the music kind of sucks.  Which makes no sense!  It's ELVIS, for God's sake.  How do you fuck that up?And I get what he was doing, showing modern artists who have sampled Elvis's songs and reinvented them for a modern age, but it didn't match the tone of the film at all for me.  It ruined the immersiveness.  

Austin Butler.  Did he look like Elvis?  A little.  Enough.  In certain angles.  He certainly did his best.  Did he sound like Elvis?  Holy shit, yes, he did.  I have no idea what Austin Butler sounds like in real life, this was the first thing I've ever seen him in but I have heard Elvis in interviews, historical footage, and music (duh) my entire life and Butler nailed it.  Is it enough to get him Best Actor?  We'll see.

Cinematography is not my favorite so far.  Definitely a frontrunner for Production Design, though.  Second place on Costumes.  Making Tom Hanks look like Danny DeVito's Penguin is a Hair and Makeup accomplishment, sure, but it's not beating Colin Farrell's Penguin.  

Elvis is back in theaters for a limited run and it is currently streaming on HBO Max. 

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress (x2), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Original Song, and Best Original Score  I put off seeing this until the nominations were out because it was so hyped I felt like it could only be a disappointment.  Happy to report that everything you heard was true.  This is a great movie.

Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) is struggling with a failing laundromat, an IRS audit, and a Lunar New Year party with her emotionally distant father (James Hong), her perennially optimistic husband (Ke Huy Quan), and her depressed daughter (Stephanie Hsu).  Then she finds out that she's one of an infinite number of Evelyns in an infinite number of universes but that the universes are imploding because of a mysterious threat named Jobu Topaki and her other-universe husband (Ke Huy Quan) thinks she is the key to stopping it.  And THEN she finds out that her home-universe husband wants a divorce.  And that she can access the skills and experiences of her alternate versions.

This isn't about the multiverse.  That's old hat at this point.  Hell, even the bagel joke has been done.  This isn't about novelty or googly eyes or hot dog fingers.  The glory, the joy, and what will be the enduring nature of this film is in its connections.  It is a simple story told in a complex way.  It is the story of generational trauma, of conflating kindness with weakness, and how you can look but not see even when it's right in front of you.  I admit, I did not feel any emotional connection to this movie until the last 15-20 minutes, but then I was ugly-crying until the credits rolled.  Everybody in this is great.  Michelle Yeoh is (and always has been) incredible.  Ke Huy Quan is the emotional backbone.  Jamie Lee Curtis is game for anything, bless her, but I would give the edge to Stephanie Hsu, who had to walk a much finer wire between versions of her character.

Screenplay could go anywhere at this point.  I haven't seen the other nominees yet.  Song and Original Score I wouldn't hold out hope for, but Costumes has a fighting chance.  Editing, I'm reserving judgment.  Best Actress?  Supporting Actor?  Supporting Actress?  On lock.  And it's a definite frontrunner for Best Picture.  I think Best Director is a long shot.  It's currently streaming on Showtime but I bought it on blu-ray because I knew I was going to love it.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

  This is a weird one, folks.  Did you know there was a Czech New Wave film movement?  Because I did not.  I like to think I'm fairly conversant in the major shifts within film and then I get thrown for a loop.  This fairy tale from hell comes to us from the distant land of 1970.  Content warning:  animal death (on-screen), suicide, attempted rape of a minor

Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerová) is attempting to navigate the stormy waters between girl- and womanhood while fending off advances from a horny priest (Jan Klusák), a literal vampire (Jirí Prymek), and her jealous, youth-obsessed grandma (Helena Anyzová).  Her only friend and ally is her brother/love interest (Peter Kopriva) who gives her magic pearls to keep her from harm.

There was A Lot to unpack here.  Symbolism all over the damn place.  Lots of ruminations on guilt and pleasure, organized religion vs paganism, the role of women in the home and in society, the unfair and frankly treacherous concept of purity.  The societal comment that a woman's worth resides in her youth and especially in her sexual inexperience feels very modern, because we keep having to have that stupid conversation every decade.  In one of the scenes, a bride is shown on her wedding night being drained of vitality by a vampire.  Literally the moment of her deflowering, she becomes used and lesser.  Not exactly subtle, but effective.  

That could be the tagline for the whole film, really.  Not Subtle, But Effective!  It would be an insane double-feature with The Company of Wolves, and if you wanted to go for the hat trick of batshit vampires, werewolves, and witches, you could throw in Häxan as well.  You may want to schedule some time off afterwards for self-care, watch something bland and soothing.

