Alien: Romulus (2024)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects    I almost watched this for my 31 Days of Horror feature last year but it didn't quite make the cut-off.  This is the cover of the comic book, which I hope is better than the movie.

Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is desperate to get off the mining colony she is indentured to but the mandatory quota of hours has just been raised and her transfer is denied.  She learns that a small group led by her ex (Archie Renaux) has a plan to "borrow" some cryopods from a derelict research station before it is obliterated by the planet's ring and escape to hopefully greener pastures outside the grasp of Weyland-Yutani.  But they need her Synthetic, Andy (David Jonsson), to bypass the security inside.  Once aboard, they discover that the station was researching xenomorphs, but of course, by then it's too late.

This is set between Alien and Aliens and borrows plot points from everything through Covenant.  I can tell the plan was to unify all the films into one timeline but it really just seems like they were shoved in a blender and set to Chop.  I don't get the hype around Fede Alvarez.  He has not improved a single legacy franchise, as far as I'm concerned.

Visual effects are hit and miss.  The deepfake Ian Holm is atrocious and some of the CGI xenomorph movement blurs and looks a little fuzzy.  Not my favorite.  

A Different Man (2024)

Nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling     Our second Sebastian Stan performance and the one that should have gotten him nominated.

Edward (Sebastian Stan) has a rare cancer that causes tumors to grow on his face.  He joins an experimental drug trial that gives him back the life he thinks he should have had.  By chance, he discovers the neighbor he had a crush on (Renate Reinsve) has written a play about a man with facial deformities and the girl who loved him.  You can see where this is going.  He auditions for the part, using his old face as a mask but is quickly upstaged by Oswald (Adam Pearson), a man with facial deformities who is comfortable in his own skin.  Edward's life spins out of control as he grapples with a number of truths.

This just in:  Local man discovers beauty means nothing without a personality (and money but mostly personality)!  News at 11!

I called this The Substance for dudes and I'm not wrong.  Frankly, if either protagonist had a single (1) friend, neither one would have ended up where they did.  And/or a therapist.  Stan does a good job here but the material is frustratingly navel-gaze-y.  Pearson is a bubbly delight, but Reinsve feels underwritten in a Manic Pixie Dream Girl way.  For once, that actually serves the story since Edward mostly perceives her as an archetype, not a person, anyway.

Pacing is glacial.  There are long moments where the camera just pans between characters like Iñárritu in molasses.  I respect the attempt but it didn't work for me.  I just started fast-forwarding in 30-sec jumps and missed nothing.  

I thought this movie was a hot mess but it's streaming on (sigh) Max so you can see for yourself.  

Better Man (2024)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects    Content warning: drug use, attempted suicide

British singer Robbie Williams recounts his rise to fame as a member of a boy band, his split amid a haze of drug and alcohol abuse, success as a solo artist and crash as a human being, before getting clean and resuming his career.  But, you know, as a mo-cap chimp.

This is an absolutely bog standard musician biopic with the only difference being the mo-cap.  Is that enough of a novelty to win over an entire-ass franchise devoted to mo-cap chimps?  Who knows.  The musical numbers are fine.  I think the mo-cap is distracting.  I would have preferred just a straightforward film but this was clearly someone's vision.  

Is Robbie Williams famous enough for the biopic treatment?  According to this movie, he is very famous in Britain but is he Elton John famous?  Freddie Mercury famous?  Hell, I would have thought Mick Jagger would have gotten a biopic before this guy.  The entire movie is filled with his catalogue and I recognized precisely one song and didn't even know it was by him.  And I've been listening to pop music for 40 years.  

But he is definitely too famous to read this blog, so I feel okay talking shit.  LOL

This is not out on streaming yet so if you're really interested, feel free to dust off that VPN.

Gladiator II (2024)

Nominated for Best Costume Design    Content warning:  dead animals (CGI rhino), war violence, blood

Hanno (Paul Mescal) lived fairly happily outside the Roman empire until a legion led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) came and conquered them for the glory of the twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger).  Hanno is sold to the gladiator stable of Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a highly ambitious man with his own desire for vengeance, who recognizes a kindred spirit.  As Macrinus ingratiates himself to the emperors, Hanno competes and waits for his chance at the General whom he blames for all the excesses of the imploding empire.

Zero reason for this movie to be made.  It says nothing differently from the original and references it relentlessly.  It would be one thing if it had a point that it was trying to make, but it doesn't.  It's just nostalgia bait.  The costumes are good but they're also basically the same as from the first movie.  And there's so much CGI, you can barely focus on them anyway.

