Category: Nominees – 2020s

2021 – King Richard

Before watching this film, I was talking about it with a friend who told me that it was a really good movie.  I said that I just wasn’t terribly interested in the subject matter.  I’ve never been a tennis fan, and I never followed the careers of Venus or Serena Williams.  But he replied that that didn’t matter, and insisted that it was just a good movie, despite my lack of interest in the sport.  I’m happy to say that he was absolutely right.  I enjoyed the drama of the film, and even found myself getting into the tennis aspect, as well.

First of all, this movie was about more than just the superstar tennis players, the Williams sisters.  And it was even about more than the inspired father who guided the girls into greatness, after whom the film was named.  This was a movie that was inspirational and had that feel good quality.  At the end of the film, you just feel good about the story.  It not only tells the story of how Venus and Serena began their spectacular careers, but how they did it with great attitudes, grace, humility, and respect for themselves and the game.  I don’t mean to sound hokey, but they were clean in spirit and that really stood out to me, and I think that was part of what made the movie special.

Will Smith played the lead as Richard Williams, the patriarch of the family.  If the film is to be believed as historically accurate, and according to the filmmakers, it is, he conceived of a plan to make superstars of his kids before they were even born.  One of the first things he talks about in the movie is his seventy-eight page plan for his daughters and their tennis careers.  He spends their lives training them on the public tennis courts in Compton, California, bringing them to a level of skill where a professional trainer can take them on for free because of their unlimited potential.  The coach’s payment would come out of their future earnings, which, per his plan, would be in the millions.  It’s an ambitious plan.

As always, Will Smith turned in a fantastic performance, and honestly I hope it won’t be his last.  Unfortunately, I can’t write this review without mentioning what has become known as the Oscar Slap.  I’ll try to be brief.  After Smith won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in King Richard, Oscar host Chris Rock made an incredibly insensitive joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, Will’s wife, and Will lost control of himself.  He walked onto the stage and smacked Rock in the face.  I won’t comment on whether it was right or wrong, or if it was justified or not.  What I will say is that I haven’t seen his name in any new film roles since then, and I hope he hasn’t ruined his career, because he really is a fantastic actor.

But he wasn’t the only great member of the cast.  I was also very impressed with Aunjanue Ellis who played Richard’s wife, Oracene Price.  She was a great match for Smith and did a great job in both the argument scenes and the tender moments.  She played the strong mother and the devoted wife with equal conviction, and I loved her performance.  And I can’t forget the children.  There were five in all.  Oracene’s three children from her first marriage, Tunde, Isha, and Lyndrea Price, played respectively by Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew, Danielle Lawson, and Layla Crawford, were good.

But it was the two girls playing the young Venus and Serena who were, of course, the heart of the narrative.  Saniyya Sidney played Venus, who the movie really focused on, as it was Venus whose career began sooner than her sister.  But I can’t ignore Demi Singleton, who played Serena.  They both did a fantastic job, but for very different performances.  In the film, Venus got all the attention, and Sidney had to play with that dynamic. But Singleton had to play the sister with just as much talent and potential, who had to live in Venus’s shadow.

I felt really bad for the character of Serena because it was true.  She seemed to be getting the short end of the stick.  Now, we all know that Serena made just as big a name for herself as her sister did, so we always know her turn will come, but the timeframe of the film was before that happened.  One of the best little scenes in the movie is where Richard joins Serena on the sidelines and explains to her that yes, for now Venus is going to be the best tennis player in the world.  But he confidently tells Serena that she is going to be the best there ever was.  To me, that scene was so important.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the two coaches: Tony Goldwyn, playing Paul Cohen, and Jon Bernthal, playing Rick Macci.  They both did a great job, especially Bernthal.  They both had to portray the same difficulty and exasperation of dealing with Richard who, though his plan was unconventional and, quite honestly, presumptuous, was ultimately right.  They saw the talent and potential in the girls, and went out of their way to help them.

This was a good movie.  It doesn’t matter if you are a tennis fan or of you are a fan of the Williams sisters.  It was just a good movie, and I’m glad it was nominated for Best picture.  This movie, to me, seems to embody what a Best picture nominee should be.  It was historically accurate, dramatic, inspirational, wholesome, well-acted, well-directed, intense, heart-warming, and easy to watch. 

Licorice Pizza – 2021

OK, I don’t get it.  Whatever it is about this movie that earned it a Best Picture nomination, I don’t understand.  First, and foremost, I found the movie pretty close to dull and uninteresting.  I wasn’t invested in any of the characters, and when I mention the characters, I mean there were really only two, but I’ll get to that in a moment.  This is a coming-of-age movie, a genre that has rarely held much interest for me in the first place.  But to get me invested in the story, the movie lacked the benefit of having relatable or even likable characters.  The actors were fine, but the parts they played were just… jerks.

The film followed the young romance between the fifteen year-old Gary, and the twenty-five year-old Alana, played by Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim.  It is important to note that this was the debut film for both actors, and they played their parts quite admirably.  I don’t know if I was supposed to like the characters they played, but I just didn’t.  Alana was mean and manipulative.  Gary was like a sleazy sexual predator who objectified women.  And by the end of the movie, I just didn’t really care if they ended up together or not, though you knew they would.

