Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Ep. 116 - Oscar Nominee Barbie

Barry and I don our pink beach wear as we talk about Greta Gerwiog’s blockbuster summer hit, Barbie, which is nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Topics discussed include the potential path of Greta Gerwig’s career, Margot Robbie’s alleged snub, and the sneaky brilliance of Elf.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Ep. 116 - Oscar Nominee Barbie

Thanks for listening!

©2024

Poor Things: A Review - A Funny and Fantastic Feminist Frankenstein

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An original and brilliantly eviscerating black comedy that features the best performance by an actress in recent memory.

Poor Things, the new film from director Yorgos Lanthimos and writer Tony McNamara, is a bizarre and beautiful, weird and wonderful, gruesome and glorious piece of cinema, and is among the very best movies of the year.

The film is a surreal, absurdist, feminist take on the Frankenstein myth, which stars Emma Stone as Bella, a beautiful and horny Frankenstein monster who is raised by her creator God (short for Godfrey – played by Willem Dafoe), and then goes on an odyssey of personal, sexual and ideological discovery when adolescence hits.

On her journey Bella is armed with a powerful naivete, an aggressive resistance to social customs, a sharp scientific mind and an insatiable sexual appetite…all of which lead to a plethora of comedy.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ films are definitely an acquired taste…and I have certainly acquired it. The first Lanthimos film I saw was 2015’s The Lobster, which starred Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz. The film is an absurdist romantic black comedy, a true arthouse gem, and I adored it. But when I talked it over with friends of mine, they hated it with a visceral passion. I guess they didn’t get it…or worse they did get it.

Lanthimos’ follow-up film, 2017’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, was another strange arthouse psychological thriller starring Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman, but which I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve yet to meet anyone else who saw the film never mind felt the same way.

Lanthimos’ next film, 2018’s The Favourite, was a period black comedy which starred Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman, and garnered a lot of attention and Oscar nominations. This was easily Lanthimos’ most mainstream and successful film, it too was funny but also very, very dark. Not surprisingly, I loved it.

Poor Things is more in line with The Favourite than with The Lobster, as it’s a bitter and black comedy, but it’s also broad enough to appeal to slightly wider audiences than just the arthouse…although to be clear, at its heart the movie is an oddball arthouse affair.

What is so interesting about Poor Things coming out this year is that it is an elegant and searing indictment against this summer’s blockbuster event Barbie, and is the coup de grace in the case against the overwrought argument that Barbie is quality cinema.

Poor Things is everything the banal Barbie and its simpleton sycophants claim it to be but isn’t. Poor Things is original, funny, smart, clever and unabashedly and undeniably subversive. Where Barbie is insipid, Poor Things is inspired. Where Barbie is trite, Poor Things is treacherous.

Like Barbie, Poor Things is fueled by feminism but it isn’t the insipid, Human Resources approved, freshman year gender studies feminism of Greta Gerwig’s billion-dollar, two-hour Mattel commercial.

Barbie’s feminism was nothing more than a blunt instrument used to bash men and raise a self-pitying pink flag of victimhood for women. Poor Things’ feminism is a pitiless, merciless wildfire that scorches everything in its path, be it men or women, capitalism or socialism.  

Everything about Poor Things is superior to Barbie, from the directing to the writing to the cinematography to the acting.

The script, written by Tony McNamara, is razor sharp, cutting and insightful. McNamara, who also wrote The Favourite and is the creator of the fantastic tv series The Great, writes with a wonderfully incisive wit and maintains a consistent pace and tone.

The beneficiaries of McNamara’s phenomenal script are the cast.

Emma Stone gives the greatest performance by an actress seen this century. Stone, who already has a Best Actress Oscar for La La Land, is far and away the best actress in movies (or anywhere else) this year…this of course doesn’t mean she’ll win the Academy Award again, just that she should.

Stone dives into the Bella character with copious amounts of bravado and skill. She bares her body and devours scenes with equal aplomb. Watching Stone expertly act like a toddler, then like a horny teenager and then a wide-eyed whore, is glorious to behold.

As cliché as it is to say, Emma Stone gives a masterclass in acting in this film without ever making you feel like you’re watching her act. The dance scene alone is worth the price of admission.

Willem Dafoe too does extraordinary work as the mutilated mutilator Godfrey. Dafoe, beneath a bevy of prosthetics, gives Godfrey a humanity – in all its glories and failures, that never rings hollow.

The few missteps in the cast come from Mark Ruffalo, who plays Duncan Wedderburn, a cad who becomes enamored with Bella, and Jerrod Carmicheal as harry, an intellectual.

Ruffalo is miscast, and gives a very mannered performance that is at times uncomfortable to watch. Ruffalo is trying to be funny and it is this desire that suffocates the humor of his character.

Ruffalo also tries to speak in a very specific way and his mouth seems unwilling or incapable of cooperating with his brain’s instructions. The result is a muddled, mush-mouth performance that the film must fight to overcome…and thankfully, successfully does.

Carmichael, who is a comedian by trade, just seems to be a bad actor as he loiters in every scene he barely inhabits. He never adequately grasps the dialogue he is tasked with speaking and feels entirely out of place in the film.

Poor Things is, unlike its summertime counterpart Barbie, beautifully shot. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan is given a lot to play with and he makes the most of it. His use of black and white, and then a glorious cornucopia and dream like colors, is exquisite, and is substantially better than the flat visuals of Barbieland.

The production design, costume design and hair and make-up are all also extraordinarily well-done, and Robbie Ryan’s photography only accentuates the brilliance of the artists who created all of it.  

Poor Things is nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay (McNamara), Best Actress (Stone), Best Supporting Actor (Ruffalo) and Best Cinematographer (Ryan). How many, if any, it will win remains to be seen but I will say this, if it wins them all I certainly won’t be angry about it.

That said, Poor Things is not for everyone. It’s a decidedly dark comedy and it features a plethora of nudity and sex…so if you have a puritan or Victorian taste and those things make you uncomfortable then I recommend you stay away. But if you have a cynical sense of humor and you can at least tolerate the nudity and sex and the arthouse weirdness of it all, then Poor Things is definitely worth a try as it’s an exquisite piece of cinema.

Follow me on Twitter: MPMActingCo

©2024

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 114 - Academy Award Nominations

On this episode Barry and I talk snubs and surprises and everything else regarding the Academy Award nominations. Topics discussed include Greta and the Angry Barbies. Is Emma Stone's victory set in stone? And is Oppenheimer inevitable?

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 114 - Academy Award Nominations

Thanks for listening!

©2024

Barbie: A Review - Pink Bubblegum Bullshit

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Underwhelming and disappointing. If you’re desperate to see it I’d say save your money and wait until it hits a streaming service.

I had no intention of seeing Barbie, the new blockbuster about the iconic Mattel doll starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, because I didn’t HAVE to see Barbie. You see, when I worked as a cultural critic for RT I had to watch and write about a lot of stuff I wasn’t that interested in simply because other people were interested in it which meant that it was culturally relevant. Well, I no longer work for RT so I no longer have to do that.

So, when Barbie came along, I just thought, due to the film’s obvious cultural politics and the fact that the film’s writer/director is Greta Gerwig – someone whose work I’ve never thought much of, it wasn’t for me so I’d skip this new battle in the endless and tiresome culture war.

But then Barbie, due to its relentless and highly effective marketing campaign, became an undeniable phenomenon, hauling in over a billion dollars at the box office and igniting a fan frenzy not seen at cineplexes in years, so I thought maybe I should see it. And then my wife said she wanted to see it…and whatever Lola wants…Lola gets! My thinking was, if people are going so nuts for this film - then maybe it’s worth seeing.

I went to a 10:30 AM screening on a Tuesday morning. Barbie had been in theaters for over two weeks at this point and still my screening here in mundane Middle America was totally sold out. Barbie is, like the recent Taylor Swift tour, satiating a primal need among our collective feminine culture for a massive communal “event”. An example of this eventizing impulse was that the theater I attended, which admittedly is not particularly big, looked like a sea of Pepto Bismol as it was overwhelmingly packed with pink wearing middle aged women (including one wearing just a big pink t-shirt…which didn’t cover nearly enough of her nether regions as it should have!) as well as teenage and pre-pubescent girls donning a ton of pink…along with some rather unfortunate looking pink-clad teen boys imprisoned in the friend zone desperate to win favor with their girl crushes with whom they were attending the screening.