Washington walks off with this movie and it's not even a contest.  He's Macbeth in a toga.  Pascal is cashing a paycheck and Mescal is trying out his Russell Crowe impression.  You've seen better from both of them.

There are three speaking roles for women.  Two of them are fridged and the third is a spy with one line that doesn't further the plot in any way.  She is basically an extra.  

It's streaming on Paramount+ but so is Gladiator and if you have to choose, choose wisely.

The Apprentice (2024)

Nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor    I have no idea who the target audience for this is.  If you already liked Donald Trump, nothing you see here is going to change your mind, and if you already disliked Trump, you're probably sick of the sight of him and aren't going to watch this.  Content warning:  rape, homophobic slurs, antisemitism

In the late 70s, young real estate heir Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) wants to move out of his father's (Martin Donovan) shadow so he attaches himself to the coattails of notorious lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong).  Cohn blackmails, threatens, and blatantly lies his way through the dismissal of a discrimination lawsuit filed against the Trumps, earning Donald's admiration.  But as Trump's fortunes rise, Cohn lives long enough to regret the monster he in part created.

Sebastian Stan is fine in this.  He's basically doing a caricature.  At this point, I don't even think Olivier reborn could make me have an iota of empathy for Donald Trump.  I just don't have it in me and I resent the attempt.  But Jeremy Strong is so good, so good, that I did care a little bit about Roy Fucking Right-Hand-of-McCarthy-Let's-Kill-the-Rosenbergs Cohn.  Which means I am now rooting for him to win Best Supporting Actor.  Sorry, Yuriy.  

Zero reason for this movie to exist.  The good news is that it's not streaming anywhere and it will probably get buried in the next couple of months and we won't hear about it again until ten years from now or when Trump dies.  Whichever is sooner.

The Girl with the Needle (2024)

Nominated for Best International Feature    Content warning:  facial disfigurement, PTSD, drug use, attempted abortion with a knitting needle, infanticide, child abuse

I am so serious about these warnings.  

Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) works as a seamstress making war uniforms but not making enough to cover her rent.  She applies for a widow's stipend since she hasn't heard from her husband (Besir Zeciri) in over a year, but there's no record of him.  She has an affair with her wealthy boss (Joachim Fjelstrup) and thinks the resulting pregnancy is her ticket out of poverty but surprise!  It's not.  Desperate and poor, Karoline tries to self-abort in the baths but is prevented by Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a candy shop owner, who offers to take the baby and find a foster home if Karoline carries to term.  Since Karoline also needs a job after being fired by her Baby Daddy, she goes to work for Dagmar as a wet nurse, caring for the abandoned infants until they can be placed.  Things seem to be on the upward swing until she discovers what Dagmar is actually doing.

The Academy decided to embrace Women's Horror this year.  I'm still sad they didn't pick The Devil's Bath, which is almost the exact same movie, but I can guess why this one made the cut instead.  **DEEPLY CYNICAL SPECULATION AND ALSO MAYBE SPOILERS**  GwtN has an ostensibly happy ending (because she reconciles with her husband and adopts Erena, creating a stereotypical heteronormative family) and TDB does not.  Karoline shows remorse but lets Dagmar take the fall alone and faces zero consequences for her part while Agnes confesses and is executed.  Both are deeply tragic but GwtN pushes the horror onto a scapegoat and that one step away creates enough emotional distance for Academy voters to feel virtuous, instead of forcing them to confront the ways society has historically failed and punished women for existing, where TDB keeps the focus on Agnes, refusing to look away.  Also, the Academy fucking loves war and war-adjacent movies and dramatic uses of black-and-white film.  **END SPECULATION AND SPOILERS**

Every year, there's at least one film that is such a depressing slog it wrecks my timeline for watching.  This movie cost me three solid days.  It is unrelentingly bleak and I cannot stress the content warnings enough.  Do not put your mental health at risk for this.  It's streaming on Mubi, a stupidly named niche arthouse service, exclusively for now.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024)

Nominated for Best International Feature   Content warning:  protest violence, blood

Najmeh (Sohelia Golestani) is trying to keep her family from falling apart after her husband (Missagh Zareh) gets promoted to Investigator for the theocratic Court in Tehran.  The position requires complete anonymity because of the fear of reprisal, so Najmeh cautions her two daughters against anything that would identify them or cause suspicion.  But Rezvan (Masha Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) are tired of the propaganda they've been fed their whole lives, and want to be involved with the on-going protests for women's rights.  When their father's gun goes missing, Najmeh must decide which is more important:  protecting her daughters or appeasing her husband.