And as I mentioned, these were really the only characters in the film.  Every other actor in the movie was either a walk on role with a minimum of screen time, or a character who was often on the screen, but rarely addressed or acknowledged.  And that’s a strange thing because some very recognizable names were in the movie, like Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Maya Rudolph, Tom Waits, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis.  You’d think that with names like that, they would have used them a little more.  As it was, they each got a very minimal amount of screen time.  They were like glorified cameos, appearing in a single sequence, and then never seen again.  The only story arc that lasted more than a single scene was that of the two leads, Gary and Alana.

Another thing I didn’t particularly care for was the plot.  The movie depended a little too much on the will they or won’t they trope.  They’re friends, they’re fighting.  They’re friends again, they’re fighting again.  And we all know they were going to end up together because right near the beginning of the movie, Gary tells his younger brother, “I just met the girl I’m going to marry.”  So I never really doubted that his prediction would come true.

I think that one of the things that the movie, as a whole, banked too much on was the whole nostalgia angle.  The story took place in 1973, and the clothes, the hairstyles, the cars, and the general aesthetics were all very period specific.  But unless you were already culturally aware that year, none of the nostalgia had much meaning.  The movie was written, directed, and produced by Paul Anderson.  In my reading, I learned that most of the film directly reflected his own childhood and experiences, or those of a friend of his.  I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just didn’t find his childhood experiences that interesting to watch on-screen.

As for the performances of Haim and Hoffman, I’d have to say that they were both good, but there were moments when Hoffman was great.  He played a teenager who seemed to have the maturity, ambition, and charm of a man in his twenties, and Hoffman pulled it off well.  When his face first appeared on the screen, I immediately recognized his resemblance to his famous father Philip Seymour Hoffman, and it was clear he inherited some of his dad’s skills as an actor.  Haim was competent, but nothing to really write home about.

And I also have to make note of Bradley Cooper, playing the part of Jon Peters, who was, in 1973, dating Barbara Streisand.  His scene was funny because cooper played the movie mogul as a womanizer who was high on something.  He was actually pretty funny.  But again, he was in a short sequence of the film and then never seen again.  We never saw anyone playing Streisand, but we did see Christine Ebersole playing Lucille Ball, though in the credits, she is listed as Lucy Doolittle, though why they had to change her last name is beyond me, especially since they were very specific about other historical figures.

And finally, I have to comment on the film’s title.  Licorice Pizza.  Why was the film titled Licorice Pizza?  It was never mentioned, nor was it ever made reference to in the movie.  Well, it is because the director, Paul Thomas Anderson, was quoted as saying “If there’s two words that make me kind of have a Pavlovian response and memory of being a child and running around, it’s ‘licorice’ and ‘pizza.’ It instantly takes me back to that time.”  The problem is that if you weren’t aware that there was a chain of record stores in Los Angeles called Licorice Pizza Record Store, then the title would mean nothing to you.  It wouldn’t bring back memories or inspire nostalgia.  It would just be confusing, like it was to me.

But I’m not saying this was a bad movie. It just didn’t really stand out to me as Best Picture material.  It had some good acting, I suppose, and it had a good 70s and earlier rock music soundtrack, and a couple of interesting cameos.  But for me, that was about it, and I wanted something more.  And when you put it next to some of the other nominees for 2021, it just didn’t compare.

Don’t Look Up – 2021

Finally!  Finally, there is a dark comedy that is done right, at least by my own definition of a dark comedy.  You see, when a movie genre has the word comedy in it, I expect there to be some humor, something to laugh at.  But most dark comedies are just satirical, ironic, or just plain dramatic.  They have a habit of taking a very serious subject matter and simply show you how sad it is that reality really is that absurd or tragic.  But not this movie.  Yes, there was a bit of that in there, but there were also actual funny moments that made me laugh out loud. 

This movie went over the top and out of its way to hold up a mirror to our current society and showed us how messed up certain things are by taking those serious things to an extreme that is beyond our reailty today, though not too far beyond… 

The plot of the movie followed several serious scientists, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and Rob Morgan, who have discovered a comet that is on a collision course with Earth.  It is so big that unless something is done, it will destroy all life on the planet as we know it.  But as hard as they try to get the world to take their claims seriously, nobody believes them.  They are ignored, ridiculed, and persecuted for telling people to be afraid for their lives.

And to make matters worse, when the world starts to listen, everyone is too wrapped up in their own petty lives and self-absorptions that it is too late to do anything except wait for the end.  Even when a realistic effort is made to save the planet, the geniuses that the world turns to are ineffectual morons that fail to save anyone.  And the biggest problem is that the President of the United States, played by Meryl Streep, and her Chief of Staff son, played by Jonah Hill, seem to be the biggest idiots of them all.

But the reason we can say that the scenario is over the top is that in reality, even in the event that an ineffectual leader ignores his advisors, there are enough serious minded and intelligent people in the world, that someone would have recognized the seriousness of the situation, and intelligent steps would have been taken to ensure our safety, or at least credible attempts would have been made to avoid the danger.  In other words, we, as a species, are not as dumb as the people in the movie.  But that is what made the movie both satirical and actually funny.

