OVP: Belfast (2021)

Film: Belfast (2021)

Stars: Jude Hill, Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Ciarin Hinds

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Oscar History: 7 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor-Ciarin Hinds, Supporting Actress-Judi Dench, Original Screenplay*, Sound, Original Song-"Down to Joy")

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

A loyal reader of the blog recently asked "are you not doing reviews of 2021 movies anymore on the blog?" which was a good wakeup call to me that I was getting a bit behind in my 2021 film reviews. Admittedly, if you're following me on Letterboxd (and you should!) you might know some of my brief opinions of this week's movies, but all of this week, starting yesterday with Power of the Dog and headed into Friday, we'll be getting a different 2021 film as we move straight into not only December, but the heart of Oscar season.  It makes sense for us to catchup first with one of the movies that has the best chance of not only getting that "Oscar-nominated" stamp, but a picture that feels like it could be one of the threats for the win in a race that's (at least right now, the precursors will surely soon ruin it) a contender for taking the top prize for Best Picture: Belfast.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about a young boy named Buddy (Hill), who lives in Belfast in 1969 during the height of the Troubles.  He alternates between spending his time with his parents, primarily his mother Ma (Balfe), as his father Pa (Dornan) is away much of the time for work, and doting on his grandparents Granny (Dench) and Pop (Hinds).  Buddy has the fascinations of a young boy, and as this is semi-autobiographical to director Kenneth Branagh, a lot of those fascinations float toward the cinema, where he feels most at-home.  The film takes on a bit of a Cinema Paradiso vibe as a result (that's a compliment from me-I love that movie despite it having some detractors due to the schmaltz), but Branagh also takes time to view the complexities of Ma & Pa's marriage, under strain from Pa's commitment to nonviolence with his Catholic neighbors, and the sadness of Pop's deteriorating health (it doesn't take a spoiler alert to let you know that not all of the adults are making it out of this one alive).

This sounds like a bit of a downer of a film, but Belfast is hardly that.  Despite its heavy subject matter, it's pretty lightweight stuff, and while it never pays lip service to the tragedies happening around young Buddy (this is not a case where you're going to feel offended that Branagh's film is spending too much time at the cinema and not enough time on the atrocities occurring around him), it is a feel-good picture with a largely happy ending for most involved, with Pa & Ma giving young Buddy a chance that he likely wouldn't have hung onto in Belfast.

This is what makes the movie successful for me (I was a fan).  Branagh's alternating between black-and-white and color feels a tad gimmicky at times (it looks good, but I thought it felt a little bit hokey), but he strikes gold with a solid cast.  Young Hill is good as our eyes into the world, but it's the adults in the cast that stood out for me.  Hinds & Dench, longtime veterans of the screen, play well off of each other, each getting their own moments to lean into their weathered personalities.  Balfe's harried mother feels appropriately heartbreaking, trying to decide between staying in the place she always pictured herself, or moving on to a new world where she might give her family a better chance.  Best of all is Jamie Dornan.  Freed of the heavy-handed storytelling of Christian Grey, he plays his Pa as a man thrust into responsibilities that he might not have been ready for.  Dornan better than anyone finds the balance of the film, alternating between the weighty subject matter and the lightness (it helps that he & Balfe get a perfect little musical moment late in the film that had the audience in my theater visibly smiling).  It's hard to tell which of this quartet will get Oscar nominations (none are assured, though it's possible all could happen), but all bring their A-Game to a breezy, successful film.

What Democrats Get Wrong about Lauren Boebert & Today's Republican Party

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO)

Lauren Boebert is not a good person.  This is not news to anyone who spends most of their time online, but it needs to repeated.  Boebert's recent racist comments, insinuating that Rep. Ilhan Omar was a terrorist while giving a stump speech, indulging in anti-Muslim bigotry and talking about a tale that (it turns out) was not true, is just the latest in a long line of statements from the Colorado congresswoman that have made her a hero of the alt-Right and one of the most-loathed figures on the left.

I support action being taken against Boebert in the coming weeks if the Democrats so choose.  Her statements have continued to be appalling her entire time in Congress, starting just days into her tenure when, during the terrorist attacks on January 6th, she tweeted the locations of several members of Congress, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which drew appropriate condemnation and calls for her to resign for endangering the lives of her colleagues.  Lauren Boebert's comments about Omar would get her fired from virtually any other job in America, almost as soon as she said them.  That can't happen in Congress, but censuring her isn't necessarily a waste of time, and neither is kicking her off of committees, similar to what Speaker Pelosi has done to Marjorie Taylor Greene or Paul Gosar in the past year.

But I want to talk about something I think Democrats are doing wrong here, and it's that they aren't taking stopping people like Boebert seriously, because due to gerrymandering you can't beat Boebert in a traditional sense.  Boebert is an extreme example of a Republican, so let's go with someone whom Pelosi and the establishment Democrats have worked with for decades-Mitch McConnell.  I repeatedly have seen calls from Democratic senators shaming Mitch McConnell over his votes on the infrastructure bill or for holding up voting rights legislation.  They are acting like this is some sort of moral high ground, that they are going to be able to shame Mitch McConnell into doing something, to suddenly have an epiphany that what he's done the past two decades as leader was for naught, and he's found his moral compass.  And to this I say: "I'm tired...and give me a break."

Few figures in American politics have such a specific code-of-conduct as Mitch McConnell.  McConnell is not Donald Trump (or Lauren Boebert) for a couple of reasons.  First off, McConnell is smart, and he does have, not necessarily principles, but certainly some beliefs.  He believes in tax cuts for the rich (and the rest if there's room).  He believes in cutting government programs, as many as will be feasible without losing the two things he truly loves: the Senate majority and judicial seats.  McConnell is not Trump in the sense that he's delusional-McConnell knows when he's defeated, and he knows when a conversation is worth moving on since you can't win the one you're on.  He also knows the value of the next day; part of the reason that McConnell wanted Trump to concede & get on with it was that he thought it would save David Perdue & Kelly Loeffler's seats in Congress, and with that McConnell's majority (McConnell was right, Trump's focus almost certainly cost the Republicans their Senate majority by emboldening Georgia Democrats).  But McConnell doesn't respond to shame, he hasn't for many decades-while unlike Trump he can act polite in the presence of Democrats (he even cracked some jokes with Nancy Pelosi & Joe Biden during the inauguration gift-giving ceremony), shame is not in his vocabulary.  He knows only power, and how to get more Senate seats and more judicial vacancies.

I'm not tired with McConnell in this regard.  I understand this mentality, and unlike a lot of Democrats, I'm ready to fight it on McConnell's level.  What I'm tired of is Democrats insisting on fighting on a morally high ground, rather than trying to take on McConnell the only way you can beat him.  I'm not saying Democrats need to lack shame, but what I am saying is that I'm tired of them thinking that shaming Republicans is a winning strategy-it's not.  It's time to take a page from the McConnell playbook (one that has been brought to dangerous heights by people like Donald Trump & Lauren Boebert), and run campaigns that focus on maximizing our majority.

The reason for this is that's the only way to beat McConnell.  McConnell is never going to lose reelection in Kentucky.  Lauren Boebert isn't going to lose in Colorado, not with the current configuration of her district.  But you can marginalize these figures by taking away their enablers (or reelecting the people who keep them at bay).  Democrats who complain about whether or not Boebert will win or not-who gives a crap?  The Democrats have an opportunity to move a 4-3 delegation into a 5-3 delegation if they win the new 8th district in Colorado.  That is where all of your energy should go.  It should go to attacking the Republican in that district, making them seem like the new Boebert, because that's where your strategy will actually do some good.

