There are only two…okay, maybe three powerhouse performances in the Best Supporting Actress ranks right now. The top slot is absolutely owned by Da’Vine Joy Randolph‘s bereaved, drinking-too-much cook in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers.
Almost in the same realm as Randolph is Penelope Cruz‘s fuming and resentful Laura Ferrari in Michael Mann‘s Ferrari — she has a single scene in which she completely owns and rules.
I still haven’t seen Jodie Foster‘s performance as the…best friendo or girlfriend of Annette Bening‘s titular character in Nyad. You could also throw in Viola Davis‘s mother-of-Michael Jordan performance in Ben Affleck‘s Air. You could even throw in Rachel McAdams‘ caring, supportive mom performance in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Due respect but you can almpst certainly forget Julianne Moore in May December, America Ferrera in Barbie (that great third-act rant), Emily Blunt in Oppenheimer.
I haven’t yet seen Vanessa Kirby in Napoleon (HE’s NYC screening of Ridley Scott‘s film happens on 11.14) or Danielle Brooks in The Color Purple.
The Gotham Award nominations were announced at noon today, and hoo boy…talk about an organization and a community that lives in a deep mine shaft within its own secular planet…nominations that represent an elitist bubble of urban progressive sensitivity that could choke a plowhorse…a mindset that frequently spits upon Joe Popcorn cinema and enforces a social prejudice agenda…diverse, convulsive, queer-friendly, gender-neutral, indie-favoring, right index finger inserted in rectum, down with older white guys, “we know what we know and if you don’t like where we’re coming from that’s on you because we represent the better angels of the human condition, in large part because we’re more highly evolved”…
Okay, I’m half on-board with a few of the acting nominations…some of them are fairly spot-on so the people who selected them aren’t knaves but perceptive, sensible types for the most part. But the Best Feature and Best International feature nominees…yeesh.
The five Best Feature nominees are Ira Sachs‘ Passages (forget it), Celine Song‘s Past Lives (the fix is in on this one, trust me), Tina Satter‘s not-half-bad Reality, Kelly Reichardt‘s Showing Up (a reasonably decent woke-lifestyles-in-Portland film) and A.V. Rockwell‘s A Thousand and One (not a chance).
The Best International Feature noms are All of Us Strangers, Anatomy of a Fall, Poor Things, Tótem and The Zone of Interest. Yup, that’s right — they’ve blown off the audience-friendly The Taste of Things (i.e., The Pot-au-Feu). I didn’t realize that Poor Things was a truly international production….whatever.
Outstanding Gender-Free Lead Performance noms: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in Origin, Lily Gladstone in The Unknown Country (peresumably a KOTFM stalking horse), Greta Lee in Past Lives, Franz Rogowski in Passages, Andrew “beard stubble” Scott in All of Us Strangers, Cailee Spaeny in Priscilla, Teyana Taylor in A Thousand and One, Michelle Williams in Showing Up and Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction.
Outstanding Supporting Performance noms: Juliette Binoche in The Taste of Things (obviously NOT a supporting performance), Penélope Cruz in Ferrari (yes!!), Jamie Foxx in They Cloned Tyrone (what about his knockout performance in The Burial?), Claire Foy in All of Us Strangers (very good performance), Ryan Gosling in Barbie, Glenn Howerton in BlackBerry (first-rate!), Sandra Hüller in The Zone of Interest, Rachel McAdams in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (good performance), Charles Melton in May December (forget it), Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers (best of the bunch or at least tied with Penelope Cruz!).
Back to the root elements: Remember Ray Walston in My Favorite Martian with the insect antennae popping out of his head? Many of the Gotham nominators are 2023 Walston variations…alien humanoids with a knowledgable, sophisticated, well-educated dweebo sensibility…Snidely Whiplash foo-foos who all drink from the same well or the same teapot…Justin Chang, K. Austin Collins, Jessica Kiang, Claudia Puig, Alison Willmore, Thelma Adams, David Fear, Jon Frosch, Wendy Ide, HE’s own Guy Lodge, plus Carlos Aguilar, Lindsey Bahr, Lovia Gyarkye, David Sims, Monica Castillo, Robert Daniels, Tim Grierson, Tomris Laffly…okay, I’m not 100% certain that each and every Gotham Awards nominating committee member is a “bad” person but many of them are, in my humble opinion.