Valerie and All Her Bullshit is streaming on Criterion.

Home (2015)

  I can't remember why I added this.  It's not very good.  Like a knock-off Lilo and Stitch.  If Stitch were a cluelessly genocidal colonizer.

Oh (Jim Parsons) is a Boov, an alien species known primarily for running away from everything.  All he wants is to make friends and throw a party, but when he accidentally sends the invite to the entire galaxy, it alerts the Boov's enemy to come to their newest hiding spot, Earth.  Oh needs to cancel the invite but as a wanted fugitive, it's a little tough.  He also must contend with an angry human named Tip (Rhianna) who was separated from her mom (Jennifer Lopez) during the Boov's relocation of all humans to Australia.  

They might as well have called this Manifest Destiny: The Animated Adventures.  The Boov move to a planet, forcibly relocate all "backwards, primitive" inhabitants, then use all their resources while making poorly informed assumptions about the culture they are trampling.  It's a White (Purple?) Savior narrative dressed up in cutesy clothes.  Oh is scared of Tip but still demands she help him and only realizes that she's a thinking, feeling creature (and ergo, so are all humans) after a transatlantic road trip.    Then of course he'll move heaven and earth to see her reunited with her mom.  

It's an interesting take, to be sure.  I hadn't seen it addressed in any other children's films but I think it's still clunky and centers on the wrong viewpoint.  It's streaming on Netflix if you're interested.

95th Academy Award Nominations

You know what goes great with coffee on a Tuesday morning?  Outrage.   *ahem*  Why in THEE FUCK is Top Gun 2 nominated for Best Picture?!  And Glass Onion gets the pity Adapted Screenplay nod??  Excuse me??  And where exactly is Nope?  Nowhere to be seen!  SIX!  SIX nominations for Top Gun!  *sips coffee* Oh, the whole main cast of EEAO got nominated, that's nice.  And Brendan Fraser.  That makes me happy.  No disrespect to Cate Blanchett but if Michelle Yeoh doesn't win, I will riot.  Haven't seen either movie yet, but I've loved Michelle Yeoh since Wing Chun.  What the fuck is Triangle of Sadness?  And why didn't RRR get on the International Feature list?  I thought that was a shoe-in.

Best Picture

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking

Best Director

Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans
Todd Field - Tár
Ruben Östlund - Triangle of Sadness

Best Actor

Austin Butler - Elvis
Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser - The Whale
Paul Mescal - Aftersun
Bill Nighy - Living

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett - Tár
Ana de Armas - Blonde
Andrea Riseborough - To Leslie
Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans
Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Supporting Actor

Brendan Gleeson - The Banshees of Inisherin
Brian Tyree Henry - Causeway
Judd Hirsch - The Fabelmans
Barry Keoghan - The Banshees of Inisherin
Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Supporting Actress

Angela Bassett - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Hong Chau - The Whale
Kerry Condon - The Banshees of Inisherin
Jamie Lee Curtis - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Stephanie Hsu - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Adapted Screenplay

All Quiet on the Western Front
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Living
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking

Best Original Screenplay

The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Tár
Triangle of Sadness

Best Animated Feature

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
The Sea Beast
Turning Red

Best International Feature 

All Quiet on the Western Front
Argentina, 1985
Close
Eo
The Quiet Girl

Best Documentary Feature

All That Breathes
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Fire of Love
A House Made of Splinters
Navalny

Best Film Editing

The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick

Best Cinematography

All Quiet on the Western Front
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Elvis
Empire of Light
Tár

Best Costume Design

Babylon
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Best Hair and Makeup

All Quiet on the Western Front
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
The Whale

Best Production Design

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
Elvis
The Fabelmans

Best Original Song

"Applause" - Tell It Like a Woman
"Hold My Hand" - Top Gun: Maverick
"Lift Me Up" - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
"Naatu Naatu" - RRR
"This is a Life" - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Original Score

All Quiet on the Western Front
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans

Best Sound

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Batman
Elvis
Top Gun: Maverick

Best Visual Effects

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Top Gun: Maverick

Best Animated Short

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
The Flying Sailor
Ice Merchants
My Year of Dicks
An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake, and I Think I Believe It

Best Live Action Short 

An Irish Goodbye
Ivalu
Le Pupille
Night Ride
The Red Suitcase

Best Documentary Short

The Elephant Whisperers
Haulout
How Do You Measure a Year?
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Stranger at the Gate

A lot of work cut out for me, as you can see.  Oscar ceremony is March 12.  Best to get cracking.