Do you think Mitch McConnell stays up at night trying to figure out a way to get Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out of Congress?  No, he doesn't think about her at all, except ways he can tie her to Catherine Cortez Masto and Maggie Hassan...McConnell is only concerned about numbers, and shaming him is never going to change that.  I see little evidence that Democrats going after McConnell & trying to shame him does much more than get people to donate to hopeless cases like Amy McGrath.  Instead of going after McConnell, point out that Pat Toomey & Ron Johnson are the reasons that the filibuster still exists (not McConnell, and quite frankly, not Joe Manchin & Kyrsten Sinema).  Democrats are running a campaign strategy from twenty years ago, one where it felt like shame would work in a conversation, but Boebert & McConnell prove that it doesn't, and it makes us look weak to be fighting such a morally righteous battle that even the most loyal of our base knows we're going to win.  We're already struggling to deliver infrastructure bills & judicial seats so that the base feels like something was accomplished heading into 2022...don't add "make Republicans see the light" to the list of expectations Democrats are expected to deliver.

OVP: The Power of the Dog (2021)

Film: The Power of the Dog (2021)

Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Director: Jane Campion

Oscar History: 12 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director*, Actor-Benedict Cumberbatch, Supporting Actress-Kirsten Dunst, Supporting Actor-Jesse Plemons, Supporting Actor-Kodi Smit-McPhee, Adapted Screenplay, Score, Sound, Production Design, Cinematography, Film Editing)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

The western is possibly my favorite genre (give or take film noir, though that's so much a time-and-place genre that it feels like a cheat) not because I enjoy John Wayne proclaiming "pilgrim" repetitively (though, it's worth noting, the film that inspired that Wayne joke on Family Guy is a marvelous western), but because it's such a claustrophobic genre.  The best westerns aren't about taming the land or driving cattle, they're about fighting against the loneliness of the prairie, the reality that the time of the cowboy comes-and-goes, making way for a different, more permanent way of life.  I wouldn't have name-checked Jane Campion, the New Zealand directing icon, as someone who would have one of the most compelling recent installments in this constantly down (but never out) genre, but I should've known Campion, a master of the human experience (and bringing it to to the screen) would have something as sharp as The Power of the Dog up her sleeve.

(Spoilers Ahead-and I mean it, so stop & bookmark if you haven't watched yet as we're discussing the whole movie) The movie takes place in five acts, focusing principally on four characters.  The first are Phil (Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Plemons), two brothers with an uneasy relationship with each other.  Phil appears to be the alpha of the two, to the point that when George falls madly in love with the recently-widowed Rose Gordon (Dunst), he has to marry her in secret for fear that Phil might find a way to stop it.  This makes sense, because in the opening scenes we see Phil make Rose cry, not because of how he treats her, but how he treats her son Peter (Smit-McPhee).  Peter is "different," preferring books and making his own paper roses to the rough-and-tumble life of the Burbank brothers.  He is meant to read to modern audiences as gay, but as the film goes it's clear that Phil is the one who is attracted to men.  His obsession with the deceased Bronco Henry, another cowboy who took hold of Phil when he was young, becomes a driving conversation for him, something he won't stop talking about (it's clear from the opening scenes that an uneasy George knew of the relationship, but has said nothing through the years due to the strange grasp his brother has on him).

The film's second half, though, doesn't take the twists you'd think.  Rose, at one point a teetotaler (we learn late in the film that her husband was a drunk who killed himself), becomes an alcoholic under the weight of Phil's constant pressure, tormenting her & making her feel less than while her son is away at school.  George doesn't know how to fix this, but strangely Peter does, though we don't know it right away.  When he returns from school, he understands that his mother whom he adores has become ill, but instead of confronting Phil, he starts to meticulously seduce him.  He emulates the likely behavior that a curious young Phil experienced with Bronco Henry, sending off signals that Phil might finally be able to express himself once more.  What we find later, though, was that Peter was using his sexuality to seduce a tempted Phil (it's never actually confirmed if Peter is gay or not), only to kill him.  Peter convinces Phil to use rawhide and water that he provided, and with that, we get a callback to an earlier scene where Peter carefully skinned a diseased cow.  Phil, always careful in other moments, with his libido up and his guard down, uses the skin and dies from anthrax poisoning, thus freeing Peter's mother from Phil's bind.

The story is perfectly executed.  Much of The Power of the Dog is about an impending crescendo, which lesser writers might falter under-there's intense amounts of buildup to the climax, to the moments where we will see what happens to these four intertwined figures.  I called pretty quickly that we were leaving a lot of enigma around Peter, that much of what Campion's screenplay was providing on him was the impressions of him that others were providing, not any sort of data we got from the character himself, but Smit-McPhee plays him well enough that even as he unfolds his plan, we still don't know what happened, and that works here (ambiguity is this story's friend).  We don't know if Peter is gay, or if he on some level found Phil's offer attractive (Benedict Cumberbatch has never been hotter, the camera lingering over his chiseled frame & unkempt beard almost as if it wants us to get caught staring)...Peter remains a mystery even as everyone else's motives become clear.  The only hint we have in those final moments is that we know he knew what he was doing, a telling pair of gloves being worn as he handles the rope that Phil made for him, something he pushes underneath his bed for unknown futures.

Power of the Dog, helped by this script, is a universal triumph.  The cinematography is spectacular, with Ari Wegner understanding the beauty of a longshot; frequently there are two different things happening onscreen in the same shot, something you rarely see in movies today but it works because it's indicating to the audience that there are multiple wheels going on in this story.  The Jonny Greenwood score is yet another marvel from one of the most distinctive composers in movies today, and the editing is judicious and riveting.  

Of course, the acting needs mention as well.  Benedict Cumberbatch is not an actor whom I love, and he feels on-paper to be an ill-fit for this story (that posh London accent doesn't feel at-home on a Montana ranch).  But the actor totally uses that to his advantage, foraging a specific, unique figure that defies all convention & feels so uneasy with his own world that a British accent would be the least peculiar aspect of his Phil Burbank.  Kirsten Dunst is appropriately tragic; you can practically see the happiness drain from her body the further into the movie we get, the life force aching for someone to help her.  And Kodi Smit-McPhee gets the movie's toughest part but keeps it appropriately chilling...only in the lit cigarettes do we finally understand the grandness of his long con, and after that it vanishes, potentially never to be seen again.  All of these actors combine to a spellbinding good time, one I hope you see in theaters, as all westerns are better on the big-screen.

OVP: Film Editing (2003)

OVP: Best Film Editing (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Daniel Rezende, City of God

Walter Murch, Cold Mountain

Jamie Selkirk, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Lee Smith, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

William Goldenberg, Seabiscuit

My Thoughts: After two contests of the exact same nominees, we're heading into Editing this Monday morning, and with that we're getting into three films that were cited for Best Picture (and the two films that were clearly in 6th/7th place of the crowd).  2003 marks a really weird chapter in Oscar/film history, strange mostly because it didn't feel like an odd thing at the time.  The year was one of the first to be really dominated by franchise pictures (though in the cases of Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Nemo, we didn't yet know they'd be franchises), and as a result some of the other avenues for success (like movies that aren't primarily geared toward teenage boys) were closing forever.  It was also the first time in over a decade that Miramax had not had a film on its own in the race, though it was clear which film the Weinsteins thought was their golden ticket.

