About those Oscar nominations...

A quick and dirty breakdown of the categories and my thoughts (both on the nominees and the likely discussion stemming from the nominations).  This will mostly focus on the topline categories, though I will be offering thoughts on the others at the end.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

American Fiction

Barbie

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

The Zone of Interest

The big surprise here was Killers of the Flower Moon being left off.  Something was going to be knocked off in favor of Barbie (which was mostly nominated in Original Screenplay in precursors), I think most people just assumed that the lower-buzz American Fiction or foreign film The Zone of Interest were more likely to drop off.  I think Barbie is the frontrunner here, if only because Greta Gerwig (who cowrote the screenplay) can be recognized here after missing out in Best Director.

Best Original Screenplay:

Anatomy of a Fall

The Holdovers

Maestro

May December

Past Lives

The expected nominees appeared here, mostly because Barbie opened up a slot so everything could make it in.  This was the most likely place for Saltburn to appear, and its lack of a nomination was a harbinger of it missing out entirely on any nominations.

Best Supporting Actress:

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer

Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple

America Ferrera, Barbie

Jodie Foster, Nyad

Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

America Ferrera sneaks into the field for Barbie (pretty much convincing me that Margot Robbie was in the dread 6th slot for Actress) and I'm already seeing a bunch of hot takes that either erase her from the conversation to complain about Gerwig/Robbie not making it in, or complaining that she was the one nominated instead of Robbie despite the two being in different categories.  I'm just happy she made it in!  This is Randolph's to lose - it looked like Brooks might challenge her early in the precursor season, but as Brooks is the only nomination The Color Purple managed across all categories, it is safe to call this for Randolph.

As an aside, how refreshing is this category?  4 first-time nominees, and the one previous nominee (Jodie Foster) was last nominated 30 years ago.

Best Supporting Actor:

Sterling K Brown, American Fiction

Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon

Robert Downey, Jr, Oppenheimer

Ryan Gosling, Barbie

Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

The expected five, though Charles Melton (May December) and Willem Dafoe (Poor Things) both had reason to hope for a nomination.  The former couldn't overcome the divisiveness of his movie and the latter lost out on Best in Show honors to his costar.  Downey, Jr is the favorite in this category, but I can see a case being made for Gosling to surprise, or even Ruffalo given the overall love for Poor Things.

Another positive for both Supporting categories is that they appear to have nominated actual supporting performances this year instead of sneaking in lead roles like in previous years.  I can't say for certain that they didn't since I haven't seen many of these movies, but any progress on that front is welcome.

Best Actress:

Annette Bening, Nyad

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon

Sandra Huller, Anatomy of a Fall

Carey Mulligan, Maestro

Emma Stone, Poor Things

Okay, let's get the big snub out of the way: Margot Robbie for Barbie.  Now, I wasn't as surprised as some were by this for multiple reasons, with the main one being that getting a Lead nomination for a heavily-comedic role is hard.  Not just hard, but hard!  The last time an overtly comedic role was nominated was Eliot Page for Juno in 2008.  If anyone was going to fall off in this highly competitive year, it was likely her.  I'm not saying it is right, just that this is how the Academy has operated for years.  It vastly prefers dramas over comedies.

Some are attacking the Bening nomination as the one that kicked her out (I would say Mulligan is the more likely culprit there), and I don't want to wade too far into it, but attacking Bening for her nomination - for a movie that is very singularly focused on an older woman trying to swim 110 miles (from Florida to Cuba) - feels like the point of Barbie was somewhat missed.

Having said all that, Gladstone is the frontrunner here, with Stone right behind her.

Best Actor:

Bradley Cooper, Maestro

Colman Domingo, Rustin

Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers

Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

DiCaprio is a snub for this category, given precursor support, but honestly, he's over-recognized at this point so I am okay with him missing.  Domingo becomes only the second actor after Ian McKellan to be openly LGBT+ and nominated for playing an LGBT+ role (Jodie Foster, with this year's nomination, is the first woman to achieve that feat).

Murphy feels like a foregone conclusion for the win, but who knows what might change between now and voting?

Best Director:

Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest

Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things

Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon

Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall

The other category that is Causing Discussion.  Unlike Robbie in Actress, however, Gerwig feels more egregious of a snub.  I don't think she was in contention for a win, but seeing her fall out - even in favor of another woman - is some bullshit.  I don't think this was misogyny, I think it was snobbery.  The thought of nominating a movie based off of Barbie just didn't sit right with enough of the director's branch that Gerwig was left off.

Nolan feels like a lock for the win, but they've made him wait for recognition before, so don't be surprised if Lanthimos or even Scorsese surprise.

Best Picture:

American Fiction

Anatomy of a Fall

Barbie

The Holdovers

Killers of the Flower Moon

Maestro

Oppenheimer

Past Lives

Poor Things

The Zone of Interest

This was the expected list.  Past Lives might've seemed shaky, and two foreign language films wasn't a guarantee, but no other films really received the precursor support to overcome divisiveness (Saltburn, May December) or biases (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) to knock out any of the above.  Oppenheimer is the likely winner, but the widespread love for Poor Things and Killers of the Flower Moon means they shouldn't be counted out just yet.

