Whelp, by popular demand (as in the other fellas involved in A Night at the Opera) and in the continued absence of any new quizzes from Dennis Collazzo’s great blog Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule (pour one out!), I’ve put together another little movie quiz in the style he once tossed out effortlessly and on our next episode, we will be hitting each question one by one with our individual answers.
But wait, I’ve decided to post the questions early in case any of you readers and/or listeners (possibly if you belong to roses and are named Jonathan) might want to answer some or all of these questions. You can comment your answers on this post, comment on your own blog and send me the link, if we’re connected on social media send me your answers there… anyway you like as long as you can get the answers in front of me (best means of making sure I get your answer? Two words: Telly. Kinesis.). I might pick out my favorite of the bunch and read them on the next episode (due sometime this weekend)!
In the meantime, please here’s the quiz questions for any hotshot surgeons or good buddies to take a shot at. Enter… your darkplace.
What’s the first movie that made you wonder how they worked?
Favorite 90s horror movie?
Yvonne De Carlo or Carolyn Jones?
What’s the most times you’ve seen a movie in its original theatrical run? What’s the most times you’ve seen a movie in theaters, period?
Is there any movie that introduced you to one of your favorite musicians?
Kate Beckinsale or Milla Jovovich?
What movie do you think is the best representation of your hometown?
Second-favorite Jonathan Demme film?
What movie feels most like your quiet little secret?
Favorite Concert film?
Your favorite Guy Maddin?
What experimental movie would you use as a baseline for introducing, say, your parents to the form?
What’s the longest movie that you’d consider in your favorites?
What’s a movie that you feel is a most critical antithetical to any particular attitude you have towards art?
IPhone cinematography – yes or no?
Your favorite discovery from a film festival?
Your most comforting movie?
Your favorite piece of music composed for a movie?
Worst movie you unironically love?
Favorite Soderbergh film?
Movie that you think most represent your headspace?
Ambitious failures or safe successes?
A24 or Neon?
Last movie you watched at home/in theaters?
Coolest movie you can think of?
Your favorite piece of animation?
Favorite video store?
Riffing at movies – yes or no?
Name a movie that you feel is most deeply an anchor to your circle of friends?
With the increased shrinking of big box retailers carrying physical media while boutique labels grow out of the ground and satisfy the most niche requests, what do you think the future of the medium is?
If you made it to the end of this quiz, I’ve got bad news on the lab results of this test…
Sunday comes the big night. It’s time to do what plenty of other statistics obsessed movie nerds do and speculate on who’s going home with gold in their hand that night. It’s the most pleasure and thrill I can have from what’s been a sadly underwhelming Oscar season, though it is nice to at least find one of the Best Picture nominees that’s going in my Top Ten of 2023 at the end of the month. Enough griping, let’s roll.
BEST PICTURE
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
WILL WIN:Oppenheimer SPOILER: Poor Things MY PICK: The Zone of Interest SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Priscilla
I’m not even convinced the spoiler is necessary, this has been a likelihood since July, in my humble opinion, and a certainty once no other contender was able to match the unbeatable combination of “big money maker”, “Oscarbait material”, “prestige pedigree for its filmmakers”, and “high critical acclaim” that Oppenheimer secured in its run. Plenty of these other nominees have one or more of those elements. None of them have all four outside of Oppenheimer.
BEST DIRECTOR
Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest
Yorgos Lanthimos – Poor Things
Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon
Justine Triet – Anatomy of a Fall
WILL WIN: Christopher Nolan SPOILER: Martin Scorsese MY PICK: Jonathan Glazer SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Wes Anderson – Asteroid City
Almost as certain as the Picture prize. Nolan has just become everyone’s favorite dude lately.
BEST ACTOR
Bradley Cooper – Maestro
Colman Domingo – Rustin
Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction
WILL WIN: Cillian Murphy SPOILER: Paul Giamatti MY PICK: Jeffrey Wright SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Jussi Vatanen – Fallen Leaves
The first race we’ll acknowledge here that seems like a real tight one, but I think the BAFTA and SAG combo clinches it for Murphy.
BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening – Nyad
Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan – Maestro
Emma Stone – Poor Things
WILL WIN: Lily Gladstone SPOILER: Emma Stone MY PICK: Sandra Hüller SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Cailee Spaeny – Priscilla
A little bit tighter as Stone seems to have been gaining momentum over the past few awards ceremonies, but I frankly think the Oscars would be so obsessed with the optics of this award win that they want to give it to Gladstone.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction
Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling – Barbie
Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things
WILL WIN: Robert Downey Jr. SPOILER: Ryan Gosling MY PICK: Sterling K. Brown SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Swann Arlaud – Anatomy of a Fall
Gosling would have been an easy prediction for everybody and their mom back in July (it was certainly mine) and then awards season began and Downey Jr. had everybody saying “Ryan Who?”. Very excited for him to make the internet mad by thanking Mel Gibson in his acceptance speech, you know it’s gonna happen.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple
America Ferrera – Barbie
Jodie Foster – Nyad
Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers
WILL WIN: Da’Vine Joy Randolph SPOILER: World War III starts mid-ceremony MY PICK: Emily Blunt SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Rachel McAdams – Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret.
The lockedest lock of the night. She’s gonna slide across that stage. Lucky Gladstone wasn’t nominated in this category instead, might have been a tougher season.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik – May December
Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer – Maestro
David Hemingson – The Holdovers
Celine Song – Past Lives
Justine Triet & Arthur Harari – Anatomy of a Fall
WILL WIN: The Holdovers SPOILER:Anatomy of a Fall MY PICK: Anatomy of a Fall SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola – Asteroid City
A lot of screenplay-y screenplays and I can see how Anatomy of a Fall would win (which I’d hope because it’s by a large margin the best of the bunch) but The Holdovers is the most self-consciously “you can tell the writer was trying to follow the rules” bit of writing and the most high profile of the nominees. It’s also not half in French.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach – Barbie
Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest
Cord Jefferson – American Fiction
Tony McNamara – Poor Things
Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer
WILL WIN: Oppenheimer SPOILER: Barbie MY PICK: Oppenheimer SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Kelly Fremon Craig – Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret.
I think both Barbie and American Fiction are deeper in this race than my suppositions above suspect, but it’s tough to imagine Best Picture losing the Screenplay award as well. CODA, The Departed, No Country for Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, 12 Years a Slave, Argo and Moonlight were the last seven Best Picture winners that qualified for Adapted Screenplay and all of them snatched it (Million Dollar Baby is the most recent instance you’d get to of a Best Picture winner not receiving this award). I think the Barbie wave is strong for sure, but if it wasn’t strong enough for the Director and Actress nods… maybe it isn’t strong enough to break this trend.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
WILL WIN: The Boy and the Heron SPOILER: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse MY PICK: Intellectually, I think Spider-Man is the overall better film but in my heart I’m rooting for The Boy and the Heron. A battle between phenomenal animation with a garbage screenplay and only slightly less phenomenal animation with an excellent screenplay. SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Suzume
I’m quietly expecting the backlash towards the behind-the-scenes creation of Spider-Verse and the commemorative image of giving Miyazaki an Oscar for what is possibly his last film (despite his eagerness to get back in the studio) will be able to push The Boy and the Heron to the gold but I don’t think that’s a done deal. One thing I’ll say is that it’ll be dope as hell if he refuses to pick up the Oscar in a repeat of his Iraq War-era refusal to pick up his Spirited Away Oscar.
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
Io Capitano
Perfect Days
Society of the Snow
The Teachers’ Lounge
The Zone of Interest
WILL WIN: The Zone of Interest SPOILER: Society of the Snow MY PICK:The Zone of Interest SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: The Taste of Things
Historically it’s been a safe bet to go through the last several years with the one nominee that is in both this slate and the Best Picture slate. Seems like obvious logic. I do think this is the thinnest instance of that logic: Society of the Snow has had such a surprising following behind it that I do quietly wonder what prevented it from showing in Best Picture in the first place and it seems even Perfect Days gets more discussion and praise around my parts than The Zone of Interest does. But we’ll see, not really sure there’s reason for a surprise.
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
20 Days in Mariupol
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
The Eternal Memory
Four Daughters
To Kill a Tiger
WILL WIN: 20 Days in Mariupol SPOILER: The Eternal Memory MY PICK: Four Daughters, but honestly it feels… gauche to make 20 Days in Mariupol compete. SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Menus-Plaisirs Les Troigros
The reasons why 20 Days in Mariupol will win are the same reasons why I find it morbid how a work like this is being involved in the meat parade that is awards season. It’s raw footage of an ongoing crisis. I can’t say I don’t see the value in its involvement in awards discourse since it at least continues to put a spotlight on the plight of the people in Mariupol (and while it is not in the film, Kiev), but it still feels like it’s treating the matter like a horse in the race or a piece of art to study and not like an urgent plea for the world to pay attention. It probably helps its chances that last year saw Navalny win the same award.
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The ABCs of Book Banning
The Barber of Little Rock
Island in Between
The Last Repair Shop
Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó
WILL WIN: The Last Repair Shop SPOILER: TheABCs of Book Banning MY PICK: Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó
Went for the most blandly pleasurable option. I think very low of the Academy but not so low they’d award something as artless as The ABCs of Book Banning.
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
The After
Invincible
Knight of Fortune
Red, White and Blue
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
WILL WIN: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar SPOILER: Red, White and Blue MY PICK: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: The Swan
This is maybe the first time I’ve ever been so blatantly optimistic as to predict my favorite film on the slate (and not just my favorite film on the slate but my favorite film nominated period in this whole ceremony, which I don’t think has ever come from this slate before), but I mean… come on. Red, White and Blue is certainly the most “relevant” pick but Henry Sugar has got the name recognition. Fingers crossed.
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Letter to a Pig
Ninety-Five Senses
Our Uniform
Pachyderme
WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko
WILL WIN: WAR IS OVER! SPOILER: Ninety-Five Senses MY PICK: Letter to a Pig SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: I’m Hip
And at least one of these short film categories every year has my “predict my least favorite nominee” strategy come into play and it looks like this is the one. The easiest to access (you can literally watch it on YouTube, which sure Oscar voters have access to all these movies but they’re historically lazy as fuck) and again… name recognition on this one (though having Napoleon Dynamite fellas and Tim Blake Nelson involved with Ninety-Five Senses gives it the slightest potential).
