OVP: The Horse Whisperer (1998)

Film: The Horse Whisperer (1998)

Stars: Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sam Neill, Dianne Wiest, Scarlett Johnasson, Chris Cooper

Director: Robert Redford

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"A Soft Place to Fall")

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 Robert Redford: click here to learn more about Mr. Redford (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we talked a little bit about how Robert Redford was getting beyond his pretty boy roots, and beyond acting all-together by founding the Sundance Film Festival, today the most important film festival in the United States.  But Redford quickly went from highlighting the films of others to making his own in 1980, with the premiere of Ordinary People, his landmark debut which won the Best Picture & Director actors, making Redford one of the only directors to win for his film debut.  Redford would continue acting in the decades that followed, but many of his most remembered films from this time period were movies he directed like A River Runs Through It (which I love) and Quiz Show.  Because he didn't star in these movies, this is not my opportunity to watch Ordinary People for the first time (somehow, it is one of the only Best Picture winners I've never seen, and the most critically-acclaimed gap in my viewings), but instead we will talk today about the first time that Redford directed himself, in 1998's romantic western The Horse Whisperer.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie starts with tragedy, as Grace MacLean (Johansson), the teenager daughter of a posh Manhattan couple Annie (Thomas) & Robert (Neill), is in a shocking accident with her horse, where she loses her leg, and her best friend & her horse are killed.  Annie, though an Anna Wintour-style magazine editor at the beginning of the film, starts to believe that saving Grace's horse Pilgrim is somehow connected with her daughter finding a zeal for life again, and so she goes to Montana to meet with a "horse whisperer" named Tom Booker (Redford), who runs a ranch and while initially hesitant, also sees that Pilgrim & Grace are connected.  He begins to train Pilgrim, but in the process he starts to win over not just a recuperating Grace, but also a smitten Annie, with whom he begins to have an affair.  Their love from two worlds is pretty clearly not going to last, but it is a moment where Annie begins to ponder her responsibilities to herself, her identity, and her family...and the man she is falling in love with.

In 1998, romantic dramas like The Horse Whisperer were not uncommon (see also Hope Floats, Meet Joe Black, and City of Angels), and so it isn't noted as a success in the way it would be today (a straight drama grossing almost $200 million in 2023 would be a guaranteed Best Picture nomination).  But looking back on it, it's so refreshing to watch the film from a modern lens, knowing this type of film would go out-of-fashion just a few years later as studios lost their minds over the X-Men and Spider-Man box office receipts.  The movie doesn't apologize for being complicated, giving us a woman who shouldn't be falling in love (she's married), but she is, and it doesn't give us easy answers.  In the end, it's not clear Redford-the-director knows if Redford-the-actor should end up with Annie or not, and that's kind of the point.  Love doesn't always have right answers, and to see that in a movie without any winking, comedic relief, or need to infantilize adults by pretending this is the first time either has fallen in love would read as bold today, and it's expertly handled by Redford as a director.

I will say that I don't think the movie succeeds in terms of chemistry between the two leads.  This is a weird situation as I think both Redford & Thomas give strong performances (both are very good actors) in their own lanes.  Redford's Tom is played as a romantic who clearly was too burned to end up with another woman after he lost his last wife, and Thomas gives Annie a three-dimensional look at motherhood, and being willing to sign up for more adventures as you age.  But the two don't have romantic inclinations to each other.  This isn't the age gap (though it's hard not to think about that since it's the only thing Gen Z audiences are capable of talking about in romances), but more so their acting styles.  Redford is such a naturalistic, California boy against Thomas stage-trained British beauty, and they don't really jive even as an opposites-attract pairing.  Good movie, good performances...weirdly not a compelling romance (though the Oscar-nominated song definitely tries on that front, giving us a lovely, lonely country ballad that they dance to at a critical moment in the picture).

With that, we're going to retire Robert Redford, who at 87 is still acting semi-regularly acts.  After the combined star wattage of Redford & Clint Eastwood, two of the great living movie stars of the 1970's, we're going to move next month into the work of a man who got his career start doing some of the independent westerns of the 1970's, before eventually moving into character actor roles in Hollywood films starting in the 1980's, including a turn in one of the most noted westerns of the 1990's. 

What Progressives Get Wrong in the Scarlett Johansson Suit

The Democratic Party is oftentimes referred to as a "Big Tent" party, and in the era of Donald Trump, it's really the only big tent party.  While the Republican Party increasingly has no room for anyone who doesn't worship at the alter of the former president (just ask Liz Cheney & Adam Kinzinger), the Democrats have diversity of thought.  We discussed this in an article last week, but today we're going to have the rare intersection of both politics & movies on the blog, and in a way that I was surprised by on social media when the story first came out a couple of weeks ago.  I want to talk about the strange reaction from the left that came about when Scarlett Johansson decided to sue Disney.

First, let's get a little bit of context.  Scarlett Johansson, as you all know, is one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, and is part of the biggest franchise on the planet, The Avengers.  Her character Black Widow's long-gestating solo film was recently released, and by a variety of measures it's done pretty well, particularly in a pandemic where global box office is difficult to achieve.  It is the highest-grossing film in the United States for 2021, having just overtaken F9 this past weekend, and while it's still at #5 globally, $360 million is not a small amount of money when there are entire countries on lockdown.  It isn't a hit by the standards we generally associate with The Avengers (it has yet to even overtake the original Thor in terms of its box office), but if you were adjusting for a sliding scale, it's possible that this is what a hit looks like in 2021.

