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

OVP: Director (2023)

OVP: Best Director (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall

Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon

Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things

Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest

My Thoughts: We are moving toward the tail end of our 2023 conversation today, with the Best Director field.  One of the more pronounced side effects of the ten-wide field, and one of the weirder ones for sure, is that people have forgotten how to count.  With ten nominees for Best Picture and only five for Best Director, that means that (at least) five films from the Best Picture field will not get into the Best Director field.  This is okay (not every good film needs an Oscar nomination), but for some people, this is an invitation to scream about, say, Greta Gerwig missing here for Barbie even if she was nominated for Best Screenplay, as if this is an enormous crime.  So, before we begin, I do not think that Gerwig's lack of a nomination was a huge surprise (I didn't guess her), nor do I think her missing was particularly anti-feminist (especially since the one woman in this lineup was likely the one who bumped her).

That woman is Justine Triet, who directed Anatomy of a Fall.  Triet's nomination is kind of cool on a solely political front, given that many feel that her film was not chosen for the International Feature race because of her public criticisms of French President Emmanuel Macron during her Cannes acceptance speech.  We don't judge based on personal feelings about the nominees, but I will note-she seems like a badass.  Her nomination, though, I wasn't a huge fan of-I think that the film feels too overlong, and it runs into too much repetition with its plot.  It also doesn't handle the "did she do it?" question well, a problem I put pretty squarely at the feet of the director.  The actual title scene is done well, and there are some Hitchcockian flares that I was into, but overall I was disappointed with this and feel like it got a nomination in part because it was so serious.

Yorgos Lanthimos is also a nomination from someone I like, but who didn't need his name listed here.  We talked yesterday about how much I loved Emma Stone's performance in Poor Things, but it sometimes feels like I'm liking it in-spite of her director's work.  Lanthimos' approach here is too much.  He uses too much garishness, and the way that the film's use of a sort of futuristic Victorian style feels, well, it feels undefined; why are we doing this other than it feels odd?  I also don't like the way that he can't handle the evolution of Bella in the final thirty minutes without it just being about her fighting yet another man.

Jonathan Glazer, on the opposite end, puts so much into the pacing of The Zone of Interest it reads very much like a director's picture.  The way that he moves the camera, using tracking shots and far-away dialogue to give us both the foreground and background of the story in multiple scenes is superb, and I loved the interruptions of color across the movie screen, letting the audience absorb what is happening in the picture.  Glazer's mastery of the ending, too, cannot be ignored-I admired the way that it connects to modern day, and the wretching sound that happens when your soul feels like it's vomiting out of your body, you've condoned so much evil.

Quentin Tarantino has spent much of the past five years complaining about how he's only going to make ten pictures, because "directors make their worst stuff toward the end of their lives."  Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese, now in his eighties, has made two of his finest films during that time frame.  The approach with Killers of the Flower Moon is so awe-inducing, giving us the sort of large, expansive epic that (if your name isn't Martin, Steven, or Ridley) they don't really let you make anymore.  I enjoyed the way that he honors not just the Osage people, but also the illumination that can happen from making a movie at all, bringing a story to light that has been kept in darkness.  The film's final, solemn moments (where Scorsese takes centerstage) are some of his best.

Christopher Nolan was always going to win an Oscar.  All of the fanboys who worried about it for years, the second he made a movie like Dunkirk, should've known it was inevitable.  That he won for a movie that combines his blockbuster flare with an Academy-friendly plot (and that made almost $1 billion) is a really incredible testament to his endurance as one of the most exciting mainstream filmmakers of the past couple of decades.  I think his approach with Oppenheimer is great, particularly the tricky balance that he strikes between jumping through decades & finding some sort of insight into an enigmatic man.  There are problems that I have with Oppenheimer, but those are not an issue of the director (more of the writer and to some degree the actors & composer)...I have nothing bad to say about this nod.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes have six nominations now (ruining the only category where we used to have five-wide for all precursors) and they picked Nolan to win against Gerwig, Lanthimos, Scorsese, Bradley Cooper (Maestro), & Celine Song (Past Lives).  The BAFTA's also had six nominations (I hate this trend), with Nolan beating Cooper, Glazer, Payne, Triet, and Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers) while the DGA chose Nolan over Gerwig, Lanthimos, Payne, & Scorsese.  I'll be real to all of those who led the charge-I don't think Gerwig was in sixth place here...my money is that she was in seventh.  Payne is a more traditional choice for the Academy, and they have liked him more in the past.  I actually predicted him in favor of Triet, and so he's the one that stands out as the likely just-miss.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: Sofia Coppola got nominated so early in her career, and then the Oscars totally forgot she was still making truly great pictures.  This trend continued with Priscilla, which shows the unrest of a young woman finding herself while also falling in love with a domineering man, with a distinct directorial flare that I suspect the Academy would admire from Tarantino or Scorsese.
Oscar's Choice: Christopher Nolan had this Oscar roughly by last August.  It was the kind of train you can't stop from coming.