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Jerskin Fendrix – Poor Things
Ludwig Göransson – Oppenheimer
Laura Karpman – American Fiction
Robbie Robertson – Killers of the Flower Moon
John Williams – Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
WILL WIN: Oppenheimer SPOILER: American Fiction MY PICK: Poor Things SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Michael Giacchino – Society of the Snow
Just seems like a logical next step in Oppenheimer‘s domination that night.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“The Fire Inside” – Flamin’ Hot
“I’m Just Ken” – Barbie
“It Never Went Away” – American Symphony
“Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” – Killers of the Flower Moon
“What Was I Made For?” – Barbie
WILL WIN: “I’m Just Ken” SPOILER: Israel agrees to a ceasefire. MY PICK: “I’m Just Ken” SHOULD HAVE BEENNOMINATED: Nothing, I slowly wait for this category’s abolishment (OK, maybe “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)” from Asteroid City).
I hear people assuming it’ll be the other Barbie song… the one by Billie Eilish, but it’s just not as readily meme-able as “I’m Just Ken” and that makes me think it’s what the Oscars will run with. Plus the Eilish song is just… not as memorable.
BEST SOUND
The Creator
Maestro
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Oppenheimer
The Zone of Interest
WILL WIN: The Zone of Interest SPOILER: Oppenheimer MY PICK: [ETA 10 March, now that I’ve watched all nominees] The Zone of Interest SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Ferrari
Logic goes with Oppenheimer taking this, but The Zone of Interest‘s sound design is just so obviously THE THING that the movie is to most viewers (it’s more than that to me, but…) that I’m predicting a Whiplash/Sound of Metal type of win for it.
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Ruth De Jong & Claire Kaufman – Oppenheimer
Jack Fisk & Adam Willis – Killers of the Flower Moon
Sarah Greenwood & Katie Spencer – Barbie
Arthur Max & Elli Griff – Napoleon
James Price, Shona Heath, & Zsuzsa Mihalek – Poor Things
WILL WIN: Barbie SPOILER: Poor Things MY PICK: [ETA 10 March, now that I’ve watched all nominees] Barbie SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Chris Oddy, Dominika Kobylinska, Joanna Kus, & Katarzyna Sikora – The Zone of Interest
Poor Things is the only other nominee with that “MOST Production Design” leverage to it, but Barbie feels like it’s showing off just a bit more and the pink coloring and flatness is just eye-wormy that it ends up more memorable than any given set in Poor Things. Both of them are worthy nominees without doubt, though.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Edward Lachman – El Conde
Matthew Libatique – Maestro
Rodrigo Prieto – Killers of the Flower Moon
Robbie Ryan – Poor Things
Hoyte van Hoytema – Oppenheimer
WILL WIN: Oppenheimer SPOILER: Maestro MY PICK: Oppenheimer SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Robert Yeoman – Asteroid City
Oppenheimer will continue dominating all throughout.
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Golda
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Society of the Snow
WILL WIN: Maestro SPOILER: Golda MY PICK: Society of the Snow SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: The Last Voyage of the Demeter if we stick to the shortlist, but it’s wild that Nyad didn’t even make the shortlist.
It’s one of the two “nosepieces to play a Jewish person of note” films and Maestro is the lesser nominee of the two (both as film and as make-up work), but it’s the Best Picture nominee of the pair.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Jacqueline Durran – Barbie
Ellen Mirojnick – Oppenheimer
Holly Waddington – Poor Things
Jacqueline West – Killers of the Flower Moon
Janty Yates & Dave Crossman – Napoleon
WILL WIN: Poor Things SPOILER: Barbie MY PICK: [ETA 10 March, now that I’ve watched all nominees] Barbie SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Ann Roth – Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret.
Poor Things definitely slides its way to MOST Costume Design on this one (though it IS great costume design), propping itself further by the pseudo-costume drama roots of its design that looks like it goes through a funhouse mirror.
BEST FILM EDITING
Jennifer Lame – Oppenheimer
Yorgos Mavropsaridis – Poor Things
Thelma Schoonmaker – Killers of the Flower Moon
Laurent Sénéchal – Anatomy of a Fall
Kevin Tent – The Holdovers
WILL WIN: Oppenheimer SPOILER: Killers of the Flower Moon MY PICK: Oppenheimer SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Mario Battistel – The Taste of Things
I mean, come on. Of all the technical wins Oppenheimer is taking home, this feels like such a no-brainer… Lame is the only nominee in a very underwhelming category to feel like she’s brought her A-Game here (and it’s still nothing compared to Tenet).
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Creator
Godzilla Minus One
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Napoleon
WILL WIN: Godzilla Minus One SPOILER: The Creator MY PICK: [ETA 10 March, now that I’ve watched all nominees] Godzilla Minus One SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Poor Things
I think people are pushing and rooting so hard for Godzilla Minus One that it’s got a real shot of going home with the gold on this and all the better for it.
ETA 23 January 2024 – alright, the nominees are out to let’s take stock of how my predictions did below.Anything I got wrong is struck through, anything I missed is added in bold.
It’s that time again, y’all. Tomorrow morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces the nominees for their 96th annual award ceremony reflecting the “best” in 2023 cinema. Almost as fun to predict who wins is predicting who makes it onto the slate to begin with so, with minimal commentary (perhaps to be provided after tomorrow’s announcements), I present my predictions below. See y’all tomorrow.
BEST PICTURE
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
ALTERNATE: May December, except I think Oscars secretly dislike Haynes.
10/10 CORRECT and I’m a little sad to learn that’s the case. I have not yet seen Maestro or The Zone of Interest yet so I’d have to bank on one of them being great enough to prevent this from being the most disinteresting Best Picture slate since… fucking 2008, sheesh.
BEST DIRECTOR
Greta Gerwig – Barbie
Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest
Yorgos Lanthimos – Poor Things
Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon
Justine Triet – Anatomy of a Fall
ALTERNATE: Alexander Payne – The Holdovers
4/5 CORRECT, not really shedding any tears for Gerwig losing this one but even while I like Anatomy of a Fall way more, this feels like a lateral move. Once again, I need to hope Jonathan Glazer – who has been 3-for-3 on some of my favorite features of the 21st Century – can give me even one director I can root for here, but I’d be lying if I said “Oscar attention” makes me optimistic for The Zone of Interest. We’ll see.
BEST ACTOR
Bradley Cooper – Maestro
Colman Domingo – Rustin
Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction
ALTERNATE: Leonardo DiCaprio – Killers of the Flower Moon
5/5 CORRECT yet again and I am quite happy to see DiCaprio’s absence here since he’s kind of the biggest reason Killers of the Flower Moon is not any good.I like the three performances I’ve seen off this list just fine, but I also don’t have any strong feelings for them. Doesn’t feel likea particularly interesting slate either and prepare to consider that a running theme in this here post.
BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening – Nyad
Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan – Maestro
Margot Robbie – Barbie
Emma Stone – Poor Things
ALTERNATE: Annette Bening – Nyad
4/5 CORRECT. And now I have to Nyad, what’s one more Oscarbait watch on a pile of them? I can’t say I’m shedding the tears for Margot Robbie that the internet is shedding since she is still nominated as a Producer for Best Picture. Not that she had a good shot of winning either statue anyway.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction
Willem DafoeMark Ruffalo – Poor Things
Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling – Barbie
Dominic Sessa – The Holdovers
ALTERNATE: Charles Melton – May December
3/5 CORRECT. I got the wrong Poor Things performance evidently and I like Brown’s performance in American Fiction so I’m not too sad to see Sessa knocked right out. I do think it suggests a weakness in The Holdovers chances when one of the three central performances couldn’t get that sort of acclaim (though I still think Giamatti and Randolph might walk home with trophies).
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer
Penelope Cruz – Ferrari
Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple
America Ferrara – Barbie
Jodie Foster – Nyad
Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers
ALTERNATE: Rachel McAdams – Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
4/5 CORRECT. I’ll admit Cruz seemed like a long shot but I definitely was not expecting the Academy to like Ferrara’s monologue THAT much.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Sammy Burch & Alex Mechanik – May December
Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer – Maestro
David Hemingson – The Holdovers
Celine Song – Past Lives
Justine Triet – Anatomy of a Fall
ALTERNATE: Emerald Fennell – Saltburn
5/5 CORRECT. Gives me the same “nothing” feeling really that all the other slates do, though I guess Anatomy of a Fall is functional enough and May December is really funny.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach – Barbie
Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest
Cord Jefferson – American Fiction
Tony McNamara – Poor Things
Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese & Eric Roth – Killers of the Flower Moon
ALTERNATE: Kelly Fremon Craig – Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
4/5 CORRECT. Laughing at the Killers snub, like goddamn. Probably would have been the worst screenplay on the slate if it stuck around and this isn’t particularly filled with any big winners either (maybe The Zone of Interest will change that when I see it).
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Suzume
ALTERNATE: Robot Dreams
3/5 CORRECT. Intrigued by Robot Dreams making it through, maybe it would redeem the Suzume snub for me. Nimona, on the other hand, probably my least favorite nominee that I’ve watched for this ceremony thus far.
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
20 Days in Mariupol (Ukraine)
Fallen Leaves (Finland)
Io Capitano (Italy)
Perfect Days (Japan)
Society of the Snow (Spain)
The Taste of Things (France)
The Teachers’ Lounge (Germany)
The Zone of Interest (UK)
ALTERNATE: The Teacher’s Lounge (Germany)
2/5 CORRECT. Have to admit, I’m shaken by how off the mark I was here. All three of the films I predicted that didn’t land felt like they had the right amount of appeal and acclaim to secure their spot. Anyway, I’m sure France is kicking themselves over their submission but I also think The Taste of Things looks… really good.
