Chita Rivera (1933-24)

I am a midwestern gay boy who (literally) grew up down the street from a cornfield, and so I didn't see my first Broadway show until I was 25 (Promises, Promises with Kristin Chenoweth & Sean Hayes).  But I loved live theater, and like most young, closeted men, the way that I found an opening into the world of theater was through cast albums, including the original cast album of West Side Story.  This was the first time that I would become familiar with Chita Rivera, one of the grand dames of the New York stage in the latter half of the 20th Century, who passed away this week at the age of 91.

Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Anderson (which was never going to fit on a marquee), she was already on Broadway at the age of 18, doing chorus work before reaching stardom a few years later as the original Anita in West Side Story, which would make her a headliner on Broadway.  While she would not play the role in the movie (which would win Rita Moreno an Academy Award), she spent most of the next few decade's being one of the signature actresses on Broadway.  Like Mary Martin or Barbara Cook, her time in cinema was limited (her most noteworthy role was opposite Shirley MacLaine in Sweet Charity), but she'd originate countless musicals, including Bye Bye Birdie, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Chicago, playing Velma Kelly (yet another role that would win the actress playing the part an Oscar).

Rivera was a singular star.  In an era where Broadway feels like they're all about who can belt the loudest (even if that becomes hopelessly generic over time), Rivera wasn't the best singer on Broadway (she wasn't Barbara Cook), but instead belonged to a group of actresses like Carol Channing, Elaine Stritch, & Angela Lansbury who used their distinctive singing styles to make magic on the stage.  I thankfully would eventually get to see said magic, watching her as Princess Puffer in the Studio 54 imagining of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  She was sublime, watching one of the true greats light up the stage that felt made for her.

Secrets (1933)

Film: Secrets (1933)

Stars: Mary Pickford, Leslie Howard

Director: Frank Borzage

Oscar Nominations: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Shirley Temple: click here to learn more about Ms. Pickford (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

(Editor's Note: I'm aware it's not Saturday, but we're not going to short-change Miss Pickford because I didn't time my Saturday particularly well this week and over-booked myself...next month's star I've already written half of her articles already, so we'll be back on schedule)

As we talked about with our last article, Mary Pickford had experienced the first high-profile flop of her career with The Taming of the Shrew in 1929, her second sound film and a bad time to be having flops as the studios were nervous about any Silent Era star that couldn't translate.  This was the beginning of the end of Pickford's film career.  No longer able to play teenagers or child roles (by 1929, Pickford was already 27), the kind that made her a star, studios didn't know what to do with her, and increasingly actresses like Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, & Joan Crawford began to succeed her as the most important women in Hollywood.  Her final film & our movie today, Secrets, was released in 1933.

(Spoilers Ahead) Secrets is about a couple, and it takes place in four acts.  The couple are Mary (Pickford) and John (Howard), and initially the power dynamic between them is inverted to what it would eventually become.  She's the daughter of a prominent businessman, he is a lowly clerk in her father's office.  But they begin to romance, and after John is fired from said job, they decide to run away into the American West together rather than her marrying another man.  There, they encounter hardship initially, but after a while great success, with John fulfilling his promise and becoming a governor, and then a senator, and Mary raising four of their five children to adulthood.

The movie is weirder than it sounds, and not because it's intended to be weird.  The four-act structure feels very regimented (you can tell this was based on a play), much to the film's chagrin as it makes it feel like four little movies rather than one big one.  After all, between Act 2 & 3, we go from these two being inseparable pioneers to John repeatedly cheating on Mary with a woman named Lolita (they were not subtle with the character monikers in this movie), and because this is Pre-Code, this is said straight out.  While John obviously stays with Mary, this weirdly doesn't cast a pall on the rest of the film, and I'll be honest, Pickford isn't a strong enough actress in sound to pull this tricky balance off.  It feels like she goes from being hurt to "oh well, my husband cheats on me, but at least he loves me" a little too quickly.  Pickford's inability to adapt to sound in terms of her acting style probably mattered more than her age & her speaking voice...I get why she retired after this, because there wasn't really room for this style of acting in the 1930's.

Pickford, as I mentioned above, would never headline another movie, though she'd sneak into a couple of short films as a cameo in the years that followed.  She would also continue to produce films in the years that followed, including 1949's Love Happy, a Marx Brothers picture which featured a small cameo from a very young Marilyn Monroe, but I'll be honest, most of Pickford's post-America's Sweetheart life is pretty sad.  She became an alcoholic, and divorced Douglas Fairbanks in 1936.  Both of her younger siblings died of alcohol-related illnesses in the 1930's, and she became reclusive, only seeing a handful of friends & family (including longtime pal Lillian Gish).  She was considered for the lead role in Sunset Boulevard (director Billy Wilder even went to meet with her at Pickfair), but by that point, isolated with memories of her stardom and faded glory in an aging house...Mary Pickford had basically become Norma Desmond.

Next month, we will talk about the actress who would succeed Mary Pickford as America's Sweetheart, someone whose career would also go south after she got too old...but would end up with a second career & a much happier ending than America's first Sweetheart.  We'll start our conversation about her on Thursday.

Top 10 Films of 2023

This morning, we did the Top 10 films of 2023 (that aren't from 2023), the films I saw for the first time from previous years.  Now, though, we'll be tackling the list of films still in the zeitgeist, the ones in some cases still in theaters (SEE THEM-SUPPORT QUALITY CINEMA!)...my Top 10 films of 2023 from 2023!  These are listed alphabetically, and I'd love to hear yours in the comments if you're willing to share.  Enjoy!

Afire

dir. Christian Petzold

Petzold remains one of our freshest & most introspective filmmakers, and with Afire he continues his quest to make challenging, provocative cinema.  This is much pricklier than Transit or Undine, and it'd be easy to be turned off by Thomas Schubert's great turn as our unlikeable protagonist, but beneath that is a lot of looks at our ability to process happiness for others, and how our own insecurities can eat up our lives. 

