This is Spinal Tap (1984)

Film: This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Stars: Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, Fran Drescher
Director: Rob Reiner
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I have not had the best luck when it comes to revisiting classic comedies of the 1980's in the past decade.  Movies like Animal House or Airplane!, movies that are considered the gold standard for the genre, are totally lost on me.  This is a little bit because comedies generally rely upon being of-the-moment.  Few films can function as well in every decade like, say, Some Like It Hot or Young Frankenstein, forever timeless.  However, that's also a sign of a movie that didn't age well, which a movie should-film is something that should resonate across generations even if it was made for only one, which is something I'm going to hold against This is Spinal Tap, a movie that has developed an absolute cult following that I found, well, dull.

(Spoilers Ahead) For those unfamiliar, the movie is a rock mockumentary, meant to parody films like  The Last Waltz (about The Band) or Don't Look Back (about Bob Dylan), which had been popular in the 1960's & 70's, but in this case it's about a mediocre singing group who enjoyed a couple of minor hits in other genres, but whose transition to heavy metal has not been greeted with a grand fanfare.  Their shows are increasingly in limited venues, and the crowds are getting smaller.  The band (McKean, Guest, & Shearer make up Spinal Tap) has quite a bit of infighting, including McKean's David falling for a Yoko Ono-type figure, and there's a recurring gag about how the drummers in the band all die in mysterious circumstances.  However, in the end the band reunites after one of their songs becomes a major hit in Japan (which is an inside joke in the rock industry about how certain bands enjoy pockets of success in select regions of the world).

Spinal Tap is thankfully brief, but I left unimpressed.  Its reputation might be because the film would end up inspiring a whole host of filmmakers in the years that followed, including lead actor Christopher Guest, who would make his own series of mockumentary films that would enjoy a devoted fanbase.  In many ways this is the modern template for such films-movies that take the documentary form and fictionalize it, which would at the very least make this style of movie groundbreaking.

But it's not very good.  The jokes and motifs in the movie are dated & not that funny.  Like most 1980's films, there's a strong dose of sexism intermingled with the humor, to the point where you kind of want to check in on the marginalized women in the film to see if any of them would like to be portrayed as something other than a "harpy" or someone-to-have-sex-with.  If it's satire, it's hard to find a way to connect with it as someone who was born after it came out (and therefore didn't grow up with it at all), and if I'm going to try & disregard my generation, I can't disregard the misogyny.  The film is intriguing, and it's impossible not to see the pop culture it inspired, but I found it a bore.

OVP: How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

Film: How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
Stars: Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Rory Calhoun, William Powell
Director: Jean Negulesco
Oscar History: 1 nominaton (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Betty Grable-click here to learn more about Ms. Grable (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Despite having been a major star for over ten years, even in the early 1950's, Betty Grable's pictures were still hits.  She had been in the Top 10 biggest box office draws of every year since 1942, and in 1950, despite a relatively ripe age of 34 (which was a bigger deal in the '50's than it would be now), she was still the highest-grossing actress in America.  However, her star started to fall apart when she demanded that Fox acknowledge that she'd been a consistent draw by requesting more artistic freedom and a giant paycheck.  This led to Grable missing out on a big opportunity-Fox's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which was a huge hit and gave a boost to the woman that was expected to succeed Grable as the top actress on the Fox lot, Marilyn Monroe.  Grable eventually came back to Fox, but they had a bit of a punishment for her in their next picture-casting her as a gold-digger opposite Monroe and Lauren Bacall, both of whom were a decade younger than Grable.

(Spoilers Ahead) How to Marry a Millionaire is a pretty slight film, and one that focuses on three women looking to get rich husbands: scheming Schatze (Bacall), naive Loco (Grable), and ditzy Pola (Monroe).  The three find a posh Manhattan apartment, and start selling off furniture in the hopes of finding a rich husband, but one-by-one they fall not for the actual millionaires like William Powell's JD Hanley, but instead for lumberjacks or criminals, or in Schatze's (the character most determined to stick to the plan) case, Tom, a man she assumes to be a grocery store clerk but who is instead wealthier than any of the men they pursue.  All of the women end up marrying for love, and in Schatze's case, accidentally it comes along with $200 million.

The film is not, unfortunately, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a picture I adored.  It's considerably drier, with only the three leading ladies adding anything to these happenings (Powell is a bore, which is a damned shame coming from the guy who made The Thin Man and My Man Godfrey so bubbly).  It's still fun, of course.  Bacall is ballsy (and gets a great joke about the "old guy in The African Queen" at one point), and Monroe is always fun to watch, and even Grable gets to have some game moments with a man who is looking to have an affair, but there's not enough laughs here.  We don't really get a sense for who these women are other than cartoons, and there aren't memorable musical numbers or someone who is as willing as Jane Russell is to commit to the cartoons the women are asked to play.

Grable's month, as a result, ends with a movie with some promise but ultimately a picture that flirts with a 2-star rating even if it's more a questionable three.  I'll admit to not finding much in Grable's extensive filmography this month to lend to her, disappointing after the joys of Jean Harlow in January.  Grable's career quickly petered out after this, the last significant picture of her time in Hollywood.  After Millionaire she turned down another role that would go to Monroe (There's No Business Like Show Business), something she was fine with; despite press at the time, Monroe & Grable got along famously, to the point where Grable requested her for what would be her last film How to Be Very, Very Popular (the Monroe part would go to Sheree North).  Grable would be turned down for the lead role in 1956's Guys and Dolls, making her quit the industry, and then became a headliner in Vegas until her death in 1973 of lung cancer at the age of 56.  Next month, we will move to a different star of the 1940's who would also find herself in the 1950's looking to Las Vegas, but not before having one of the most eclectic (and unfair) careers of any star in Classic Hollywood.

Home of the Range (2004)

Film: Home on the Range (2004)
Stars: Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, Jennifer Tilly, Cuba Gooding Jr., Randy Quaid, Steve Buscemi
Director: Will Finn & John Sanford
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

With Disney+ now an option, I've been given the opportunity to start doing a film project (I'm always working on at least a dozen or so film projects) that I've been putting off for a while-trying to see all of the (currently 58) Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film releases.  It's weird, but even though I'm still missing 11, all of them come from two time frames-the post-Dumbo, pre-Cinderella period of the 1940's (where films like Saludos Amigos were the rage), and in the post-Tarzan, pre-Princess and the Frog era, where Disney was losing repeatedly to Pixar.  Not sure if you'd fall into the same camp (you can check here), but if I'm going to take on some of these films (and why not-it's cold out & who wouldn't prefer staying indoors with some calming animation?), I'm going to have to tackle these eras, and after Monday's Treasure Planet, I figured we might as well clean out the aughts first.  Which brings us to...