M (1931)

  I got to pick the Cinema Club movie for this week.  Since I'm new to the group, I wanted to pick something representational, something that would introduce who I am.  So I picked a German Wiemar-era film about a child murderer.  (Yes, good job, me.  This is a totally normal choice and will make people like you.)

Berlin is quaking in the grip of terror as a child murderer stalks the streets.  Police are frustrated by the lack of clues left behind in the grisly murders.  Chief Lohmann (Otto Wernicke) has every available man tracing down leads, rustling through the usual suspects, pounding the pavement.  This is making it difficult for good, honest criminals to get work done so the head of the gangs, Schränker (Gustaf Gründgens), calls a meeting and puts all their manpower into play.  With the cops and the criminals out looking, how can the murderer (Peter Lorre) hide?

I love this film.  It holds up stunningly well, even now.  There's no violence shown at all.  They don't even tell you what is done to the children.  Everything is left to the viewer's imagination, which is the most horrible thing, of course.  Director Fritz Lang wanted it that way, so the audience is involved by having their own idea of what's happened.  (Also because censorship was a thing.)  There is so much dread and tension in Lorre's scenes, even though he doesn't do anything remotely evil on-screen.  It's all shadows and sound and the anticipation of what he could do, and what he has done.  You won't hear "Hall of the Mountain King" the same way for while after this, I promise.

It's currently streaming on the Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and HBO Max.  It is worth it.

Rosaline (2022)

  This is not a movie I would ordinarily have chosen.  Hulu didn't even try to recommend it to me.  It was a pick for this week's Movie Club.  And I enjoyed it, so take that, algorithm!

Rosaline Capulet (Kaitlyn Dever) has a forbidden love in Romeo Montague (Kyle Allen).  Because it's a secret, she must also fend off her father's (Bradley Whitford) attempts at matchmaking.  During one of these forced outings with a no-doubt-attractive-but-still-not-Romeo suitor (Sean Teale), Rosaline misses an assignation with Romeo at her family's masked ball.  Instead, he sees and falls for her cousin, Juliet (Isabela Merced).  Furious, Rosaline decides to sour the match, befriending Juliet in order to convince her to dump Romeo.  The problem in befriending, however, is that soon Rosaline feels guilty and also maybe not so sure she was actually in love with Romeo at all.  

This is like Shakespeare as written by Jane Austen.  It felt much more like an Emma/Pride & Prejudice mash-up than a Romeo & Juliet retelling.  Also, Kyle Allen looked way too much like Heath Ledger for me to stop making comparisons to 10 Things I Hate About You.

Am I just old?  Am I just destined to see all young actors as clones of actors from "my time" now?  Oh my God.

Anyway, it's a very cute movie, very fun watch with the Bridgerton-esque classical versions of pop songs and the anachronistic language to make it feel modern.  If you like rom-coms or revisionist tellings of well-worn plays, this is a decent investment of your time.  

The Post (2017)

  A middling Spielberg is still pretty good.

Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) finds herself the owner of the Washington Post newspaper after being widowed.  The paper belonged to Graham's father, but he willed it to her husband instead of her.  For the paper's financial health, she is making an Initial Public Offering (IPO), on the advice of her board of directors.  It seems fine but Katherine worries about a boilerplate clause stating that if there is a catastrophic event, the bank can pull out of the deal.  Her lawyer (Tracy Letts) assures her that it will be fine.  Then Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) begins publishing the Pentagon Papers through the New York Times.  The papers detail a cover-up going back four presidential administrations regarding America's losses in the Vietnam War, a war kept up in order to save face and pretend we were not in fact losing our shirts.  The Nixon administration immediately uses the legal system to slap down the Times.  In the meantime, the Post's editor-in-chief, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), hounds his reporters over getting their own coverage of the largest scandal in recent memory.  Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) recalls an observer named Ellsberg when he was covering the war.  Now the decision rests with Katherine Graham:  publish and risk the ire of a sitting (and vindictive) president, potential jail time for violating the Espionage Act, and financial ruin or don't publish and destroy the integrity of the Fourth Estate.

This was a pretty low-key movie to discuss access journalism and the moral imperative of presenting the truth to readers.  I saw almost no marketing and I don't remember reading any reviews that touched on it.  And it's especially ironic now considering the Washington Post is owned by a narcissistic billionaire and nearly every news outlet is obsessed with access and clicks to feed a 24-hr cycle that runs exclusively on outrage.