The story itself is pretty basic --youth rebelling against authority-- and only elevated by the inclusion of actual protest footage that made it past the social media bans in Iran.  That is a hard watch but necessary.  Framing it in a fictional story probably had the added benefit of giving real-life authorities fewer people to target.  

The performances were good, especially Rostami, who acts as a moral compass for the film.  Pacing lags a bit, especially between setting changes, but that's a pretty minor complaint.  You might be able to catch this in theaters if you live near an arthouse one, but most likely you'll have to clicky-click that VPN if you want to watch it at home before the Oscars.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature    No content warnings needed for this one!

Faithful companion Gromit feels the sting of rejection when Wallace (Ben Whitehead) invents a "helpful" robot gardener called Norbot (Reece Shearsmith) and seems to prefer its company.  But the pair's old nemesis, Feathers McGraw, is plotting revenge from his prison cell/enclosure and hacking Norbot is the first step.  Gromit must stop the rogue AI garden gnomes from destroying Wallace's good name and reputation and framing him for theft before Wallace is locked away.

At this point, the "turn evil" button/setting on robots is old hat but still funny.  I would have liked more focus on Feathers McGraw and less on the cops but I understand you need some characters to talk in your movie.  

If you are already a W&G fan, congrats on another successful entry.  If you're not, this won't make you one.  Head on back to Memoir of a Snail, fellow degenerate.  It's currently streaming on Netflix.

Memoir of a Snail (2024)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature   Content warning:  animated nudity, child abuse, bullying, conversion therapy, homophobic hate crime, child death

Orphaned and separated across the continent, Australian twins Grace (Sarah Snook) and Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) dream of one day being reunited.  Grace retreats further into herself, becoming a hoarder and snail collector, while Gilbert rails against his cult-like foster family.

This is not a movie for children unless you feel like explaining a bunch of stuff.  This is in the vein of Mary & Max, also written and directed by Adam Elliot, and should not be confused with family friendly movies by LAIKA.  It ends up heartwarming but it takes its time getting to that point.  Still, we love stop-motion and it's always nice to see it represented.  

It's currently only available to rent or buy and if you like quirky, off-kilter characters, it's worth tossing some cash at for a one-time watch.

Inside Out 2 (2024)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature    I was prepared to write this off as the obligatory Pixar inclusion but I actually really loved it.  

Riley (Kinsington Tallman) is a teenager now and her emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Liza Lapira) have been working overtime to keep up.  But with new stressors --hockey camp, meeting her high school idol, finding out this is her last year with her best friends-- comes new puberty-enhanced emotions like Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), Envy (Ayo Edibiri), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos).  Joy has been carefully tending Riley's Sense of Self only to have Anxiety begin to threaten her artfully chosen memories.

Once again, the Inside Out characters delve into thorny psychological concepts with wit and humor overlaying true understanding.  I love that the Core Memories from the first have become a garden of Beliefs that form Riley's sense of Self and how delicate they can be, but also how mutable.  The Self isn't static; it's constantly responding to new stimuli and changing into new shapes.  And that Joy's blithe insistence on only holding on to positive beliefs actually weakens Riley so that the first negative thing that happens causes her to spiral into anxiety.  

I don't want to go too deeply into the ending but I found it to have really powerful imagery that's mostly unspoken.  **SPOILERS FOLLOW**  She floods Riley's memory pond with conflicting --even negative-- emotions, forcing her confront her actions and sparking introspection, a more nuanced sense of Self, and enhanced maturity.  **END SPOILERS**  It's given the context of "feeling your feelings" but it was more than just that for me.  How we feel influences how we see ourselves and toxic positivity is just as damaging as its opposite.

Inside Out 2 is currently streaming on Disney+.

Flow (2024)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature  This movie stressed me out.  

A cat must navigate a world threatened by rising water, finding relative safety on a boat with a crew of other random animals as they search for high ground.

This was the Oscar submission from Latvia and it's one of the strongest animated showings I've seen in years.  I felt genuine distress every time that cat was in danger.  I was a little distracted at first because the collection of animals is weird: a capybara, a secretary bird, a ring-tailed lemur, and a golden retriever, all of which are from different continents, but the architecture of the human (?) built structures is also weird so then I didn't care as much.  It's obviously some sort of fantasy setting.  (Tyler suggested it takes place in Hyrule.)  

There's no attempt made to anthropomorphize the animals so it's completely wordless, which means you have to pay attention to every frame.  This is not the movie to have on while you play on your phone.  