(Spoilers Ahead) ...Home on the Range!  For those of you who have forgotten, and I suspect that's a lot of you as this was not a hit when it was originally released, this is a very loose retelling of the Pied Piper story, but set in the Old West.  We have Maggie (Barr), a rough-and-tumble cow whose entire herd has been stolen by a cattle rustler named Alameda Slim (Quaid), who can woo cows by yodeling & hypnotizing them in the process.  Maggie goes to a kindly farm where she is teamed up with two other cows, prim Mrs. Calloway (Dench) and flighty Grace (Tilly), but initially resents them because she's been taken away from her home.  When they realize their farm is going to be up for sale, they set out to catch Alameda Slim to get the reward money to save the farm, but along the way they quarrel, and are competing with a horse called Buck (Gooding), who wants to impress his owner, a famed bounty hunter.  As the film continues, the three cows patch up their differences, and once Buck realizes the bounty hunter is double-crossing him, the four of them together catch Alameda Slim, save the ranch, and all live their days happily on the farm.

The film was arguably at one of the lowest points in the history of Disney.  The studio had had a string of films that flopped badly, and Home on the Range ended up being the last traditionally-drawn animated feature for five years from the studio, until Princess and the Frog sort of welcomed a new era for the studio (that would eventually lead to Frozen, arguably this era's peak).  It's easy to see why.  The film is reliant almost exclusively on you finding the charms of two adult cows winning, and neither Roseanne Barr nor Judi Dench are going to be the sort of actors that you could see a child latching onto, even a child that might have given something like Up a chance (despite this taking place on a farm, it doesn't have the "buy all of these animals in a happy meal" sort of cache that you'd think it would).

That said, it has its moments.  Barr is woefully miscast in the lead, her snarky brand of humor an awful fit for a Disney film (Roseanne Barr is a talented comedian, but as her public persona has shown, she's not great at remorse, which is essential to Maggie's journey).  Dench & Tilly are better, though again-there's not a lot to this fluffy plot, and Quaid's villain is kind of phoned into the movie.  The best part is the music, composed by Alan Menken and sung throughout the film by the likes of kd lang and Bonnie Raitt.  Considering the dearth of options that year, it's a bit weird that Menken couldn't get Raitt's haunting ballad "Will the Sun Ever Shine Again" nominated at the Oscars, but perhaps the stench off of this one meant Disney didn't want to spend more money on a campaign.  All-in-all, this is a relatively forgettable movie, though by no means the disaster it felt like at the time.

OVP: Animated Feature Film (2016)

OVP: Best Animated Feature Film (2016)

The Nominees Were...

Travis Knight & Ariannne Stner, Kubo and the Two Strings
John Musker, Ron Clements, & Osnat Shurer, Moana
Claude Barros & Max Karli, My Life as a Zucchini
Michael Dudok de Wit & Toshio Suzuki, The Red Turtle
Byron Howard, Rich Moore, & Clark Spencer, Zootopia

My Thoughts: This week we move into the categories that tend to get the headlines on Oscar night for 2016, and start with the category that, when people say "I haven't seen any of the nominees" I usually point them toward.  After all, combine Disney's ubiquity with popular culture with their hold on this category (only twice, 2005 & 2011, have they been overlooked for nominations), and you have at least one movie each year that you probably brought your kids to.  In 2016, in fact, it was probably two of them, and so we'll kick it off with those two films, which were surely dueling for the eventual win.

Zootopia is (and I recently rewatched this movie) just way better than it has any right to be.  A film that has a message of tolerance in it is something that usually animated features, trying to dumb things down for their audience, cannot handle without it being cloying, but that's not Zootopia.  Yes, the tolerance message is obvious for anyone over 11, but that doesn't mean it's not well-served in this movie, which has brilliant set design and world-building, and lovely animation.  Even the film's obvious jokes (and there are a few) are effective, from the Godfather bit to the Shakira.  The movie struggles to find truly compelling side characters other than Judy & Nick, but this is hardly something to dismiss it over-Zootopia deserves this inclusion.

So, quite frankly, does Moana.  Disney feature length movies I sometimes struggle with here because at least one feels like it's only included because of the billions of dollars sitting behind it's needed success, but these are both home runs, and both films I've revisited in the last year.  Moana is bold, gorgeously-drawn (the blues and greens! ahh!), and filled with the best soundtrack for a Disney musical since...Pocahontas?  Can I say that without eliciting the ire of Frozen fans?  Like Zootopia, the side characters are one-dimensional, but Moana is such a breath-of-fresh-air as a princess that she fully serves the movie you're watching.

Kubo and the Two Strings was a bit of a box office disappointment, but if you've seen only one of the remaining three films it's the one you saw.  The film is another installment from our beloved Laika, and you can see once again the inventive nature that the animators bring to making their films unique.  The Washi sisters are genuinely spooky, and the Skeleton monster is breathtaking.  I'd normally give it credit for all of this, but since this is the rare animated film cited for VFX, it's hard not to feel like that's already been awarded, in which case Kubo loses points for being the least inventive Laika film to date in terms of character & story, as well as the one that has the sleekest (but least colorful) design.

My Life as a Zucchini is such a strange film to be cited here, and continues the weird Oscar history of this category that also brought us  I Lost My Hand and Anomalisa.  The story here is middling and predictable, but the rest of the film is a home run in my opinion.  The animation is miraculous, the combination of computer effects with clay sets is fascinating and seamlessly done, and the character development is really strong.  This, unlike pretty much every other film on this list, does a good job of filling out side characters to make them feel like someone you can root for and have as a "favorite" rather than just find them adorable.  If this category sometimes feels unnecessary, Zucchini getting an Oscar nod probably makes it worth it.

The same is true for The Red Turtle, which is a marvel.  A story that is more fable than plot, it unfolds in a wordless fashion, but it's so lovely.  The use of color is meticulous but gorgeous, with red and black in particular being used to emit specific emotions that the lack of dialogue cannot.  It honestly reminded me in a lot of ways of The Bicycle Thief, the sort of film that's so simple, so basic, but so brilliant-it is very difficult to pull off something basic & elegant and make it avoid ever being dull.  The Red Turtle does that.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes were slightly more mainstream than Oscar, but honestly they made room for Zucchini so I can't fault them entirely.  Sing got in instead of The Red Turtle, with Zootopia taking first place.  BAFTA weirdly went with four nominations (can't we all just agree that this category only needs three nominations?), with Kubo actually winning, beating Finding Dory, Moana, and Zootopia (one has to assume that the Disney vote split enough to cost it here).  I'd assume considering its box office and the power of Pixar that Finding Dory was sixth place here, but honestly-the fact that it missed at the Globes in favor of Zucchini makes me wonder if people just didn't like it.

Films I Would Have Nominated: I truly think this should be only three nods here, and Oscar picked all three of the ones I would have gone with, so I'm good.

