These days I mostly watch TV (when I watch anything. Life is so busy that watching TV and movies is generally reserved for once a week while I'm folding laundry. Well, except for Survivor. My favorite show of all time is still old-school appointment viewing every Wednesday night at 8!). There are so many great TV shows out there and the 30 minute to one hour chunks you can view them in, with many episodes over multiple seasons works well with my life style. But I still enjoy the occasional feature length film and over the past years, I've made it a hobby to view all of the movies that are nominated for best picture of the year and then rate them. My number one choice is the movie that I think was the best of the bunch. That film receives my version of the Oscar, "the Leonard"--think of the gold statuette but skinnier and with glasses! Where did the name Leonard come from? Well, I needed a name and let's just say that Leonard is an inside joke that only a tiny handful of people will get.
This is usually just a Facebook post, but I wanted to keep the FB post short, so I figured people could click through to the blog if they wanted more detail on the films.
Without further ado, the Leonard goes to. . .
1. Past Lives-My favorite film of the batch. Two school friends fall in love South Korea. The girl has to move to the United States and the friends are separated. They reconnect over Skype when they are both in college, and again years later, they finally see other again, when they are both adults. It's a story of love that never quite realizes itself, at least romantically, and a friendship that runs deeper than romance. I found the characters so engaging, and the story really authentic and relatable.
2. The Holdovers-This is an empathetic and moving portrait of three people who are alone and lonely for different reasons: A history teacher at an exclusive boarding school, his student, and the cafeteria supervisor. All three are, holdovers, stuck on campus with nowhere to go while everyone else has left for the holidays For at least two of them, they are people that we might easily write off as unpleasant, mean, bitter people. Honestly, they are unpleasant, mean, and bitter. But they are also more than that, and they have the capacity to be better. They come to see it in each other and we come to see it in them. A moving, humane film and enjoyable to watch.
3. Killers of the Flower Moon-A story of unbelievable evil and greed. If we must choose a big "important" best picture, I'd actually choose this one over Oppenheimer. Killers tells the true story of the systematic murder of members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma during the 1920's. The Osage were, for a time, the richest people in the world per capita after oil was discovered on their tribal lands. Their wealth drew opportunistic people eager to get their hands on the mineral rights. The worst part is how they did it--befriending and marrying into the tribe and then killing off their supposed "loved ones" and their families in order to inherit their land. Of course the murders were poisonings that looked like mysterious illnesses and unsolved shootings and house bombings.
4. Barbie-Barbie has a lot to say and says it well. It’s fun, energetic, funny, fast-paced but also makes a strong social commentary. It will make you think and will make you uncomfortable (especially if you are a man). Director Greta Gerwig threaded a remarkable needle in both critiquing the influence of Barbie in our culture, while suggesting a narrative of empowerment that Mattel could live with (even as their company is mercilessly mocked throughout the film). It’s quite a balancing act and she pulled it off. A lot of food for thought and discussion in this film, though I think it might be good for men to listen more than talk when it comes to responding. In the end I think Barbie is less about stoking the “gender wars” and more about realizing the full humanity of all human beings. Don’t let all the pink fool you, this movie is deep!
5. Poor Things- This movie tells the story of a drowned woman who is "resurrected" when a mad scientists implants in her the brain of the child she was pregnant with. Emma Stone is amazing in this film. Watching her stylized progression from infant to child to teen to adult is remarkable. It's quirky, set in some sort of steampunk past. A Frankenstein/Pinocchio story of her journey to becoming a "real person." A big part of her journey is her discovery of and eventually owning of her sexuality so expect some pretty graphic scenes.
6. The Zone of Interest-No graphic violence, no horrific scenes of abuse. In fact no atrocities pictured at all. The most you get is sounds--background noise, but even that is mostly distant, not loud and in your face. The rumble of the factories and the crematorium, barking dogs, the occasional gunshot and vague cries of agony. But the effect is chilling. The Nazi camp commander and his family living their ordinary lives, filled with ordinary concerns. See him reading to his daughter, laughing with his wife. It's all hints. Deeply disturbing and thought provoking. It is a picture of complicity and the most effective illustration of the banality of evil that I've ever seen. It makes you realize that "the bad guys" are not so different from us.
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7. Oppenheimer- Most likely to win--and sure enough it did. Long--longer than it needed to be., spectacular vision with compelling human performances. Oppenheimer was long, and utilized a lot of jumping back and forth in time. I spent a lot of time early in the film wondering “who are these people again?” and “What’s going on?” The film could have ended with the successful test of the first A-Bomb at Los Alamos, but I think Nolan didn’t really want his film to be strictly about the race to build the bomb, and more about the price Oppenheimer paid for being associated with communists/communism. I have to admit by the end of the film, everything comes together and makes sense and there is a twist at the end.
8. Anatomy of a Fall--The last film I watched of the nominees. I finished it a couple hours before the awards began. I found myself thinking a lot about this movie after I watched it. It's the story of a woman who is accused of pushing her husband to his death. The question is--did she do it, or was his death the result of suicide or perhaps even an accident. I felt pretty certain I knew what happened, but I found myself questioning those assumptions afterwards, almost as if it were a real event and not just a movie. The more I thought about it, the more I came to agree with the way the film ended. My favorite part of Anatomy of a Fall though, was the argument scene between Sandra Huller's character and her doomed husband. That scene really captured what even the best of marriages go through at times.
9. American Fiction--While I enjoyed this film well enough, it was slower-paced than I expected. It's lower ranking is primarily due to failing to live up to expectations. It's the story of a black writer of erudite, literary novels that can't seem to get the commercial success that his colleagues do by writing streetwise stories of black trauma that play into negative stereotypes about black people. In frustration, he dashes off his own absurd blaxploitation novel, intending it as a satirical critique of the genre and not expecting it to be taken seriously. Instead the publishers love it and--surprise!--it's a smashing success!
10. Maestro-I found this film dull. Just not compelling. It's a biopic of famed composer and conductor Leonard Cohen. It chronicles the stormy relationship he had with his wife and various men that were his lovers throughout his life. It was well-acted, and well-made, but honestly, this was a movie that was a duty to get through, rather than a pleasure.
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