Disney, though, clearly didn't just have box office receipts on its mind when it came to this film.  They also have their lucrative Disney+ platform to consider, as Black Widow is one of several recent releases that Disney put in both theaters & streaming simultaneously, the latter charging a premium fee to be able to view.  Other films such as Raya and the Last Dragon, Cruella, and Jungle Cruise have gotten a similar treatment, and it seems to be the case for most of the upcoming releases from the Mouse House.  It is unknown (because obviously we can't do these things in a vacuum) whether or not Black Widow would've made a significant amount more at the box office had the only way to see it been in movie theaters, but logic dictates at least some of the streaming audiences would've gone to it.  It's also not clear how much of the box office was also hit by the "I'll get around to it" attitude that streaming platforms invite-if it's already at your house, there's urgency to get to it before it leaves theaters.

But what is clear is that some money was left on the table, which has led Scarlett Johansson to take the rare step to sue Disney, stating that releasing on a streaming platform violated her contract.  Johansson, like many stars of her level, negotiated her contract based on expected box office receipts, not necessarily a large up-front payday.  As a result, a hit to the box office is also a hit to Johansson's final payday.  While some stars (most notably Gal Gadot & director Patty Jenkins) have renegotiated after-the-fact to get their cash when a studio moved their film to streaming, Johansson didn't appear to get that opportunity with Disney, and if her lawyers are to be believed, Johansson had a clause in her contract that dictated that Black Widow would get a certain window of time of theatrical exclusivity to maximize profits.  Johansson is the first star to come forward & do this against Disney, but she's probably not the last.  According to industry trade papers, both Emma Stone & Emily Blunt (stars of other properties that moved to streaming) are looking into this, and indeed Blunt & her husband John Krasinski already went after Paramount for doing this to their movie A Quiet Place Part II.

There are a lot of topics to discuss here, though to me this feels like a pretty open-and-shut case to me-if it said in Johansson's contract that you can't release on a streaming platform prior to a certain weeks of theatrical run, and they violated that contract, she should be compensated, and she should be compensated as if it was going to reach Avengers-style money since Disney didn't even negotiate in good faith.  But the internet's reaction to Johansson, particularly amongst progressives, was what made me write this article.  I saw post-after-post from self-proclaimed liberals disparaging Johansson for being a "rich woman who doesn't need the money."  It takes a lot these days to be shocked by the internet, but in this case I was.

Johansson is not, it's worth noting, an actor who progressives would naturally rally behind (Brie Larson or Elizabeth Olsen might've been an easier sell from The Avengers canon).  She repeatedly says problematic things, ranging from defending her work in Ghost in the Shell to standing behind her longtime creative collaborator Woody Allen.  But it was still jarring to see because Johansson's stance is one person demanding what they were promised from a multi-billion dollar corporation.  This felt like an easy call to me, and the fact that so many people tacitly endorsed Disney's treatment of her because she's problematic or "has enough" really showed the Democrats' problem-they don't usually recognize the forest for the trees.

You see that in the way that they don't understand the confines of power, particularly when it comes to someone like Joe Manchin.  Manchin is the best the Democrats will ever do in West Virginia-it's either him or a Marjorie Greene clone; if you want to change Manchin, make him less important by having elected Russ Feingold, Katie McGinty, or Sara Gideon.  Primarying him is the path-of-fools.  Democrats seem to always turn the hatred onto themselves, rather than simply expanding their territory so that the moderates in their party have less power.  In a similar way, the Democrats are siding with Disney in this scenario against someone they deem "unworthy" of their support, even if that person winning would do exponentially more good for the long-term cause of marginalizing the power of major corporations than anything the average person can do.

As Scarlett Johansson is rich and she is famous, she's going to attract headlines a normal person could not.  It's impossible to say she has nothing to lose-actresses ranging from Bette Davis to Olivia de Havilland to Raquel Welch have sued studios and seen their careers sidelined or (in the case of Welch) destroyed to the point where there's little remaining.  Johansson is risking her career in doing this, and while her wealth insulates her from the kinds of worries that normal people have (she doesn't need this money in a pragmatic way), her winning would set a precedent for people who aren't movie stars and are in a similar boat.  I don't care that Johansson doesn't "need" this  money-it was something a major corporation promised to her, and she should get it.  Because I promise you-if a major corporation is willing to screw over one of the most famous & most powerful women on the planet, they sure as hell will have no problem screwing over you.  If we cheer & root for them to "get her Jade" in this scenario, it just makes it that much easier for them to exploit your labor without compensation.

Black Widow (2021)

Film: Black Widow (2021)

Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, William Hurt, Ray Winstone, Rachel Weisz

