2022 Academy Awards Best Picture

 

Here we go again. Oscar time is upon us. I refuse to say this has been a strange year because that seems to be all we’ve said for the last 2 years. This has been a great year. You know why? We got to get back into theaters. We also got to see a lot of films via streaming. This year’s crop is a wide variety of styles. It has newcomers and old guard. Small quiet films and loud brash movies join some political satire and dark, moody film noire. There is a little something for everyone. A complete slate with the max of 10 films nominated for the year. Judging and Ranking of art is borderline pointless in the grander scheme of things. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.

These are my rankings. This is NOT necessarily what I think is going to happen with the award. Do not use this list to make bets. You will lose your house. These are listed in the order that I would vote for them if I had such a vote for Best Motion Picture. I would love to hear from you and know what you think.  

 BELFAST– Quite simply my favorite film of the year. It is soul stirring and heart breaking. It is as tragic and menacing as it is warm and gracious. It is a condemnation on the evil in this world and the forces that only seem to hurt the innocent and it is a celebration of hope and sacrifice and joy of the possibilities of life. Like the family whose story it tells it is scared and remorseful and angry. Also like the family whose story it tells it is proud and gracious and forgiving. We see the “troubles” of Northern Ireland in the 1960s through the eyes of young boy named Buddy. We don’t understand it any better than he does. He just wants to live his life and love his beautiful family. Director Brannagh has written a love letter to the innocent and brave of Belfast during this time. The characters are rich and warm and caring. The relationship between Buddy and his Grandparents are life affirming. Cirian Hinds as Pop is the grandfather every child deserves. Dame Judi is as good as you would expect, and the biggest acting Oscar snub this year is the absence of Caitriona Balfe for Best Supporting Actress.

To say it warms the soul doesn’t do it justice. If a huge pot of Irish Stew and a fresh loaf of soda bread was ever made into a film….it would be Belfast.

DUNE -I was 6 years old with Star Wars was released. Mom and Dad took all three of us kids to see it and I woke my father up at the end. He just said, “Was that all there is?”
As for me, I was mesmerized. Even at 6, I remembered being transported to a world of lasers and x-wing fighters and wookies. In a lot of ways, it completely set a foundation for how I viewed movies from that point forward. I’ve got to believe the 2021 version of DUNE will be that for tons of young movie fans.
As much as any film as I have seen the last 30 years Dune engulfed me in a world and mythology as quickly and as easily as Star Wars did. That’s a tough task considering the horrible version of Dune that came out in ’84.
Let me stop you there…..YES THE ORIGINAL DUNE WAS HORRIBLE! It looked like it had been filmed in the basement bathroom of my house. It was cheesy and unemotional and may have singlehandedly been responsible for 26% of all the sadness in the world for the latter part of 1984. (That’s just an estimate.)

This Dune is soaring and epic. It is beautifully cast and acted. It understands its pace, respects the original texts, and deftly transfers the singular excitement of reading a book to the communal experience of seeing it on screen. How Villeneuve was not nominated for best director is ridiculous.

WEST SIDE STORY (2021) – Some movies are the gold standard of their genre, or at least one of a few films in each genre that define and are sacrosanct. The original West Side Story is one of those films. It is High Noon, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and Star Wars of the Movie Musicals. So you have to have a huge set of brass balls to even consider remaking it.

Enter Steven Spielberg. This iteration of WWS is darker, more menacing, deeper, and more nuanced than the original. And as technically impressive as the original was in 1961 and still is today…..its not Spielberg. West Side Story is as visually satisfying and technically gratifying as any film in Spielberg’s unparalleled catalog. The shooting, the design, the vision, the staging and …….well, it’s just amazing. It is as high a level of the art on display. The casting and performances are spot on. Visually it succeeds, emotionally it succeeds, musically it succeeds. It is true to the original and original all at the same time.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY – With all the hullabaloo with the Academy deciding to deemphasize some of the award categories this year I think of Nightmare Alley. In a year of some strikingly beautiful films (Dune, West Side Story, Belfast, and Power of the Dog) Nightmare Alley maybe the most luscious feast for the eyes of all of them. Not because of vast landscapes or colorful musical numbers but because of the exquisitely detailed set, costume, and art design. What is the old saying, “Talking about music is like Dancing about architecture” That is how I felt trying to describe the visual symphony Nightmare Alley uses to spoil the viewer. I am not exaggerating when I tell you the artistic design, costumes, and sets are so effective I you can smell this movie. It is an excellent story with superb acting in a dark and sinister film noir that really does have a feel of a flashback to old Hollywood.  