All of Us Strangers

dir. Andrew Haigh

Haigh understand loneliness better than any other filmmaker working, and he brings that to All of Us Strangers, a romantic ghost story, one that shows us the cruelty of how love doesn't last forever because people don't last forever...but in the process, also shows us the meaning of life.  The entire acting quartet, led by Andrew Scott, is staggering (this is the film that should've swept the acting nominations).

Bottoms

dir. Emma Seligman

The most I can remember laughing in a movie theater in ages, the lead pair of Rachel Sennott & Ayo Edebiri are dynamite, which you probably already know if you've been watching them emerge into acting powerhouses the past couple of years.  The way that it throws some truly fantastical curveballs into the third act (where you're wondering what it is you're exactly seeing) is a treat for even the most jaded of film-watcher.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

dir. Francis Lawrence

If you told me this time last year the Hunger Games (a movie series I hadn't even finished until this year I got so bored) would have an entry alongside Scorsese, Coppola, & Glazer on my year-end Top 10, I would've thought you'd gone mad.  Proof that greatness can come from anywhere (and that we should expect more from legacy sequels) this is a perfectly-constructed, thoughtful action romance, led with movie star turns from Tom Blyth & Rachel Zegler.  Every song is a gem.

Killers of the Flower Moon

dir. Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese continues to play in a league of his own, doesn't he?  Another 3+ hour epic from him that flies by, the movie gives us rich sound & cinematography, and shares challenging work from both Lily Gladstone & Robert de Niro, one showing what she can do, the other showing why he was the greatest of his generation.  If only Thelma had managed to cut Brendan Fraser from it, we'd be home free.

May December

dir. Todd Haynes

A movie that continually changes what it is about, and plays previous scenes differently with each passing moment, this is a nasty peak into celebrity culture, and how we value entertainment more than the damage it can cause ordinary people.  It's not surprising that Oscar didn't respond to Haynes totally going after Hollywood's obsession with itself, but don't worry-Hollywood hated Sunset Boulevard, this film's spiritual sister, at first too.

Of an Age

dir. Goran Stolevski

This is kind of from 2022, but it was released in 2023 in the states so I'm counting it for this year.  There's no way I was leaving out a movie this lovely, a gay coming-of-age film that shows how key moments of your life last longer in your memory than whole years of time, with Thom Green & Elias Anton's thoughtful dialogue & chemistry enriching the experience.

Priscilla

dir. Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola's latest take on femininity gives us one of the 20th Century's most indeterminate women.  How do you make a film about Priscilla Presley, someone who most dismiss as just the pretty face behind the most famous man on earth?  Coppola does it by showing us two splendid performances from Cailee Spaeny & Jacob Elordi, and showing us how even Priscilla had to come to terms with not knowing who she was...until finally she at least knew what she wasn't.

Saltburn

dir. Emerald Fennell

The most divisive movie of 2023 (some people not only hate it, but want to force you to hate it too), I was engrossed by Emerald Fennell's latest take on moneyed revenge.  The mess is kind of the point here-the decadence, the way that we quickly make assumptions & have then have them upended...they all come together for us to only understand the movie in the final moments, with a brilliant Barry Keoghan committing "Murder on the Dance Floor" to our memories forever.

The Zone of Interest

dir. Jonathan Glazer

Jonathan Glazer's first film in a decade, Zone of Interest was always going to come with high expectations after his marvelous Under the Skin.  That it's somehow even better shows that the wait was worth it.  I had heard the sound design was something else here, but I still wasn't prepared for how good it would be, aiding the story, and showing the banality of evil (and how so many people learn to look past it to create a false sense of normalcy).

Top 10 Films of 2023 (that aren't from 2023)

We are officially unveiling today all of our Top 10's for 2023, and while later today we will share out the Top 10 films that were actually released in 2023, this is a blog that centers on classic cinema, and it's never "just" the year at-hand-we're always plumbing over a century of movies.  So we're going to start first with the Top 10 films I saw for the first time in 2023 before we get into my actual Top 10 of 2023.  Please enjoy, and share your favorite first-time experiences in the comments (all titles listed alphabetically)!

Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

dir. Robert Bresson

A fascinating look at the way faith can consume us if we let it, to the point where we stop living our own lives and can't find order without making it align to our worldview.  Claude Laydu gives an astonishing performance as the anguished priest, one that has to be seen to be believed.

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

dir. Louis Malle

Perfectly-constructed film noir, aided in large part by Jeanne Moreau giving a world-class performance that would make her an international icon.  The way that Malle lenses her is ingenious, always using onscreen light sources to highlight that beautiful, melancholy face.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

dir. Sergio Leone

In the year of the western on the blog, while I saw a lot of terrific movies, it feels a bit cheater-y to give the next three slots highlighting the only westerns on this list, all from the same trilogy.  But it cannot be denied that this lives up to the hype, starting out with a wonderful spin on what would be the classic "Man with No Name" trope from Clint Eastwood.

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

dir. Sergio Leone

Armed with a stronger budget, Leone makes sure his follow-up uses every dollar on the accounting sheet, giving us a growing set design, and more intentional cinematography (which was already pretty darn great).  Lee van Cleef getting added alongside Eastwood is a strong twist on the original's formula.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

dir. Sergio Leone

The third film wraps it all up with a true sense of the word "epic."  Eastwood, van Cleef, and now Eli Wallach create a glorious trio, and Ennio Morricone, already batting a thousand with this series, brings one of the best scores he ever wrote (and that's saying something).  The final hour is about as good as a movie can get.

