OVP: Picture (2023)

 OVP: Best Picture (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Ben Le Clair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson, & Jermaine Johnson, American Fiction

Marie-Ange Luciani & David Thion, Anatomy of Fall

David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, & Robbie Brenner, Barbie

Mark Johnson, The Holdovers

Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese, & Daniel Lupi, Killers of the Flower Moon

Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning, & Kristie Macosko Krieger, Maestro

Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, & Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon, & Pamela Koffler, Past Lives

Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos, & Emma Stone, Poor Things

James Wilson, The Zone of Interest

My Thoughts: Whenever I finish another one of these seasons, I always seem to start humming "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice, a song that I associate specifically with the film Closer, which I saw in college and was one of the first (then) contemporary films that I saw specifically as "mine."  It was a movie that very few of my friends or people I knew had seen (or liked), and that I loved when it came out (and still do, as is evidenced by the 2004 My Ballot where it made the Best Picture lineup).  The movie is about the passage of time & missed opportunities, but it's also a distinctly college movie for me, one of those formative flicks that you didn't realize going into the year would become part of your personality.  I think about that particularly with Best Picture lineups, because my hope is that some of these movies mean that for young cinephiles who are carving their path in the world, and loving movies in that way that it becomes harder to do the older you get.

One of the movies, though, that shocked me in that specific way in 2023 was The Zone of Interest. Jonathan Glazer takes way too long to make his movies, but he does at least make your patience worthy of the wait.  The Zone of Interest is a fascinating treatise on evil, how it seeps into our day-to-day life so much we can no longer see a world without it feeling commonplace.  The sound design is rich here, adding personality to the picture, and the writing & performances (particularly Sandra Huller) only accentuate this distinct look at the Holocaust and World War II (and, let's face it, modern fascist movements in the United States & Europe).

Another film that reminds me of Closer (I promise, I won't reference Mike Nichols' picture for all of these, but if you haven't seen it, do yourself a treat & seek it out) is Past Lives, though the 2023 movie has a far warmer heart.  I talk about my love of ticking clock romances on this blog a lot, but this one turns that a bit on its head, giving the main love triangle too much time to process their romance, leaving regret in place of urgency.  The way that the film examines how we become ghosts of our former selves (something you only begin to understand as you enter middle age), not in a melancholy way but in an inevitable one is really prescient stuff.  More than any other film in this lineup, I'm happiest this made it because it's the film that could've most easily gotten lost from public consciousness of the Oscar contenders.

The Holdovers is one of those movies that becomes better because of the parts, even if the sum doesn't always add up.  The warm performances from the three leads give it a lot of its flavor, as does some of the poignancy that invades Alexander Payne's script.  The movie is too neat, with every turn feeling telegraphed from the opening moments, and in the process Payne manages to screw up the ending, as he hasn't invested in our main character to make some of his choices in the final scenes feel unsaid.  Simple movies can be total masterpieces, but you have to get every part right if you're going to approach from that vantage-Payne only gets some things right.

Screwing up the ending, though, is not a sin exclusive to The Holdovers.  Maestro has the overconfidence to end with "any questions?" as if Bradley Cooper's film has answered fully the life of a complicated man.  But he doesn't-the movie invites far more questions than it answers, and what it does it gives a lot of really staid conversations about the life of Leonard Bernstein.  I think some of the conversations here are overplayed (I'm tired of talking about straight actors playing gay-in an era where openly gay Jonathan Bailey can get cast as the straight romantic lead in Wicked and get to front a major franchise like Jurassic Park, I think we can concede that we've made some progress), but the film's handling of Bernstein's sexuality seems hampered by real-life considerations (like his family's access to the life rights), and in the process Bernstein remains unknowable throughout the picture, a clear drop given the ending of the film.

But Maestro doesn't fumble at the beginning of the movie.  This is the last time I'll complain about it this season, but Anatomy of a Fall screws up much of its film's momentum at the top of the picture when it shares that it will end without resolution.  The movie never really recovers from that.  Though there are scenes of value (I think the title sequence is impressive, and Sandra Huller is better than the script), the movie's need to stay ambiguous becomes a problem as it feels too open-ended, and especially given how long it is, it lacks perspective on the crime itself.

A movie that better balances the need to be two things at once is American Fiction, though it isn't totally successful either.  American Fiction is really smart as social satire, giving us a cutting diatribe about the commodification of diversity and the ways that racism can take on different forms, even in seemingly progressive politics.  But in a weird twist, the film itself doesn't have enough strength in its family drama (the types of books that the main character wants to write) to sell that story-within-a-story angle.  The film's call sheet is smart (save for a woefully miscast Sterling K. Brown), with Jeffrey Wright a strong lead and I loved the meta-casting of Erika Alexander in a movie about a writer who struggles to convey to his publishers that the Black experience can take on any lens (Alexander is best-known for playing Cousin Pam on The Cosby Show, one of the first mainstream Hollywood productions to truly emphasize this message).  It's just short, though, of being something truly special.

