OVP: Best Picture (2019)
The Nominees Were...
Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, & James Mangold, Ford vs. Ferrari
Martin Scorsese, Robert de Niro, Jane Rosenthal, & Emma Tillinger Koskoff, The Irishman
Carthew Neal, Taika Waititi, & Chelsea Winstanley, Jojo Rabbit
Todd Phillips, Bradley Cooper, & Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Joker
Amy Pascal, Little Women
Noah Baumbach & David Heyman, Marriage Story
Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Jayne-Ann Tenggren, & Callum McDougall, 1917
David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, & Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Kwak Sin Ae & Bong Joon Ho, Parasite
My Thoughts: All right, we are now finishing off our look at 2019. As I said, we'll do the "If I Had a Ballot" next Thursday, but this will be the last individual Oscar contest we'll look at, and while I enjoyed a lot of these films, I will admit I'm excited to close this down. 2019's races have dominated much of the pandemic; we've been doing this ceremony for not the whole quarantine, but it's the only year so far where I've been all inside so I'm hoping that by the time we finish our next contest (we'll be kicking it off in the next few days, possibly as soon as Friday) many of you (and hopefully me) will have gotten vaccinated, and perhaps we'll have started to talk about movies I saw in movie theaters, rather than at home.
Weirdly I saw every single one of these in theaters, despite the fact that most of you probably caught Marriage Story on Netflix. While Roma the year prior had been the first "streaming service" movie to be cited for Best Picture, Netflix came out with a vengeance here, nabbing two nominations for Best Picture, and this is the one that perhaps played just as well at home. The intimate tale of a marriage falling apart is brilliantly-acted, led by both Adam Driver & Scarlett Johansson (our choices for both lead acting Oscars). I loved it-it is such a rich film, one that doesn't hide the warts of divorce or try to simplify the feelings when you stop loving another person (or being able to love them the way you did). It's a sign that you don't need epic stories or grand-scale adventure to make a film feel complete.
But it's not like grand-scale adventure hurts when done correctly. No film on this list has aged better in my mind than 1917, which takes the huge and makes it universal for the audience. The point-of-view approach to war has been done before, but rarely has it been done with the cinematographer & director instructing the audience where to turn...1917 uses the approach we get from video games to feel present, but uses the specificity & jumps of movies to ensure you don't feel like we're cheapening the emotion & toll that combat brings. It's one of the best war films I've seen in the past ten years, and proof that Sam Mendes could, in fact, make a second "Best Picture" even if he didn't win one.
That honor would, of course, go to Parasite in one of the bigger recent upsets from the Oscars, as the Korean film became the first movie not in English to win the top Academy Award. It would take a truly spellbinding film to break such a streak, and that's what this is. Parasite melds genres & storylines with sophistication & deftness, never staying on one plot that long, and yet not once feeling chaotic or like it's pulling in the wrong direction. Bong Joon-Ho issues a damning look at the have's and have not's of our society, and how arbitrary (and cruel) wealth can be. Parasite is an all-timer, one of those Oscar choices that is always going to look good.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a reminder, though, that Oscar doesn't always change, and it loves nothing better than rewarding itself. The one film that has the most Hollywood connections, this is also some redemption for Quentin Tarantino after the overlong Django Unchained and the near-unwatchable Hateful Eight. Hollywood needs editing, and it doesn't quite know how to end the movie (pulling a page from Inglourious Basterds but without the shock false history), but few directors care so much about where their films come from than Tarantino, and you see that in the way he pays homage to films & television that created the movie that we are seeing in front of us.
Little Women is aware of what came before it, of course, though not always in the right ways. Though I was familiar with elements of the novel, this movie is not for newcomers to Alcott's tale, and as it's played for people unfamiliar with what comes next for the March sisters, it reads as too chaotic in spurts. A miscast Saoirse Ronan (I love her, but it's true) also hurts the film, but it is saved by a star-turn performance from Florence Pugh (and the continued manic pixie magic of Timothee Chalamet), but it's not a rescue without casualties. Little Women is good but it never approaches the greatness that we've come to expect from pretty much everyone involved with its creation.
