Are you ready to see the brutalest movie of all time? It’s called THE BRUTALIST. So brutal they had to have a 15 minute intermission built into the theatrical version. Also an overture but it’s only like 30 seconds or something. A full length overture would’ve tamped down the brutality too much.
THE BRUTALIST has the most jerking off and fingering of any of the 2024 Best Picture nominees, and it can be argued that it’s also the most masturbatory in its filmmaking, what with its 215 minute runtime, its unbearably corny chapter titles and unmistakable posturing of capital I Importance. Don’t you get it? This is about stuff like history, architecture, America, history… Important stuff. I had some questions about whether a writer/director born after AN AMERICAN TAIL came out should be making The Great American Epic about immigration combined with the non-asshole version of THE FOUNTAINHEAD. Undeniably, though, that confidence and grandiosity is what makes it an event. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE MENU (2022) is part of the 2020s wave of “rich assholes go to an island and something fucked up happens there” movies (see also: GLASS ONION, BLINK TWICE, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS [though they end up on the island by accident there]). Juror #2 Nicholas “Nux” Hoult plays Tyler Ledford, a food-nerd who proudly paid $1250 a plate to bring his less-interested date Margot, played by Furiosa #2 Anya Taylor-Joy, to a private island where celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes, THE AVENGERS) presents extravagant themed meals for exclusive clientele. Right away you know Tyler sucks because he calls Margot “babe” and lectures her about her palate, and that Margot is the final girl because she’s the only one looking back to see the boat leaving and the doors closing behind them. We side with her anyway because when Tyler raves about the lemon caviar and raw oyster with mignonette and mansplains that alginate is made of algae she says, “Yeah. Pond scum.” (read the rest of this shit…)
NICKEL BOYS is one of the underdog Best Picture nominees, one of the indies that doesn’t get that much discussion outside of film critic circles, definitely not seen as a frontrunner, but happy to be nominated. I was planning to see it anyway based on the effusive praise I’d seen, but the nomination gave me an extra push to see it on the big screen, so that’s a nice thing about the Oscars.
I was also able to see it pretty much blind. I did see a trailer before another movie a few days earlier, but that actually didn’t make it very clear what it was about. It did make me wonder if it was going to be told in first person perspective, which does turn out to be the case. Most of the time the camera represents what the main character Elwood Curtis is seeing. So, you know, it’s kind of like the classy version of HARDCORE HENRY or the MANIAC remake. There’s also a section where the camera follows behind the character’s head, like a video game (or IN A VIOLENT NATURE). Director of photography Jomo Fray (ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT) shoots it both cleverly and beautifully. It’s kind of the same category as I’M STILL HERE: some beauty and nostalgia in a story about resilience in the face of horrible atrocities. But leaning heavier on the latter this time, and using the former to make it all the more eerie what we know is going on here. (read the rest of this shit…)
Last Saturday morning I was stressing about the situation – the billionaire gremlin coup and dismantling of society that is happening before our eyes with only measured pushback – and it was too much. I had to make myself stop thinking about it. I want to stay aware, but I have to take care of myself mentally, I can’t spend every day dwelling on catastrophes that I’m powerless against. It’s the weekend, I told myself. It’s a nice day, and I’m seeing a movie, the last best picture nominee I haven’t seen…
But the movie was I’M STILL HERE (Ainda Estou Aqui), about a family dealing with their patriarch being disappeared by the Brazilian government in 1971, and I couldn’t help but come out thinking that’s gonna be us very soon. I hope that’s just the doom and gloom talking, but I have zero doubt that Musk and Trump would love to have this kind of stuff done in their names, that more than enough cops and soldiers would be on board (or would sign up just to do the honors), that not one Republican would raise one finger even one time to do one tenth of jack shit about it, and that Democrats or laws wouldn’t be adequate to stop them. So… signs point to bad, and my morale did not improve that day.
The movie is great, though, and maybe not what you expect. Directed by Walter Salles (CENTRAL STATION, THE MOTORCYCLE DIARES, DARK WATER remake), it opens with the deeply unsettling juxtaposition of a title saying “Rio de Janeiro, 1970, Military Dictatorship,” and a bunch of beautiful people in a beautiful place having a great time. Teens are playing beach volleyball, a dog keeps getting in the way, so they hand him off to little brother Marcelo (Guilherme Silveira), who shows him off to his friends, and then their bare feet pitter patter off the sand across the street, to the house to ask his dad, Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello, upcoming ANACONDA movie?) if they can keep him. He’s in an important meeting in his office and their lovable maid Zezé (Pri Helena) begs the kid not to interrupt, but luckily Rubens is just as charmed by the mutt as everybody else, and even gives him a name. (read the rest of this shit…)
I watched EMILIA PÉREZ before the Golden Globes, because it was the movie with the most nominations. I figured that was a Globes-specific Netflix-is-good-at-marketing situation, because I’d only ever seen it trashed online, and not a single non-critic I talked to had even heard of it, even though it had been available on Netflix for months. But this morning the Oscar nominations were announced and it’s in the lead with 13 nominations, tying OPPENHEIMER, among others. Only ALL ABOUT EVE, TITANIC and LA LA LAND ever got 14. So oh jesus, I better finish this review and get it over with before The Discourse™ gets even dicier.