Poor Things in a lot of ways has that "just short" of something truly great scenario going for it as well.  Like American Fiction, it has a strong lead performance, and it has a lot to say, in this case about feminism.  But also like American Fiction, it can't quite find a balance, though here it's trying to keep up with Lanthimos' need for shocking the audience through sex, body humor, and tantalizing moral conversations.  All of these can make up great art (see Lanthimos' The Favourite, in fact), but in Poor Things it gets in Lanthimos' way.  I'll also own that some of the aesthetic choices in the picture feel arbitrary (and a bit ugly for me), which made the film suffer whenever I wasn't getting to revel in Emma Stone's brilliant work.

Killers of the Flower Moon continues Martin Scorsese's recent trend of making his best pictures at the close of his career.  Running well over three hours, the movie gives us a totally epic tale, one that feels more complete for being pieced together (news flash: not every big story works better as a miniseries...this is proof of that).  The acting is somewhat strong.  We have Robert de Niro giving his best performance in decades, and Lily Gladstone's understated approach giving us a woman who is always hiding in Mollie Kyle, a strategy that makes her final scenes just sing on the screen.  I think DiCaprio is miscast (and Brendan Fraser is laughably bad), but those are minor quibbles when you're getting to see a master like Scorsese at work.

We of course have to end with the two movies that will forever be intwined, both in moviegoers' minds and at the Oscars: Barbie and Oppenheimer.  We'll start our Barbenheimer conversation with Oppenheimer, a movie that underlines how Christopher Nolan is one of our most visually arresting film directors.  The movie's aesthetic choices are divine (the art direction & cinematography are both laudable, I also think the editing approach works when it easily could've been too much), and most of the ensemble cast delivers, including some of the bit players like Benny Safdie or Casey Affleck.  I do think Nolan continues to struggle at writing women (and Emily Blunt's not giving us enough to make up for that), but Oppenheimer is going to age beautifully as a Best Picture winner, a striking meld of populist intellectualism.

Barbie is a movie, unlike Oppenheimer, that wasn't guaranteed Best Picture consideration.  It's due to Greta Gerwig's shiny pink optimism that this became the biggest hit of 2023.  Barbie is going to be hard to grade for future generations primarily because it was a phenomenon (the marketing on this film was both costly and insanely effective, with a press junket that should be studied), but the film itself is also strong.  It looks sensational (love the costumes, art direction, & makeup), and the lead actors are both fizzing with chemistry, though the standout remains Ryan Gosling's Ken, inevitably the definitive role of one of our best working actors.  I do think some of the commentary about feminism feels a bit prosaic, but I am hardly going to Kensplain girl power-Barbie is delicious & frothy fun.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes have their categories separated into Musical/Comedy and Drama, with six nominations each so we do get some new names, though not in Drama, where Oppenheimer beats Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Past Lives, & The Zone of Interest.  Instead it's in Musical/Comedy where Oscar nominee Poor Things took it over some films from the AMPAS lineup (Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers) and some not (May December, Air).  The PGA copied Oscar verbatim for both nominations and wins, and BAFTA (the only game in town still doing five nominations) went with Oppenheimer atop Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, & Poor Things.  I wrote an entire article about who might've been in 11th place, and while future pundits (who rely too much on stats for my taste) will assume The Color Purple or Nyad were in 11th place, I honestly think it was All of Us Strangers, Origin, or Air that was in 11th, and would've been the first film since 1943 to get in for Best Picture without a nomination anywhere else.  This is a fascinating conversation (more so than any recent "who was the runner-up" dialogue), so here's the article if you want more or want to know why I picked those specific titles.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow!

Oscar’s Choice: Oppenheimer won by so much, it's a genuine question between The Holdovers, Barbie, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest what was in second place (whomever it was, they were distant, but I'd probably bet on The Holdovers if forced to choose because of how the ranked ballots work).

My Choice: Not a hard one for me-The Zone of Interest is the best in a really solid list of movies (Oscar did better here than he has in a lot of recent years even if there won't be much overlap with my personal ballot).  Behind it (in order) are Killers of the Flower Moon, Past Lives, Oppenheimer, Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers, Poor Things, Anatomy of a Fall, and Maestro.  So that means in our six Barbenheimer matchups, Barbie went 5-1...but still missed for Best Picture.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Are you all still enchanted by Oppenheimer, or do you favor a darker picture like The Zone of Interest?  Who do you think was in the second and eleventh places in a year where that was quite murky?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2023?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2023: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Picture Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

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.

OVP: Actress (2017)

OVP: Best Actress (2017)

The Nominees Were...

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Meryl Streep, The Post

My Thoughts: We are finishing off our acting trophies with the leading ladies of 2017.  Similar to Best Actor, four of the five women cited here were in Best Picture nominees, though unlike Best Actor, Margot Robbie's work in I, Tonya was definitely part of a Best Picture contender.  Though we had more than one real-life person in this lineup, only two biopics is actually pretty good for a category that increasingly cannot handle anyone that isn't part of a real-life story.  This is also, arguably, a category where the winner didn't age well less because of the content of the film, but more because she'd win just three years later.

