Greg Berlanti‘s Love, Simon (20th Century Fox, 3.16) is definitely half-decent — an antiseptic, intensely suburban gay teen romance that’s also about coming out. It’s the first big-screen adaptation of a YA novel (Becky Albertalli‘s “Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda”) that I’ve actually half-liked, and it is kind of a big cultural deal that Fox is releasing a gentle, emotionally pliant, same-sex love story in 2400 theatres.**
Love, Simon is smartly written (the screenplay authors are This Is Us showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger) and straight-friendly, but — here come the caveats — it feels like a professional sell-job. Like an advertisement for the way things ought to be in Young Gay Utopia. It feels too tidy, too TV-realm, too “produced” and not, you know, laid-back enough. (Like Call Me By Your Name, say — a totally settled, unforced vibe flick from start to finish.)
Amiable, mild-mannered Simon (Nick Robinson) is a closeted high school senior living with his parents (Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Garner) and younger sister (Talitha Bateman) in a well-tended Atlanta suburb. But the realm is essentially a blend of Disney World and a 21st Century update of John Hughes Land — an affluent, multi-cultural, progressive-minded hamlet where almost everyone (except for one appalling sociopath, played by Logan Miller, who causes all the trouble) is cool about everything.
Although his parents and friends are fair-minded and accepting of whatever, Simon has decided to wait until college to announce that he’s gay. But then he falls into this anonymous online chat with another gay guy — a local kid who calls himself Blue. The movie is partly about guessing who Blue might be. It’s also about Miller’s batshit-insane character, Martin, who discovers Simon’s flirtation with Blue and uses this knowledge to blackmail him into helping him get together with one of Simon’s close friends (i.e., a girl). I was saying to myself “if this was Goodfellas Martin would get an ice pick in the back of the neck.”
Simon suspects (and we are led to presume) that Blue might be one of three guys — all good looking, one of a POC persuasion and the other two Caucasian, one dark-haired and one semi-blonde. They all seem like good candidates, but I was a bit disappointed when the real Blue was revealed. (Not my choice.) Simon, however, is ready to roll with all of these guys.
Want a better, less conventional ending? Simon is really attracted to A, vaguely attracted to B and not that attracted to C, and then Blue turns out to be C. And Simon says, “Aaah…okay…life is unfair. But it’s nice to know ya, brah. I like what you have to say.” And they become good friends.
“Theron Rules in Slight Tully,” filed from Sundance Film Festival on 1.26.18: “Tully is a much better film than Reitman’s underwhelming Labor Day and his disastrously received Men, Women & Children, so it’s an image-burnisher to some degree. But it’s also on the slight side.
“Cody’s script is amusingly sharp and sardonic, and Theron’s portrayal of Marlo, a stressed suburban mom coping with pregnancy and child care, is her boldest since playing an alcoholic writer in Reitman and Cody’s Young Adult (’11) and her most Raging Bull-ish performance since Monster (’03), lumbering around Tully with her Aileen Wournos bod.
“Theron’s performance is angry, open-hearted, prickly, lived-in.
“Tully (Focus Features, 4.20) is partly a family-unit sitcom and partly a tricky psychological drama. It mostly takes place in a New York-area suburban home occupied by Marlo, her husband Drew (Ron Livingston) and their three kids — a special-needs six year-old boy, a slightly younger girl and a just-born infant.
“It’s one of those stories that (a) portrays a problem and then (b) introduces an outsider who not only makes things better but becomes a kind of magic healer. The question is how this agreeable situation will pan out in the long run.
“With Drew barely paying attention to the kid-rearing situation, focusing on his job during the day and playing video games at night, pregnant Marlo is exhausted — whipped — by maternal responsibilities. And then the baby arrives and the burden is even more crushing with middle-of-the-night feedings and wailings and whatnot.
“So Marlo’s rich brother (Mark Duplass) tries to persuade her to accept the gratis services of a night nanny — a younger woman who will drop by in the evening and take care of the baby so that Marlo can get some much-needed shut-eye.
“Marlo initially resists the idea (even with Duplass offering to cover costs) but eventually she succumbs.