My Choice: Glazer, who is in a different league (in general-this is his best movie, and the made Birth and Under the Skin).  Scorsese is next, followed by Nolan, but I would've been proud to put either of them in the top spot if Glazer hadn't hit such a home run.  Triet, and then Lanthimos close out the category.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Are you staying with Oscar and his Nolan coronation, or do you want to sit with me and Jonathan Glazer?  At some point Greta Gerwig is winning this-but for what kind of movie?  And do we think Scorsese (or his buddy Steven Spielberg) just get nominations for the rest of their careers, or will they get one more statue?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2023: 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 Director 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

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).

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.

OVP: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

Film: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Alfred Lutter, Kris Kristofferson, Harvey Keitel, Diane Ladd, Valerie Curtin, Jodie Foster

Director: Martin Scorsese

Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Ellen Burstyn*, Supporting Actress-Diane Ladd, Original Screenplay)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Kris Kristofferson: click here to learn more about Mr. Kristofferson (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we talked a little bit about Kris Kristofferson's very successful early career in music, but during the 1970's you'd be forgiven for thinking of him as a movie star in the same breath as thinking of him as a country music titan.  Kristofferson's career in movies is unusual because two of his biggest films of that era are movies that, while he got top-billing, he was totally overshadowed in terms of press coverage (and eventual recognition) in favor of his female costars.  That's certainly the case for today's movie, which is a pretty major crossover into the Oscar Viewing Project, as I watch my final (to date) Ellen Burstyn Oscar-nominated performance, and the only movie Burstyn ever won an Academy Award for.  The movie also happens to be the first studio movie that Martin Scorsese (who, like Burstyn, is still working) ever made, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is something of a road trip film, at least in the first half, with Alice (Burstyn) a former singer who has recently been widowed by her neglectful husband, taking her son Tommy (Lutter) across the country.  She wants to go to Monterey, her childhood home, where she dreams of picking up her singing career again, but along the way things get messy for her.  First, she meets a younger man named Ben (Keitel), who seems charming, but is actually an abusive married man whom she ends up fleeing town with after he threatens Alice.  At that point, in Tuscon, she gives up (temporarily) on her dream of becoming a singer for the more realistic life of a waitress in Mel's Diner, a local, fast-paced watering hole, where she befriends the outspoken Flo (Ladd), and starts romancing a regular named David (Kristofferson).  But her relationship with David is complicated by her increasingly unruly son, and eventually things come to a head when David physically disciplines Tommy.  The movie ends with them moving past this, and forming an unlikely family, with Alice giving up on her dream of being a singer, but finding a different kind of happiness with David instead.

I'll be totally honest-the ending of the movie doesn't work.  The movie's naturalism is its key asset, and that assists in a lot of the performances, but not in the ending.  The only logical reasons that David & Alice end up together are that it makes a cleaner ending than her pursuing a dream the audience knows won't happen, and that Kris Kristofferson circa 1974 is so hot you kind of look past the obvious, toxic masculinity flaws.  But it's not earned.  It's also hard to totally look at this from a modern lens without realizing that there is something seriously wrong with Tommy, who is a truly spoiled brat, and one who exhibits a lot of the same cruel tendencies that his father also exhibited at the beginning of the picture, which is going to be a problem for Alice in the years that follow (writing children in the 1970's was a nightmare unless you cast Tatum O'Neal or Jodie Foster, the latter of whom has a small role in this).

But the acting is good.  Burstyn brings a naturalism to her Alice, a modern woman who doesn't understand that it's not her gender, but her age, that will hold her back with the dreams she gave up to start a family.  There's an interesting commentary there about how the women's liberation movement came too late for a lot of women who now had the opening to make their dreams come true, but not the time.  Coupled with Ladd, who is superb in a side role as Alice's rival-turned-friend where she continually steals scenes, it's a great pairing and proof that Scorsese is capable of getting strong performances from women when he tries.  Kristofferson doesn't have a lot to do here but look pretty and then bounce off of Burstyn's monologues (this is very much an actress showcase film), but he does that well.

OVP: Director (2002)

OVP: Best Director (2002)

The Nominees Were...

Pedro Almodovar, Talk to Her

Stephen Daldry, The Hours

Rob Marshall, Chicago

Roman Polanski, The Pianist

Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York

My Thoughts: My goal is for us to finish up 2002 this weekend (that will depend on how tired I am tomorrow after doing some winter recreation that is a bit outside of my wheelhouse so I'm hoping it doesn't knock me out), but for sure we're going to do Best Director today, because, well, you're reading it today.  The Best Director field of 2002 is fascinating partially because of who is not there.  In 2002, it was stunning that Peter Jackson, who had nearly won the Oscar the year before and was cited for Best Picture, was missing from the Best Director lineup, as he was assumed to be safe (and this nomination was a down payment on a win the following year that did materialize).  Instead, two directors, both with incredible filmographies (though wildly different public personas) got the nominations instead.

