Room 237 (2012)

  This movie is proof that being intelligent doesn't actually mean you're useful.

Five "experts" discuss their interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining as voiceover interviews play over footage from various archival and other film footage.

These are not dumb people.  They are historians, professors, researchers, and archivists who fall into the trap of very smart people saying very dumb things.  The entire movie feels like an English Literature class in college where you're asked to close read a work for the first time.  The point of the exercise is not to discover the "true intent"; it's to show how varied the interpretations can be.  And yes, if you spend your entire career studying a particular facet of history, like the genocide of the Native Americans in the American West, or the Holocaust, you will then start seeing connections everywhere.  That is how human pattern-seeking works.  It is also how conspiracy theories work, that you've "figured it out" because you're so much smarter than other people, so of course you're going to be persecuted by the Government, as one gentleman dolefully expects to be audited by the IRS as punishment for speaking out about his theory that Kubrick faked the Apollo 11 footage of the moon landing.  

I suppose you could find this documentary entertaining in a "Boy, what won't they think of" kind of way but I did not.  It felt a little mean-spirited considering that some of these people seem genuinely mentally ill, while others were infuriatingly condescending.  I don't find that funny.  And the film itself doesn't question or present a point of view of its own, so it just comes off as a bunch of people ranting.  Again, that is not my thing.  If it's yours or you just really, really like The Shining and/or Kubrick and/or insane conspiracy theories, Room 237 is streaming on Shudder and AMC+.

The Ten Commandments (1956)

  Movie Club did a double feature for Easter with this and Prince of Egypt, but I'll take any excuse to talk about this movie.  Content warning:  blood, child death

After receiving a prophecy, Pharaoh Sethi (Cedric Hardwicke) orders all male Hebrew infants killed.  But Yochabel (Martha Scott) puts her baby in a basket and sends him down the Nile where he is found by Sethi's sister, Bithiah (Nina Foch).  Widowed and childless, Bithiah is thrilled to find a baby and raises him as her own, alongside Sethi's son, Rameses (Yul Brynner).  Sethi, too, loves Moses (Charleton Heston), favoring him above all others, and spurring the jealousy of Rameses by telling both men that whoever impresses him the most will become his successor to the throne of Egypt and win the hand of Nefertiri (Anne Baxter), who is already in love with Moses.  We know this because she literally never shuts the fuck up about it.  She talks about it so much, a spiteful servant (Judith Anderson) finally tells her that Moses isn't even Egyptian, actually, but was born to slaves.  Moses finds out, confronts Bithiah, finds his birth mother, has a whole existential crisis, and decides to give up being the ruling class to work in the mud pits making bricks with the rest of his people.  That lasts about five minutes before he gets pissed, murders the chief architect (Vincent Price), and is sentenced to banishment in the desert for the entire Intermission.  

This movie is 3 hours and 39 minutes long.  I am leaving out a lot.

He makes it to a well, scares off some miscreants, and wins the admiration of the seven daughters of Jethro (Eduard Franz), a Bedouin leader.  Moses marries Sephora (Yvonne de Carlo), objectively the hottest daughter, and settles down to be a shepherd in the foothills of Mt. Sinai, considered to be God's holy mountain.  Moses is still mad at God for the whole Hebrew-slaves thing, so he marches up to the mountain to tell Him to His face.  And lo, God spaketh to him, saying "You think you can do better, asshole?  Fine, it's your job now."  So Moses goes back to Egypt and confronts Rameses, who has become Pharaoh and married Nefertiri, and demands that Rameses free the Hebrew slaves.  Rameses replies with whatever hieroglyphics spell Fuck You, and then there are a bunch of really neat camera effects, and Passover gets invented.  Reeling from the death of his only son, Rameses give the Hebrews their freedom and there is a mass Exodus (tm) down to the banks of the Red Sea.  That's how long it takes before Nefertiri, mad that her one-time honey bunny didn't personally intervene to save her son from the wrath of God, manages to whip Rameses into righteous fury and pursue.  More incredible special effects happen and the Hebrews are saved once again.

Moses leads them to the foot of Mt. Sinai, then goes up to give a progress report to God.  It takes a little while, and Dathan (Edward G. Robinson), who has had a whole sub-plot through the movie that I just can't get into, convinces people that despite all the miracles they have seen, they really need to have a huge party with wine, dancing, music by Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass Band (no, really), and a giant golden idol they made from all the spoils they took from Egypt.  Moses, who has been sitting in the Biblical equivalent of HR for the last 40 days, comes back with the new Employee Handbook, sees the kegger happening, and has a come-apart.  And there's still like 20 minutes left in the movie.

I cannot overstate how much I love this movie.  It was hugely influential on me as a child.  I must have watched it at least a dozen times.  I have owned this on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray.  It is an Epic.  Legendary director Cecile B. DeMille filmed this on location in Egypt, using thousands of extras, with the support of the Egyptian national army for the chariot scenes.  For a myriad of reasons, you could never make this movie again.  It's a little harder to find on streaming, but it is on YouTube and pops up perennially on ABC.

The Prince of Egypt (1997)

  Happy belated Passover!

Moses (Val Kilmer) is raised alongside Rameses (Ralph Fiennes) in the Pharoah's palace but discovers that he was actually adopted and is Hebrew, not Egyptian.  He flees into the desert after accidentally killing a slave overseer and has a religious awakening, returning to Egypt in order to free all the slaves, now under his former brother's control.

This is the Old Testament story of the Exodus, complete with 10 plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.  If you grew up in a Christian or Jewish household, you are familiar with this.  If you did not, the movie might be a little more inaccessible.  It isn't really interested in telling you why Moses does anything; more just assumes you already know, so it presents a version with a high-gloss finish.  It is a musical and the soundtrack is very good, which covers a lot of the narrative shortcuts.  Also, the animation is top-notch.  There are some really beautiful scenes in this, and it looks mostly hand-drawn with only a few CGI elements.  

I remember when this came out, but I don't think I watched it until it was on video.  I listened to the Whitney Huston/Mariah Carey end credits song probably a thousand times though.  If you don't do anything else, give the soundtrack a shot.  Unfortunately, the movie isn't available on streaming except for rental.  Might be worth it to you; but I'd suggest trying to find a copy at the library first.

Scream 2 (1997)

Happy Easter!  Here's a completely unrelated movie.    Content warning:  blood

Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) survived a pair of serial killers in high school only to be met by a worse fate: being played by Tori Spelling in the movie adaptation.  But when a copycat begins recreating the Woodsboro murders, Sidney must face her traumas head-on.

This has never been my favorite franchise.  I wasn't blown away by the original and I never really felt the need to go back to it, but considering it's on its 7th entry with an eighth on the way, I thought it might be time to give it a second look.

It's definitely funnier than the first one.  It leans into the meta aspects of being a sequel and I actually liked the dramatic recreations of the first movie with an entirely different cast.  (LOL, Luke Wilson with floppy emo hair.) The line delivery was the weakest part for me.  It felt like every actor was waiting for a dramatic musical sting after every line.  Maybe that's Wes Craven, maybe that's just the 90s style, but it sucked a lot of the fun out.  Still, I had a pretty good time overall.  

The whole collection is streaming on Paramount+ right now, if you're so inclined.