Oscar’s Choice: Without Dory there to water down the vote (and maybe hand this to Kubo, which had fans as is evident by that VFX nomination), Oscar went with the early critical favorite Zootopia.

My Choice: One of the best lineups this category has had-there's not a stinker in the bunch here.  I'm going with Red Turtle, which has stuck with me the longest, even if Disney might have deserved a trophy with silver Moana and bronze Zootopia.  Rounding out the list is Zucchini and then Kubo.

There you have it-the Animated Featured category.  Are you with me that The Red Turtle rises above or are you with the consensus citing Zootopia?  What's it going to take to finally get Laika a trophy in this category (after 2019, they're now zero for five)?  And what held Finding Dory back so far when they've been willing to endorse Pixar for less?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2016: Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2016

Past Best Animated Feature Contests: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015

OVP: The Verdict (1982)

Film: The Verdict (1982)
Stars: Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, Milo O'Shea
Director: Sidney Lumet
Oscar History: 5 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Paul Newman, Supporting Actor-James Mason, Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

If you look hard enough, the guy in the tan suit & striped tie in the top right
next to the woman with the perm is a very famous future movie star-
do you know who it is?

Few film genres were destroyed more resoundingly by television than the courtroom drama.  In fact, I'm still kind of stunned when a movie like Just Mercy shows up in theaters as it feels like a western or musical randomly getting a retread.  Television almost completely took over the genre, with everything from Perry Mason to Law & Order to NCIS picking up the pieces of a legal drama.  Films of this genre almost always feel worn or tired at this point, as a result, and when I recently caught a classic in the genre, The Verdict, it was a struggle to get by this genre bias, even as it was apparent that this was a quality film.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on Frank Galvin (Newman), a largely disgraced attorney who was once accused of jury tampering, in the twilight of his career.  He's an alcoholic ambulance chaser, someone who barely makes rent, and is given a bone when he is sent a medical malpractice case by his friend Mickey (Warden) that seems certain to settle out of court (read: an easy payday).  Frank, though, wants to take the case to court, and refuses the out-of-court settlement (to the chagrin of the victims' relatives), and has to go toe-to-toe with the hospital's legal defense team, headed by Ed Concannon (Mason), a cutthroat lawyer.  The case then follows as Concannon's team goes to great lengths (scaring off witnesses and hiring a woman, Laura, played by Rampling, to seduce Frank & feed him information).  In the end, though, a nurse that had been on-duty confesses that the hospital had put the patient under anesthesia even though she had recently eaten, thus causing her current medical predicament.  Frank wins the case, and is left wondering whether or not his relationship with Laura is worth saving.

The Verdict gains its reputation not necessarily from the uniqueness of its plot, but the quality in which it's executed.  This is, in fact, considerably better than you'd expect from even the best Law & Order episodes because it explores the soul of some of these characters.  Newman is fantastic in the lead role as Frank.  This was during the period where everyone was sort of wondering if Newman, a decades-long Hollywood favorite, would ever get to win his competitive Oscar (spoiler alert: he would, four years later, but this year he'd be bested by Ben Kingsley), and it's easy to see why such scuttle continued with a performance this solid.  Newman's work here is grounded in not making the alcoholism Frank's totality, but part of his life.  He's a high-functioning alcoholic-he's had a dwindling career, but he's still kept his career.  Newman makes that a side effect of his life, just sitting there on the outskirts, creeping in when he needs it not to the most.  It's great acting from a champion performer.

The film won three other nominations other than its Best Picture/Actor credentials, and all of them are well-earned.  Lumet's direction is succinct, rarely giving us a shot that isn't carefully-framed, while the script is brilliant, filled with strong speeches from Newman & Mason, as well as almost no scenes that are out-of-place (I'm shocked the editing wasn't nominated).  The relationship between Newman and Rampling doesn't quite gel properly, though to no fault of either actor (I don't know if I'd have nominated Rampling or not for this-I'd need to explore the year more-and she's one of my favorite performers, but there's something off in their chemistry, him too fire and her too ice).  James Mason was correctly cited for the film, and unlike Newman, would never win an Academy Award; he would die less than two years after the release of The Verdict.  This is a proper epitaph to the actor, though, with his distinctive voice ringing not just alongside a truly villainous character, but one who is a reminder of the audience's culpability in assuming authority is usually looking out for its best interests.  The Verdict succeeds because it finds a way to not just show an underdog tale, but why underdog tales are important in the first place.

OVP: Treasure Planet (2002)

Film: Treasure Planet (2002)
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brian Murray, David Hyde Pierce, Emma Thompson, Martin Short
Director: Ron Clements & John Musker
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature Film)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

On a total whim this weekend, I decided to start plugging away at not only some upcoming OVP years, but also with a bit of a lens on the Animated Feature Film race.  I saw three of the movies (one more review coming out later this week, the other one you've hopefully already seen but here's a link if you didn't).  With this viewing, I can now count on one hand the number of Animated Feature films I've seen (and still have a finger or two to spare), and weirdly, I am now officially done with every Disney-Pixar film that has ever been nominated in the category.  I don't have a great excuse for why I didn't see Treasure Planet when it came out (I was still living with my parents as I was just a teenager, and we made something of a point of seeing every Disney film, though like most families around this era we'd kind of moved on to Pixar).  Regardless, this movie, which I always thought looked fantastic in posters, has finally been watched, and today you're going to join me on my weird sojourn into animated films past.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is a loose retelling of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel Treasure Island, though set in space.  We have Jim Hawkins (Gordon-Levitt), a young man obsessed with pirates as a child who as an adult is always getting into trouble, to the point where toward the end of Act I, he destroys his mother's inn.  When he does this, a dying pilot gives Jim a golden sphere which turns out to be a map that will lead him to buried treasure, a whole planet of it.  Along with one of his mother's nerdy customers Dr. Doppler (Pierce), Jim sets off on a voyage to this planet.  The ship is captained by the disciplined (but morally sound) Captain Amelia (Thompson), but her crew is a group of pirates in disguise, led by John Silver (Murray), who takes a shine to Jim, but is still intent on winning the treasure.  Once they get to the island, they discover the planet is in fact real, but a mutiny stakes Jim, Amelia, and Doppler against the pirates & their crew, including John Silver who doesn't want to hurt them, but take the gold for himself.  However, the planet is booby-trapped, and as a result the treasure disappears, with John Silver forced to choose between getting the treasure and saving Jim, and being that this is a Disney movie, he saves Jim.  He thus avoids prison time, and Jim uses some of the treasure to fix his mother's inn...with his eyes still focused on the stars & adventures he might have in the future.