“A night or two later the slightly eccentric Tully (Mackenzie Davis) knocks on the door. Marlo finds her a bit weird at first and a little young for the job, but Tully, a seasoned nanny, gradually gains her trust, and then her friendship and affection.
I’ve been spitballing 2018 releases for several weeks, but now I’m attempting to focus on films that will probably stand out in terms of great reviews, Best Picture nominations and award campaigns.
Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (Netflix).
Saoirse Ronan in Mary, Queen of Scots.
Director Barry Jenkins (l.) during filming of If Beale Street Could Talk.
Felicity Jones (l.), Armie Hammer (r.) during filming of Mimi Leder’s On The Basis of Sex.
Upmarket Genre: 1. Luca Guadagnino‘s Suspiria (Dakota Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth); 2..Steve McQueen‘s Widows (Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Andre Holland, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell); 3. Ron Howard‘s Solo — AStarWarsStory (Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton); 4. Lynne Ramsay‘s You Were Never Really Here; 5. 20. Stefania Solluima‘s Soldado (Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Catherine Keener — Columbia, 6.29.18).; 6. Steven Spielberg‘s Ready Player One (Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T. J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance); 7. Jennifer Kent‘s The Nightingale (19th Century Australian revenge saga) w/ Aisling Franciosi, Baykali Ganambarr, Sam Claflin, Damon Herriman, Ewen Leslie. (8)
Likeliest Best Foreign Language Feature Contenders: Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma (Marina de Tavira, Marco Graf, Yalitza Aparicio, Daniela Demesa, Enoc Leaño, Daniel Valtierra); Asghar Farhadi‘s Todos lo saben (Spanish-language drama w/ Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Barbara Lennie, Ricardo Darin, Inma Cuesta, Eduard Fernandez Javier Camara);Laszlo Nemes‘ Sunset (a young girl grows up to become a strong and fearless woman in Budapest before World War I), w/ Susanne Wuest, Vlad Ivanov, Björn Freiberg; Paolo Sorrentino‘s Loro (life of Silvio Berlusconi); Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s The Wild Pear Tree, and Olivier Assayas‘ E-book. (6)
Possible Strongos: Jacques Audiard‘s The Sisters Brothers (Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix, Rutger Hauer, Riz Ahmed, John C. Reilly); Felix von Groeningen‘s Beautiful Boy with Steve Carell and Timothy Chalamet; Xavier Dolan‘s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (Kit Harington, Natalie Portman, Jessica Chastain, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates); Spike Lee‘s Black Klansman (John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Corey Hawkins — Focus Features). (4)
There’s one reason why there’s no decent Bluray of Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby‘s The Thing From Another World (’51), and that’s because 97% of those who support the Bluray/streaming market care only about John Carpenter’s 1982 version. The Carpenter is cool but I’ve seen it twice in my entire life (partly because the physical effects suck), and I’ve watched the Hawks/Nyby at least 15 or 20 times. I think this many have something to do with the latter’s social-political undercurrent (early ’50s paranoia about commies and flying saucers) plus that wonderful overlapping Hawks dialogue.
In any event I was about to complain again about the absence of a Hawks/Nyby Bluray (don’t even mention the discredited Japanese disc) when lo and lo and behold I discovered that an HD streaming version of the ’51 version (and running a full 86 minutes) is now available to rent or buy. In my book that’s as good as a Bluray — problem solved.
3:20 pm update: Forget it! I’ve just looked at the Amazon high-def version and some ignorant asshole decided to crop this 1.37 film at 16 x 9. Amazon occasionally sells/rents films with the wrong a.r. and this is one such occasion.
8:38 pm: Three hours and 38 minutes, and the presenting of the Best Picture Oscar is the last item on the list. Warren and Faye take the stage. The clips are running, and the suspense is killing me. Please please please. The Shape of Water wins? Okay…if you say so. At least my nightmare didn’t happen, and thank God for that. Guillermo del Toro to future filmmakers: “You can do it. Kick in the door and come in.” The show is over, and it’s 8:49 pm.