Michael Mann’s Ferrari (Neon, 12.25) has turned out to be much better than I expected.
A portrait of aging Italian car magnate Enzo Ferrari struggling to keep his business and family afloat at a highly critical juncture, Ferrari is “better” in terms of recreating the past and a very particular cultural milieu (mid to late ‘50s, northern Italy) and generally radiating a certain textural, visual and emotional verisimilitude that is rather wonderful in its own studious, deep-dish way.
I’ve been reading since last summer that Ferrari is a period racecar drama that doesn’t follow the expected plot contours and certainly not in the fashion of James Mangold’s 2019 Ford vs. Ferrari, another racecar saga which involved the same real-life character (played by RemoGirone) while set in the mid ‘60s, or roughly eight years after Mann’s story.
Ferrari is basically a torrid Italian family drama (Mann meets Luchino Visconti with a splash or two of Douglas Sirk salad dressing) about emotional and financial turmoil afflicting the embattled Ferrari, played by a nattily-dressed, white-haired, slightly paunchy Adam Driver.
Let’s not forget, of course, that two years ago a younger-looking Driver played another head of an elite, world-renowned, family-owned Italian company in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci.
Let’s be honest — Joe and Jane Popcorn are going to say “this again?”
Given the Ferrari-Driver-Gucci overlap, I’m not sure how commercially vigorous Ferrari will turn out to be when it opens in late December. All I know is that despite the vaguely odd-duck, here-we-go-again factor, Ferrari works on its own compelling terms.
Ferrari is about an old man (Ferrari was born in 1898) entwined in a make-or-break struggle to keep his teetering car company afloat while preparing for a climactic, fate-defining cross-country race and while finessing a volatile family situation involving infidelity and conflicted loyalties.
It’s a great time-machine trip, intimate and low-key for the first three quarters but with a serious knockout finale. It’s culturally authentic (you really feel like you’re there) with a sturdy script and several nicely flavored performances…an ensemble piece that pretty much fires on all cylinders.
Ferrari really pays off over the last 35 to 40 minutes, which is almost all racing.
Penelope Cruz’s blistering, tough-as-nails, scorned-wife performance is a guaranteed Best Supporting Actress nomination lock.
EricMesserschmidt’s cinematography is wonderful — it reminded me of Gordon Willis’s lensing of the first two Godfather films and Part Two in particular.
It’s basically 90 minutes of fractured family drama and a knockout crescendo showing the 1957 Mille Miglia, a decisive, hair-raising event in the fortunes of Ferrari’s precariously financed car company.
The domestic side is basically about Ferrari’s hands being full with Cruz’s angry wife Laura, Ferrari’s mistress Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley), and loads of financial pressure and numerous wolves at the door.
Mario Andretti: “[Ferrari] just demanded results. But he was a guy who also understood when the cars had shortcomings. He was one that could always appreciate the effort that a driver made, when you were just busting your butt, flat out, flinging the car and all that. He knew and saw that. He was all-in. He had no other interest in life outside of motor racing and all of the intricacies of it. Somewhat misunderstood in many ways because he was so demanding, so tough on everyone, but at the end of the day he was correct. Always correct. And that’s why you had the respect that you had for him.”
I can’t think of a kicker ending so what I’ve written will have to do.
The 94thOscars happened four months ago (3.27.22), and it feels like four years. An ABC After-School Songbird Special (not a bad film, works here and there) won the Best Picture Oscar because the Academy just couldn’t with the grim, downerishCampion. The first streamer to nab the Big Prize is soft and deaf-positive and aspirational, and I will never, everwatchitagain. There was only one takeaway from the ‘22 Oscar telecast, and I don’t even have to say it. Okay, there’s one other thing — the pain of watching Penelope Cruz, whose Pedro Almodovar-guided performance came entirely from within, losing to the hard-working Jessica Chastain, whose Tammy Faye performance was (one dinner-table moment aside) largely defined by eye makeup.