This would be a good double-feature with The Most Dangerous Man in America, the documentary about Ellsberg, like a fiction/non-fiction thing.  The Post uses audio from Nixon's obsessive tape recordings, which is a nice touch, and some historical TV clips as well to really bring you into the room of the time.  Rhys doesn't have a large part but he stands out for his grim-jawed adherence to The Truth. The writers made Graham's character more of a #girlboss arc than I felt was warranted but I mean, it's Meryl Streep so...  You could give that woman the part of a goldfish and she'd make you believe she had gills.

I didn't hate it but I can't say I super loved it.  It was interesting.  Unfortunately, it is not streaming (except to rent or buy).  I got it on disc from Netflix.  It's probably worth a rental, though.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)

A second viewing really helped this one.  Whenever I recalled this movie, it was with complete disgust so it was very weird to see that I wrote about liking it, even if I wasn't enthusiastic in my praise.  I don't remember why I didn't like it, just that I thought it was terrible.  But I didn't, obviously, and seeing it again only reinforces that it's fine as a Batman movie (although I frankly resent Batman having another love interest besides Catwoman).  It's sadder now that Kevin Conroy is gone.  But it's currently streaming on HBO Max if you need to get your fix.  Originally posted 29 Jan 2012.    I used to love the animated Batman series that was on in the 90's.  I watched it every day after school.  This Batman is more hardcore than the old Adam West series from the 60's but more forgiving than later iterations.  The history is slightly revised here versus later incarnations as well.

Batman (Kevin Conroy) gets some competition in Gotham when a new guy called the Phantasm shows up and starts killing mob bosses.  Bruce Wayne finds himself distracted from the pursuit when an old flame, Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delaney), comes back to town.  Andrea's father is somehow connected to the mob and therefore to their deaths but Bruce can't help remembering his former love with regret over the path that he chose.

It's not a bad movie.  It helps if you've never seen any of the other Batman origin stories, but if you're really a fan of the character you'll like it anyway.

Mouse Hunt (1997)

  I got recommended this movie at a Tupperware party sometime in 2016, which goes to show that I will watch anything... eventually.

Brothers Ernie (Nathan Lane) and Lars Smuntz (Lee Evans) are cash-poor but inherit their father's string factory.  Ernie wants to sell but Lars doesn't.  They also inherit a run-down mansion and discover that it was built by a famous designer and considered lost.  It's worth a fortune, if they can fix it up, and no familial guilt over selling that.  Their only problem is that the house is inhabited by an eerily precocious (and murderous) mouse.  Ernie and Lars match wits with the Mus musculus representative and set humanity's collective intelligence back about 70 years.

I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it.  It wasn't particularly smart or funny, unless the point was schadenfreude because both brothers kind of suck.  I guess I just didn't see the point in any of the antics.  I didn't feel any connection to either of the brothers as sympathetic characters.  I didn't care about the mouse, either.  So I had no one to root for here, just to root against, and that's not enough for me.

I know what you're saying.  "It doesn't have to be thought-provoking CiNeMa.  It can just be a movie."  And it is certainly a film.  It exists.  I just could not suspend disbelief for more than 10 seconds.  It is one mouse.  A mouse that supposedly killed the previous owner.  An apparently immortal mouse, seeing as a normal lifespan is 5-7 years and it's been in the house for at least 20.  Is this a line of revenge-seeking mice?  Does the mouse have phoenix genes?  If it's so fucking smart, why didn't it hire a lawyer and sue for squatter's rights?

My point is that not only is the movie stupid, it assumes the audience is as well.  That we're just going to be happy to see the Kevin McAllister of rodents terrorize its Homo sapiens intruders.  And hey, if that sounds like a good time to you, Mouse Hunt is streaming on Amazon Prime right now.  It was not for me, though.

2023 Critics Choice Awards

 Hey, holy shit, the Critics Choice Awards were last night.  I completely missed the nomination list.  This awards season has frankly just kicked me full in the face.  I don't know why, but my bad.  Here's the list of winners.