My hope in seeing Barbie was that it was good and that I’d like it – I wasn’t the least bit interested in hate watching it. I fully expected to dislike the de rigueur girl power politics – something which I find to be pitiful and pathetic, but I hoped to like the film despite its predictable politics…something which I often do (for example my review of Promising Young Woman) if for no other reason than my own personal politics are so unorthodox.

The opening scene was a perfect example of what I was hoping for…as the film opens with a glorious homage to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Gerwig replaces Kubrick’s monkeys with little girls playing with baby dolls and the mysterious monolith is replaced with a towering Margot Robbie as Barbie. While I was off-put by the visual of little girls smashing babies (even if they are dolls) in reaction to their newfound Barbie evolution, I still nodded in approval at this brilliant bit of moviemaking and it filled me with great anticipation for what followed.

And then I watched the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there as the film meandered aimlessly through a convoluted yet corporate cookie-cutter plot, allergic to profundity or purpose, and never even remotely approaching the genius of its opening.

In totality Barbie is an underwhelming, disappointing, cheap, shoddy, shitty, bland, boring, corporate money-grab wrapped in a vacant, vapid and vacuous feminist manifesto. In other words, Barbie is a poorly made version of exactly the thing it often pretends to belittle and/or satirize.

The film begins in Barbieland, a matriarchal utopia devoid of not only male power but babies or children….even the lone pregnant Barbie is exiled to the outskirts of girl boss heaven. The bit of the film initially set in Barbieland is ever-so-slightly amusing at first and then it gets old very, very fast. There’s a dance number in this Barbieland sequence that is supposed to be fun and funny but that is so anemic and tiresome as to be astounding. The low point is when Gerwig uses a ridiculously cliched record scratch to inject reality into the phony festivities. Yawn.

The final two-thirds of the film feature Barbie venturing to the “real world” – which is nothing like the actual real world, and the “real world” venturing in to Barbieland. All of it is sloppy but the scenes in the “real world”, in particular, are a total storytelling and cinematic shit show devoid of any redeeming cinematic qualities. The Barbie in the real-world, fish-out-of-water stuff shockingly doesn’t even muster a minimal amount of comedy.

To be fair, I did laugh out loud a few times during Barbie, all thanks to the aggressively amusing Ryan Gosling who absolutely crushes it as the desperate and dim-witted Ken. Gosling is destined to be nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his unbreakable and unshakeable performance as Barbie’s platonic boy toy.

Speaking of the Oscars, it’s 100% guaranteed that there will be a Barbie-themed musical number at this year’s Oscar ceremony. You can absolutely bet your life on that. You can also count on Mattel to turn the success of the Barbie movie into a Broadway musical…which is an eerily similar concept to the hysterically funny Marvel musical featured in the Disney Plus series Hawkeye…except Mattel won’t be making the Barbie musical ironically.

Margot Robbie is ridiculously gorgeous and perfect as Barbie but there isn’t much there, there. Robbie’s physical perfection is all she needs to play this part and when she’s asked to do more than that her acting is undercut by a really abysmal script that is chock full of cringe, freshman level women’s studies diatribes that ring hollow and feel forced making Barbie feel less human than she already is.

Besides the glorious Gosling, the other supporting performances in Barbie are shockingly devoid of life.

Who knew that both Kate McKinnon and Will Ferrell could not only be so unfunny, but so bland and so forgettable? You’d be hard pressed to find two more energized comedic actors but on Barbie they seem constrained to the point of comatose.

Somewhat surprising is that for a movie full of Barbies, there’s only one attractive one in the bunch – Margot Robbie…and she is certainly very attractive despite the sneaky and obtuse internet marketing campaign prior to the film’s release arguing that she isn’t. I have no problem with a Barbie movie featuring the vast diversity of the Barbie doll collection…which means we get a black Barbie, a fat Barbie, a wheelchair Barbie, a trans-Barbie and so on…but what befuddles me is why do all these Barbies have to be so “beauty-impaired” and visually unappealing?

The rest of the supporting cast are all interchangeable, dull and completely forgettable. Issa Rae and Simu Liu are like two sides of the same charisma-deficient coin. Neither one is remotely interesting or likeable.

Michael Cera as Allan feels like he’s in an entirely different movie…maybe because the script he has to work with is so incoherent and idiotic.

America Ferrera plays Gloria, a mom and Mattel employee, and she is utterly abysmal. She does get to have the big monologue in the movie which begins with “it’s literally impossible to be a woman…” and goes downhill from there. This monologue has middle-aged women across the nation pumping their fists in the air like gold chain and muscle shirt wearing Guidos at a Rocky movie when the Italian Stallion gets off the canvas and beats the shit out of the villain du jour. But here’s the thing…I understand the perspective behind the “it’s literally impossible to be a woman” monologue, but the fact is it isn’t “literally” impossible to be a woman…billions of women do it every minute of every day. Yes, it is no doubt difficult to be a woman due to the constant contradictions one must navigate…but you know what else is equally difficult…being a man. The obstacles and difficulties one must face and overcome as a woman are no harder than the ones men must overcome, they’re just different.

Life is hard for human beings, and for modern day feminists to claim empowerment by perpetually play the victim all while demonizing men, is pretty repugnant and frankly counterproductive.

Barbie also does what our awful culture has normalized which is to conflate masculinity with toxic masculinity, a perilous proposition since it is unquestionably masculine men that carved out a safe space in a dangerous world where women are free to make insipid and insidious films about how awful men are.

My wife, a very, very independent, powerful and, dare I say it, feminist woman, turned to me after the film and the first thing she said was that she found it to be “damaging”. As the mother of a young son, she felt the film sent a negative message to girls and woman not just about the nature of men and boys but about what it means to be a girl/woman, so much so that it depressed her and made her fear for the future. And I must say, I completely concur with her astute observations.

I’ve heard it said that Barbie is Black Panther for white women, and that is very true as Black Panther was an overhyped, shitty movie too that became super successful because seeing it was an act of cultural-political virtue signaling.

Other movies have somewhat captured the cultural political zeitgeist in the same way that Barbie has but from a different angle. For example, Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper was a terrible movie but flag waving numbskulls flocked to see and support it because it reinforced their patriotic – or rather anti-liberal, bona fides. That American Sniper was a God-awful movie regardless of its politics was irrelevant as all the flag-wavers loved it even before it started – they loved it simply because it existed…just like the pink clad buffoons are enamored by Barbie regardless of how obviously bad it is.

Sound of Freedom is another movie that is a virtue signal movie currently in theatres. Sound of Freedom is about the scourge of child trafficking and has become a cause celebre for anti-libtard right wingers and as a result has done exceedingly well at the box office – raking in over a hundred million dollars. No doubt the crossover of American Sniper fans with Sound of Freedom fans is enormous. I’ve not seen Sound of Freedom…mostly because I just assume it is poorly made…but I can plainly see that it’s a virtue signal movie just like Barbie.

Another film I thought of when watching Barbie was, ironically enough, The Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson’s 2004 film smashed box office records for an independent film and made him something like half a billion dollars since he financed it himself. Gibson wisely marketed the film directly to churches and church groups and it became a cultural signifier among Bush loving right wingers.

The marketing of The Passion of the Christ was remarkable, as, just like Barbie, everyone was talking about it even if they hadn’t seen it. Barbie’s marketing was brilliant because it removed the film’s politics from the campaign, made it seem as if it were for adults AND kids (it’s not for kids!) and it was absolutely everywhere. You couldn’t escape the Barbie marketing machine, and frankly still can’t. That the marketing campaign has succeeded in making Barbie a cultural phenomenon doesn’t diminish the fact that the movie is garbage.

Truth be told I’ve never understood the critical love for Greta Gerwig’s films. Gerwig’s 2017 film Lady Bird was so overrated as to be astonishing. Critics adored the film yet I found it to be painfully thin and embarrassingly amateurish. It seemed to me that Gerwig, much like Jordan Peele who came out with Get Out in the same year (2017), was cashing in on the angry liberal political hysteria of the post-Trump election and were being elevated due to their race and gender, not their talent. Having seen both of Gerwig’s and Peele’s films since 2017 has only reinforced my belief regarding their lack of talent and skill and the absurd critical love they’ve received.