It is not, however, a car wreck in the vein of Ford vs. Ferrari, a film that knows a thing or two about car wr...you get the pun. Though Christian Bale & Matt Damon are actually better with lighter roles (which this should be), it meanders & becomes an ode to moronic masculinity. I opined at the time that the script was one of the worst I'd viewed in 2019, and it's true. Saddled with bad lines, and with the most hackneyed villain role I've seen from a mainstream actor in years (Josh Lucas, what were you thinking?), Ford never even starts on track, much less stays there.
The Irishman could've been in a similar boat. After all, this is another film about the pressures of masculinity, and it's from a director who can watch his films meander (at 3+ hours long, The Irishman is by-far the longest film on this list). But it doesn't-this is a movie that feels like the conclusion of the mob genre, ending the stories of Little Caesar and The Godfather with a quick dose of cinema magic (in the forms of three leading man icons), and then injecting dose-after-dose of realism, giving us what it's like to be a man whose family becomes the backseat of his life, devoted to a job that will never appreciate what he gave up to make it successful.
Joker wants to be that for comic book films, bringing realism to a world that we know by heart, and making us see it anew. Alas, Joker is the latest in a long line of movies who confuse dourness for importance. A misguided lead piece-of-work from Joaquin Phoenix doesn't give it the soul it needs, and the movie is so bereft of anything but cruelty, it has no shading, oftentimes feeling like you're watching a paint-by-numbers snuff film. There's some beauty in the tech elements, yes, but that can't save it from itself-the only thing worse than a sad clown is a clown that doesn't seem to have a point.
Weirdly while Joker takes a cartoon & fails to make it real, Jojo Rabbit has more success taking a real villain & turning him into a cartoon. I know that this movie split critics more than maybe any other on this film (save Joker), but I quite liked Taika Waititi's take on Adolf Hitler, as seen through the mind of a young boy obsessed with Nazism. Jojo Rabbit struggles with good taste, and someone like Rebel Wilson is pretty ill-cast (and the ending is inappropriate), but it's actually funny in parts, features strong performances from the child actors, and Waititi convinces you that he's an actor he should be casting in more of his movies.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split their nominations between Comedy/Musical and Drama, so we have a full ten nominees here. Drama gave the top prize to 1917, and because of the HFPA rules skipped Parasite (which won Best Foreign Language Film instead), so Sam Mendes instead beat Irishman, Joker, Marriage Story, and The Two Popes. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood bested the race for Comedy/Musical, here over Dolemite is My Name, Jojo Rabbit, Knives Out, and Rocket Man. BAFTA remains the only major awards show with only five nominations, and 1917 won Best Picture, over Irishman, Hollywood, Joker, and Parasite, while at the PGA the ten-wide field was a carbon copy of Oscar's (plus Knives Out), with 1917 taking the trophy. In terms of tenth place finishes, it's honestly a tossup between Knives and The Two Popes...I can see an argument for either.
Films I Would Have Nominated: We'll get to my full ballot next Thursday, but as of now I just want to say that it's a shame that Ad Astra, a cerebral space odyssey, and Transit, a mesmerizing Kafkaesque look at a Casablanca-style romance, didn't end up in this list as they are truly movies for the ages.
Oscar’s Choice: In one of the biggest upsets in modern Best Picture history, Parasite triumphed over the season-long frontrunner 1917 out-the-gate, and considering it won Best Director, it might have honestly been by a decent margin.
My Choice: I will also go with Parasite, here over The Irishman...it's fresher cinema, and a more difficult task. Marriage Story, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, Joker, and Ford vs. Ferrari follow, in that order.
And with that, we close 2019, though it will carry on in the comments if you so choose. I feel like the collective internet prefers Parasite, but does anyone want to make the case for a different film (there are other good movies here-I'll buy the argument)? If this had been ten-wide, would it have been Knives Out or The Two Popes that got the final spot? And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2019? Share your comments below!
Also in 2019: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2019
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