We'll get the Frances McDormand of this category out-of-the-way, and I want to be forthright in saying-McDormand's the best part of Three Billboards, and I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment.  She's very good, end of statement.  The way that she plays a mother of a girl (a dead girl) whom she had a truly complicated relationship with in life, and finding that girl's killer is the only way that she'll ever find some sort of absolution with a relationship that she struggled to maintain in real life...it's good stuff.  McDormand is better in her other two winning roles, but this is stronger than Streep in The Iron Lady (which, to be fair, is also a very good performance even if its real-world connections make it harder to embrace), and it's certainly not Bergman in Orient Express.  In hindsight, knowing that Nomadland was around the corner, Oscar probably would've gone with someone else, but that's been my main lesson of the OVP-you should only consider the year at-hand.

Had McDormand lost, one assumes that it would've been a race between Sally Hawkins & Saoirse Ronan for the win, though Hawkins role in the Best Picture winner might've given her the advantage.  Playing a mute woman, she uses her expressive eyes and body language to communicate what her voice cannot.  This isn't Holly Hunter in The Piano, though.  Hawkins doesn't play Eliza consistently enough for my tastes.  The script, but also her own actions, feel like she is reacting always and it feels like both writer & actor are underestimating the strength of their character.  It's not bad, but it's not an Oscar-worthy turn.

Ronan, on the other hand, might be turning in her best work-to-date in Lady Bird, which totally upends the mannered loveliness we are used to from her in roles like Brooklyn.  Here she plays Lady Bird as a young woman, perhaps a great young woman, who cannot see beyond what's in front of her.  She's wise...for her age.  The way that Ronan rips through Lady Bird's emotions, eventually finding moments of tranquility that she'll remember into old age, but never modulating the rough teenage emotions here (there's never a knowing wink to the adults in the audience over how much Lady Bird will clearly treasure her mother by the time she turns thirty), is so smart & exact.  Ronan's accent work is flawless (there's no hint of Ireland in her vocal work), and her chemistry with every costar is perfect.

Like Ronan, Margot Robbie arguably hits her best performance-to-date with I, Tonya.  The tone of I, Tonya I found unfortunate (aren't we over the faux documentary aesthetic yet?) & I struggle with my real-world attitudes toward Harding (the film is too sympathetic to her, in my opinion), but neither of those things take away from Robbie's excellent work in the lead.  She finds depth in Harding that other actors might've ignored.  Look at the way that she can't understand why a poor girl in a trailer park's idea of glamour isn't glamorous enough against that exuded by Kristi Yamaguchi or Nancy Kerrigan.  I love that we see her frustration as the film continues, with her succeeding, but never enough, never in the way that her peers do.  It's thoughtful work from Robbie, and she makes the best parts of the film.

Meryl Streep's most recent acting nomination (if she's not cited in 2022, it'll be the longest Oscar drought of her career) for The Post is definitely a nice change-of-pace for the actress.  Ever since 2006, the woman who became famous for her precise realism in the 1980's has played increasingly cartoonish, exasperated characters onscreen, not always to the grand effect she achieved in movies like Silkwood or the Bridges of Madison County.  I don't quite think there's enough here for it to count alongside those pieces-of-work (there are times when Streep feels a bit lost in Katharine Graham's worldview), but she finds an aesthetic here of a hard-working, ambitious, talented, but also otherworldly wealthy (and occasionally unaware of it) newswoman that feels like it's the work of a character actress rather than a movie star, something late-stage Meryl has been reluctant to try.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  For Drama it was McDormand who took the prize against Hawkins, Streep, Jessica Chastain (Molly's Game), & Michelle Williams (All the Money in the World), while Comedy/Musical went to Ronan against Robbie, Judi Dench (Victoria & Abdul), Helen Mirren (The Leisure Seeker), & Emma Stone (Battle of the Sexes).  SAG skipped Streep but kept the rest of Oscar's lineup, putting Dench in instead while BAFTA also skipped Streep in favor of Annette Bening (Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool), with McDormand taking wins for both.  In terms of sixth place, I honestly have no idea.  It's clear Streep was vulnerable, but reading my notes at the time I favored Bening for the potential shock runner-up, given she was overdue at the time for a trophy (still is), a "build-the-momentum-for-a-win" nod might have made sense.  You could make an argument for Chastain, Dench, or Williams though and I wouldn't disagree.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: In a different universe, where Woody Allen's name on a movie wasn't considered a death knell for a film's awards chances, Kate Winslet would've returned to the Best Actress category for the first time in a decade.  Her work in Wonder Wheel is extraordinary, the best performance Allen has gotten out of an actor this century.

Oscar’s Choice: McDormand could not be denied all of 2017, and took the victory against Ronan & Hawkins.