The animation is very soft and almost dream-like.  I generally don't pay attention to the score but it is also very soothing.  It reminds me of music you'd hear in a video game, present but not calling attention to itself.  In fact, I would not be surprised to find that this started out as a cut-scene or demo of a planned video game like Stray.  Too lazy to look it up though.

It's currently only in theaters (if you're lucky) or available through your handy-dandy VPN.

The Wild Robot (2024)

Nominated for Best Original Score, Best Sound, and Best Animated Feature     Dreamworks with a very strong showing this year.  Content warning:  animal death (animated, mostly off-screen)

A helper robot named Roz (Lupita Nyong'o) crashes onto an island with wildlife as the only inhabitants.  Her attempts to "help" the natives are met with fear, distrust, and in some cases, violence until she accidentally hatches a goose egg and the gosling imprints on her.  Raising an infant of a non-programmed species is hard, so she enlists the help of Fink (Pedro Pascal), a fox, to fill in the gaps of her knowledge.

The moral of this story is Kindness is a Survival Skill, which is frankly a bold choice in this, the worst timeline.  It's a little simplistic when you really scrutinize it (wtf is the lynx supposed to do in this socialist utopia?  It can't just eat acorns) but for a kid's movie, it's a good baseline.

It does kind of feel like two movies smashed together.  There's the expected "robot learns to feel" storyline which takes up the first half, and then it just...keeps going.  This isn't necessarily a complaint.  We've seen dozens of the "robot learns to feel" stories, but because the beats are so familiar going beyond them can almost feel like fatigue.  Like when you watched the first half hour of Up and then you're like, Jesus, there's a whole-ass movie after this??  But life doesn't just stop once your kids leave the nest (ha ha, get it?) and it's nice that the movie acknowledges that.

It's streaming on Peacock.

A Real Pain (2024)

Nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay    Content warning:  Holocaust, concentration camp imagery

David (Jesse Eisenberg) booked a trip to Poland with his slacker cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) to honor their late grandmother.  Benji is by turns charming and abrasive, causing friction in the rest of the tour group and leaving David to deal with the emotional turmoil left in Benji's wake.

This movie said nothing and showed even less.  There's a lot about familial guilt but zero acknowledgement that sometimes you have to let people go when they don't want to be helped.  Instead, it wallows in vague bad feelings.  

A slog and not worth your time, but streaming on Hulu.

Anora (2024)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing    Content warning:  homophobic slurs

Ani (Mikey Madison) is a stripper/sex worker who thinks she's hit the lottery when she meets Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch.  Ivan spends money like water, loving the freedom that comes from being young, rich, and 8000 miles away from his parents.  He knows it's his last trip to America before joining his dad's company and wants to make the most of it.  So he flies Ani to Vegas and marries her.  And then posts it on social media because he's an idiot.  His mother (Darya Ekamasova) immediately dispatches Toros (Karran Karagulian), who was supposed to be supervising Ivan, to have the marriage annulled.  Ivan bolts, leaving Ani to deal with the fallout.  

There is nothing original here and I have no idea why this got six nominations when Hustlers --a film about strippers directed and written by women starring a woman of color and based on a true story-- didn't get a single one.  I mean, I have an idea why, obviously, a film about a stripper written and directed by a man starring a white woman got nominated, but it's not polite.

Sean Baker is a rising star whose previous films have focused on marginalized people.  That is good and I fully support that.  Anora feels regressive and more like a story that would have been made in the early 2000s.  Madison doesn't bring anything really noteworthy to the character, other than being young, beautiful, and willing to be traumatized on screen (always Academy catnip).  Ani grimly clings to a fantasy so hard it moves past naïveté and into delusion, all while being completely unsympathetic.  Points for realism, I guess, because everyone knows a girl like this, but most people have the good sense to cut ties with them pretty quickly.  

But by far the most egregious nomination is for film editing.  This movie is two hours and 18 minutes long and it could have been cut by a third.  So many scenes were repetitive and added nothing we didn't already know.  Baker probably could have hired out for this instead of trying to do it himself.

Yuriy Borisov is a literal angel and deserves this nomination.  #TeamIgor You deserved so much better, my darling.

Conclave (2024)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design    Man, I love movies about popes.  This is not to say that I love the Roman Catholic Church as an institution or organized religion in general, but every story about a papal conclave is so full of drama and intrigue.  It's like the world's highest-budget Real Housewives of Jesus.

