And the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year Goes to...

Well, last year, I did something I've never done before, which was watcg all the movies nominated for Best Picture. I decided to do this in early February, and had to really hustle to get all ten films in. But I made it. And, of course, blogged about it. Which I guess was the start of a new (and curious, given that I'm not much of a movie buff) Pink Slip tradition. Because damned if I didn't see all the nominees again this year. Only I didn't wait until February to start watching.

As a cradle Catholic (and someone who has made a hobby out of Catholicism), I would have seen Conclave whether it had been nominated or not. So I went to see it in the theater last fall. The veil pulled aside from the sanctum sanctorum of a papal election? All those machinations and delicious skullduggery? All those great actors - Stanely Tucci, Ralph Fiennesk, John Lithgow - and Isabella doing her star turn as Sister Agnes? (Which would have been on beyond perfect if the nun's name had been Sister Benedict, the character played by her mother Ingrid Bergman in the 1940's sapfest Bell's of St. Mary's.) Was this movie great? No. Did I enjoy it? Greatly. And I laughed out loud at the surprise ending.

Also pre-nominations: I watched Anora on Prime and found this story of the young Brighton Beach sex worker who ends up in a brief marriage with the feckless son of a Russian oligarch both energetic and entertaining. I didn't find it particularly Oscar-worthy, but why someone like me who's barely ever watched the Oscars should have an opinion one way or the other about what gets nominated, I don't know. Anora has been garnering some "best" wins, and as of mid-February seems to have been building some momentum. 

Then the nominations came out, and I went into gear, renting Emily Perez which I found to be an incoherent, farfetched, chaotic mess. Yes, the acting was pretty good - and good to see those strong actresses carry the film. But come on, if you're going to make a film about the transition of a violent Mexican narcogang leader (and loving family man) to a peace-loving anti-narcogang activist (and weirdly family involved auntie), do you really have to make it a musical, with one of the song and dance numbers - "La Vaginoplastia" - being beyond loopy. (Two songs from Emily Perez were nominated for Oscars, but at least not this one.) Emily Perez came out of the box strong, but some social-media missteps on the part of the lead (and Best Actress nominee) seem to have put the kibosh on its chances. 

The Subtance was not quite as incoherent, farfetched, and chaotic as Emily Perez, but it's hardly that original to make the pointed point that Hollywood is mysogynistic and ageist. Come on! The OG A Star is Born came out in 1937. And to name the leering producer 'Harvey', why not go all the way and namesake him Harvey Weinstein? Okay, making The Substance a sci-fi flick was interesting. Or could have been if they hadn't also made it a horror film. It would have been enough to see Demi Moore grapple with the normal aging process (or even the normal posthumous process) without the grotesquery they presented. Horror film, alrighty. Blech.

After watching Emily Perez and The Substance on back to back days, I needed a break. So I took a few days off before seeing A Complete Unknown in the theater. There was really no way I wasn't going to like this one, but I was surprised to find that I pretty much loved it. Loved all that talking 'bout my generation - the music, the clothing, the "scene", the atmospherics - and if there've been audiences for Wicked that they've had to stop from singing along, I would have been fine if the audience for Unknown had started in. (I had to restrain myself.) I thought Timothee Chalamet did a fabulous job (singing and acting) as Bob Dylan, and Edward Norton as the saintly Pete Seeger was beyond. (Always loved Pete, and teared up everytime he spoke or sang. Coincidentally, I watched Unknown on the 11th anniversary of Pete's death.) I wasn't at Newport when Dylan shocked the world by going electric, but I knew there was quite a to-do about his moving away from pure acoustic. Funny, as a Dylan fan, I liked Bringing It All Back Home, his first electric album (half electric/half acoustic), every bit as much as his earlier acoustic albums. (I played them all to death.)

Dune also starred Timothee Chalamet, but if it hadn't been nominated for an Oscar, I never would have seen it. Part Ben Hur, part Lawrence of Arabia, part Star Trek. Free streaming, so I kept it on in background, looking up on occasion to stare into Timothee's baby blues. But, yawn.