The film on original release didn't do well.  While box office numbers are always rough to get at (studio's pad their grosses and under-report their expenditures), the film is generally considered to be a flop, one of a string of movies at the time from the Mouse House that made everyone think that Disney's reign was being superseded by Pixar.  However, nearly twenty years after-the-fact, I both understand why it didn't do well and am perplexed, since the formula for a good Disney movie is there, even if it doesn't always gel.

The film's best attribute is the animation.  The movie uses a winning combination of 2-dimensional drawing atop 3-dimensional computer animation, and it's gorgeous.  There's very few shots in the film that aren't frame-worthy, and some (like the one I picked for this article), stand out as some of the most beautifully-drawn scenes of this era of animation, where the transition was happening into entirely computer-animated animation.  If you're an animation enthusiast, this is worth checking out simply because it's so pretty, and honestly was enough for me to give the thumbs up regardless of the plot.

The plot is mixed.  I liked Murray's interpretation of John Silver, and his adorable sidekick Morph is super cute and would be a bigger deal if this movie had been a hit (I could see the animated shorts from here).  That said, Jim isn't as well-defined of a main character as I'd usually hope given Disney had just gotten off riveting front-line characters like Belle, Pocahontas, and Mulan, and that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was about to become a very seriously-considered actor.  He's better than some of the side characters, though.  David Hyde Pierce & Emma Thompson had been doing this schtick for years at the time, and honestly are still doing some version of it, and Martin Short's BEN (a robot that they find on Treasure Planet) stands apart as one of the most annoying, unnecessary sidekicks in Disney's annals (and I love Marty Short).  These keep me at about a three, but don't confuse that with a bad movie or one where you'll just enjoy the scenery-it's a fun film.  It's just never going to be Beauty and the Beast, and there's a reason this was a disappointment so soon after the Disney Renaissance.

The Political Savvy of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

No surprise from 2018's primary season was bigger than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beating Joe Crowley, a bartender who beat the man-who-could-be-Speaker.  Since she won office, Ocasio-Cortez has been a fascinating conundrum for followers of politics, as I am wont to be.  Unlike other members of her "Squad," like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, her headlines are rarely (if ever) for personal comments or for moments due to her "notoriety."  Instead, Ocasio-Cortez is a deeply savvy politician, someone who might have "seemingly" gotten to where she was by luck, but is not a fluke politician.  Yes, she's very progressive (she's pushing hard, and I might add, successfully, for Bernie Sanders to be the Democratic nominee), but she's also pragmatic.  When she introduced her Green New Deal, for example, instead of having someone like Sanders be her Senate cosponsor, she picked Ed Markey, a DC-fixture for decades who is the complete antithesis of Ocasio-Cortez's career, having waited nearly forty years before finally getting promoted into the Senate.

So it should surprise no one who is actually paying attention that when Ocasio-Cortez was going to announce the people she's endorsing for Congress this year as part of her "Courage to Change" program, that the women she selected are, well, smart choices.  The organization, announced this past week, is focused on electing progressive women to the next Congress, and its endorsements fulfill such a mission statement.  Ocasio-Cortez selected seven women that by pretty much any definition of the term would be considered liberal, likely votes for things like DACA, the Equality Act, Medicare-4-All, and other major pieces of legislation that a Sanders' administration would push.  But she also did so in a way that is incredibly savvy, building on her clout (and support for future bids) in Washington while not ticking off the powers-that-be that, like Markey, want to trade in on her cool factor and will give her access to their long-term credibility.

Let's investigate how she did this by looking at the seven women she endorsed.  Kara Eastman is one of them.  Eastman you've heard me talk (and complain) about here because she was one of the more successful Bernie Sanders' endorsed candidates in 2018, beating a DCCC-backed favorite in the primary (former Rep. Brad Ashford), but ultimately not winning the seat (which I maintain Ashford would have done).  However, in 2020, things are different and Ocasio-Cortez getting a quick endorsement for Eastman makes sense.  The DCCC struggled to get a strong nominee here (though it's worth noting that Ashford's wife Ann is one of the leading contenders), and Eastman, who actually got close (losing by just 2-points) is arguably the best prepared candidate in the bunch to run again.  One could make a sincere argument that NE-2 is one of the truest tossups (Nebraska splits its electoral votes by congressional district) in the 2020 presidential election, and considering that in encompasses most of the Omaha metropolitan area, Eastman, even with her liberal background, is going to be coming in strong here in the same way pretty much every Democrat would.  Ocasio-Cortez is thus endorsing someone who has A) a decent chance of winning, even if they are more progressive than the district and B) she's not going against the powers-that-be so much as rushing to fill a hole that the DCCC has failed to fill.

Kara Eastman (D-NE)

This is true with her other endorsements as well.  Georgette Gomez (CA), Teresa Fernandez (NM), and Samelys Lopez (NY) are some of several candidates running for safely blue seats where she's endorsing a qualified candidate, trying to give them a slight leg-up in a similar fashion to Emily's List or other major PAC's, but ultimately not putting anything at risk for the seat.  Unlike Eastman's race, these seats are solid blue and whomever gets through is going to win the general.  But in giving them an advantage in a crowded field (something that the Nancy Pelosi or DCCC generally avoid doing for safely-blue seats), she's gaining political allies with long-term potential if they win.  It's smart politics.

Even the bolder endorsements have a safety net surrounding them.  In my opinion the oddest endorsement is Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, who is running for the Senate from Texas.  The Texas Democratic Senate primary seems certain to head to a runoff, but most people assume that MJ Hegar, who is the only candidate raising serious money, is destined to be the nominee (though it's worth noting that Emily's List has still not gotten into what seems like a no-brainer race for them).  I'm not sure what Ocasio-Cortez is getting at here.  It's probably that she doesn't have a lot of options.  It's not entirely clear if her PAC will endorse men, which might preclude her getting into some of the primaries in New Mexico, Massachusetts, & Colorado, and it's possible that the two women in the Georgia Senate race don't want her endorsement.  Betsy Sweet in Maine probably would have taken it, and seems the most logical option, but Sweet is also a long-shot against an Emily's List-endorsed candidate (Sara Gideon), and Gideon is considered an even-odds favorite to win the Senate race by many (I rate this contest a Tossup).  It's therefore a race where Ocasio-Cortez could not only lose hard, but also have a future senator who will remember that she went against her.  Hegar is a long-odds candidate in Texas, unlikely to win this seat unless the best of scenarios takes place-going against her carries less risk, and honestly if Tzintzum Ramirez gets through to even the runoff, you could argue that's a win for Ocasio-Cortez in flexing her strength.