And this movie has two of my favorite actors in it.  Streep and DiCaprio.  It isn’t often that we see Streep in a comedic roll, or at least, that isn’t what she’s mostly known for.  But boy, she sure knows how to pull it off.  One of those laugh-out-loud moments is when the Earth is being destroyed, and Madam President is being taken to the space-ship that will transport the rich elite to another planet, and she is reminded that she accidentally left behind her idiot son.  Streep’s “O shit!” reaction is priceless.  DiCaprio’s part wasn’t exactly comedic, as he and Jennifer Lawrence did most of the dramatic work.  But they still had some humorous lines, though it must have been difficult to be the voice of reason and funny at the same time.

And there were even more big names in the film that were just as impressive.  Cate Blanchet, Tyler Perry, Timothee Chalamet, Mark Rylance, Ron Pearlman, Melanie Lynskey, and Ariana Grande.  They all did great.  And even though I’ve never been a fan of Grande, I have to admit, her voice was fantastic as she sang a hilarious song about how we should have listened to the scientists, and how we f#@%ed up.  It was an unexpected musical moment that was another laugh-out-loud scene.  The entire cast did a great job and it was great to see a lot of these serious dramatic actors in their silly comedic roles.  I mean, who knew Jonah Hill could play a monumental imbecile with such believability, but he was great.

But the movie was so much more than just a satirical commentary on the ridiculously self-absorbed nature of our society and of celebrity in general.  It also had some very serious and dramatic moments that took me by surprise.  For example, when the comet first becomes visible with the naked eye, and the world begins to realize that everyone is going to die, things became real not only for the characters, but the viewing audience, as well.  DiCaprio was awesome in this scene. And one of the best moments in the film was in the end, when the comet is making its final approach to the planet.  DiCaprio’s non-religious family feels the need to pray, but doesn’t know how.  But the random skater-boy that Lawrence has hooked up with, played by Chalamet, offers up an incredibly beautiful and profound prayer that I’d like to include here in its entirety.  He says, “Dearest Father, and Almighty Creator, we ask for Your grace tonight despite our pride, and Your forgiveness despite our doubt.  Most of all, Lord, we ask for Your love to sooth us through these dark times.  May we face whatever is to come in Your divine will, with courage and open hearts of acceptance.  Amen.”  For such a silly movie, it was incredibly dramatic and stirring, and I have to admit to a few tears.  And the dark and ominous score that served as the prayer’s backdrop was gorgeous, and perfectly placed.  It was an absolutely beautiful, and yet horrific moment, and that‘s what I call good filmmaking.

Dune – 2021

In recent years, I am very happy to notice a trend in movies that are being nominated for the coveted Best Picture award.  More films from the science-fiction category are being given consideration.  This includes super-hero films, as well as pure sci-fi fantasy movies like this one, not just the dramas and the dramatic or historical biopics that usually get nominated.  The Best Picture category needs to be more than just the best dramatic films of the year.  Because, you see, this was just a good movie, despite the fact that it is in the science fiction genre.

Another trend that I’m really liking is that movies that stay close to the source material like books or plays, are ultimately better movies.  Filmmakers are finally starting to realize that there was a reason those books were popular in the first place, and that if you change what was in them, you not only anger the fans of the books, but you invariably lose what made them popular in the first place.  And from what I have heard, Dune did a pretty good job of remaining loyal to the book. 

This, of course, is the third adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune to be filmed.  The first was the critical and commercial flop that was the David Lynch version, released in 1984.  It was confusing and hard to understand, though to be fair, it was originally supposed to be a three hour film that was cut down to a little under two hours and twenty minutes.  Then there was the made for TV miniseries from 2000 that, while superior in many ways, suffered from a made for TV budget and pacing issues.  A good try, but ultimately too small.

But here, I think they finally got it right.  Not only had technology advanced sufficiently to do the fantastical story justice, but it was a big-budget production that had the funds to create the sets and visual effects needed for the enormous scale of the narrative.  They could afford to hire the best costumers, the best set designers, the best production designers, and the best visual effects artists in the business.  Not only that, but they were able to hire a director, Denis Villeneuve, for whom directing Dune was a passion project.  And it was clear that he cared about the story he was telling.

The cast was amazing.  Timothee Chalamet played the lead, Paul Atreides.  When I first heard of this casting choice, I remember thinking that it was an odd one.  I though he looked too young and too slightly built to do the character justice.  Happily, I was wrong.  Chalamet was wonderful, and embodied not only the innocence the character required, but the toughness as well.  The rest of the cast was very much an ensemble, but if you could pick out a second lead among the cast, it would be his mother, Lady Jessica, played by Rebecca Ferguson, who really did a fantastic job.  She was beautiful and yet dangerous at the same time.  I particularly liked her in the scene where Jessica and Paul escape from their captors using the Bene Gesserit skill known as “the Voice.”  Very cool scene!

Other great actors in the film were Oscar Isaac, playing Duke Leto Atreides, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, and Zendaya as Chani.  Add to them such names as Dave Bautista, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen, Charlotte Rampling, and David Dastmalchian, and you have a great cast that really did a phenomenal job inhabiting their roles.

In particular, I really liked Josh Brolin’s performance.  He is such a skilled and accomplished actor.  He is incredibly handsome, but can really pull off the part of a bad-ass tough guy.  Jason Momoa also did a great job, though at first, I almost didn’t recognize him when he appeared on the screen.  He looked so different than when he played Aquaman or Kal Drogo.  There was one member of the cast who I feel was under-used, though honestly, I don’t see how they could have given him more screen time than he had.  Stellan Skarsgard is also a very good actor, and here, he played the Baron Harkonnen so well!  His performance was brief but powerful.  And the scene where he had to be covered in black slime?  EEEWWW!!!