No Other Choice (2025)

  This did not get nominated for the Oscars this year and people called it a snub, but I think there were just a lot of really strong contenders.

Yoo Man-Su (Lee Byung-hun) gets laid off from his job at a paper factory after 25 years of service.  At first, he's hopeful but as the months pass, he grows increasingly desperate to reclaim his position.  He decides that the only way to get the job he wants at a rival paper company is to kill off the competition.

I was expecting this to be the Korean Kind Hearts & Coronets, and I wasn't wrong.  It's probably the funniest Park Chan-Wook film I've seen, but it could have used a shorter run time.  Also, surprisingly wholesome for a movie about murder.  And not just Lucy-wholesome, which is a totally different metric, but by normal people in Movie Club!

It's still only available for rent or to buy so give it another couple of weeks to hit one of the streaming services, but keep an eye out for it.  It's worth the watch.

Project Hail Mary (2026)

  This is the first film I've watched in theaters this year.  Once again, people are the worst thing about going to the movies.  

Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there or why.  Slowly, he pieces together his memories of being an elementary school teacher approached by a woman (Sandra Hüller) leading a team to discover why the sun is dimming.  A swarm of  tiny interstellar organisms is moving through the cosmos, eating stars except for one called Tau Ceti.  Grace is sent to find out why but discovers that he's not the only one looking.  An alien from a planet in the Tau Ceti system is also trying to find out how to stop the astrophage from destroying his sun.  Grace and "Rocky" (John Ortiz) must overcome a number of obstacles, including an inability to share an atmosphere, to work together to save both of their worlds.

My ex listened to the audiobook in the car so I knew enough about the story to be interested in the movie.  I thought it was really well done.  Like if Interstellar was a buddy comedy.  Gosling continues to be a great comedic actor while Hüller is also great at being awkward and German.  It's also a deeply emotional and optimistic movie, something that I didn't realize I needed to see.  Rocky has A+ cute character design, which is really difficult without paradoilia.  Major shout out to the voice actor and puppeteer, John Ortiz, for being able to convey emotions vocally.

Big fan of movies being fun just to be fun!

Diane Warren: Relentless (2025)

Nominated for Best Original Song.  I mean, of course it is.  It would be so funny if this had been nominated for Best Documentary and won.  Like, that would have been the biggest slap in the face.    Content warning:  discussion of sexual assault, animal death (off-screen, cat)

Diane Warren has been writing songs for over fifty years.  Even if you had never heard of her, you know her.  She has #1 singles in every decade, sung by dozens of artists.  She has her own production company, platinum records, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  But the one thing she did not have was an Oscar.  She has the dubious distinction of being the only woman nominated 15 times (16 this year) without a competitive* win.  She is loud, single-minded, and not particularly personable.  And in an award competition based in no small part on how well your peers like you, that's a major disadvantage.  

The documentary is kind of a puff piece; a look inside the often chaotic world of a neurodivergent creative professional.  It's interesting to see her process and the interviews with her very famous music clients are charming but unless you're super invested in songwriting or a big Oscar fan, there's really nothing else here.  It's streaming on Kanopy.

*She got an honorary one in 2022.

Wuthering Heights (2026)

 CW:  blood, dead animals (pig, taxidermy), medical horror? (leeches)

Catherine (Margot Robbie) grew up with Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) in that weird, English caste system where she had status and he did not.  Upon learning that her father (Martin Clunes) has wasted all the family money on alcohol, Catherine sets her eyes on her rich neighbor, Edgar (Shazad Latif), which infuriates Heathcliff in that mediocre-white-dude-who-has-never-had-to-reckon-with-social-status kind of way.  He disappears for multiple years, has a glow-up, and comes back specifically to terrorize and punish Cathy for her perceived lack of regard.  

These are the most toxic people you have ever seen and they are exhausting.  Emerald Fennell has been on my shitlist ever since she tripped over her dick with Promising Young Woman and this has not redeemed her.  I don't mind loose adaptations of literature, but this is Cliff's Notes turned fan fiction.  You, madam, are no Guillermo del Toro.  I said good day.  

It somehow manages to be both incredibly horny and the most deeply unsexy thing I have ever seen.  Horrendous.  Granted, I don't think Elordi is particularly attractive as a human specimen but he is done no favors as a petulant stalker.  Robbie actually enjoys "uglying" beautiful women and that's fine.

Costumes, production design, cinematography are all gorgeous, which only throws the godawful script into sharper focus.  Also, there are only two POC actors in this and one is played as a total sap and the other a spiteful jade.  This does not feel like "color-blind" casting; more like "I don't see color" racism.

I didn't even like Crimson Peak all that much but I'd watch it every day and twice on Sundays before I'd even walk by this movie again.  Avoid.

Butterfly (2025)/Forevergreen (2025)/Retirement Plan (2025)

  These are all of the animated shorts I managed to see before the ceremony.  They were all pretty good but I didn't get to see the winner so I don't know how they actually stack up.

Butterfly (Papillon) - A man recounts a lifetime through swimming, from growing up in North Africa, competing for France in the 1936 Olympics, being detained in a concentration camp, marriage, death, liberation, and always, the water.

This was based on the life of Alfred Nakache, a French-Algerian Olympian swimmer.  It's inspiring, sure, but also depressing as fuck.  The animation looks like a series of oil paintings.  It's available on YouTube.

Forevergreen - An abandoned bear cub is taken in by a sentient pine tree.  The cub grows into an adolescent bear and is happy for a while until it sees a crow eating a bag of chips.  It follows the crow to an abandoned campsite over the wishes of the tree and gorges itself on trash, accidentally starting a forest fire. 

This was pretty but it did feel a little like a rejected Pixar idea.  Like it needed to be fleshed out to feature-length, because otherwise the bear comes off as kind of a dick.  Also available on YouTube.

Retirement Plan - A man (Domhnall Gleeson) recounts all the things he's going to do when he retires that he never had time for when he was working.

This was very cute and genuinely funny but also seriously depressing when you think about how much time you waste while you tell yourself you'll do it in the future.  Available on YouTube.

Zootopia 2 (2025)

  Another Oscar nominee that I didn't get to post about in time.  

Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are feeling the pressure to once again save the city.  Well, one of them is.  When their conflicting styles bungle a chase, Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) threatens to assign them to different partners and also sends them to therapy.  But Judy had found a piece of shed snakeskin during the disastrous pursuit and is convinced that the sudden reemergence of snakes in Zootopia is tied to the anniversary of the founding of the city.  She convinces Nick to infiltrate a gala hosted by Milton Lynxley (David Strathairn), the billionaire whose grandfather created the weather walls that allow Zootopia's animals to live in compatible climates.  Sure enough, a snake interrupts the proceedings and steals the Lynxley Journal, which contains the patent for the wall designs.  Judy and Nick pursue but Gary De'Snake (Ke Huy Quan) pleads with them to let him go because he needs the journal to save his family.  During a scuffle, Bogo is accidentally envenomed by Gary's broken fang and the Lynxley's blame Judy and Nick, mobilizing the rest of the ZPD to hunt them down.