Director: Cate Shortland

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Scarlett Johansson has been playing Natasha Romanoff since 2010 when she first appeared in Iron Man 2, the first female cinematic Avenger, and basically since that time we have been hearing "when is there going to be a Black Widow movie?"  After a near-decade of pressure from comic book fans, who pointed out repeatedly the boy-centric nature of all of the titles that had gotten their own stand-alone films, Johansson finally got to have a sendoff for the character (presumably this is her final moment with the role), by giving her her own origin story/adventure.  Black Widow comes in an interesting situation, though, as it is the film most famously delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic-it was supposed to be released in mid-2020, but was bumped back over a year as a result of Disney not wanting to risk the lost box office dollars.  As a result, Black Widow represents the longest gap the MCU has taken from theaters since 2010 (when she first came onto the scene), since we last checked-in with the Avengers cinematically with Spider-Man: Far From Home two years ago.  Since then, though, the franchise has expanded into three different television series, that, rightly or wrongly, clearly have impacted Black Widow and the way it's perceived by audiences.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in 2016, though we do see some flashbacks to Natasha aka Black Widow's (aka Scarlett Johansson) childhood, which puts it roughly at the Captain America: Civil War point in the MCU timeline (we have not had the Thanos snap yet).  The movie is about Natasha trying to take down Dreykov (Winstone), a Russian general who controls an army of female super soldiers, one of which was Natasha, and two more of which are her "pretend" mother Melina (Weisz) and her pretend sister Yelena (Pugh).  Joined also with their faux father Alexei, the Red Guardian (Harbour), the four team up to take down Dreykov, while also in the process working through the abandonment issues the two girls felt when their "parents" surrendered them to an assassin program.

Black Widow, as I mentioned above, is a movie that should have come out two years ago, and that honestly wears on the movie.  It's possible that this film will play better years from now if you watch all of the MCU films back-to-back (that happens-occasionally when films are seen in rapid succession & viewed as one long story, similar to a TV show, they play better), but now we're a few years out and Black Widow's moment-in-the-sun feels done.  Johansson's character died in Avengers: Endgame, so we have already said our goodbyes to her, and she has been replaced in the years since by other Avengers with more compelling back stories such as Scarlet Witch & Black Panther.  There's just not enough intrigue left around this character for us to care about this coda, and in a similar fashion to Spider-Man: Far From Home, these feel like movies that don't really keep us interested in the longer-game storylines of the series in the way that we cared about the Thanos 'Infinity Stone' chapters as a collective unit.  The only time, honestly, we've seen a real urgent need to continue these tales has been WandaVision (full confession: I haven't yet caught Loki though I will), and I stand behind my initial assessment that it may be worth moving on from this series if we don't start seeing some growth in the tales (or some better mysteries unfolding within the series).

That said, Black Widow has its fun moments.  Pugh steals the whole picture wholesale as Yelena, Black Widow's spunky younger sister.  She consistently wisecracks-the broken, petulant sister of a world superstar, and Marvel wisely is putting her centerstage in its upcoming series Hawkeye.  Harbour's accent work is really bad (he shifts out of his Russian accent way too often), and as a result his scene-stealing isn't quite as worthy.  Johansson & Weisz are two of the most consistent screen presences, with the former eternally understanding the assignment (few actresses are better today at totally enveloping their character into the fabric of a film without ever needing to steal focus quite like ScarJo) and Weisz is the fabulous badass who you know will always get out of everything.  There's a lot to like in the chemistry between the four, but it feels somewhat disjointed, and it's hard to care about them when we already know the titular character's destiny (and that this tale will have little impact on the future of the Avengers franchise).

OVP: Actress (2019)

OVP: Best Actress (2019)

The Nominees Were...

Cynthia Erivo, Harriet

Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story

Saoirse Ronan, Little Women

Charlize Theron, Bombshell

Renee Zellweger, Judy

My Thoughts: We will finish off our 2019 acting races with a trip to Best Actress, generally one of my favorite categories at the Oscars.  There has become something of a debate on social media about using the word "weak" to describe a field or year for acting, particularly actresses, and in some ways I get it.  No year, if you aren't creative, should you struggle to find five decent performances (though I'll be real-2020 Supporting Actor I had to get creative), and it does feel pejorative to refer to a complete year as "weak."  But if we're being honest, if there are going to be "strong" years for acting, you also need to have weak years, and in 2019, the lineup of performances that Oscar assembled was, well, weak.

You see that in the work of Renee Zellweger, mounting a comeback.  Zellweger is capable of a good performance (all of these women are-these are not "weak" actresses by any stretch), but her work in Judy never rises above looking like the starlet.  Zellweger uses her own voice (a risky move playing such an icon), and while I don't really care (mimicry is overrated in movies), she doesn't give us a proper sense of the starlet.  There's nothing in Zellweger's work that gives you the impression that the woman she's playing was once one of the most famous women in the world-no sense of entitlement, no sense of stature...her Judy Garland feels like an empty vessel, and Judy Garland was hardly an empty vessel.  The movie falters as a result.

Saoirse Ronan reunited here with her Lady Bird director Greta Gerwig, a smart choice since Ronan has never felt so at-home with material as she does with Lady Bird, but this is a deceptive bit of casting, and for my money, a mistake.  Jo March is a feminist icon, and certainly the easiest of Alcott's sisters to modernize, but Ronan's performance gets stuck in that modernization, never properly grounding the part.  This is in contrast to Florence Pugh, who gives so much depth to Amy that for the first time in anything I've ever seen from Ronan, I can honestly say she was upstaged, and found lacking.  Ronan delivers her fiery speeches with flare, but for a character that everyone insists is special, Ronan doesn't make her so by giving us enough depth.

About the only character who could get away without depth is someone who has spent most of her life trying to hide it, which is why Charlize Theron fares better than Ronan or Zellweger in Bombshell.  Playing Megyn Kelly, a character that most of the audience is going to dislike (for a variety of reasons) isn't easy...we want our characters to be like Jo March, not like Megyn Kelly, and the script (and Theron) play into that by making her difficult to root for.  This is a neat trick, and while Theron's work isn't always as strong as her costar Robbie, it's a trick that's nearly as impressive as the makeup job that Theron has been bedecked in.  Theron gives us an antihero worthy not of our praise, but at least of our consideration.