My Choice: I'll do the reverse, giving Ronan's work the nod against silver medalist McDormand, though both are better than I think they get credit for in retrospect.  Third is Robbie, followed by Streep & then Hawkins.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with Oscar & Frances, or do you want to join Team Lady Bird in my corner?  What's it going to take for Meryl Streep to get another Oscar nomination?  And who the hell was in sixth place here?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2017: 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 Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2017

Past Best Actress Contests: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

OVP: Supporting Actress (2019)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2019)

The Nominees Were...

Kathy Bates, Richard Jewell

Laura Dern, Marriage Story

Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit

Florence Pugh, Little Women

Margot Robbie, Bombshell

My Thoughts: The Best Supporting Actor race we discussed on Monday (links to all past contests below) was pretty stagnant throughout the cycle-the winner was the same everywhere, and the nominees virtually were as well.  This was not the case for the 2019 Best Supporting Actress race, though.  While the winner remained the same (we'll get to her in a second), it's worth noting that there were some curveballs amidst the precursors, and considerably more names mentioned than we otherwise would've gotten from this slate of actresses.  But one name, our winner, remained constant and we'll start with her.

Laura Dern's work in Marriage Story was, like Brad Pitt, the culmination of a longtime star getting her "this is the time" awards run, and everyone latched on.  These runs sometimes are perplexing even if you like the stars ("really-for that performance?") but I think for Dern this feels about right.  This isn't her most iconic work, and in fact it borrows generously from Renata Klein (for my money her most singular role), but she gives so much with this characterization, casually heartless but never apologetic & willing to play with the dynamics of being a woman in a male-dominated field.  Occasionally the role feels out-of-place against the more humanistic work that Driver & Johansson are bringing to the screen, but this is a small complaint for an enjoyable bit of scene-stealing.

Margot Robbie might have gotten more love in a different year (she is right in that sweet spot of an actor who is going to get an Oscar in the next few years or never get one), and she completely steals Bombshell from her costars.  This is a weird compliment since one of Bombshell's best traits is how the makeup team ensures the actors inhabit their real-life counterparts (and Robbie is playing the only fictional character), but she makes Kayla both confident & realistically naive.  It's a tough role, possibly the toughest in the film, but she gives it her all.  And while the OVP only focuses on the film at hand (we don't take into consideration an actor being "overdue" or having a "good year"), I have to say I enjoyed her small part as Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Scarlett Johansson finally ended her Oscars drought (she regularly showed up before this year on "Best Actors Never to Be Nominated") with a pair of nominations, and while this is very different from what she's doing in Marriage Story, I think it fits well with the Jojo Rabbit part.  Caring mother is a trope that Oscar latches onto, but this is a tricky role to play, as we have to see her character through the eyes of her young son Jojo, but also with enough hints about her real feelings & her concerns about herself & her son.  The red shoes scene wouldn't work in such a shocking way if she hadn't grounded us in what was taking place internally.

Florence Pugh, like Robbie & Johansson, was having a banner year in 2019, but we can only judge her on her work in the nominated film.  That's to her advantage, though, because while Midsommar was delicious, her scene-stealing work in Little Women might be a better testament to her skill set, finding complicated, ambitious women, and redefining them repeatedly as we watch their film.  Her Amy is the real reason that Little Women became such a touchpoint in 2019 for so many people-she shows the dignity of being the character defined by circumstance, not by passion, and moralizes a part that would've been very easy to just play as an antagonist or even soft villain.

Kathy Bates is an actress who has spent much of her career defying convention in a similar way to what Pugh does with Amy, which is why it's so disappointing that her Bobi Jewell is two-dimensional.  Bates is incapable of giving straight-up bad work, but if the script isn't demanding she give us someone super challenging, she occasionally just relies on her charisma & natural abilities without stretching the story.  That's what happens here-Bobi is sympathetic, and her big moment during the press conference is well-played, but she's too carbon copy, too cookie cutter, for me to really be invested in her arch.

Other Precursor Contenders: As I said up-top, there are more names here than we got in Supporting Actor, though Laura Dern wins everything.  The Globes skipped both Pugh & Johansson, here in favor of Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers) and Annette Bening (The Report).  SAG bumped Bates & Pugh, here picking Lopez & Nicole Kidman (Bombshell...the only time the Nicole-loving Globes have ever skipped a Kidman film performance that SAG went for), while the BAFTA's threw out just Bates in favor of Margot Robbie (who got a double nomination for both Bombshell and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).  Lopez is famously the sixth place here, and I think that's probably right...but as that performance is so out-of-character for Oscar, I do wonder if Kidman might've been closer than what we're giving her credit for here.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I considered Lopez a lead for her performance, so we'll talk about her in this field next week for Best Actress.  One name I definitely would've included in this lineup, though, was Cho Yeo-jeong, whose work in Parasite is specific & my favorite in the film (though really all of the women of Parasite getting a collective trophy would've gotten no argument from me).