As Dean of the College of Cardinals, it is Father Lawrence's (Ralph Fiennes) job to convene a conclave to choose the next pope.  It is a hugely political affair with rival factions behind the hardline traditionalists led by Father Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the moderates behind Father Tremblay (John Lithgow), and the reformists represented by Father Bellini (Stanley Tucci).  Moments before the doors are closed to sequester the priests away, a newly created cardinal, Father Benitez (Carlos Diehz), is admitted.  Dean Lawrence must keep the cardinals from being influenced by the outside world, but soon discovers that corruption may have already been spread.

There's at least one major spoiler.  I thought it was pretty obvious but that doesn't mean I'm going to ruin it for others.  Fiennes has always been great and he's very good here.  I don't know if he's going to win because I haven't seen anyone else in the category yet, but an excellent performance regardless.  Isabella Rossellini's nom feels like one of the Academy's belated Lifetime Achievement awards.  She doesn't have a lot to do here.  Tucci steals every scene.  The man does more with a look than most people do in their entire careers.

So far this is my favorite.  It's currently streaming on Peacock.

Emilia Perez (2024)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Song (x2), Best International Feature, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Film Editing    Content warning:  kidnapping, discussion of medical procedures, cartel violence, mass graves, dismemberment (fingers cut off)

Overworked, underpaid, underappreciated Mexico City lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) gets an offer she can't refuse from a cartel leader looking to make a change.  In exchange for several million untraceable dollars, Rita researches and compares doctors worldwide to find a reassignment specialist and helps her client fake an appropriate death.  Years later, Rita is approached once more by the new and improved Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofia Gascón) who feels the heat has died down significantly enough to renew her relationship with her former wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez), and children.  

Let me begin by saying that when I watched this I was unaware of the controversy surrounding it.  My first impression is that it was entertaining but had some significant flaws.  The plot meanders and could do with some tighter editing, and the songs (oh, it is a full-blown musical, by the way) are okay but lacked pizzazz.  I think contemporary musicals are like this.  You either embrace the OTT nature and lean in or you might as well just film a straight drama.  Saldaña is the star of this film and she should have been nominated for Best Actress, not Supporting.  No shade to Gascón, but Saldaña literally dances away with the movie.

So the main controversy is that this is a French film set in Mexico but filmed in Paris with no Mexican leads and the director admitted he did zero research and was plainly uninterested in any sort of nuance surrounding narcocultura, modern Mexico, or even transitioning.  And it shows.  This is very trope-y, generic, clichéd window dressing for a story that could have been set anywhere.  This could have been a Breaking Bad episode.  Audiard told reporters that he wanted to see if he as a 70-year-old white cis heterosexual man could make a film about transitioning without getting cancelled.  Is that a good enough reason?  Probably not.  But it happened anyway.  And Netflix has thrown a fuckton of money into campaigning for this Oscar season.  

As a piece of streaming entertainment, I thought it was fine.  If it were not nominated for 13 Oscars, it would probably just disappear into obscurity as a pandering, stereotypical cash grab.  But it is nominated, so now the question becomes is this outrage going to propel this film into being awarded Best Picture?

It's currently streaming on Netflix.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

  If you grew up watching this on TV in the 90s, like I did, I urge you to find an unedited version.  The full movie is almost two and a half hours and TV cut so much for time and content.  

Homeless orphans Carrie (Cindy O'Callaghan), Paul (Roy Snart), and Charlie (Ian Weighill) are sent to the  English countryside during WWII.  They end up in the reluctant care of Miss Price (Angela Lansbury), a spinster heiress pursuing witchcraft as a solution to the Nazis.  But the war has necessitated the closure of her correspondence course, so she takes the three children to London via a magical bed (which sounds like the worst euphemism but it's not) to find her professor, Mr. Emelius Brown (David Tomlinson), and get the final spell she needs.

I cannot overemphasize how much of a disservice the TV edit is to the original.  It removes so much context, character building, and at least one entire musical number while cutting others down sharply.  If you watched this as a kid and thought it was mid- to lower-tier Disney, please give it another try.  If you still don't like it, that's fine.  

Hopefully, the full version is on Disney+.  I have no idea.  I bought this on DVD ages ago.

Funny Lady (1975)

  This is the sequel to Funny Girl, the Fanny Brice biopic.  

After her disastrous relationship with Nick (Omar Sharif) ends, Fanny Brice (Barbara Streisand) just wants to throw herself into her work.  Unfortunately, Ziegfield's is closing and finding a new show is difficult.  A new impresario, songwriter, club owner, and general entertainment polymath named Billy Rose (James Caan) wants to design an entire show around Fanny but personality-wise, they are oil and water.  As always, success comes at a price.