Cold Mountain is little-discussed today, but its miss in the Best Picture/Director categories was a big deal in 2003.  If you look at magazines predicting the Oscar race that year, they described it as a "sure thing" for the Best Picture race.  That snub has tarnished it a bit, but honestly this is the kind of film that's totally up-my-alley.  If I'm going to forgive a film for anything, it'll be because it's a slow-burn romance that's perhaps going a bit too slow.  That's Cold Mountain, a movie I still hold in high regard.  Still, that slowness cannot be denied when it comes to its editing, arguably its weakest element, and I have to assume that though there's nothing bad about it exactly, it was cited here solely because the editing branch thought they were endorsing a gimme Best Picture nominee & felt like they had to cosign.

Miramax did have a surprise pony in the race in City of God, which remains the single-biggest shock in the history of the Oscar nominations for me.  There has honestly never been anything like it-a film that came out of nowhere and got into a host of traditional Best Picture positions.  City of God was an uneven experience for me, and I will say that the editing is most emblematic of my problems with the picture.  There are times when it feels totally fascinating, keeping on a particularly gruesome & shocking killing, and then lingering long enough for us to realize that the villain that is being destroyed is just going to be replaced with more madness & chaos.  But other times, it pulls away, sloppily not giving the audience a taste of what the characters are experiencing.  This nomination isn't bad, and might have made sense if the movie had been a bigger part of the conversation leading up to the nominations, but as it is I still leave perplexed as to what this is doing here.

Master and Commander is the one entry in this race that Miramax did get into the Best Picture race, albeit as part of a coproduction (Miramax had managed to get in on its own merits every year since 1992).  This film suffers in the same way that Cold Mountain does in that it feels more default than particularly well-edited.  Master has an upper-hand in that it has to juggle different visual effects shots against real fights at sea (or on a watery soundstage), but the film also doesn't do enough with its characters, and frequently feels like it's underselling moments in the script by not giving us more (particularly the "man overboard" scene where you'll be forgiven if you have no sense of which character is actually dying).

Seabiscuit also has a lot of technical angles you can look at to understand the why behind this nomination.  The race sequences are appropriately thrilling, and give you a real transportive aspect to the movie.  But Seabiscuit is dull & ordinary whenever you aren't racing.  This happens quite often with sports films, where when you pull the camera away from the sports suddenly you are left with cliche & routine, and that's exactly what happens with Seabiscuit.  If you're going to falter cinematography nominations that only look good when you have a beautiful sunset but not through the rest of the film, you need to do the same for Seabiscuit, where the editors only seem to care about their favorite parts.

It'd be easy to make a joke about Return of the King being the least-edited of the movies here.  It has to be said (and I love this movie, so I don't say this lightly) that the way that Jackson unfolds the endings feels a bit too alien to the rest of the movie, and he should have found a better way to make that happen.  But the rest of the movie is so good and well-diced you'll be forgiven for overlooking this.  The action sequences are superb, finding a way to tie up the loose ends of 15+ major characters without it feeling belabored, and while the ending never feels in doubt, the climb up Mt. Doom has been parodied & copied repeatedly in the nearly twenty years since for a reason-it's just that good.

Other Precursor Contenders: The ACE Eddie Awards split their categories between Drama and Comedy/Musical.  Drama went to Return of the King over Cold Mountain, Master and Commander, Mystic River, and Seabiscuit, while Comedy/Musical favored Pirates of the Caribbean against Bend It Like Beckham, Finding Nemo, Lost in Translation, and School of Rock.  BAFTA picked Lost in Translation as its victor, here over 21 Grams, Cold Mountain, Kill Bill, and Return of the King.  In terms of sixth place, there's a lot of names here but I'm going to get a little bit lazy and assume it was Mystic River, another Best Picture nominee (the editing branch rarely goes with comedies, even serious ones like Lost in Translation, so I'll guess that it gets skipped in favor of the showier Clint Eastwood picture).

Films I Would Have Nominated: Lost in Translation's film schedule is legendary (it was shot in less-than-a-month), but that only adds to the reason to note the editors.  They make a film that feels bursting with a ticking clock in every scene, with us not knowing from moment-to-moment what is going to happen next.

Oscar's Choice: Again, Return of the King won every award it was up for, and I don't think this was one of the close ones.

My Choice: Yeah, there might have been some movies that threatened Return of the King's perch here (the multiple endings make it a bit vulnerable in that regard), but against this competition it's an easy choice.  Master and Commander, City of God, Cold Mountain, and Seabiscuit come after.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Is this a pretty easy call for Return of the King for all involved, or does someone want to take a shine to a different honoree?  Do we think Cold Mountain would've been cited here if they knew it'd be skipped for the top prize?  And with a lot of options, who is your vote for sixth place?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2003: Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003

Past Best Film Editing Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

OVP: Visual Effects (2003)

OVP: Best Visual Effects (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook, & Alex Funke, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Dan Sudick, Stefen Fangmeier, Nathan McGuinness, & Robert Stromberg, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson, & Terry Frazee, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

My Thoughts: Like I said earlier this week, the Best Makeup & Visual Effects were the same lineup of films in 2003.  In the years before this category was five-wide for both fields, only the top contenders would rise above, and that was the case particularly for Best Visual Effects.  It's hard to believe now when a different blockbuster opens virtually every week, but there was a time when effects-driven films were not commonplace, and indeed you could pretty much pick out the films that would be nominated a year-in-advance.  This was the case to some degree for 2003, and certainly the case for our first film, which basically had already had their name plastered on the award two years prior.

The Return of the King, as I mentioned on Monday, is a bit of a challenge to judge when it comes to its effects.  The film is building off of the gigantic effects work that dominated the first two pictures, both the immersive world-building of Fellowship and the signature achievement of the series, Gollum, in The Two Towers.  But even if you subtract those pictures, it's hard not to point out the ways that Return of the King continued to exceed expectations.  The marching elephants are fantastic, combining the fantastic & real world into an epic battle moment, and the Army of the Dead are a groundbreaking moment in CGI, combining real actors with an ethereal green light to make them feel like wisps of former men.  Add in the entire sequence with the eye and the melting ring in Mordor (and Gollum's lifelike features just getting better & better), and you have a gimme nomination that feels well-deserved.

Pirates of the Caribbean feels like a default nomination in retrospect (it would be nominated for two of its sequels), but I cannot underscore what a big risk this felt like in 2003, coming off of The Country Bears and Cutthroat Island.  One of the primary reasons that the film works is that while it occasionally has some camp/cheese with other aspects of the production, the visual effects themselves are taken very seriously.  The work to make Geoffrey Rush part of another army of the dead (albeit totally visually unique) is glorious, and a great graphic.  The rest of the film has some wonderfully-immersive crowd shots & action sequences, but it's the recurring theme of Rush & his crew as half-dead creations that really sells this picture.