As for Barbie, I’ve had a rather interesting perspective on the film as I’ve watched from a distance as the usual suspects on both the left and right instinctively and reflexively loved or hated the film. Having finally seen the movie I can say that people who love it, who when pressed on its numerous shortcomings all say the same thing in defense of it, namely that “it’s fun!”, are delusional dupes and dopes. On the flip side, many of the critics reflexively hating it are so stuck on its politics that they don’t even care to examine the filmmaking….which feels less delusional than just plain disingenuous.

As for me, I didn’t like Barbie for the sole reason that Barbie isn’t a good movie.  Barbie isn’t funny and it isn’t interesting. That the film pretends to be rebellious, if not revolutionary, in its messaging, but then spews out the most corporate-friendly and approved, pedantic neo-feminist pablum, wrapped in a cavalcade of visually listless, dramatically lifeless, comedically flaccid scenes, makes it feel like watching a pink-hued Human Resources film for corporate employees to learn the new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office rules.

The bottom line is that the masses being so enamored of Barbie says considerably less about the quality of the movie than it does about the easily manipulated morons populating our world and their astonishing level of group-think and gullibility, as well as the sorry state of our society and cinema.

Unfortunately, so few people nowadays are self-aware or introspective enough to resist massive marketing campaigns like the one around Barbie, which brainwashed otherwise intelligent people into not only mindlessly devouring this odious, rancid corporate pink taco but declaring they love it. I too succumbed and took a bite of the gigantic, rancid corporate pink taco that is Barbie, but to my minimal credit I at least am not foolish enough to don an oversized pink t-shirt sans pants and shriek “yummy…how fun!”

In conclusion, it is literally impossible for me to recommend Barbie.

Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023

White Noise: A Review - Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An unconscionably boring and banal, poorly written, directed and acted movie. I’d rather die in an airborne toxic event than watch this movie again. Go read the book instead.

It has been said that White Noise, Don DeLillo’s classic 1985 postmodern novel, was unfilmable, and now with Noah Baumbach’s flaccid cinematic adaptation now streaming on Netflix, that assertion has been proven true.

At the very end of Baumbach’s brutally boring and banal White Noise something miraculous occurs. After enduring two-hours and sixteen minutes of the most middling of middlebrow and mundane moviemaking, the film ends with all of the characters doing a choreographed dance sequence in a supermarket to a new LCD Soundsystem song while the credits roll. This credit rolling scene pulsates with the wit, vitality, frivolity and vibrancy that is entirely devoid from the film that precedes it, and highlights the glory of what could have been.

White Noise stars Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle, and tells the story of Jack Gladney (Driver), a professor of Hitler Studies at the College on the Hill, his wife Babette (Gerwig) and their four kids as they navigate life and contemplate death in 1980’s America.

The book is a clever postmodern meditation on existentialism amidst the controlling and conformist nature of America’s toxic, pre-packaged consumerist culture. Baumbach’s movie though is so poorly written, directed and acted that it barely scrapes the surface of those meaty topics and ends up being little more than an arthouse version of one of those Are We There Yet? movies starring Ice Cube.

Baumbach’s film tries to be an incisive satire of the 80’s, but ends up being an insufferable, self-indulgent, instantaneously forgettable piece of work largely due to a script that’s intolerably verbose with contrived dialogue that feels dramatically lethargic, if not leaden.

Baumbach’s decision to makes some changes to DeLillo’s novel, like adding a silly car chase scene and injecting Babette into the climactic sequence, not only dumbs down the material but is actively at cross-purposes with the drama and tone of the story.

The car chase in particular is cringe-worthy. The car mishap and drive through the river and woods that leads to a jump into a field is the most hackneyed, inane, embarrassing thing any filmmaker has done this year…and I say that having seen Amsterdam.

The fact that Baumbach added the car chase and yet cut from the film the scene in the book where Jack’s youngest son Wilder goes on a perilous and harrowing big wheel journey, is pretty telling of the kind of director he is…which is spineless and sackless.

To Baumbach’s credit, the credit rolling dance sequence really is infectiously enjoyable, as is a scene mid-film where Jack and fellow professor Murray co-lecture a class about Hitler and Elvis in a sort of dueling intellectual dance. Those two scenes are literally the only things that are remotely watchable in White Noise, and beg the question, why didn’t Baumbach make the whole film with that type of absurdist energy?

And I suppose it’s also to Baumbach’s credit that he attempts some ambitious things on White Noise, like using a few 360-degree shots, and imitating/paying homage to different directors, like Spielberg – whom he imitates by injecting some controlled familial messiness ala early Spielberg, or Robert Altman, whom he copies by having overlapping dialogue and conversations throughout scenes.

Unfortunately, Baumbach’s Spielbergian familial messiness feels a little too contrived and manufactured and his Altman-esque overlapping dialogue scenes feel unintelligible, cluttered and irritating because they’re undermined by subpar sound design and Netflix’s notoriously poor audio quality.

Baumbach is adored by critics but I find his filmography to be hit or miss…mostly miss. I liked the flawed The Squid and the Whale, and found While We’re Young to be amusing, but everything else is odious dogshit masquerading as arthouse gold. A perfect example was Marriage Story, Baumbach’s last film – which was nominated for Best Picture and Best Screenplay despite being an absolutely heinous, heaping pile of flaming garbage.

Baumbach’s films are usually much smaller in terms of scope, scale and budget than White Noise. This movie has a reported budget of $100 million, with some reports stating $140 million, and Baumbach doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. The film looks paper-thin and unconscionably cheap, with the exception being the gloriously staged supermarket with its spot-on color scheme and period proper pricing and products.

Maybe the budget went to the cast, but if so, that was a huge waste of money.

Adam Driver is horribly miscast as the lead Jack Gladney and gives an absolutely dreadful performance. Driver, like Baumbach, is a critical darling, but pinning down why exactly people think he’s a good actor is as elusive as getting a hug from Bigfoot – a role I’d actually like to see Driver play because then you wouldn’t see him much and when you did, he’d be hidden under make up and hopefully wouldn’t talk.

Greta Gerwig is another critical darling, and she’s in a long-term relationship with Baumbach, so they’re sort of the critical darling couple of American cinema. Gerwig plays Jack’s wife Babette and is abysmal in the role. Gerwig is nothing, she’s a dead-eyed, empty vessel entirely devoid of any gravitas or inner life. She’s like a tumbleweed rolling through scenes with no grounding and no life.

The rest of the cast are equally lifeless and/or underused.

Don Cheadle is never given enough to do. Andre Benjamin is a glorified extra. Poor Raffey Cassidy is distracting because she looks like a trans Harry Potter.

White Noise claims it is an “absurdist comedy drama”, but while the absurdity is self-evident, the comedy and drama are non-existent. There is nothing interesting, insightful, amusing or engaging in this entire two-hour and sixteen-minute venture except for the fun music video at the end.

If you’ve read the DeLillo book you’ll be entirely underwhelmed by Baumbach’s movie adaptation, as it loses everything in translation. If you’ve not read the book, you’ll be bored out of your mind watching Baumbach’s movie, not to mention completely lost in terms of its incomprehensible and incoherent plot.

The bottom line is that Baumbach’s White Noise is just another in a long line of directorial disappointments over the last few years in the world of cinema. The cinematic drought since 2019 is real and feels like it might even be getting worse.

I hope 2023 marks a turn-around for the art of cinema, but if the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that just when you think movies have hit bottom, and 2022 sure feels like the bottom, there’s always some deeper level of hell for things to fall to.

So, skip White Noise on Netflix as it’s a total waste of time, but if you’re interested maybe pick up DeLillo’s book and give it a read instead. It’s not transformational, but it is, unlike the movie, amusing. That’s how bad movies have gotten, I’m now recommending you go read a book. God help us all.

©2023

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast - Episode 3: Oscar Nominations Reaction

This week on Looking California and Feeling Minnesota, Barry and I dive deep into the Oscar nominations in the top categories.

