NonP
Legend
I'd like to provide at least a capsule review for all the nominees - apart from Jojo Rabbit which I maintain a bemused detachment to and Tarantino's latest odious revenge fantasy whose rapport with the critics continues to vex and mystify me - but since the Oscars are about to start (OK have begun but bear with me) I'll just give my crystal ball a quick rub and add however much I can. (For the record I expect this to be my last Oscar coverage here, so I'll try to get to those capsule reviews later on.)
Let's go:
Best Picture - It's expected to be a close call between Parasite and 1917, and while I'm not quite sold on Bong Joon-ho's supposedly genre-hopping proletarian cri de coeur I hope it wins. Sam Mendes' WWI film may mean much to him - it's inspired in part by the firsthand experience of his paternal grandfather to whom the film is dedicated - and directors as diverse as Rossellini, Ichikawa and Eastwood have challenged Truffaut's famous pronouncement that there's no such thing as an antiwar film, but Mendes ain't one of 'em. Compared to their harrowing masterworks 1917 feels like a child's walk in the park, almost inadvertently so as it tells the (successful*) story of two young soldiers' effort to deliver a message across enemy territory to another battalion, and it's hard to see why we should care whether it was truly shot in one take, an ignoble technical gimmick it (partly) shares with its foreign counterpart Long Day's Journey into Night.
That's not to say I have no serious misgivings about Bong's opus itself, probably the biggest critical hit of the year. Some of you may recall yours truly bemoaning the recent tendency of Cannes to bestow the Palme d'or on films that presume to speak for the working class, and I'm afraid Parasite belongs to the same fashionable, shall we say, genre one might call Cannes for the proletariat. Does it really matter that this or any other film hops such traditional genres as comedy and thriller while failing to even raise the question of whether said proletariat characters indeed desire to burn it all down and start all over, when their real-life counterparts would probably be content to earn a livable wage in order to support their family, become respectable and perhaps pursue potential partners or lifelong dreams just like the rest of us? The majority of critics seem to think so, if they've cared to ask the question in the first place.
Having said that I'm still pulling for Bong to take home the Oscar and shake up Hollywood's stranglehold on the movie industry. For pure aesthetic pleasure I do prefer Gerwig's Little Women, but it's time for the Academy to join the 21st century. (As Parasite has been playing virtually nonstop in mainstream US theaters since last October there's absolutely no excuse for denying it the Best Picture Oscar.)
*One could add Kubrick's own observation about Schindler's List, namely that it's about one thousand people who lived whereas the Holocaust is about six million people who died.
Actor in a Leading Role - I'm puzzled by the rapturous encomiums showered on Antonio Banderas in Pain and Glory who's clearly delivered better performances over his illustrious career (including as Antonio Benítez in Almodóvar's own Law of Desire), but I still expect Joaquin Phoenix to walk away with the trophy, thanks to the Academy's seemingly never-ending love affair with theatrics. (Adam Driver has reaped similar rewards if to a lesser extent.) Who should win, though? I say Jonathan Price, whose ruminative turn as Pope Francis was, along with Anthony Hopkins' equally commanding Pope Benedict, the biggest highlight of Fernando Meirelles' relatively faceless The Two Popes.
(For the record Adam Sandler deserved this, but Uncut Gems was entirely shut out of this year's Oscar race.)
Actress in a Leading Role - Renée Zellweger is the heavy favorite here for Judy and as Oscar-baiting performances go hers is among the less objectionable, but picture the film's namesake in a similar role and you've got a classic example of the difference between genius and talent*. For personal preference I'm torn between Scarlett Johansson and Saoirse Ronan and wouldn't mind either pick.
*I must say I also wasn't bowled over by Mary Kay Place as another namesake in Diane. For starters I doubt Place has ever gotten p!ss drunk in her life, and I also suspect that the film would've gotten even less notice from the critical community had it not been directed by one of their own (and best) in Kent Jones.
Actor in a Supporting Role - Another odds-on favorite (zzz...), and Brad Pitt was admittedly one of the bright spots in an otherwise dubious tribute to mayhem and frat bromance, but I favor Tom Hanks as the iconic Mr. Rogers in Marielle Heller's largely overlooked A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. If you've seen the previous year's hit documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? you may share my same ambivalent impression of everyone's favorite uncle as an unmistakably kind but profoundly elusive individual whose pervasive sense of gentle melancholy (which the Japanese might call mono no aware) informed everything he did - I must say I still don't think I'd enjoy meeting the man in person - and while I haven't entirely ditched my view of Hanks as Hollywood's male Meryl Streep he cuts an extraordinary Mr. Rogers here. Wouldn't mind Hopkins winning, either.