Ocasio-Cortez is endorsing two challengers to incumbents-Marie Newman & Jessica Cisneros (both of whom we talked about quite a bit here if you want more background).  However, these are challengers against conservative Democrats, and she's not the only big name backing these candidates.  Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders have both endorsed these women, as have people like HUD Secretary Julian Castro & Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, so there's a good deal of cover in endorsing these candidates.  Plus, they aren't primarying a Collin Peterson or Tom O'Halleran, where a liberal candidate would mean a lost seat-both of these women could hold these seats if they win the contest.  As a result, Ocasio-Cortez is waging primaries against incumbents who are not well-liked by the party rank-and-file, rather than targeting an older, liberal incumbent, like, say, a Joe Crowley.  Ocasio-Cortez is not trying to repeat the success of how she got there, going after figures that might marginalize her power in DC, but instead is using her following & celebrity to win the game, rather than change it.

OVP: Howl's Moving Castle (2005)

Film: Howl's Moving Castle (2005)
Stars: Emily Mortimer, Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal, Josh Hutcherson, Blythe Danner
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature Film)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I will (on occasion) get someone who will be stunned when I haven't seen a movie.  This gets old faster than you think (despite putting near daily reviews on this blog, I will admit that I don't actually get to watch a movie every day, and even at that rate, I still would have gaps in my viewing history), but there are movies that pop up enough that I know that seeing them is actually going to help me a bit, going from a look of fake shock to an unamused expression of "oh, John has an opinion on another movie."  One of those titles is strangely Howl's Moving Castle, the only major Miyazaki film that I haven't caught since the director "went mainstream" in the US with his studio's Oscar win for Spirited Away.  The fact that I loved the 2002 movie and didn't see his immediate followup at the time is a little odd, but I was in college, and was getting paid to see specific movies each week for my school paper (and if I wasn't paid to see it, I had to pay for it from my consistently empty wallet).  So here we are, fifteen years later, finally catching it as we start to put a close on the 2005 Academy Awards.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, like so many by Miyazaki, has a lot of plot, so stick with me for a second.  Sophie (Mortimer) is a young woman who runs a hat shop.  She is one day whisked across town (literally, they fly) by a traveling wizard called Howl (Bale), who lives in a giant floating castle. At the shop, she encounters the rude and cruel Witch of the Waste (Bacall), who puts a curse on her, turning her into an old woman (Simmons).  She goes to find Howl, but is forbidden from speaking the reasons or the why's of her curse to Howl, since he might be able to break it.  However, once she gets there she finds that Howl is a lost soul, someone who tries to stay away from the world rather than be brave, and is involved in his own curse with Calcifer (Crystal), who is a wisecracking fire demon (a thing, apparently).  Together, they go after the Witch of the Waste, but in doing so realize the true creature they must battle is Madame Suliman (Danner), another witch who has actually stripped the Witch of the Waste of her powers, and has been doing so to a depleting number of witches and wizards.  They end up doing so by essentially breaking all of the curses, and saving the kingdom in the process.

That last sentence takes about forty minutes.  One of the bigger problems with this film is that there's, in fact, too much plot.  This isn't always an issue, and especially with animation it's kind of a refreshing issue to have (in recent years, one of the bigger crimes of mainstream animated films has been creating ridiculously one-note supporting players that feel phoned-in by the writers), but it's there.  The film's thick story works for long stretches, but then randomly Howl is flying around as a monster or he's unnecessarily vain or we have to see the piles-of-flesh Witch of the Waste degraded yet again as she extends a thin tangent.  It needs trimming, is what I'm saying.

But otherwise I have little to complain about, as while this lacks the automatic magic of Spirited Away, it's visually splendid and filled with genuinely interesting performances.  Leave it to only Hayao Miyazaki to have two of the big headliners of 1940's cinema (Lauren Bacall and Jean Simmons) unite for the only team some fifty years after they regularly headlined pictures.  The film looks gorgeous.  I'm never a fan of the way that Miyazaki makes hideous imagery onscreen with select characters, and there's some problematic aspects to the way he depicts overweight people here, but overall his moving castle is a vision.  And like I said, the film's story works in large spurts.  The back story is complete, the characters well-drawn, and the conclusion pretty satisfying.  In the US, this would have surely required several movies to get through, but thankfully this is our one story with these characters.  As such, it's also the type of movie that we used to obsess over and recreate, in a world before prequels & sequels did that for us.

My Blue Heaven (1950)

Film: My Blue Heaven (1950)
Stars: Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, David Wayne, Jane Wyatt, Mitzi Gaynor, Una Merkel, Louise Beavers
Director: Henry Koster
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Betty Grable-click here to learn more about Ms. Grable (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we had our first of two pictures with Betty Grable and Dan Dailey.  Grable's career in many ways got an extra dose of life support with Dailey, as our star by this point had entered her thirties and while she was still gorgeous, wasn't the fresh ingenue that she had been in her Down Argentine Way days.  However, Mother Wore Tights was a huge success, and that meant that the studio was willing to exhaust Grable's time with Dan Dailey as much as possible, teaming them four times.  This is arguably the least well-known of their pairings, and we're watching it A) because it is, of course, a Betty Grable movie and this series is about finding both the well-known & the lesser-celebrated pictures she made work and B) because When My Baby Smiles at Me, their more lauded film, is not available in any fashion whatsoever on streaming or rental.  Here we have Grable once again playing an entertainer, part of a husband-and-wife that is having trouble adding to their family act.

(Spoilers Ahead) Grable and Dailey are Kitty and Jack Moran, a song-and-dance team who are successful radio stars.  At the beginning of the film we find Kitty at the doctor's office (one of multiple times that the film makes a point of showing off Grable's legs), and she tells her husband on the air that they are expecting.  Afterward, though, Grable loses the baby after getting into a car accident, and she finds out it's unlikely she'll be able to carry a child to term.  The remainder of the movie is a series of madcap events combined with genuinely sad moments as Kitty & Jack try to make both a burgeoning television career and an adoption process work at the same time.

My Blue Heaven could be charming, and could be about a generally under-discussed taboo subject (for the 1950's): infertility and miscarriage.  It's heartbreaking watching the first scene after Grable has to put on a brave face in front of a careless doctor, who is more concerned about her "smiling" for her husband than the anguish she's going through, and Grable, no one's definition of a feminist, manages to find a way to make the scene feel as difficult for the audience as it is for her character.

But My Blue Heaven has too little of this moment of concern and unkindness in Grable's Kitty.  Instead, it's kind of gross.  The musical numbers are instantly forgettable, and as a result you're left mostly with the story where you have Grable's Kitty frequently more concerned with her husband than with the fact that she went through something deeply traumatic, and no one seems to give a damn about how she feels.  She has to lose not one, but two children as the movie progresses thanks to the careless actions of her husband and his buddy Walter (Wayne), and is forced to cheekily look the other way when her husband kisses dancer Gloria (Gaynor, in her film debut).  The film's sexual politics basically make Kitty just a vessel for failed fertility, never minding that her husband is a cad, scoundrel, and a jerk, and she'd be better off shipping him to the curb.