The first of those was Pedro Almodovar, who got his only (to date) nomination here for Best Director.  Almodovar's Talk to Her is a marvelously taut mystery, and similar to Original Screenplay, this is a worthy nomination & a great way for Oscar to have gotten creative.  I love the way that he frames this movie as a sort of expanding Rubik's Cube, where you don't entirely know where you'll go next and where the ground is ever-shifting.  Almodovar is also one of the truest "auteurs" working in movies today, giving his own flare to pretty much every inch of his movies, and this is no exception.

Roman Polanski, despite the fact that he won the Oscar for The Pianist, wasn't really expected to even get nominated headed into the ceremony.  Polanski's criminal history (which is well-documented online, and too long of a story to get into fully here) was something that many expected would keep him off of the Best Director list, which he hadn't been on since 1980's Tess.  I try really hard to keep an artist's personal biography out of these write-ups (it's hard not to, but I want to ultimately decide the wins here based on the work at hand), and it has to be noted that Polanski's direction here is superb. He keeps the story & film tightly focused on Brody's character, giving us an unflinching look at the Holocaust from someone who actually lived through it (Polanski, whose family were Polish Jews, lived in the Warsaw Ghetto as a child during World War II).  It's a mesmerizing one-man act that's really a two-man one, as this level of performance is only possible with a director helping Brody along every step.

Stephen Daldry's The Hours nomination was also somewhat in question in 2002, though not to the same degree.  Films with female leads sometimes get missed in the top categories, and obviously this is the story of three women, but I'm so glad he made it.  Daldry's work here is splendid, the way that he intersperses these women's lives, and I love the quickness of his direction...we never spend more than a scene or two with characters, and frequently leave people behind (think how Toni Collette makes this amazing impression, and then we are deprived of her for the rest of the film).  There's something so assured in his storytelling.

Our last two names weren't remotely in question in 2002-everyone knew they'd get nominated.  Rob Marshall was making his big-screen debut after years in theater & television (primarily focusing on musicals).  I'm going to own something here-I think the direction is the weakest element in Chicago.  The film just sort of sits there, and there's not enough flow from scene-to-scene, not enough connection to the musical numbers that are knocking it out of the park, and suddenly we return back to Roxie's world.  Marshall was criticized for this approach in later movies that didn't really call for it (this is not unusual for staged versions of Chicago), but I think here it doesn't work either-it's just flat, and it's the one thing holding Chicago back for me.

The final nomination is also one that I don't love, and it's from one of my favorite directors of all-time.  This was when we had officially entered the "Marty wants an Oscar" stage of Scorsese's career, where he was worried about becoming Kubrick & Hitchcock & Lumet, men who couldn't get competitive Oscars.  Gangs of New York, though, doesn't have the tightness that his other films do, and the sub-romances in the movie don't work at all.  This is a long, bloated epic that has the benefit of an incredible performance at its center, but in Scorsese's long filmography, this is the only celebrated title that I totally check out from, and I'm personally glad this isn't where he won his statue.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Scorsese, and they did so over a six-wide field (atypical for the HFPA) as they had him beating Daldry, Marshall, Peter Jackson (The Two Towers), Spike Jonze (Adaptation), & Alexander Payne (About Schmidt).  The BAFTA Awards gave their statue to Polanski, and they had the same lineup as Oscar with Almodovar getting skipped for Jackson.  DGA had the same lineup as BAFTA (no Pedro, Jackson's there), but they went with Marshall for their winner.  And the sixth place is so clearly Peter Jackson, I won't entertain discussions about it being someone else.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: I already have the My Ballot ready, so I won't telegraph too much here other than I consider Jackson's miss to be a proper snub, and I will be correcting it on my end.  For the rest, tune in on Sunday!
Oscar's Choice: Heading into Oscar night, it was considered a truly tight race between Scorsese & Marshall, both of which felt like compromise wins (Marshall was brand new, Scorsese was winning for a film that no one agreed was one of his best), which is likely how Roman Polanski pulled off an upset and a standing ovation that featured Scorsese, Diane Lane, Meryl Streep, and (shudder) Harvey Weinstein that would be unthinkable today.

My Choice: Daldry, and not because I'm uncomfortable voting for Polanski (though truth-be-told, I would've struggled to vote for him if the Academy hadn't given me an out with a better directorial achievement).  Behind those two I'd go Pedro, followed by Marshall & then Scorsese.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Are you more with the Academy honoring the controversial Polanski, or do you want to join me on less tempestuous ground surrounding Daldry?  Am I alone in thinking that Scorsese's nomination here is the one big miss in an otherwise grand Oscar history?  And where the hell is Peter Jackson?!?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2002: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2002

Past Best Director Contests: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020