8:21 pm: Jane Fonda and Helen Mirren announcing the winner of the Best Actor Oscar, which of course will go to Darkest Hour‘s Gary Oldman. And of course it is. We all love it when the Academy does exactly what everyone has predicted. Oldman goes on for too long. Best Actress Oscar presented by a towering Amazonian Jennifer lawrence or a shrimp-sized Jodie Foster…you choose. I would be happy if Sally Hawkins were to win. McDormand, of course, who, hyper and trembling, requests that someone pick her up if she falls over, etc. Everyone stands up with her. We all shine on. “Inclusion rider”?
8:13 pm: Three hours and 13 minutes, and four Oscars to go. Emma Stone announcing the best Director Oscar winner. Guillermo del Toro is the expected winner, of course, and he is, of course. “Erase the lines in the sand…we should continue doing that.” I loved his emotional last words (borrowed from James Cagney in Yankee Doddle Dandy): “My father thanks you, my mother thanks you, my brother and sister thank you, and I thank you.”
8:05 pm: Jill Messick makes the Death Reel…good. Sam Shepard, Martin Landau, Jeanne Moreau, Roger Moore, George Romero, Rance Howard, Don Rickles, Bernie Casey, Brad Grey, Jerry Lewis…still here, never leaving.
7:52 pm: “This Is Me” performance was a knockout — my favorite of all the songs. The Shape of Water‘s Alexandre Desplat wins for Best Musical Score. I wasn’t knocked out by it…sorry. And the Best Original Song goes to “Remember Me,” from Coco. Totally predicted.
7:46 pm: Sandra Bullock presenting the Best Cinematography, which will go to Roger Deakins, I presume. HE votes for Dunkirk‘s Hoyte von Hoytema. Deakins’ work on Blade Runner 2049 was fine, but he’s won tonight because of “give the poor guy an Oscar already!” sentiment. Because he’s been nominated so often. No worries.
7:44 pm: What’s with the tribute to military movies? A sop to the red states? Nothing against the military, mind — I’m just wondering why.
7:32 pm: Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar win by James Ivory…expected. Dignified acceptance speech. Best Original Screenplay pending…Get Out, right? And the Oscar goes to Jordan Peele. “I stopped writing this movie about 20 times…I didn’t think it was gonna work. To the cast and crew, I love you. And to everyone who went and saw the movie…who told friends to buy a ticket. I love you all, thanks so much, good night.” Please let this be it for Get Out…seriously. Give the Best Picture Oscar to Dunkirk. Yeah, I know.
7:22 pm: I wasn’t paying attention to the latest song, the one rapped by Common and sung by Andra Day.
7:17 pm: So Dunkirk is going to win the Best Picture Oscar because it’s won three Oscars already and winning for Best Editing is a strong indicator? Not buying it. If it happens, great, but I doubt it.
7:05 pm: That visit to the crowd watching a film at the next-door Chinese was fun but noisy. I felt lost. Chaos overcame the feeling. The bearded fat guy stumbled on the copy he was asked to read. Tiffany Haddish announces that Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405, a portrait of Mindy Alpert‘s battle with mental illness, has won the Best Documentary Short Oscar. The Best Live-Action Short Oscar goes to The Silent Child.
6:55 pm: HE to Matthew McConaughey — movies are not “an illusion” — they’re more real than life, because it’s a constantly moving and transitional train and movies are forever. And Dunkirk wins the Best Editing Oscar. Three for that film so far.
6:52 pm: And Best Visual Effects Oscar goes to Blade Runner 2049.
6:43 pm: Daniela Vega introducing Call Me By Your Name song composter Sufjan Stevens, singing “Mystery of Love.” And his accompanists St. Vincent (totally in the background), Chris Thile, Casey Foubert, James McAllister.
6:35 pm: Nominees for Best Short Film, which Kobe Bryant‘s Dear Basketball won’t win because of the thing, right? No…it wins anyway! And there’s Bryant right on the stage. I thought #MeToo would take this one down. Second surprise of the night after the Icarus win. Best Animated Feature Oscar goes to Coco, of course.
6:27 pm: And here comes Allison Janney‘s Best Supporting Actress Oscar! HE would prefer a win by Lady Bird‘s Laurie Metcalf…nope! Janney takes it. “I did it all by myself.” Funny! Heartfelt and eloquent thanks to a long list of people, but delivered with speed and style. Three from the cast of The Last Jedi (Oscar Isaac, Mark Hamill, BB8, whatsername) awaiting their turn.