In the Mood for Love (2000)

dir. Wong Kar-Wai

One of the sexiest films I've ever seen, In the Mood for Love looks wonderful in every frame.  The way that the art direction, costuming, and the glowing candlelit cinematography add to the forbidden nature of the two title lovers is grand, but Cheung and especially Leung sell it throughout, an absolute electric sexual tension that recalls something like Lauren Bacall walking onto the screen in To Have and Have Not.

Paranormal Activity (2009)

dir. Oren Peli

An impossible level of tension emerges from this film, one that would launch a ton of pretenders, but that doesn't deter how truly scary the first film is.  I loved the way that, for a film criticized for too many jump scares, that's not really the case-much of it just comes from finding the changes, searching in the silence...until we realize there's a reason to be scared of the dark.

Summertime (1955)

dir. David Lean

Maybe the most narcissistic choice on this list (I, too, am a bit of a spinster who loves to travel & maybe in 2023 gave up a little bit on love being the end of my story), but that doesn't deter that Summertime is a grand, marvelous spiritual sequel to Brief Encounter.  I don't know that I've ever seen Hepburn so raw, using her persona against a gorgeous 1950's Venice to craft her best dramatic performance...ever?

The Virgin Suicides (2000)

dir. Sofia Coppola

I love the way that Coppola's debut plays with form & expectations.  We're meant to assume that this is a coming-of-age story, one where the boys will find their own journey through the introspective girls they see across the street.  What it becomes is a mystery, and how our own lore becomes an enigma as we grow up, realizing how much of life, even our own, we can't understand.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

dir. Billy Wilder

Absolutely sensational treatment, a riveting courtroom drama brimming with all of the delicious intrigue that you'd expect from Agatha Christie.  Charles Laughton, Elsa Lancaster, Una O'Connor, they're all grand in this, but it's Marlene Dietrich (robbed of an Oscar) who makes it truly unforgettable.

The Taming of the Shrew (1929)

Film: The Taming of the Shrew (1929)

Stars: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Edwin Maxwell, Joseph Cawthorn, Clyde Cook

Director: Sam Taylor

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Shirley Temple: click here to learn more about Ms. Pickford (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Mary Pickford had it all circa 1927.  She was the biggest actress in Hollywood, had a storybook marriage, and thanks to her founding of United Artists, she was an early star who was actually getting the fruits of her labor, even producing some of her successful films like Sparrows we saw last week, making her a very rich woman.  But sound became her undoing.  Like many of the major stars of the era (including Greta Garbo) the studio waited to see if sound was sticking around as a trend before having Pickford in a sound film, not wanting to risk one of their bigger stars on a fad.  When it did prove permanent, contrary to legend, Pickford's first sound film was a success with both audiences & critics.  We oftentimes use a modern lens when we appraise older movies, and Coquette is (by my estimation) one of the worst movies to ever win Best Actress, both in terms of a performance & in terms of the film's overall quality, but at the time critics liked it & audiences did too.  People have accused her of "buying" the Oscar given her stature in Hollywood (she was a founding member of the Academy) and she did campaign, even inviting people to her palatial estate of Pickfair to see it, but honestly given that the Oscars have long been eager to crown the reigning queen of Hollywood (everyone from Audrey Hepburn to Julia Roberts to Emma Stone), she likely would've won anyway.  It wasn't until her next film, our film today The Taming of the Shrew, that Pickford started to see her career unravel in the Sound Era.

(Spoilers Ahead) Despite coming in at about 60 minutes, The Taming of the Shrew is a relatively faithful adaptation of at least some scenes in the Shakespearean play.  We have Petruchio (Fairbanks) challenged to tame the wild, willful Katherina (Pickford), in part so that Katherina's younger sister Bianca can marry.  Katherina & Petruchio marry, largely against her best judgment, and in the process he begins to (to use modern parlance) "gaslight" her into thinking that he's trying to do what's best for her, in the process thinking he's tamed her, and made her obedient.  In reality, she's in on the ruse, having heard him confess his plans to his dog (yeah, that's an actual scene in the movie), and winks at both the other women and the audience when she gives her speech about women needing to "obey" their husbands.

The movie ignores most of the side characters, including Bianca, keeping them only for tertiary parts, and stays focused on the superstar couple at the center.  This makes sense.  Everyone in American in 1929 would've known who Mary Pickford & Douglas Fairbanks were, as they were the first Hollywood marriage to become a tabloid staple, and this is the only film the two ever made together.  It's interesting to look at Taming of the Shrew against some of the other pictures of the era, partially because it's so grand & its look really stand out.  When comedies & gangster pictures were starting to come en vogue, this feels like a tribute to the biblical epics of Cecil B. DeMille or the gargantuan stories of DW Griffith that had started to fade.

Being out of style feels retro today, but at the time probably just read as tired, as the film was a flop.  It wasn't helped by Pickford & Fairbanks being badly miscast in the movie.  Pickford, after seeing her in multiple films this month, strikes me as a good actress, but a limited one who didn't do well getting out of her lane.  That was true here-she's never believable as Katherina, the headstrong woman, given she plays every scene like a pixie.  The only convincing scene she does is the final one, where she's supposed to be in on a joke with the audience, and the sly wink works.  Fairbanks, though, is truly bad here.  He's never believably of his time (while the side characters all feel more authentic to a Shakespearean stage play, he reads as a loudmouthed movie star), and spends half the film laughing boisterously, which initially comes across as a character trait, but, eventually reads as someone trying to remember his next line.  There's lots of future evidence that people who were lovers in real life simply couldn't translate that chemistry in the film itself...this is proof that's happened since Hollywood's beginning.