For a legacy sequel, this could have been a lot worse.  It feels like a solid continuation of the first film and if it doesn't raise the bar, it at least doesn't drop it.  The world feels lived-in and real; the characters' problems feel organic and thus, satisfying to resolve.  There are enough Easter eggs to make repeat viewings fun, including an absolutely stacked voice cast that only Disney's deep pockets could facilitate.  And most importantly of all, it's fun.  It's a fun movie.  Who doesn't need more fun in their lives?  Zebros!

 

98th Annual Academy Awards Winners

We had tornado warnings yesterday and that's my excuse for not posting.  

I didn't love this telecast.  I've never found Conan O'Brien all that funny so he was a middling host for me.  It felt like ABC went out of its way to make sure no one could possibly be offended and it made for a weak show.  There were sound problems, camera problems, and they kept cutting people off for their speeches in a way that felt needlessly aggressive.  I understand you have time constraints on your broadcast but people wait their entire lives for this kind of award.  That being said, the Academy did manage to get a few things right, even if they ultimately fumbled the biggest one.

Best Supporting Actress went to Amy Madigan for Weapons.  This is the first time since 1992 that it has gone to a horror movie.

Best Live Action Short had a tie for The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva.  It's not completely unheard of but it is pretty rare.

Best Casting went to Cassandra Kulukundis for One Battle After Another, beginning a depressing trend.

Best Supporting Actor went to Sean Penn for One Battle After Another.  He didn't show so Kieran Culkin accepted on his behalf.  Just going to pretend somehow Kieran won and be happy about that.

Best Adapted Screenplay went to Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, breaking his 14-loss streak.

Best Original Screenplay went to Ryan Coogler for Sinners.

Best Animated Feature went to K-Pop Demon Hunters, as expected.

Best Animated Short went to The Girl Who Cried Pearls, which I unfortunately didn't get to see.

Best Costume Design went to Frankenstein.

Best Hair and Makeup went to Frankenstein.

Best Production Design went to Frankenstein.

Best Sound went to F1: the Movie.

Best Original Score went to Sinners.

Best Original Song went to K-Pop Demon Hunters.

Best Film Editing went to One Battle After Another.

Best Visual Effects went to Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Best Documentary Short went to All the Empty Rooms.

Best Documentary Feature went to Mr. Nobody Against Putin.

Best International Feature went to Sentimental Value.

Best Cinematography went to Autumn Durald Arkapow for Sinners, the first woman to ever win this category.

Best Actress went to Jessie Buckley for Hamnet.

Best Actor went to Michael B. Jordan for Sinners.

Best Director went to Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another.

And finally, Best Picture went to One Battle After Another.  This is Green Book levels of safety picks.  I think there's going to be a major revisit of this movie in about 5 years and it's not going to survive well.  Somebody on social media called it "liberal fantasy porn" and they're not wrong.  But hey, could have been worse.  Could have been Marty Supreme.

Jane Austen's Period Drama (2025)/The Singers (2025)/Two People Exchanging Saliva (2025)/A Friend of Dorothy (2025)

Nominated for Best Live Action Short    For expediency's sake, I'm lumping all the shorts together.

Jane Austen's Period Drama - Kanopy - a very funny short that people online have likened to a better class of SNL skit.  I think that's setting the bar too low but I don't like SNL.  

Miss Estrognia Talbot (Julia Aks) is in the middle of being proposed to by handsome bachelor Mr. Dickley (Ta'imua) when she unexpectedly gets her period.  Confused and alarmed, Dickley rushes her home where she argues with her sisters over how much she should educate him on women's biology.

Honestly, it's 2026.  If we cannot as a society be over the "ew, girls have cooties" factor about periods, what are we even doing?

The Singers - Netflix-  almost the polar opposite of Jane Austen, this doesn't have a single woman on screen and is four times as emotional.

A bar full of men is energized by a late-night bet:  whoever is the best singer wins a free beer and $100.

Absolutely magical performances.

Two People Exchanging Saliva - YouTube - what if Carol had been directed by Yorgos Lanthimos?

A shopgirl (Luàna Bajrami) and a wealthy housewife (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) try to suppress their desire in a world that criminalizes kissing as disgusting.

Only the French would think that the fastest way to show a dystopia is to make kissing illegal.  The garlic gum is going to give me nightmares, though.

A Friend of Dorothy - Kanopy - And we're back to being wholesome and cute.

A teen (Alistair Nwachukwu) trying to retrieve an errant soccer ball from a garden befriends an elderly lady named Dorothy (Miriam Margolyes) who encourages him to pursue his dreams.  All of them.

So sweet.  

Little Amelie or the Character of Rain (2025)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature   Content warning: child endangerment (drowning)

Amélie (Loïse Charpentier) is a Belgian toddler living in Japan with her diplomat family.  She spends the first two years of her life in a vegetative state, believing that she is a god.  An earthquake "awakens" her and allows her to finally begin interacting, but being limited to a squishy human form is very frustrating, so her family hires a nanny, Nishio (Victoria Grosbois), based on the recommendation of their austere landlady (Yumi Fujimori).  Amélie and Nishio bond, which angers the landlady, who still blames all foreigners for the war that killed her husband and son.  Geopolitical resentments are tough to navigate when you are only three-years-old.  

This was a little jarring at first because the animation is like MS Paint-style pixelation.  It wasn't what I was expecting but it was certainly eye-catching.  I don't think it will win but it's still absolutely worth supporting independent animation.  

Sirat (2025)

Nominated for Best International Film and Best Sound    Content warning: dog in distress, animal death (dog, off-screen), child death (off-screen), violence, mild gore

Luis (Sergi Lopez) has traveled to a rave in southern Morocco with his son, Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), in the hopes of finding his missing daughter, Mar.  He shows her photo around and manages to inspire some pity in a small group of ravers, who tell him there is a second rave planned even deeper in the desert, close to Mauritania.  Against their advice, Luis and Esteban follow the group into the desert, slowly becoming closer as a group until unimaginable tragedy strikes.

If I had to count all the ways this movie wasn't for me, we'd be here all day.  It's well-made.  That's about all the praise I can spare.  I hated the music.  I don't like house, techno, EDM, or trance.  I don't like concerts or live music, really, at all so the idea of going to the middle of nowhere to hear super-loud repetitive music gives me a full-body shudder.  I got the found family thing.  I got the "trial by faith" thing.  It wasn't enough to make me like the movie.

However, a lot of people really do like it and maybe you'll be one of them.  It's currently not available for streaming so fire up that VPN.

It Was Just an Accident (2025)

Nominated for Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay    Content warning:  animal death (dog, off-screen but you hear it), descriptions of torture.    Biggest surprise of the season for me, so far.

Vahid (Vahid Mobassari) is having a normal day trying to get stuff ready for his sister's wedding when a customer comes into his repair shop.  Vahid recognizes the sound of the man's prosthetic leg squeaking as belonging to the interrogator Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), who tortured him in prison.  But Vahid was always blindfolded, so he can't be sure.  Impulsively, he kidnaps the customer and seeks out Shiva (Mariam Afshari), a former journalist who was also imprisoned and tortured by Eghbal, to see if she can positively identify him.  Shiva is now doing wedding photography for Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), another torture victim, and when Goli hears they might have Eghbal, she demands to be included in the decisions.  Shiva only knows one person who could make a positive ID, Hamid (Mohammed Ali Elyasmehr), but he is volatile and bitter, and Vahid doesn't necessarily trust that Hamid would tell the truth.