The film's racial politics are brutal too.  Louise Beavers in the film has the thankless role of Selma, the Morans' maid.  Beavers at this point had been a longtime character actress, who had played in such classics as Imitation of Life and Holiday Inn, and was about to become TV's third (and last) Beulah, taking over after Hattie McDaniel left the series due to the breast cancer that would eventually kill her.  Selma is only in a handful of scenes, but two of them are rough to watch.  She is yelled at by Dan Dailey when the couple loses the baby they have just adopted because Walter has thrown a party to celebrate, and the adoption agency thinks this is indicative of the kind of people Jack & Kitty are.  This is after they were forgiving of Walter and the party guests, letting them off the hook for utter foolishness (the people are bringing home a child-maybe it's a terrible idea to have a loud party with the infant); Selma, the poor black woman in his employ instead gets Jack's anger.  This happens later when the couple's other adopted child (whom they purchased illegally) is retrieved by the authorities from them, and despite her following the law, Selma is berated by Kitty & Jack's colleagues.  This mistreatment of a black character wasn't unusual for a film in 1950, but considering it's billed as a frothy comedy and the movie tries to reiterate how he Morans' are decent, kind-hearted folks, it's telling that the one person they treat like crap for most of the film is the only person of color.  Next week we'll head into an actual crowdpleaser, as Betty Grable steps away from Dan Dailey and meets the woman who would succeed her as the biggest star at the Fox lot.

The State of the Primaries

It might shock you to hear if you've been hiding under a rock, but there's currently a presidential primary going on for the Democrats.  What might actually be eyebrow-raising, or at least is under-reported, is that there a plethora of a congressional primaries that are being waged across the country with extremely meaningful outcomes, a number of which pit incumbent legislators against members of their own parties.  Today I thought it'd be fun to take a look at these, and in particular the eight races that appear (to me) to be the most likely to have an incumbent lose election to a member of his or her own party.  

I have decided to list these alphabetically after considering ranking them.  We are just too far out (with races like those in Massachusetts & New York still getting settled), to call one of these the "most" competitive.  Rest assured, though, that none of these people should be resting on their laurels and are in tough fights for their seats.

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA)

Georgia Senate

The Incumbent: Kelly Loeffler (R), who just recently was appointed to the seat after the resignation of Sen. Johnny Isakson.
The Challenger(s): Rep. Doug Collins, a hard-right conservative in the state who has extensive ties to President Donald Trump (he's one of his biggest champions in the House).
Why the Race: This one's easy, and I almost didn't include it since Loeffler is only an appointed incumbent, but it bares repeating.  Loeffler is a longtime businesswoman (she made a fortune in Bitcoin) who seems attractive to Republicans (because with $500 million between she and her husband, they can self-fund), but also who comes with the sorts of bipartisan ties that are basically required of someone at her financial level.  Loeffler has given to her now-Senate colleague Debbie Stabenow (D), for example, in past campaigns, and her husband gave to both Georgia Rep. David Scott (D) and even Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.  This is easy fodder for Collins, who, while not necessarily getting the endorsement of President Trump, seems likely to be able to stave off an endorsement of Loeffler.  This is a jungle primary, so it's possible both candidates advance to the general (unless the Democrats can winnow down their field a bit), or it's possible Collins or Loeffler gains the upper-hand in November, but it's definitely one of the most vulnerable races for an incumbent this cycle.

Marie Newman (D-IL)

Illinois-3

The Incumbent: Dan Lipinski, a conservative Democrat who has been in Congress since 2005.

The Challenger(s): The primary one is Marie Newman, who ran against Lipinski in 2018, but there is also local community activist Rush Darwish and frequent candidate Charles Hughes.

Why the Race: Lipinski is an anomaly in the Democratic Party.  He's anti-choice, anti-gay marriage, and is frequently a relic of an old cronyism in the Illinois Democratic Party that has, in recent years, started to evaporate (or at least get pushed further into the backrooms).  In 2018, he nearly lost his primary against Marie Newman, a marketing consultant, winning by less than 3000 votes.  This year, Newman is back, and in fuller force, with Emily's List and a number of high profile Democrats (including Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot) all getting behind her campaign.  I'd say Lipinski was a goner were it not for Darwish & Hughes, who may not win many votes, but could siphon precious anti-Lipinski support that Newman needs to win (he still has a sizable base in the district).  The general election isn't competitive (Hillary won here by 15-points), but Newman's entire political career is resting on winning this race.  If she doesn't, it's hard to see her getting another shot at Lipinski, and redistricting could make this a completely different ballgame against the incumbent in 2022.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

Iowa-4

The Incumbent: Controversial Republican Rep. Steve King, who has held office since 2003

The Challenger(s): A few prominent Republicans are running, chief among them State Sen. Randy Feenstra

Why the Race: King is arguably the biggest pariah in Congress right now.  The Iowa congressman in January of 2019 was stripped of all of his committee assignments after widespread condemnation of remarks he made that seemingly supported white supremacy.  King's history of racist comments are decades long (so it's a bit eyebrow-raising it took until 2019 to go after them), but despite having virtually no power in Congress (he can vote in all floor votes, but has no say in committee where most of the power & work is done in the House), he's still running for another term.  Feenstra is a solid candidate, and would remove an embarrassing member of the House GOP, but there's already three other candidates in the race to take out King, and could be more.  Feenstra could probably beat King one-on-one, but there's at least some base that won't move away from King here-it's likely below 50%, but if it's not much lower Feenstra is going to miss his opportunity even against a toothless incumbent.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA)

Massachusetts Senate

The Incumbent: Ed Markey, a second-term Democratic senator who has spent decades on Capitol Hill (initially in the House)

The Challenger(s): Rep. Joe Kennedy III, a four-term incumbent whose main claim-to-fame is his family name, as he's the grandson of former US Sen. Robert Kennedy and the grand-nephew of former President Kennedy.

Why the Race: Honestly, I don't know.  I've talked about this race in the past, and the best I can tell is that Kennedy is running against Markey simply because he thinks Markey is "too old" to still be able to represent his constituents.  This seems not just a gross description, but an inaccurate one.  Markey is deeply relevant on Capitol Hill, and in fact was the chief Senate sponsor of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal.  Were it not for his last name, one would assume that Kennedy would be considerably behind, but recent polling has shown him with a significant advantage over the incumbent, so Markey has work to do to prove that he's more valuable to the state than a man who brings a famous name to the conversation, if little else in terms of substantive legislative achievement.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA)

Massachusetts-3

The Incumbent: Rep. Lori Trahan, a first-term Democratic incumbent

The Challenger(s): Dan Koh, a town selectman who lost to Trahan in 2018 in the primary by just 122 votes.