This is also a musical, but the songs aren't nearly as good.  Partly because Caan isn't a singer.  Streisand could have carried the entire movie but it would have been nice to have her duet with someone who could match her.  Costumes are top-notch and there are some very lovely sets and shows-within-a-show, especially the synchronized swimmers but this definitely feels like a lesser entry.

It's not currently available on any services, except to rent or buy.  Dust off your VPN, I'd say, rather than pay actual dollars for this.

In other news, I watched the miniseries Escape at Dannemora, about two prisoners serving life sentences who escaped from a prison in upstate New York after seducing a worker in the textile sweatshop.  It's a monumentally depressing series and an indictment of the for-profit prison system in general.  But it is competently told with excellent performances from Paul Dano, Benicio del Toro, and Patricia Arquette.  Currently streaming on Paramount+.

I tried to watch Melvin at Dinner, an independent film directed by Bob Odenkirk, but it was so fucking boring I couldn't make it more than 30 minutes.  I also DNF'd an Australian film from 2007 called Vigilante.  It is Margot Robbie's debut, but everything else about it is terrible.  And I made it about one and a half episodes into Club de Cuervos, one of Netflix's first "original" shows but I was not in the mood to suffer through the amount of misogyny required of a Mexican soccer show.  Ted Lasso it ain't.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? (2019)

  I assume the book is better.  Content warning:  miscarriage (discussion)

Once a rising star in the architecture world, Bernadette Fox (Cate Blanchett) has been living in obscurity with her insanely wealthy family in Oregon, rapidly becoming an antisocial borderline agoraphobe, until her daughter, Bee (Emma Nelson), announces that she'd like to do a family trip to Antarctica.  Preparations bring Bernadette's marital, social, and legal problems to a head as it's discovered her "digital assistant" is actually a crime ring and her husband (Billy Crudup) thinks she should be committed.  So Bernadette vanishes, leaving Bee to reconstruct her mother's likely decisions.

This is meant to be heartwarming but the dialogue feels so fake and contrived, it's hard to acknowledge any actual emotion.  The novel this is based on is by Maria Semple, but she was not listed as one of the screenplay writers.  Having not read the novel, I don't know if the dialogue is the same as the book.  I hope not.  No offense to Newman, but it would have taken a much stronger actress to make Bee's lines remotely believable.  Anything good in this movie comes from Blanchett, who gives it her all, as usual.

It's not terrible, but it's not one I'd rush to rewatch.  It's streaming on the Roku Channel with ads.

To Be or Not to Be (1942)

  This was a Movie Club pick from last week but I had to get through some other stuff first.  

Polish WWII resistance learns that a supposed ally, Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), is actually a German spy about to present a list of family and friends of Polish RAF officers to the Gestapo.  A pilot, Lieutenant Sobieski (Robert Stack), has flown to Warsaw and used his pre-war connection to famed actress Maria Tura (Carole Lombard), now leading the resistance, to have her intercept Siletsky.  Tura's husband, Josef (Jack Benny), pretends to be the Gestapo commander to get Siletsky to hand over the documents.  Identities switch back and forth as Josef and Maria give the performances of their lives.

So the plot does not give an indication of how funny the movie actually is.  It's a comedy about how dumb the Nazis are and that seems really relevant today.  Sometimes the only way to combat evil is to point out how ridiculous it is.  Lombard is luminous in this, effortlessly seducing every single man she comes across.  Normally, it would seem like lazy writing that she's just so beautiful men fall over themselves to offer her state secrets, but with her it seems completely believable.  

It does feel a little dated, mostly because everyone has a different accent and that's just not addressed at all, but it is still very good and remains funny thanks to a very sharp script and fast, glib dialogue.  

There is a 1983 remake starring real-life husband and wife Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft that is also very good.  Either version is well worth watching, but the 1942 one is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and (sigh) Max.

Brighton Rock (1947)

  The poster is washed out but that's a baby Richard Attenborough.  

A gang leader (Richard Attenborough) bumps off a journalist (Reginald Purnell) but finds out there's a witness, a waitress named Rose (Carol Marsh), that can throw off his carefully constructed alibi.  He decides to cozy up to the girl, easily winning her over despite pressure from a nosy small-time theater performer named Ida (Hermione Baddeley).  Ida had met and liked the dead journalist and didn't believe the suicide story being floated by the cops.  She took it upon herself to figure it out, following the breadcrumbs right to Rose and her new beau.  

It's so funny to watch old movies and realize that absolutely zero things have changed.  All Ida needed was a podcast and she could have been an OG true crime legend.  

If you're into noir at all, this should be part of your curriculum.  The story is a little underwritten, I think, but the performances are all really solid.  It's streaming on Kanopy with a library card, the Criterion Channel until the end of the month, and (sigh) Max.  Give it a shot.