EPISODE 3 - OSCAR NOMINATIONS

Thanks for listening!

The Tedious Woke Outrage Over Oscar Nominations

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 27 seconds

The Oscar Nominations came out on Monday morning and the usual woke suspects were outraged by the lack of minorities and women in key categories.

You can set your watch by the emotionalist bitching and moaning of the identity politics crowd come awards season and so I fully expected to be confronted by a cavalcade of absurd hot takes from the woke media bemoaning the racism and misogyny of the Academy Awards when I awoke this morning. I was not disappointed.

The first headline I saw declared “Oscars Nominations Lack Diversity”, and other articles decried black actress Lupita Nyongo’s lack of a nomination as “horrifying”, and deemed the absence of recognition for female directors, among them Greta Gerwig and Lulu Wang, as well as minority actors Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Lopez and Awkwafina as being a result of “snubs”.

As is evidenced by this current Academy Award furor, outrage is the nectar of the gods for the woke contingent, and they fuel themselves and their self-righteousness on its intoxicating nature. Proof of this was found last year when every acting category at the Oscars was won by an actor of color, which should have made the woke happy…but instead the main storyline surrounding the event was that Green Book, a movie deemed “racist” because it depicted racism in America through the perspective of a white character, had won Best Picture.

I must admit that there is nothing so delightful as the vacuous and self-righteous over-reaction of the woke to entertainment award nominations and wins. Ever since the #OscarsSoWhite movement came to the forefront in 2016, you can always count on the identity politics adherents come awards season to make an emotional mountain out of the lack of diversity and inclusion molehill.

In regards to the current woke hysteria, here are some facts to remember. Contrary to the headline mentioned above, the 2020 Oscars did not shut out all diversity. Black actress Cynthia Erivo and Latino actor Antonio Banderas are nominated in the main acting categories, and Korean director Bong Joon Ho and his terrific film Parasite, is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

As for the female directors and minority actors left out of nominations…who exactly is deserving and who should they replace on the current list? This is why I find the woke media outrage over the Oscar nominations so disingenuous as they say all of these minority and female artists should be nominated but never mention what white/male artist isn’t deserving of their nomination. 

Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), and Lorena Scafaria (Hustlers) are often named as female directors who should be nominated…but this seems more like a list of female directors who have made a movie this year, and not a list of female directors who have made a good movie this year. No one but a cinematic cretin and philistine would consider these films, except for Little Women, even remotely serious Oscar contenders. And while critics love Greta Gerwig, Little Women is an umpteenth remake of Louisa May Alcott’s iconic story…not exactly breaking new cinematic ground.

As for the acting categories, does anyone really want to hang their hat on Oscar racism on Jennifer Lopez and Awkwafina not being nominated?

And if the Oscars are racist now for “snubbing” Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy with no nominations, were they racist when they actually gave a Best Actor award to Jamie Foxx in 2004 for Ray, or nominated Eddie Murphy in 2006 for Dreamgirls?

This is why I find the woke media outrage over the Oscar nominations so vapid as it is nothing but emotionalist idiocy that is allergic to context.  

For instance, you wouldn’t know it by listening to the woke media, but if you take a look at the Oscar acting categories since the year 2000, you will find that black artists have won awards at a higher percentage than their population in the U.S. and the Anglosphere (nations with English as a primary language – U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia). Since the turn of the century black artists have won the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor award 15% of the time and the Best Supporting Actress award 30% of the time, which is higher than both the percentage of the black population in the U.S., 13%, and in the Anglosphere, roughly 9%.

The perception that black artists are under represented in Oscar acting wins is false, at least since the year 2000, but that sort of fact does not ignite the fury that the woke so crave and is therefore ignored.

Another ignored fact is that while there is a paucity of Best Director nominations for female directors, the category is truly a cornucopia for ethnic diversity. In the last 7 years the best Director award has gone to Mexican artists 5 times, an Asian artist once and a white American once.

Look, the Academy Awards are little more than a self-serving orgy of narcissism that never fails to fail. Anyone who takes them seriously is asking to be irritated or aggravated in one way or another. For example, I am sure that I will throw something at my television when 1917 wins Best Picture this year. But with that said, the woke turning the Oscars into little more than the diversity and inclusion Olympics will do nothing but further reduce the quality and artistry of cinema, and that is a cultural crime of epic proportions.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Top 10 Films of the Decade - 2010's Edition

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 24 seconds

Much to my surprise, I have been seeing a large number of writers putting out their “Best of the Decade” list in recent weeks. I was surprised by this because I had no idea the decade was ending. At my very best I barely know what day it is nevermind what month or year. Just this morning I saw a headline declaring the best movies of 2020 and had to stop and think about it a few moments and then eventually check my iPhone and make sure our current year wasn’t 2020 (the article was predicting what will be great in 2020).

Once I discovered that the 2010’s are actually ending just next week, I figured it was my duty to put together my own cinematic retrospective on the decade. In compiling my list I was wary of recency bias and tried to keep films from this year at arm’s length…but the problem is that 2019 is easily the best year for movies in the decade and thus far in the millennium…so my list simply HAD to reflect that.

So sit back, relax and enjoy my Best of the 2010’s movie list. As always, keep in mind my list is THE definitive list, and all other lists are incredibly, incredibly stupid and worthless.

BEST ACTION MOVIE OF DECADE

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) - I was never much of a Mad Max fan at all. Mel Gibson was someone I never appreciated as an actor or action star (or a director for that matter), and the Mad Max phenomenon just passed me by when it was at its height in the 80’s. I missed seeing Fury Road in the theatre out of sheer disinterest, but stumbled upon on it one night on cable television and thought I’d give it a shot because I had no other options. I was ready to bail on the movie pretty quick but it totally hooked me and left me mesmerized to the point of being slack jawed.

Director George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road is insane. It is basically a violent, beautifully shot, continuous car chase. The film is supremely crafted and the long chase is exquisitely conceived, blocked and executed. I am so mad at myself for having not seen Fury Road in the theatres as I can only assume that the spectacle of it all was even more spectacular on the big screen.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a stunning spectacle to behold, a crowning achievement for the action genre and the best action movie of the decade.

BEST FRANCHISE OF DECADE

Planet of the Apes Trilogy - In a remarkable upset I went with Planet of the Apes over the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel had a great decade, no doubt, and dominated at the box office for the entirety of the 2010’s, but the best franchise in terms of quality was Planet of the Apes.

The first film of the reboot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, came out in 2011 and I thoroughly expected it to be awful. Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes film of 2001 was an absolute catastrophe that, being a huge Planet of the Apes fan since I was a kid, scarred me deeply. When I saw that James Franco was the lead actor in the 2011 reboot I figured this was nothing more than a vacuous money grab by producers trying to cash in on the glory of the older movies. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Rise was a stellar origin film that appreciated, correctly understood, and properly connected to the mythology of the earlier films from the 60’s and the 70’s, and was followed by the equally fantastic Dawn and War. The CGI now available to filmmakers elevated the myth and material at the heart of the story and turned Planet of the Apes into the top-notch franchise it was always meant to be.

Great performances by Andy Serkis and the rest of the CGI ape-actors turned these films, which could have been a punch line, into a compelling and profound series that is better than anything Marvel, or anyone else, has put out this decade.

MOST OVERRATED FILM OF DECADE

A TIE!

Ladybird (2017)- Ladybird was the Greta Gerwig directed coming of age story set in Sacramento that critics absolutely adored (it has a 98% critical score at Rotten Tomatoes). I found the film to be little more than a sloppily slapped together mish-mash of trite SNL sketches completely devoid of insight, profundity or original ideas. Director Greta Gerwig is the darling of critics because she is the manic pixie dreamgirl of arthouse poseurs…this is only heightened by the fact that she married an arthouse poseur - Noah Baumbach! Look no further than the glowing adoration of her newest beating a dead-horse film, Little Women, for proof of my thesis.

Get Out (2017) - Critics loved Get Out because they were looking for a black director to be their messiah in the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite nonsense. Get Out was a flaccid and forced piece of banal nothingness that exposed the bias of critics and the power of white liberal guilt. For proof of my thesis look no further than Peele’s second film Us…which is a total mess of a movie but which critics adored anyway.