The final nomination is also trading in realism, albeit in a less fantastical way.  Master and Commander is beautiful, and filled with a strong combination of both CGI and practical effects.  The film takes place both at sea (in reality), on a gigantic watery soundstage, and then in an immersive CGI world, but you'd never be able to tell.  This is the sort of nomination that doesn't really happen anymore (or certainly happens less), which is a pity as it's classy, layered visual effects work-not all that showy, but totally story-aiding and beautifully-done.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Visual Effects Society splits its nominations between effects-driven films (the ones that generally get nominated at the Oscars) and the ones with supporting effects (which only rarely get cited with AMPAS, but are usually a more interesting lineup).  The Special Effects film nomination went with Pirates of the Caribbean over Return of the King, while the non-effects driven trophy went to The Last Samurai over Bad Boys II and Master and Commander.  BAFTA was five-wide far before Oscar, so they gave their trophy to Return of the King against Big Fish, Kill Bill Volume 1, Master and Commander, and Pirates of the Caribbean.  VFX was still doing their shortlists in 2003, so we have some idea of who was in fourth place here: Peter Pan, The Hulk, Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, and X2: X-Men United were the contenders.  This is a weird list because none of these films were cited in any other Oscar categories...my gut says it might have been Terminator 3, just because the second one won the category, but X2 was a big deal at the time so I'm not totally against this prospect.

Films I Would Have Nominated: In a three-wide race, this is honestly a great list.  I think I would've let sentiment (and the more story-driven effects) get Peter Pan into this lineup, as it's one of my favorite movies & I do like the childlike wonder of the story, but this is not a list that Oscar should hang its head on.

Oscar’s Choice: Despite that Visual Effects Society loss, it seems improbable that the category that was the biggest risk for Return of the King's sweep was Visual Effects.  An easy win.

My Choice: Yeah, I can't deny it either-Return of the King is a solid victory even against worthy competitors.  I'll go with Pirates second and Master third.

And those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does anyone want to rock the boat here by picking well, the films that take place on a boat, or is everyone onboard with Return of the King?  Why do you think it took so long for Oscar to expand this category five-wide?  And who was in fourth place in a strange batch of also-rans from the bakeoff?  Share below!

Also in 2003: Makeup, Previously in 2003

Past Best Visual Effects Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

Citizen Ruth (1996)

Film: Citizen Ruth (1996)

Stars: Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Kurtwood Smith, Mary Kay Place, Kelly Preston, MC Gainey, Tippi Hedren, Burt Reynolds

Director: Alexander Payne

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Tippi Hedren-click here to learn more about Ms. Hedren (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

After Roar, Tippi Hedren occasionally made films, but largely settled into a world outside of proper stardom, working definitely but never in serious projects.  She made appearances on TV shows (including Hart to Hart and Chicago Hope), and worked alongside her daughter a couple of times.  She made a cameo in The Birds II, which she later regretted doing, and had a memorable role in David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees.  She also had a small part in yet another significant director's career.  While with Chaplin, Hedren got a much-discussed (within the film) character who ends up a cameo in A Countess from Hong Kong, the director's final film, we saw the inverse in Citizen Ruth, where Hedren plays a much-discussed (within the film) character in the first movie of an Oscar-nominated director, Alexander Payne.  Today we're going to close out our month-long look at Tippi Hedren with a peak into this movie, which announced the career of the man who would make Election, Sideways, and Nebraska.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is the story of Ruth Stoops (Dern), a mother of four with substance abuse problems who becomes pregnant with a man she barely knows in the opening scenes of the movie.  After finding out she's pregnant, she's scolded by a judge, who recommends that she get an abortion to avoid jail time.  When Norm (Smith) & Gail (Place) find out about this, they tell their anti-abortion group & start to sponsor Ruth's life, insisting she have a baby.  Ruth initially doesn't like this, and nearly gets the abortion when it turns out one of the members of the group, Diane (Kurtz) is actually a pro-choice advocate in disguise, but when each group offers her $15,000 to go through with the decision, she is caught in a national firestorm over whether or not she should have the child, bringing in major leaders of both sides (played by Reynolds & Hedren).  When Ruth, in the middle of a drunken stupor, miscarries, she ends up tricking them into giving her the money, running away from the spotlight with little resolution as to what happens next.

Citizen Ruth is a biting commentary, and one that doesn't shy away from skewering both sides of this political hot button.  One would assume that the anti-abortion crowd would be rife for a politically liberal director like Payne, but he's just as ruthless in taking on the pro-choice group, particularly the way that neither side is particularly interested in what Ruth wants, seeing her as an easy pawn in this debate.  Dern plays Ruth perfectly so that the audience struggles to have sympathy for her.  It's clear from the onset that Ruth would make a horrible mother (she has far too many personal demons to responsibly take care of a child), and that she won't be able to carry this baby to term without doing drugs, putting the child at risk...but no one seems all that interested in that reality.  The film is perhaps too broad at times (Ruth doesn't show a lot of personal growth, and while that might be in-character, it hurts the script which is asking for some growth in her), but it's fascinating, pull-no-punches stuff from a debate that oftentimes feels like everyone is coming with no understanding for the other side's position.

Tippi Hedren, like many of her films post-Hitchcock, only gets a small part here.  She and Reynolds are both fun as late-breaking movie stars brought in to add a certain cache to the debate.  We don't need background from these figures, and Payne knows it-the audience understands that these genuine celebrities (in real life) translate their personas in this world onscreen.  As a result, though, I leave Hedren's month a bit melancholy.  The actress gave two incredible performances onscreen for Hitchcock, and while she worked with major directors afterward, it's fair to say she never really escaped his shadow, and certainly never made anything as good as The Birds and Marnie.  Considering the truly horrible nature of their relationship (based on Hedren's later statements), this is a pity for such a distinctive star.  Next month we will finish off our year devoted to Hitchcock with one last leading lady, one who would be something of an antithesis to many of the women we've discussed this season (and the Hitchcock prototype).

Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021)

Few things in life are constant, but that doesn't mean that there aren't things that feel constant.  Landmarks, experiences, iconography that greets you with consistency, like the swallows at Capistrano or the steely gargoyles of the Chrysler Building.  For the past seven decades, Stephen Sondheim has numbered amongst these constants.  A musical genius who inexplicably was behind hit-after-hit, song-after-song, consistently cranking out absolute magic without any sense of slowing down, Sondheim had become so synonymous with Broadway that for most, it felt as if he was simply one of their brightly lit marquees, glowing every night without fail.  How could anyone so luminous ever disappear?

But Stephen Joshua Sondheim was not immortal, as the world learned today when he passed away at the age of 91.  It has become a consistent refrain when celebrities die to indulge in hyperbole, to pour out the most adjectives in a sign of public grief, proclaiming pretty much everyone with the phrase "there will never be another like him."  With Sondheim, though, superlatives always felt too little-indeed, there will never be another like him...it's hard to believe that there was one like him to begin with.

Listing out his achievements (EGOT, Pultizer, Oliviers, a Presidential Medal of Freedom) is one thing, but just look at the list of what he wrote.  Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Assassins...somehow the same man wrote both West Side Story and Into the Woods, both "The Ladies Who Lunch" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses."  Save for his friendly rival Andrew Lloyd Webber (with whom he inexplicably shared a birthday), no figure can come close to his stature & significance in the theater industry in the past half century, and as most theater fans would be quick to point out, even Webber pales in comparison to Sondheim's critical hosannas.