OVP: Foreign Language Film (2000)

OVP: Best Foreign Laguage Film (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Amores Perros, Mexico

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Taiwan

Divided We Fall, Czech Republic

Everybody Famous!, Belgium

The Taste of Others, France

My Thoughts: On occasion, you write about certain categories at the Oscars where no one has really considered them as a five-wide race, even when they were an undecided five-wide race, and that is today's lineup.  Crouching Tiger, 24 years later, is the highest-grossing, entirely subtitled film with the exception of The Passion of the Christ (which is not generally considered in the same category given it's in Aramaic (a dead language), has an American actor is its lead, and is directed by Mel Gibson, one of the most recognizable Hollywood superstars of the 1980's & 90's).  It was nominated for Best Picture, it made buckets of money, and was cited for more nominations than any other subtitled film (before or after).  There was no world where it was losing this category.

To be fair, it's pretty obvious why it should've won even without the insane momentum it had headed into the night.  Crouching Tiger is a beautiful, complete film, with a quick bit of world-building (it is a romantic fantasy, after all), but one that makes you invest in the story at-hand and the pairs of star-crossed lovers at its center.  The art direction, visual effects, cinematography, acting...Crouching Tiger is glorious, and pretty much perfect in every line of the end credits.  Really, it was a film that was going to be a challenge to beat even against the best opponents.

The biggest competition for it in 2000 was Amores Perros, a film from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, a man who would go on to win back-to-back Best Director statues, and this was the start of his journey with Oscar.  I do not generally enjoy the films of Gonzalez Inarritu, and that extends to Amores Perros.  His films feel like a form of misery.  Life can be bad, and that can be reflected in art, but his films feel like torture, essentially the arthouse equivalent "...and then the dog died" sort of country music.  There's no artistry here.  I'd buy that the film is a metaphor for the hopelessness of depression...except that's all of his movies.  What it feels like is a film that wants you to be miserable, but doesn't have the good sense to create any sort of flare, other than to torture the actors.

Everybody's Famous! isn't much better.  The movie is definitely more fun than Amores Perros (so is a dental exam), and in the beginning it says some interesting things about fame.  But it becomes so stupid, the kind of comedy that would never be nominated for an Oscar if it were in English, and the bad continually outweighs the good the further into the conversation we get, the plot becoming too silly and ridiculous by the end of the picture.  Forgettable, and for a reason.

If you follow this category long enough, you'll know that there's virtually always a film about World War II.  This year, it's The Zone of Interest; in 2000 it was Divided We Fall.  The film talks about a group of people who hide a man fleeing a concentration camp in their home, and the ramifications of that for their lives.  The film uses this for comedy, and while you can make absurdist black comedies about anything (including World War II), it doesn't work for Divided We Fall.  The comedy bits are either not that funny or read like they aren't supposed to be funny, and it gets in the way of the film's central thesis about how tyranny changes who we are.  It doesn't work, but you can see what they were going for.

The Taste of Others is also a comedy, albeit one that at least works with its comedy even if it doesn't work with its plot.  The film is essentially an extended episode of Seinfeld, with the characters discussing life (and sex...mostly sex), with some genuinely funny bits, but it goes nowhere, and it doesn't lean into the pleasures of sex (for a group of people having a lot of it, no one seems to be enjoying it).  The characters are oftentimes indistinguishable...one man shaved his mustache and I was genuinely confused as to who he was afterward for WAY longer than I should've been for a movie I was watching in one sitting.

Other Precursor Contenders: Awards ceremonies like the Goyas and the Cesars aren't good representatives here since they're typically honoring the main films of a specific country, so I only count the Globes among the awards bodies we check-in with for Foreign Language film. The Globes went with Crouching Tiger as their winner, beating Amores Perros, The Hundred Steps (Italy), Malena (Italy), & The Widow of St. Pierre (France).  Some notable films that were submitted but weren't nominated at the Oscars in 2000 were Denis Villeneuve's Maelstrom (Canada) & Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love (Hong Kong).

Films I Would Have Nominated: With the exception of Crouching Tiger, In the Mood for Love is so much better than the other four films that cinephiles should've considered criminal charges against the Academy for ignoring it in such a field.

Oscar’s Choice: If you told me Crouching Tiger got 90% of the vote in 2000, I'd tell you that you're being too conservative in your estimate.  A slam dunk win.

My Choice: Crouching Tiger would've beaten In the Mood for Love, but at least that would've been a competition.  Absent that other masterpiece, there's no comparison to the rest of a really mediocre lineup.  For posterity, I'd rank the rest as The Taste of Others, Everybody's Famous, Divided We Fall, and then Amores Perros.

Those are my thoughts-what about you?  Is anyone going to defend one of the losers, or do we all agree that Crouching Tiger is the mandatory winner here?  I'm assuming most pick Amores Perros as their runner-up, but for those with AGI allergies, what do you like best?  And why on earth did they skip In the Mood for Love?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2000: Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Foreign Language Film Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

David Attenborough & the True Test of Legacy

Given how much he means to me, it's weird that on a personal blog that I have only written about Sir David Attenborough a handful of times, particularly since I talk about him CONSTANTLY.  While he has starred in a number of documentaries over the years, they aren't film, so they never intersect with Oscar, and while he does quite a bit of political advocacy, he's never run for political office, so I suppose it makes sense.  This past year, though, David Attenborough has made an astonishing five long-form nature series, particularly noteworthy given Attenborough is 97-years-old.  Prehistoric Planet II, Our Planet II, Wild Isles, Frozen Planet II, and Planet Earth III, the latter of which I'm almost done with (the rest I've already completed), have all been part of his past year.  Attenborough's work is vitally important, opening up the conversation about animals & in many ways raising entire generations on how they can have an impact on the beautiful creatures that inhabit our planet.  You could argue that no single living person has done more for environmental advocacy.  And he does so through truly breathtaking documentaries, filled with color, majesty, light, and some of the most impressive nature photography ever put on film.