Actress in a Supporting Role - Laura Dern is expected to win (hey I'm just the messenger), and given that she put in another standout (lead) performance in Trial by Fire I won't object too much to the outcome. But my money is on Florence Pugh. Amy March can be something of a thankless role as she is something of a thankless character, and it's to Pugh's immense credit that her Amy arguably emerges as the richest character in the latest film adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic.
(To be continued....)
Let's go:
Best Picture - It's expected to be a close call between Parasite and 1917, and while I'm not quite sold on Bong Joon-ho's supposedly genre-hopping proletarian cri de coeur I hope it wins. Sam Mendes' WWI film may mean much to him - it's inspired in part by the firsthand experience of his paternal grandfather to whom the film is dedicated - and directors as diverse as Rossellini, Ichikawa and Eastwood have challenged Truffaut's famous pronouncement that there's no such thing as an antiwar film, but Mendes ain't one of 'em. Compared to their harrowing masterworks 1917 feels like a child's walk in the park, almost inadvertently so as it tells the (successful*) story of two young soldiers' effort to deliver a message across enemy territory to another battalion, and it's hard to see why we should care whether it was truly shot in one take, an ignoble technical gimmick it (partly) shares with its foreign counterpart Long Day's Journey into Night.
That's not to say I have no serious misgivings about Bong's opus itself, probably the biggest critical hit of the year. Some of you may recall yours truly bemoaning the recent tendency of Cannes to bestow the Palme d'or on films that presume to speak for the working class, and I'm afraid Parasite belongs to the same fashionable, shall we say, genre one might call Cannes for the proletariat. Does it really matter that this or any other film hops such traditional genres as comedy and thriller while failing to even raise the question of whether said proletariat characters indeed desire to burn it all down and start all over, when their real-life counterparts would probably be content to earn a livable wage in order to support their family, become respectable and perhaps pursue potential partners or lifelong dreams just like the rest of us? The majority of critics seem to think so, if they've cared to ask the question in the first place.
Having said that I'm still pulling for Bong to take home the Oscar and shake up Hollywood's stranglehold on the movie industry. For pure aesthetic pleasure I do prefer Gerwig's Little Women, but it's time for the Academy to join the 21st century. (As Parasite has been playing virtually nonstop in mainstream US theaters since last October there's absolutely no excuse for denying it the Best Picture Oscar.)
*One could add Kubrick's own observation about Schindler's List, namely that it's about one thousand people who lived whereas the Holocaust is about six million people who died.
Actor in a Leading Role - I'm puzzled by the rapturous encomiums showered on Antonio Banderas in Pain and Glory who's clearly delivered better performances over his illustrious career (including as Antonio Benítez in Almodóvar's own Law of Desire), but I still expect Joaquin Phoenix to walk away with the trophy, thanks to the Academy's seemingly never-ending love affair with theatrics. (Adam Driver has reaped similar rewards if to a lesser extent.) Who should win, though? I say Jonathan Price, whose ruminative turn as Pope Francis was, along with Anthony Hopkins' equally commanding Pope Benedict, the biggest highlight of Fernando Meirelles' relatively faceless The Two Popes.
(For the record Adam Sandler deserved this, but Uncut Gems was entirely shut out of this year's Oscar race.)
Actress in a Leading Role - Renée Zellweger is the heavy favorite here for Judy and as Oscar-baiting performances go hers is among the less objectionable, but picture the film's namesake in a similar role and you've got a classic example of the difference between genius and talent*. For personal preference I'm torn between Scarlett Johansson and Saoirse Ronan and wouldn't mind either pick.
*I must say I also wasn't bowled over by Mary Kay Place as another namesake in Diane. For starters I doubt Place has ever gotten p!ss drunk in her life, and I also suspect that the film would've gotten even less notice from the critical community had it not been directed by one of their own (and best) in Kent Jones.
Actor in a Supporting Role - Another odds-on favorite (zzz...), and Brad Pitt was admittedly one of the bright spots in an otherwise dubious tribute to mayhem and frat bromance, but I favor Tom Hanks as the iconic Mr. Rogers in Marielle Heller's largely overlooked A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. If you've seen the previous year's hit documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? you may share my same ambivalent impression of everyone's favorite uncle as an unmistakably kind but profoundly elusive individual whose pervasive sense of gentle melancholy (which the Japanese might call mono no aware) informed everything he did - I must say I still don't think I'd enjoy meeting the man in person - and while I haven't entirely ditched my view of Hanks as Hollywood's male Meryl Streep he cuts an extraordinary Mr. Rogers here. Wouldn't mind Hopkins winning, either.
Actress in a Supporting Role - Laura Dern is expected to win (hey I'm just the messenger), and given that she put in another standout (lead) performance in Trial by Fire I won't object too much to the outcome. But my money is on Florence Pugh. Amy March can be something of a thankless role as she is something of a thankless character, and it's to Pugh's immense credit that her Amy arguably emerges as the richest character in the latest film adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic.
(To be continued....)