Okay, so all of that is an accurate synopsis of the movie that does not in any way tell you how funny it is.  Yes, very serious, kidnapping, moral quandary, wrestling demons, but also (!) goofy bureaucratic nonsense, cartoonish levels of graft, and five good people who are trying to do the right thing for justice that had been denied to them.

Don't sleep on this one because it looks too heavy.  I promise you, it is handled so well.  It's streaming on Hulu.

Arco (2025)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature    

Arco (Juliano Krue Valdi) lives in the far future where time travel is possible thanks to rainbow-colored capes and diamonds that break down light.  His parents and sister travel to the past to retrieve rare or extinct plants but all Arco wants is to see real dinosaurs.  One night, he steals his sister's flying suit and goes to the past, but shorts it and ends up in the near future of 2075 instead.  After a crash landing, he meets Iris (Romy Fay), a ten-year-old girl desperate for connection since her parents work all week and leave her and her baby brother in the care of Mikki, a robot.  Arco lost his traveling diamond in the woods where he landed and Iris agrees to help him look for it despite the pending threat of wildfires.

This is a very pretty movie.  That's about all I can say about it.  It's fine.  It feels like an anime but is French.  I tried to get the French language track on Amazon but it wouldn't take, for some reason, so I watched the English dub.  I found the three brothers super annoying but otherwise, it's not bad.  It's at least an original.  Currently only available for rent.

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects    All right, we are in the homestretch.  The ceremony is tonight so I'm going to push out as many posts as I managed to get drafted during the week.

Zora (Scarlett Johansson) is a mercenary hired by a pharmaceutical company to get blood samples from some of the largest dinosaurs produced during the ill-fated Jurassic World theme park expansions.  She is assisted by Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), a paleontologist eager to see specimens up close.  But when they hear a mayday from a family whose sailboat was capsized by a mosasaur, the objectives change.

Talk about a series with diminishing returns.  This has an A-list cast spouting the most wooden, cliche-ridden dialogue, zero thrills, bland humor, and nowhere near enough gore to make up for all the above.  Unless you are seriously into the franchise, skip this one entirely.  It's basically Jurassic Park 3 but without the charm of Michael Jeter.

It does make a good point about how quickly we become inured to miracles but it's not worth sitting through just to hear that.  Also, it's part of the villain's monologue because of course it is.  When I watched it, it was streaming on Peacock but it has since moved to Netflix if you can't heed warnings and want to watch it anyway.

The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025)

Nominated for Best International Feature   Content warning: war violence, child death

Six-year-old Hind Rajab Hamada is trapped in a car in the West Bank, pinned down by Israeli soldiers.  Over an hour away, a team of Red Crescent emergency call workers try desperately to navigate the bureaucratic red tape to send an ambulance to rescue her.

This docu-drama uses actor portrayals for the emergency team but the real, actual emergency calls as audio.  You will hear real people die.  DO NOT feel like you have to watch this movie.  You are not "bearing witness"; you are traumatizing yourself.  Trust me.  You don't need to hear a six-year-old crying while she is being shot at.  The only people who need to hear that are ones on a jury at the ICJ.  

That being said, the film itself isn't that great.  It probably should have just been a straight documentary.  Competition is really stiff in this category, as well, so I'm not giving it good odds.  I watched this on Amazon so you don't have to.  

Song Sung Blue (2025)

Nominated for Best Actress   Welcome to this year's A Star is Born.

Mike "Lightning" Sardina (Hugh Jackman) is a musician struggling to make his mark.  He quits a gig of impersonators but meets Claire (Kate Hudson), a singer and single mom, who encourages him to start his own tribute to Neil Diamond.  The pair grow romantically but seem to falter right on the edge of success as tragedy on top of tragedy strikes.

I was surprised by how many Neil Diamond songs I recognized, despite never really paying attention.  Jackman and Hudson are both trained singers and this is probably one of the most fun nominees this year.  There's still a lot of death and tragedy in it, because the Academy hates joy, but nevertheless.  It's a musical biopic that you can sit and watch with your mom while she reminisces about bands from before you were born.  It verges on a little too sympathetic at times, especially with Mike but I understood why they did it that way.  Also, shoutout to Jim Belushi, who I did not even recognize as Tom.

There's also a documentary on the real couple, if you're interested in that. Song Sung Blue is currently streaming on Peacock.

Butcher's Stain (2025)

Nominated for Best Live Action Short    Catching at least one of the shorts this year.

Samir (Omar Sameer) works as a butcher in an Israeli grocery store until he is accused of tearing down posters of hostages in the breakroom.  He is told by the store manager (Roma Toledano) that someone saw him do it, and if he confesses they can move on with disciplinary actions.  Except Samir knows that he didn't do it and he's being unfairly targeted for being Palestinian.

This is less about Israel-Palestine than it is about toxic workplace cultures and the everpresent threat of poverty.  Samir gets by on the fringes but any kind of issue jeopardizes his entire life.  That's pretty universal.  

This is a moderately long short at 26 minutes and it's streaming on Kanopy with a library card.  It reminds me of the short about a stolen bicycle from a few years back (White Eye).

Elio (2025)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature    

Elio (Yonus Kibreab) is sent to live with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) after the death of his parents.  He becomes fixated on escaping on an alien ship and gets his wish when the Air Force base Aunt Olga works on intercepts a signal responding to the Voyager probe.  Elio is transported to the Communiverse, an intergalactic U.N. where he is mistaken for the supreme leader of Earth and offered the role of ambassador.  But the offer is contingent on removing the threat of the Hylurgians, a warlike race of aliens angry at being denied admission.  Elio is sent to negotiate but ends up kidnapping Glordon (Remy Edgerly), the son of the Hylurgian leader (Brad Garrett).  

This felt a little too much like a Lilo & Stitch clone for me, but it's at least a new character and not a reboot or sequel.  The animation is beautiful and the voice cast is great, as expected from a Pixar film.  I don't know if it's a winner because I haven't seen the competition yet but it's not my favorite.  It's currently streaming on Disney+

The Perfect Neighbor (2025)

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature  Content warning:  racial slurs, gun violence

Susan Lorencs described herself as a perfect neighbor in one of her numerous nuisance calls to police.  She constantly complained about the neighbor kids playing near her apartment, escalating her verbal rhetoric over the course of a year until it reached an inevitably violent end, documented painstakingly through body cam footage of the police responding to her calls.

This was absolutely infuriating to watch.  It is a portrait of entitlement and racism.  Like, I get being an antisocial curmudgeon.  The sound of children's laughter also grates on my nerves.  Do I feel like the Grinch looking down over Whoville every time children scream with joy as they sled down the embankment behind my house?  Yes.  Do I go out and threaten them or yell racial slurs?  No.  Because I am an adult who recognizes that they are CHILDREN and that it is a fucking privilege to have them feel safe enough to play.  And this bitch destroyed a group of children's safety because they were Playing While Black.

This is streaming on Netflix but I am honestly cautioning you if you are sensitive to children being threatened.  It felt a little exploitative when it lingered on the grieving relatives, but I get it.  They're trying to show the extent of the impact.