The score for the film was written by Hans Zimmer, one of the best in the business.  There was a grandeur and power to his music that elevated the film and enhanced its scale immensely.  And what a scale it was!  This is a true epic, and if it is handled right, it could very well be the next major franchise that everyone is so desperately looking for.  The original series of books by Frank Herbert is made up of six novels, and this film is only the first half of the first one.  I have read that the sequel is already planned to be released in 2023.  I’m glad because they finally seem to have gotten it right, and I’m looking forward to seeing the surviving cast return to reprise their roles. 

Dune garnered ten nominations at the Academy Awards, more than any other movie in 2021, including Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Costume Design, Sound, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Cinematography, Production Design, and Visual Effects.  It took home Oscars for six of those categories, and I believe they were absolutely deserved.  Well done everyone!

The Trial of the Chicago 7 – 2020-21

This was a good movie, but not a great one.  It was certainly worth seeing, but my research revealed that it was only about 80% historically accurate.  At times, the pacing was a little slow, but only in a few scenes.  As for the caliber of the acting, most of it was very good, though in a few cases, it was phenomenal.  The story was relevant to our troubled modern times, though the narrative was noticeably slanted toward a specific point of view.  That, in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Movies based on true event nearly always do that.  But think about how much better it might have been if it had been impartial, and told the story from different points of view with honesty and boldness.

The movie follows the trial, which started out to have eight defendants, but was historically recorded as seven, after one of them was found to be ultimately unconnected with the case.  The seven men charged with inciting the Grant Park Riot were Tom Hayden, played by Eddie Redmayne, Abbie Hoffman, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, Rennie Davis, played by Alex Sharp, Jerry Ruben, played by Jeremy Strong, David Dellinger, played by John Carroll Lynch, Lee Weiner, played by Noah Robbins, and John Froins, played by Daniel Flaherty.  The eighth defendant was Bobby Seale, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.  Other notable actors in important roles were Joseph Gordon-Levitt, playing the Assistant Federal Prosecutor, Richard Schultz, Michael Keaton, playing the former US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, Mark Rylance as the defense attorney, William Kunstler, and finally Frank Langella playing the trial’s judge, Julius Hoffman.  Whew!

I thought the plot of the film was pretty straight forward, with no major twists or upsets.  Everything happened as you might expect with a lackluster ending that attempted to make the viewer’s heart swell with sympathy and patriotism for soldiers who died in the Vietnam War.  I feel like they were trying to be inspirational, but I wasn’t really feeling it.  I though it felt a bit forced.

Of the actors who really stood out to me, one was no surprise, and the other was a complete surprise.  Frank Langella, played the mean, self-righteous judge who treated people with racism and contempt, while claiming fairness and impartiality.  However, his clear prejudices and the way he completely dismissed the rights of the defendants, made the trial a ridiculous mockery.  But ever the skilled actor, Langella pulled it off as both believable and powerful.  I’ve never seen him turn in a bad performance, and this was no exception.

But the one who really surprised me was Sacha Baron Cohen.  The few movies I’ve seen him in have not impressed me much.  But here, I felt like he had risen above the obnoxious comedy of his Borat character, and even above the vaguely ridiculous character of the Police Inspector in Hugo.  Here he gave us a very serious and intelligent portrayal of a real person with a sharp mind and a passionate soul.  I was impressed, and will have to look at his acting with a little more credibility.  He certainly caught my attention in a good way!

When movies change historical events or motivations to enhance the drama, I’m not bothered, as long as the changes don’t veer too far away from the truth. So, what were the major historical inaccuracies that bothered me?  First, there was way the narrative constantly depicts the police as the bad guys. They are portrayed as the instigators of the famous Grant Park Riot.  They are shown beating protestors with no cause, arresting them without reason.  In reality, yes, that did happen, but the protesters were not blameless.  They instigated just as much violence, and the police sustained just as many, if not more, injuries than the protesters. 

Then there was the way Bobby Seale was portrayed.  They made him out to be a completely innocent black man who was treated ridiculously unfairly because of pure racism, but in reality, a lot of his true story was left out.  When he was bound and gagged at the trial, it lasted for three days, because he was constantly trying to escape his bonds and disrupt the trial with his outbursts.  And I was shocked to learn that the real Bobby Seale was quoted as saying to the crowd of 2000 angry protestors “If a pig comes up to us and starts swingin’ a billy club and you check around and see you got your piece, you gotta down that pig in defense of yourself. … Because if you pull it out and shoot it well, all I’m gonna do is pat you on the back and say, ‘Keep shooting.’”  It’s hard to think of him as completely innocent.

It may sound like I didn’t enjoy the film, but in reality, I did.  It was entertaining, and had some really good performances.  And it showed me a bit of history of which I had been unaware, even as distorted as bits of it were.  Jerry Ruben never tried to save a woman from sexual assault at the riot.  It’s just that with Aaron Sorkin at the helm as both the writer and director, I expected a little more wit, and a little more truth.  I think it was worth watching, but it is also worth doing a bit of reading to find out what the real characters’ true motivations and actions were.  I suppose they were just trying to make the narrative more dramatic, though I think reality would have been dramatic enough.