Scarlett Johansson gets an even harder task in Marriage Story.  Here she's playing a character that must remain free of judgment, and someone we're meant to understand before we know if we should root for her or not.  Johansson doesn't bring easy answers to Marriage Story-her Nicole is a woman who doesn't always know what she wants, but is aware of what she doesn't, and that's the key to her performance-Johansson isn't intimidated into making Nicole easy-to-define, and as a result we end up somewhat like Charlie-trying to pin down a woman who doesn't want to be pinned down.  It takes a disciplined performer who knows their script inside-and-out to do that without it becoming frustrating, and Johansson, sixteen years after finding the heart of a similarly wandering woman in Lost in Translation, finally finds an equal to that movie.

Cynthia Erivo's entrance into cinema in Bad Times at the El Royale was so dynamic & distinctive that you'd be forgiven into thinking that Harriet was a deserved nomination...Erivo is going to deserve "Oscar nominee" pretty quickly in her career, why not get it over with?  But her work here isn't outstanding.  Saddled with a paint-by-numbers biopic where she's expected to do all of the heavy lifting, she doesn't give us enough insight into Tubman the woman before trying to instill in us Tubman the legend.  It's not a bad performance by any means, and it's the one saving grace in a middling movie, but it's not what we normally associate with Oscar-worthy, and the Academy should've held out for something more challenging from the actress.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  Best Actress in a Drama featured the entire Oscar lineup (as I've mentioned throughout the 2019 retrospective, not a creative year for AMPAS), with Zellweger winning, which means Musical/Comedy brought us five new names: Ana de Armas (Knives Out), Cate Blanchett (Where'd You Go Bernadette?), Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart), Emma Thompson (Late Night), and the victorious Awkafina (The Farewell).  SAG gave their trophy to Zellweger, though they skipped Ronan in favor of Lupita Nyong'o (Us), while BAFTA bumped Erivo for Jessie Buckley (Wild Rose), again going with Zellweger.  At the time it was Nyong'o who many (including me) thought might be the fifth place slot that eventually went to Theron, and I suspect she was in sixth place.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I'd keep my winner & otherwise start from scratch.  This would've been a different jolt of electricity if Oscar had nominated Nyong'o, who is working in a genre film but also has great vocal & body physicality that she brings to her work (which is usually Academy catnip).  Mary Kay Place's specific cadences in Diane are just as worthy as any character actor standing out for Oscar in recent years (and would've been a brilliant inclusion), and Alfre Woodard proves she's one of the best actresses in Hollywood with her haunted, intrinsic work in Clemency as a woman at the crossroads both professionally & personally.  Finally, as I mentioned in Supporting Actress, I considered Jennifer Lopez to be giving a lead performance in Hustlers, and I would've nominated her.  A+ movie star turns like this are hard to do, rare, and the kind of thing you can only do once.  It's a damn shame that Oscar didn't include her somewhere for what will probably be a career-best performance. 

Oscar’s Choice: There's a case to be made for either Johansson or Erivo getting this trophy, but for some reason no one questioned the idea that Renee Zellweger had earned a second Oscar sixteen years after she won her first, despite making almost no movies between the two.

My Choice: Johansson, without question-the only performer trying for an all-timer list.  I'd follow her with Theron, Ronan, Zellweger, & Erivo.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you siding with ScarJo over in my corner, or were you part of the collective thought process that honored Renee's Judy?  Why was it that Theron was able to topple Lupita given both are reliant on physical transformation?  And why do some character actors (like Jonathan Pryce) get their day-in-the-sun but others (like Mary Kay Place) are barely noticed?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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

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

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: Marriage Story (2019)

Film: Marriage Story (2019)
Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta
Director: Noah Baumbach
Oscar History: 6 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Actor-Adam Driver, Actress, Scarlett Johansson, Supporting Actress-Laura Dern*, Score, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

In a different era, Marriage Story would have been a bigger deal.  In the 1970's through the late 1990's, films like Marriage Story, ones about complicated adults going through a real-life chapter, would have been a box office gold mine, not just a movie that seems intent on winning Oscars.  While I saw this film about two weeks ago, I wanted to let this simmer for a while, and perhaps that was a bad idea (in the cynical age of social media, everything, including something as hard-to-watch as Marriage Story, is rife for meme-ification).  But this is a complicated movie, one that's worth investigating even if it's not the cultural touchstone that it could've been, and might be the first time I saw Netflix get a "prestige" picture that could well have gotten lost in the cinematic shuffle, rather than just calling "dibs" on an Oscar contender that would have made it with AMPAS anyway (like Roma or The Irishman).

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on the crumbling marriage of Charlie (Driver) and Nicole (Johansson).  The film opens with the two making a list about the things they like about one another, but Nicole doesn't want to read it & Charlie does.  This is a projection of where we're headed in the movie.  Charlie has been fine in their relationship for a year, focusing on his physical and emotional wants above Nicole (even having a brief affair), while Nicole has been trying to dampen her own passions, her own ambitions & career successes, to put her husband and son above her own dreams.