Blue Moon (2025)

Nominated for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay    Lyracist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) prepares to congratulate his former writing partner, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), on the latter's smash success on Broadway.  

I was really skeptical but this might be Hawke's best performance in 30 years.  This is everything Maestro tried to be and couldn't.  Hawke is pitch-perfect as Hart, desperate to be loved but terrified of being seen, hiding his aching vulnerabilities under a mask of sarcasm and flippancy.  There are other people in the movie, sure, but none of them hold a candle.   As much as I would love to see Michael B. Jordan win, if there's any justice in the world, Best Actor goes to Hawke.  

I think there are stronger contenders for Original Screenplay but I'm not on the Academy.

Production design is great, but the costumes do most of the work establishing a setting and time period.  Especially good is the way they used forced perspective and set design to make 5'10" Hawke into 5'0" Hart.  Best of all, most of it looked practical.

This is not going to be for everyone.  There's a weird Venn diagram of theater diehards and Linklater fans.  But if that's your bag, you are in for a phenomenal performance.  It's currently streaming on Netflix.

Hamnet (2025)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Score, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Casting, Best Production Design, and Best Costumes    Content warning: death of a child, dead animal (hawk)

Agnes (Jessie Buckley) meets and marries her half-siblings' tutor (Paul Mescal) despite a large disparity between their social statuses.  They have three children and the husband finds some success as a playwright in London.  Then their 11-year-old twins catch the plague and one dies.  Grief consumes the family.

I did find it interesting that at no point in the film is Mescal's character named as William Shakespeare.  Even in the subtitles, he's only identified as Husband.  Unfortunately, that's the only interesting thing I found about the movie.  I didn't feel anything except boredom while watching it.  It's very pretty and Mescal and Buckley are putting in work, but one of my biggest pet peeves in a movie is when it focuses on a better piece of art.  The entire last 20 minutes is the finale of Hamlet and it's really good.  Shoutout to Noah Jupe for playing the actor playing Hamlet.  Fun fact: he is the older brother of the kid playing Hamnet.

And I get the impulse to not focus on Shakespeare.  But there's just not enough there to have Agnes be the main character and then also have the final act of Hamlet...which brings the focus back to Shakespeare.  It just felt really scattered.  This is another one of those films where I do not understand the amount of praise being heaped on it.  It felt almost revisionist, like it was trying too hard to tell a story about an unsung Woman of History.  I don't know if that's what it was trying to do but it was a swing and a miss for me.

It's currently still in theaters and available for streaming as Video On Demand on Amazon.

If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You (2025)

Nominated for Best Actress     Content warning:  medical horror, child endangerment, animal death (hamster)

Linda (Rose Byrne), a chronically sleep-deprived mother, is trying to fight a number of battles.  The ceiling of her apartment has collapsed, forcing her and her daughter (Delaney Quinn) to move into a run-down motel.  Her daughter has a feeding tube and requires constant attention, while also weaponizing her condition to manipulate the adults around her.  Linda's job as a psychotherapist is unfulfilling, and her husband (Christian Slater) is absent much of the time while doing his job as a cruise captain, leaving Linda to handle everything in his absence and berating her for not doing it perfectly and without complaint.  Then one of her patients abandons a baby in her office and goes missing.

This was the most claustrophobic movie I have ever seen.  The camera stays so tightly on Byrne, it makes you feel like you are nose-to-nose with her.  Honestly, this would be such a good double-feature with The Babadook.  I'm counting it as horror, even though Wikipedia is claiming this is a comedy-drama.  There was not a single moment of comedy for me, though, so I have no idea what it is talking about.  Just skin-crawling anxiety and stress.  So much more effective than Marty Supreme even though Linda is also an unlikeable character making bad choices, but crucially, remained somewhat sympathetic.  I can't claim that I liked this movie but I can recognize that it worked.

It's currently streaming on HBO Max.

Sentimental Value (2025)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress x2, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing     Content warning:  suicide, torture (in photographs)

Nora (Renate Reinsve) is a working theater actress estranged from her father, Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård), a famous director.  Gustave approaches her about starring in his new narrative feature, but she refuses, so he hires American Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) for the part instead.  Rachel is initially game to be taken more seriously as an actress but soon grows more and more convinced that Gustav doesn't really want her for the role, which is ostensibly about Gustav's mother, Karin (Vilde Søyland), a member of the Norwegian Resistance, but which Rachel realizes is actually about Gustav's relationship with Nora.

I don't know if I can describe how this movie made me feel but it did make me feel.  Everybody in it is phenomenal.  It's so quiet and so deeply emotional.  It could have felt sluggish or melodramatic but it never does.  It's my third favorite Best Picture nominee.  Someone in Movie Club said that they didn't want it to win because it deserves to find its own audience and not be constantly compared to other Best Picture winners, and I agree.  Would not be mad if it got Best International Feature, though.  It's so hard because Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas is so good as Agnes and she deserves all the accolades, but Fanning blew me away.  Her character could have been a total joke but she never treated it like one.  Just a truly beautiful film.

It's still in limited theaters but also on Amazon and AppleTV as Video On Demand.  This is actually worth the money.

Marty Supreme (2025)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Casting, Best Production Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Costume Design     Congrats to Josh Safdie on being the Joel.  Condolences to Benny for being the Ethan.  Content warning:  antisemitic slurs, racial slurs, violence

It is the 1950s and Marty (Timothee Chalamet) is hustling as hard as he can to get the money to compete in international table tennis competitions while avoiding any and all responsibilities.  Nothing matters except achieving his goal of being the top-ranked ping pong player in the world, not a hypochondriac mother (Fran Drescher), not an inconveniently pregnant girlfriend (Odessa A'zion), and especially not the various friends and acquaintances Marty cons or cajoles out of cash.

I had never seen any of the Safdie Brothers' previous works so the only thing I have to compare this to is The Smashing Machine, and you know, every other sports movie ever made.

I did find it interesting that both brothers chose a loose period piece biopic about a forerunner of a niche sport that is a victim of their own hubris.  I think Marty Supreme is the more successful story, even if I disliked the movie, but it is still not great.  It's overly long and haphazardly written.  Y'all, it's not even a good ping pong movie.  No idea why it's being so highly lauded.  Personally, I am not a fan of unpleasant characters being unpleasant.  I think there's enough of that in real life; I don't also need to see it in my escapism.  

This had a cast filled with cameos, some more successful than others.  Apparently, that is a hallmark of Safdie's work, but I wouldn't know.  Everyone seemed very frenetic so it was hard for me to tell who was doing a good job with their parts.  I would be okay if this lost every category.  Right now, it's my second least favorite of all the Best Picture nominees.

It's currently still in theaters and just dropped on Amazon as Video On Demand.  Don't pay money to see this.

F1 (2025)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects    Happy President's Day.  Here's a completely unrelated movie.  Content warning:  car crash, fire

Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is pretty aimless for a racecar driver.  He's a solid workhorse, just happy to be on the track, any track, but missing a certain spark.  His old racing buddy-turned-team-owner, Ruben (Javier Bardem), has a solution: come fill in as a replacement driver for Ruben's Formula One team.  They have a young hotshot (Damson Idris) with a lot of potential, but he needs someone steadier to balance him.  The catch is, if they don't win at least one game of the nine remaining in the season, Ruben will lose the team.