If I hadn't just read the book, I don't think I would have been able to completely follow The Nickel Boys, which to me spent too much time on making things artsy, and not enough time filling in some of the narrative gaps in the storytelling. Props to the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, where I saw Nickel Boys. An art deco gem. Plus senior Thursday matinees are just nine bucks. And the popcorn's pretty good, too. (I highly recommend the book. Colson Whitehead's searing novel about a survivor of a horrific boys reform school in Jim Crow Florida was brilliant.) 

I'm Still Here completely blew me away. All I knew about it when I sat down in the theater was that it was about a woman (mother of five) whose husband disappeared during the years of a represseive military regime in a South American country. The country was Brazil. The woman was Eunice Paiva, whose dissident husband Rubens (a member of an opposition party) was disappeared and murdered. His death was confirmed decades later; his body has never been found. Eunice became a lawyer, activist, and expert on indigenous rights. (The movie itself if based on the autobiography of Eunice's son Marcelo.) The movie grabbed me by the heart and throat and never let go. I used to dismiss stories like this as terrible, but could only happen elsewhere. Getting a bit too close to home these days... Fernanda Torres was brilliant as Eunice Paiva, but all the acting was terrific, especially the acting done by the beautiful actors who played her young children.

And what's not to like about Wicked? Especially when I could enjoy it on a foggy, cold, rainy night in the comfort of my den. This was a fun one. Entertaining, interesting, great fun, and a visual delight (Not without getting its political licks in, either. As in let's fire all the animal professors because, well, diversity...And general vilification of outsider/other...) Already looking forward to Wicked: For Good, which should be out this fall.

Anyway, by the close of January, I had seen nine-out-of-ten of the 2025 Oscar nominees for best film, which left me a full month to get to and through The Brutalist. My capsule pre-review: Interesting plot/theme, likely great acting, but NO movie needs to run for 3 hours and 35 minutes. Self indulgence at its finest. This one needed the metaphorical scissors taken to its metaphorical reels.

Well, I did end up seeing The Brutalist on a ice-rainy afternoon after I'd been on my feet at St. Francis House for 4.5 hours when I probably should have gone home and taken a nap. But confirmation bias definitely set in, and beyond some of the cinematography and the acting of Adrien Brody (who played the eponymous architect) and Felicity Jones (who played his wife), I didn't like much about it. I found it overwrought, make that over-overwrought. And although he got stellar reviews, I found Guy Pearce's acting as the baddy rich guy somewhat reminiscent of Chadsworth Osborne, Junior, in Dobie Gillis. Sorry/not sorry.

Last year, I got a few winner predictions right. Oppenheimer for Best Film, Cillian Murphy for Best Actor in Oppenheimer, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph for Best Supporting Actress in The Holdovers.

This year, I'm hoping that Hollywood can tamp down its collective self-reverence, self-congratulations, and narcissim enough to get beyond picking The Brutalist (Hollywood is a serious, weighty place!) or Emily Perez (Hollywood dares to stay woke!)* and goes with I'm Still Here. (My first runner up would be A Complete Unknown, even though it's not an especially good movie. I just wallowed in it.)

For Best Actor, I like Timothee Chalamet (in Unknown, not Dune) ; for Best Actress, Fernanda Torres. Best supporting roles, I'm going with my sentimal favorite of Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, and Isbella Rosselini as Sister Agnes.

(Haven't yet seen all the films with Best/Best Supporting Actor/Actress nods. Will at some point see The Apprentice, Sing Sing, and A Real Pain.)

I won't be watching the Academy Awards, but will check the winner news out the Monday after the show. We'll see how I do. 

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* The unspoken upside of this is that, voting for a picture with a trans lead character and/or awarding a trans woman the Best Actress Award does kind of give the finger to Trump, which a) Hollywood is probably too chicken to do, and b) now that I think of it, would probably be pretty dumb, as it will just play into Trump's anti-DEI, anti-trans crusade. Emily Perez seems to have self-sabotaged Emily Perez's chances. so it won't likely happen anyway. But what a terrible time we live in...