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
20 Days in Mariupol
American Symphony
Beyond Utopia
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
The Eternal Memory
Four Daughters
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
To Kill a Tiger
ALTERNATE: The Eternal Memory
2/5 CORRECT. This category matches the shorts in “I don’t know what I’m doing” energy anyway, but the American Symphony snub is a real surprise.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Edward Lachman – El Conde
Matthew Libatique – Maestro
Rodrigo Prieto – Barbie
Rodrigo Prieto – Killers of the Flower Moon
Robbie Ryan – Poor Things
Linus Sandgren – Saltburn
Hoyte van Hoytema – Oppenheimer
ALTERNATE: Łukasz Żal – The Zone of Interest
3/5 CORRECT.Bye bye, Saltburn, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. My optimism for El Conde has been fading a bit but I think I’m at least hopeful it’s pretty to look at it.
BEST FILM EDITING
Nick Houy – Barbie
Jennifer Lame – Oppenheimer
Yorgos Mavropsaridis – Poor Things
Thelma Schoonmaker – Killers of the Flower Moon
Laurent Sénéchal – Anatomy of a Fall
Kevin Tent – The Holdovers
Michelle Tesoro – Maestro
ALTERNATE: Pietro Scalia – Ferrari
3/5 CORRECT. Having seen all of the nominees, I think Lame’s work on Oppenheimer is the only one that makes my heart flutter.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Jacqueline Durran – Barbie
Lindy Hemmings – Wonka
Ellen Mirojnick – Oppenheimer
Holly Waddington – Poor Things
Jacqueline West – Killers of the Flower Moon
Janty Yates & David Crossman – Napoleon
ALTERNATE: Francine Jamison-Tanchuck – The Color Purple
4/5 CORRECT. I really didn’t think Oscars would like suits enough to go with Oppenheimer, but I guess that scene where he puts on the hat like a superhero cowl won them over.
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Suzie Davies – Saltburn
Ruth De Jong & Claire Kaufman – Oppenheimer
Jack Fisk & Adam Willis – Killers of the Flower Moon
Sarah Greenwood & Katie Spencer – Barbie
Arthur Max – Napoleon
Shona Heath, James Price, & Szusza Mihalek – Poor Things
ALTERNATE: Adam Stockhausen – Asteroid City
4/5 CORRECT. Another instance where I underestimated Oscar’s love, I thought Jack Fisk was way too underappreciated by them.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Jerskin Fendrix – Poor Things
Ludwig Göransson – Oppenheimer
Joe Hisaishi – The Boy and the Heron
Laura Karpman – American Fiction
Robbie Robertson – Killers of the Flower Moon
John Williams – Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
ALTERNATE: Mica Levi – The Zone of Interest
4/5 CORRECT. Look, I liked American Fiction and I like jazz, but I’m damned if I can tell you anything about the score.
BEST MAKEUP & HAIR
Golda
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Society of the Snow
ALTERNATE: Beau Is Afraid
5/5 CORRECT. Big day for antisemites who think nose pieces are the best way to represent Jewish people.
BEST SOUND
The Creator
Ferrari
Maestro
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
The Zone of Interest
ALTERNATE: Killers of the Flower Moon
3/5 CORRECT. Kind of sad to see Ferrari completely shut out, I thought it was one of the better Oscarbait contenders.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“The Fire Inside” – Flamin’ Hot
“I’m Just Ken” – Barbie
“It Never Went Away” – American Symphony
“Superpower” – The Color Purple
“What Was I Made For?” – Barbie
“Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” – Killers of the Flower Moon
ALTERNATE: “Road to Freedom” – Rustin
4/5 CORRECT. Three inevitabilities in life: Death, taxes, and a Diane Warren Best Original Song nomination.
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Creator
Godzilla Minus One
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
Napoleon
Society of the Snow
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
ALTERNATE: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
3/5 CORRECT. Surprised that Napoleon had such a strong turnout (but also dreading seeing the movie, honestly)
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Humo
I’m Hip
Letter to a Pig
Ninety-Five Senses
Our Uniform
Pachyderme
War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko
Wild Summon
2/5 CORRECT.
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
The After
Good Boy
Invincible
Knight of Fortune
Red, White, and Blue
The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar
Yellow
3/5 CORRECT.
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The ABCs of Book Banning
The Barber of Little Rock
Camp Courage
Deciding Vote
Island in Between
The Last Repair Shop
Last Song from Kabul
Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó
Wings of Dust
1/5 CORRECT.Like I always say, I have no fucking idea what I’m doing with these categories.
Dario Argento is my favorite horror filmmaker and I have just finished a rewatch of all of his feature films (and half of his television anthology works). And a ranking of his feature filmography is so 1 month ago so I guess another way to take stock of his films is by engaging with one of the most notorious elements of his output, the utilisation of (formerly estranged) daughter Asia Argento in starring or co-starring roles through a good chunk of his late half of the career. And more notoriously how many of those parts involve a degree of sexualization and outright nudity, which is just not what you’d expect from a father-daughter shoot. I expect there’s some contingent of horror movie fandom that’s gotten used to it and at this point I do just roll with it like all other alienating aspects of art (is that not how one navigates the occasionally dark intuitions of any artist in any area?), but I never ever have gotten used enough to it.
I won’t posture at pretending this below ranking from least disconcerting to outright objection is completely free of judgment, but I’ll merely acknowledge that matters like these often times rely on my listening to the person at the center of the lens here and Asia Argento has never appeared to voice the slightest discomfort about her role in her father’s movies. Given her recent history of openly acknowledging active sexual abuse in the industry (alongside other acknowledgements that she’s been a perpetrator of such abuse), I don’t imagine she’d hesitate to indict her father if she felt harmed in any significant way. It’s two people whom I’ve never met, in a culture I’ve almost no tie to, making art I could never have conceived. It’s just also the case that alarm bells ring in my head, but for a filmmaker working in a genre based on primordial transgressiveness, is that not often feature rather than bug?
Let us figure for ourselves.
6. Dark Glasses (2022) – Very easy security in this ranking, just a side character with never a state of undress or leeringness. It’s probably not for nothing that this also ends up her best performance in any of her dad’s pictures.
5. The Stendahl Syndrome (1996) – Believe it or not, the movie in which Asia’s character suffers two on-screen rapes feels among the least exploiting of their collaborations. Part of this is how the camera never exploits the bodies in these horrible moments (if my memory serves correctly, both sequences have her dressed as well which is not the case for the other rape/murder victims we see) and the film often has a sense of disgust and hostility at what is being performed. Most importantly, it feels like a film particularly examining with clear-eyed grace the mental and physical trauma of such acts and of the 6 movies Asia acted in with her father, this film sees Dario most insistent on letting Asia’s performance define the trajectory of her character’s aftermath life.
4. Dracula 3D (2012) – I will confess the craftiness of having Dracula hide a vampire’s bite so well that it plausibly requires the character to be naked and bathed by a servant to find the bite is something that would impress me if it wasn’t for who is directing the movie (plus it’s not a lewd area where the bite is located). I am relieved that there’s not much more than that, creepy as it is already.
3. The Phantom of the Opera (1998) – I think there’s maybe one sex scene, most of the weirdness comes from the extremely sheer outfits Asia wears as Christine. Most of the movie is so blatantly out there that I was a bit too distracted by everything else to feel uncomfortable with see-through dresses.
2. The Mother of Tears (2007) – It’s kind of insane how easily this can go from being number 2 to almost last place: that shower scene, which is less than a minute long and wholly removable with no effect on the overall film. I think that’s the only reason it’s more uncomfortable than it could have been, the clarity with which it goes out of the way to include the negligible material.
Trauma (1993) – Look, dude, that’s your 17-year-old daughter (playing your 19-year-old stepdaughter).
This is by no means intended to be my last word on the 1966 television special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but I recently provided the below short bit of writing for a facebook group’s weekly feature and I’d like to transfer it here so that when I bail, it ain’t lost. Plus I’m a little disappointed that life once against got in the way of doing any regular Halloweentime writing here, someday I’ll need to quit my job and accept starvation in return for being able to watch and write about movies til I lose breath.
When I began living up in the northern part of the United States, a surprising amount of people independently would ask me why I’d go to areas where snow happens over staying in Miami? And I’d have a plethora of answers for that, hostile and benign, but the easiest go-to remains the most truthful one: I watch the world move by color. The colors in the sky, the colors in the trees, and the colors in the ground. I don’t think I’m particularly unique in what I associate with the autumnal season: oranges, reds, and yellows… those seem particularly universal for anyone trying to describe what the visual sensation is, even down in Miami. It is funny enough not what I would physically associate with the reality of Halloweentime where I now live, where winter begins creeping in by whiting out the sky, overcasting the sidewalk in grey shadow, and the fallen leaves all now begin sinking into damp seasonal rainy mud or curling into brown and black. But it still feels attached enough to the soul of autumn that when I close my eyes, it’s those colors that I imagine of welcoming me back when I open them.
I don’t need to close my eyes though because we have a lot of movies to maintain that sensation and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is possibly the deepest evocation of that sensation within audio-visual media. Nobody could profess the Bill Melendez television specials to be of the most trailblazing animation, but they often make due and where they don’t has a nicely hand-crafted character in terms of their linework and shapes that make for the sort of coziness that results in A Charlie Brown Christmas succeeding as the comfort blanket it is. In Great Pumpkin’s case, Melendez and crew rely on the versatile range of shades between red and orange to recreate the moods one associates with late October. The skies are changing between paint splashes of reds and oranges (as well as blues and grays before the cool black night of the latter half), the ground is littered with vibrant leaves, and the unconfined spaces – interior or exterior – all seem to extend from those moods in their color. And that’s merely the backdrop for what might be the most grown-up of all Peanuts special plots: an overall reckoning of disappointment in the low-stakes lives of children, whether it’s Charlie Brown falling for the football or Charlie Brown being surprised when he gets a rock. He’s not the real mark of this theme though so much as Linus’ dedicated and steadfast waiting for The Great Pumpkin, a work of character writing that navigates right between the adult understanding that the Great Pumpkin obviously doesn’t exist and won’t show up and Linus’ tragic insistence that as long as he maintains sincerity and the wonderfully cluttered pumpkin patch he’s making camp in radiates sincerity as well… someday his hopes will be rewarded. Maybe not this year, but it has to be this year doesn’t it? It’s both drily amusing and a little heartbreaking to witness compared to Charlie Brown’s slip-ups being just outright hilarious.