The film then shows what a divorce between two people who clearly loved each other at one point looks like.  It's filled with hate, and envy, and pettiness, but also it's filled with broken hearts over losing someone you clearly once loved.  Marriage Story is hard to watch, because it doesn't shy away from how tough it is to admit defeat after taking a vow of "forever."  There are scenes where Nicole has the upper-hand, and then later where Charlie does, using the confidences they had for each other, the trust they had in each other, against one another.  The film's most famous scene is the fight they have in Charlie's new apartment, where they start screaming their hatreds at each other, eventually trying to hurt one another in the biggest way possible, and perhaps yelling more at themselves & the fact that they hate that they still feel for each other because it would make this entire process easier.  It's a fascinating movie, and one that feels personal & universal, something difficult for such a subject.

The acting in the movie is uniformly good, though the two leads steal the show.  Dern, Alda, & Liotta all get showy parts, but they're playing hilarious caricatures more than they are flesh-and-blood human beings; Dern is the best of the three (I could totally see her winning the Oscar for this), but they are inconsequential to the emotional crux of the film.  It's Driver & Johansson's show, and two of my generation's best actors get full-range to explore Charlie & Nicole, giving us imperfect, real, genuine human creations for the screen.  Driver singing "Being Alive" and realizing that this chapter of his life is over, or Johansson's quiet realization of what she signed up for when Charlie doesn't get equal custody-it's breathtaking acting, and a true showcase for both performers.

OVP: Jojo Rabbit (2019)

Film: Jojo Rabbit
Stars: Roman Griffin Davis, Thomas McKenzie, Taika Waititi, Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant, Alfie Allen, Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson
Director: Taika Waititi
Oscar History: 6 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Supporting Actress-Scarlett Johansson, Film Editing, Costume Design, Production Design, Adapted Screenplay*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

"Death is easy, comedy is hard" is a cliche, particularly one that associates itself with the Oscar season.  This is a bit unfair-death, cinematically-speaking can be hard too, but it's correct to assume that there are more tears cumulatively in the Best Picture lineups in Oscar's nine decades of existence than laughs.  Oscar generally shies away from comedies, and when he does go there, it's with a movie that has some sort of deeper meaning.  This is probably why Jojo Rabbit has so quickly caught on as an Oscar contender-it's comedy (occasionally quite funny), but it's one with a darker motif.  It's also the sort of film, similar to the movies of Mel Brooks and Wes Anderson, that you're either going to like or not like, and do so with a firm post in the ground.  Jojo, as I was leaving the theater, is the kind of movie I could see people quickly proclaiming "loved it-one of the year's best" and the person sitting next to them proclaiming "I HATED IT!" leading to tumultuous conversations on the car ride home; this might be the most "love it or hate it" film of the year, in fact.  What did I think of it, however?  Read on...

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is told almost completely (I can recall maybe one scene that doesn't include him) through the eyes of Jojo Betzler (Griffin Davis), a young, small boy who is bullied by his larger peers and is currently in a Hitler Youth camp.  Unlike what you'd expect from most films of this ilk, young Jojo adamantly believes in the Nazi cause, to the point where he's adopted "Hitler" as his imaginary friend (Waititi).  This Hitler, though, is the Hitler as imagined through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy who has no concept of the prejudice he has been indoctrinated into, and frequently talks & acts just like Jojo, serving as a sounding-board and a reiteration of the prejudice that Jojo will inevitably overcome as he learns that his mother Rosie (Johansson) is harboring a young Jewish girl named Elsa (McKenzie) in the walls of their house.  Jojo begins to befriend Elsa, and as a result his pal-like conversations with "Hitler" become more adversarial, as he confronts his prejudices while also realizing the hard realities and costs of war.

The movie toes a very thin line, as does any movie that deals with issues as sensitive as war, bigotry, and the Holocaust...while still fighting to be a comedy.  It's clear that Waititi had studied both The Producers and Hogan's Heroes before making this picture, as both are obvious influencers.  The Hitler Youth camp has the likes of Sam Rockwell, Alfie Allen, and Rebel Wilson all doing their best impersonations of Colonel Klink, and "Springtime for Hitler" is certainly what is informing on Waititi's performance.  But the movie is riddled with one-liners (they recruited an ace crew of actors who all have impeccable timing) and Waititi is hilarious.  Physically broad (there's also bits of The Great Dictator here), Waititi's work is a scream, with him playing Hitler as a scared little boy, but with always just enough malice that you can see the damage to Jojo's belief system that's being done by this war and the Nazi propaganda that's being forced onto his young mind.

The film isn't perfect.  Sam Rockwell's Nazi is too conveniently kind (it's implied to at least some degree that he and Alfie Allen's Finkel are in a clandestine romantic relationship), and we don't get enough of an examination of the cruelty of the Nazis (there's no obvious figure in this movie that you are supposed to hate, save perhaps Stephen Merchant's Deertz, and he's only in one extended scene).  There's also some "twee-ness" that you'll have to get over if you have allergies to such things as I do (the musical numbers have caught the most derision from people who disliked the picture).  But I generally liked Jojo Rabbit, and this is not my wheelhouse in terms of genre (Wes Anderson & Mel Brooks are people I get, but will probably never adore).  I'm going with 3 stars because almost a week after seeing the picture I like it more than love it, but know that it'd be a 3.5 star film if I did halves.  This could well be a Best Picture contender, so I suspect it was already on your radar, but don't let your friends' opinions inform you here-Jojo is going to be a hit-or-miss feature for film fans, but I think it will be on a lot of people's #1's considering the bold humor, strong supporting performances, and unexpected depth in the film's ending.  It's worth checking out.

