One of the finest opening paragraphs in the history of movie reviewing came from N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott in his 5.25.01 review of Michael Bay‘s Pearl Harbor: “The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II has inspired a splendid movie, full of vivid performances and unforgettable scenes, a movie that uses the coming of war as a backdrop for individual stories of love, ambition, heroism and betrayal. The name of that movie is From Here to Eternity.” (Honest Trailer riff posted on 1.12.16) (Link to “It’s No Good With Us, Milt. It’s Never Been Any Good, posted on 3.7.15)

Last night I bought and watched the new Criterion Bluray of Wim Wenders‘ The American Friend. Oh, the power and the glory of that 1.66:1 aspect ratio! The disc presents the film exactly as it looked on the big screen at Alice Tully Hall when I first saw it at the 1977 New York Film Festival. No digital tweaking, like pure film. And quite perfect in that regard. But of course I wanted a little extra. I wanted my Bluray “bump” — a subtle but noticable enhancement that makes a film seem sharper and more robust than it did in theatres. But no. Wenders (who oversaw the mastering in Berlin) and the Criterion guys have shut that down. I’m not saying there’s anything “wrong” with a Bluray looking like film. I’m saying that in my heart of hearts I’m a wee bit disappointed. Just a bit.

This morning a N.Y. Times guy who had obviously read last night’s “Let It Go” post asked if I wanted to tap out 300 or 400 words about diversity in the film industry. I gave it a quick shot and sent it right off. He thanked me but said he’s heard from too many people deploring racial factors and asked me to try again. I said thanks anyway and no worries, but I’ll just post it myself:

There exists a certain constitution, sheen or formula that spells “Best Picture contender”, and the definition of these resides in the mind of your seasoned industry viewer. Many of whom look or sound like Kevin Costner or Bruce Feldman or Brenda Vaccaro or Rod Lurie or Rob Reiner or Hope Holiday, the actress from The Apartment who so angrily derided the crude bacchanalian aspects in The Wolf of Wall Street.

We all know what your classily generic, “aimed at older white people” Best Picture contender looks and behaves like — The King’s Speech, The Imitation Game, The Danish Girl. As lulling and tiresome as this equation is (British-favoring, tasteful, poised) there is still in these films an attempt to hone and refine and deliver some kind of thematic, observational summation. Who we are, what we are (or were), what this aspect or chapter in our lives amounts to in the end, etc.

Too few were willing or able to recognize this element in Cary Fukanaga‘s Beasts of No Nation, and the Academy’s failure in this regard is, many feel, arguably “racist.” This was the big 2015 outrage, if you ask me — not just a dismissal of Fukunaga’s art but a refusal to admit that the horrors of African tribal warfare are as much a part of our global narrative and social fabric as anything else.

From 1.15 story in Des Moines Register: Donald Trump has rented space at a Des Moines movie theater and is offering free tickets for a single 6 pm showing of Michael Bay‘s 13 Hours, which opens today. Excerpt: “Mr. Trump would like all Americans to know the truth about what happened at Benghazi,” the GOP presidential candidate’s Iowa co-chair Tana Goertz said Thursday night. “The [Urbandale] theater is paid for. The tickets are paid for…you just have to rsvp,” she said.

A pain-in-the-ass HE reader named Brad was putting me down yesterday for being inconsistent in my appraisals of subtle acting. When Sasha Stone and Erik Anderson labelled Rachel McAdams‘ Oscar-nominated performance in Spotlight as “robotic” during Oscar Poker #120, I suggested they were looking for “big” moments when none were written or intended. On the other hand, he complained, I’ve been dismissing Mark Rylance‘s Bridge of Spies performance as annoyingly, even arrogantly subtle. Let me explain something to Braddie-poo. Subtle acting is not just one, precisely quantified thing. There is overly subtle (Rylance), perfectly subtle (McAdams, Liev Schreiber‘s Marty Baron in Spotlight, Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn) and not subtle enough (Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay in Room come to mind). I’ll admit it’s rare to witness a performance that is irksomely underplayed and even smug, but Rylance takes the cake in this regard. If I was king Schreiber would be a Best Supporting Actor nominee right now, and he’d be favored to win.