That hilarity – as well as the mindblowing sophistication with which a mid-special sequence where Snoopy famously imagines himself a wartime Flying Ace, gets shot down, and has to navigate back to Allied lines in breathtaking silhouette against the most profound sunset skies and empty fields – is a big part of what makes the realities of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown easier to swallow and real fun to watch. And while Linus’ final beats of defiant faithfulness into the end of the closing credits might be a comforting and optimistic resolution against one’s best ideas, it is somehow not the moment I think most gets to catalyzing my hopes that things can work out if I just keep sincerity in the world. That is Linus closing the second act by rhapsodizing to Sally – the only person who will buy into wasting their entire night in that pumpkin patch – on the joys of the Great Pumpkin in the world as the shot widens further for that twinkling starry night to take up more of the frame than the two kids in that patch and Linus’ praise reaches the distant fading ends of the soundtrack. It’s a cosmic check against Linus’ delusions but it also gives me the blithe memories of watching the inky dark sky and pinholes through my childhood bedroom window until morning light, a dynamic real-world transformation only met by It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and its metamorphic stratospheric reds and blacks.
About a week and change ago, The Hollywood Reporter posted a list of what was voted by 300 so industry professionals on The Greatest Movie Books of All Time. Some titles I highly agree with, some titles that raised my eyebrows, some titles that are new to me and sound interesting enough to join my readlist. In any case, it caused me to revisit a question I had once considered off of Joel Bocko of Lost in the Movies’ (née The Dancing Image) own Reading the Movies post and challenge way back in 2009 to consider what are the 10 film-related books I consider most essential to my development as both a film buff and regular reader. No magazines is my one rule (sorry Fangoria, Film Comment, and FamousMonsters of Filmland).
The Jaws Log by Carl Gottlieb
The single most valuable text I was assigned during Film School, easily. By the time I’d been assigned it, Jaws had already firmly planted itself as the movie I’ve seen the most times in my life (a title it maintains to this day) and it also was the favorite movie of the professor who assigned it* which meant that as a representation of virtually every problem that could go wrong during a film production and the savviness necessary to resolve it, I had an anchor against which to map this general overview of a movie’s lifespan from development to release. It’s also just an effortless narrative read, as would be expected by a book written by the dude who co-wrote a screenplay like Jaws (who also, I may as well note, signed my copy when I met him).
*Shout out to Joe F–
In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing by Walter Murch
Probably the most critical piece of indoctrination I received towards the cut being to the movie what the cell is to the organism, but much more than that is just a critical declaration of what a film is beyond its components and how its control over the response of its viewer is unlike anything else in the world.
Poetics of Cinema by David Bordwell
Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s Film Art: An Introduction is of course a tremendous base in which to accommodate yourself with the intricacies of how cinema works as an artistic language, but this book of essays is where I really began to see the vocabulary in motion and very much speaks to Bordwell’s ability as a casual observer for where things click.
Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston
Probably the biggest bewilderment I received on reading the Hollywood Reporter’s list is seeing that a very basic sounding biography of Walt Disney made its way there while this book ended as a “by the way” footnote to that entry, not even having a spot on the list. When I found myself wanting to know precisely how these living images unlike anything in reality could have been bewitched into movement, this was the most complete look at that process. Thomas and Johnston gave away pretty much every principle that Disney’s distinct animation style was built on and honed through to gamechanging effect.
Breaking In: How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start by Nicholas Jarecki
Full circle entry: this was actually introduced to me by reading Lost in the Movies‘ list and made some sort of meaning out of the uncertainty in film school that I was ever going to be able to be a filmmaker. 20 different interviews by filmmakers good or bad on how they found themselves in that director’s chair whether or not they had their sights set on it or not (and it’s kind of surprising how many of them didn’t have it in mind at the beginning). They’re not all tremendous reads (it sadly has one of the least compelling John Carpenter interviews I’ve read/listened to/watched in a decade of being addicted to his interviews) but they all combine to a vivid kaleidoscope of stories that remains somehow more encouraging than otherwise.
The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress by Søren Kierkegaard
More stage than screen, but indulge me. The only work I’ve read by Kierkegaard and likely to remain that way just because I think I’m too stupid for his works, but learning what I know of his philosophical ideas and experiencing them applied to a strictly aesthetic eye in terms of the dramatic arts felt like the first time I understood the thoroughline that leads to what we consider transcendence, a little ironic given how Kierkegaard’s focus is on the physical elements so it found me making my way backwards. But I don’t think I approached art ever the same way after reading this.
The Making of the Wizard Of Ozby Aljean Harmetz
I could be tempted to recycle what I said about The Jaws Log here but Harmetz, unlike Gottlieb, was not on-set for Jaws and while it’s no less a compelling read, it’s also an exhaustive one that really covers every nook and crany so that everything that happened to collide into this one of a kind work of Hollywood studio filmmaking was preserved in this tome. It’s not a story, it’s a record but a casual and inviting one.
Who The Devil Made It by Peter Bogdanovich
It was between this and This Is Orson Welles and while the latter focuses on my favorite filmmaker, this just has more material to dig into. Bogdanovich was a film scholar unlike any other and particularly a tremendous interviewer because he crosses the line between admiration and familiarity being such a filmmaker. And being in the perfect spot to live among the first generation of geniuses from von Sternberg to Lang means that he gave us a window into how these filmmakers thought and expressed themselves beyond the camera eye.
The Primal Screenby Andrew Sarris
My favorite film critic and this was the collection of essays that really felt like it was showing me new angles to look at films I was already familiar with. “Notes of Auteur Theory” particularly seems to get much attention in how it deepends Bazin’s original ideas that became such a default unconscious way that movie buffs look at directors these days.
Hitchcock/Truffaut by François Truffaut
I feel like this entry is just… self-explanatory.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Nightmare Movies by Kim Newman
Could do with being updated for the latest horror cinema, because Newman has basically provided a directory for one’s horror movie predilections to be teased out by genre and through the neverending list of names he pulls out.
Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978-1986 by Adam Rockoff
I name-dropped it before in my “history of the slasher” post and of course due credit to Kevin J. Olson of Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies for bringing it to my attention, but it bears repeating that this is as essential an overview of Slasher Movies’ prime heyday (stopping right before 1987 brought the death knell of its first wave) and any fan of that subgenre as I’ve found myself to be, needs to read it.
The Battle for Brazil by Jack Mathews
While he remainds one of my favorite filmmakers, I’ve come to consider Terry Gilliam as his own worst enemy in his infamously hard productions. Except this case in which he had his masterpiece held hostage and tormented and this excellent book rivals the infamous Criterion documentary in capturing every single beat of that tense public fight between Gilliam and Sheinberg. Must read for film fans who love drama.
The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams
More of a reference point than an overview like The Illusion of Life and therefore has less use to me as a non-animator, but given how Williams’ portrayal of movement and his fluidity (as a result of a very taxing devotion to each frame) is unlike anybody else who ever took the pencil to paper and probably will never be seen again on Earth, going through each point and trick he elaborates on here is like seeing a magician guide us into our own secrets.
The Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey
The single most guilty pleasure selection of all of these, a series of dark fantasy noir books about going to Hell and back again and back to Hell again and back to back again. But they’re also very clearly building from the hard-nosed style of tough guy movies and written by a clear classic and cult movie fan, including the fact that the protagonist Jim Stark makes his base of operations a sketch Los Angeles video store that he shanghais from an old frenemy early in the first book. Constantly name-dropping films and otherwise making quiet allusions to film iconography, it’s an easy enough read as dingy unrefined serial pulp but totally became addictive to as a fellow film buff who just wanted trash to pass the time with. I’ll just also note: I know Kadrey has revealed to name the actor he sees as Stark (this series has been in development for a film adaptation for a minute) but I’m 100% confident it’s James Dean: the character shares his name with the protagonist of Rebel Without a Cause and it’s the most movie that most frequently gets unspoken allusions towards (particularly one of the books – I think it was Kill the Dead – had its climax at the Griffith Observatory).
Shout out to Lu F– for putting me on this series exactly 10 years ago.
Universal Studios Monsters series by Larry Mike Garmon
I have no clue how these novels would play now, maybe they’d be disposable trash like most young adult works. But back in Elementary school, this series – which follows apparently a group of South Florida adolescents who unwittingly rip the Universal Monsters from the screen to the real world* and have to hunt to return them to their movies – came right when I was first being introduced to the Universal Studios Monster films and became a nice anchor for me at school when I’d be reading a book instead of sitting in front of the screen watching them in action.
*Also the means by which these monsters are unleashed is by a 3D projector, which is ironic for the Creature from the Black Lagoon given that his movie was released in 3D.
BOOKS I WOULD LIKE TO READ WONDERING IF IT WOULD MAKE THIS LIST:
Suspectsby David Thomson
Invented backstory for movie characters? This is basically the horseshit I was doing already. That’s called head canon and I’m all for it.
Film Form and Film Sense by Sergei Eisenstein
I have to imagine if any filmmaker’s mind could enrich one’s filmmaking or filmgoing, it’s the fella who established the most effective way to make the viewer read a film.
Future Noir by Paul M. Sammon
I know, I know. It’s only an exhaustive comprehensive book on my favorite movie of all time. But I guess after watching Dangerous Days, I saw no immediate need to read this.
The Autobiography of Georges Méliès by Georges Méliès
The original cinematic magician. I’ve been perpetually two weeks away from ordering this for the last two years.