Oscar’s Choice: Dern was an easy win-Big Little Lies helped create a fanbase that might not have rallied in a different year, and she was able to best Robbie & Johansson, who I think would've been battling it out in a different season.

My Choice: With no category fraud to speak of (well done Academy!), I can go solely on performances here.  I'll give the trophy to Pugh as I think her work stands out best & brings the most to her film, with Dern, Robbie, Johansson, & Bates coming behind her in that order.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you with the consensus that this was Laura Dern's time, or are you willing to be contrarian over on Team Pugh?  Was ScarJo closer to winning this trophy or Best Actress last year?  And do you think Lopez would've gotten this nomination if she'd won the Globes (I still think her missing there was the sign we all ignored about how tenuous this citation would be)?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2019: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2019

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

OVP: Bombshell (2019)

Film: Bombshell (2019)
Stars: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Connie Britton, Mark Duplass, Allison Janney, Malcolm McDowell, Kate McKinnon
Director: Jay Roach
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Charlize Theron, Supporting Actress-Margot Robbie, Makeup & Hairstyling*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We're nearing the end of the year, though anyone knows that the cinematic year ends not on December 31st, but sometime in mid-January when Oscar nominations are announced (and here, we'll be doing most of our genuflecting on the year and decade in late January/early February due to truncated release schedules).  As a result, we're getting through a lot more 2019 films in the comings weeks, and one of them today is Bombshell, currently in theaters.  The film tells the tale of the Fox News scandals of 2016/2017, ones that informed the presidential campaign (though unlike the fates of people like Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes, Donald Trump was not punished for his perpetual harassment and assault of women...hopefully in 316 days that will change).  Here we focus on figures like Megyn Kelly & Gretchen Carlson, whose role in the MeToo movement is undeniable, even if they remain polarizing figures on both sides of the aisle.

(Real Life Doesn't Need Spoiler Alerts) The film is mostly focused on Megyn Kelly (Theron) during the peak of her fame at Fox News, where she went from being the star of a primetime opinion show to being a mainstream superstar thanks to her professional arguments with Donald Trump (played here by the president himself through archival footage).  While Kelly is trying to find ways to balance her conservative boss's (Lithgow as Roger Ailes) beliefs with her increasing disgust at Trump himself, we see two other women who are trying to find their footing at Fox News.  We have Gretchen Carlson (Kidman), a former beauty queen who has been demoted to an afternoon talk show slot, and whose more liberal (for Fox News) political beliefs also feel alien to Ailes, whom she accuses of punishing her for not giving in to his advances.  Finally we have Kayla (Robbie), an aspiring (fictional) Fox personality (who unlike Megyn & Gretchen genuinely believes in the conservative movement, and not just playing a part) who works first for Gretchen and then Bill O'Reilly, but in a rare opportunity finds a way to meet Roger, and in the process he starts sexually harassing her and forcing her to perform oral sex on him in order to get ahead in her career.  All of these women's worlds collide when Gretchen publicly states that she was harassed by Ailes, upending the power dynamic at one of the most powerful organizations on earth.

The film is told in many ways similar to the recent political Adam McKay movies The Big Short and Vice, where the leading women will talk directly to the camera (Megyn most frequently, but definitely Gretchen at one point).  This can be off-putting, and is more miss than hit when films try it, but I kind of liked it for Bombshell.  The film's most impressive feat is the recreation of actresses as distinctive as Theron into exact replicas of their Fox News personas (the men are also impressive, though Lachlan Murdoch owes Jay Roach a muffin basket for having a bearded Ben Lawson hunkify him for the big screen).  Having these personalities, whom the world is used to talking "directly to them" do so on a big screen makes sense-it instantly establishes them as Megyn Kelly & Gretchen Carlson, rather than just actors on a screen in convincing makeup.

The movie is hard to watch, particularly the scenes with Kayla.  Perhaps because Kelly & Carlson's endings are so well-known (Carlson would win the lawsuit but has yet to land a high-profile news gig, Kelly would leave Fox but never escape its stench, failing spectacularly at NBC), Kayla is the audience surrogate, and the one with the cruelest fate, so the fact that we don't know how her story makes it all-the-more-heartbreaking when it ends with her essentially being assaulted (repeatedly) by Ailes.

All three actresses are good.  This isn't a film that would require great acting, and it occasionally slips into caricature.  It's so fun to watch some of the recreations of these people, and getting to judge from the seats people that liberals hate (make no mistake-while the issue of sexual harassment should be nonpartisan and is treated as such here, Jay Roach knows that it's going to be people who hate Fox News who will be seeing this movie and has acted accordingly with the script...my packed audience occasionally booed certain people from their seats), that you would be forgiven for seeing some of these people, especially side characters like Jeanine Pirro, as nothing more than cartoons.  But these are world-class actors, and they find their moments.  I keep thinking of the cautiousness of Kidman as Gretchen, someone smarter than the men in the room but who knows she has to play the part of a former beauty queen to stay in the game, slowly breaking out of her shell.  There's also the great scene where Megyn talks to Kayla, and then refuses to take any of the blame for shielding Roger because she can't face the fact that while Roger is the one who is to blame here, her silence made Ailes rich, Kayla vulnerable, and continued a network that would eventually elect Donald Trump.