6:22 pm: Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Rita Moreno…what an entrance! Announcing the nominees for Best Foreign Language Feature, and the Oscar goes to A Fantastic Woman. Expected, no? Congrats to the Sony Classics guys, Daniela Vega…everyone.
6:14 pm: I loved this Rolex ad. Jack Morrissey called it “tacky”. I loved the paycheck appearances by Scorsese, Bigelow, Inarritu, Cameron + the cinematography, production values.
6:07 pm: The Shape of Water wins for Best Production Design. I respectfully disagree — Dennis Gassmer‘s production design for Blade Runner 2049 ruled a bit more. Who’s the guy with (a) the velvet tuxedo sleeves that don’t cover his arms and (b) who’s wearing those stunning white sneakers?? Imagine someone actually choosing to look like this on the Oscar stage.
6:07 pm: Kimmel to Steven Spielberg: “Do you have any pot?” Huh? “Do you have any pot?”
5:58 pm: Two Dunkirk guys win for Best Sound Editing. Deserved! Now the Best Sound Mixing Oscar — Dunkirk again! Deserved! This doesn’t portend anything. Okay, it portends that voters respect Chris Nolan’s film, and they want to give it what they can, knowing it won’t win for Best Picture. One of the winners waves to his family way, way up there. (Sitting next to Sasha Stone? Actually, she’s in the second mezzanine this year.)
5:53 pm: That montage-y dreamscapey essay about Hollywood emotionality and high conveyance…excellent. I’d like to see it again, post it on Hollywood Elsewhere, whatever. Who was the editor?
5:44 pm: Taraji P. Henson‘s dress is…uhm, nightgowny. Mary J. Blige, Best Supporting Actress nominee for Mudbound, singing “Mighty River”…nice delivery! Hats off to the choreograher, lighting designer…everyone. The chorus behind her really killed it.
5:39 pm: Greta Gerwig and Laura Dern announcing winners of Best Documentary Feature. Hollywood Elsewhere is rooting for either Icarus or Faces Places. And Icarus wins! A surprise! Hooray for director Bryan Fogel and Oscar strategist Lisa Taback! Most people were predicting Faces Places, no? Kimmel: “At least we know Putin didn’t rig this competition, right?”
5:37 pm: “You know what else Superman has always been besides white? Not real.”
5:17 pm: What is that burgundy blood tux Armie Hammer is wearing…red velvet? What is that sparkly chiselled stalagnite design above the stage? The Darkest Hour makeup guys have won, fine, but they’re going on for too long. Play ’em off! Eva Marie Saint, who looks great at age 93, talking about losing her husband, Jeffrey Hayden…sad. Announcing the Best Costume Design Oscar, which will presumably be won by Phantom Thread‘s Mark Bridges. Correct!
5:17 pm: A lot of classy build-up (excellent clips from the past and present) for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, which of course will go to Sam Rockwell. And it has! Rockwell’s “it’s grandma” story…excellent. “Everyone who’s ever looked at a billboard”…Rockwell went on just a wee bit too long, but he didn’t get played off because the show just started.
5:05 pm: Who advised Timothee Chalamet to wear that Good Humor man tuxedo? I love that Jimmy Kimmel raised the Mark Wahlberg vs. Michelle Williams payment-disparity episode…”if we can’t trust agents.” Black Panther‘s success was great for African Americans and Bob Iger.Kimmel: The world is watching us, and we need to set an example…and if we can stop sexual harassment, women will only have to deal with harassment in every other realm.” Or something like that. Guillermo del Toro and Nightmare Alley collaborator Kim Morgan sitting together. Helen Mirren caressing a brand-new lime-green Jetski.
We both saw Three Billboards as a likely nominee (although I mainly saw it as an acting vehicle) but we were both wrong on the Best Picture chances of Get Out. And neither of us foresaw that The Post would be shut down by the Academy’s newer, younger voting bloc (representation, identity-politics, “let’s give somebody else a chance”) because it seemed too boomerish and traditionally Oscar-baity.