Like any budding gay boy, I learned to sing Sondheim's songs when I was young.  While other kids my age were burning Puff Daddy and the Spice Girls off of Kazaa, I was downloading Glynis Johns singing "Send in the Clowns" and playing it in a melancholy sadness as I lay in my bed, wondering of a world beyond it.  I have seen two Sondheim musicals on Broadway, both starring his longtime muse Bernadette Peters, and found them both transportive.  Sondheim had a way of making all of his shows seem personal, as if they were written not just for each person in the audience, but for a specific life moment of each person in the audience.  When he said "I insist on miracles" you knew which dream he meant, when he said "what was just a world is a star," you could relive your own first love soaring above Leonard Bernstein's music.  Sondheim was, and thanks to assured revivals will always be, synonymous with the American stage.  And so, while his light has dimmed, he will remain one of those true constants as long as Broadway houses are filled with audiences looking for a dream, one that he inspired countless times.

OVP: Makeup (2003)

 OVP: Best Makeup (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Richard Taylor & Peter King, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Edouard Henriques III & Yolanda Toussieng, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Ve Neill & Martin Samuel, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

My Thoughts: We are going to head into our 2003 lineup this Thanksgiving week (ooph, do I need an extra day off this week!) with some weird synergy.  This is our 16th Oscar Viewing Project, and we always start every season with the same two categories, Best Makeup & Visual Effects (we actually do the same order every season unless I feel strongly about the writing categories that year).  This is the first year, however, where Makeup and Visual Effects have the exact same list of nominees (I actually think this is the only time this has ever happened).  So we will be starting this week with two different angles on the same three films.  Let's see if they end up with similar victors, shall we?

Master and Commander is less-discussed now than it was at the time, a movie that was quite celebrated and a pretty sizable hit in 2003 (most assumed it'd get a sequel), but isn't part of the pop culture now like the other two nominees.  That's a pity as we'll get into the coming weeks as it's a handsome, methodical movie about the tolls of war at sea.  The makeup category for me, though, is subtle but not flashy.  There's definitely makeup on display, and I like the grueling way that the artists continually make the men look more peaked, particularly the injured Paul Bettany, the further we get away from shore.  It isn't the first thing you'd think when you discuss Master and Commander, but it's admirable & doing what it's supposed to do.

Pirates of the Caribbean, it's hard to believe, was considered something of an unsure bet in 2003.  The Country Bears (another movie based on a Disney theme park ride) had just royally bombed, and Hollywood was still reeling from the catastrophic failure of Cutthroat Island, so pirate movies felt like a risky gambit.  Of course, this film would reinvigorate Disney live-action and become one of the most successful franchises of all-time.  Part of that is due to the makeup.  The film brings a heightened realism to the looks of all of the pirates (making them dirty, albeit a pretty dirty in Johnny Depp's case), and giving us ridiculous coifs for Keira Knightley and the other women in the film.  It's never too much, and totally helps establish a franchise (one of my favorites).

There are some aspects of Return of the King that feel like cheating here.  You're going to find in the next ten weeks as we discuss the final chapter in the original Tolkien film franchise that I need to judge this slightly on a curve when it comes to the technical achievements.  After all, we've already had six hours of the makeup effects on-display here, and it'd be a bit of cheating to simply credit it once again for the golden-maned Galadriel or the angel-faced hobbits.  But two creations stand out as unique here, and are truly iconic.  The first is the transformation of Smeagol into Gollum, a combination of visual effects & makeup wizardry, and the second is Gothmog, the grotesque orc leader who stands out as perhaps the only orc in the films you can readily identify as distinct to this picture.  Both are dazzling creations in a franchise filled with remarkable visual effects.

Other Precursor Contenders: BAFTA went five-wide long before Oscar did, and they also included hairstyling years before Oscar had that as part of its calculation.  They went for Pirates as the victors here, over Big Fish, Cold Mountain, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and Return of the King.  The Saturn Awards (which focus principally on horror, fantasy, & science fiction) gave their trophy to Return of the King, here over The Haunted Mansion, Terminator 3, Pirates of the Caribbean, Underwold, and X2.  And 2003 did have a shortlist, so we know that one of the following films was in fourth place: Cold Mountain, The Last Samurai, Monster, and Peter Pan.  My gut says that it was probably Cold Mountain, which has a lot of war makeup (always popular), though with this branch it's always hard to tell as 2003 is the rare year where they went with the crowd (usually they're more idiosyncratic than that so Monster or Peter Pan aren't out of the question).  At least at the time, it was considered a surprise that Monster missed though its nomination count being so slim...maybe they only liked Theron?

Films I Would Have Nominated: Charlize Theron is a great actress, and gives a strong performance in Monster.  She would not, however, have won an Oscar without her makeup team doing an incredible, almost ludicrous job of making one of the world's most beautiful women into a completely different person.  That they didn't get nominated alongside her is ridiculous.

Oscar’s Choice: Spoiler alert for the next ten weeks-Return of the King wins every award it is nominated for.  I think the question is how often it was even close to losing, and here I don't think it was remotely close-Pirates BAFTA win gives you pause, but I think this was a default checkmark for most AMPAS members.

My Choice: I am also giving this to Lord of the Rings, though it's closer than you'd think as Pirates is deeply iconic, and the start of a franchise so it gets more points for originality (Master and Commander take the bronze).

And those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Is everyone okay starting this conversation with Return of the King or does someone want to side with a different picture?  How fair is it to nominate sequels to films that already indulged in heavy makeup?  And could someone explain to me how they skipped over Monster?  Share your theories below!

Also in 2003: Previously in 2003

Past Best Makeup Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

Roar (1981)

Film: Roar (1981)

Stars: Noel Marshall, Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith, John Marshall, Jerry Marshall

Director: Noel Marshall

Oscar History: No nominations...I honestly don't think it was eligible as this was a straight-to-video release in the United States initially despite Hedren as a star & the film's extravagant budget.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Tippi Hedren-click here to learn more about Ms. Hedren (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Tippi Hedren would spend much of the late-1960's & early-1970's struggling to find a foothold in Hollywood.  After working with Hitchcock & Chaplin, she never again would get lead roles from directors of that caliber, and would talk later about how she was upset she couldn't make a lot of major movies as she moved into her early 40's.  This is where Roar comes into place for Hedren.  Filmed over a five-year period, Roar is maybe Hedren's best-known role outside of Hitchcock, and it certainly is a film she's well-associated with today.  Hedren and her husband Noel Marshall started living with an actual lion in the early 1970's, and when there were complaints from neighbors, they moved their family to a ranch where they raised myriad big cats.  This is the setting of Roar, our film today, and one of the most infamously troubled film shoots in Hollywood history.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is weirdly short on plot, but I'll try to ground you in what it attempts at least.  Hank (Marshall) lives in a giant "preserve" which is really a giant house filled with lions, tigers, panthers, cheetahs, & leopards.  He is trying to stop a local ordinance that would allow local hunters to kill these animals, as they are viewed as dangerous even though Hank believes in them.  While he's battling this, his family, including his estranged wife Madeleine (Hedren) and his precocious daughter Melanie (Griffith) show up, and are stunned to find a house filled with ferocious beasts, ones that they assume will kill them.  The remainder of the 98-minute film is largely just a litany of encounters between the animals and the real-life actors, fighting regularly with them (for those curious about the plot, the hunters are killed by the animals, and the family lives happily ever after).

