2018 Oscars

I’ve seen just about every film in the top categories. The list of nominees is here. I have a review of exactly one, Dunkirk (overrated). For the others, here’s my brief assessment, beginning with the Best Picture nominees.

The Shape of Water: I saw this just two days ago, so it’s fresh in my mind. I hadn’t read any reviews of it so didn’t know what to expect, except that it had a fantasy element, which one gleans from the trailer. I am not a fan of fantasy films and normally do not consider seeing them, though did like ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, the one previous film I’d seen by director Guillermo del Toro, whose entire œuvre is in the genre. The verdict: I loved it (as did the highbrow/intello friend who accompanied me to the cinoche). It’s a first-rate film on several levels. First (in no particular order), the depiction of early 1960s America—which is borderline satirical—is pitch perfect: e.g. the food (or what passed for this in America at the time), TV sitcoms (aimed at audiences with a 6th grade intellect; one glimpses ‘Mister Ed’ and ‘Gilligan’s Island’, entre autres), the values conveyed by the consumer culture (e.g. the amusing sequence with the teal/green Cadillac). Second, the political critique is manifest, with the characters who incarnate state power, or simply the dominant ethos, being reactionary and antipathetic: Col. Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon, perfect in the role)—with his torture baton and references to the Bible to justify his sadism—the worrisome Gen. Hoyt, the racist cook at the diner… Trumpian America before Trump. The sympathetic characters—the good people, with a sense of humanity—are all marginals: the mute Latina cleaning woman, Elisa (Sally Hawkins, excellent); her Afro-American colleague, Zelda (Octavia Spencer); lonely gay friend, Gilles (Richard Jenkins); and, of course, the South American Amphibian Man (“The Asset”) himself—who’s more human, and with a far bigger heart, than the men who want to kill and vivisect him. And then there’s the absurdist Cold War theme, with the Soviet Keystone Cop espionage ring and Dr. Robert Hoffstetler/Dimitri (Michael Stuhlbarg), who turns out to be a sympathetic character himself—and, as a Russian, also an Other in the America of the time. Third, the cinematography—the color palette and use of light—is remarkable. The film is visually arresting: the decor (of Elisa’s and Gilles’ apartments, the laboratory) and everything else. Fourth, it’s riveting, with the suspense building as it moves toward the denouement, but also with a number of humorous, indeed hilarious, moments, e.g. Elisa telling Col. Strickland to ‘f— off’ in sign language, the Amphibian Man caressing the cats after having eaten one, the passwords of the Soviet spies (these are quite funny)… Fifth, it’s a beautiful love story. Conclusion: ‘The Shape of Water’ fully merits its 13 Oscar nominations.

Get Out. One of the best films of 2017. I’ll have a separate post on it soon, along with other Afro-American themed films.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. People—whom I know, at least—are all over the place on this one. Some loved it, others hated, and with more in between. E.g. one ultra-cinesnob friend, who rubbished it—as he invariably does with movies most people of his social class like—sniffed to me: “Frances McDormand is always fun to watch, I grant you, and I don’t even want to think what the movie would have been like without her holding it—barely—together. It’s warmed-over Coen Brothers, the umpteenth tongue-in-cheek brew of small-town eccentrics and obsessives, with extreme violence always lurking beneath the surface, and a dollop of 2017 political correctness to top it off. Not to mention the sheer implausibility of much of it (e.g., that Dixon almost kills the billboard manager in plain view and faces no more than dismissal from his job, that Mildred firebombs the police station and they believe her alibi)…” Ouf. I thought the pic was pretty good myself. It’s an entertaining second degree black comedy, with off-the-wall characters and great acting—Frances McD of course, Sam Rockwell, and Woody Harrelson, entre autres. It did indeed recall the Coen bros’ ‘Fargo’—with Frances McD and down to Carter Burwell’s music—though that one was a chef d’œuvre, which ‘Three Billboards’ is not. As for the implausible scenes, hey, it’s a (black) comedy, i.e. not to be taken in the first degree (e.g. one amusing implausibility was the rural county sheriff having an educated Australian wife). I had a slight issue with the racist cop Dixon (Sam Rockwell) finding redemption at the end—becoming an almost sympathetic character—though without having renounced his racism or made amends for “torturing n*ggers,” as Mildred (Frances McD) had snidely asked him about. But in reaction to my qualm, a (solidly left-leaning) Parisian friend responded, “The fact that the Dixon character is not a stupid nasty racist to the very end seemed to me, au contraire, to be an interesting aspect of the film and that works…” Oui, peut-être.