Mank – 2020-21

Well, Gary Oldman does it again.  He was incredible.  This had the potential to be a slow and plodding movie, but Gary Oldman is such a good actor, he elevated the film past interesting to captivating.  True, the script was good enough on its own, and the directing was carefully planned and very well-executed, and yes, the rest of the cast did a fantastic job.  But really, we’re all here to be amazed by Oldman, and as usual, he didn’t disappoint.

Oldman is the kind of actor who completely transforms himself and totally inhabits every role he plays.  Here he plays the witty, charming, washed up, alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter perfectly.  I’ve said before that drunk is often hard to portray convincingly, but it was one of the man’s defining characteristics.  It was never over the top, never unrealistic.  So, I’ll give Oldman two thumbs up for another mesmerizing performance.

The film was about the old Hollywood screenwriter, Herman Mankiewicz, wonderfully played by Oldman.  But the movie isn’t really a full biopic.  The film only chronicles his life while he was writing the script for, some would say, one of the greatest films of all time, Citizen Kane.  Personally, I think Citizen Kane’s greatness had more to do with the directing talents of Orson Wells.  But that’s neither here nor there.  At the very least, it is said that it is the best screenplay Mankiewicz ever wrote.

Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood, and this one is a classic tale from its golden age.  It had characters that portrayed some of the real powerhouses of the famous studios like Louis B. Mayer, played by Arliss Howard, Irving Thalberg, played by Ferdinand Kingsly, John Houseman, played by Sam Troughton, and of course Orson Wells, wonderfully played by Tom Burke.  Other notable celebrities portrayed in the movie were William Randolph Hurst, played by Charles Dance, Marion Davies, played by Amanda Seyfried, and Tom Pelphrey playing Herman’s brother Joseph Mankiewicz.

According to Wikipedia, in smaller parts, we saw Charles Lederer, David O. Selznick, Charlie Chaplin, and a host of other famous cameos like Geofre S. Kaufman, Greta Garbo, Joseph von Sternberg, Norma Shearer, Eleanor Boardman, Joan Crawford, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Billie Dove, Rexford Tugwell, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Charles MacArthur, Darryl F. Zanuck, S. J. Perelman, Carole Lombard, and Eddie Cantor.  Yes, Hollywood loves old Hollywood.

Now, from my modern perspective, I actually found Citizen Kane to be a bit of a snoozer.  But critics will tell you that it was a really groundbreaking film, and in 1941, when it was released, that was certainly true.  One of the things that Mank tried to do was to emulate a lot of Well’s direction style and choices that made Citizen Kane so impressive.  The use of low camera angles, and something called deep focus were used, just like the 1941 film.  Deep focus is a technique by which the focus of the foreground, the mid-ground, and the background, are all equally sharp and clear.

And then there was the choice to film the movie in black and white, honoring the films of the 30s and 40s.  And they didn’t do what most modern black and white films do, which is to film in color, and then desaturate the footage in post.  According to Mank’s Director of Photography, Gregg Toland, “The black-and-white camera just has this kind of lustrous silvery quality to it that you look for in a silver gelatin print that you just don’t get when you desaturate color.”

As an interesting note, Citizen Kane is known for being nominated for nine categories at the Academy Awards, but winning only one Oscar.  Despite its critical acclaim, it did poorly at the box-office, mostly because of how it angered Hurst, who refused to let his papers advertise the film.  That one award did win was for Best Original Screenplay, for which Wells and Mankiewicz shared the credit.  Mank was nominated for ten awards, and took home two Oscars, one for Best Cinematography, and the other for Best Production Design.

The two actors besides Oldman that I’d like to give special mention to are Amanda Seyfried and Charles Dance.  Seyfried’s role could have been a dull one, but she made it her own and gave us a nuanced and skilled performance.  And Dance… well, it’s hard to ignore Tywin Lannister.  He has that air of stern power down to a science, and it is exactly what was needed to portray the rich and famous media mogul. 

And finally, credit where credit is due.  The director, David Fincher, really put together a well-made movie.  Even if Gary Oldman hadn’t played the lead with such skill and commitment, the film would still have been good in its own right.  Fincher paid just enough homage to Citizen Kane to please the critics and Hollywood, but not so much that he would be accused of blatantly copying the other film.

Promising Young Woman – 2020-21

This was a good movie, but it was messed up.  The main character was mentally unstable, and went to ridiculously extreme lengths to accomplish her messed up goals.  Carey Mulligan, who I remember fondly from the 2009 film, An Education, did a fantastic job in this film, and portrayed a much wider range of emotions and motivations.  It was a much more adult role, and she nailed the performance.

So what was so messed up?  Well, spoiler alert! Cassie Thomas, played by Mulligan, is a 30-year-old medical school dropout, lives with her parents and works at a coffee shop. Years earlier, her classmate, Al Monroe, raped her best friend and another classmate, Nina Fisher, leading to Nina’s suicide.  There was no investigation by the school or consequences from the legal system. Now, Cassie spends her nights feigning drunkenness in clubs and bars, allowing men to take her to their homes, and revealing her sobriety when they try to take advantage of her.