Random Thoughts on Other Categories:

Nice to see Godzilla Minus One get a Visual Effects nod - the first time any Godzilla movie has ever been recognized by the Academy

Mission Impossible getting nominated for Sound is also the first time that franchise has been recognized by the Academy.

Diane Warren continues to get Original Song nominations for movies no one has seen, with the latest being for the film Flamin' Hot

As far as random nominations go, El Conde for Cinematography feels like the most random, give or take Golda in Makeup/Hairstyling

France didn't submit Anatomy of a Fall for International Feature, which means we are denied a battle between it and The Zone of Interest for that particular award, which is a shame.

Review: Glass Onion

Of the various weird things that have occurred over the last 5 or so years (and man, have a lot of weird things happened), one of the more pleasant ones has been the resurgence of the traditional whodunnit feature.  Knives Out and Murder on the Orient Express heralded the start of this, and I am thankful for their success, particularly the former, since I enjoy the Benoit Blanc character immensely.

We follow Blanc in this sequel, Glass Onion, as he goes to a the private island of billionaire Elon Musk Miles Bron (Edward Norton) under mysterious circumstances (an invite was sent to him that didn't originate with Bron, although the other characters attribute it to him as the theme of the party is a murder mystery).  In the great Agatha Christie tradition, the guests are a motley (if rich) collection of characters: Governor Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), currently running for Senate; scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr - making a second whoddunit appearance after also appearing in Murder on the Orient Express) who works for Bron; former supermodel/current fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) with her much harried assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick); video game streamer and men's rights activist Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) and his assistant/girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline); and - most importantly - Bron's ex-business partner Andi Brand (Janelle Monae) who has kept herself separated from the group after Bron's legal maneuvering got her ousted as CEO of his company, Alpha.

All of these characters owe a debt to Bron, save Brand: Bron is a major contributor to Gov. Debella's Senate campaign; he helped fund the start of Birdie Jay's clothing company; he helped Duke recover after being banned from Twitch for saying problematic things; Lionel actively works on Bron's biggest project: all of them have a reason to have stuck with Bron over the split with Brand, but all of them also have motives to want to be free of his influence and the potential pitfalls of being aligned with him.

This motley collection of (mostly) horrible characters isn't quite as great as the one in Knives Out - though it does continue Rian Johnson's tradition of the rich being fairly awful and awfully stupid from that first film - but you can tell that certain members of the cast, namely Hudson and Norton, are having a blast with their roles.  No one gives a bad performance, save maybe for Bautista in some parts: he doesn't come across quite as mean-spirited as the script calls for in certain scenes.

Really, that is a good summation of this movie compared to its predecessor: Good, but not as good.  It does play around with the structure of the story in such a way that makes rewatching it fairly rewarding, but several of the story beats are far too similar to the original.  The fact that Monae's character isn't immediately awful is a pretty good indication of who his sidekick is going to be this time around (and Monae does hold her own - on par with Ana de Armas' performance from the first film), and the recurring gag of Derol (Noah Segan) randomly popping up isn't nearly as funny or effective as Marta's puking-when-lying is in the original.

Still, the movie is a blast, with celebrity cameos that work well within the structure of the story, plus an absolutely fantastic ending involving a rather famous painting that went in a direction I never would have expected.  While I would've loved a standout performance akin to Jamie Lee Curtis or Toni Collette's in Knives Out, I can't be too hard on this movie's best-in-shows for not being quite on that level (For the record, that would be Janelle Monae and Edward Norton, with an honorable mention to Jessica Henwick).

A solid way to spend 2 hours.

8 out of 10

Pre-1977 Movie List

1930s:

The Bride of Frankenstein

City Lights

Dracula

Frankenstein

The Invisible Man

King Kong

The Mummy

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The Wizard of Oz

2023 Movie List

The Movies:

65

The Boy and the Heron

Cocaine Bear

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

In Search of Darkness Part III

Godzilla Minus One

The Lost King

Mafia Mamma

Meg 2: The Trench

Oppenheimer

Paint

Scream VI

Sisu

Skinamarink

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

2022 Movie List

The Movies:

Cyrano

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Fabelmans

Glass Onion

Halloween Ends

In Search of Darkness: Part III

Jerry & Marge Go Large

Jurassic World: Dominion

Nope

Pearl

Prey

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Scream

Strange World

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Troll

Turning Red

Werewolf by Night

The Whale

X

Review: Halloween Ends

In my review for the last movie in this franchise (probably the most vitriolic review I have ever written), I alluded to writer/director David Gordon Green and writer Danny McBride having the mentality of knowing better than the audience what they wanted.  To paraphrase, the movie radiated a feeling of 'This is what you will like!' in direct contrast to what did and didn't work in the first of this new trilogy.

I am sad to report that the finale has the same attitude.