Planet Earth has become the series he's most synonymous with, and was chronologically the fifth series of the five that he's created in 2023.  It's also, to date, the final series that Attenborough has done or committed to doing.  Attenborough this past year has announced he will no longer travel for on-set location shooting (frequently he will do his specials from places like Africa or the Galapagos Islands, where he will interact with some of the local wildlife firsthand), but has insisted that he will continue to present, as he loves the work.  He does have a special that was just released entitled Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster (anyone know where you can watch this in the US?), but that's the only thing that he has on the radar.  Rumors abound of a Blue Planet III, but while he has stated that he's not retiring, it's rare (and maybe telling) that he hasn't announced his next project yet.

This is sadly the case for a few legends.  John Williams, age 91, announced his retirement last year, and while he took it back, it's hard not to see his recent Oscar nomination for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (his 54th overall) as being an acknowledgement that it might be his last one.  Similar to Attenborough with Planet Earth, Williams getting to write the final installment of one of his most storied franchises (admit it-you just started to hum the "Raiders March" without me even needing to prompt you) feels like a closing of a chapter, even if it (hopefully) isn't it.  Martin Scorsese, 81, has talked pretty openly about how he knows his career will end soon, and how he feels like what he wants is more time.  Steven Spielberg, 77, recently made The Fabelmans, a lifelong ambition project about his early childhood, and while he (like Scorsese and unlike Attenborough & Scorsese) has announced potential projects, he also has entered the age where every new film feels like an event, a potentially "last of its kind" event.

This is morbid to talk about, and normally I wouldn't because I want all of these men to go on forever, but it does invite a really sad commentary.  These four men are irreplaceable.  There is no "next David Attenborough" or "next John Williams" in the same sense there was never a "next Alfred Hitchcock" or "next Frank Sinatra."  But they also represent a type of entertainment that is at risk of dying all-together.  The kinds of giant, original blockbusters that Steven Spielberg was synonymous with (Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Jurassic Park) are completely out-of-style, as are his most recent run of thoughtful, meditative historical epics (Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post).  Same with Martin Scorsese-his giant epics are celebrated, but no one else is making them, and at some point they did.  When Spielberg released Amistad, it came out the same year as Titanic, Seven Years in Tibet, and Kundun.  Now, their movies feel completely alien-no one's spending that kind of money on such epic storytelling.  Biopics are cheap-looking Netflix garbage (that still somehow get a lot of Oscar nominations, because it's all they can get their hands upon).  Any special effects film is a retread or sequel, not something groundbreaking like Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark.  There's only a few creative minds like Spielberg & Scorsese who consistently get $100 million for an original idea (Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron), but save for Nolan they'll all be over 70 by the end of this year.  Hollywood is not raising an environment where the next Spielberg or Scorsese can exist.

The same can be said for John Williams, which is weird as virtually every film still has composers.  Much of cinematic composing today is either a ripoff of Williams (he's so influenced film music, it's hard not to borrow from him) or a rebuttal to him.  But let's be honest-even if Dial of Destiny is not his best score, listen to it against the other four nominated scores, and you have to admit-it's of a different era, and still an example of the best of its kind.  Even something like Oppenheimer doesn't have that big, Boston Pops-style classical sound to it, the sound that Max Steiner and Miklos Rozsa would bring to music.  With just a few left beside him (like Hans Zimmer & Alexandre Desplat), the man who ushered in a new era of film music could well end that era with him.

And this is, sadly, the case for David Attenborough as well.  Attenborough's films are in a class by themselves, but that's partially because they cost so much.  With continual cuts at the BBC, one wonders if they'll die with him.  Attenborough is a national treasure in Britain, regularly voted the country's most beloved citizen, and public outcry over cutting him from the BBC would be, well, untenable for either of the country's political parties.  But it's pretty clear the writing's on the wall for his nature documentaries after he's gone-they're too expensive to be able to continue in the same way, and even if they did, they won't carry the same level of editorial vision.  Planet Earth III is not easy entertainment.  It's beautiful, mournful, and it also focuses heavily on the damning impact of climate change.  Other documentaries lack Attenborough's heavy hand in showing how we impact the natural world, either leaning in on the cuteness of the animals (DisneyNature) or, if you watch some of the other Netflix documentaries, feeling more like a church potluck's level of depth into the climate crisis.  A series that combines both beauty and responsibility...no one does that like Attenborough.

Why am I bringing this up, other than to bum you out?  It's not a fear of a lack of programs from these four (I have seen most of Attenborough's modern work, but have plenty of past series, including all of the Life collection, which I'm going to start later this year, to watch still), but more a fear of what will happen when they're gone.  Part of preserving an artist's legacy is ensuring that the artists who are inspired by them, not just their work but their work ethic, have a way to move forward & a vision to create freely (and commercially).  We need to start finding a new generation of artists given this kind of investment, so that these men can remain legends, but not the last of their kind.

Ranting On...the Barbie "Snubs"

My relationship with the Oscars has changed since I first became enamored.  I watched my first Oscar clips for the 1994 (i.e. Forrest Gump Oscars) and watched my first ceremony in 1995.  I was very much a child then, and the Oscars were quite different, much more of a pop culture moment, where everyone you knew stopped everything you were doing and watched them (they were even on a Monday!).  I have, in the years since never missed a ceremony, even driving through a blizzard to watch the 2004 ceremony on my little 13" TV screen, and it has been an omnipresent part of my life.  My friends and family, when describing me, will undoubtedly use the words "movies" or "Oscars" within the first two sentences.