Poland asserted that Aaron Sorkin‘s Molly’s Game had a “legit” Best Picture shot, but I said no way. He also said that Guillermo del Toro‘s The Shape of Water had a “good chance” of being Best Picture-nominated. I said I loved the Sally HawkinsJohnny Belinda factor (i.e., giving a silent performance) but noted that others have called it under-written with too many plot holes. And I was much more enthusiastic about Lady Bird.
Just re-read this (Poland’s spitball picks vs. my reactions) and consider the perception gaps:
Poland claims that “only two movies came out of North American premieres at TIFF with legit Best Picture hopes” — Aaron Sorkin‘s Molly’s Game and Martin McDonagh‘s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. HE response: It would be great if Three Billboards makes the grade but Poland knows it’s primarily an acting nomination platform for Frances McDormand (Best Actress) and Sam Rockwell (Best Supporting Actor). The chilly, hyper-aggressive Molly’s Game has its moments (i.e., Idris Elba‘s climactic rebuttal to prosecutors, Jessica Chastain and Kevin Costner on the park bench) but it hasn’t a prayer of being BP nominated…forget it.
Poland’s biggest wrongo is declaring that Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name has a “punching chance” of being a Best Picture contender. This rapturously received, Eric Rohmer-esque love story has a good to excellent chance — trust me. Everyone I talked to in Toronto called it a triple or a home run. Okay, it might fall short if the guilds and the Academy membership decide to vote against that sun-dappled, lullingly sensual, Rohmer-ish aesthetic or if they don’t want to go gay two years in a row or if it’s regarded as too Italian or some other chickenshit beef.
Two Poland-approved locks: Darkest Hour, Dunkirk. HE response: Dunkirk, absolutely. Darkest Hour is a stirring historical drama and nicely composed as far it goes (HE is a longtime Joe Wright fan), but it could have been released in 1987. It’s a Best Picture contender for 50-and-over squares and sentimentalists. Which doesn’t mean it won’t be nominated — it’s just a mezzo-mezzo contender.
In the wake of Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty, Jessica Chastain was basking in worldwide praise and a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance as Maya, a CIA officer who was super-focused on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. She was sitting on top of the world. She won the Golden Globe Award Best Actress for this performance, and was thereafter hailed for her strong turns in A Most Violent Year (’14), Miss Sloane (’16) and Molly’s Game (’17).
And now she’s about to costar in a New Line horror film, i.e., a sequel to Andy Muschietti‘s It? If you were Chastain, would you go up against Pennywise at this stage in your career? Something happens to a dramatic actress’s brand when she descends into horror.
Chastain is doing this for the dough, of course, but think of what happened to Vera Farmiga when she switched from sophisticated adult dramas (Down to the Bone, The Manchurian Candidate, Breaking and Entering, The Departed, Up in the Air) to that four-year Bates Motel series and those Conjuring movies and Liam Neeson schlock like The Commuter. She’s in Jason Reitman‘s The Front Runner, true, but she’s mainly identified with pulp these days. She’s more or less regarded as a scream queen.
I was going to title this post “Dunkirk‘s Last Stand” because in my heart of hearts, I believe that Chris Nolan‘s WWII epic is far superior to either Three Billboards or The Shape of Water, and that God would almost certainly step in and deliver a BAFTA win if he/she/it existed. And that’s not a dismissal of the grand visions of Martin McDonagh or Guillermo del Toro — just a statement of what I regard to be obvious artistic fact.
1:28 Pacific Update: Three Billboards has kicked gill-man’s ass to the ground by taking the BAFTA Best Film Award. What this means, I suspect, is that Martin McDonagh‘s hinterland drama will ride the BAFTA momentum into the Oscar voting, and will wind up winning the Academy Award for, at the very least, Best Original Screenplay. Which will leave the wildly overpraised Get Out high and dry. Three Billboards also won for Best Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell), Outstanding British Film and Best Original Screenplay.
We all know that Shape of Water is locked for the Best Picture and Best Director Oscar, and that’s fine. God is content with that outcome.
