The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg has posted his first spitball projection of the Best Picture Oscar race (alng with other projections in other categories).

“HE truth bullet” commentary represents the kind of bottom-line reality check that Feinberg isn’t allowed to pass along at this stage, as he’s obliged to be diplomatic.

BEST PICTURE FRONTRUNNERS:

Oppenheimer (Universal) / HE truth bullet: Academy members have no choice but to nominate Chris Nolan‘s film because of the great reviews and excellent box-office. The bottom line is that despite its many commendable aspects, Oppenheimer is overly dense (i.e., it doesn’t breathe) and is rather punishing to sit through when you watch it for the second time. Plus Nolan wimped out by avoiding the horrors of Hirsoshima and Nagasaki.

The Holdovers (Focus) / HE truth bullet: A well-written, perfectly acted, old-fashioned ’70s relationship film…pure crowd pleaser, total home run, flawless within its realm.

Barbie (Warner Bros.) / HE truth bullet: Guaranteed to be nominated for the box-office explosion aspect alone, and it might even wind up winning, especially given its popularity among the quarter-of-an-inch-deep New Hollywood Kidz. But it’s pure feminist candy and is really too misandrist when you step back and think about it. Best Picture Oscars should be about more than just the mere earning of big money.

Poor Things (Searchlight) / HE truth bullet: A glint-of-madness feminist fantasy…wildly imaginative, Terry Gilliam-like sexual Barbie with actual fucking going on. The sexual current will put off some within the 45-plus community.

Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple/Paramount) / HE truth bullet: A highly respectable historical drama as far as it goes, but far from a home run. No strong point of view about anything. HE gives it a respectable B or B-minus.

The Zone of Interest (A24) / HE truth bullet: Searing moral perceptions by way of alluded-to Nazi horrors, but overly dry, chilly and oblique. Yes, I know — “oblique” is the basic idea.

Past Lives (A24) / HE bullet: Forget it — an unsatisfying, wafer-thin non-romance that lacks nutritional value. Not happening.

American Fiction (Amazon — haven’t seen it)

Anatomy of a Fall (Neon) / “Good’ European courtoom drama but too long, too protracted, no real surprises, doesn’t really pay off.

Nyad (Netflix — haven’t seen it but Oscar action sounds like a stretch).

Last night I caught Craig Gillespie‘s Dumb Money (Sony, 9.15), which had its big premiere in Toronto a few days ago.

It’s based upon Ben Mezrich‘s “The Anti-Social Network“, a 2021 non-fiction account of the GameStop short squeeze, which principally happened between January and March ’21.

The key narrative focus, of course, is class warfare.

Dumb Money is a Frank Capra-esque tale of a battle of influence between financially struggling, hand-to-mouth Average Joe stock investors vs. elite billionaires who tried to reap profits out of shorting GameStop.

The legacy of the 2008-through-2010 recession and movies like Margin Call (’11), The Wolf of Wall Street (’13) and The Big Short (’15) resulted in considerable hostility towards Wall Street hedge fund hotshots.

The venting of this anger was enabled by the ability of hand-to-mouth, small-time traders keeping up with fast market changes through social media investment sites like R/wallstreetbets.

I’m too dumb to fully understand the intricacies of the term “short squeeze**,” but I understand the broad strokes.

I didn’t love Dumb Money, but I paid attention to it. It didn’t exactly turn me on but it didn’t bore me either. I didn’t once turn on my phone. I was semi-engaged.

Paul Dano‘s performance as Keith Gill, the main stock speculator and plot-driver, is fairly compelling. The costars — Pete Davidson, American Ferrara, Seth Rogen, Vincent D’Onofrio, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan and Shailene Woodley — deliver like pros.

I spent a fair amount of time wondering why the 39 year-old Dano is heavier now than he was as Brian Wilson in Bill Pohlad‘s Love and Mercy, for which he intentionally gained weight. The real Gill is semi-slender or certainly not chubby.

Clearly Margin Call, The Big Short and The Social Network have far more pizazz and personality.

** “A short squeeze is a rapid increase in the price of a stock owing primarily to an excess of short selling of a stock rather than underlying fundamentals. A short squeeze occurs when there is a lack of supply and an excess of demand for the stock due to short sellers having to buy stocks to cover their short positions”…huh?

Please go to the 8:37 mark in this discussion between CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who recently declared she’ll be running for re-election in 2024:

Anderson Cooper: “Is Vice President Kamala Harris the best running mate for [President Joe Biden]?”
Nancy Pelosi: “He thinks so, and that’s what matters.”

In other words, Pelosi doesn’t think Harris is the best option but doesn’t want to rock the boat or stir up trouble.

Nakedly Honest Pelosi Translation: “Obviously she’s unpopular and not respected, and is therefore a terrible albatross for this president, but he appears to believe that he’s stuck with her and so we’re stuck with them both and it’s awful.

“People are truly terrified that President Biden, who, if re-elected, will be 82 when he takes the oath of office in January 2025, may become incapacitated or fall ill or worse sometime during his second term and that Harris will become president. If President Biden, in conversation, was as sharp and lively as myself, it would be a different story. But he can barely get through two or three sentences without stumbling.

“This is a truly terrible situation to present to American voters — a shuffling, muttering, forgetful, fuzzy-brained president, obviously diminished by age as we speak and sure to diminish further as the years takes their inevitable toll….a president who may or may not go the distance, God forbid, and so a vote for Biden-Harris is an automatic vote for a potential President Harris, and in the minds of tens of millions of voters, including a likely majority of Democrats, that is a terrible proposition to put forward. So obviously she is not the best running mate for President Biden.

“Honestly? Joe himself should give serous consideration to hanging up his holster and letting the far more age-appropriate Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom step in to the breach. But he won’t do that, of course. He can he drooling and half-conscious in diapers and pushed around a wheelchair and he won’t quit.”