That’s messed up enough, but it gets far worse.  When Cassie learns that Al is getting married, she singles out four people who, in her mind, contributed to Nina’s suicide.  Madison, played by Alison Brie, was a schoolmate who had dismissed Nina’s rape accusation as a falsehood.  Connie Britton plays the college’s Dean, who swept the incident under the rug, allowing Al to walk away from the incident.  Al’s lawyer who harassed Nina into dropping the law suit is played by Alfred Molina.  And finally Al, himself, played by Chris Lowell, is Cassie’s final victim.

Cassie, who has never gotten over Nina’s death, targets these people for revenge, using severe psychological cruelty as her weapon. These plots were well thought out, and only failed to work in the case of the lawyer, who was so distraught with guilt over the incident that he can no longer practice law.  Her revenge falls flat, and she ends up forgiving him.  But the other three get their just desserts under Cassie’s machinations.  But the end of the film gets even worse, resulting in Cassie’s murder, and Al’s arrest at his own wedding reception.

And then there’s the sub-plot of Cassie re-connecting and falling in love with another old classmate, Ryan, played by Bo Burnham.  He seems to be the perfect guy.  He is kind and respectful, and genuinely seems to care for Cassie.  He actually heals her damaged psyche to such an extent that she abandons her demented plots for revenge…  that is, until she is given an old video of Nina’s rape, and she learns that Ryan was one of the drunk and jeering witnesses of the rape.

Other actors who had various but notable roles included Clancy Brown and Jennifer Coolidge as Cassie’s parents, Molly Shannon as Nina’s mother, Laverne Cox as Cassie’s friend Gail, Adam Brody, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Sam Richardson as potential date rapists that Cassie lures back to their homes, and Steve Monroe as the police investigator who arrests Al for Cassie’s murder.  The entire cast did a fantastic job, but I’d like to give a special shout-out to Connie Britton and Christopher Mintz-Plasse for their great performances.

But in truth, the real star of the show was Mulligan.  She was so believable and honest in her portrayal of Cassie.  The darker moments when she is deceiving unsuspecting men into believing she is so drunk she can barely stand, and the lighter moments when she is falling in love with Ryan, were each handled with skill and depth.  Mulligan was nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards, though she did not win.  The scene in which she watches the video of Nina’s rape was heartbreaking.  Just when she thought she was past her grief at last, the wound is reopened, and made worse when she realizes that her boyfriend Ryan had been there, and had done nothing.  And that brings up another valid point that the movie made.  Perpetrating such a terrible crime is bad, but witnessing one and doing nothing is nearly as despicable.

One thing about the movie that didn’t quite work for me was an odd thing.  It was Mulligan’s hair.  In her different personas throughout the movie, she changes her hairstyle to suit the situations.  Here, she is playing the drunk woman at a seedy nightclub.  There, she is getting Madison drunk at a nice restaurant so she can trick her into believing she has been date-raped.  And again, there, she is chatting with her friend Gail at the coffee shop.  In some scenes, her hair looked just fine, but in others, she looks like she is wearing a wig, especially in the scene with Madison.  I don’t know if this was intentional, but something was off, and it drew my attention.

This movie is listed as a dark comedy/thriller, but I don’t get that.  In my mind, dark comedy is laughing at a funeral because the corpse died slipping on a banana peel.  But I really found no humor in witnessing the emotional distress of a mentally unstable woman.  Were her cruel psychological revenge schemes supposed to inspire laughter, a sense of comical irony?  There may have been satisfaction on some level as the “bad guys” got their comeuppance, but to me, that’s not the same as dark comedy.  Even the scenes where Cassie suddenly revealed her sobriety, and called men out on the fact that they were about to rape a drunk woman, weren’t funny.  I found them disturbing on multiple levels, but not funny.

Minari – 2020-21

Well, here is my impression of Minari.  It was a very important movie when it comes to social relevance with a focus on diversity in critically recognized films.  However, it was a little bit of a snoozer.  It was a drama, so there was very little action, and I have no problem with that.  But the pacing was glacially slow.  It was about a Korean family living in the Midwest in the 80s.  Dad has a dream to own a working farm, but mom doesn’t want to live the low-class life of a farming family. And that was about it.    

The father, Jacob Yi, played by Steven Yeun, and his wife Monica, played by Han Ye-ri, have two lovely children.  The eldest is Ann, played by Noel Kate Cho, and her younger brother is David, played by Alan Kim.  Eventually, Monica’s mother, Soon-ja, played by Youn Yuh-jung is brought in to live with them.  At first, the young David is wary of Grandma, but eventually the two develop a close relationship.  Add to the main cast, a local eccentric named Paul, played by Will Patton, who becomes Jacob’s farmhand. 

The problem was that the drama never got very deep until the last ten minutes of the movie.  The rest of the film was only mildly stirring, and that translated onto the screen as a bit dull.  Those last ten minutes got a little interesting, but only a little.  So I have to ask myself, what could have made the movie more dramatically compelling?  I can think of a few things that they could have done.

There was a subplot about David having a weak heart, so he wasn’t ever allowed to run or exert himself in any way.  A real health scare could have increased the drama, but nothing ever happened.  Another subplot was about Grandma having a stroke.  Her death could have created more emotional heft to the narrative, but she lived.  There was the issue of Jacob and Monica’s conflict, where Jacob wanted to be a farmer, and Monica hated living in the country.  But all we got from that was a brief shouting match, and a quiet, calmly spoken argument near the end.  Monica said that because Jacob wanted the farm more than he wanted her and the kids, she was ready to leave him.  This could have been so much more dramatic, but then the film’s climax came along in the form of a fire that destroyed the harvest being stored in a barn.  Then in the last few seconds of the movie, it became unclear as to whether the family would break apart or not.  But again the drama was so understated as to be dull.