Please re-review HE’s rundown of 70 films that are likely to be in the smarthouse conversation over the next 11 months. Hard information solidifies, assumptions and speculations fade, etc. What films am I giving too little or too much emphasis to? And which seem most likely to end up in contention as Best Picture nominees? It goes without saying that the following have been/are being made by serious filmmakers and that they exclude mind-melting, idiot-brand, superhero franchise CG Asian-market slop:
Topliners: 1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Bobby Cannavale, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano); 2. Adam McKay‘s Back Seat (Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell); 3. Damien Chazelle‘s First Man, a space drama about NASA’s Duke of Dullness, Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Corey Stoll, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke); 4. Saoirse Ronan in Mary, Queen of Scots (w/ Margot Robbie, David Tennant, Jack Lowden, Guy Pearce); 5. Clint Eastwood‘s The 15:17 to Paris (Jenna Fischer, Judy Greer, Bryce Gheisar, Alek Skarlatos, Thomas Lennon, Jaleel White, Tony Hale, P.J. Byrne).
6. Steve McQueen‘s Widows (Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Andre Holland, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell); 7. Terrence Malick‘s Radegund (August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqvist, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jürgen Prochnow, Bruno Ganz; 8. Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma (Marina de Tavira, Marco Graf, Yalitza Aparicio, Daniela Demesa, Enoc Leaño, Daniel Valtierra); 9. Jacques Audiard‘s The Sisters Brothers (Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix, Rutger Hauer, Riz Ahmed, John C. Reilly); 10. Barry Jenkins‘ If Beale Street Could Talk (Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Teyonah Parris, Regina King, Colman Domingo, Brian Tyree Henry, Diego Luna, Dave Franco).
11. Bryan Singer‘s Bohemian Rhapsody (15-year period from the formation of Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury up to their performance at Live Aid in 1985) w/ Rami Malek, Ben Hardy, Gwilym Lee, Joseph Mazzello, Allen Leech, Lucy Boynton. 20th Century Fox, 12.25.18; 12. Bjorn Runge‘s The Wife (Glenn Close‘s Best Actress campaign + Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Annie Starke. Max Irons); 13. Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On The Basis of Sex; 14. Gus Van Sant‘s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (costarring Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Jonah Hill, Jack Black, Mark Webber); 15. Felix von Groeningen‘s Beautiful Boy with Steve Carell and Timothy Chalamet.
16. Xavier Dolan‘s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (Kit Harington, Natalie Portman, Jessica Chastain, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates); 17. Asghar Farhadi‘s Todos lo saben (Spanish-language drama w/ Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Barbara Lennie, Ricardo Darin, Inma Cuesta, Eduard Fernandez Javier Camara); 18. Spike Lee‘s Black Klansman (John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Corey Hawkins — Focus Features); 19. Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York (Timothee Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Diego Luna, Liev Schreiber); 20. Stefania Solluima‘s Soldado (Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Catherine Keener — Columbia, 6.29.18).
Tully is a better film than Reitman’s disastrously received Labor Day and Men, Women & Children, so it’s an image-burnisher to some degree. But it’s on the slight side.
Cody’s script is amusingly sharp and sardonic, and Theron’s portrayal of Marlo, a stressed suburban mom coping with pregnancy and child care, is her boldest since playing an alcoholic writer in Reitman and Cody’s Young Adult (’11) and her most Raging Bull-ish performance since Monster (’03), lumbering around Tully with her Aileen Wournos bod.
Mackenzie Davis, Charlize Theron in Jason Reitman’s Tully (Focus, 4.20).
I don’t know if Academy members will be cherishing Tully ten or eleven months from now, but Theron’s performance is angry, open-hearted, prickly, lived-in — an obvious awards-level thing.
Tully is partly a family-unit sitcom and partly a tricky psychological drama. It mostly takes place in a New York-area suburban home occupied by Marlo, her husband Drew (Ron Livingston) and their three kids — a special-needs six year-old boy, a slightly younger girl and a just-born infant.
It’s one of those stories that (a) portrays a problem and then (b) introduces an outsider who not only makes things better but becomes a kind of magic healer. The question is how this agreeable situation will pan out in the long run.
With Drew barely paying attention to the kid-rearing situation, focusing on his job during the day and playing video games at night, pregnant Marlo is exhausted — whipped — by maternal responsibilities. And then the baby arrives and the burden is even more crushing with middle-of-the-night feedings and wailings and whatnot. So Marlo’s rich brother (Mark Duplass) tries to persuade her to accept the gratis services of a night nanny — a younger woman who will drop by in the evening and take care of the baby so that Marlo can get some much-needed shut-eye.