Best Picture

Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once - WINNER
The Fablemans
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
RRR
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking

Best Actor

Austin Butler - Elvis
Tom Cruise - Top Gun: Maverick
Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser - The Whale - WINNER
Paul Mescal - Aftersun
Bill Nighy - Living

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett - Tár - WINNER
Viola Davis - The Woman King
Danielle Deadwyler - Till
Margot Robbie - Babylon
Michelle Williams - The Fablemans
Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Supporting Actor

Paul Dano - The Fablemans
Brendan Gleeson - The Banshees of Inisherin
Judd Hirsch - The Fablemans
Barry Keoghan - The Banshees of Inisherin
Ke Huy Quan  - Everything Everywhere All at Once - WINNER
Brian Tyree Henry - Causeway

Best Supporting Actress

Angela Bassett - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - WINNER
Jessie Buckley - Women Talking
Kerry Condon - The Banshees of Inisherin
Jamie Lee Curtis - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Stephanie Hsu - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Janelle Monáe - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Best Young Actor/Actress

Frankie Corio - Aftersun
Jalyn Hall - Till
Gabriel LaBelle - The Fablemans - WINNER
Bella Ramsey - Catherine Called Birdy
Banks Repeta - Armageddon Time
Sadie Sink - The Whale

Best Acting Ensemble

The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fablemans
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery - WINNER
The Woman King
Women Talking

Best Director

James Cameron - Avatar: The Way of Water
Damien Chazelle - Bablon
Todd Field - Tár
Baz Luhrmann - Elvis
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert - Everything Everywhere All at Once - WINNER
Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin
Sarah Polley - Women Talking
Gina Prince-Bythewood - The Woman King
S. S. Rajamouli - RRR
Steven Spielberg - The Fablemans

Best Original Screenplay

Tár
Everything Everywhere All at Once - WINNER
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Fablemans
Aftersun

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Whale
Living
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
She Said
Women Talking - WINNER

Best Cinematography

Avatar: The Way of Water
Empire of Light
Tár
The Fablemans
Top Gun: Maverick - WINNER
Babylon

Best Production Design

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The Fablemans
Avatar: The Way of Water
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Elvis
Babylon - WINNER

Best Editing

Babylon
Top Gun: Maverick
Avatar: The Way of Water
Everything Everywhere All at Once - WINNER
Elvis
Tár

Best Costume Design

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - WINNER
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Elvis
The Woman King
Babylon

Best Hair and Makeup

Babylon
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis - WINNER
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Whale

Best Visual Effects

Avatar: The Way of Water - WINNER
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Everything Everywhere All at Once
RRR
Top Gun: Maverick

Best Comedy

The Banshees of Inisherin
Bros
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery - WINNER
Triangle of Sadness
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Best Animated Film

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio - WINNER
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Turning Red
Wendell and Wild

Best Foreign Language Film

All Quiet on the Western Front
Argentina, 1985
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Close
Decision to Leave
RRR - WINNER

Best Song

"Carolina" - Where the Crawdads Sing
"Ciao Papa" - Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
"Hold My Hand" - Top Gun: Maverick
"Lift Me Up" - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
"Naatu Naatu" - RRR - WINNER
"New Body Rhumba" - White Noise

Best Score

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
The Batman
Tár - WINNER
Women Talking
Babylon
The Fablemans

Best Drama Series

Andor
Bad Sisters
Better Call Saul - WINNER
The Crown
Euphoria
The Good Fight
House of the Dragon
Severance
Yellowstone

Best Actor in a Drama Series

Jeff Bridges - The Old Man
Sterling K. Brown - This is Us
Diego Luna - Andor
Bob Odenkirk - Better Call Saul - WINNER
Adam Scott - Severance
Antony Starr - The Boys

Best Actress in a Drama Series

Christine Baranski - The Good Fight
Sharon Horgan - Bad Sisters
Laura Linney - Ozark
Mandy Moore - This is Us
Kelly Reilly - Yellowstone
Zendaya - Euphoria - WINNER

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Andre Braugher - The Good Fight
Ismael Cruz Córdova - The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Michael Emerson - Evil
Giancarlo Esposito - Better Call Saul - WINNER
John Lithgow - The Old Man
Matt Smith - House of the Dragon

Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Milly Alcock - House of the Dragon
Carol Burnett - Better Call Saul
Jennifer Coolidge - The White Lotus - WINNER
Julia Garner - Ozark
Audra McDonald - The Good Fight
Rhea Seehorn - Better Call Saul

Best Comedy Series

Abbott Elementary - WINNER
Barry
The Bear
Better Things
Ghosts
Hacks
Reboot
Reservation Dogs

Best Actor in a Comedy Series

Matt Berry - What We Do in the Shadows
Bill Hader - Barry
Keegan-Michael Key - Reboot
Steve Martin - Only Murders in the Building
Jeremy Allen White - The Bear - WINNER
D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai - Reservation Dogs