It is already MayJuneThe End of the WorldJuly August Fuck off, September 2023 and it’s not like I’ve been marathoning movies from last year that I missed, so I may as well just put it to internet ink now. Look… when I look at the difference between 2021 and 2022 as stock against a heavily transformed movie landscape in the wake of 2020’s desolation, there’s probably not a HUGE difference. It is especially tempting to consider 2022 a major return of proper popcorn cinema when 2021 had Dune breaking through and (regrettably) Spider-Man: No Way Home broke the $1 billion dollar barrier once more. But y’know what? 2021 didn’t FEEL like a popcorn movie season. 2022 REALLY FELT LIKE ONE, with Top Gun: Maverick right there in the middle of the summer demanding a big-screen watch the same way Dune or Malignant did. And then it just kept going, we got more MOVIE MOVIES (if I may be allowed to sound manic) now than it seems we did in the last two years (especially if we consider Memoria a 2022 wide release given its tour having begun proper last April, but my 2021 list is already set in stone).
And 2022 specifically stuck the landing: this was the first Oscar season in a long while where I liked half of the Best Picture nominees and as you’ll see, many of the various contenders ended up highlights of the movie year for me. Which is a nice feeling of alignment with the public consensus, chiefly when the highest-grossing film since COVID is one of my very favorite movies to have come out from the last five years.
So I feel in a better mood about movies to come than I did about 12 or 17 months ago and looking back on my superlatives below… I think I have good reason to feel that optimism. But we’ll see, it’s not like 2023 is doing much special and we’re still in some post-COVID desolation.
BEST EXPERIENCE WATCHING A MOVIE IN A THEATER Moonfall at the Cinemark Seven Bridges IMAX
It was an extremely late Wednesday night (for the record, my Thursday workdays are the ones that require I get up the earlier) because it was the very last screening for a 15/70 IMAX theater that’s the only one remaining in Illinois but a full 1 hour and a half drive from where I live and another hour and a half back. The theater was almost completely empty except one other person far down and away from me. And yet it felt thrilling being engulfed in my tired state under the deranged pseudoscientific cosmic disaster dwarfing me in my seat. You know I just said 2022 felt like a real MOVIE MOVIE year? I’ll be quite honest, even in my lonely enthusiasm, Moonfall was the movie that first jazzed me up to that fact, box office failure be damned.
(Special Mention to finally seeing Gremlins 2 in 35mm at the Music Box, fulfilling my long-time dream of watching Hulk Hogan scream at Gremlins and save the picture with a movie theater crowd. Still wish I got to see it as a kid for the first time that way, but this is the best it gets.)
MOST AMBIVALENT REGRET ON MISSING OUT A THEATRICAL VIEWING RRR at the Music Box
I love the Music Box crowds for certain movies and I’m a little bit apprehensive about other types. I must say RRR fell into the latter and I didn’t originally plan on attending the screening (which would have seen the attendance of S.S. Rajamouli), but a friend of mine – one whom I had already seen RRR in a theater with – bought a plane ticket for us to catch it together on a whim. We just missed the final available tickets before the show sold out and while I regret missing a chance for us to hang, I’m not convinced I missed out on a real experience there.
BIGGEST REGRET ON MISSING OUT A THEATRICAL VIEWING Gabriel Over the White House in 35mm at Northeastern Illinois University (courtesy of Chicago Film Society)
In my defense, I was flying to Vienna on that date. Yeah, humblebragging but I still haven’t seen Gabriel Over the White House, so who’s the real loser here.
2022 RELEASE I MOST REGRET MISSING FROM THE THEATERS Fire of Love
Blame it on my bias, I was expecting a conventional biographical documentary and it’s not NOT one. But the archival material captured by its subjects – late volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft – is breathtaking and was deserving of a large-scale exhibition in the manner that the movie presents. My goof and I pay for it but good.
2022 RELEASE I MOST REGRET MISSING Aline with Petrov’s Flu a close second.
Aline is more embarrassing on account of being my type of camp and having been available on Amazon Prime for quite a minute. I just lost time and couldn’t wait anymore with this post. Watch I log it on letterboxd a few days later.
WORST TRAILER Bodies Bodies Bodies – Trailer 1
This is just a me thing: slasher movies with a level of distance from themselves is already a pet peeve of mine, but this trailer felt like it was made out of dialogue from any given tumblr scroll. Feel fortunate that in spite not liking the movie, it was more than a collection of hashtag talk that this trailer presented itself as.
BIGGEST GAP BETWEEN QUALITY OF TRAILER AND QUALITY OF MOVIE Black Panther: Wakanda Forever teaser trailer
It didn’t hide the ugly cinematography, but the mood and progressive pacing of the trailer lent sobriety that ended up making this piece of marketing feel like a more sincere attempt to grapple with the absence of Chadwick Boseman than the actual feature turned out to be (maybe it helps that a trailer can’t shovel in teasers to Ironheart and whatever the fuck Julia Louise-Dreyfuss will be doing). The movie? The fucking worst feature release by Marvel at the time (congratulations to Ant-Man and the Wasp 3 for dethroning that before I could post this). The trailer? Genuine art, from the delicate shift between “No Woman, No Cry” and “Alright” to a clip of Angela Bassett’s anguish that we knew would be the Oscar nod clip on sight right down to the ambiguous final beat just daring you to lean in and try to find out who the new king is.
BEST TRAILER Barbie – Teaser Trailer
I’m not a Greta Gerwig fan and I’m not a Noah Baumbach fan (anymore, the man stopped being vicious to his characters and lost his edge) so there’s almost nothing about this that would be promising for me on paper (except that I’m both a Margot Robbie fan and a Ryan Gosling fan). And then this thing drops, painstakingly recreates one of the most iconic sequences in movie history and uses it to push the brand’s recognizability into something that could dig into even the more straight-faced of moviegoers. It’s funny, it’s sharp, and it suggests maybe there’s a little more charm in here than I’d expect to land with me. It has my curiosity.
WORST POSTER Orphan: First Kill
Even Fuhrman is giving us a look like “you see this shit?” And I don’t know what the airbrush artist had against Julia Stiles.
BEST POSTER Tár
Come on, just look at the way Blanchett fills the frame. Solid, impactful, centered, all of which describes the text too (I love how she only needs to be credited by her last name to make the point now) and feels physical and volatile in the context of what she’s doing in the poster. Also, it’s way too easy to make a Jeb joke.
(I’m also fond of Three Thousand Years of Longing – the solid red triangle of Elba’s hood engulfing Swinton’s lanky and cross-armed body in a protective manner – but I think I just prefer the neatness of Tar).
WORST TITLE Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank or Prey for the Devil
PUT A FUCKING COLON IN THESE TITLES DC League of Super-Pets and Jurassic World Dominion
MOST INACCURATE TITLE Wendell & Wild
MOST “OH THAT’S CLEVER” TITLE Prey
BEST TITLE Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko (I am also very fond of Mad God, The Banshees of Inisherin, Armageddon Time, Flux Gourmet, Three Thousand Years of Longing, X, Tar, and Crimes of the Future)
WORST CAMEO
Ryan Reynolds just popping into Bullet Train late in the game to tell us that Deadpool 2 is now definitely closer to David Leitch’s default style and tone than Atomic Blonde.
MOST BAD LUCK CAMEO
Can’t say I have any tears for Henry Cavill since I think his appearance in Black Adam was not very appealing (partly because I think his story as Superman was closed by the Snydercut), but what an unceremonious way to lose TWO jobs after being trumpeted so hard by that sequence.
BEST CAMEO Björk in The Northman
Few contemporary artists I can think of as a force of nature the way Björk is and here she is literally embodying a force. I imagine the rarity and reluctance with which she’s been willing to return to screen acting (yet another reason to hate Lars von Trier) adds to the ceremony. A stately appearance and declaration of the film’s heightened attitudes that could not come from anyone else.
(Also want to give it up to Jessica Harper in Bones and All)
WORST LINE
“Try anything and you’re cancelled, bro” -Some influencer (imdb is no help on who the actor is) in Texas Chainsaw Massacre (written by Chris Thomas Devlin)
MOST DIVORCED FROM REALITY LINE
“The job of a banker is to help people reach their dreams!” -Alan Gardner (Jonah Platt in the English dub I saw in theaters) in Pompo the Cinephile (written by Hirao Takayuki)
BEST LINE
“I know it hurts. No one asks to be left behind. But in a hundred years, when you and I are both long gone, any time someone threads a frame of yours through a sprocket, you will be alive again. You see what that means? One day, every person on every film shot this year will be dead. And one day, all those films will be pulled from the vaults, and all their ghosts will dine together, and adventure together, go to the jungle, to war together. A child born in 50 years will stumble across your image flickering on a screen and feel he knows you, like… like a friend, though you breathed your last before he breathed his first. You’ve been given a gift. Be grateful. Your time today is through, but you’ll spend eternity with angels and ghosts.” -Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) in Babylon (written by Damien Chazelle)
WORST SCENE
Alexei Navalny flop-sweating his way into explicitly refusing to condemn neo-Nazism in (the now Oscar-winning) Navalny.
WORST NON-DOCUMENTARY SCENE
Either sequence in DC League of Super-Pets where the turtle voiced by Natasha Lyonne gets a bleep.
BEST SCENE
I feel very biased and basic saying it’s the ending of the Fabelmans but you must understand that moment was sacred lore between my film school friends and I sharing the youtube clip where Spielberg talked about that moment and the fact that the punchline of the scene is an impish final camera movement is the cherry on top.
AUTHOR’S NOTE, August 2023: The following two sections revolve around movies that I have in fact rewatched since these were drafted. I’ve reworded the usual sentiment of anticipating a change of attitude. Also, both of these rewatches were in the same weekend and context: The Music Box’s annual 70mm showcase las month (though I’m disappointed this year was devoted to 21st century cinema).
MOVIE THAT WAS MOST LIKELY TO DEPRECIATE AND ALREADY HAS SINCE I TOOK SO LONG TO POST THIS
I like backloaded strengths in cinema, I really do, but normally that doesn’t yield very well to rewatches when it becomes a waiting game to get to the good stuff. Even less so when it’s a movie that edges close to 2 1/2 hours the way that Nope does, because now that waiting game is hung up on the story and… man, Nope‘s writing really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, jerry-rigging itself with no care towards character consistency or momentum to project its ambiguous musings on the concept of spectacle. It only works once it gets to that later spectacle and captures us in a way contradictory to the peril the film suggests about that captivation, like an anti-Spielberg picture.