OVP: Isle of Dogs (2018)

Film: Isle of Dogs (2018)
Stars: Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Kunichi Nomura, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Scarlett Johansson, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, Liev Schreiber
Director: Wes Anderson
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Animated Feature Film, Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

The films of Wes Anderson are an odd conundrum for me.  Usually, when it comes to a deeply-stylized director, an auteur, if you will, I have strong opinions.  They might be good, almost "stan-nish" (Malick, Scorsese, Bergman), or they might be loathed (Inarritu, Russell, McKay).  But Wes Anderson I am almost always ambivalent toward, despite the fact that his films are very specific, so you would think they would recall some sort of reaction from me, either for the good or the bad.  There are movies of his that I like, there are others of his that I disliked, but I've never felt absurdly strongly one way or the other with Anderson.  He just sort of is this weird tangent I sit through at the movie theater.  When he made Isle of Dogs I was smart enough to know that he'd get another Animated Feature nomination so I caught the film before the nominations announcement (it seems likely that he'll eventually win his Oscar in this category, but unlike another stylized director, George Miller, he's worked here long enough for this not to seem strange), but once again I leave the film with a sense of "ehh" neither particularly damning of it but not overwhelmed either.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film's plot is, admittedly ridiculous (though a lot of great movies have ridiculous plots, so don't assume this is an insult).  The mayor of Megasaki (Nomura) in Japan has banished all of the dogs of his city to an island made of trash in the middle of the sea, officially under the pretense that he's trying to rid the city of the animals in hopes of preventing "canine influenza" from spreading to his citizens, but really it's part of a bizarre 1000-year-old vendetta to destroy all of the dogs in Japan.  The mayor's nephew Atari (Rankin) goes to trash island trying to find his dog Spots (Schreiber).  He is led in this quest by Chief (Cranston), whom we learn to be Spots's brother, who hates humans but slowly warms to Atari, and takes on the role as his protector.  They find him while being chased by a series of robot dogs, and eventually we discover that Spots has moved on from Atari, raising his family with a female dog, and makes Chief officially the child's protector.  Together, along with a student reporter named Tracy (Gerwig), they foil the mayor's plan, and eventually Atari becomes the mayor with Tracy dating him, and Chief becomes his protector, with his enigmatic girlfriend Nutmeg (Johansson) by his side.

The movie is beautiful, let's just say that first.  The films of Wes Anderson have a distinctive palette, but here he outdoes himself with mountains of garbage, a gorgeous city (that is clearly meant to be inspired by Tokyo) that Megasaki rules, and a series of distinct but specific dogs.  There's something to be said for the way that he uses the personalities of the dogs to match their voices in a way that works but isn't too wink-y, and some of the details in the movie are catchy.  If you look closely enough at the credits, you'll find that Anjelica Huston is credited as "mute poodle" a character that's in the film but doesn't actually talk, so there's literally no reason for her to be credited other than an in-joke between two old friends.  Perhaps the best such trick is casting Yoko Ono (yes the Yoko Ono) as an Assistant Scientist...named Yoko Ono.

But the movie is (and I know his defenders hate when people say this about him) "too twee" for me.  It has too many characters to really connect with any of them, and it borders that line between honoring and exploiting a culture that's not your own (Anderson is from Houston), with Anderson casting Japanese actors to play the Japanese characters...and then making all of their dogs be played by white actors.  The film is inventive, frequently to a fault, but I don't want to tear down inventive so I'm going with 3 stars because it's technically "good," but I left considerably under-impressed.  This isn't even Anderson stretching like he did with Grand Budapest or finding a new place to test his skills like Mr. Fox-it's just kind of another movie, one similar and borrowing heavily from what he's done before without anything new to say.

OVP: Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Film: Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Bradley Cooper, Josh Brolin
Director: Anthony & Joe Russo
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I wrote when Captain Marvel came out that it had become impossible for me to judge the films in the franchise without seeing how they ended, and so I (like every person on the planet, apparently) went out the first week Avengers 4 was in theaters and caught the final(?) chapter of the movie franchise.  The film is destined for a slice of immortality, certain to overtake Avatar as the highest-grossing film (a title it may hold forever considering global box office trends-like Avatar and Titanic before it, it’s hard to imagine what kind of movie would eventually trounce such a film).  But the better question is-is it any good?  After 11 years and 22 films, what was the series finale like?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie picks up almost exactly after we left off, with an opening eerily similar to The Leftovers (a series that is heavily borrowed from in terms of aesthetic, though not in gravitas by this picture).  Hawkeye (Renner) watches as his entire family goes up in smoke (similar to Carrie Coon's Nora on The Leftovers), and soon we find out what life is like in a world where half the planet has disappeared. Each Avenger that got left behind takes their lives in different directions.  Iron Man (Downey) settles down with Pepper Potts and has a child, Black Widow (Johansson) takes on the Nick Fury role, Hawkeye becomes an assassin, the Hulk (Ruffalo) becomes a kinder, gentler being, Captain America (Evans) runs grief sessions, and Thor (Hemsworth) just is a drunk who lets his Adonis-like figure go in favor of a Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski sort of aesthetic (though he’s still hot, and anyone who says otherwise needs corrective lenses).  The return of Ant-Man (Rudd) gives them hope that they can go back-in-time and stop Thanos, but Nebula (Gillan), Thanos’s daughter accidentally informs her father in the past that they are trying to undo his work, and as a result they have a gigantic battle where literally every character you can think of from the MCU pops up to fight Thanos.  This journey ultimately ends in the death of not only Thanos, but also Black Widow & Iron Man, and Captain America becoming too old to be an Avenger.