Why the Race: Trahan won a very, very tight race in 2018 against Koh.  Not only did she only win by 122 votes, but she only got 21.6% of the vote since there were a dozen candidates in the contest.  Since then, Trahan's first term has been marred in scandal, and she's currently being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for violating campaign finance laws in 2018.  Koh is (currently) the only candidate in the race, which should help him, but he's gone back-and-forth on running (likely wanting confirmation that Trahan is guilty to help his case), and in the meantime Trahan has been stockpiling cash awaiting a potentially bloody primary.  This should be competitive, but I wonder if Trahan will be able to beat back accusations against her campaign as long it's mostly smoke and not fire.  Still, her middling margin in 2018 and Koh's presence as a high-profile challenger means she stays on this list.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY)

New York-9

The Incumbent: Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke, who has served in Congress since 2007.

The Challenger(s): Two stand out-one, Adam Bunkeddeko, a Brookyln Coummunity Board member who ran against Clarke in 2018, and Chaim Deutsch, a famously homophobic NYC Councilman.

Why the Race: Lost in the whole Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hammering Joe Crowley thing in 2018 was that Yvette Clarke also almost lost out-of-nowhere.  Clarke is prepared this cycle, but appetite in communities around New York to kick out old members appear strong, and her best best (like that of King & Lipinski) is to split the vote, particularly considering Bunkeddeko got that slim margin against Clarke in a one-on-one race.  Even if Deutsch is going to be a questionable candidate for a left-leaning district, his presence might hurt any anti-Clarke sentiment, and if he does well, the local Democrats may rally around the incumbent to ensure a progressive makes it through, even if she's not a "new" progressive.

Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX)

Texas-12

The Incumbent: Kay Granger, a longtime (since 1997) member of the House GOP who is currently the Ranking Member on the House Appropriations Committee.

The Challenger(s): Chris Putnam, a former Colleyville City Councilman

Why the Race: Granger is hardly what a typical person would refer to as a "liberal Republican," (she has voted with President Trump 97% of the time and has already endorsed his reelection bid), but that's exactly where Putnam is going against her.  Particularly Granger is getting attacked for her son's involvement in a failed (federally-funded) infrastructure project called Panther Island (which has seen a troubled history in Fort Worth), and for supposedly not being pro-life enough, particularly since she won't sign onto Steve King's Heartbeat Protection Bill.  This feels disingenuous, though, as Granger's evolution to being completely pro-life happened at least ten years ago, but it might work. The stench of scandal with the Panther Island project combined with even a hint of not being hard right enough in a district this red could be the end of a very long career for Granger.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX)

Texas-28

The Incumbent: Rep. Henry Cuellar, a conservative Democratic congressman, particularly on abortion, who has been in the House since 2005

The Challenger(s): Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney and progressive backed by the Justice Democrats

Why the Race: I initially wondered if the Justice Democrats would simply start going after any Democrat who'd been in office for a while, regardless of their politics (Diana DeGette, for example, was someone who looked like she'd be in for a tough primary earlier this year despite being a textbook liberal).  But they seem to have set their sights on two of the last anti-choice Democrats in the party, and two that represent districts Hillary Clinton won.  Like Marie Newman up-top, Cisneros is making abortion a key part of her campaign against Cuellar, but unlike Newman, she has the race to herself.  She comes armed with endorsements from Julian Castro, Elizabeth Warren, & Bernie Sanders, and has raised over $1 million.  Cuellar isn't as obviously vulnerable as Lipinski (he seems more personally popular in the district), but the lack of a splintered field should help Cisneros.  If both Cuellar & Lipinski lose (and no other anti-choice Democrats emerge), it's entirely possible Collin Peterson would be the last Democrat in the House who opposes abortion rights (and that's assuming he makes it through the general election).

Is Criterion's Release of Roma a Sign of Hope for DVD Lovers?

Sitting proudly on my shelf in my basement is nearly every film that I have nominated for my annual "Best Picture" awards, at least from the past 15 years or so (some of my tastes from prior years are a bit more "juvenile" and not worth revisiting).  In the past two weeks, arguably the most elusive film managed to land on the list as Roma came home.  This is an historic moment for streaming services, particularly Netflix, as it's the first time that the studio has released any of their original movies on home release, with one exception (The Cloverfield Paradox, which sounds like it was negotiated into the deal to be released on home video before Paramount handed over the picture to Netflix, probably so it can be included in future boxed sets).  What does this mean for the streaming giant, and for the future of DVD's?  Let's have a chat.

I have long been a proponent of films being released not just on in theaters, but also for home consumption.  This includes a DVD/Blu-Ray release, as well as making it available for purchase on a streaming platform like iTunes or Amazon.  If it wants a third place to also be available for a subscription fee on a platform like Hulu or Netflix, or wants a fourth spot to be seen like a cable giant such as HBO or Cinemax regularly playing it, more power to the studio for expanding all of their options to make a profit.  My goal with film is always to get as many people access to the film, certainly not for free, but for a fee in order for people to enjoy, own, rent, and stream the picture.

That "and" is important, and one of the problems I've had with Netflix in its roll-out from simply housing movies that are already readily available for home video purchase (those created by other studios), and creating their own content.  One of the great revolutions of film history and cinematic choice was the advent of the VHS in the 1980's, when people were no longer reliant on a studio to view or study a movie they loved (as long as the studio continued to release all major motion pictures on DVD, which even today is extremely common practice).  For the price of one disc or tape, you would no longer need a studio to place a film in a theater or on television-you could simply add it to your own collection.

That freedom is important for anyone who seriously appreciates or studies film, which I do.  I've written literally thousands of articles on this blog where I needed to reference older films in order to better discuss new films (and vice versa), and whether through purchase or rental, most of those have been on some sort of physical home consumption.  Closing off access to those films is a sort of artificial iconoclasm, one that the studios create to pay a monthly fee, but it also means that that freedom away from the studio, where you could own and watch at your leisure (for a finite amount of money) a movie, could go away.

Netflix's move to release select discs on Criterion is a start, and a promising one.  Not only has Roma now been released by the company, but later this year The Irishman, Marriage Story, Atlantics, and American Factory will be released under the illustrious Criterion banner.  But this still leaves countless movies on the Netflix platform that aren't available for personal purchase, aren't available for the freedom away from a studio.  These include award contenders such as The Two Popes and Mudbound, critically-acclaimed pictures from important directors such as The Other Side of the Wind and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, or even a film like To All the Boys I've Loved Before, which is not in the right wheelhouse for a company like Criterion, but is certainly one of the more culturally-relevant films that Netflix has created, and would definitely have been released on DVD/Blu-Ray had it reached a similar place in the zeitgeist from a Paramount or Warner Brothers.  That latter film almost made me wish that Netflix had created its own "Netflix Signature" DVD line to rival Criterion, as it could have more easily included a film like To All the Boys.