This is perhaps the only time in the movie that the film really hints at what is the biggest problem for this picture-that we're left with Megyn Kelly & Gretchen Carlson as our heroes.  I talked about this at the time, but Carlson & Kelly as heroes didn't sit well with people on the left who had seen them as enemies for years.  It's easier to separate the real-life good they did with taking down Ailes with the horrible damage they did when they were at Fox News, but watching them in a movie is different, and the balance isn't right.  We don't see enough of the moments where Carlson dumbs down television by being someone educated at Oxford who claims there's a "War on Christmas" and not enough time is spent on Kelly essentially putting her career ahead of women's rights & helping in a large part to hurt women everywhere by forgiving Donald Trump.  These pop up occasionally, but it feels more like a "cover your butt" move from Roach than trying to incorporate these very complicated, nasty bits of these women's legacies into a film that wants them to just be feminist trailblazers.  This is a pity, as Bombshell is very watchable, and they have the likes of Theron, Kidman, and Robbie ready to not just be movie stars, but find the souls of these women, even if they are complicated.

OVP: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Film: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Al Pacino
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Oscar History: 10 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Leonardo DiCaprio, Supporting Actor-Brad Pitt*, Cinematography, Costume Design, Production Design*, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Quentin Tarantino, at this point, is one of those directors who has a blank check from me as a viewer, because even when I'm going to see something terrible, it'll at least be interesting, and with films like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Inglourious Basterds, he's proven he can make truly spectacular movies.  Few directors working today (save, perhaps, for Martin Scorsese) are as in love with the process of moviemaking as Tarantino, who frequently indulges in filmmaking techniques that pay homage to the most minute of film references.  We saw this a few years ago with the excruciating The Hateful Eight which still looked great in 70 mm even though the imagery couldn't save the story, but here it's more apparent in recreating the indulgent art decor of 1960's cinema and television.  The strangest thing about Hollywood, though, isn't that it pays such careful homage to this era's entertainment, but instead that this feels like the least stylistic of Tarantino's pictures, perhaps even his attempt (until the ending) to make a movie that might be downright...pleasant.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on 1969, a year in Hollywood where television has largely replaced movies as the national past time, but not the allure of movie stars themselves.  We see two fictional figures of the era, former TV star Rick Dalton (DiCaprio), who has fallen on hard times & is largely reduced to guest roles on TV rather than getting his own lead, and his stunt double Cliff Booth (Pitt), who is Dalton's caretaker but has never enjoyed the glimpse of success that his boss did. Dalton lives next door to Sharon Tate (Robbie), who at this point has just completed Valley of the Dolls and is one of the most famous women on the planet, a star far greater than Dalton had ever hoped to be, even though she's largely ancillary to the plot and just there to look pretty.  Much has been made for Robbie's part being underwritten, and it is, but there's something sort of fascinating about watching Robbie, possibly the most beautiful woman in pictures today, giving us the lonely take of Sharon Tate, who was once the most beautiful woman in pictures.  Robbie has become a marvelous actress at this point and so she manages to make the isolation of being such a famous figure compelling.  Tate's need for validation and warmth gives her a proper character path with limited screen time, and as a result while criticism that Tarantino seemingly forgets the stories of women might be valid in other films, Robbie's Sharon is a solid creation & shouldn't be a subject of this ire.  There's a great scene where Tate watches a largely forgettable performance in the Dean Martin flick The Wrecking Crew, and seems overjoyed in her anonymity to find that the audience enjoyed her work-this is smart, careful moviemaking.  Tarantino should instead be raked over the coals for once again prominently inserting three of his actresses' (Robbie, Qualley, and Fanning) feet pervertedly onscreen for no apparent reason other than his own fetishes, but leave Robbie's role out of it.

Overall, there's nothing really bad about Hollywood, especially when it comes to the actors.  DiCaprio and Pitt are both great.  Though I don't want to get hyperbolic here (both actors have been better before), but they land their scenes with an ease & delivery that's genuinely fun.  DiCaprio is always better at lighter roles than serious ones, and Rick Dalton gets moments of levity, particularly opposite Pitt as well as a young actress whom he is starring with on a fictionalized TV show (played by American Housewife's Julia Butters).  DiCaprio is fun in this part, and now armed with his much-sought-after Oscar, gets back to what he's best at-playing a handsome man who is frequently his own downfall, but man do you want to root for him.  Pitt is even better as Cliff, a man who came within an inch of fame, and has some inner-demons that are only hinted at (it's implied but never confirmed that he murdered his wife on a boat, perhaps an homage to a different famous Hollywood death, Natalie Wood), but who is still very good at his job.