WORST FILM OF DECADE

Detroit (2017)- Detroit attempts to tell the story of the Detroit race riots of 1967 but is so ineptly directed by Kathryn Bigelow that she should have her Oscar (for The Hurt Locker) retroactively revoked for setting the art of filmmaking back four decades. As anyone who has ever been to Detroit can attest, it is easily the worst place in the universe, so maybe Bigelow was doing some meta commentary by making the worst movie ever with the title Detroit to match the awfulness of the city with that moniker…who knows. Regardless, Bigelow’s directorial incompetence is remarkable in a way, as it seems impossible to make a film as dreadful as Detroit. That said, Tom Ford gave it a run with his abysmal Nocturnal Animals, but still fell short. better luck next time Tom.

BEST FILMS OF DECADE

10. Hell or High Water (2016) - Hell or High Water could have been named “Revenge of the Working Class”, as screenwriter Taylor Sheridan’s script accurately captured the desperation of those of us living under the boot of the cancer of American capitalism that is devouring its own. Top notch performances from Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster, Chris Pine and Gil Birmingham (as well as the local hires and those with smaller roles) turn Sheridan’s script into a resonant and powerfully insightful commentary on modern-day America in the forgotten fly-over country.

9. The Big Short (2015) - Adam McKay’s cinematic adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book of the same name, is miraculous. It artfully tells the intricate and dazzlingly complex story of the 2008 housing meltdown with comedic aplomb and dramatic power. A great cast and stellar direction make The Big Short not only one of the best, but one of the most important film of the 2010’s.

8. Phantom Thread (2017) - P.T. Anderson’s collaboration with Daniel Day-Lewis is a mediation on control, power and the toxic and intoxicating brew when the anima is conjured. A twisted, lush and vibrant love story that peels away the skin and reveals the wound on the spirit of a powerful man, and the woman who loves him not despite of it, but because of it. A sumptuous feast for the eyes and the soul, Phantom Thread is powered by the masterful work of P.T. Anderson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps.

7. Dunkirk (2017) - Dunkirk is a film of exquisite technical precision, insightful political analysis, heart-stopping action and gut-wrenching drama. Director Christopher Nolan is one of the great artistically populist filmmakers of our time and Dunkirk is his most well-made and daring film yet. leave it to Nolan to twist time and perspective in what could have been a straightforward story of British heroism. A solid cast, which include such surprises as boy band star Harry Styles, give excellent performances that are buoyed by some of the very best technical work cinema has ever seen…or heard to be more exact, as the sound in Dunkirk is amazing beyond belief. The best war film of the decade, and one of the greatest masterpieces of the genre.

6. The Master (2012) - The Master boasts the very best acting captured on film in the last decade…and even further in the history of cinema. Joaquin Phoenix reinvents the art of acting as the literally and figuratively twisted Freddie Quell, a recent World War II veteran with a knack for making delicious, delirious and deadly concoctions from bizarre items. The acting clashes between Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays charismatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd, are absolute sublime perfection. The Master, like its two stars, is a compelling and combustible drama that elevates acting beyond its previous bounds.

5. The Irishman (2019) - The Irishman is a movie about introspection, retrospection and regret. Scorsese’s three and half hour masterpiece is both a genre and career defining and ending classic. The film boasts a solid performance from Robert DeNiro and two stellar supporting turns from Joe Pesci and Al Pacino, who are at their very best. Just as Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven commented on his own career while making his career defining genre, westerns, dramatically obsolete, so does Scorsese have the final word on his career and puts the dramatic nail in the coffin of the genre that, for good or for ill, defined it, the mobster movie.

4. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019) - This is Tarantino’s most dramatically potent and resonant film. DiCaprio and Pitt give two fantastic performances as a fading star and his stunt double and Margot Robbie is undeniably luminous as Sharon Tate. Tarantino transports audiences back to 1969 in order to tell the story of wishful thinking gone awry. A true masterwork from a master director.

3. Joker (2019) - In a decade where superhero movies ruled supreme, the last and final word on the genre was put forth by an emaciated lunatic with a Quaker’s hair cut. Joker has forever altered the current top genre by dragging it through the gutter and being brave enough to tell the actual truth about our time. When Arthur Fleck tells his disinterested therapist that “all I have are negative thoughts”, he spoke for millions upon millions of people living in the spiritual hell that is capitalism in late stage American empire. Joker is the best comic book movie of all time because it takes a chainsaw to the form and shapes it into an incendiary Taxi Driver/The King of Comedy sequel. Who knew that Todd Phillips of all people, had this level of greatness within him? It helps that Joaquin Phoenix, the best actor on the planet, used his formidable talent and skill to morph into the most interesting and human super villain (or hero) to ever grace the big screen. Joker is a game changer for superhero movies, and thankfully, cinema will never be quite the same.

2. Roma (2018) - Roma is a cinematic tour de force that was an exquisitely conceived and executed film of startling artistic precision and vision. Alfonso Cuaron wrote, directed and was even his own cinematographer on the film that catapulted him into the rarefied air of the cinematic masters.

1. The Tree of Life (2011) - The Tree of Life is not only the best film of the decade, it may very well be the best film of all time. Terrence Malick’s magnum opus veered from the present day to the 1950’s and all the way back to prehistoric times. Malick’s experimental meditation on life and loss covered large swaths of history but never failed to be breath-takingly intimate, thanks in part to sublime cinematography from Emmanuel Lubezki and grounded and genuine performances from Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. As spiritually, psychologically, philosophically and theologically profound and insightful a film as has ever been made. With The Tree of Life, Malick takes his place on the Mount Rushmore of filmmakers…and atop my Best of the 2010’s list.

Thus concludes my Best of List of the 2010’s…and soon the 2010’s will end too! Let’s hope the 2020’s will bring us some more great cinema!

©2019

90th Academy Awards: The 2018 Oscars Prediction Post

Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes 66 seconds

As February has come and gone without the Academy Awards happening, March now roars in like a hungry Oscar lion. Due to the Winter Olympics monopolizing Sunday night television for the last two weeks, the Oscars were pushed back to the first week of March, and now our interminable wait for the most important night of the year is finally over. 

The Oscars are the most Holy of all the High Holy Days here in the People's Republic of Hollywood and are the culmination of thousands and thousands of years of human evolution which will reach its apex this Sunday night. From the first time a million years ago when ape-men tossed their animal bone weapons into the sky in the shadow of giant black monolith, to Steve Guttenberg inventing movable type and printing the first bible in 1450 to Andy Kaufman being the first Man on the Moon, we have been hurtling towards the evolutionary perfection of Sunday night's Oscar ceremony.

The anticipation for this year's Oscar's is palpable, especially after last year's Moonlight - La La Land Best Picture fiasco, everyone is tingling with anticipation over what will happen this year. It is my duty as a card carrying member of the People's Party of Hollywood to express my thoughts, feelings and beliefs regarding this most glorious of events, the Oscars, so I have written my predictions for the awards below.

Last year I had an uncharacteristically bad time in predicting the awards. The reason for my off year was because last year was the first year of the "New Academy"…you see after the #OscarsSoWhite nonsense of 2016, the Academy exiled a plethora of older White members and brought in a cavalcade of younger members who were non-White and female. With no history and voting trend data for me to analyze and base my predictions upon, I struggled to keep up my usual stellar prediction standards (I have never lost an Oscar pool…ever, including last year…although I did tie with somebody once in the dark year of 1998). 

This year I have the benefit of one year New Academy data under my belt, so hopefully I won't be as dreadful as I was last year…but old habits die hard and I am no doubt prone to falling back into the ways of the traditionalist thinking of the Old Academy. We'll see. 

Back in the dark days of the Old Academy, the rule of thumb regarding categories that you had no idea about like best documentary, documentary short or short films was a cynical formula that everyone knew about but no one was comfortable saying out loud. The formula was basically this…if any film dealt with the Holocaust, pick it to win. If there were no Holocaust movie to choose, then the Oscar winners would be, in descending order of likelihood, films about gay issues, particularly the AIDS epidemic, or films dealing with civil rights/race issues.