But in that time, I've learned that while movies are always a source of magic, you need to temper your expectations with the Oscars.  I wasn't always this way.  I had an imaginary vendetta against Hilary Swank in 2004 when she beat Annette Bening for the Oscar (for the second time), and I am still actively angry about Crash beating Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture.  But for the most part, when I became a fully-fledged, completely-employed adult, I gave up on putting a lot of stock in what Oscar chose.  There are exceptions (I still think Brendan Fraser beating the beautiful work that was done last year by Colin Farrell & Paul Mescal is insanity, given he was giving a truly bad performance), but for the most part, I am happy when Oscar makes the right call because I know what it means for the person I'm rooting for and just roll my eyes when they pick something foolish.

The internet, particularly Twitter, does not take such a lackadaisical approach to the Oscars, or to anything, let's be real.  Yesterday, in what was surely the most predictable Oscar nominations in eons, the internet lost their collective minds at the nominations, particularly Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie not featuring in Best Director or Actress.  I saw posters blaming Annette Bening, Ryan Gosling, and saying that this fulfilled Gerwig's whole argument in Barbie by having Ken get a nomination but Barbie going home empty-handed.  I initially thought this was just shock-posting for engagement, but eventually saw celebrities (including, somehow, Hillary Clinton) weighing in, so I want to, as someone who has lived through a lot of Oscars, give my two cents.

First off, let's address the obvious-Barbie had a great morning yesterday, the cherry on the sundae of an incredible year for the movie.  2023 was the year of Barbenheimer, and Oscar did not forget to wear some pink.  The film won eight nominations, including for Best Picture, and that is insane when you think about it for longer than two seconds.  The film is about a doll, is a comedy without much hint of drama, and came out in the summer.  These are not things that get you Best Picture nominations-these are things that get you, at best, a citation for Production Design or Original Song.  There is a world, in fact, where Barbie only gets those.  It is a testament to how well-constructed Robbie & Gerwig made this movie (and their flawless press tour the past six months) that it was able to get in at all.  The nominations it got were still a testament to its quality, box office, and ardent fanbase.

If you want to look at the nominations, let's look at them.  First off, Robbie didn't lose to a single man-Barbie didn't lose to Ken, they were in different categories, with different competition. Robbie likely lost it to Annette Bening, a pioneering feminist in her own right, playing a real-life athlete who stood against ageism & sexism to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida.  You can get into all kinds of debates over whether or not Bening's performance is better than Robbie's (that's a legit convo to have), but first off, see her movie before you say Robbie was snubbed (which I suspect most people had not seen Nyad, Maestro, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Anatomy of a Fall who were proclaiming Robbie was "robbed" yesterday), and second off, it's not anti-feminist to have Annette freaking Bening instead of Margot Robbie.  It's also worth noting that Barbie did get a nomination yesterday, for Best Picture (Robbie is a producer on the film), which is arguably more in-line with the message of the film than anything else, and for America Ferrera, one of the other women in the movie, so it's hardly like none of the film's actresses didn't get cited for their work.

Gerwig's loss is also not a textbook definition of anti-feminist on its own.  For starters, the people complaining about her miss for sure haven't seen The Zone of Interest (it's barely been released) and likely haven't seen Anatomy of a Fall, which was directed by a woman (a woman who fought to get her film seen even as the President of France was working overtime to make it falter).  The reality is that in a contest where there are five director nominations and 10 Best Picture nominations, there's not a "I guess the film directed itself" joke here so much as it's simply mathematically impossible for all of them to be included.  And no, this isn't a case where we should expand the number of nominees...it's a case where we should be grownups and admit "not everyone is going to make it, and we shouldn't cry foul, particularly when we haven't even seen all of the nominees."

The last thing I want to say is around the people who were convinced that this was a sexist act solely because Ken got in but Barbie didn't, which is much of the plot of the movie.  First, leave Ryan Gosling out of this-he's championed the movie, and been a total cheerleader for Robbie & Gerwig on the red carpet all season.  Second, Robbie & Gerwig both got nominations in other categories-they are headed to the Dolby later this year.  Third, films get nominated for Best Picture without a Best Director nomination all. the. time...including when there were only five Best Picture nominations.  And last, this is kind of pathetic to be this upset over something as silly as an awards show.  It's reminiscent of the Millennial urge to call Trump "Voldemort" or "Thanos."  If you are an adult, you should be able to view the world through shades of grey, understand nuance, and not need a pop culture veneer to make a point.  It's okay to be sad if you wanted Gerwig or Robbie to make it into those categories-if they're your favorites, awesome (I thought they were good too!), but it's not okay to act like this is an anti-feminist act when there's really no indication it was.  It was just a case of a movie that is very out of the Oscar's wheelhouse getting a big awards haul, but not super big because, again, it's not to Oscar's taste.  If you want to create an awards show where Gerwig & Robbie get included...I make my own every year.  I encourage you to do so.  But having a hissy fit online over it is, well, something you should grow up about.

25 Random Thoughts on This year's Oscar Nominees

All right, it is Oscar nomination day!!!!  Every year, I do a stream-of-consciousness article to talk about my key takeaways from this year's nominations.  I'll be honest-this year's reactions from social media have been somewhat exhausting; I'm fully convinced that people just want to be angry, because if you're upset about maybe the most predictable Oscar nominations field of my lifetime you either should've had more realistic expectations or you're always going to be mad.  But that's an article for a different day (though if it seeps in here...these are honest reactions), and so let's enjoy all of the goodies we got from AMPAS this morning.  Here are my 25 thoughts on today's nominees.

1. This is the most predictable Best Picture field I can remember, a carbon copy of the PGA nominations, and proof that either these were all really good nominees (honestly, they were more mainstream acceptable than a lot of masterpieces, though I still haven't seen them all) or, more likely, Oscar is getting less creative in the post-Covid era.

2. It's impossible to know who was in 11th place, and we'll probably discuss it for years (same with who was in 10th), but I'm guessing for posterity it was either The Color Purple (based on precursors) or May December/Napoleon (based on today's nominations).  Hell, it could've been something that had a total shutout like Origin, Air, or All of Us Strangers for all I know.