A minor theme in the film was the struggles of a Korean family in the United States, except that the family didn’t seem to face an ounce of adversity because of their ethnicity.  Their neighbors liked them, the church welcomed them, and there was only warmth and kindness from the few Koreans in the area.  The family’s internal struggles could have happened to just about anybody, though I suppose that an Italian family, a German family, or even a distinctly American family would have approached the same inter-family difficulties in a manner that wasn’t so calm and dignified.  There would probably have been more shouting.

Now, I will say that the one real bright spot in the movie was actress Youn Yuh-jung.  She stood out to me as a fantastic actress.  She created a character that was absolutely lovable and realistic.  I thought she was good from her first moment on the screen, but at the end, when she caused the fire that destroyed the harvest, the look of horror and shame the she displayed was the most heartbreaking moment in the entire film.  So, kudos to Yuh-jung for bringing a little bit of well-needed intensity to the story.

I’d also like to make special mention of Will Patton’s performance.  He was quirky, but believable.  But again, his performance was understated.  His strange behavior wasn’t over-the-top, nor did he face any real adversity from the community.  He had a strange ritual of walking down the road, carrying an actual cross over his shoulder on Sundays.  But the most negative reaction we saw to his behavior was a smarmy kid on the church bus flipping him off and calling him crazy to impress his friends.  But once again, no big deal.

OK, so if the intensity of the drama was lackluster, what about the uplifting positive emotional content of the film.  A triumph of the human spirit, a reconciliation of opposed opinions, a common understanding of vastly different cultures.  Nope, there was nothing like that.  But maybe that was it.  Maybe it was the very normal commonness of the events in the story that made it stand out to critics.  But to me, the events were so ordinary that they were boring.

Well, I guess there were a few brief touching moments of light-hearted intimacy that were supposed to tug at the heart-strings, like when David and Grandma bonded over the Minari growing by the creek.  That was a mildly sweet moment that was over far too quickly.  The scenery was nice, and the quiet sounds of nature were calming.  But if that was the most emotional scene of a two hour movie, something is missing.  They had plenty of opportunities to create more compelling drama, but they just didn’t use them.

2020-21 – Judas and the Black Messiah

Racism has always been a difficult yet relevant issue in not only America, but all over the world.  So it makes sense that a drama that focuses so intensely on the subject should get a lot of critical attention.  This movie, directed by Shaka King, is about the true life events surrounding the shameful assassination of Fred Hampton, the Chairman of the Black Panther chapter in Chicago in 1969.  Movies like this are necessary, because if not for them, I, and much of the rest of the world, would be completely ignorant of what actually happened. And I happen to believe the statement by George Santayana, saying that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

My first concern needs to be about the historical accuracy of the movie.  What did they get right, and what was altered to fit the medium?  My research uncovered that the actual events were pretty accurate.  Maybe some characters or events were combined or condensed, but they were all realistic.  True, the headquarters of the Black Panthers were fire bombed, but in reality, it happened multiple times, and it wasn’t always the result of a shootout between the police and the Black Panthers.  The movie made it seem like it was an isolated event.  That kind of thing.

And some character motivations were altered or intensified to create a more dramatic narrative.  For an example, I’ll return to that gunfight scene.  The Black Panthers may have been militant and angry, but they weren’t stupid.  In the film, the CPD gathered en-masse outside the Black Panther Headquarters, to verbally taunt the black people inside.  The Party Members got their guns and were itching for a shoot-out.  OK, let’s look at that for a moment.  The Black Panthers knew that the police were looking for a reason to shoot them.  So why would one of them stand visible in an open window, holding a shotgun?  But for the most part, it was all pretty historically accurate.

And the performances were really good.  Even though the film was the story of Fred Hampton, played by Daniel Kaluuya, the main character of the movie was the FBI informant, Bill O’Neal, played by Lakeith Stanfield.  Most of the story was told from his point of view.  I particularly liked the performance of Dominique Fishback, playing Deborah Johnson, Hampton’s girlfriend.  She really stood out in the film’s climax.  The camera focused on her face as we listen to the gunshot that kills Hampton off-screen, and she fights to hold back her tears.

Other members of the Black Panther Party included Ashton Sanders as Jimmy Palmer, whose death in the film sparked the series of events that eventually led to the assassination, Algee Smith as Jake Winters, Darrell Britt-Gibson as Bobby Rush, co-founder of the Black Panther Party chapter in Chicago, Dominique Thorne as Judy Harmon, and Amari Cheatom as Rod Collins, leader of the Crowns, a fictionalized version of a Chicago gang.

Another good performance was Jesse Plemons, playing Roy Mitchell, the FBI handler who eventually forced O’Neal to betray Hampton.  At first they made it look like he was just doing his job, trying to gather information on the Black Panther party and its Chairman.  But when O’Neal tried to get out of the operation, Mitchell pretty much blackmailed the informant into drawing a layout of Hampton’s apartment and drugging him on the night of the FBI raid.  Plemons suddenly turned the character into a much more sinister bad guy.