There is zero reason this needed to be three hours long, so throw out that Film Editing nomination right now.   There's a completely unnecessary romance sub-plot and at least three separate training montages that could have be condensed or just cut altogether.  Also, how are you going to make a movie about one of the fastest sports in the world and have it be this slow?  

As a Dad Movie, this is pretty solid.  It's not Ford v Ferrari or Rush, but it's fine.  Plenty of places for Dad to "rest his eyes" in between racing sequences.  It's very gentle and surprisingly quiet, minus the obligatory crash scenes. 

Kerry Condon is totally wasted, as is Bardem.  Pitt is seemingly very happy just to coast along this latter half of his career, and I can't fault him for it.  I don't love that the movie's overall message seems to be "just let the old people have this; your time will come."  I get why the target audience would respond well to it, but I am not that guy.  It feels very "forced slow clap."

There are way better racing movies out there, but F1 is streaming on AppleTV.

The Secret Agent (2025)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Actor, Best International Feature, and Best Casting     Not gonna lie, this was a little hard to follow without a lot of culture-specific context, but it was probably one of the more entertaining entries this year.  Content warning:  violence, blood, dead animal (shark)

Armand (Wagner Moura) is in hiding from the CEO (Luciano Chirolli) of a tech company with ties to the Brazilian government.  He's living under an assumed name in a safehouse but putting everything on the line to keep seeing his son (Enzo Nunes) until he can get forged passports so they can get out of the country.  Meanwhile, a pair of assassins are looking for him.

The title is a bit of a misnomer.  The protagonist isn't involved in anything clandestine or undercover or related to spying.  He's a professor at a university working on energy products.  At the time, the CEO was working for Electrobras, the government-run electricity company, and pressuring the professor to can certain projects, or give up patents, in order to make himself wealthy in the private sector.  There's probably more to it but I don't know enough specifics about Brazil's military dictatorship.  Anyway, I think the title is a reference to the TV show Armand and his kid are watching, but I'm just guessing.  

I thought this was really entertaining, despite how little I understood.  There were so many weird little characters living fully fleshed-out lives.  It's great.  Best casting, if you're counting everybody.  Everything else is kind of a miss.  But super worth watching.  I rented it on Amazon because I had credits.  Otherwise, it would have been $20, which is ridiculous.  Just wait a couple of weeks and it'll drop on Hulu or HBO Max.

Bugonia (2025)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score    Happy Valentine's Day!  Here's a completely unrelated movie.  Content warning:  blood, violence against women, allusion to sexual abuse, suicide (gun)

Teddy (Jesse Plemmons) has figured it out.  There are aliens amongst us and they have been fucking over the planet.  He knows this because he did his own research on YouTube and Reddit.  And he has a plan.  He is going to kidnap a high-ranking alien who just so happens to look exactly like the CEO of the company he works for, Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), whose experimental drug almost killed his mom (Alica Silverstone), and use said alien to negotiate the peaceful surrender and retreat from Earth of all aliens.

The premise makes the movie sound light-hearted and funny but it's really not.  It's probably the tamest Lanthimos film yet, which is also not great.  It ends up just being fine, instead of interesting or cool or provocative or even just weird.  

Stone is great but isn't doing anything really new.  Plemmons nails the tone of desperate dipshit that's just a little too unhinged to be sympathetic but didn't score a nomination.  Could easily have replaced one of the two Supporting Actor noms OBAA got, but whatever.  Nobody asked me.  Silverstone is damn near unrecognizable.  

I will say, this is the first Lanthimos film I've seen that didn't have a completely unnecessary scene of animal abuse (unless you count actors as animals).  Progress?  I haven't seen the original Korean film this is adapted from, so no idea on that.  Score is good, though.  

Train Dreams (2025)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Song   Content warning:  racist violence, animal death (elk)

Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) searches his life for meaning in the face of tragedies while working as a logger in the late 19th century Pacific Northwest.

On paper, this is not a film I thought I would enjoy.  It's paced very deliberately, the characters are bare sketches, and the cinematography centers on nature.  I hated Tree of Life for less.  But Train Dreams resonated in a way none of Terence Malick's films ever have.  Maybe Clint Bradley is just a better director for me.  

It is slow and incredibly sad, interspersed with sudden violence.  Bit like life, really.  Edgerton doesn't have a lot of lines but he does a lot of emoting.  It is heavily Vibes-based and will not be for everyone.  I recently had a death in the family so that may have been a factor in how well I responded to it.  It's probably my second choice for Best Picture but I seriously doubt it's actually going to win.  I don't think it will get anything, honestly.  It's too quiet and unassuming.  I will say that I absolutely hated the Nick Cave song at the end.  It felt so jarring tonally and did not work for me at all.  

It is streaming on Netflix.

The Ugly Stepsister (2025)

Nominated for:  Best Hair and Makeup    Ah, our first Women's Horror entry of the year.  This was a total surprise to see on the Oscar list.  Content warning:  medical horror, body horror, worms/maggots, some gore, blood, vomit

All Elvira (Lea Myren) wants to do is marry Prince Julien (Isac Calmroth), but she is plain of looks and poor in class.  There's a chance that her mother, Rebeka's (Ane Dahl Torp) new husband (Ralph Carlsson) can raise their social profile but he already has a beautiful daughter, Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Naess).  And then he dies and it turns out he had a title but no money.  With the ball to determine Prince Julien's bride coming up, Rebeka ruthlessly makes over Elvira to compete with her stepsister --who has literal magic.  

This movie is very funny in the way it highlights how fucked up it is to pit women against each other.  It is a deeply feminist retelling of Cinderella that surprisingly keeps a number of supernatural elements from the original fairy tale.  It does change the ending slightly, which is nice, but amps up the gross-out factors with a trip to a plastic surgeon and a, shall we say, all-natural approach to a miracle weight loss drug.  If you are at all squeamish, this is not for you.  Pretty hurts, y'all.  

The Swedes are much less prudish than American audiences so there is some full-frontal nudity in case the words "violence" and "torture" weren't enough to convince you not to let your children watch this.  It's not Disney's Cinderella.  (One sex scene in the barn is made even more awkward by constant cuts to reaction shots by the horses.  They are not involved but the editing suggests that they are enthusiastic voyeurs.)

Myren carries this movie admirably.  You can visibly see her desperation to stand out and her crushing despair when none of her efforts are deemed worthy.  Special shoutout to Flo Fagerli, who plays Elvira's younger sister, Alma.  She doesn't get a lot of lines, but her facial expressions convey everything you need to know about her.  

The Ugly Stepsister is streaming on Shudder and Hulu.  Hulu also has an English dub, if you're a coward.

The Smashing Machine (2025)

Nominated for Best Hair and MakeupContent warning:  drug use, violence, suicide attempt

Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) was a championship wrestler who became a forerunner in Mixed Martial Arts/Ultimate Fighting spaces in the late 90s and early 00s.  His first professional loss coincided with the mounting toll fighting put on his body and his toxic relationship with his girlfriend (Emily Blunt) to kick off a drug addiction and subsequent overdose, which is helpfully faced and overcome in the first 30 minutes of the movie.  