The plot is not the point of Roar, even if it might've been for Hedren & Marshall at the time.  Roar is instead a truly bizarre film where we see dozens of big cats, each able to take down a grown man, maul at screen icon Tippi Hedren and her daughter Melanie, who within a few years would become one of the most famous actresses in America.  Watching this happen in real time is like watching a snuff film less than a horror film (it plays like a horror movie in my head, but it's meant to be a fun action-adventure movie as directed).  There's no real plot, just the family fighting these lions & tigers...before in the end deciding they love them despite them putting each other in mortal danger the whole film.

Roar was not a CGI fest like it would be today, nor is it a feat of a slew of well-trained animals creating grand illusions on set.  By most accounts at least 70 cast-and-crew were injured on the set of Roar, including Marshall, Hedren, & Griffith, all of whom had to have surgery done at some point to repair injuries.  This makes scenes like Tippi Hedren literally having honey licked off of her by a panther feel all the more shocking, knowing that she was doing this at great personal risk.  It also makes the film next-to-impossible to give a grade to-it's certainly entertaining in a morbid sense, but also you cringe the whole runtime.  I'll go with two stars as it's not a good movie even if it's an engaging one.

This film was not a success.  Self-funded and made with non-union crew (with the exception of cinematographer and future director Jan de Bont), Hedren & Marshall couldn't get it into theaters domestically, and it wouldn't be seen in theaters in the United States until 2015.  The movie did, however, spark a lifelong love of animals for Hedren, who would create the Roar Foundation/Shambala Preserve and is still the president of this animal sanctuary in California which is home to a number of large cats that are at least partially tame (discarded animals from circuses or private owners who no longer want to house animals, such as Michael Jackson's two Bengal tigers).  Hedren's legacy therefore is one of animals rights in the years that have followed, and outside of Hitchcock's films with her, this is what she's best known for today.  However, Hedren did keep working (almost exclusively in the decades that followed to fund her preserve), and we will get to one final performance from her next Saturday as we close out our Tippi Month.

OVP: Previously, in 2003...

   2003: A Look Back

We are rolling right into the 16th Oscar Viewing Project retrospective after finishing up 2018 this past weekend... For those who are new to this series, we do two ballots a week (usually Monday/Wednesday, but I have a full-time job that sometimes gets in the way of that...but we always hit two a week), so for the next ten weeks we'll be exploring 20 Oscar races from 2003.

That is enough behind-the-scenes from me, so I want you now to sit back, relax, and transport yourself back to 2018.  A time when Christian Ronaldo was just stepping onto the world stage, when we were watching Saddam Hussein's arrest after a decade of pursuit, & the Volkswagen Beatle was taking its final curtain call.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Box Office

This is what the Top 10 at the (Domestic) Box Office looked like:

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

2. Finding Nemo

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

4. The Matrix Reloaded

5. Bruce Almighty

6. X2: X-Men United

7. Elf

8. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

9. The Matrix Revolutions

10. Cheaper by the Dozen

Franchises were definitely coming into their own in 2003.  While not every film in this list was part of a franchise at the time, in retrospect only Elf would not inspire a sequel (or be one itself).  In terms of movies I've seen, this is me showing my age a bit.  I moved to a major metropolitan area where it became considerably easier to see movies late in 2003, so this was the last year where I didn't have total control over which movies I saw, which basically translates into some viewing gaps.  As a result, I've seen a little over half of these movies, missing both Matrix's (I'll fix that in the coming weeks) and Cheaper by the Dozen (weirdly Terminator 3 is the only Terminator film I've ever seen).  Other $100 million films from 2003 that I haven't seen include Bad Boys II, Bringing Down the House, and 2 Fast 2 Furious.

The Films I Missed

While I've seen all of the Oscar nominees, I haven't seen every film in 2003.  In addition to the films I just listed, there are a few films that were in contention at precursors that didn't make it to the Oscars.  Some of the bigger names I'm currently missing include School of Rock, Under the Tuscan Sun, and The Station Agent, though I will rectify all three of those before we do the My Ballot in ten weeks.  Other than that, if you have some favorite films that Oscar totally ignored, slide into those comments & share. We'll be hitting Best Makeup in the next day or so.

My 2018 Oscar Ballot

While we concluded our look at 2018 earlier this week (all links at the bottom of the article!), we have introduced this year a new feature (an epilogue, if you will) to our Oscar Viewing Project ballots, and that is the "My Official Ballot" feature.  Here, for 19 of the Oscar categories (I don't see enough of the Foreign Language Film contenders to fill this out in good faith), I pick all of the nominees I'd have in each category if I had had an Oscar ballot.  Please enjoy (this is a pretty big undertaking to write each time, but I know I enjoy it & I've heard you do too so I'm going to keep at it), and make sure to share your ballots in the comments!

Picture

Bad Times at the El Royale

Cold War

The Favourite

First Man

Free Solo

Hereditary

Lean on Pete

Love, Simon

The Other Side of the Wind

Roma

Gold: An absolutely gorgeous ode to cinema from start-to-finish, the jazzy Cold War pops with electricity, but perhaps more potently, with the necessity of time...the way we think of it as an unlimited resource until we finally understand the supply runs out.

Silver: We waited nearly fifty years for Orson Welles' final masterpiece to make it onto our screens (sadly not the big screens, as this was one of many films in 2018 that were seen mostly on our laptops), but it was worth the wait.  An extraordinary vision of a complicated director, from a man who knew a thing or two about that subject.

Bronze: Andrew Haigh continues a flawless cinematic track record with his gorgeously-felt Lean on Pete, a film that's at first about a boy & his horse, and then we soon learn it's about all of us, and the way we approach a changing America.

Director

Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo)

Alfonso Cuaron (Roma)

Andrew Haigh (Lean on Pete)

Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War)

Orson Welles (The Other Side of the Wind)

Gold: Pawel Pawlikowski's magnum opus happens largely because he's so willing to deny the audience more space.  The film was criticized by some for being too short, but I think that's where its genius flows.  Like many other films of this nature (Casablanca, Brief Encounter), it draws strength from knowing that there are only certain moments for us to spend with these characters before they're gone-make them count.

Silver: It's something of a cheat to include The Other Side of the Wind, partially because we don't know entirely how much of the end result lies in Orson Welles' capable hands, but it's not a film I'm going to skip here just because some of it is guided by unknown forces-it's just too good to deny.

Bronze: Alfonso Cuaron brings his whole self to Roma, a movie that feels plucked from the pages of his own youth, a personal tribute to his childhood that has the feeling of time gone by, and yet as fresh as if you were witnessing it this morning.

Actor

Ryan Gosling (First Man)

Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased)

John Huston (The Other Side of the Wind)

Tim Kalkhof (The Cakemaker)

Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete)

Gold: With breakout performances, you should occasionally be forgiven for not being able to tell what is simply you getting to know a new personality & what is something that is raw talent.  Charlie Plummer's work in Lean on Pete feels more the latter though-he plays his boy lost with such commitment, you don't know where the line between actor & character begins.

Silver: Yes, in some ways he's simply mining the same well that he brought to immortality as Noah Cross, but if you're going to borrow from your own work, borrow from one of the greatest performances of all time.  John Huston's posthumous work here is a testament to the well-rounded artist (and actor!) that he was.

Bronze: Ryan Gosling could've done the biopic route, and probably gotten default hosannas without much work.  But his Neil Armstrong goes beyond that, becoming a man who is desperate for an absolution he cannot articulate.  Introverted characters can be a challenge, but Gosling doesn't let that deter him.