MOVIE THAT WAS MOST LIKELY TO APPRECIATE AND ALREADY HAS SINCE I TOOK SO LONG TO POST THIS
It’s a mess and there’s still parts that I outright don’t like, but Babylon clicked a lot more with me this time around for a few reasons related to how I’ve long felt for movies (self-indulgence is good; Damien Chazelle and I align on what art means) and a couple of things related to my last rewatch (being miffed by the smug online reception of the movie; watching Boogie Nights the same night which is a lesser version).
OTHER MOVIES FROM 2022 WHERE THE DISCOURSE WAS UNFAIR HORSESHIT
BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Blonde
To Leslie
The internet really does fuck things up sometimes. I don’t even love these movies but seriously…
MOVIE I LOOK FORWARD TO REWATCHING MOST
Crimes of the Future. I really do feel like there’s something that clicks about this in its positive lens on the body and all its morphing that may unlock a new angle on all of Cronenberg’s masterpieces previously that would be slapped with the “horror” brand specific to their tone.
STREAMING RELEASE THAT MOST BELONGED IN A THEATER
Prey. Disney’s reign of evil strikes again.
MOST “I NEED TO FIND NEW FRIENDS” RELEASE
Smile. It’s got a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes so I know that there’s people who love it as much as I did, but they’re not living around me.
MOST “COME ON, IT’S BAD BUT IT’S NOT AS BAD AS Y’ALL KEEP SAYING” RELEASE
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In terms of “online slashers of 2022”, I think Bodies Bodies Bodies surpasses it in unbearable writing and it maintains a mean streak in recent horror that I was surprised to see more frequent than possible (see also: Scream ’22, Slumber Party Massacre ’21, Barbarian, X, Pearl, The Black Phone).
MOST UNDERRATED
I can’t say the hostility to The Munsters was unexpected, but I still can’t abide it one bit. That movie is more fun than any of its haters have ever had and I’m glad Rob Zombie enjoys the same things I do.
MOST “I AM A MONSTER” RELEASE
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. I swear you don’t want to know what I think about that fucking twerp of a character.
MOST OVERHYPED
Barbarian. It’s good – see where I mentioned it as a “mean” horror film – but I swear the “big twist” people were raving about is just the inciting incident of the movie proper and really every single person comparing it to Malignant needs to stop.
MOST OVERRATED
I’d made my inner peace enough that Everything Everywhere All at Once was going to win all its Oscars long before the award season discourse and I don’t doubt the people affected by the movie are genuine in their feeling (it also is undeniably the most idiosyncratic Best Picture winner since Birdman). But personally speaking, it’s among the unfunniest comedies of the decade and it was 2 ½ hours of that.
GUILTIEST PLEASURE
I’ve already praised Moonfall as a tremendous moviewatching experience up above, but even beyond that: it’s absolutely my kind of stupid and mixes the committed verve of its premise with the immaculate scale of disaster popcorn movie (including some of the best special effects of the 2020s so far). It may very well stop being an ironic pleasure on rewatch and the guilt may simply come from the horseshit conspiracy theories it fully believes in. But boy do those theories yield entertaining genre cinema.
MOVIES ABOUT THE FILMMAKER RECOUNTING HIS CHILDHOOD AS A YOUNG JEWISH CREATIVE COMING TO RECOGNIZE THE BLUNT REALITY OF THE WORLD AND PROCESSING THEIR POWER OR LACK OF TO CHANGE THINGS, RANKED:
The Fabelmans
Armageddon Time
COLIN FARRELL WAS HAVING QUITE A YEAR, LET’S RANK HIS FOUR RELEASES (all four of which he is excellent in):
The Banshees of Inisherin
After Yang
Thirteen Lives
The Batman
BIGGEST WASTE OF CASTING THAT YIELDED A GREAT PERFORMANCE:
Jamie Clayton as the Lead Cenobite in Hellraiser is fantastic on her own merits. Beyond Doug Bradley’s history in the role and well beyond what that remake deserved.
BIGGEST WASTE OF CASTING WHERE EVEN THE PERFORMANCE FELL FLAT:
Robert Pattinson as Batman is one of the most interesting choices you could bring to me and the movie opted to waste it on a doofy Kurt Cobain impression.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
Jerzy Skolimowski has been one of the great Euro-arthouse directors I hadn’t broken into prior to 2022 so it feels like a big mistake that my first watch was his handsome but nevertheless straightforward off-brand Balthazar homage, EO.
BEST SURPRISE
Honestly so many, this was a pretty thrilling year of movies beating my expectations. I guess listing the top 4:
Living transposing one of the great Kurosawa masterpieces Ikiru to post-war British stuffiness immaculately.
The Black Phone showing that Scott Derrickson could provide a rather ruthless and depressed view of the world beyond his usual Christian impulses.
Armageddon Time engaing with James Gray’s privileged background with an honest ambivalence that made for one of the richest autocritiques of artist’s memoirs I’ve seen in the 21st Century.
The Woman King restoring my faith in Gina Prince-Bythewood as a classically minded dramatic storyteller with a stylistic and tonal versatility.
BEST POPCORN MOVIE
The real answer is likely my number four of the year, but I mean… it’s on my top ten so customarily I gotta give a seat to another movie. And I know we got a whole lot of “movies is back” movies but nothing felt more “movies is back” than Top Gun: Maverick. Taking familiar crowdpleaser tropes with nothing but sincerity, punctuating them with heartstopping aerial photography and choreography, and then mixing the two of them in an outright masterpiece of a third act that’s basically Star Wars‘ trench run.
Pinocchio (Robert Zemeckis, USA)– Look how they massacred my boy.
Jurassic World Dominion (Colin Trevorrow, USA) – I guess if my movie’s dinosaurs looked like that, I’d be disinterested in them too.
Prey for the Devil (Daniel Stamm, USA) – There’s always one release that looks “so bad it’s good” and then they just fucking get ya.
Hocus Pocus 2 (Anne Fletcher, USA) – The same year as Top Gun: Maverick, this movie reminds us nostalgia is a scourge sometimes.
Bros (Nicholas Stoller, USA) – Whatever this is the first of, I’m waiting for the first good one.
Halloween Ends (David Gordon Green, USA) – Its disinterest in being a Halloween movie is only less irritating than its disinterest in Halloween as an atmosphere.
The Requin (Le-Van Kiet, USA) – Incredible to have the worst CGI water in the same year as the best CGI water.
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (Stephen Donnelly, UK/USA) – Look how they massacred that boy too, I guess.
Choose or Die (Toby Meakins, UK) – I die.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen, India/USA/UK) Armageddon Time (James Gray, USA) The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, Ireland/UK/USA) Benediction (Terence Davies, UK/USA) Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook, South Korea) Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, Australia/USA) Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko (Watanabe Ayumu, Japan) Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (Guillermo Del Toro & Mark Gustafson, USA/Mexico) Haulout (Maxim Arbugaev & Evgenia Arbugaeva, UK/Russia) Ice Merchants (João Gonzalez, Portugal/UK/France) Mad God (Phil Tippett, USA) Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, USA) Three Thousand Years of Longing (George Miller, USA/Australia) X (Ti West, USA/Canada) The Woman King (Gina Prince-Bythewood, USA)
AND NOW MY TEN FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2022
10. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Joel Crawford & Januel Mercado, USA)
There’s a high risk at this point of overrating the film – I don’t yet think it surpasses the How to Train Your Dragon films as Dreamworks Animation’s masterpiece – but I guess that could only come as overcorrection to the low expectations the sequel to a spin-off of a franchise that ruined American animation could get on default. The fact remains that this feels more impressive as a successor to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse‘s gamechanging work than that movie’s own sequel: trading the show-offy ambition of those films for an idiosyncratic playing around of lighting, textures, and frame rates that accomodates the cozy storybook structure and rich introspective themes tremendously well, like moving illustrations to a fairytale with extra punch in its fragmentary and revolving fight sequences. That still doesn’t get us to the perfection of its surprise villain: kids movie scary enough in his first scene, but abstracting and breaking down the film with every appearance until his proper introduction explains exactly why things feel dangerous whenever he interrupts the film. I guess maybe one can say the movie getting acclaim largely for having a panic attack scene is overrating, but to be fair, it’s an emotionally strong one.
9. A Couple (Frederick Wiseman, France/USA)
59 years into his career and 92 years into his life, one of the great documentarians has decided to make his first narrative feature. Except there doesn’t seem to be a real shift to Wiseman’s M.O.: he’s still dissecting and presenting the intricacies of an institution, just now it’s the institution of marriage rather than a physical institute. And to my real surprise, Wiseman and star Nathalie Boutefeu have made a point of building this out of the empty spaces in between what’s on-screen: the absence of Leo Tolstory, the addressee of the material. The ebb and flow between tranquility and agitation. The moments in between that map out where we are in Sophia’s feelings about this off-screen marriage and why she is so. It matches with Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth as a film that sticks in my head specifically because of how totally unlike anything its director made before but I’d dare to say that Wiseman’s confidence in using the specificity of the Tolstoys’ scenario to draft a universal image of the intangible emotions and psychology of this social concept stands a little more in conversation with the surveys he takes of government-funded buildings.
8. The Northman (Robert Eggers, USA)
If this is dead last in my rankings of Eggers’ three features so far, it must say something how even the “least” of his films is an aweinspiring immersion into not just a distant place and time with unfathomable plausibility but the firm state of mind that setting forces out of you if you want to meet your destiny. It’s a one-path train to find vengeance, disinterested in any contemporary lens towards such an act. Every element of it – particularly its lateral camera movements – to stress its end point as an inevitability and an aspiration, quietly defining the singular psychology of Amleth as a protagonist. All the rest of the craft is to servicing that in defining the world he’s stomping through to get blood and result in a muddy and earthy adventure picture. Simple ambitions, but impeccably accomplished.