So I'm going to address some aspects as tactfully as I can without disrespecting Mark Kerr, a real person, or UFC fighters, who work and train really hard, or even UFC fans.  

This movie didn't need to be made.

It especially didn't need to be a boilerplate biopic complete with training montages.  For a guy who lost ONCE.  Again, no shade.  The first time you fail at something is really hard, and the longer it takes for you to fail, the harder it is.  That's why it's better to learn that lesson as early as possible so you develop the coping skills you need to deal with future failures.  But it does not feel like particularly high stakes in the film, so the resulting come-apart feels like an overreaction.

This was directed by one half of the Safdie Brothers (Benny).  Later, we'll watch Marty Supreme which is directed by the other one (Josh) and see which brother has been carrying the other.

The movie really wants Dawn the girlfriend to be the villain, if there is one, without ever once acknowledging Mark's own toxic behavior.  There's some commentary to be made there but I frankly don't have the energy to spend any more time on it while the gushing fanboy glaze is catching so much light.  I'm not going to discount the effort fighters put in, the time and energy --mental and physical-- analyzing their own and opponents' tactics and strategies.  That's real and valid.  But you are getting beat up by a stranger for money.  You're not curing cancer.  There is zero reason for you to have a full "Know His Name" end title card like you're Rosa Parks.  It comes off as silly and indulgent.

Still, if you are interested in one of the foundational members of UFC, The Smashing Machine is streaming on HBO Max.

The Big Heat (1953)

 I had a couple of days off unexpectedly because of the snowstorm so I watched this with my friends.  It's one of my absolute favorite noirs.  Content warning:  violence against women

Philly cop Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is investigating the suicide of another policeman, Tom Duncan, which seems pretty cut-and-dry until Duncan's mistress (Dorothy Green) comes forward to contradict the grieving widow's (Jeanette Nolan) assertion that Duncan was in poor health.  Then the mistress ends up dead and Bannion is warned not to keep pursuing the matter.  Obviously, now he can't let it go and decides to go straight to the top and confront mob boss Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby).  

This is a very straightforward noir that doesn't spend a lot of time on how Bannion solves the case.  He mostly just yells at people until someone tries to kill him.  This is apparently good police work.  But who cares?  The important people in this movie are the women.  Ice-cold Bertha Duncan.  World-weary Lucy Chapman.  Katie Bannion, the paragon of housewife-ly virtue.  And top of them all, bored, callous, gun moll with a heart of gold Debby Marsh, played by the criminally underrated Gloria Grahame.  

What's great about this movie is how it subverts the tropes that were already well-established by giving Debby the emotional impetus, instead of Bannion.  **SPOILERS FOLLOW** Bannion gets a little when he confronts Katie's killer, but Debby's reaction to her disfigurement and subsequent path of revenge, leading ultimately to her blowing the lid off the whole criminal conspiracy maker her a much bigger catalyst to the plot.  **END SPOILERS**  Even though she does ultimately fall prey to the Hays Code-imposed morality, she has much more agency than other femmes fatales of the era.

The Big Heat is one of the most highly regarded noirs by critics, so you don't have to just take my word for it.  It is well worth your time.  It's unfortunately not available for streaming but I already owned it so I just watched my copy.

As a side note, apparently the studio originally wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part of Debby Marsh, which would have been fascinating.  

One Battle After Another (2025)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actor x2, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Casting    So this was the big frontrunner before Sinners came in and dominated the nominations and I'll be real with you, this doesn't live up to the hype at all.  Not only is it not one of "the best films of the year," it's not even a particularly good comedy.  

Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) used to be a revolutionary with the group French75.  His girlfriend (Teyana Taylor) ditches him with their baby, then gets rolled up by the cops, forcing Bob to go into hiding.  Sixteen years later, the cop that was leading the charge against them, Col. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), is up for membership in a prestigious secret society but needs to tie up some loose ends.  Bob spends his days in a paranoid haze of alcohol and weed while his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), is blissfully unaware of the past that is bearing down upon them both.

Look, if goofy stoner action comedies are your thing, great.  You will probably like this movie.  I found it interminable.  It's basically a weirdly horny Taken meets The Pineapple Express.  I have no idea why it's been nominated for 13 Oscars.  It for sure only needed one Supporting Actor nod, if that.  Benecio Del Toro is fine but he did not need a nomination for this.  Teyana Taylor is also fine but did not need to be nominated, especially just for being hot and DTF.  It reminded me of when everyone went nuts for Katherine Waterston's performance in Inherent Vice, when all she did was be naked and die off-screen.  Actually, this was written by the same director as Inherent Vice, so that tracks.  

I've also seen this touted as somehow politically divisive and uhhhhhh... not really?  It's not actually taking any kind of stand beyond "do what you believe in."  If that is the bar for political activism, we are fucked, folks.  You could have set this in the 70s with the Weather Underground and it would have been the exact same story.  All the jokes are tired retreads about liberal purity in-fighting and right-wing shadowy cabals of the lamest sort.  

It's streaming on HBO Max but save yourself some time and skip this one.

Sorcerer (1977)

  Content warning:  terrorism, suicide (gun)  Ah, yes, the American remake that manages to remove all anti-American sentiment from the original.

Four ex-pats hiding from their criminal pasts take a dangerous job hauling nitroglycerin over bad road in order to get enough money to claw their way out of this one-horse town in the South American jungle.

Because I watched them back to back, it's almost impossible for me to not compare this to Wages of Fear.  Let me start by saying, both movies are excellent.  You cannot go wrong if you decide to only watch one, no matter which one you choose.  Personally, I'd give the edge to Sorcerer for tension, only because of the rope bridge scenes, which are absolutely harrowing and must have been a total nightmare to film.  William Friedkin, the director, shot on location in the Dominican Republic and the rain and mud and heat are palpable.  Considering the Arctic temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic region right now, it was nice to pretend to be warm again.  

Some other differences:  Sorcerer includes little mini-prologues of backstory for the four main characters, where Wages leaves them open for interpretation.  Sorcerer shifts the oil company management to the local regime, instead of the USA, removing Wages' commentary on colonialism.  It changes the circumstances of a major character death as well as the ending, which is still bleak but less existential.  Basically, if you read my review of Wages and thought, "sounds good but a little too French," Sorcerer is for you.  It's also streaming in its entirety on YouTube.  

Hilariously, this opened the same weekend in 1977 as Star Wars: A New Hope and got immediately shunted to the bottom of the box office.  It was enormously over budget and a huge flop which just goes to show that timing is everything and that you shouldn't use a box office gross as a marker of quality.  This is a great film and I look forward to forcing my friends to watch it.

The Wages of Fear (1953)

  Starting off the year with some depressing French shit, courtesy of Movie Club.  Content warning:  animal abuse, violence against women

Mario (Yves Montand), Jo (Charles Vanel), Bimba (Peter Van Eyck), and Luigi (Folco Lulli) are hired to drive trucks of nitroglycerin over 300 miles of bad road and jungle and deliver them to an American oil field.  The men start as hard, desperate drifters but as the conditions deteriorate and death becomes almost certain, their inner truths are revealed.