The Post: Is it possible not to give the thumbs up to this one? Steven Spielberg was almost performing a public service in making the film, to transmit the heroic story of a free press standing up to a rogue president—and winning—to the current younger generations. The parallel with today is more than obvious. The workmanlike Tom Hanks is good, as always, as is Meryl Streep, though she hardly merits the Oscar she’s been nominated for, as it’s just another Meryl Streep performance.

Lady Bird: This is one of those films that I liked when leaving the theater and that grew on me even more as I thought about it afterward. It’s the best, most sophisticated teenage coming-of-age film I’ve seen in a long time. The characters are all great, the dialogue complex, and the acting excellent, particularly Saoirse Ronan (the protag, Best Actress nominee) and Laurie Metcalf (the protag’s mother, Best Supporting Actress nominee). Greta Gerwig is a credible Best Director nominee. Whatever Oscars the pic wins will be deserved. Voilà, c’est tout.

Darkest Hour: I went into this one biased against it, having read Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s review essay in the NYRB, which detailed its gross distortions of the historical record, plus A.O. Scott’s skewering in the NYT, for its great man hero worship of Churchill and “fall[ing] back on an idealized notion of the English character that feels, in present circumstances, less nostalgic than downright reactionary…” I don’t doubt Wheatcroft’s critique for a second and Scott’s is well-taken, but I found the film to be great cinema nonetheless. It’s riveting from beginning to end. And Gary Oldman is exceptional as Churchill. An acting tour de force. That’s it.

Phantom Thread: I’m not a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, having liked but one (sort of) that I’ve seen by him (‘The Master’), so went into this with not high hopes, and despite the effusive recommendation from a cinephile friend whose taste I hold in the highest regard. My reaction was a little more positive than anticipated, mainly on account of Daniel Day-Lewis’ stellar performance. Il crève l’écran, as they say here. Vicky Krieps (Alma) and Lesley Manville (Cyril) are also very good. And it’s beautifully filmed—in an otherwise outmoded 1950s style—down to all the details and with an interesting portrait of the haute couture world of the era. That said, the film, while meritorious, did not knock my socks off the way it did the above-mentioned friend and others. Ça arrive. [UPDATE: After writing the above I read the review essay of the film by J.Hoberman in the March 22nd NYRB, who praises it and the director. J’en prends acte.]

Call Me by Your Name: Critics and audiences alike just love this movie, and on this side of the ocean as well as stateside. It was nice enough to watch—bringing back memories of my visits to Italy in the early-mid 1980s; and I certainly wouldn’t mind having that country home in Lombardy—but I did not find the heart of the story interesting: of the relationship beween Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer), and their respective ambiguities about their sexuality. Their summer romance did not move me. If people like the pic, I respect that, but, personally speaking, it wasn’t my cup of tea.

And then there are these:

The Florida Project: This made AWAV’s Top 10 of 2017. It’s terrific and on several levels, meriting more than its single Oscar nomination (a great Willem Dafoe for Best Supporting Actor). First, it’s a wonderful movie about children—here, age 8 and under—and their world, plus their resilience in the face of bad or irresponsible parents. Halley (Bria Vinaite) is clearly an unworthy mother—partly because, maturity-wise, she’s a child herself—but loves her daughter Moonie (Brooklynn Prince, adorable) all the same, attends to her in her own way, and Moonie loves her back. One has mixed feelings about what happens at the end, when the state social workers finally (and rightly) intervene. Second, the film brilliantly depicts the trash culture that pervades the American heartland—here, in Florida—the trash food people eat, and just the all-around trashiness one gets in America. It’s hardly surprising that so many Americans are ignorant, obese, in bad health, and/or take opioids or other narcotics. And vote for an idiot like Trump. (A parenthetical aside: numerous polities these days are witnessing populist demagogues propelled to the forefront, but only in America—in the Western world, at least—does one get a populist demagogue who is as stupid and trashy as Trump). Third—and most significantly—the film reveals the substantial American underclass that exists in view but, at the same time, out of sight, in cheap motels on suburban highways and who live a hand-to-mouth existence. Here they survive in the shadow of Disney World—a world of dreams, of monts et merveilles—but which is off limits, to which they have no access. They are, quoting Le Monde critic Isabelle Regnier, “les damnés de l’enfer néolibéral” (the wretched of the neoliberal hell). But there’s goodness and solidarity nonetheless, incarnated by motel manager Bobby (the Dafoe character). So all is not lost in l’Amérique profonde. [UPDATE: Writer Kalena Thomhave has a review essay on the film, “The poverty at Disney’s doorstep,” in The American Prospect, in which one finds some of the observations and points made above.]