I was told earlier today that the Gangs of New York Wikipedia page mentions a noteworthy piece by yours truly, posted in December 2001, that described the differences between a 1.37:1 work print version of Gangs that I saw on VHS vs. the final 2.39:1 release version. Here’s a link to the original article, and here’s a repost of it:
If Miramax Films and Martin Scorsese had decided to release a polished, cleaned-up version of the Gangs of New York work print they had in the can (or, if you want to get technical, that was stored on Marty and editor Thelma Schoonmaker‘s Avid) sometime in October ’01, we’d all be enjoying a better, more rewarding film than the Gangs that will open nationwide four days from now (12.20.02).
I’ve seen both versions and most of you haven’t, so I know something you don’t. The best Gangs of New York will not be hitting screens this weekend, and may never even be seen on DVD, given Scorsese’s apparent disinterest in releasing “director’s cut” versions of his films, or in supplying deleted scenes or outtakes or any of that jazz.
The work-print version is longer by roughly 20 minutes, and more filled out and expressive as a result, but that’s not the thing. The main distinction for me is that it’splainerand therefore morecinematic, as it doesn’t use the narration track that, in my view, pollutes the official version. It also lacks a musical score, with only some drums and temp music.
This leaves you free, in short, to simply pick and choose from the feast of visual information that Gangs of New York is, and make of it what you will. And if that isn’t the essence of great movie-watching, I don’t know what is.
It also points out what’s wrong with the theatrical release version, which I feel has been fussed over too intensively, compressed, simplified, lathered in big-movie music and, to some extent, thematically obscured.
Miramax and Scorsese had the superior work-print version in their hands 14 months ago. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it’s not tremendously different from the version being released on Friday. It is only missing Leonardo DiCaprio‘s narration, a musical score and some CG effects, which tells me it could have easily been prepared for a December ’01 release. But Miramax decided otherwise and pushed it back it until now. If you ask me their reasons for doing so were short-sighted and wrong.
The Oscar nominations for the 90th annual awards were not only announced this morning from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater but in a few instances mispronounced, eccentrically personalized and generally murdered by the colorful Tiffany Haddish. Her inwardly grimacing co-presenter Andy Serkis helplessly stood by.
Is it too much to ask presenters to rehearse or otherwise summon the elocutionary discipline to pronounce names and titles correctly? Haddish conveyed disrespect, stress, indifference, “too much for my realm,” etc.
13 nominations for Guillermo del Toro‘s The Shape of Water, eight noms for Chris Nolan‘s Dunkirk, seven for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and a general inclination to diminish the traditional classy sheen and to transform the Oscars into the People’s Choice Awards, at least on a here-and-there basis.
Hooray for Lesley Manville‘s Best Supporting Actress nom for her perfect Phantom Thread performance.
All hail Mudbound dp Rachel Morrison for landing the first Best Cinematography nomination for a woman in Oscar history, and cheers to Lady Bird‘s Greta Gerwig for becoming the fifth woman in Academy history to snag a Best Director nom.
Best HE comment so far from “alexandercoleman“: “So the two big frontrunners are The Shape of Water, which failed to receive a Best Ensemble Award nomination at SAG, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which failed to receive a Best Director Oscar nomination. Though the former seems to have the momentum, for whatever that is worth, by traditional standards both would seem to have clay feet.”
Best Picture:
“Call Me by Your Name”, “Darkest Hour”, “Dunkirk”, “Get Out”, “Lady Bird”, “Phantom Thread”, “The Post”, “The Shape of Water”, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
Best Director:
“Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan
“Get Out,” Jordan Peele
“Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig
“Phantom Thread,” Paul Thomas Anderson
“The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro
Best Actor:
Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name” Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread” Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out” Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour” Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”
HE comment: Denzel deserves this nomination (I loved his Asperger’s savant legal-eagle performance) but how many saw a nomination coming? Denzel took over, I guess, in the wake of the apparent James Franco snub in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations. Right?
Best Actress:
Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water” Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” Margot Robbie, “I, Tonya” Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird” Meryl Streep, “The Post”