Actress

Toni Collette (Hereditary)

Olivia Colman (The Favourite)

Joanna Kulig (Cold War)

Emma Stone (The Favourite)

Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

Gold: Of all of the women in The Favourite, I think Weisz does the best job & she does it with both the least screentime and the trickiest part.  We are meant to understand the other two characters at the outset, but her Sarah is an enigma-how much of what she presents is real, and how much an illusion?  Weisz knows how to hold back to keep you guessing.

Silver: Toni Collette has gotten her share of critical praise in the past few years, with cinephiles remembering her in a way awards bodies rarely do.  Nowhere is this juxtaposition more evident than her work in Hereditary, which was totally Oscar-worthy (damn genre bias), but will enjoy a long shelf life regardless of gold statues because she's that good.

Bronze: A tight race between the remaining three women (this is a ridiculously solid lineup), but I'm going to lean just a bit on Olivia Colman.  Her work as the Queen is such fun, but also Colman is a smart actress who can put in touches of doubt & privilege where the script is trying to mock.  She is the queen, after all.

Supporting Actor

Hugh Grant (Paddington 2)

Josh Hamilton (Eighth Grade)

Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther)

Alessandro Nivola (Disobedience)

Alex Wolff (Hereditary)

Gold: The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not known for its ability to craft compelling villains, but that doesn't mean they don't have some home runs in the cannon.  Michael B. Jordan's work as Killmonger is another in a succession of great performances, one that brings a moral justness that helps him rise above your typical "take over the world" villainy.

Silver: Disobedience is teaming with good performances, but none better than Nivola, who plays a man who is devoted to god, but who cannot understand the right path when his wife wants to leave him for another woman.  A longtime character actor getting a really plum part-you love to see it. 

Bronze: Josh Hamilton's big monologue in Eighth Grade, where he pleads with his daughter to understand how much his world revolves around her & how much it hurts to see her in a way that she doesn't see herself...it's bravura work & one of the best-acted scenes of 2018.

Supporting Actress

Ann Dowd (Hereditary)

Cynthia Erivo (Bad Times at the El Royale)

Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)

Nicole Kidman (Boy Erased)

Lilli Palmer (The Other Side of the Wind)

Gold: Regina King is one of the best actresses in the business, and so it's a pleasure to know she won her Oscar for maybe her best-ever work (give or take The Leftovers).  What makes her turn in Beale Street so fascinating is the way she shows herself, her younger self, as she flees from the confines of being a mother for the first time in decades...and the way she secretly relishes it before returning to her story.

Silver: Cynthia Erivo got her Oscar nomination a year later for Harriet, but let's be honest-she's never been better onscreen than she was in Bad Times, totally investing in her failed lounge singer (with clear talent), and providing a delicious ensemble with its best character.

Bronze: Like Huston, it's hard to judge Palmer decades later outside of the confines of her career at the time.  But what you can't deny is that she's acing this performance, someone who knows our protagonist better than any, and someone who genuinely can speak freely of him because she's the one person in the movie who no longer needs him.  Impressive stuff from an under-sung actress.

Adapted Screenplay

American Animals

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

First Man

If Beale Street Could Talk

A Simple Favor

Gold: Nicole Holofcener's bitter look at loneliness and the ways that we handle it comes with great wit, something that never feels like we're shortchanging Lee Israel's story in Can You Ever Forgive Me?.

Silver: James Baldwin finally has his world translated to the screen in If Beale Street Could Talk, a story that feels like a memory, focusing on the biggest things first & occasionally letting the small moments linger in the background.

Bronze: Biopics rarely do well in the screenplay department, sticking to the boilerplate "memoir" template to get their tale across.  This isn't so for First Man, which unfolds like a kaleidoscope, us getting to see the complicated world of a man who wants to leave his pain behind.

Original Screenplay

Cold War

The Favourite

Hereditary

Lean on Pete

The Other Side of the Wind

Gold: There's so much into The Other Side of the Wind to unpack in a screenplay.  We have our main story, the film-within-the-film, and of course the true story of the film, the way that the movie parallels the lives of director Welles and star Huston in real life-it's a mesmerizing whirlwind of a tale, and brilliantly executed.

Silver: Sometimes screenplays are about plot, and indeed The Favourite has a succinct, well-presented plot.  But here it's about the crisp dialogue & words happening on the screen.  There's something so delicious in every line of nasty, brutal dialogue of this film that you can't help but be enamored by.

Bronze: A love story needs to have complications.  Cold War brings those complications, but they don't always appear as such while we're moving-the film's brevity, as I have mentioned often in these past ten weeks, is its genius, but that puts pressure on the writing to make every second count-that's what happens here.

Animated Feature Film

Isle of Dogs

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Teen Titans Go!: The Movie

Gold: In a relatively weak year for the format (as a reminder, this is the only category we only do three-wide because there aren't enough contenders in my opinion to do five), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse does something we didn't think was possible anymore-it makes the superhero genre feel fresh & young again.  Aided by beautiful, playful animation (and so many animation styles), it brings a vibrancy that a lot of other comic book franchises have lacked as the genre gets worn out.

Silver: I'm showing my fangirl nature here not only by going one-two with comic book movies, but by picking an extended episode of a TV show for silver, but it was a big-screen movie, and more importantly, Teen Titans Go is an hilarious, delicious TV show, and none of that allure is lost as they move to the big-screen.

Bronze: Isle of Dogs is beautiful, even more so than Anderson's last animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, making both piles of garbage & a fictionalized Tokyo feel like new splendors for the eye.  And while I had some problems with the plot, the cast is also so much fun here, my favorite moment being a scientist named Yoko Ono...being played by the Yoko Ono.

Sound Mixing

Bad Times at the El Royale

Cold War

First Man

Hereditary

Roma

Gold: I mean, it's hard to pick anything other than Roma to take this prize, right?  The sound work in this movie feels authentic & raw, as if it's organically happening and Cuaron is just picking it up via a camera.  It's rare sound feels like a film's best quality, but honestly-that's what happens here.

Silver: A jazzy interlude, played beautifully throughout the film, Cold War takes all of the best parts of noir (a dangerous woman, a score that hints at what's to come) and turns it up to eleven.  I particularly loved the juxtaposition of the different musical stylings the two leads endure as their romance continues.

Bronze: First Man is that rare effects film that never sacrifices the dialogue.  There's no moments of Christopher Nolan-esque dismissal of the screenplay, but instead explosions don't deter us from knowing what the actors are saying.  Combined with an iconic score, this is a well-delivered space epic.

Sound Editing

Bad Times at the El Royale

First Man

Hereditary

Mission Impossible: Fallout

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Gold: The entire moon-landing sequence of First Man is an aural symphony.  The way that the film makes it feel real-time, as if we're actually witnessing these historic first steps for mankind...it say something about how good this movie is that the score never even feels like a distraction.

Silver: Similar to the moon landing, Spider-Man gets a lot of its credit here for the giant whirling vortex that Kingpin brings with him to the film's climax.  That said, there's no part of this movie that is phoning it in-the film has the rich soundscape of an independent animated film while presenting as a blockbuster, a difficult task to achieve.

Bronze: Bad Times at the El Royale sounds amazing.  There's the giant shootouts toward the end of the movie, but the movie is more than that-there's specificity in the way that certain crushing dirt and clicking record players heighten the tension, while still feeling at home with the larger music component of the picture.