More than a few award-season commentators (upscale thoughtfuls, sensitive to social currents) have repeated the “Academy racism robbed Straight Outta Compton of a Best Picture nomination” narrative today. Which is supported, some feel, by the fact that four white people — Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff, S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus — co-wrote the original script, which was the only Compton element that landed an Oscar nomination (i.e., Best Original Screenplay). Is there anyone bold and free-thinking enough to just blurt the truth, which is that Straight Outta Compton just doesn’t have that old Oscar schwingding thing? It’s compelling, accessible, well written, convincingly acted, and it doesn’t feel tricky or shifty. I believed it, went with it, respected it, came out tweeting its praises. But it’s just the N.W.A. story — this happened, that happened, this happened, etc. The p.c. kneejerkers would rather shoot themselves than acknowledge the simple fact that Straight Outta Compton is very good but nothing close to most learned people’s idea of great or transformative or extra-special cinema. It doesn’t wallop or shatter you — it just deals straight, credible cards about the emergence and the power and the cultural changeover of hip-hop in late ’80s and ’90s. I don’t see what’s so bad about that. Audiences and industry types seem to be equally content and pleased with what Compton is, and the fact that it earned $200 million. Why does it have to be a big Oscar thing?

I always rise early when something’s pressing. This morning’s Oscar nominations woke me around 4 am. I finished my first filing just before 7 am, and then came the Oscar Poker podcast between 7:20 and 8 am. I left on the bike around 8:15 am for the Westwood Federal Building and a 9 am passport renewal appointment. It went fairly smoothly. A late breakfast and then back to the pad around 12 noon for an appointment with a Time Warner repair guy. And then more filing. And now a nap.

Deadline‘s Pete Hammond reminds that even though The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road collected 12 and 10 nominations respectively, which puts them in front of all other nominated films, their screenplays didn’t get nominated. And that, in Hammond’s view, might be cause for concern because “it’s rare for a movie to take Best Picture without a corresponding nod for its script.” The precedents are Titanic (’97), The Sound Of Music (’65), and Laurence Olivier‘s Hamlet (’48). And yet, he acknowledges, the films with the most nominations “are usually more likely to take Best Pic since it means they have more support throughout the entire Academy, which now participates in voting in all 24 categories.” Shorter Hammond: If The Revenant or Mad Max win Best Picture, which is fairly likely, it’ll constitute a statistical rarity.

Sasha Stone, Awards Watch‘s Erik Anderson and I discussed this morning’s Oscar nominations for the latest Oscar Poker. Sasha was initially upset about Ridley Scott not being nominated for Best Director, which means, of course, that The Martian has essentially been given a cottonball Best Picture nomination — i.e., a sop that means nothing. So Erik and I had to go kinda easy and let Sasha work through her feelings like a rational adult, which she did. Neither Erik nor Sasha would admit that The Revenant is far and way the likeliest winner of the Best Picture Oscar at this stage. Not would they grapple with my riff about current racial profiling gripes (i.e., why no nominations for Straight Outta Compton and Creed?) not being worth discussing except in the case of Beasts of No Nation‘s Idris Elba, who definitely should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Again, the mp3.

If you were any kind of perceptive, fair-minded person you knew from the beginning that Ridley Scott‘s The Martian was nothing more than a smart formula popcorn flick, at best. Obviously popular and successful but in no way deserving of a Best Picture Oscar. And yet an idea gradually took hold that Scott might snag a “gold watch” nomination for a Best Director Oscar — a kind of “hail Ridley for cranking out sharp, classy, good-looking commercial stuff for 35 years” award. The DGA went for this but not the Academy, and now everyone has accepted what I was saying four months ago, which is that The Martian might end up with a “soft” Best Picture nomination based on popularity but forget serious consideration. One of the “yay, Martian” guys (and there were quite a few of them) was MCN‘s David Poland, and you really have to give credit to the Cinemaholic for posting this three months ago on Hollywood Elsewhere:

Right now (12:30 pm Pacific) Michael Bay‘s 13 Hours is at 53% on Rotten Tomatoes and 47% on Metacritic. That averages out to a failing grade, and yet I’m telling you it’s somewhat better than that. At the very least it’s a first-rate combat flick. Yes, it’s arguably a little too one-sided and swoony about the small team of mercenaries who defend the CIA annex in Benghazi, but there’s a significant moment at the end when Bay shows various women bemoaning the fallen bodies of anti-U.S. fanatics who attacked the compound, suggesting that humanistic doubts about perpetual warfare and relentless jihad are part of the current over there. Yes, Bay tries too hard to whip the film into a lather. Yes, it would have been better if he’d told the story in a plainer fashion. Yes, he repeats his famous Pearl Harbor “Bayo” when he followed a Japanese bomb dropped from a plane into a U.S, destroyer, this time following the path of a terrorist mortar. But it’s still an efficiently made, often breathtaking action thriller about stopping the baddies and defending lives. Not a burn, trust me.