Netflix is hardly alone here.  Amazon refused to release Cold War on DVD until Criterion picked up the tab, and threatened to initially not release Wonderstruck despite it being in the filmography of a filmmaker like Todd Haynes and starring notable actors like Michelle Williams & Julianne Moore.  Mike Leigh's Peterloo and Woody Allen's A Rainy Day in New York still have not been released in the United States on home video; these are Oscar-nominated filmmakers who should at the very least have academic copies of these films released in the United States so that film students/historians can study them. 

Because the reality remains that there are no guarantees that these films will continue to exist and be found in the future.  Netflix could easily pull a Buster Scruggs or Amazon could stop streaming a Cold War, and we would simply have no legal access to these films.  This needs to be fixed.  Criterion and Netflix partnering is a great step, but it doesn't stop that Netflix doesn't allow physical media (or owned streaming) of virtually all of their products.  Is it right that Netflix can basically blackmail you into staying on their service just by denying you access to these films otherwise, and are artists okay that their work could be evaporated under a corporations decisions to erase their art?  These are questions all film lovers must answer, and hopefully will give a resounding "purchased" to at least one of these five releases from Netflix so that this evolution into home purchase can continue.

OVP: Sound Mixing (2016)

OVP: Best Sound Mixing (2016)

The Nominees Were...

Bernard Gariepy Strobl & Claude la Haye, Arrival
Kevin O'Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie, & Peter Grace, Hacksaw Ridge
Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee, & Steve A. Morrow, La La Land
David Parker, Christopher Scarabosio, & Stuart Wilson, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush, Mac Ruth, & Greg P. Russell , 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (nomination rescinded for Russell-we'll talk about it below)

My Thoughts: We are hitting the halfway point in our look at the nominees of 2016, and with that we stumble across arguably the hardest to discuss of the film categories: Sound Mixing.  While I'm more than aware of what the difference between mixing and editing are, it's sometimes hard to tell what the Oscars (or what I'm, quite frankly) looking for here.  Sound Mixing is something that should be invisible, and if it's not it's either because it's a blessing to the picture or a curse.

We have two films that land on either end of such a conversation, and we'll start with the positive-Arrival is a great example of a film with specific, artful sound mixing.  The film manages to create a distinct palette with its audio work, particularly in the softness of the main character's voices against the constant hum of the machines and spaceships.  Think of Amy Adams, introverted and calm, and the way that the film doesn't drown her out.  This is an unusual character in a SciFi picture, and I loved the way that the film and its sound personality morph to create a specific motif.  Combined with the dance scenes and the movie's underappreciated use of silence, and you have a truly spellbinding collection of noises.

And on the opposite end, you have La La Land.  The film's musical numbers are a feat of dancing, and occasionally there's artistry in the music, but the sound work is terrible.  The film is a jumble of instruments, and they frequently outshine the onstage actors, becoming louder than Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, and even John Legend, while they are singing onscreen.  This is breaking a cardinal rule of film-making and sound work-you don't have an actor speak onscreen without being able to hear them, unless this is something addressed in the plot (i.e. there's been a recent explosion or they're far apart).  This doesn't happen in La La Land, which makes me think that it was either overlooked or intentional, but it's sloppy.  You should always be able to clearly hear the actors and singers in a movie if they are giving you lines.

This is also why I'm counting down Rogue One a little bit, though it's only a short few sentences where the score and sound editing muffles out some of the dialogue early in the picture.  The sound work in this film is really inventive-we talked about this last week, but I totally would have cited this movie for Best Sound Editing (weirdly the category it missed for), but the sound mixing isn't as impressive, and usually the organic noise fights with the sounds that are being manufactured, creating a cacophony in quieter scenes.

This is a similar problem for 13 Hours.  Admittedly, the dialogue in 13 Hours is so dreadful it might be doing the audience a favor by having the manufactured bullets and explosions taking out the conversation between the two soldiers, but it's still not a strong piece of work.  It also lacks some of the precision of Michael Bay's previous films (specifically the Transformers movies).  This nomination almost certainly happened because of Greg P. Russell's inappropriate campaigning, which ended up costing him the nomination (though not the film, which feels eyebrow-raising considering only one of "Alone Yet Not Alone"'s composers broke their rules but they both lost the nomination).  Russell, a 16-time nominee who has never won, might have now screwed himself out of the sort of campaign that goes to the likes of...

...Kevin O'Connell!  After 20 straight losses, O'Connell finally won the prize (and received more applause than you'd usually expect for a sound mixer, so clearly the Dolby was aware of this record).  Thankfully O'Connell's work here is quite good.  Hacksaw Ridge doesn't suffer the same fate as 13 Hours and Rogue One in that its sound work overshadows the dialogue, and it'd actually be super easy for it to fall into that pit during the main action sequences, considering the cacophony of bullets and even the occasional language barrier between the characters onscreen.  The film doesn't have as distinctly sharp of a stamp as Arrival, particularly during its early scenes, but it's a strongly-executed action movie (from a sound perspective) in a year that the genre struggled.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Cinema Audio Society splits their nominations between live-action and animated features, though they struck out a bit on their own for Live Action, replacing Arrival and 13 Hours with Doctor Strange and Sully (the winner was La La Land).  For Animated, Pixar continued its hold on this category with Finding Dory besting Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, The Secret Life of Pets, and Zootopia.  BAFTA wasn't much closer to Oscar, giving its trophy to Arrival, and  substituting out 13 Hours and Rogue One in favor of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Deepwater Horizon.  In sixth place, I have to wonder if Sully might have been the contender, considering it got in for Sound Editing and was on the mixers' radar (you could make a decent argument for Deepwater Horizon for the same reasons, but I'm thinking Sully myself).

Films I Would Have Nominated: I'd almost completely upend the category, to be honest.  There are lots of great options here, but Oscar just didn't go for it.  Think of the way that echoing, museum feel of the White House sounds against the music of Jackie or the every bleet or wind whisp in The VVitch adds to the film's truly petrifying ambiance.  Some personal favorites also include the expansive quiet of Silence (it's in the title!) or the romantic conversation against urgent mood music in Moonlight...these are all how you do sound.

Oscar’s Choice: Oscar went with Hacksaw Ridge, one has to assume in a slight nod over La La Land and Arrival.

My Choice: I'm going with Arrival, one of my easier choices even though Kevin O'Connell didn't get this trophy without earning it, as Hacksaw comes together in second.  Behind them is Rogue One, 13 Hours, and La La Land in possibly the worst lineup that Oscar pulled together that year.

Those are my choices-how about you?  Are you with me that this is a slam dunk for Arrival or are you more in the vein of Oscar's Hacksaw Ridge?  Does anyone want to make the case for the other three nominees (which all feel like sharp misses)?  And do you think the eyebrow-raising nature of La La Land's nomination might be why some future musicals have struggled here?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2016: Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2016

Past Best Sound Mixing Contests: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015