3. I will unveil my Top 10 on Sunday, so you'll know how much overlap I have.

4. Justine Triet bumps out Alexander Payne (sorry, Gerwig was probably in seventh) to ensure we don't get an all-male Best Director lineup.

5. There's several longtime character actors getting their first nominations for Best Actor (Colman Domingo, Jeffrey Wright, Cillian Murphy), which is pretty cool, but collectively this is one of the duller Best Actor lineups I've seen in a while.  Not bad, but dull.

6. I was right to predict Annette Bening (who pushed HARD for this nomination even though she had no shot at winning...likely trying to bank for a future, more plausible bid), but wrong to think it would be Carey Mulligan missing.  Instead it was Margot Robbie.

7. Annette Bening has a weird streak of being the "probable second place" in all of her campaigns, which ends with Nyad.

8. The internet was losing its minds over Ryan Gosling making it but not Margot Robbie and saying it was anti-feminist.  Three problems with that.  One, Gosling was better than Robbie (sorry, but that's just reality if you saw the film-no knock on Robbie, but Gosling steals the picture).  Two, they aren't in the same category-it wasn't Gosling who took her nomination.  And three, it was likely Annette Bening, pioneering actress of another era, who took Robbie's nomination, and she took it for playing a trailblazing female athlete (hardly a death to feminism moment).  If you're mad about "Ken getting in but not Barbie" and think that makes this morning's nominations anti-feminist...maybe go outside?

9. I have a kind of pact with myself to not get mad at actors for their first nominations, because it can take decades to achieve that moment, and we should celebrate that, but Sterling K. Brown is genuinely bad (and homophobic) in Rustin.  I'm not someone who needs gay people played by gay actors, but he is not believable as a gay man in that movie, and his performance is dreadful.  There were so many stronger options in that field that were from in-play films...why did he get in for such dreck?  Worst of the 20 nominated performances, by a lot.

10. Emily Blunt, after nearly two decades of trying, finally gets the nomination she should've gotten in 2006 for The Devil Wears Prada.  Doubt she gets the win she deserved at the time, though, as the supporting trophies already have Downey & Randolph printed on them.

11. Really want a reunion photo with Scorsese, Foster, & De Niro before this season is done.

12. Killers of the Flower Moon getting bumped from Adapted Screenplay kind of makes me wonder if there's any statue it'll actually win...that Gladstone miss at BAFTA hurt her chances.

13. The Taste of Things becomes the annual "should've gone wide in the US sooner" release from a predicted International Feature Film contender that doesn't get nominated and is now quickly ushered out of theaters.  Io Capitano, The Teachers Lounge, and Perfect Days all get $1+ million added to their box offices now though.

14. Disney misses ANOTHER Animated Short field, its longest drought since 1998-2000.  On top of only getting one Animated Feature Film in and only one MCU nomination with three contenders...it's a dark day for the Mouse House.

15. Disney Animation also missed both music categories.  In fact, all animated films (despite three shortlisted contenders) got skipped for Original Score.

16. We're eventually going to have congressional hearings over how Diane Warren keeps getting nominated for the strangest movies known to man.  I suppose in a year where we gave 8 nominations to a movie about a doll, we can spare one nomination for a movie about Cheetos.

17. John Williams scores his 54th (and potentially final) Best Score nomination for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  We talked at length about Williams' quest for this nomination, so click there if you want more thoughts, but I'm very excited for him, and a little melancholy over this.  Listening to the 5 nominated scores, it has to be said that while you can quibble over who is best of the five (there is more than one right answer), at 91, Williams is still capable of putting out great, memorable music.

18. He won't win though.  Oppenheimer will.  Oppenheimer might sweep every tech it's up for save Production Design (one of two wins Barbie will get, along with Original Song).

19. El Conde proves you should never ignore the ASC and Golda proves that the Makeup branch will never change, even when their behaviors have become more predictable (everyone I know called that nomination).

20. In a morning with honestly no big shocks (we only had one No Globe/SAG with America Ferrera, and she was my #1 guess in that article), the truly shocking thing was Mission Impossible getting in for Sound & Visual Effects when none of the previous six films have done so.  Other than X-Men, there's really no precedence for a movie 4+ films into a series getting Oscar nominations without some sort of reboot involved like Mad Max: Fury Road.

21. Speaking of droughts-Godzilla finally got to the Oscars today.  Godzilla Minus One was a prediction I made that I had zilch confidence in, and am thrilled to see (it'll make My OVP Ballot when I get to it).  This is the first nomination for the monster.

22. A friendly reminder that the last time that Ryan Gosling sang an Oscar-nominated song, he had John Legend fill in for him, so I'll believe "I'm Just Ken" when I see it.

23. The Visual Effects category may be the most open I've ever seen it?  Honestly-with no Best Picture nominee (there's not even a film nominated for acting) in this list and no big blockbuster frontrunner, it's impossible to guess.  Will it be Napoleon (most Oscar-bait picture?), Godzilla (it's the fan favorite), Mission Impossible (could this be a way to honor the series ala The Bourne Ultimatum?), The Creator (that Sound nomination indicates wider support than expected) or Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 3 (with Disney not in play anywhere else, will they push hard to finally get the MCU an Academy Award, and also get a sendoff for one of the few branches of that universe that fans haven't tired of yet?).

24. I assume The Boy and the Heron will get the win over Spider-Verse and Elemental, but what does a girl have to do to see Robot Dreams?  They picked the film over Aardman & Disney (plus the Globe-nominated Suzume), and I've heard from many it's the best of the five even if it has no chance of winning, so I'm eager to see it!