But of course, the real stand out was Kaluuya.  He had an energy and intensity about him that really commanded attention on the screen.  He was awarded the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.  He needed to be large and charismatic in one scene, and then intimate and personal in the next.  Kaluuya pulled it all off with sincerity and conviction, and I think he deserved his Oscar.  He was especially dynamic in his fiery political speeches.  The only problem was that the real Hampton was only 21 years old when he was killed.  Kaluuya was 31, and it showed.  But that’s a small thing.  He still nailed the performance.

Now, I have to mention a slight misconception on my part when it comes to the title of the film, as it makes an interesting point.  I assumed that the filmmakers were straight-up calling Fred Hampton the Black Messiah, but they weren’t.  The title was a direct reference to a statement made by J. Edgar Hoover, played in the film by Martin Sheen.  When the real Hoover said he wanted to, “Prevent the rise of a ‘messiah’ who could unify, and electrify, the militant black-nationalist movement,” he was talking in general terms, not about a specific person.  It was just a huge convenience that it was a black informant who betrayed him, like Judas to Jesus.

That being said, I liked how they showed archival footage of the real Bill O’Neal confessing his role in the actual events, in a PBS interview in 1989.  But like Judas, in a sad turn of events, racked by guilt, he ended up committing suicide on January 15^th, 1990, the night that the interview was first aired on PBS.  It had not been his first suicide attempt.  The film was socially relevant, and it was well-made.  If it had any flaws, it was that it felt a little too self-important, but that’s a minor issue.

2020-21 – The Father

This movie was a good drama.  Like many dramas, it moved at a very slow pace, but here, I think that was actually appropriate.  The problem is that it makes it a little boring to watch.  The acting was incredibly good, but there was very little actual story, and the hour and a half movie felt like it went on just a little too long.  At least the film’s climax was perfectly executed and incredibly emotional to watch.  It also tied the movie together in a very definitive way, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

The film had a pretty small cast, and was based on a dramatic French stage play called Le Père.  The great Anthony Hopkins played the lead, Anthony, an older British man suffering through dementia.  Apparently, this screenplay was written with Hopkins in mind, and he did such a good job!  I’m not surprised he won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance.  I’m certainly not a Hopkins aficionado, but I’ve never seen him in such a vulnerable or fragile role.  He was amazing!

His daughter, Anne was played by Academy Award winner Olivia Colman.  I think her performance was just as powerful as her co-star’s.  Anne has to take care of a man who can be as cruel as he is kind, having to deal with his moods and failing memories.  She is heartbreaking to watch as she realizes her father cannot remember who she is, or the terrible fact that her sister has been dead for a long time.  Colman really brought the character to an emotional level that was completely, tragically relatable.

Rufus Sewell played Anne’s husband, Paul, a man who was not able to compassionately deal with his wife’s emotional need to care for her ailing father.  Imogen Poots had a small role as a hired caretaker who happened to look like the dead sister, Lucy.

And the final two members of the cast, who were listed in the credits as The Woman and The Man, were Olivia Williams and Mark Gatiss.  They turned out to be employees of the nursing home that Anthony eventually finds himself in, she a nurse, and he a doctor.  However, throughout the film, they appear in different roles.  At times, they appear as Anne and her husband, Paul.

And, you see, that epitomized the main thrust of the movie.  Sure, there have been other dramas that have dealt with the difficult subject of old age dementia.  But never before has there been a story told so effectively from the perspective of the one suffering.  Locations, characters, and even events were all presented out of sequence, confusing the audience as completely as the victim.  It was so effective in the way it let the viewers experience dementia.  Furniture would move with no explanation as to why.  A character would leave the room, and vanish as if they were never there.  Scenes would play out multiple times with different people playing the characters.  It was intentionally confusing and disorienting.  Director Florian Zeller did a great job of keeping it all together in a cohesive way, while at the same time, making it clear that reality was slowly falling apart.

Dealing with a family member or loved one who is suffering through dementia is difficult for the caregivers, but it is so easy to forget that it must be ten times worse for the sufferer.  Imagine how terrifying it must be to be utterly confused, all the time, not knowing where you are, who is in the room with you, and not fully understanding why you can’t grasp something as simple as putting on a sweater.  It is hard for an outsider to watch, but would be terribly frightening to experience.

In the end, Anne puts her father into a nursing home.  The final scene where Anthony wakes in an unfamiliar room with people he doesn’t recognize is heartbreaking.  He asks for his daughter, and is told that she has been living in Paris for months.  He breaks down in tears, asking for his mommy, as if he can’t remember that he is an old man.  But it gets even worse when it becomes clear that he can’t even remember his own name.  Incidentally, I have to give Olivia Williams a special mention, for playing this final scene so wonderfully, as the nurse who helps him through his crisis.  If only all nurses, everywhere, showed such empathy and compassion to people in distress.  Hopkins made the scene dramatic.  Williams made it beautiful.

Llike I said, I’ve never seen Anthony Hopkins break down into sobbing tears powered by fear and shame, as he admits to his nurse that he is aware that his memory is failing him.  I’m sure it was this final dramatic climax that really earned Hopkins his Oscar.  This movie was nominated for six Academy Awards, and took home two, the other being for Best Adapted Screenplay.  Slow as it was, this movie was certainly a worthy Best Picture nomination.