Here’s the deal-there’s a lot to really like about Avengers: Endgame.  The casting budget on the film had to be just impossibly large (when you’re willing to spend money to, say, just have Michelle Pfeiffer & Marisa Tomei stand at a funeral, you know you’ve entered new territory), but it’s a joy to see something so spectacular. The fight scene with Thanos is wonderful, with major moments from Captain America (people cheered in my theater when he took Thor’s hammer) and for girl power (it was hokey as hell, but I loved the “Women of Marvel Assemble” sequence, and so did the packed theater I was in).  In my opinion we have Evans, Hemsworth, & Gillan as the movie’s MVP’s (the movement to get Robert Downey Jr. an acting Oscarcitation feels a stretch, and more a nod to a truly remarkable comeback than a true acting achievement).  Gillan is giving a strong performance, and Evans/Hemsworth have carved out such wonderful dimensions with these noble guys (and have such great chemistry with everyone) that it’s terrific to get to see them together for the last time.  And there’s something to be said for the movie feeling permanently over.  The next franchises are clearly set up (Spider-Man in a few weeks, but also there’s obvious potential for a future Captain America (with Anthony Mackie as the star), Black Panther, Captain Marvel, & Guardians pictures), but it also feels like an end to at least the chapter that started in 2008, a true achievement in a world where we have to stretch movies until their story breaks.

But there’s also a lot of slog here.  Trying to fit 40-odd characters into a movie is a tough task, and certain people (Black Widow & Hulk especially) get the short end of the stick in this picture.  The movie is overlong, predictable, and doesn’t have the emotional heft of the last film’s surprise snap.  Everything in this movie feels exactly how you would have expected it to turn out.  That might be the sign of a good finale (everything was as it was supposed to be), but a movie should have at least some unexpected twists, and it might have been more interesting if we’d had characters die whom we thought might actually exist in the MCU in the future.  As a result, I’m giving this movie a 3 star rating, and think it rates under Infinity War, which felt more epic and more urgent. As a franchise, it’s hard not to commend the achievements of Kevin Feige over the past 11 years, and I’d probably go with a 4-star for the 22 parts as a whole, even if only a couple actual movies in the series rose to that same level.

Ranking the Marvel Movies

Next week, we will see the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's current chapter (phase-I don't know what we call this).  For roughly 11 years, we've been getting nearly nonstop movies from the studio, every few months yet another massive hit from Disney.  Individually, the series has had ups-and-downs, with no proper, truly terrible films in the bunch but, honestly, no truly unstoppable masterpieces either (I'm decidedly a Marvel fan for comics, and yes, I bought comics religiously as a child, but I still think The Dark Knight is better than any movie on this list, and I'm not even a Nolan fanboy).  I'm not sure if I'll stick around past this collective list of movies for "Phase 4" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe-I think stories have to be able to end to qualify as stories and not just rambling tales, and in a lot of ways Avengers: Endgame feels like a series finale while the next phase of the MCU (whether that be Spider-Man or Black Panther 2) is a spinoff I'm not sure I'll sign up for.  But in honor of this 22nd film and a closing of the Thanos chapter of the series (and likely the departures of actors like Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Robert Downey Jr. from these collective roles), I finally got around to seeing Thor: The Dark World (the only missing piece in this puzzle for me) and instead of writing a traditional review of the picture, I thought I'd buy into the trend over the next two weeks and give my personal rankings of the different films.

21. Iron Man 2 (2010)

By-far the weakest entry in the series, not even Downey's schtick (which even in 2010 was starting to show signs of repetitiveness) could save this boring slog of a movie.  Mickey Rourke was coming off such a high with The Wrestler, it's a pity that his comeback stalled after giving the quintessential "boring villain" performance, something that has plagued most of the series (certainly compared with DC).

20. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

I mean, it feels like a cheat to even include this since the titular role was recast, and let's be real here-this is only included because it technically came after Iron Man, otherwise we'd likely leave it off of the list.  That said, Edward Norton was the least of the three Hulks (I actually didn't mind the strong artistic license Ang Lee took with the 2003 version), and Liv Tyler brings really nothing to the love interest role.

19. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

I'll be honest here-while I'm genuinely a fan of both in real-life as celebrities, and actually think that Hemsworth has done the best work outside of the series, I'm decidedly in the field of Captain America within the confines of the quality of their actual stand-alone films.  This is the least of the Thor outings, with a convoluted villain plot and Natalie Portman basically phoning it in as a love interest she likely had no interest in playing (notice how she has yet to show up again in the series).

18. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2 (2017)

Backlash to the first installment always felt a bit extreme to me, with people I think just forgetting that the movies can occasionally be a good time.  That being said, the second film is a bit off-base, with a lot of the same jokes from the first film being repeated, and with no one saying anything new, not even Kurt Russell as a nice-guy villain.

17. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014)

The actual Avengers movies themselves have always felt a bit of a paint-by-numbers approach.  Perhaps most shocking because of the number of stars that they fit into one film (what is the casting budget on this movie-$100 million, $150?) we also see a lot of ego on display as they attempt to shove every character into enough scenes to warrant 7 or 8-digit pay days.  Combined with James Spader as an eye-rolling villain, and you get a bloated picture.

16. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

I was so smitten with the first movie, it was always going to be a letdown when they brought back this character, as how could it possibly be as much fun?  Even by bringing Michelle Pfeiffer on board, we struggle to make this one work, with the Ghost villain story feeling totally ancillary to the plot, and perhaps they'd have been better off just letting the unknown be the villain here, rather than having a traditional comic book plotting.

15. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

This is inarguably the silliest film on this list, somehow even surpassing Guardians of the Galaxy, and is the one I wish I liked more.  The cast is superb, possibly the best of any of the films, but it's too random, sporadic, and ridiculous (the entire Jeff Goldblum subplot seemed only there to create memes).  Us finally getting a proper female villain in the series (and played by Oscar Winner Cate Blanchett, no less) is about the best I can recommend here.

14. The Avengers (2012)

We jump from Thor 3 to Avengers 1 where we now have 3-star movies (ie movies that I'd actually recommend based on the rules of this blog).  This is fun, and cool, but never as fun & cool as it should be.  Loki is a good villain, but there's not the right level of chemistry yet between the six main characters, as Hemsworth & Evans in particular are still finding their bearings as matinee idols against an established star like Downey.

13. Doctor Strange (2016)

I can't really figure out how I feel about Benedict Cumberbatch, who always feels a bit too eager in his cinematic work, and seems intent on mugging in a way that recalls a British Justin Timberlake.  That said, this is a good movie, one that just avoids the cliches of an introduction to a character enough to not feel boring.  Tilda Swinton joins the long pantheon of Oscar-winning actresses who have randomly appeared in MCU movies (Portman, Bening, Blanchett, Tomei...it's a longer list than you'd think).

12. Iron Man 3 (2013)

Much better than the sequel, Iron Man 3 actually challenges Downey a bit as an actor in a way few others in this series have done.  We see him fight a villain that feels worthy of him in a way others in the series haven't (Guy Pearce's creepy Killian), and we get arguably the best work out of Gwyneth Paltrow we've had this decade.

11. Thor (2011)

Chris Hemsworth might be my favorite discovery from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of actors who hadn't already proven to themselves at that point.  He's so debonair, funny, charming, and DAMN sexy, and all of that comes out when he basically brings Thor from the comic book pages to life here.  He's considerably better than the film, but that's true pretty much every time he's onscreen.

10. Captain Marvel (2019)

The first of the movies to be headlined by an Oscar winner, and it shows.  Larson is hamstrung by us spending most of the movie looking for clues to what will happen in Avengers: Endgame, but she actually has a fun popcorn movie here, and though he's hidden behind distracting CGI, Sam Jackson gives his best work in the series here as a young, pre-eyepatch Nick Fury.

9. Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Thor is probably my favorite of the actual superheroes in the films, but Captain America is the best leg of the franchise.  Arguably the weakest of the three mostly because of the messy ending to the film, this is still fun and considerably better than the two Avengers films that preceded it (for all intents and purposes, this was the third Avengers movie-look at who it starred in that photo!).

8. Iron Man (2008)

The film that started it all, Robert Downey Jr. going from basically uninsurable to a matinee idol will eventually be one of the great Hollywood comeback stories.  He's great in this movie, a role he was born to play, and the lack of over-confidence in his work (though thankfully not in his character) is spectacular movie star fun.

7. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

It is literally impossible to gage this film without seeing the sequel (increasingly, it's hard to gage this entire series without seeing the rest of the series) since they are so interconnected, but most of the film gets it right.  The film is grand in scale, there are some strong performances (particularly Tom Holland), and Thanos is a well-executed villain.  It all depends on what the nexy film does, though, over whether this movie stays on its perch considering the cliffhanger.

6. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

This movie works really well on its own, and arguably doesn't need the rest of the series to elevate it at all.  Fun, with a great motif & scheme for the characters (I loved the pre-war scenes and the ridiculousness of Captain America's new body), Chris Evans nails this part & sets up a complicated character that in the comic books was always underwritten.

5. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

I didn't want this movie, and I distinctly remember at the time of its announcement saying "I'm not going to see it" after the terrible reboot with Andrew Garfield proved to be such a disappointment.  However, Tom Holland is the best of the three live-action Peter Parkers, playing with a lack of confidence that is endearing and works so well it's impossible to deny him his place in the Top 5.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

I don't care that you don't like it anymore, or that Chris Pratt has become problematic in the years since (I actually do care about that one, but as a classic film historian, I have dealt with problematic film stars for decades so my tolerance level is high).  This is the first of the quartet of films I gave 4-stars to, and it earns it with great humor, unlikely heroes, and a new swagger to the MCU.

3. Ant-Man (2015)

By far the most visually innovative of all of the movies, and perhaps the funniest, everything about this movie works.  Paul Rudd is great as the unlikely hero, Michael Douglas hasn't been this good in 15 years, and what could have been a joke of a movie ends up being one of the best installments in the series without ever being too silly.

2. Black Panther (2018)

Marvel goes prestige with this movie, the first superhero movie to ever compete for the Best Picture Oscar.  Armed with the series best villain (Michael B. Jordan is sexy & dangerous as Killmonger), we see an expanded universe that shows that the MCU might just be able to survive after the first class of superheroes (Evans, Downey, ScarJo) hang up their capes.

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

The best Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, and next to The Dark Knight, the best comic book movie of this century, period.  Johansson was on a creative high at the time, and you can see that in her work here, and Robert Redford's warm, movie star charisma (very similar, in fact, to Chris Evans') is eerie because he's so nasty as an Edward Snowden-style figure, a villain whose point you can kind of see even if it's totally evil.  Add in Toby Jones' Arnim Zola making a freaky cameo (still my favorite scene in literally any Marvel movie), and you have arguably the best picture in the series (to date).