I, Tonya. If the above movie depicts a general American trashiness, this one zeros in on a specific white trash family. I remember well the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan saga—given the media circus of the time, could one possibly forget?—but not all the details, e.g. who precisely did what and the extent of Harding’s personal implication. I thought this a well-done, entertaining film, and with brilliant casting, particularly Margot Robbie (Best Actress nominee) as Tonya and Allison Janney (Best Supporting Actress nominee) as her mother from hell. Great soundtrack too.

All the Money in the World. I saw this partly out of curiosity over the last minute casting switch—of Kevin Spacey being excised and replaced by Christopher Plummer (Best Supporting Actor nominee)—partly because it’s Ridley Scott (not that I see everything he does), partly because, like everyone born before 1960, I remember the story well. It’s a perfectly okay movie, with the whole thing a build-up to the awful act performed on Jean Paul Getty III by his ‘Ndrangheta kidnappers. I can’t speak to the interminable, excruciating scene, as my eyes were closed throughout (as were my friend’s). Really, who needs it? The pic may seen but may also be skipped.

And then there are these, nominated in technical categories I am not competent to express an opinion on or don’t think about:

Molly’s Game: I saw this because this it looked entertaining and had the always compelling Jessica Chastain in the lead. As far as entertainment goes, it’s empty calories. If it weren’t for Jessica C. and Idris Elba, who make it watchable, I would have decreed the pic a waste of my early January Wednesday evening.

Baby Driver: I went to see this because (a) I had a ticket at a major Paris theater chain that needed to be used by that date and (b) it received top reviews stateside and here alike. So it must have been worth seeing, right? LOL. While sitting though the pic at the packed MK2 Bibliothèque salle, I continually asked myself: Why am I here? Why am I wasting two-plus hours of my otherwise precious time sitting through this schlock drivel for the masses? Maybe I’m just too old, or too far outside the mainstream, but this just wasn’t a movie I needed to see. C’est tout.

Blade Runner 2049: I mentioned above that I am not an aficionado of the fantasy genre. That also includes science fiction and other futuristic-type films (though there are exceptions, e.g. ‘Arrival’, ‘Gravity’, among others in recent years). This one was, of course, praised to the high heavens—by critics, audiences, and friends alike—but I decided that I was simply not going to see it, as I did not like the original ‘Blade Runner’ back in ’82—I was in an ultra-minority—and couldn’t imagine that I would feel differently about this one. But when I saw the recommendation on social media by a stateside academic friend, who’s cosmopolitan, gauchiste, into post-modernism, and you name it, I thought, what the hell. So I went with my above mentioned highbrow/intello friend, who had already seen it but willingly agreed to do so again for my benefit. Rien à faire, I was bored to tears during the entire 2¾ hours. It was insufferable to watch and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Chacun son goût, très honnêtement.

Voilà my vote:

BEST PICTURE: ‘Get Out’.
‘The Shape of Water’—which will no doubt win—is a very close second, almost ex aequo. ‘Lady Bird’ is third. After that, whatever.

BEST DIRECTOR: Guillermo del Toro (‘The Shape of Water’).
This seems obvious. If one of the others wins it—particularly Christopher Nolan (‘Dunkirk’) or Paul Thomas Anderson (‘Phantom Thread’)—I will understand.

BEST ACTOR: Gary Oldman (‘Darkest Hour’).
Daniel Day-Lewis (‘Phantom Thread’) and Denzel Washington (‘Roman J. Israel, Esq.’) are ex aequo second.

BEST ACTRESS: Saoirse Ronan (‘Lady Bird’).
I was going to go with Frances McDormand (‘Three Billboards’) but changed my mind, as she’s already won this prize and for a film (‘Fargo’) and performance that were superior. Sally Hawkins (‘The Shape of Water’) is deserving.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Sam Rockwell (‘Three Billboards’).
He’ll get it.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Laurie Metcalf (‘Lady Bird’).
I was about to go with Allison Janney (‘I, Tonya’) but her role was a little too one note. I have yet to see ‘Mudbound’, so can’t speak to Mary J. Blige.

BEST DOCUMENTARY: ‘Last Men in Aleppo’.
I haven’t actually seen this but know it’s the best. The only nominee I have seen is ‘Faces Places’, which is charming.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: ‘The Insult’ (Lebanon).
I’m pulling for this one, as not only is it a fine film but one of the screenwriters also happens to be a friend. Will have a post on it in the coming days. ‘Loveless’ (Russia) is excellent. ‘The Square’ (Sweden) is good but doesn’t merit an Oscar. I haven’t seen ‘On Body and Soul’ (Hungary) or ‘A Fantastic Woman’ (Chile).