Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 2023

The Contenders:

Jeffery Wright: American Fiction
Paul Giamatti: The Holdovers
Bradley Cooper: Maestro
Cillian Murphy: Oppenheimer (winner)
Colman Domingo: Rustin

Family Ties

Film: A Real Pain
Format: Streaming video from Hulu Plus on Fire!

I’ve decided to be a little more proactive on watching Oscar films (and 2024 films in general) this year, so I figured diving head-first into A Real Pain would be a good place to start. I tend to like Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg. A running joke I have is that the easiest way to tell the difference between Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera is to remember that Eisenberg is the one with talent. A Real Pain is evidence of this, even if you haven’t liked his previous work; in addition to starring in it, he also wrote and directed it.

The film tells the story of David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin), a pair of cousins born less than a month apart. David is a fairly normal, responsible person with a wife and child, and a job selling advertising banners online. He is very concerned with appearance, and with being on time for things, correct and not causing a scene. Benji is the complete opposite, someone with strong ideas and opinions, but who is otherwise aimless. They are wildly different, and have decided to take a trip together to Poland to visit their heritage, the house where their grandmother grew up, and the concentration camp that she survived.

Return to Form

Film: Alien: Romulus
Format: Streaming video from Disney Plus on various players.

In the world of science fiction, there are few film franchises that are more storied than the Alien franchise. The reality, though, is that this is based almost entirely on the first two movies, Alien and Aliens. Those two movies are extremely highly rated, and with good reason. The other films in the series have been okay (Prometheus, Alien: Covenant), disappointing (Alien³, Alien Resurrection), or actively dumb (both Alien vs. Predator movies). Despite this, I always go into each film in the franchise with expectations. And so it was with Alien: Romulus.

I’m glad I did, because this is a real return to form for the franchise. I didn’t realize it until I watched this, but what has been lacking from the Alien films in general since 1986 is fear. The first two movies have genuine terror moments in them, and since that time, the franchise has relied more on jump scares and horror moments that simply don’t work. Alien: Romulus is scary, and that’s what I’ve been looking for.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2023

The Contenders:

Sandra Hüller: Anatomy of a Fall
Lily Gladstone: Killers of the Flower Moon
Carey Mulligan: Maestro
Annette Bening: Nyad
Emma Stone: Poor Things (winner)

If Only, If Only

Film: David Byrne’s American Utopia
Format: Streaming video from HBO Max on Fire!

Ask people who watch a lot of concert movies and you’ll hear over and over that the single best concert film in history is Stop Making Sense, the Jonathan Demme-helmed film of the Talking Heads tour at the end of 1983. Honestly, it’s not a huge shock to me that what is probably the second-best concert film in history is another David Byrne project, this time produced and directed by Spike Lee. David Byrne’s American Utopia captures the same sort of lightning in a bottle, showing a display of music, dance, and art from front to back, covering Byrne’s Broadway show of several years ago, and nothing more (with a few minor exceptions).

It is very much like Stop Making Sense. What was unique about Demme’s film, or at least very different from a lot of musical documentaries and films is that there was nothing behind the scenes. It was just the concert, one song leading into the next, the band and the instruments coming out one by one as the show progressed and screens drop down so that images could be projected on them. American Utopia is even more stripped down. This is literally just the show, filmed from start to finish. The genius of the show, and the genius of the film is that it doesn’t need to be anything more than this.

Good for Her!

Film: Blink Twice
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on basement television.

There’s a sub-genre of movies, typically horror and thriller movies, that are colloquially called “good for her” movies. Essentially, a good for her movie is one where a female main character faces significant adversity and ends up successfully getting what she wants, more or less, by the end. Well-known and popular examples of the sub-genre include Midsommar, Swallow, Ready or Not, Jennifer’s Body, and You’re Next. Blink Twice is a clear addition to that list, a film where women are put in terrible danger and fight their way through.

We’re going to start out with some background information about a man named Slater King (Channing Tatum), a tech billionaire who has stepped down as CEO of his company for some unspecified problematic behavior. While it’s not really discussed, the implication is some sexual impropriety; basically, he got me-too'd. While not CEO any more, King is still involved in his company, and we’re going to spend some time at a party where he encounters Frida (Naomi Ackie), a cocktail waitress, and our main character.

Psycho Killer

Film: Strange Darling
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on basement television.

There are a few films on my various lists that I will probably never watch. This blog, at least in part, is about going places I might not have otherwise gone in my viewing, but there are still a few places I don’t want to go. Egregious torture and abuse are difficult topics for me, not because of any past history, but because I find it unpleasant. I’ve never been a torture porn fan. Strange Darling rules close to that line in places. This is an ugly film in a lot of ways, even if it is narratively interesting.

One of the reasons that Strange Darling works is that it’s told out of order. Each part of the film is preceded with an episode number, and aside from the epilogue, these are told entirely out of order. It’s an order that reveals information in very specific ways, giving us just enough information to follow the story while revealing just enough to keep us wondering what will happen next.