I confess, I couldn’t just pick one. One of these was one of the most emotionally devastating works I’ve seen in a long while, the other was the most assaultive experience I had in a movie theater. At the center is one new technique Noé is flexing out: splitting the screen in half and letting the focus of the shot separate in dizzying and alienating directions. Which makes it all the more impressive how he’s exposed the range of such a technique by presenting a lengthy and emotionally painful stretch of time with two slowly collapsing minds and bodies (somehow without even the slightest hint of exploitation as one would expect of the enfant terrible that Noé embraced as his role), followed by physically disorienting colors and mania that escalates into a complete collapse of the film-within-film and then the film itself (at least referring to the order in which I watched these films. The order of their production and original premiere is reversed). Both of them finding room to deliver two of the most affecting endings of the year, making me feel like I was punched in the gut and left for dead.
6. Inu-Oh (Yuasa Masaaki, Japan)
At this point, Yuasa has shown himself quite a master of the soaring power of song as a character beat (his last three movies all have spectacularly dazzling and joyous musical numbers), but it didn’t stop Inu-Oh from blowing me away in using its period stylings and settings as a counterpoint against the fierce punk rock rebellion that kickstarts this movie’s heart. All its anachronisms as either animation or glorified music video is to break complete away from its otherwise sober representation of a distant time and place intent on making art subjugate its audience rather than liberate them, celebrating that art’s ability to carry the spirit of its artist through its liberal variety in musical and artistic influence.
5. Il Buco (Michelangelo Frammertino, Italy)
I don’t want to dare claiming that it made cave-diving and -mapping into a thrilling act of drama, because that would have to be specific to the type of viewer you are and anyway there’s absolutely no drama to speak of. This is a fine quiet and slow picture, happy to linger on the textures of the cave in question and soothing ambience of the mountainous region outside the titular “buco” with barely any editorializing to it. Just watching light craft the lines and crags of this underground adventure and steadily pacing itself all the way to the end. A meditative experience that was worth the 5 hours of driving I had to do to see it in a theater.
4. Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, USA)
Look, sometimes the populist choice is so for a reason. Enough has been said about Avatar: The Way of Water‘s bleeding edge visual effects and it earns every single one of them for the immersive nature of this film taking you to a full realized world of complete invention. But I also feel protective of it against those “great technique, shallow storytelling” notes it seems to receive: I think this is the efficient and effective storytelling Cameron has give us since the first Terminator. Wisely slotting one of its swift three hours for exploring this new world the central characters are forced to move into – gloriously realized in a welcoming and hypnotic way – and then a second hour to the building of the broad central drama that is at the end of the day just two guys who really hate each other in cat-and-mouse and the final hour to a bombastic climax that combines all the best elements of virtually every film Cameron ever made (even the flying fish creatures are basically his long-forsaken Piranha II). That last hour particularly is not just the best popcorn cinema since the pandemic, it’s the best popcorn cinema since Mission: Impossible – Fallout‘s helicopter chase: an escalating set of situations in one extended battle-heavy night making this family we’ve grown close to over 2 hours a rather urgent stake and building its tension up to the point where two Marine-trained aliens just decide to whup each other’s asses. If it doesn’t hold up on a small screen, that’s not my problem. It’s not like Starry Night holds up as a jpeg, some works of art demand to be watched a certain way.
3. The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, USA)
I’m not going to go off and pretend I have an aversion to filmmakers talking about their young memories about their parents (see also: the same year’s Belfast, which I didn’t love but I seem the only person who liked), but interjecting that with the wide-eyed idea of “movies are magic” seems like it’s a touch too saccharine for my appeal (see also: the same year’s Cinema Paradiso, absolute dogshit). The thing is that The Fabelmans is that if you approach it at a surface-level but if you cut even a little bit slightly, Spielberg has not just recounted the way he’s felt himself get an early handle on all the emotional potency of cinema as an unspoken language for him, but also as an ignorable blockage from the real flesh-and-blood people around him and how to deal with the angles he cannot change. It’s a rather plaintive and self-examining thing, even as it never feels difficult or less pleasurable to look at because when Spielberg confesses to bein so good at making movie images… he’s telling the truth. A relaxedly adult bit of auto-critique on all the ways Spielberg recognizes he couldn’t figure as a young man, maybe less interesting to people who don’t like his movies but their loss.
2. No Bears (Jafar Panahi, Iran)
A film even more vicious in its auto-critique than The Fabelmans was. Not to make light of Panahi’s imprisonment while this movie was playing in cinemas, but it gives me the sensation that Panahi had even less enjoyment being stuck with himself than being stuck between walls. His latest of post-ban films is the first that seems required that you’re at some level familiar with the previous films in that line, but even beyond that, this is a rather disarming navigation of a movie-within-a-movie conceit that pulls back precisely when we could not expect it (including an opening sequence that made me feel like someone hung me upside down once it revealed its hand). And then that’s woven into a rural tragedy that even as fiction recontextualizes the plight of Panahi as one of a forgiven privilege that clashes with the film’s quiet introspection wondering if that forgiveness should be, subject to an ensemble of locals that is lived-in as Taxi and 3 Faces but also a lot more dramatically hostile and a performance by Panahi that shows an impeccable ability to reserve his inner commentary so that this remains one of the most challenging films of the post-pandemic era. Like an anti-Close-Up in how bothered it feels by the camera’s place in human lives.
Earwig (Lucile Hadžihalilović, UK/Belgium/France)
A film almost exclusively set here on the basis of its means of being rather than what it is being about. If there’s one thing you need out of a film, it’s light and duration and Earwig seems to have some of the most unique and lulling presentations of that I’ve seen since Jodie Mack’s work. It’s not even particularly beautiful work, mostly of a dungy brown shade as would be appropriate to a film about the misery of such fragile lives and the unnerving tether their fates have together (it occasionally shifts to gray for the outdoor sequences), but the way the camera simply lets the necessary lights seep in and reveal all that unpleasant imagery in their invisible paths feels like watching a chiaroscuro heavy painting simply fade onto the canvas rather than be composed. It does wonders for its atmosphere and ambience, neither of which are promising a particularly good time but I guess all of that establishes – like Evolution beforehand – that Lucile Hadžihalilović is as good at getting under our skin as her more infamous husband (the one whose movies are up at number 7) and where he makes it a provocative experience, she makes its an unconscious and frankly more artful one. Joins Memoria as one of the “there are still masterpieces” around post-pandemic films.
It has become the case that my co-hosts on A Night at the Opera– Britt and Erickh – wanted to go through yet another of Dennis Collazzo’s quizzes from Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. But unfortunately the man has not posted in over a year, so as I wish him well, I ended up taking charge to create my own quiz in his fashion (under the cheeky name of “Orson Welles and the Safety Car”) for us to play around with on our latest episode.
And on the off-chance that anybody else has interest, to play along at home and provide their own answers on their blog, social media, or the comments here. This is in fact the second such quiz I created after doing one for the purpose of a panel in this year’s Phoenix Fan Fusion. Unfortunately, I don’t think our answers have been recorded for that event, but expect to see those questions shortly as an upcoming post for y’all to play around with. In the meantime, behold the quiz and also feel free to listen in on the episode where Britt, Erickh, and myself go through our answers for these questions (the segment begins at 1:12:28).
What is the last movie you saw in a theater so far?
Third favorite William Friedkin film.
What is a movie you think is anti-establishment in the wrong way?
Susan Sarandon or Jessica Harper.
Vulgar Auterism – yes or no?
Favorite Ernst Lubitsch.
Since it’s been 22 years, what do you find to be the most monumental change in mainstream American storytelling since 9/11?
Baby Driver had “Brighton Rock”, what is your Killer Track?
Second favorite Looney Tunes character.
Biggest moment of contempt for the audience in a movie?
Would you sooner roller-skate with Gene Kelly or skateboard with Fred Astaire?
Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, and Michael Fassbender get in a car race. Who wins?
Favorite Looney Tunes That Is Not “Duck Amuck”, the “Hunting” trilogy, “What’s Opera, Doc?”, or “Duck Dodgers”?
Least Favorite Slasher Film.
Name a fictional movie you’d like to see.
Platinum Dunes or Dark Castle?
FMK: Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, Frank Tashlin.
You have a blank check to take a trip to the shooting locations of only one film of your choosing. Which film is it?
Favorite instance of location shooting?
Joel Hodgson or Mike Anderson?
Second favorite non-Schlesinger Tex Avery work?
Barbenheimer – yes or no?
Favorite song written for a non-musical film?
Favorite Disney-era Star Wars work.
What’s a movie you love that is incredibly tough to recommend?
What movies would make your top three of 2023 so far?
What is the snobbiest movie take you have in your arsenal?
I really really wanted to discuss the John Wick: Chapter 4 ensemble in my proper review, but found no place to do so organically. So as a post-script, I have arranged this brief acknowledgement of the primary performances in that film, all of whom did excellent inhabiting the fussy world of assassins and targets that the John Wick movies crafted together. My one regret is that I didn’t think to do this for Chapter 3.
Natalia Tena (Katia) is a little shaky for me – her Spanish accent leaks out from her attempts to sound Russian – but she has a head honcho shotcaller presence that makes her credible as one of the many characters who makes the call between John’s life or death.
Marko Zaror (Chidi) is an incredibly good sport for his skill in martial arts compared to the hissable heel he’s playing here, even as a henchman. He certainly has a lot more to do here than in Machete Kills and he meets it with the casual brutality he brings to every scene.
Rina Sawayama (Shimazu Akira), in what I think is her first feature acting, proves herself a natural at the harsh escalating vengefulness that her character dives into as well as the physical demands of the film’s action setpieces.
Nobody in the world could accuse Sanada Hiroyuki (Shimazu Koji) of doing anything in this film he hasn’t done before in other movies, but when you’re good at something… The quiet samurai discipline note is of a second nature to his screen persona, so damn if he doesn’t hit that note as effectively as he ever did.
Scott Adkins (Killa Harkan) receives his most acting-reliant role to date (though his martial artistry still shows adept at navigating the ridiculous fat suit his cartoon character requires) and gleefully chews up his obnoxious Bond villain with an aggressively endless grin and cartoon accent rivalling that of Skarsgård below.
Lance Reddick (Charon), in what sadly turned out to be among his very last performances, introduces to his familiar character an amiable and steadfast loyalty that earns the intense sentiment of his colleagues through the remainder of the film.