25. We'll be finishing up 2000 Oscar Viewing Project in the next week, and then we've got two more on-deck already (I've been on top of my screenings).  I haven't seen nine of these movies (Golda, Flamin' Hot, The Zone of Interest, The Teachers Lounge, Robot Dreams, Io Capitano, Perfect Days, American Symphony, & El Conde), and while a chunk of these I will get to in the coming days (follow me on Letterboxd as I've got reviews of most of this morning's nominees there, and will check in on at least five of these in the next two weeks), two (The Teachers Lounge and Robot Dreams) don't have US release dates yet, so we probably won't get to the OVP for 2023 until this summer.  In the meantime, I'm sure I'll have more takes on this year's race.

OVP: Sound Mixing (2000)

OVP: Best Sound (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Randy Thom, Tom Johnson, Dennis Sands, & William B. Kaplan, Cast Away

Scott Millan, Bob Beemer, & Ken Weston, Gladiator

Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, & Lee Orloff, The Patriot

John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, David Campbell, & Keith A. Wester, The Perfect Storm

Steve Maslow, Gregg Landaker, Rick Kline, & Ivan Sharrock, U-571

My Thoughts: Maren Morris sings a song with the lyrics "why don't you just meet me in the middle" which is a phrase that has an actual meaning (that you need to compromise with people), but is something I sing to myself personally whenever I get to a category like this field.  Sound Mixing in 2000 is a series of "pretty good" with barely enough "that's great" nominees.  As you're going to see in our discussion today, a lot of it is the films doing 1-2 things well, but that ultimately being the only reason for their inclusion.  This isn't necessarily Oscar's fault (2000, as we've discussed, wasn't a super impressive film year, particularly when it came to the action & musical bread-and-butter we'd usually see in this category), but it also makes ranking these films really challenging because they're all on the same page.

The best example of this is The Perfect Storm, a movie that does one thing notably: water.  The film is best known for being one of the earliest films to blend CGI and practical effects involving water, which is really challenging to pull off (and it does-the visual effects in this movie are super well-done), but that's the only thing that it does well.  I want a sound design to be less one-note, especially when it comes to mixing, and the dialogue scenes or the other sequences don't have the same level of cache.  You either need to do everything perfectly or you need to have true standout mixing details in your key scenes...this doesn't do the former, and while it does do some of the latter, it feels more like an editing achievement.

The same can be said for Gladiator.  This is a movie that during its epic battle scenes (the ones in the arena) you hear every corner, every sound, and it comes together marvelously.  But the other sequences, it just doesn't feel authentic.  I don't feel like I'm being transported into Ancient Rome.  We're coming to the point soon (as we go back in the OVP) where sound design was harder (the technology & cameras weren't there), but given other films of 2000 were able to achieve something really special & feel authentic to these worlds, I wanted to hear that in Gladiator.

The Patriot does this somewhat better.  It helps that it has the best film score of these five, so we have John Williams aiding in making this feel like a world onto itself, something that recalls a colonial series of villages & rebellions, rather than a reconstruction of these sets with 20th Century actors.  I also love the roaring cannons & battle sequences, which are harsh but also cinematic (you can tell Mel Gibson just starred in this and didn't direct it given the battle scenes are focused on adventure & not intestines).  I don't think it's bringing it to a great level, but it is decent work, and incorporates its score the best.

Cast Away also does well with its score, and I think might have the best balance of the films here.  You have really standout sequences, particularly those with Tom Hanks at sea.  The famous scene where he says goodbye to Wilson the Volleyball is really well done because it gives you competing sounds (the water, the music, Tom Hanks' yells), while other sequences use quiet ingeniously.  The whale scene (which terrified me the first time I saw this) is so silent except the waves, which works perfectly as the entire audience is holding their collective breaths during it, adding to the silence.  This is a movie that clearly remembered the best way to see a movie is on the big screen.

Our final nominee is U-571, which I'll be honest, feels more like an editing achievement than a mixing one.  Much of the noise here comes from the claustrophobia of the ship, and the attacks & gadgets that are the bread-and-butter of a submarine film.  The score isn't a big calling card, though, and I don't think we get anything unique from how it's used.  I also think some of the dialogue doesn't work as well against the battles; I hate when "it's too loud to hear" is an excuse to not hear dialogue-I always want to hear the actors, and there are ways to make it seem like the characters can't hear each other but the audience can without sacrificing realism.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Cinema Audio Society was not yet splitting its awards between Animated & Live-Action in 2000, so we get a combined category (though it's worth noting that no animated films made it into the lineup).  The Cinema Audio Society, though, adds nothing to the conversation as they picked the exact same lineup as Oscar (with Gladiator winning), while BAFTA gave the top prize to Almost Famous (I love when BAFTA is off doing its own thing), against Billy Elliot, Crouching Tiger, Gladiator, and The Perfect Storm.  I think the clear sixth place is Crouching Tiger, a film that did well virtually everywhere else, and feels like it should've been cited here.

Films I Would Have Nominated: I've said Crouching Tiger so often, we'll go a different direction.  In a year with very few musicals, you'd be hard-pressed to find a film with the kind of perfect musical influence as O Brother, Where Art Thou.  I'm in the middle on the film's quality overall, but the music is spectacular, and even lip-syncing it is designed to make you think George Clooney can really sing.

Oscar’s Choice: Deprived of its chief competition in most categories (Crouching Tiger), this was a slam dunk win for Gladiator.

My Choice: The only one of these that will be showing up in my personal awards is Cast Away, and so I'll happily give it the statue considering how well it does with the full picture of sound design for the film.  Behind it (in order) are The Patriot, The Perfect Storm, Gladiator, and U-571.

Those are my choices-how about you?  Do you want to battle it out with Oscar & Gladiator, or will you set sail with myself & Cast Away?  Am I crazy thinking this is all relatively good nominees...but only one great one?  And why do you think Oscar skipped Crouching Tiger?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2000: Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Sound Mixing Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022