See, this is a touchy subject because it has made history by earning its star Karla Sofía Gascón a Best Actress nomination – the first ever for a trans woman – so I imagine as we speak word is spreading among bigots that they have always cared deeply about the fairness of women’s arts awards. And yet much of the criticism I’ve heard comes from trans critics. Note that it also tied most movies throughout history for the least GLAAD Awards nominations (zero). (read the rest of this shit…)
If they were in America, Rudolf (Christian Friedel, THE WHITE RIBBON) and Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, who just got a best actress nomination for ANATOMY OF A FALL) would say they were living the American dream. They’re in a big new house near a river where they can swim and fish. They have a bunch of kids and a dog and their backyard is huge, with an elaborate garden, cobblestone paths, a huge greenhouse, a nice deck, and a small swimming pool with a slide. They even have servants. All because Rudolf’s doing so good in his job. And they live right next to work, so he doesn’t have to commute at all, he’s home right after work to spend time with the family. The kids love him (they got him a canoe for his birthday), and he and Sandra get along well, they make each other laugh, they talk about the trips they’ll go on after all this.
It’s the biggest possible “all this,” though: World War II. And I think you’ll share my objection to Rudolf’s job. He’s the commandant of Auschwitz. A very bad person. The conceit of writer/director Jonathan Glazer (SEXY BEAST, BIRTH, UNDER THE SKIN)’s gut punch of a movie is to matter-of-factly depict the mundane activities of this family as they go through their daily activities without a thought to the suffering they’re causing and benefiting from on the other side of the wall. (read the rest of this shit…)
TRIANGLE OF SADNESS was the last 2023 best picture nominee I hadn’t seen, but I’d been planning to watch it anyway. It’s the latest from Swedish director Ruben Östlund, and his second in a row to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes. I haven’t seen the previous one (2017’s THE SQUARE), so my impression of him comes from FORCE MAJEURE (2014). Although I liked it I guess I didn’t review it, and I mostly just remember the A+ premise (a guy ruins his marriage in one moment because an avalanche seems to be headed for his family and he runs off without helping them).
The new one further explores the subject of flawed rich people on fateful luxury vacations. It begins with a young couple, Carl (Harris Dickinson, MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean, DEATH RACE 3: INFERNO). Carl is a seemingly pretty successful male model (the people at an audition say “It’s you!” in awe when they open his portfolio to a black and white ad for perfume or something) and Yaya is also a model but considers herself a professional influencer. The first chapter of the movie chronicles a passive aggressive comment about who pays for dessert escalating to a screaming near break-up public scene in a hotel elevator just because Carl doesn’t know how to let it go. The long, slow boil from him kind of having a point to making you want to throw him out a window for not moving on to a new topic is kind of a test to see if you’re gonna be able to stand the movie, which is not in a hurry to get anywhere. It’s just cruising. (read the rest of this shit…)
See, this is why I continue being a best picture completist – it gets me to watch some good movies I was planning to skip. This year when they announced the ten nominees I had already seen six of them and was planning to see another three. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is the only one I’d had no desire to see. In fact I’d been hoping it wouldn’t get nominated, and felt a little resentment that according to my self-imposed rules I was gonna have to watch it.
I have no familiarity with the 1929 novel by Erich Maria Ramarque, the 1930 film version by Lewis Milestone, or the 1979 tv version, so my skepticism was not about being a purist. I just had heard an impassioned argument that it’s a movie with cool battle scenes that turn a powerful anti-war story into some SAVING PRIVATE RYAN shit about heroism and sacrifice. And that didn’t sound like something I wanted to see. (read the rest of this shit…)
WOMEN TALKING is the new best picture nominated film from writer/director Sarah Polley, who is minor-key beloved as an actress for people around my age (THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, GO, EXISTENZ, DAWN OF THE DEAD, SPLICE), but these days is more known as an acclaimed filmmaker (she directed AWAY FROM HER, TAKE THIS WALTZ and STORIES WE TELL). Now I’ve finally seen one of the ones she directed, and it lives up to her reputation. It’s based on a novel, but I would’ve guessed it was based on a play, because it’s one of those stories with a really concise but heavy-duty set up to put a top shelf ensemble of actors into a limited location (in this case a hay loft) with much to discuss, debate, and decide. Kind of a 12 ANGRY MEN deal, except there’s very intentionally only one man with a speaking part in the whole movie. And he’s way more sad than angry.
