This isn’t a definitive, comprehensive correction of yesterday’s “Eliminating 2024 Best Picgture Contenders” piece, but just a post that adds a few titles. The idea, remember, was to differentiate between films that might have a shot at being in the late ’24 and early ’25 Oscar race, and those that obviously haven’t a prayer.
I didn’t mention Jon Watts‘ Wolfs, a George Clooney-Brad Pitt “psychological thriller” of some kind. Why they’ve gone with the non-grammatical Wolfs rather than Wolves is anyone’s guess.
Nor did I mention Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (how many damn Dracula films have I sat through?…how many more to come?), Justin Kurzel’s The Order (white supremacist baddies), Duke Johnson’s The Actor, Ron Howard’s <em>Eden and Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague (currently filming).
I should have included Alex Garland‘s Civil War as a possible Best Picture contender. Obviously my error but as I mentioned a couple of days ago that there’s no trusting SXSW buzz.
I also should have mentioned Terrence Malick’s The Way of the Wind but any film that’s been in post since 2019 has to be regarded askance or at least with a degree of suspicion.
Speaking as a huge fan of Audrey Diwan’s Happening, her forthcoming Emmanuelle…well, who knows but it appears to be a sapphic variation on Just Jaeckin’s 1974 original, which was primarily about softcore titillation.
Clint Eastwood’s Juror No. 2 also should have been mentioned; ditto Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, a script version of which I’ve been sent and have read about half of.
When Chris Halverson had the temerity to suggest that David Leitch‘s The Fall Guy might become this year’s Barbie or Top Gun, I responded as follows: “You’re farting around by even mentioning this kind of flotsam in an award-season context. You can totally, absolutely forget The Fall Guy, obviously a wank-off, jizz-whiz distraction, in any sort of award-season context. Leitch (John Wick, Bullet Train) is clearly a soul-less popcorn exploiter who’s only in it for the money and the cheap highs.”
I was need to repeat this passage: “Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan are problematic, anti-charismatic actors who alienate as much as attract. At least from HE’s perspective. In my view they are human torpedoes with a bizarre gyroscopic mechanism that causes the cylindrical device to do a 180 once fired and head right back towards the launching submarine. Beware of Keoghan and Mescal!”
The best HE comment about Kevin Costner’s Horizon came from Naido: “Costner is more woke than people remember — he’s just not a post-2016 obsessive. I think his movie will be 10-years-ago-liberal, which will sail by in 2024 though it would’ve taken a beating from 2016-2022. Winds are changing just a bit.”