Ian McShane (Winston) also turns out to be a returning cast member who introduces a brand-new shade to his performance. After confidently wearing the invincibility of Winston like nothing, McShane finds areas to betray vulnerability and grievances that mirror Wick’s own and without turning away from the sophisticated posturing that Winston is so inclined to.
Clancy Brown (The Harbinger), as the second high-level functionary we see after Asia Kate Dillon’s Adjudicator in Chapter 3, approaches the role with a stern strictly business attitude that seems to land with a quiet irritation towards both parties at the center of the film’s conflict like a referee who is getting tired of telling you to stop fouling. It’s also to Brown’s credit as an imposing character actor that he never calls attention to the significant amount of scarring and marks The Harbinger wears, letting the stories untold simply lay on his physique.
I’ve been clear since Chapter 2 that Laurence Fishburne brings to the Bowery King a bombastic sense of swagger that feels worthy of comparison to Orson Welles’ showmanship but Chapter 4 found the man taking it all the way up to 11. He opens the film blaring a condensed translation of Canto 3 from Dante’s Inferno and keeps that level the whole way through.
Bill Skarsgård (Le Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont) is going the opposite direction from what Riccardo Scamarcio brought to his European rich shit in Chapter 2. Where Scamarcio grounded his character’s privileged shadiness, Skarsgård seems to be playing a Frenchman like a Sacha Baron Cohen character: unreal accent, bug-eyed flopsweat when he’s losing, smug oiliness when he thinks he’s winning.
Of the two new actors to me in this film, Shamier Anderson (Mr. Nobody) had a lot more to do so it should be no surprise that he’s stolen the show. Imbuing a sardonic cool that teasingly hides his character’s affiliations and interests outside of the monetary, he dances through the franchise’s arch dialogue with a fluency that makes him seem like the fella holding all the cards even when he isn’t.
What can’t be said about Donnie Yen‘s performance as Caine here? It’s not only the best performance of the whole franchise (edging out Chapter 3‘s Mark Dascascos as the talkative fanboy Zero) but also of the not-insignificant amount of Donnie Yen performances I’ve seen. What could be a stereotypical blind swordsman is transformed by Yen into a mixture of reactive humor, conflicted soulfulness, and distanced melancholy and it’s resulted in the most well-rounded entity in the John Wick universe. Even his combat style shows character from the way he picks spots for his movement alarms to the aimless manner he fires a gun before finding his focus.
And of course, there’s Keanu Reeves. An actor whom some people may find a variety of issues with, but who spent four films in a row transforming all of those things into dimensions of John Wick, a silent but dense embodiment of rage and grief as a singular force. It is without a doubt the best character work of Reeves’ career, finding a variety of tones to deliver “yeah” over and over, mapping the fatigue of Wick’s rampage through a compact timeframe, meeting every single physical demand that the action-heavy franchise put on Reeves to make him look like an easy badass, and delivering the assertive menace that a man can give killing every single person in the room. We don’t get a John Wick without Keanu Reeves.
(N.B. I’d have included the below fella if I could remember the character’s name…)
There’s been a running line on John Wick: Chapter 4 that it is the “epic” installment of the John Wick series. A sentiment that we could argue the movie itself encourages by having its first scene transition be a mimicry of one of the most famous cuts in all of cinema, one of several gestures throughout the franchise that signal director Chad Stahelski is not just a genius at orchestrating action setpieces… he’s also a huge film nerd.
If I demur from calling Chapter 4 THE epic of John Wick, it isn’t to claim that movie isn’t a globe-trotting broad canvassed epic on its own terms. That’s just an indisputable fact. But I do think its predecessor Chapter 3 – Parabellum had already introduced the concept of a John Wick epic (albeit one with less globe-trotting than Chapter 4 has) and for a long while it feels like Chapter 4 is specifically taking its cues from Parabellum. In fact, because Chapter 4, as structured by Michael Finch and returning writer Shay Hatten, seems to arrange itself so neatly into a prologue in Morocco, a first act in Osaka, a second act in Berlin, and a final act in Paris (with some layovers in New York City) that one can pinpoint the moment Chapter 4 actually ignites into its own estimable thing.
But we can’t skip quite to that point: we need to start from the same point as our titular assassin (Keanu Reeves), now fully recovered from his sudden betrayal and fall from the New York City Continental Hotel’s graces at the end of Chapter 3 and ready to take his vengeance directly on AN Elder (not THE same Elder from the previous film) who are among the highest-ranked members of this secret society of killers living in plain sight. And the governing High Table saw necessary as a result of Wick’s actions to provide unilateral power to a Pepe le Pew-accented French noble as the newly appointed Marquis (Bill Skarsgard), who in turn exercises his power plays to punish the Continental and its former manager Winston (Ian McShane) before he tries to smoke out any hiding place of John’s. This hunt is most of what drives the movie’s global trajectory and it lends to a splitting of allegiances this time around that feels one of many elements reminiscent of Sergio Leone and his seminal Western masterpiece The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (there is also an indulgence by composers Tyler Bates & Joel J. Richard into Spanish guitar musical cues reminiscent of Morricone’s iconic notes and a climactic moment that mimics the operatic weight of the famous Sad Hill Duel). For you see, there’s not just John on this chase for a way out of the crosshairs, but a former ally now forced to go mercenary, the blind swordsman Caine (Donnie Yen, through his charismatic melancholy and sarcasm giving by a large margin the best performance of a spotless ensemble). And rounding out the trio of pursuers is a nameless tracker (Shabier Anderson) accompanied by a very good dog. I couldn’t tell who is the Good or the Bad or the Ugly (the all blur between the first two and none of them are ugly), but there’s a three-way tension between their conflicts and alliances that’s familiar to the chemistry between Eastwood, Wallach, and Van Cleef before them.
Overlooking the whole of the situation, it’s John still running around the world from everybody trying to kill him, but now with two of the faces hunting him with more pathos and dimension. That said, if I risk accurately describing Chapter 4 as a retread of Chapter 3 (especially its first hour where it reruns another Continental Raid in Osaka skin, complete with a room full of glass panels intended to be smashed through), Chapter 4 is the sort of movie that makes a benefit out revisiting previous elements. It’s essentially a greatest hits of the entire franchise, curtain calling all the things we loved about the previous installments in a way that mixes totally well to the smaller character-based scope and growing escalation that Chapter 4 progresses through in its (not entirely earned) 169 minutes. Heck, a privileged European brat as the antagonist? That’s straight out of Chapter 2. A vague ally/adversary who has a dog trained specifically to go for crotches? One less than the amount in Chapter 3 – Parabellum, but no less familiar or welcome. Another multi-level nightclub fight involving John stalking his way to his fleeing target? The highlight of the very first John Wick (including music cues that are remixes by Le Castle Vania of what they composed for the original nightclub fight). And speaking of the first John Wick film, this is the first of the three sequels to actually feel emotionally in conversation that movie’s core concept of a man trying to kill away his grief, making it almost rich of a character study and tying off the full arc of John as a character after Chapters 2 and 3 just focused on how exhausting these days in his life must be since his wife died and how he has no grasp on processing his grief except killing everyone in front of him. These emotional stakes – beautifully performed by Keanu Reeves in his muted frustration and focus as well as the movie’s moody aesthetic (probably the best thing the Osaka sequence has going for it: reintroducing John against complete night black only cut by red lines and leaves flowing off a tree) – make for another arena in which the movie signals its closing of the journey, reminiscing on what got him to this situation and the possibility of its end.
But really the most essential root for the Grand Finale attitude John Wick: Chapter 4 portrays is its arrangement of these action setpieces in a way that escalates piece by piece. Certainly those sequences boast the same strengths as the first three: gorgeous neon indoor photography or coarse urban outdoor photography, dizzying and precise choreography, and there’s even one fun new feature where Stahelski, production designer Kevin Kavanaugh, and cinematographer Dan Laustsen are providing a more geometric presentation of these fights. There’s always a stressing of circles and lines and orientations, like in the afore-mentioned glass panels or the drums within that room or the downward indoor waterfalls of a nightclub or a high-intensity car chase around a famous landmark’s roundabout. Probably the most significant point of visual interest here is the most bravura setpiece where the camera rises over the entire floor to look at the action between rooms alike Hotline Miami (or to name the actual video game Stahelski claimed inspiration from, Hong Kong Massacre), portraying the action as small figures between these walls with a stressing on the direction of the bloodshed and the blasts (including a fucking awesome flamethrowing set of rounds). This setpiece also illustrates an action movie franchise finally embracing its inherent video game qualities (alongside Bates‘ techno heavy score giving beat ‘em up rhythms to Wick’s fights).
Anyway, back to that escalation: there’s a sense of progression between the battles and their increasing sense of scope, something that establishes John is metaphorically climbing even before the penultimate setpiece where he actually has to fight to climb up a lot of stairs. And it’s not just an extension of John Wick: Chapter 4’s living video game style but a satisfying way to present an action movie because every setpiece feels like its better than the first, particularly when the Paris sequence just slams us into them one-after-another with no breath to take between them until the film’s absolute high point, a quiet and patient one-on-one duel in the sunrise (that’s confessedly where the movie’s digital cinematography fails a bit but only just then). The franchise could not ask for a more appropriate send-off: a sequence that focuses all the movie’s stakes in one critical confrontation with tension at a high. And when all the dust has cleared, what’s left behind is a picture that rounds out probably the most consistently impressive action franchise we’ve had since Jackie Chan’s Police Story and maybe even moreso. Stahelski and his collaborators have only engaged with each subsequent entry as a challenge in crafting more elaborate and entertaining shoot ‘em up cinema and expanding the broad theatrics of action cinema as an anchor for emotional storytelling. What’s most impressive is how they’ve managed to push the envelope after every installment’s peak implied nowhere further to go with John Wick: Chapter 4 deciding to close the story (barring some cursed sounding spin-offs that are already about to be released). The result is four films that make for the maybe the most consistently excellent action cinema of the 21st Century if not all time. In Pace Requiescat.
Movie Motorbreath 