Three Identical Strangers (2017)

  I had my eye on this documentary for a while but it was on/off various streamers and I couldn't get a hold of it.  I think it overplays the "mystery" angle but it's still worth watching.  Content warning:  suicide (discussed)

Bobby Shafran grew up in upstate New York and went to a local community college, only to be completely confused his first day by how well-known he seemed to be.  Turns out he was a dead ringer for a guy named Eddie Galland who had dropped out the previous year.  The two met, compared backstories, and discovered that they were twins separated at birth and adopted into two different families.  The local news picked up the story as a feel-good piece and it made its way through the wire to David Kellman, living in Long Island, who picked up the paper and saw his own face in duplicate.  The three young men met, instantly connected, and began building their lives around one another.  Their respective families hit the roof and initiated proceedings to sue the adoption agency for failing to disclose that the boys were a matched set but were stonewalled.  It took a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist to break open the real story.

I don't want to spoil it for anyone because the movie does go to some lengths to tease this out.  I don't agree with this choice, I think it weakens the ending, but that's me.  It's currently streaming on Tubi with ads.

Palm Springs (2020)

  This was better than I thought it would be.  It got nominated for two Golden Globes and won the Critics Choice award for Best Comedy but 2020 was a shit year so my expectations were still really low.

Sarah (Christina Milioti) is Maid of Honor at her sister's (Camila Mendes) wedding and is just trying to hook up with moderately charming guest, Nyles (Andy Samberg), when he is shot by a bow-wielding lunatic named Roy (J.K. Simmons).  She follows him into a glowing cave only to find that this has now trapped her in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over.  Nyles, who has been stuck in the loop for God knows how long, explains the ropes:  nothing matters, choices are immaterial, and the future is forever but always the same.  Slowly, these two immature adults grow as people while confronting their own demons and Roy, who is pretty pissed about the whole "trapped in time" thing.

This leans into the nihilistic humor of Groundhog Day but manages to not lose the kernel of hopefulness that underlies that movie.  Samberg is Samberg and your mileage will vary on how much you enjoy his particular schtick, but Milioti is very good in this.  It's not a bad hungover/sick with a cold watch either.  It's light, entertaining, and isn't going to tax any brain cells.  Currently streaming on Hulu.

Hundreds of Beavers (2024)

  This was hugely popular in Movie Club but I will flat tell you, I didn't like it.  I don't care for slapstick.  Never have.

An alcoholic Apple Jack brewer (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) must learn to become a fur trapper after beavers destroy his brewery, leading him on an epic journey to find love and purpose.

It's shot in black and white, mostly silent, and has early cartoon energy that takes a joke and keeps repeating it in more and more absurd ways.  Like I said, went over huge with normal people.  It's gotten a lot of word-of-mouth recognition and is poised to become a cult classic in the next ten years.  It was not for me.  However, if it seems like something you will like, I encourage you to seek it out on Kanopy with a library card, or Tubi with ads.  

97th Oscar Nominations (2025)

 So far, this month has been a shitshow and I have been struuuugglinnnnnng.  Similarly, the Oscars were supposed to be announced on Monday but got pushed back to today because of fires.  Like the dumpster fire that is my life.  Anyway, here's some nominees.

Best Picture

Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part 2
Emilia Perez
I'm Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked

Best Supporting Actor

Yuriy Borisov - Anora
Kieran Culkin  - A Real Pain
Edward Norton - A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce - The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong - The Apprentice

Best Costume Design

A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Gladiator II
Nosferatu
Wicked

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

A Different Man
Emilia Perez 
Nosferatu
The Substance
Wicked

Best Original Score

The Brutalist
Conclave
Emilia Perez
Wicked
The Wild Robot

Best Live-Action Short

A Lien
Anuja
I'm Not a Robot
The Last Ranger
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

Best Animated Short

Beautiful Men
In the Shadow of the Cypress
Magic Candies
Wander to Wonder
Yuck!