Best Actress in a Comedy Series

Christina Applegate - Dead to Me
Quinta Brunson - Abbott Elementary
Kaley Cuoco - The Flight Attendant
Renée Elise Goldsberry - Girls5eva
Devery Jacobs - Reservation Dogs
Jean Smart - Hacks - WINNER

Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Brandon Scott Jones - Ghosts
Leslie Jordan - Call Me Kat
James Marsden - Dead to Me
Chris Perfetti - Abbott Elementary
Tyler James Williams - Abbott Elementary
Henry Winkler - Barry - WINNER

Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Paulina Alexis - Reservation Dogs
Ayo Edebiri - The Bear
Marcia Gay Harden - Uncoupled
Janelle James - Abbott Elementary
Annie Potts - Young Sheldon
Sheryl Lee Ralph - Abbott Elementary - WINNER

Best Limited Series

The Dropout - WINNER
Gaslit
The Girl from Plainville
The Offer
Pam and Tommy
Station Eleven
This is Going to Hurt
Under the Banner of Heaven

Best Movie Made for Television

Fresh
Prey
Ray Donovan: The Movie
The Survivor
Three Months
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story - WINNER

Best Actor in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television

Ben Foster - The Survivor
Andrew Garfield - Under the Banner of Heaven
Samuel L. Jackson - The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
Daniel Radcliffe - Weird: The Al Yankovic Story - WINNER
Sebastian Stan - Pam and Tommy
Ben Whishaw - This is Going to Hurt

Best Actress in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television

Julia Garner - Inventing Anna
Lily James - Pam and Tommy
Amber Midthunder - Prey
Julia Roberts - Gaslit
Michelle Pfeiffer - The First Lady
Amanda Seyfried - The Dropout - WINNER

Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television

Murray Bartlett - Welcome to Chippendales
Domhnall Gleeson - The Patient
Matthew Goode - The Offer
Paul Walter Hauser - Black Bird - WINNER
Ray Liotta - Black Bird
Shea Wigham - Gaslit

Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television

Claire Danes - Fleishman is in Trouble
Dominique Fishback - The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
Betty Gilpin - Gaslit
Melanie Lynskey - Candy
Niecy Nash-Betts - Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
Juno Temple - The Offer

Best Foreign Language Series

1899
Borgen
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
Garcia!
The Kingdom Exodus
Kleo
My Brilliant Friend
Pachinko - WINNER
Tehran

Best Animated Series

Bluey
Bob's Burgers
Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal
Harley Quinn - WINNER
Star Trek: Lower Decks
Undone

Best Talk Show

The Amber Ruffin Show
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
The Kelly Clarkson Show
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - WINNER
Late Night with Seth Meyers
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen

Best Comedy Special

Fortune Feimster: Good Fortune
Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel
Joel Kim Booster: Psychosexual
Nikki Glaser: Good Clean Filth
Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special - WINNER
Would It Kill You to Laugh? Starring Kate Berlin and John Early

Whew.  I have seen nearly none of these.  Oscar nominations come out next Tuesday, so at least I didn't miss those.  I put a note in my calendar app to remind me.  

Lot of posthumous nominations here.  Lot of cancelled shit too.  Not a lot of surprises.  I think the biggest snub is probably The Menu but it's being called a horror movie, so maybe not a surprise.  I haven't seen it anyway.  I guess I'll add a bunch of shit to my TBW list now.  I was doing so well keeping it below 1300 too.

Three Amigos (1986)

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!  Here's an unrelated movie!  This was a Movie Club pick.  I had seen this movie years ago and dismissed it as not funny, but I thought maybe if I revisit it as an adult...  It's still not funny.

In 1916, a small village in Mexico is being terrorized by a gangster named El Guapo (Alfonso Arau).  One of the villagers, Carmen (Patrice Martinez), sees a silent film starring the Three Amigos, Lucky Day (Steve Martin), Dusty Bottoms (Chevy Chase), and Ned Nederlander (Martin Short).  She writes to them, believing that they are actual heroes, and asks them to come to her village and stop El Guapo.  The three actors, having recently been fired by their studio, agree, believing it's a performance with a local star.  Hijinks Ensue.

This was desperate to be the Blazing Saddles of the 80s and reader, it is not.  It is a loosely connected series of half-baked SNL ideas that barely get off the ground.  There are elements of parody, sure, but they are so broad you'd be hard-pressed to name a single reference.  And because it's so generic, it just looks like its aping its betters.  