Canadian author Miriam Toews wrote the novel as a “reaction through fiction” to a real thing that happened in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia. So bear with me – this is awful. In an isolated religious colony (here seemingly in the U.S.) women and even young girls have, for some time, been waking up bruised and covered in blood as they have been repeatedly knocked unconscious by cow tranquilizer and then raped. For years they’ve been told by the elders that they imagined it or it was the Devil or a ghost or a punishment from God or all that kind of bullshit. But before the movie begins our young narrator Autje (Kate Hallett) and her friend Neitje (Liv McNeil) caught one of them running away, they got him to name the others, they were arrested and taken to jail. The men of the colony have gone to the city to bail them out, and given the women 48 hours to forgive them, or they will be excommunicated. Can you believe that shit? (read the rest of this shit…)
SOUND OF METAL is not what I pictured at all. It’s about this guy Ruben (Riz Ahmed, VENOM) who’s a heavy metal* drummer, and then he loses his hearing. That’s the part I did know. The poster and the trailer and everything all focus on him shirtless on stage banging away on those things, and especially since it was nominated for best picture I had to figure it was about him struggling and overcoming and finding some thrillingly dramatic way to keep playing. I’ve heard of deaf people who play music based on vibrations, so I don’t think it’s impossible. It’s loud music, after all.
*pretty sure there’s a more accurate name for what their group Blackgammon plays, but fuck if I know what it is. Maybe sludge metal?
That’s not what this is at all. In the beginning he’s on tour with his group Blackgammon, which is just him and bleached-eyebrow singer girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke, READY PLAYER ONE). They live in an RV (a little nicer than NOMADLAND) so they’ll just play a show at some small place, try to sell some records and merch, then move along to the next town and find the next place.
The hearing loss seems pretty out of the blue. His ears just start ringing before a show. Then it sounds like he’s underwater. He just kinda pretends it’s nothing and hopes it will pass. Doesn’t even tell Lou. During the show he just goes for it, and Lou is looking at him like something’s wrong, so we wonder how far off he is. Suddenly he loses it, gets up and runs out the fire exit. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
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Part 1: The Illusory Paradigm of Actuality
THE MENU (2022) is part of the 2020s wave of “rich assholes go to an island and something fucked up happens there” movies (see also: 
NICKEL BOYS is one of the underdog Best Picture nominees, one of the indies that doesn’t get that much discussion outside of film critic circles, definitely not seen as a frontrunner, but happy to be nominated. I was planning to see it anyway based on the effusive praise I’d seen, but the nomination gave me an extra push to see it on the big screen, so that’s a nice thing about the Oscars.
(not to be confused with 
I watched EMILIA PÉREZ before the Golden Globes, because it was the movie with the most nominations. I figured that was a Globes-specific Netflix-is-good-at-marketing situation, because I’d only ever seen it trashed online, and not a single non-critic I talked to had even heard of it, even though it had been available on Netflix for months. But this morning the Oscar nominations were announced and it’s in the lead with 13 nominations, tying 
If they were in America, Rudolf (Christian Friedel, THE WHITE RIBBON) and Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, who just got a best actress nomination for 
TRIANGLE OF SADNESS was the last 2023 best picture nominee I hadn’t seen, but I’d been planning to watch it anyway. It’s the latest from Swedish director Ruben Östlund, and his second in a row to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes. I haven’t seen the previous one (2017’s THE SQUARE), so my impression of him comes from FORCE MAJEURE (2014). Although I liked it I guess I didn’t review it, and I mostly just remember the A+ premise (a guy ruins his marriage in one moment because an avalanche seems to be headed for his family and he runs off without helping them).
See, this is why I continue being a best picture completist – it gets me to watch some good movies I was planning to skip. This year when they announced the ten nominees I had already seen six of them and was planning to see another three. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is the only one I’d had no desire to see. In fact I’d been hoping it wouldn’t get nominated, and felt a little resentment that according to my self-imposed rules I was gonna have to watch it.
WOMEN TALKING is the new best picture nominated film from writer/director Sarah Polley, who is minor-key beloved as an actress for people around my age (THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, GO, 
SOUND OF METAL is not what I pictured at all. It’s about this guy Ruben (Riz Ahmed, 
