It’s been a few years since I did my last Oscars review because I don’t watch these movies anymore and ever since the “Moonlight” win I’ve lost interest in the spectacle but this year… this year I’m back. Still haven’t watched any of the movies (except Oppenheimer) but I did see a film that should have won but didn’t. Read all about it.
BEST PICTURE
NOMINEES
AMERICAN FICTION - Black Lives Matter.
West World season 1 on HBO was okay, and Jeffery Wright’s awakening to the fact that he wasn’t what he thought himself to be was moving and sad. We’ve all been there - realizing a truth that everyone else already knew but were too embarrassed to mention. I wish these guys would make a movie about Kanye.
ANATOMY OF A FALL - Guerre tout le temps.
I just don’t care. Die. Go to jail. Or be free. Whatever you need to do but don’t drag me into your horrible dramatic life with massive disfunction and French ennui.
BARBIE - White Loves You.
Great memes. I mean, honestly, who cares about the movie. Just the image of Margot Robbie in a pink dress is all the world needs to justify western civilization. Suck on it China, India, Islam and Africa because YOU CAN’T DO THAT! It’s worth fighting for regardless of what girls think about how the world should be run and who should be in charge.
THE HOLDOVERS - Alexander Payne went to prep school.
Election is a great picture and Paul Giamatti is a very fine actor so… it’s probably a good movie. It’s kind of like Green Book from a few years ago, it sounds like a fine nostalgia story with a great cast but I’m not interested in re-fighting and re-winning the civil rights or cultural revolution battle of 70 years ago. Look at where “victory” got us.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON - For Christ’s sake, when will Scorsese hang it up?
Look, I’m a fan and when this director was in his prime, meaning his 30’s, 40’s or 50’s, I gladly watched his movies but now he’s an octogenarian I’m just not that interested in his pictures. Old people get soft and their vitality dissipates but in the modern world these coots suck up money and marketing to crowed out younger talent. Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Martin Scorsese - enough!
MAESTRO - The memoir of an alcoholic communist homosexual and his long suffering wife.
It’s kind of like “Oppenheimer - The Musical” and, honestly, a mash up of the two movies might be very entertaining but I’m not going to see a film that champions the man who played such a significant role in subjecting the world to Stephen Sondheim.
OPPENHEIMER - Noland does CSPAN for the National Security State.
I finally got around to watching Oppenheimer last month. It’s incredible that 1. They attempted make a hero out of this absolute degenerate commie and 2. The dramatic action all centered around this protagonist losing his security clearance! Yes, losing one’s clearance is traumatic but upon reflection I thought that Noland probably had to sugar coat the true depiction of Oppenheimer even in his “warts and all” presentation for the very good reason that no one would go see the movie if the real persona was presented. Also weird to have a gentile playing the protagonist in the film. And the Einstein “rosebud” revelation at the end of the film was predictable cynicism. I would rather see a movie about Truman with scientists on the periphery of what is, in fact, a horrifying story.
PAST LIVES - I need a green card so I guess I need to marry this putz.
Who the hell is watching these movies? How do they find an audience? I like thoughtful meditations on life, love and sacrifice as much as the next guy (probably more) but I’m not going to spend time or money on this flick. Go see it yourself if you want - I hope it wins.
POOR THINGS - This fucking guy again!
I don’t know if you ever saw Yorgos Lanthimos’s painful meditation on relationships titled “The Lobster” or his exposition on the seeds of the American revolution titled “The Favorite” but if so you will know that his is a very confectionary style of cinema. I reviewed The Lobster (which I hated) and enjoyed The Favorite, as is my custom, because I saw in it the opposite of what the director intended. I’ll never waste my time watching the Poor Things in this Victorian Frankenstein meat pie because I already know I’ll despise it just from clips and WikiGarbage on the WWW.
THE ZONE OF INTEREST - In case you hadn’t heard, the Nazis killed 6 gazillion Jews 80 years ago.
For some reason the academy loves holocaust movies. Not me. The Killing Fields, The Hotel Rwanda and countless WW2 expositions on Jewish genocide are financed and awarded with Oscars because, I suppose, it makes entertainment people feel better about themselves when they drive by the drug dens, street walkers, abortion factories, dive bars, private prisons, junk food restaurants, porno stores and gun shops on their way to the studio. Auschwitz concentration camp has been surpassed by modern methods of human destruction but no one wants to make movies about the new 5G genocide.
THE POT-AU-FEU - Right-Wing Francophiles Unite!
The best picture of the year was, hands down, a movie that didn’t even get nominated (no surprise) called “La Passion de Dodin Bouffant” or, in America, “The Taste of Things” and it receives my highest recommendation. I wept through most of the movie - real tears - because it was so beautifully shot and the themes of artistry, passion, love, death and immortality were explored in a most evocative way. Juliette Binoche still has it after all these years and remains the queen of film actresses in the modern era. Benoît Magimel as the engaging Bouffant is magnificent and the chemistry between the two leads drips off the screen. The director, Tran Anh Hung, captures (creates?) a world before electricity, the automobile, a nuclear bomb and plastic and shows us what it means to be human again. Bravo!
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