It's not that I wanted this movie to be bad - it's that I expected it to be.  And after watching it, my expectations were sadly met.  The movie had the potential to rebound from Halloween Kills and finish strongly - the final battle between Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney, with original actor Nick Castle providing some voicework), 40+ years after they first met.  Instead, both characters are relegated to the sidelines, with the bulk of the movie focusing on an entirely new character and the final battle between these legends relegated to the C plot.

I do have to give credit to Rohan Campbell, who plays new character Corey Cunningham.  He is basically forced to carry this entire movie by himself and tie together the various threads and themes scattered amongst the narratives.  He doesn't quite manage it - I don't think any actor could, to be honest - but he gives it his all, and he manages to give a truly great performance despite the writing and directing working overtime to prevent such a thing from occurring.

Jamie Lee Curtis also does a fine job, though the movie asks her to do precious little.  It asks slightly more of Andi Matichak, returning as Laurie's granddaughter Allyson, mostly because of how much she interacts with Corey.  Will Patton also reappears though I cannot figure out why - they built him up to be a much more important character in the previous two movies than he ended up being in this one.

None of the performances are bad - there is a character I think most will find grating, but that is an intentional choice, I think.  It's just that they are constantly doing battle against a script that wants to do more than what has ultimately ended up on the screen.

Another bit of credit I'll give to this film over the previous one is that the gore - of which there is plenty - is much less exploitative.  Which is an odd thing to say, given some tongue-related shenanigans that happen in the latter half of the movie, but there you go.

Overall though, the movie is just a mess.  It doesn't seem to know what sort of statement it wants to make - though it definitely wants to make one - and it definitely misunderstands what the audience wants and expects from what is supposed to be the grand finale of the Halloween series.  While the previous film was offensively bad, this one is just kind of stupid.  It will be easier to rewatch than Kills is, but I can't think of a better example of damning with faint praise.  It is just as terrible as the previous entry, and only those who are fully committed to the series should bother to see it.

3 our of 10

Reviewed Too Late: Ghostbusters: Afterlife

 

There's comfort in nostalgia.  Going back to when things were 'simple' or 'better' - and I use those terms loosely - can make a viewer enjoy something even when it has various faults.  They will gloss over such things.  But what if the nostalgia ends up overpowering the experience?  What if the very nostalgia used to sell a movie to the public is ultimately that film's undoing?

Ghostbusters: Afterlife depends on nostalgia to a fault.  It is so scared to be its own movie - so scared to allow the franchise to grow - that it ultimately fails itself by the climax, resulting in an enjoyable if disappointing experience.

I'll admit that I think the original Ghostbusters is only an above-average high-concept comedy.  It is not an unassailable classic, and I think that perhaps many around my age might be misattributing some of their love for the cartoon based off the movie back to the film.

It's not a bad film.  I want to make that clear.  Of the admittedly small number of movies I've seen from 1984, I'd still rank it in the top 5 easily.  But it is also not without faults, and the deification of it was ultimately what brought this sequel down.

Set in the present day, the film primarily follows the family of Egon Spengler as they go to his farmhouse in Oklahoma shortly after his death.  Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), granddaughter of Egon and a budding scientist herself, soon discovers much of Egon's equipment and, the story pretty much tells itself from there.

And I do mean that it tells itself: Not only was I able to correctly call that the Keymaster and Gatekeeper would be mother Callie (Carrie Coon) and teacher Gary (Paul Rudd), but I also accurately predicted that Lucky (Celeste O'Connor) would also be possessed at some point.  I would be going into even more spoiler-y territory to reveal other predictions that were made, but pretty much the entire ending is telegraphed to an almost absurd degree.

Which isn't to say the film is unwatchable - again, there is comfort in nostalgia.  The child actors do an amazing job of carrying this movie - with a particular shoutout to Logan Kim as Podcast, a love-him-or-hate-him character that I found terribly amusing.  O'Connor also manages some fun moments with an underwritten character, and Grace ably carries the main narrative.

Moving the location from a major city to a small town was a smart choice also - it allows the action to differentiate itself from the previous films.  The main critique I'd have is the weird choice to have a small town in Oklahoma in the year 2021 have the feel of the 1950s.

There are other odd choices scattered throughout the film - the most egregious to which take place at the sheriff's office - but nothing that ultimately hurts the film.  Any and all choices that bring it down lie in the final part of the movie.

Spoilers!  Do not continue reading if you do not want to know how the film ends!

The decision to have the original Ghostbusters appear at the end of the film could have worked.  It could have been a passing-of-the-torch moment where they help the new generation (Phoebe, Lucky, Podcast, and Trevor - played by Finn Wolfhard) subdue the baddie (Gozer, again) before ultimately allowing them to continue the business.  Instead, Phoebe's moment is literally taken away from her as Egon's ghost appears and stands with the original Ghostbusters to defeat Gozer.

Seriously, the final defeat of Gozer literally cuts off Phoebe so that only the original ones can be seen.  It's tacky and undercuts her journey in so many ways that it almost made me hate the movie.

Spoilers end!

While the ending ultimately keeps me from recommending this movie, it is still an enjoyable enough experience.

6 out of 10, maybe 6.5 depending on the day you ask me.