Pitt has a long, extended sequence where he visits Spahn Ranch with Margaret Qualley's Pussycat (not an actual member of the real-life Manson Family, but instead a character inspired Kathryn Lutesinger) that is terrific, and the most "Tarantino at his best" moment of the picture.  There's a tension here, since we don't actually know that Cliff (who is fictional) will need to live through his time on the ranch, but that certain people like Dakota Fanning's Squeaky Fromme and Austin Butler's Tex Watson will live since they still have crimes to commit.  It's not often in a movie where you know the hero might die, but that the villains have to survive, and I liked the juxtaposition.  Tarantino spares Cliff, and eventually totally messes with history (this is a fairy tale, and as a result Sharon Tate and the other residents at her Cielo Drive home live while the likes of Tex Watson & Susan Atkins die in over-the-top violent deaths), but the suspense here is mesmerizing, as is the way that Tarantino plays with our expectations (having Bruce Dern's George Spahn get mad at Cliff rather than the murderers who are fleecing him, is a nice touch even though Cliff is looking out for his own interests while Squeaky is just using him).

The film's ending is a bit of an eye roll.  We've already seen Tarantino's willingness to screw over history with Inglourious Basterds, and the shock simply isn't there this time.  We know the second that Watson & Atkins decide to go into Rick's house rather than Sharon Tate's that this is going to be a different ending than real-life, which feels appropriate (I didn't think I could handle watching a very pregnant Tate get butchered onscreen, and I suspect Tarantino realized that even for a director known for violence this was a bridge too far), but it also feels super predictable and kind of tired for a director who seems to have lost the ability to craft violence creatively.  Hollywood is best when it's going for nostalgia (like the scenes with DiCaprio & Robbie) or with atmosphere (like the scenes with Pitt on Spahn Ranch or the one scene featuring Damon Herriman's Manson, a sequence that hangs over the rest of the film, especially since it's our only glimpse of the monster behind all of this madness).  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is that rare Tarantino movie that's good up until the ending, and as a result I'm going with 3 stars even though it's a 4-star picture for most of the movie (I'm someone who gets annoyed when the execution on the back half is sloppy).  Note that this downgrade has nothing to do with the movie's length, which actually feels about right for what he was going for, but entirely due to the ending feeling like it missed the mood of the best moments of the picture.  This is an interesting departure for the director, though, and has enough strong elements that I'd recommend you see it.

OVP: Suicide Squad (2016)

Film: Suicide Squad (2016)
Stars: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje, Cara Delevigne, Ben Affleck
Director: David Ayer
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Makeup & Hairstyling*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

The Oscar Viewing Project is a labor of love, but occasionally it's just a labor.  I frequently say that I never regret seeing any movie at least once, because I learn something new from every film, but man does Suicide Squad test that theory.  Reviled by critics two years ago when it came out, it still made an absolute mint at the box office, enough to well-earn its sequel even if in the process it nearly destroyed the DC franchise in conjunction with Batman vs. Superman (since then Wonder Woman and Aquaman have done damage control, though with both Ben Affleck & Henry Cavill supposedly leaving the series, I wonder what that means for the future of a Justice League).  Suicide Squad managed to become the first movie in the series to win an actual Oscar, meaning that DCEU hit that distinction two years before the MCU did.  With that Oscar nomination, I was forced to watch it, and since I don't want you to have to endure the same fate, here's my review of this travesty of a picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) It's hard to count the ways that Suicide Squad fails on nearly every level, but it starts with the plot.  Unlike The Avengers, which had largely introduced all of the characters before the film, or X-Men, where they have the good sense to pick characters like Wolverine, Magneto, and Professor X who are well-established in pop culture before expanding into Beast or Mystique, no one in this movie (save Harley Quinn & the Joker) is a protagonist well-known to the general public.  Thus the film takes a nearly ten minute detour where Amanda Waller (Davis, a smart casting decision that doesn't pan out due to the script, as Waller is one of the coolest villains in the DC universe) just describes the different bad guys that will eventually make up the Suicide Squad, with us seeing why they're "so incredible" but then watching them become two-dimensional characterizations in the ensuing 90 minutes of movie.  Essentially Waller wants to assemble these guys to be able to fight the likes of a future Superman who isn't so magnanimous, and essentially by blackmailing them into slavery (an aspect of the film that no one seems to have a problem with even though we're off a moral cliff with forming this organization), she hopes to fight a future alien invasion.

Plot is not really essential to the movie that ultimately came about here (though it would have perhaps helped with some of the structural issues of the picture), but essentially that alien is among the Suicide Squad, as the Enchantress (Delevigne) takes over the body of June Moone and tries to destroy the Suicide Squad and enslave the human race.  This gives us a baddie, but weirdly the movie totally ignores the iconic villain at its center, the Joker (Leto), surely saving him for a future film that never panned out properly as Leto is now being replaced by Joaquin Phoenix.