Steve Martin and Martin Short are game for anything but Chevy Chase looks bored as hell.  I don't think he had a single line worth mentioning, just a lot of smarmy smiles and wiggled eyebrows.  The 80s really tried to push Chase as some kind of sex symbol, and sure, if the symbol is a STOP sign.  I get how this could be a nostalgia pick for people but it was not for me.  The humor was too broad, the performances too manic, and the plot too basic for me to enjoy.  It's currently streaming on HBO Max if you want to give it try.

Apocalypto (2006)

It's been a while since I watched this and I managed to forget it was directed by Mel "Anti-Semite" Gibson for the entire runtime so that end title card with "Directed by" gave me some serious whiplash.  I stand by my original statements.  This would make a great double feature with 28 Days Later.  And as a side note, the Oracle Girl's transition from sad child to vengeful prophet is one of the best performances from a child actor I've ever seen.  Originally posted  06 Nov 2010.    It looks like Christy is on a roll.  This would be the second Experiment she has sent me that I actually liked all the way through.  It's not precisely a foreign movie since it was bankrolled by Mr. Crazypants Mel Gibson but it is completely subtitled so it gets the tag.

This is the story of a young hunter named Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) who is taken as a slave after his village is attacked by Mayans.  He manages to put his pregnant wife and toddler into an empty well but then gets carted off to the capital to be painted blue and have his heart cut out, since apparently Mayan gods really have a thing against Smurfs.  He gets spared by a handy eclipse and manages to make a run for it by killing the lead hunter's (Raoul Trujillo) son.  The lead hunter takes that kind of personally and gives chase.  So many awesome things happen after that.  So many.

It kind of reminded me of 28 Days Later in that it concerned a young man who spends the majority of the film running from things he doesn't understand with a permanent look of terror on his face and the last 20 minutes being a complete badass.

Possession (1981)

  This is not a movie I probably would have found on my own.  I recently joined a movie club on Discord and this was their Cinema pick for the week.  It is ...a thing of its own.  Content warning:  attempted suicide, domestic abuse, tentacle sex, light nudity

Mark (Sam Neill) has completed some shady assignment for unnamed government powers and is eager to get home to his wife, Anna (Isabelle Adjani), and son, Bob (Michael Hogben).  The problem is that Anna doesn't want to see Mark.  In fact, she wants a divorce.  Mark can't let go, however, and the more he delves into Anna's personal life, the more erratic and dangerous her behavior.  

This movie is like if Marriage Story and Hellraiser had a gross hentai baby.  War of the Roses by way of H.P. Lovecraft.  It is beyond weird on the surface.  (Dig a little deeper and it turns out to be yet another Cold War paranoia porn about mutually assured destruction.  Boring.)

Adjani was incredible in parts, but her overwrought hysteria started getting on my nerves around an hour in.  The subway scene was about two minutes too long.  This is also the second time I have expected to see Sam Neill eaten by an eldritch abomination and both times I have been denied!

Anyway, if you like watching messy relationship drama with a side of graphic violence, Possession is currently streaming on Shudder.  Bon appétit!

Say It Isn't So (2001)

  Hey, look, another Christy movie.  They're all kind of clumped together in my To Be Watched queue because I added them all at the same time, around 2014, I think, if you were wondering what year I was up to.

Gilly (Chris Klein) likes his life for the most part, but he is a little lonely.  He has a private investigator (Brent Briscoe) trying to find his birth family but no luck so far.  Then he meets Jo (Heather Graham), a beautiful ditzy blonde who is the worst hairdresser to ever walk Beyoncé's green Earth.  They hit it off and it looks like true love.  But Jo's mother, Valdine (two-time Oscar winner Sally fucking Fields), doesn't want her daughter to end up with a dogcatcher.  She wants Jo to go back to her rich, douchey ex-boyfriend (Eddie Cibrian), so she spins a yarn about Gilly being the baby she put up for adoption years ago.  Disgusted over their accidental incest, Jo and Gilly break up.  Gilly eventually learns the truth and desperately travels to Oregon to stop Jo's wedding.

This movie has precisely one (1) joke and it not only runs it into the ground, it ploughs a field with it and raises county fair award-winning corn.  It's a dumb, crass sex comedy that is clearly aping its betters.  I'm not a fan of the genre in general but I can recognize when one is well done and boy, this ain't it.  It's streaming on Starz currently if you hate yourself.

Zach Snyder's Justice League (2021)

  I thought about just reposting my review of the theatrical cut from 2017, but there are enough differences that it didn't feel right.  This was a Tyler pick, by the way.  I do not personally hate myself enough to choose a 4-hour-long superhero movie.