In this current era of identity politics, the New Academy has a formula to its choices as well, the hard part is figuring out what it is. For instance, does the New Academy lean toward Black films and gay films over other issue movies, and therefore if you have a Black-gay film like Moonlight...you can win Best Picture?

Due to the powerful sway of identity politics in the New Academy, I have decided to make a new and somewhat uncomfortable addition to my Oscars predictions article, I will not only tell you who should win, and who will win, but also will handicap the "New Academy" and how they may see the Oscar race. Some may deem my blunt talk of the harsh reality of identity politics in the New Academy as insensitive or "racist" but I feel if I were to ignore this blatantly obvious issue I would be doing my readers a disservice. 

It is important to remember that these new Academy members who are mostly people of color and women (or women of color!!), were brought in to nip #OscarsSoWhite in the bud, and so last year they did just that by giving Best Picture to Moonlight and awarding two African-American actors statuettes. The New Academy people understand that the only reason they are in the Academy is to reward artists of color and women, and that is important to keep in mind when trying to guess how they will vote. My "Handicapping the New Academy" sections may seem terribly cynical, and they are, but that doesn't mean they aren't based on the reality of Hollywood in general and the New Academy in particular.

With all that said…it is time…are you ready? I hope so! I ask that you please sit back, relax…and remember that The Oscars are a Holy endeavor so no wagering please…now dive head first into the shitshow that are my blind guesses as to who will win the most coveted prize in the history of the universe…THE OSCAR!!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Mary J. Blige - Mudbound: I have bad news for you…I haven't seen Mudbound. I think this may mean I am a racist, I'm not sure…but I hope not. I promise I will see it though…soon. You know who else probably hasn't seen Mudbound…Oscar voters. 

Allison Janney - I, Tonya : Allison Janney devours every scene she inhabits in I, Tonya. Her performance is not all flash and no bash though, as she crafts a genuine human being out of what could have been a caricature in lesser artistic hands.

Lesley Manville - Phantom Thread: Leslie Manville's work is simply stunning in Phantom Thread. Her mastery of stillness and specificity of intention is staggering and her performance a marvel to behold. Young actors would be wise to study Ms. Manville's Phantom Thread performance and steal as much of it as they can carry.

Laurie Metcalf - Lady Bird: Metcalf has received many accolades for her work as Lady Bird's mom, but I felt her performance was one note and rather shallow. A lot of the problems with the character are probably due to the script, but I felt Metcalf was a bit underwhleming in the role regardless.

Octavia Spencer - The Shape of Water: Octavia Spencer is as solid and reliable an actress as you'll find working these days. She has the innate ability to create genuine and grounded characters of multi-dimensions and deep humanity that never fail to enhance any film in which she appears.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Lesley Manville - I think Manville's work is technically superior to every other actress nominated. Manville's work is less showy, but more technically proficient and precise than any of the competition and it isn't even close. 

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: The New Academy would want to reward Mary J. Blige or Octavia Spencer, but Ms. Spencer has already won the award and Ms. Blige appears in a Netflix film, which is something even the New Academy hasn't figured out how to properly judge. 

WHO WILL WIN: Allison Janney: Ms. Janney has won all the other awards leading up to the Oscars, and her performance is crowd pleasing…so I think she walks away with the easy win here. It also helps that Ms. Janney is very highly regarded and well liked out here in Hollywood. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Willem Dafoe - The Florida Project: I really like Dafoe as an actor, but I thought his role in The Florida Project was not Oscar worthy. It is not that he does a bad job, just that there isn't much for him to do in the movie. 

Woody Harrelson - Three Billboards: I thought Woody Harrelson was fantastic in Three Billboards, or as I keep calling it Three Dildos, creating a complex character of real depth. Harrelson has matured into a top-notch actor in his middle age and Three Dildos is proof of his undeniable skill and talent. That said, he was even better in War for the Planet of the Apes this year

Richard Jenkins - The Shape of Water: Jenkins is phenomenal in The Shape of Water, as he never falls into the trap of caricature or maudlin preening. Jenkins is always a terrific actor, and The Shape of Water may be the best work of his stellar career.

Christopher Plummer - All the Money in the World: I haven't seen All the Money in the World…I know, I know, I am a terrible person. Plummer is an old pro and he no doubt got this nomination simply because the Academy wanted to send a signal of disgust to Kevin Spacey who originally shot the role but was disappeared down the memory hole by director Ridley Scott. 

Sam Rockwell- Three Billboards: Rockwell makes lemonade out of the one dimensional lemons the script hands him. Rockwell plays his racist, dim bulb character with aplomb and is able to subtly turn a shallow potential caricature into more than just a punch line. 

WHO SHOULD WIN: Richard Jenkins - Jenkins work in The Shape of Water is simply superb and far and away the best in this category. 

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: This is a weird category as there are no minorities nominated, that said Jenkins does play a gay man, which in the Old Academy would have given him a leg up on the competition, but not now. Rockwell has gotten some heat because his character is an irredeemable racist, which could spell trouble for him even though he is the front runner. 

WHO WILL WIN: Sam Rockwell - Rockwell has won all of the other awards leading up to the Oscars, and I think the campaign against him revolving around his character being a racist will ultimately fail. I think the biggest reason it will fail is because there are no minority actors who could potentially supplant him. 

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Big Sick - I haven't seen the Big Sick…and yes, I am well-aware that makes me a really bad person. It is funny as I have gotten more marketing material in the mail from the Big Sick than any other film this past year, including a screener of the film, and still haven't watched it. Just more proof that I need to budget my time much better. 

Get Out - I finally saw Get Out about a month ago and was entirely and totally underwhelmed by it. The idea that this movie, script, director and lead actor are nominated for an Oscar is a joke. It is a moderately entertaining horror-comedy…like Scream…not exactly the stuff of Oscar gold. 

Lady Bird - Lady Bird is a poorly written film that is more akin to a CBS sitcom along the lines of The Big Bang Theory, than an Oscar worthy movie. But the Academy loves their manic pixie dream girl Greta Gerwig for some mysterious reason…so she has a real chance. Hell, Woody Allen has won numerous Oscars and he sucks…so Greta has a good chance. 

The Shape of Water - Del Toro's script is a masterfully layered piece of work that never diminishes it's characters by going down the road of the simple and easy. Del Toro also successfully weaves political and religious themes throughout his unconventional love story, proving his skill as a screenwriter.

Three Billboards - Three Dildos is a script that shows a foreigners distorted view of what they think America is, filled with caricatures and one dimensional, simplistic characters. It has all the nuance and subtlety of a Kid Rock song about France. 

WHO SHOULD WIN: The Shape of Water is the best script in the bunch and it isn't even close. 

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: In the old days, Three Dildos would be the favorite because it is written by a successful playwright and the Old Academy loved them some playwrights. But the new academy is either going to go with Jordan Peele for Get Out or Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird. The question becomes will gender trump race or race trump gender…hmmmm…it'll be a nail biter. 

WHO WILL WIN: Get Out - I think Peele will get the trophy as a sort of condolence prize since they won't give him Best Director…but that said…don't be shocked if Gerwig gets the win because unlike Jordan Peele, she has been out beating the bushes and campaigning hard for votes.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Call Me by Your Name - A dreadful movie and a dreadful script that is at the very least morally questionable…but Hollywood never considers morals in the moment, only in hindsight, i.e. #MeToo.

The Disaster Artist - Not a great script, and the fact that James Franco is on the #MeToo shitlist means that this movie is persona non grata on Oscar night. 

Logan - A terrific adaptation of a graphic novel. Logan was a terribly under appreciated last year but was one of the better films of the year and the script is the major reason why. A truly fantastic piece of writing.

Molly's Game - I haven't seen Molly's Game, but it is written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin's writing is difficult to direct, and frankly, I am willing to bet that ironically, he is not a good enough director to master directing his own script.

Mudbound - I haven't seen Mudbound…yeah, yeah, I'm an incorrigible racist…but I do look forward to seeing it, so there's hope for me yet.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Logan - The best script of this bunch by a mile. Logan turned the moribund X-Men franchise on its head and created a dark, grounded and stunning world in which Wolverine becomes a fully fleshed out character and not just a simple super hero. 