The plotting in the film might have been able to help the picture should it have been well-acted; after all, effects movies can get around bad plotting all the time if there's a charismatic enough lead.  This, however, is not the case.  Will Smith is dreadful as Deadshot, lifelessly going through a film where he has to share the "hero" label with a half dozen other less famous people, and has no chemistry with anyone, including Davis or Robbie, with whom he shares a lot of scenes.  Smith hasn't actually been good in a movie in nearly two decades, so it shouldn't be a shock to see him miss here, but it's still disheartening, because the Will Smith of the 1990's might have breathed some life into this film.  Combined with Davis getting nothing to do, Leto creating a scenery-chewing ham in the Joker, and all of the rest of the cast save one just being two-dimensional (what the hell-Akinnouye-Agbaje can act and lifts Croc-Killer in zero ways), we are given a superhero movie that's not just messy, it's also dull.

The saving grace in the film is Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, the only thing to recommend here.  Robbie got some random Oscar buzz for the film, which was absurd as this is hardly great acting, but she creates an identity for Harley, lands most of the jokes, and seems to genuinely be having fun.  It's a grand theft movie, to the point where you almost want to fast forward when she's not onscreen, but hats off to her for remembering this is a motion picture rather than just a marketing campaign checklist.

As for the Makeup effects, I have to say they're pretty good.  The hair styles are occasionally too similar, but the makeup work is extensive and realistic, blending well with the special effects.  We'll get to the OVP for this right away in our 2016 rundown, so I'm not going to give away the farm, but this isn't a bad nomination.  It's just a bad movie.

OVP: Mary Queen of Scots (2018)

Film: Mary Queen of Scots (2018)
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, David Tennant, Guy Pearce
Director: Josie Rourke
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Costume Design, Makeup & Hairstyling)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars


Compared to Vice, pretty much anything would be considered a step-up, so Mary has the advantage of being paired with one of the more unpleasant movies I watched in 2018, and by comparison it's considerably better.  For starters, I didn't leave this movie seething with rage, both at the protagonists and at the director for have no perspective on the main characters.  But just because it's sitting alongside something as bad as Vice doesn't make Mary Queen of Scots worth saving.  A stronger effort, but a pretty generic one that has been told a thousand times, and not even two of the most promising young actresses working today can save it from being anything other than disposable.

(You really need a spoiler alert here?) The film focuses mostly on the early life of Queen Mary (Ronan), from her time returning to Scotland after her husband died in France, to eventual rebellions against her rule and her being imprisoned by her cousin Elizabeth (Robbie), who would eventually have her executed for treason.  In a year brimming with category fraud, you'll be forgiven for assuming that Robbie is a co-lead before viewing it, but this really is more Mary's story than Elizabeth's, which is something of a change-of-pace for this (cinematically very well trod) tale.  The film follows Mary as she struggles with her all-male counsel, her complicated marriage to Lord Henry Darnley (Lowden), and how she eventually is out-maneuvered by the noblemen who steal her baby and make her abdicate the throne.

The film has very little in the way of character understanding, which is a shame as this is a pretty good cast.  Mary, as played by Ronan, gives a number of truly fine speeches, but we don't get to know much about her other than a 21st century-type of feminism that feels historically inaccurate in the context of the film.  Look at the way that Ronan seems so understanding of her friend's homosexuality, or how Elizabeth's entire existence is predicated on a decision of "whether to marry or not to marry."  These are the writers striving for a more modern-telling of the story, but in the process they sacrifice a lot of realism without much reward.  One could argue the most interesting character in the film is Lord Darnley, himself a valid claimant to the English throne, one could argue just as valid as the one that Mary held though that's little explored here (they both gained their claim to the English throne through their grandmother Margaret Tudor, who was the eldest daughter of King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth's paternal aunt), and is played in the film as gay.  I liked the way that Lowden gave him a sense of pathetic entitlement, but the writers don't seem to have much to say about anyone other than the queens, and as a result he's lost, as is Joe Alwyn's Robert Dudley (yet another 2018 role where Alwyn's unnatural beauty is the main asset he's allowed on the screen).  The movie as a result meanders and plods, leading up to the only thing worth mentioning: the meeting of the two queens.

Here, we are gifted a pretty rare treat-a truly great scene in a film that is otherwise mediocre.  Ronan & Robbie, only sharing the screen for a few minutes, make the most of it with truly splendid line delivery and a well-choreographed walk through a series of sheets.  In a better film, this would have been truly spellbinding and legendary-two sometimes sisters, sometimes rivals who nonetheless respect the other for being the only person who understands their strife, finally speaking unfiltered without fear of retribution, perhaps for the only time in their lives.  Both actresses nail the scene, and if Robbie gets an unlikely Oscar nomination for this picture (as she did with the SAG Awards), this is easily her clip.  Unfortunately, it just stands out like a sore thumb as too-good-for-the-movie, which is otherwise generic and a blip on both actress's trajectories.