Anthony Hopkins shuffles out, expresses a supportive statement to the pugilist Will Smith, introduces the clips and then says "the Oscar goes to Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye." Hollywood Elsewhere understands and respects the impulse to give a Best Actress by way of a Best Makeup Oscar to a good, respected, hard-working actress. Chastain gave a good performance. My preference was for Parallel Mothers' Penelope Cruz but that's okay. Her performance stands on its own merit, eternally.
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7:27 pm: What was funny about Regina King holding up a screener of The Last Duel while saying that no one has seen it? Or Wanda Sykes holding up a shredded Texas ballot — good point but not funny.
7:19 pm: What am I mostly feeling while watching the Oscars? What is the one thought that keeps repeating in my head? “I can’t wait to attend the 2022 Cannes Film Festival…that God for that forthcoming adventure.”
7:04 pm: Congrats to Belfast‘s Kenneth Branagh for winning the Best Original Screenplay. And to CODA‘s Sean Heder for winning Best Adapted Screenplay. Heder is thanking the phone book, but that’s what winners sometimes do. Friendo: “The two best speeches both belonged to CODA. Because they had emotion. Branagh’s speech was classy and succinct and gracious.”
6:55 pm: This is basically a folks-of-color Oscar telecast…a rainbow inclusion pageant…a vigorous and passionate representation factor for Latinos, African Americans, Asian, LGBTQs. In this sense it’s fairly similar to the Union Station atmosphere in that the industry’s mostly (am I allowed to say this?) European-descended majority is…uhm, subordinate? Not all that vigorously represented. But that’s okay. Academy sentiments are Academy sentiments. We’re living through a time of progressive change. Incidentally: The Latin dance number is pretty terrific.
6:45 pm: Costume design Oscar for Cruella — Jenny Beavan! A brilliant designer, hugely respected, great smile.
6:38 pm: So far the show is playing a little better than last April’s Soderbergh disaster, but not that much better. Friendo text: “Arianna DeBose has made history as the first openly queer woman to win an Oscar. Fine and good and obviously approvable, but I’m not really feeling the current. The whole community i/s supportive…queer artists are not the underdogs.”
6:20 pm: Time to hand CODA‘s Troy Kotsur his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Troy’s signed acceptance speech is very moving – the first poignant moment of the show. Congrats to Troy — a very fine delivery of evolved humanity. Especially his tribute to his dad. Quote: “Don’t forget to eat this spinach.” He’s going on a little long, but it’s a heart moment…fully earned and felt.
6:17 pm: Wanda Sykes (fresh outfit) introducing a promo for the Academy Museum — i.e., “Woke House.”
6:13 pm: The Best Animated Short Oscar goes to Windshield Wiper.
6:07 pm: Best Animated Feature goes to Encanto. Great, congrats, whatever.
Apology to HE readership: I’m firing Siteground, my Eastern European ISP, for that infuriating 500 internal server error. I’ve been pleading with them to fix or offer a solution I would have to implement. They’re history — incompetent bastards. Again, I apolgize.
5:55 pm: The 60th anniversary of the James Bond franchise? Dr. No opened in England on 10.5.62, but not until May 1963 in the States. So even by British exhibition standards the Bond franchise is 59 and 1/3 years old. Friendo: How is this playing at home?” HE to friendo: “Blah, meh, woke, flat. Something needs to happen.”
5:52 pm: Another Dune Oscar, this time to Best Visual Effects. Terrific. When is this show going to come alive?
5:44 pm: The Oscar telecast is 45 minutes old, and I’m not feeling anything. At all. Nothing. Friendo: “Is this as bad as I think it is? So far woke. Are you watching?” HE to friendo: “I’m watching and waiting.”
5:40 pm: A minor tribute to the White Men Can’t Jump guys (Woody, Rosie, Snipes)? And the Best Cinematography Oscar goes to Dune and Greig Fraser.
5:35 pm: Regina’s random Covid-testing routine is…why? People are laughing and cheering but it’s not funny. Really. I’m sorry.