Plagued by visions of a dystopian future, Batman (Ben Affleck) searches the world for superpowered people to help him in the coming onslaught.  He strikes out with Aquaman (Jason Momoa), but Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is more amenable, especially after she receives a warning from her island home of Themiscyra about the Mother boxes, three sentient computer boxes lost by Darkseid (Ray Porter) after his last attempt to conquer Earth failed.  Now that Superman (Henry Cavill) is dead, Darkseid feels more confident sending his minion Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds) to retrieve them.  Darkseid was only defeated by a coalition of the most powerful beings working together.  She and Batman split up to continue recruiting, going after Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and the Flash (Ezra Miller), respectively.  Cyborg comes up with a plan to reanimate Superman using the Mother box given to humans but will it be in time to save the Earth?

Okay.  There was no scenario where this movie doesn't turn out to be a shitshow for one reason or another.  The studio hated Snyder's version and called in Joss Whedon to reshoot, leading to the infamous Cavill-stache travesty.  Whedon harassed Gadot and Fisher on set, making the entire production hostile,  but turned out a relatively entertaining product.  Snyder, discontent, put his director's cut on HBO Max (problematic for a host of reasons now), which adds two full hours of extra footage, restores the Darkseid plot, boosts Cyborg's role by a factor of 10, and sows the seeds of a multi-verse.  

Patton Oswalt has a great bit about male directors shooting miles of film like it's sperm and then female editors coming along and creating a fully-formed baby film out of it and it was screaming in the back of my mind as I watched this collection of good ideas being buried beneath the weight of a four-hour runtime.  There were definitely parts that didn't further the plot, didn't speak to character development, that felt redundant, and should absolutely have been left on the cutting room floor.  Somewhere between these two versions is a great Justice League movie, but neither one of these dudes was ever going to find it.

Becoming Jane (2007)

  This is another from the Christy files.  I've never been a big Jane Austen fan and I can't say this quasi-biopic changed anything for me.

Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) just wants to write her stories but is being pressured by her family to marry well.  She meets reprobate lawyer Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy) and while they initially dislike one another, they Pride & Prejudice their way into romance, becoming the inspiration for Austen's most famous work.  Unlike her novel's happily ever after, however, real-world circumstances conspire against the couple and they are both forced to choose between social standing and love.

I have no idea if any of this is true and I don't care enough to look it up.  If it is, okay.  If it's dramatized, it's kind of insulting since it reduces Austen to basically fan-fictioning her life, and kind of robs her of her imagination and creativity in writing her book.  But like I said, I can't be arsed to do any research so I leave that up to you.  It's available on Paramount+.

Oh, and ironically, this will be posted on the day of Christy's wedding.  Mazel tov!

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

  Had to wait ages for this to come out on Paramount+ but it finally did.  

Thirty years after graduating from Top Gun, Pete Mitchell, codenamed Maverick (Tom Cruise), is still a captain, doing speed runs in experimental aircraft.  A pissy admiral (Ed Harris) wants to can the program to run his pilotless drone planes, and Maverick is re-assigned back to Top Gun as an instructor on a favor called in by his old rival-turned-friend Iceman (Val Kilmer), now a commandant.  Maverick has three weeks to put together a flight team to perform a real-world mission, taking the best-of-the-best and winnowing them down to the top four.  One of those possibilities is LT Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick's former wingman, Goose (Anthony Only-Appearing-in-Flashbacks Edwards).  Maverick has stalled Bradshaw's career in an effort to keep him from getting killed like his dad and Bradshaw resents him bitterly for it.  

It is definitely a Top Gun movie with all the needle drops, callbacks, and straight footage of the first film used that you expect.  By which I mean it's a solid action movie.  Maverick has never been a particularly smart or clever character; his main personality trait is that he's just suicidal enough to do ridiculous boundary-pushing things.  That's fine.  It works.  Don't go into this film expecting more than that and you will be entertained.  

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

  This came out on Netflix Christmas Eve Eve and I watched it with my mom.  Sometimes that's a dicey outcome (RIP to the guy who took his mom to see The Shape of Water) but this was fine.  Mom liked it, I liked it, win win all around.

Billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) has a yearly trip with his best friends.  This year, to spice it up, he plans a murder mystery and invites famed detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig).  But that's the thing.  Miles didn't invite Blanc.  But he has an invitation all the same.  And the murder mystery is a little heavier on murder than mystery as someone is gunning for Bron.

Anything more would ruin aspects of the movie, which you really need to see.  The mystery is not as good as Knives Out (you'll figure it out pretty quickly), but the characters and all the layers of reveals are still really fun.