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: Mudbound should appeal to the New Academy because the writer, Dee Rees, is an African-American lesbian woman, but the problem is that it is a Netflix film and even the New Academy is struggling to embrace the Netflix model. Call Me By Your Name is the next best option for the identity politics of the New Academy though, as it is a story of homosexual love written by an older gay man. 

WHO WILL WIN: Call Me by Your Name - I think Call Me by Your Name ekes out a win over Mudbound here. I think the Netflix thing hurts Mudbound, and the fact that James Ivory has such a stellar resume filled with prestige films will put him over the top. 

BEST DIRECTOR

Christopher Nolan - Dunkirk: Nolan's Dunkirk is a master class in technical proficiency in the art of filmmaking. Dunkirk was inarguably the most difficult film to make of all the nominees and Nolan proved himself a brilliant craftsman. Sadly, I think Dunkirk will be overlooked in the more popular categories, but I think it will win multiple technical awards, most specifically the sound awards.

Jordan Peele - Get Out: This nomination is a complete mystery to me. Get Out is a decent if unremarkable directorial debut for Peele, but the film and his direction are so below the classic standard for Oscar material that it is absurd. 

Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird: Greta Gerwig's direction and writing on Lady Bird are the two worst things about the film…which is a pretty big deal. Manic Pixie Dream Girl Gerwig is adored by the New Academy though and so she is poised to potentially win big on Oscar night. Gerwig has won points with the New Academy by being so vocal against Woody Allen, which is ironic because she is a quirky, female version of Allen…and that is not a compliment.

Paul Thomas Anderson - Phantom Thread: Anderson is far and away the greatest auteur of his generation and the greatest filmmaker working today. Phantom Thread is a staggeringly fantastic piece of cinema. I fear though that PT Anderson, like fellow genius of cinema Stanley Kubrick, is destined to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all-time who will not win an Oscar.

Guillermo del Toro - The Shape of Water: Del Toro is a true visionary, and his work on The Shape of Water is a testament to his originality and his unique artistic vision. 

WHO SHOULD WIN: Anderson/Nolan- If either PT Anderson or Christopher Nolan won, it would be sweet justice, since neither of them have ever won an Oscar for directing, which is a crime. 

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: In the Old Academy, Nolan would be a slam dunk here because they loved them some intricate war movies. But the New Academy has zero interest in Nolan, or PT Anderson. Del Toro would, in theory, satiate the identity politics thirst of the New Academy, but oddly enough, Latino men winning the directing Oscar is something that is commonplace, they have won three of the last four awards, and that doesn't seem to quell the cries of Oscar favoritism to White men. Peele and Gerwig are not worthy of their nominations, but they are serious threats to win, Peele because he is African-American, and Gerwig because she is a woman. The fact that Gerwig has been very vocal about the #MeToo issue and has spoken out about Woody Allen, give her an advantage on Peele in this category. 

WHO WILL WIN: Del Toro. I know I am being foolish, traditionalist and hopelessly optimistic, but I think that talent wins out and del Toro gets the win. There is a very good chance though that Peele and Gerwig split the Best Screenplay and Best Director awards…stranger things have happened, and with the New Academy, anything is possible. Do not be shocked though if Gerwig wins for, ironically, being a female Woody Allen. Yuck.

BEST ACTRESS

Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water: Hawkins is stunning as the mute cleaning lady at the center of The Shape of Water. An intricate and detailed performance that us a testament to Hawkins talent. 

Frances McDormand - Three Billboards: I found McDormand's work in Three Dildos to be rather shallow, vapid and one-note. Her perpetual anger may resonate with women at the moment, but artistically it is a vacant and foolish performance. 

Margot Robbie - I, Tonya: Robbie crushes it as Tonya Harding in this unique bio-pic. Robbie proves she is much, much more than just a pretty face as she dives into the deep end of a character that in lesser hands would have been vacuous at best. 

Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird: Saoirse Ronan is a good an actress as we have working in film at the moment. She is virtually the only thing worth watching in the otherwise mundane Lady Bird. Her work in the film is a monument to her extraordinary mastery of craft, skill and enormous talent. 

Meryl Streep - The Post: It is old hat that Meryl Streep is nominated for an Oscar, but the truth is that she is spectacularly good in Spielberg's limp, piece of crap movie about the Pentagon Papers. Streep is the one and only reason to see this movie at all because she proves herself to be the real deal and still one of the greatest actresses to have ever lived. 

WHO SHOULD WIN: Sally Hawkins - Hawkins should win as she carries The Shape of Water without ever speaking a single word, which is an amazing achievement. 

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: Frances McDormand gets the leg up in the New Academy because she embodies the angry, fighting woman that the #MeToo movement in Hollywood perceives itself to be. 

WHO WILL WIN: Frances McDormand walks away with it…undeservingly so. 

BEST ACTOR

Timothee Chalamet - Call Me by Your Name: I have no idea why this kid is nominated. None. The film is awful, the performance unremarkable in every way. 

Daniel Day-Lewis - Phantom Thread: Daniel Day Lewis is allegedly retiring from acting and this is his final performance. What a way to leave the stage! Lewis is at his very best in PT Anderson's enigmatic film about fashion and love. Lewis imbues his character with a specific internal intentionality that radiates off the screen. An undeniable master gives a masterful performance. 

Daniel Kaluuya - Get Out: Another mystery nomination. Kaluuya isn't bad in Get Out, but he isn't noteworthy either. Kaluuya's nomination, along with the film's other nominations, is a testament to how low the New Academy has sunk in their quest for the holy grail of diversity in the age of identity politics. 

Gary Oldman - Darkest Hour: Oldman is one of the great actors we've had over the course of his career. Oldman defies stereotype and plays Churchill as a man plagued by self-doubt and ruled by fear. A truly terrific performance that is undermined by a rather lackluster film. 

Denzel Washington - Roman J. Israel, Esq. : I have not seen Roman J. Israel, Esq., but you can never go wrong with Denzel Washington, who is maybe the Best Actor/Movie Star we have had in Hollywood over the last thirty years or so. 

WHO SHOULD WIN: Daniel Day Lewis/Oldman- If either of these guys win then you cannot complain as they are great in these films but have also been great over the course of their esteemed careers. 

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: The New Academy is definitely leaning towards Kaluuya in this category. He is young, new blood and he is Black, all things they are desperate to reward. Kaluuya has a legit shot at winning, but I think the fact that he is a total newcomer may end up scuttling his attempt at Oscar gold. 

WHO WILL WIN: Gary Oldman - I admit that I am falling into the trap of traditionalism again, just as I did with the Best Director category. I could be wrong here, but I think Oldman is rewarded not just for his work in Darkest Hour but also for his long and outstanding career. I think Kaluuya is a legitimate threat to take the crown though, but in the end the campaign against Oldman will fall short. 

BEST PICTURE

Cal Me by Your Name: A boring and morally questionable mess of a movie. If this were the Old Academy, it might have a chance…but no way, no how, this year. 

Darkest Hour: In the Old academy Darkest Hour would be a serious threat, but the film is simply not good enough or original enough to hold the interest of the New Academy. 

Dunkirk: A staggering achievement in filmmaking, that sadly has been forgotten this awards season because it has nothing to do with identity politics. 

Get Out: A beneficiary of the "Leg Up" program of the New Academy that judges on a curve when it comes to minority films. Get Out is a mildly entertaining popcorn movie that has no business being nominated for anything. The greatest irony of all is that Get Out is a movie about White Liberal Guilt and the film is only nominated for so many Oscars simply because of White Liberal Guilt. Pretty funny. 

Lady Bird: Another beneficiary of the "Leg Up" program, Lady Bird is simply not a good movie. As my friend, a famous Hollywood big shot filmmaker dubbed Mr. X said to me, "Lady Bird is a watered down Napolean Dynamite for women". Ouch! 

Phantom Thread: Another of PT Anderson's masterpieces. Phantom Thread is a remarkable film  that is a monument to the undeniable talent of its director. 

The Post: Spielberg's usual shitty "serious" movie that is more proof that Spielberg can't make a real movie unless there are aliens or dinosaurs in it. It is unbelievable how poorly made this movie is. 