Original Score

Bad Times at the El Royale

BlacKkKlansman

First Man

If Beale Street Could Talk

Puzzle

Gold: Two years after Nicholas Britell created magic for Barry Jenkins in Moonlight, he is bringing a totally different (but completely genius) siren's call to If Beale Street Could Talk.  It's hard to make a film score so specific that you proclaim "that's Beale Street" but Britell does that from the opening notes.

Silver: Justin Hurwitz's use of a theremin could have felt gimmicky in lesser hands.  After all, a theremin recalls the cheesy space films of the 1950's, not prestige fare like First Man.  But done as a subtle lullaby, this opus feels totally at-home and distinctive to the moon walk experience.

Bronze: The most traditional score of these five would be Bad Times at the El Royale, which has the difficult task of not only feeling strong (which it is), but also to stand up to a large musical quotient in the movie (there's a lot of soundtrack here).  Michael Giacchino finds that balance, and gets us another success.

Original Song

"All the Stars," (Black Panther)

"Maybe It's Time," (A Star is Born)

"The Place Where Lost Things Go," (Mary Poppins Returns)

"Revelation," (Boy Erased)

"Shallow," (A Star is Born)

Gold: Lady Gaga could've just phoned in her musical work on A Star is Born and gotten an Oscar (the Academy likes giving this to musical icons), but she didn't.  "Shallow" stands among her best music, a total triumph at a crucial moment in the picture.

Silver: I am going one-two on A Star is Born here, as "Maybe It's Time" is the other song that feels at-home, a lived-in song from a singer who's been famous so long that he knows exactly what music will sell to his audience.  Easy, soft, & quick-with-the-hooks.

Bronze: Gaga wasn't the only songwriter starring in their movies in 2018.  Troye Sivan took a soulful approach with "Revelation," accompanying his performance as a young gay man trying to make it through a conversion therapy camp.

Art Direction

Black Panther

The Favourite

First Man

Roma

Shoplifters

Gold: Roma does a great job of creating story through detailing, particularly in the production design.  Look at the ways we see rows & rows of clothing racks in the department store (giving us a better sense of how gargantuan the riots are)-it's a film that feels like it was actually shot in the 1970's, not relying on CGI to fill in all of the gaps.

Silver: Possibly the best of the recent "prestige space epics," in terms of production design, First Man uses the moon-landing to create realistic sets & attention-to-detail (it feels like we're actually in these rockets) to keep us fully vested in a story where we already know the ending.

Bronze: The most "Oscar-bait" of these five contenders, The Favourite uses the grandeur of the giant bookshelves and lush drawing rooms not just to underscore how ridiculous these people's lives are (and out-of-touch), but to also underline how trapped this world is, and the desperate need to stay in command of it.

Cinematography

Cold War

First Man

Free Solo

Roma

We the Animals

Gold: Roma's an embarrassment of riches for this category, let's be real (it's hard for four very good contenders to compete in such a way).  Cuaron's camera is less interested in the story and more in giving you a sense of this world, drawing you in as if you're in a virtual reality-it's a beautiful mood picture.

Silver: The other black-and-white epic of 2018, Cold War is less about mood and more about the passage-of-time.  The camera lingers on moments between our lovers, less being about us getting into their world and more about them finding a way to underline the fleeting nature of time.  Nothing lasts forever...

Bronze: In what I believe is a first, I'm giving a nomination for Best Cinematography to a documentary in 2018.  Free Solo earns this through not just sheer jaw-dropping technical prowess (the cameramen not only have to film the climb, but they also have to do so without, you know, killing the star), but also by keeping you at the edge of your seat as you barely breathe through the picture.

Costume

Black Panther

Cold War

Crazy Rich Asians

The Favourite

A Simple Favor

Gold: No modern filmmaker is better at her job than Sandy Powell.  In The Favourite, Powell does something incredible.  Sticking with primarily white, blue, & black, she gives us something that feels at-once of-the-period and totally unique to The Favourite, just enough gaudy flourishes to be like "that's The Favourite" even in a cinematic universe brimming with period costumes.

Silver: Contemporary design is so overlooked at the Oscars, it doesn't even feel like a snub when something like A Simple Favor gets tossed out.  And yet, this is a genius bit of costume-designing.  Look at the way that pretty much everything that Blake Lively wears feels totally in-character, which is tricky considering the many layers to who she is.

Bronze: Another contemporary gem is Crazy Rich Asians.  Honestly-there are only so many ways you have the clothes scream "I'm rich" without feeling redundant, and yet the movie never feels phoned-in or like we're not seeing consistency in the characters (also, hats off for giving the men something sexy to wear and not just the ladies).

Film Editing

Cold War

First Man

Free Solo

The Other Side of the Wind

Roma

Gold: This is possibly the best lineup for Film Editing we've done for a My Ballot (it's my favorite category in this list, and I've never said that before), but even so-editing together the work of a nearly fifty-year-old film when virtually all involved are dead?  The Other Side of the Wind making any sense at all, much less being genius, is in a class by itself.

Silver: One last mention of it, but the time shifts in Cold War in a ticking-clock romance are totally at the mercy of the editing.  If you were to feel cheated by the story not having enough weight, that would have been the result in the editing room.  That you don't, that it feels just right...that's why it's cited here.

Bronze: Free Solo is a movie that tells you the tale of a man without needing to underline it, and so I don't want to undersell the interview portions of the picture.  But come on-the way you are clawing into your chair as Alex scales this mountain-it's impossible to look away.

Makeup & Hairstyling

American Animals

Black Panther

Border

The Favourite

The House with a Clock in the Walls

Gold: Prosthetics are not the gold-standard in movies, let's never forget that...makeup should serve the story, for the good or the grand.  That's why I'm picking The Favourite as my #1 choice here, as the hair work, along with the ridiculously over-the-top makeup seamlessly fits into the absurd tale Lanthimos is bringing to audiences.

Silver: That said, prosthetics can also be mesmerizing.  The troll makeup in Border is jaw-dropping, always feeling real (crucial considering we are in "our world" when it comes to this tale), without ever needing to be "most."

Bronze: American Animals is admittedly making a specific play for this award (there's an entire sequence where we see the main actors putting on old age makeup, getting to see the process in action). But that doesn't mean the way that these characters transform isn't impressive, and doesn't feel real to this strange fictionalized documentary.

Visual Effects

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Christopher Robin

First Man

Mission Impossible: Fallout

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Gold: It doesn't have the near omnipresent effects of the other four films (this is the one picture here that is a "supporting effects") movie, but the moon landing sequence in First Man is so beautiful, and so full of rich coloring that it earns the gold medal on that alone.

Silver: There is no cinematic universe quite like the top-tier effects of Star Wars, and I love the wryness that Solo uses to distinguish itself.  Think of the Speeder Chase, full of genuine fun on top of visual spectacle, or the way that the Kessel Run lives up to its legend.

Bronze: Christopher Robin doesn't fall into the trap of hyper-realism (or bringing dead actors back from the grave), but as a result it succeeds where The Lion King & Rogue One don't.  We get to see these stuffed figures from our childhood (Pooh & Piglet & Eeyore) come to life as clearly imaginary but beautiful figures from the pages of AA Milne.

Also in 2018: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Other My Oscar Ballots: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019