This is not a fun, uplifting movie.  It is bleak in the way only really French films can be.  Which is not to say it's a bad film.  It maintains the tension of man vs nature throughout the run time (nearly two and a half hours, so plan accordingly).  Just don't go in expecting any kind of warm and fuzzy moments.  It's mostly in French with some Spanish, English, and Italian thrown in so make sure you have subtitles on.  The funniest thing about the film is precisely how little has changed in the social commentary.

It's available for streaming on HBO Max, or on Kanopy if you have a library card.

The Matrix (1999)

  There was a minor interruption in services here because of a family emergency and then my Internet was out.  Time is fake and nothing matters.  There is only snow. 

A programmer who moonlights as a hacker for hire named Neo (Keanu Reeves) is recruited by a shadowy group only to learn that his world doesn't actually exist.  It's a fantasy projected by machines that have taken over the earth and use human beings as living batteries.  Having been woken from the collective dream, Neo struggles to understand his place in this dystopian resistance.

It is hard to overestimate what an impact this had on pop culture in 1999.  I just watched it with some friends who had never seen the whole thing before and it was great to be able to see pieces click into place for them.  It still holds up really well, although some of the effects look dated.  This was such an innovative film, though, you can't even be mad about it.  It literally created new camera rigs to pull off some of the effects.  The sequels shouldn't exist because they are shameless cash grabs but you can never say The Matrix isn't a stone-cold classic sci-fi movie.

Because we also live in a dystopian hellscape, it's only available for streaming through the MGM+ app but you should really just buy it.  

Oscar Nominations 2026

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The nominations are out!  And they look...a lot like the Critics' Choice nominations.  This is to be expected.  However!  There was a lot more love for horror movies this year, which is a hugely positive development.  

Best Picture

Bugonia
F1
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Train Dreams

F1 is a little surprising for Best Picture but the rest are basically the same as Critics' Choice and Golden Globes.  I'm already two up, so yay, me.

Best Director

Chloe Zhao - Hamnet
Josh Safdie - Marty Supreme
Paul Thomas Anderson - One Battle After Another
Joachim Trier - Sentimental Value
Ryan Coogler - Sinners

Again, no surprises.  This category has historically been dominated by the same names over and over so it's nice to see some relatively new faces.  Not really refuting the #OscarsSoWhite but Zhao is pulling double duty as both the token woman and a POC.

Best Actor

Timothee Chalamet - Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio - One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke - Blue Moon
Michael B. Jordan - Sinners
Wagner Moura - The Secret Agent

In a just world, Jordan walks away with this.  It's a dual performance, meaning he literally did twice the work.

Best Actress

Jessie Buckley - Hamnet
Rose Byrne - If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You
Kate Hudson - Song Sung Blue
Renate Reinsve - Sentimental Value
Emma Stone - Bugonia

As usual, this is a much more competitive category.  Buckley is the favorite but you can't discount Byrne or Stone.  Hudson is a surprise contender, sneaking the spot from Ariana Grande or Cynthia Erivo, I suspect.

Best Supporting Actor

Benecio Del Toro - One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi - Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo - Sinners
Sean Penn - One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgard - Sentimental Value

I would love to see Lindo win for this.  He gave a phenomenal performance and he is overdue to be recognized.

Best Supporting Actress

Elle Fanning - Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas - Sentimental Value
Amy Madigan - Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku - Sinners
Teyana Taylor - One Battle After Another

Interesting that Fanning got put in Supporting when she was up for Lead in the Critics' Choice and Golden Globes.  Madigan is the big upset inclusion and it would be great (for all horror fans) if she won but I don't think it's super likely.  Likewise, it's great to see Mosaku (who has quietly been putting out great performance after great performance for years) get recognized but that's probably all she's getting.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Train Dreams

No surprises here.

Best Original Screenplay

Blue Moon
It Was Just an Accident
Marty Supreme
Sentimental Value
Sinners

My fear is that Sinners will only win here, like Straight Outta Compton, because the Academy is more interested in looking progressive than actually being progressive. Hope I'm wrong.

Best Animated Feature

Arco
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Little Amelie or the Character of Rain
Zootopia 2

This is the exact same lineup as the Critics' Choice.

Best International Feature

The Secret Agent - Brazil
It Was Just an Accident - France
Sentimental Value - Norway
Sirat - Spain
The Voice of Hind Rajab - Tunisia

Lockstep with the other awards.

Best Documentary Feature

The Alabama Solution
Come See Me in the Good Light
Cutting Through Rocks
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
The Perfect Neighbor

The only two I've heard anything about are Come and See Me, which looks depressing as fuck, and Perfect Neighbor, which is on Netflix.

Best Animated Short

Butterfly
Forevergreen
The Girl Who Cried Pearls
Retirement Plan
The Three Sisters

Best Casting

Nina Gold - Hamnet
Jennifer Venditti - Marty Supreme
Cassandra Kulukundis - One Battle After Another
Gabriel Domingues - The Secret Agent
Francine Maisler - Sinners

This is a new category and interestingly, a career field dominated by women.  I feel like it's going to go however the nominees for Best Picture go, but we'll see.

Best Cinematography

Frankenstein - Dan Laustsen
Marty Supreme - Darius Khondji
One Battle After Another - Michael Bauman
Sinners - Autumn Durald Arkapaw
Train Dreams - Adolpho Veloso

All new names this year.  Exciting.

Best Costume Design

Avatar: Fire and Ash
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Sinners

Okay, so I have some quibbles with Avatar being included here.  Nearly the entire movie is CGI, so exactly which costumes are we highlighting here?  Like, I get it, but I am side-eyeing it.

Best Documentary Short

All the Empty Rooms
Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud
Children No More: "Were and Are Gone"
The Devil is Busy
Perfectly a Strangeness

Best Film Editing

F1
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners

Best Live-Action Short

Butcher's Stain
A Friend of Dorothy
Jane Austen's Period Drama
The Singers
Two People Exchanging Saliva

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Frankenstein
Kokuhu
Sinners
The Smashing Machine
The Ugly Stepsister

Several surprises here.  More horror!  The Smashing Machine kind of feels like even more of a snub, somehow, by being included here.  And I've never even heard of Kokuhu.  No idea.

Best Original Score

Bugonia - Jerskin Fendrix
Frankenstein - Alexandre Desplat
Hamnet - Max Richter
One Battle After Another - Jonny Greenwood
Sinners - Ludwig Goransson

Best Original Song

"Dear Me" - Diane Warren: Relentless
"Golden" - KPop Demon Hunters
"I Lied to You" - Sinners
"Sweet Dreams of Joy" - Viva Verdi!
"Train Dreams" - Train Dreams

Couple of odd little inclusions considering the distinct absence of Wicked: For Good.

Best Production Design

Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners

All these categories are the same movies.  It just makes for such a boring ceremony.

Best Sound

F1
Frankenstein
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Sirat

Best Visual Effects

Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Jurassic World: Rebirth
The Lost Bus
Sinners

Rebirth flopped super hard so I am surprised it's included here.  Like the Academy thought it should have been a blockbuster because it's a franchise.

So there you have it.  Ceremony is March 15th so we have a little less than two months to get everything in bold watched.  The good news is that, thanks to all the repeats, we've knocked out a few of the major contenders already.