Best Adapted Screenplay

A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Emilia Perez
Nickel Boys
Sing Sing

Best Original Screenplay

Anora
The Brutalist
A Real Pain
September 5
The Substance

Best Supporting Actress

Monica Barbaro - A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande - Wicked
Felicity Jones - The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini - Conclave
Zoe Saldaña - Emilia Perez

Best Original Song

"Never Too Late" - Elton John: Never Too Late
"El Mal" - Emilia Perez
"Mi Camino" - Emilia Perez
"Like a Bird" - Sing Sing
"The Journey" - The Six Triple Eight

Best Documentary Feature

Black Box Diaries
No Other Land
Porcelain War
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
Sugarcane

Best Documentary Short

Death by Numbers
I Am Ready, Warden
Incident
Instruments of a Beating Heart
The Only Girl in the Orchestra

Best International Feature

I'm Still Here - Brazil
The Girl with the Needle - Denmark
Emilia Perez - France
The Seed of the Sacred Fig - Germany
Flow - Latvia

Best Animated Feature

Flow
Inside Out 2
Memoir of a Snail
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot

Best Production Design

The Brutalist
Conclave
Dune: Part 2
Nosferatu
Wicked

Best Sound

A Complete Unknown
Dune: Part 2
Emilia Perez
Wicked
The Wild Robot

Best Visual Effects

Alien: Romulus
Better Man
Dune: Part 2
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Wicked

Best Actor

Adrien Brody - The Brutalist
Timothée Chalamet - A Complete Unknown
Coman Domingo - Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes - Conclave
Sebastian Stan - The Apprentice

Best Actress

Cynthia Erivo - Wicked
Karla Sofia Gascon - Emilia Perez
Mikey Madison - Anora
Demi Moore - The Substance
Fernanda Torres - I'm Still Here

Best Directing

Jacques Audiard - Emilia Perez
Sean Baker - Anora
Brady Corbet - The Brutalist
Coralie Fargeat - The Substance
James Mangold - A Complete Unknown

A lot of overlap here from the Critics Choice and Golden Globes, as to be expected.  Feeling pretty good about myself for having seen 3 Best Picture nominees already.  That's way more than usual.  

You guys know the drill by now.  This blog is now Oscar central until March 2.  Check back here for... I was going to say updates but that's kind of dumb since you'll be able to see all the posts from the side menu there.  I guess check here to see how many I get done?  All in one convenient list?  

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

  This was one of the Oscar nominees I didn't get to last year and I missed it again when it came up in Movie Club, so this has been kind of a catch-up week for me.  (Also, I completely missed the nominations for both the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards so my TBW list has jumped up like 100 slots.  Thank God the Oscars don't drop until the 17th.)  

Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) chickened out of being a kamikaze pilot at the end of WWII, landing instead on a small island for "repairs" and inadvertently witnessing a local monster, Godzilla, which rampaged over the island and killed all the maintenance workers.  Shikishima returned to a war-torn Tokyo to find that his family is dead and his neighbor (Sakura Andô) hates him.  He takes in refugee Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and orphaned Akiko (Sae Nagatani) but refuses to allow himself to care for them.  And then Godzilla returns, angry over nuclear testing and even larger than before.  Shikishima needs to come up with a plan to stop the giant lizard before it ruins his life even further.

Maybe this was just overhyped to me, but I didn't think it was nearly as good as Shin Godzilla.  It felt more cynical, more depressed, and more like a Jaws riff than a Godzilla movie.  Maybe because Shikishima is not a sympathetic protagonist?  Nothing about this worked for me.  

It has a ton of critical acclaim and won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects so clearly other people like it.  It's streaming on Netflix.

The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (2015)

  This has nowhere near the level of quality as the first one but that did not bother me in the slightest.  It is a big, dumb, poorly written martial arts extravaganza in the style of the Shaw Brothers and I enjoyed it.  

On a quest to find inner peace, Thaddeus (RZA), the man with the iron fists, stumbles into a small mining village run by an evil gang called Clan Beetle.  The mayor (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) is ineffectual and the local union leader (Dustin Nguyen) is trying to avoid a violent showdown so he doesn't have to confront his own past.  Oh, and the ghost of some evil dude looking for immortality is killing young women, but nobody super cares about that until it's too late.

Yes, this does feel like an extended episode of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.  This is a feature, not a bug, but your mileage may vary.  Some people's comfort media is romantic comedy, mine is martial arts.  Tropes abound, including classics like Lone Hero Reluctantly Takes Up Arms Again for Worthy Cause, Average Guy Hides Previous Occupation as Sociopathic Badass, Honor Challenges in the Octagon, Beautiful Highly Useless Girl with Astonishingly Stupid Name Gets Kidnapped/Held Hostage, and (a personal favorite) Ancient Monk Drops a Beatdown on Fools While Espousing Non-Violence.  That is my emotional support Wire Fu, please leave it alone.

Sadly, this did not get any kind of support or cult following so it's much harder to find.  You're going to have to dust off the VPN or shell out some money to rent it.  This was obviously a labor of love for RZA, and frankly, more millionaires should have silly creative outlets like this.