The Shape of Water: A fantastic and original piece of art that is mesmerizing from start to finish. A complex and complicated religious and political metaphor that says more than most other films without ever opening its mouth. 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: If you want to see what foreigners think America is like, watch Three Dildos. It is inaccurate, cheap and one dimensional. A dark comedy that isn't funny, and a comedic drama that has no drama. 

WHO SHOULD WIN: Dunkirk, Phantom Thread - If either of these movies win it will be a miracle, but they richly deserve it as they are far superior to any of the other films except for maybe The Shape of Water. 

HANDICAPPING THE NEW ACADEMY: The Shape of Water in old times would runaway with it without question as its subtle politics are what would usually be embraced by the Old Academy. But the Old Academy is gone, and the New Academy is an unpredictable beast. I think in the New Academy it is a battle between Get Out (race) and Lady Bird (gender). In conversations out here in Hollywood all I ever hear people say is that they want Get Out to win and the film seems to have serious momentum. I think Get Out, because it is more overtly political than Lady Bird, is the favorite in the New Academy.

WHO WILL WIN: Get Out - The Shape of Water?

I have gone back and forth on this one over the last few days. Old habits are hard to break and so my traditionalist, Old Academy side keeps pulling me to The Shape of Water, while the clues from the New Academy/Identity politics crowd all seem to be pointing to Get Out. This reminds me of the lead up to the 2016 presidential election where Hillary was presumed to be the winner and yet I saw something completely different happening. I followed my instincts back then and was right. But that was just a stupid presidential election…THIS IS THE OSCARS!!

As much as I want The Shape of Water to win because it is a superior film and is much more deserving of the award than the fool's gold of Get Out, that doesn't mean The Shape of Water will win. As my father used to say, "wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up faster".  Moonlight's upset win last year has to teach me something…and if I don't learn from it I will be no better than the Hillary Dead Enders who have learned nothing from Trump's win in 2016. 

Therefore…as much as it pains me to say it…my pick for Best Picture is…The Shape of Water!!! No…no…no…I'm so sorry, I typed the wrong title…the actual winner is Get Out. 

I am not going to be happy when Get Out wins because I think it will diminish the meaning and prestige of the Oscars, as dumb as that sounds…but if, as some are predicting, Three Dildos wins, I might just chop my own head off and throw it in the Ocean.

And one final note regarding the New Academy and #MeToo and all the rest. The proof that the New Academy and Hollywood is full of shit is that in the Animated Short category, Kobe Bryant has a film that is a self-serving, homage to himself titled, Dear Basketball, which is going to win the award. Hollywood loves Kobe…Kobe can do no wrong. Apparently Kobe's rape of a woman in Colorado and his treatment of that woman and others by his legal team, doesn't count in the eyes of the #MeToo gang. I always found it intriguing that OJ is so universally hated out here in Hollywood, just utterly despised, but when Kobe was accused of rape everyone came to his defense. Kobe is OJ in training…and is further proof of the rank hypocrisy of Hollywood and the New Academy. That is the end of my rant. 

And thus concludes yet another glorious Oscar prediction piece. I think that for the second year in a row the New Academy will, for good or for ill, shake things up. Get Out doesn't deserve any Oscars, but I believe it could be primed to have a big night this Sunday. Maybe…or hopefully…I am wrong and The Shape of Water or Dunkirk or Phantom Thread has a big night…one can dream…this is Hollywood after all.

Just think, a year from now we'll be having this same argument over another shitty movie that is getting too many accolades just because it satiates the New Academy's thirst for identity politics…ladies and gentlemen your front runner for the 2019 Best Picture Oscar is…Black Panther! Yuck. 

UPDATE: 3/2/18

I got an email from a reader asking me to expand my Oscar picks into the technical and lesser known categories. Here are my very brief picks for other Oscar categories...

Foreign Language Film - A Fantastic Woman or UPSET PICK: The Square

Cinematography - Roger Deakins Blade Runner 2049

Animated Film -  Coco

Documentary - Icarus

Animated Short - Dear Basketball

Original Score - Phantom Thread

Sound Editing and Sound Mixing - Dunkirk

Hair and Makeup - Darkest Hour

Production Design - The Shape of Water

Costume Design - Phantom Thread

Editing - Dunkirk

Visual Effects - War for the Planet of the Apes

Those are my best guesses…good luck!!

©2018

Lady Bird: A Review

****THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!! THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT IN THEATRE - SEE IT ON NETFLIX OR CABLE

Lady Bird, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, is the story of Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson, a high school senior living in Sacramento, who struggles through a tumultuous relationship with her mother. Saoirse Ronan stars as "Lady Bird" and Laurie Metcalf plays her mother Marion. 

Lady Bird is a film of many contradictions. The film seems like it wants to be a quirky, independent, art house movie but in execution it ends up being a rather conventional, paint by numbers, pixie-dream girl coming of age story. 

Another contradiction is that the film boasts a truly superb performance from its luminous lead actress Saoirse Ronan, but because of a tepid script and weak direction, the movie never lives up to the great work Ronan does in it.

Lady Bird is actress Greta Gerwig's first feature film as a writer/director and her filmmaking inexperience definitely shows in her attempt to make a sort of backhanded homage to her hometown and her mother. The film suffers from a lack of cinematic and dramatic focus and very poor pacing, which made what should have been a very agreeable hour and a half running time seem considerably longer and much less agreeable. 

The movie is also riddled with too many cheap, easy and predictable laughs, so much so that at times it felt more like a network sitcom and less like a character study driven feature film. 

The heart and soul of Lady Bird is Saoirse Ronan, whose acting is flawless as she is totally absorbed into her role. Ronan perfectly embodies the frustration, isolation, and desperation of being a free spirit trapped in a city, Sacramento, and a family, that are suffocating her. Ronan effortlessly dances from one of her character's multiple incarnations to the next and never stops being completely comfortable with her adolescent discomfort. 

Saoirse Ronan is simply one of the best actresses working in film right now. While Lady Bird is not a great film, Ronan's performance in it certainly is, and it is a testament to her talent and skill that she is able to elevate her performance above such middling material and reach such transcendent acting heights. 

As for the rest of the cast, overall I actually found them lacking. Laurie Metcalf has a meaty role as Lady Bird's abrasive mother but I felt she just missed the mark because her performance lacked enough nuance for my liking. I think the major issue with Metcalf's performance was that her role was not very well written and left her in a bit of a box in terms of her acting choices. 

The other supporting actors are a mixed bag. Tracy Letts gives a solid performance as Lady Bird's down on his luck father. Letts brings a genuine humanity to all of his work and it played well in contrast to Lady Bird's chaotic teenage fervor. 

On the down side, Lucas Hedges gives a pretty stale and wooden performance as Lady Bird's boyfriend. Hedges, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar last year for his work in Manchester by the Sea, never fully commits to his role in Lady Bird and is overmatched and left in the dust by Ronan's searing performance.

To the film's credit, Lady Bird does a good job of revealing the often overlooked difficulty of middle class poverty on America. It also shows teenagers as being much less depraved and much more complicated, at least in Lady Bird's case, in regards to sex and sexuality, which was refreshing and heartening to see. 

I found Lady Bird to be a rather paper thin character study that gets bogged down by forced quirkiness and derivative and trite humor. With Lady Bird, director Greta Gerwig tried to make a somewhat edgy art house type of movie but instead ended up with a rather predictable and amateur piece of work that is only elevated beyond its banality by the sublime talents of its leading lady, Saoirse Ronan. While Lady Bird is an ultimately unsatisfying cinematic endeavor, Ms. Ronan's masterful work is worth seeing.

In the final analysis, my review of this film is just like the film itself, a glaring and seemingly irreconcilable contradiction. On one hand there is my admiration for Saoirse Ronan's acting work as Lady Bird and on the other is my rather sharp criticism for Ms. Gerwig's writing and directing of the film. In order to resolve this contradiction I will compromise and split the difference by telling you to skip Lady Bird in the theatre because it isn't worth the money or the hassle, but watch it when you can on Netflix or cable, because Saoirse Ronan's performance is something you should see.

©2017