LICORICE PIZZA – Quirky is an understatement. Loosely based on some real-life exploits of one of the film’s producers, Gary Goetzman. Licorice Pizza is a coming-of-age ensemble piece set in 1970’s Los Angeles about an entrepreneurial teenager obsessed with a young woman in her twenties. It is a strange dynamic. The obsession is never consummated but I cannot help but wonder how well this film would been received had the teenager been female and the 25-year-old had been male. At times the movie feels like 20 different, unrelated vignettes filmed separately but not necessarily a coherent film. Some of the scenes were violently funny and there are a lot of nods to famous LA spots and Hollywood legends.

Bradley Cooper gave a hysterical portrayal of Hollywood UberProducer Jon Peters. It was worthy of a best supporting nod, but nobody asked me. Sean Penn chews up the scenery as an aging movie legend that was obviously supposed to be William Holden.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s films are usually well received in Hollywood. They aren’t always as consumable to the rest of the movie going universe. That being said I found myself laughing at this film much more than I expected.

KING RICHARD – King Richard is a pretty, formulaic biography pic. Here is the thing, formulas are formulas for a reason…..they work. Will Smith is and always has been extremely watchable and endearing on screen. With films like Ali he has proven he can be more than an amiable star. He has acting chops and deserves the Best Acting nod from this role as does his on-screen bride Aunjanue Ellis. King Richard is an entertaining film and gives a deeper appreciation of the struggles faced by the Williams family. It is inspiring and funny and familiar because of who it is about. The audience has a built-in ownership. That familiarity can be a double-edged sword but not here. My only knock and its not even a knock is that we have seen this film before and will see it again because, and here is that dreaded word again, the “Formula” works. That’s not the film’s fault. It does its job and is there for all to enjoy. There’s just too much high-level competition to be film of the year.

CODA  - This year’s quiet sleeper. It is a heartfelt, adorable film about a young girl who is the only hearing member in her family. CODA stands for Children of Deaf Adults. In this case she’s a sister as well. Film at its best can illuminate and show the view a life or a struggle of a person over obstacles they themselves may never have considered. How do there struggles over obstacles things we take for granted relate to our lives. Thus, giving us all a better connection and understanding to those around us. CODA does that. Is the most complex story? No. Is it visually stimulating or cinematically intriguing? No. But it is honestly acted and portrayed, and it most definitely succeeds in the most important way. It makes you care. Not every film has to be complicated. Sometimes and not often enough the film just has to be honest and sincere. This could have easily been an Afterschool Special and it would have been a great one because of its sincerity.

 

THE POWER OF THE DOG – Couple of things first.
First, Just because a movie has horses doesn’t make it a western.
Two, no movie is going to reinvent or redefine the American Western…..nor does it need to.
That being said, The Power of the Dog is a psychological drama set in the American west…Montana to be exact. There are horses and cowboys. If you want to call it a “Western” or a “Drama” or a box of skittles I don’t’ care. What is the story and at the end do I care? That’s pretty much how I judge all films. Benedict Cumberbatch plays, Phil Burbank, a crass, vile, cruel bully of a man. He’s contemptible and works to make the lives around him more miserable than himself. The drama unfolds when his brother George, (Jesse Plemmons), takes a wife, (Kirsten Dunst) and brings her and her exaggeratedly, effeminate son to live on the family cattle ranch.

The film asks many more questions than it answers. Its characters and textured and complex. There is mystery and intrigue. There is a menacing overtone to the film that distracts you from what you are seeing until the conclusion. Exquisitely shot, it is a beautiful film to watch if not necessarily to experience. It is contemplative and thought provoking if not emotionally satisfying or efficient. There is some expert filmmaking here and the story has a surprising and effective finish. The problem is the pace of the film is so slow by the time you get to the payoff you’ve almost forgotten why you are supposed to care.

DON’T LOOK UP – Funny, smart, well-acted with some great “against type” casting for DiCaprio and Streep. It was also self-absorbed, way too long, scattered and for my money a little too preachy. I didn’t hate it but if I was a filmmaker, I would aspire to make it either.

DRIVE MY CAR –To be fair I was unable to finish this film. Not because I didn’t want to, but technical difficulties disabled the subtitles and surprisingly my conversational Japanese is not nearly as functional as you may imagine. That being said I saw the first 2 hours……unfortunately it felt like 6 hours, and I still had an hour and half to go. Normally, I’m not against a three- or four-hour film when it is needed to convey the story. Unfortunately for the viewer, Drive My Car doesn’t have anywhere near 3 hours of story to tell you. The prelude to the film lasted over an hour before the opening credits rolled to “start” the movie. WTH? Not every movie should be quickly paced and efficiently shot. Pensive, methodical, slow burn films are fine and even phenomenal until they cross the line of being pretentious, self-absorbed and the most dreaded BORING!

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!!!!