5:25: West Side Story‘s Arianna de Bose wins Best Supporting Actress Oscar — locked in from the beginning, unanimous consensus, totally predicted, good work. She celebrates her history, her luck, her job, her queerness…going on too long. Like they all did during last year’s Soderbergh show.
5:22 pm: “Take away the lame opening number and unfunny opening monologues, and they could’ve given out all the awards they are eliminating from the live broadcast” — regional friendo.
5:10 pm: Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina King sharing the monologue duties. “Toxic masculinity.” Snippy insult joke aimed at J.K. Simmons. Sykes: “I’ve watched The Power of the Dog three times, and I’m halfway through it” — a Jimmy Kimmel joke. And now they’re introducing the cavalcade of Oscar presenters. And now Schumer has taken over solo. “Home is the best” joke…?…nope. “We finally got a movie about the Williams sisters’ dad”…nope. A Leonardo DiCaprio young girlfriends joke…nope. A Being The Ricardos put-down joke.
5 pm: Venus and Serena Williams kicking things off with a Beyonce music video? I’m not getting a movie-madness feeling from this. Getting a lime chiffon vibe. Key lime pie and whipped cream. This could be an opener for the Grammys. What is this? Righteous Brothers: “You’ve lost that Oscar feelin’…”
…starts at 5 pm Pacific. Or maybe before. I don’t know what I’m saying. All I know is that for the last several weeks I’ve been hearing nothing but variations of “the Oscars are over, they peaked a couple of decades ago, nobody cares, how low will the ratings be?, everything sucks,” etc. And now we’re all on the red carpet and everyone is jubilant, jazzed, giggling, tickled pink!, caaaan’t wait!, etc.
It’s like the Invasion of the Happy Mysterians…who are you people? What do you really think? Do you have brains? Why is no one talking about what’s really and truly going on in this town? And where’s Penelope Cruz?
David Edelstein‘s CBS commentary is a nice way to start things off. Then again he doesn’t even mention Penelope Cruz as a possible Best Actress victor.
Best Picture (CODA) / Best Director (Power of the Dog‘s Jane Campion) / Best Actor (King Richard‘s Will Smith) / Best Actress (Parallel Mothers‘ Penelope Cruz) / Best Supporting Actor (CODA‘s Troy Kotsur) / Best Supporting Actress (West Side Story‘s Ariana DeBose, although a win by King Richard‘s Aunjanue Ellis would be great).
And I went with The Worst Person in the World for Best International Feature. A little voice is telling me that Drive My Car may not have the horses to bring it all home.
And then I stalled. I don’t even have a line on Best Original Screenplay. What’s supposed to win in that category…Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast? It shouldn’t. Joaquin Trier‘s The Worst Person in the World screenplay is my pick. I’m completely lost when it comes to Best Adapted Screenplay. Don’t tell me CODA is going to win. Please.
I’m trying very hard not to feel bitter and dismissive, but listening to the horrible red-carpet banter is making it difficult.
I’m not an Oscars prediction guy — I’m an Oscars advocacy guy. That’s been my handle all along.
Example: I was an ardent GreenBook admirer and supporter during the 2018 and ‘19 Oscar year, as I knew in my heart that Peter Farrelly’s film was a harmless, heart-warming period film (‘62) about a parent-child relationship that evolves and deepens over the course of a road trip through the racist South. Helping to defeat the anti-GreenBook wokester cabal was a glorious HE satisfaction.
The principal HE advocacy issues this year:
(a) Penelope Cruz for Best Actress — HE has been way ahead of the pack on the value of Cruz’s Parallel Mothers performance for many months;
(b) KingRichard is far more nutritious and moving and well-crafted than CODA or ThePoweroftheDog, and should win the Best Picture Oscar;
(c) Volodymyr Zelensky, an actor-comedian before becoming Ukraine’s president, gets to make a passionate plea & proudly affirm Ukraine’s pride and independence during the show if he wants to do this. I presumed yesterday that Zelensky does want a moment of Oscar’s time, or Sean Penn, presumably attuned to Zelensky’s thinking, wouldn’t have spoken so passionately about the matter on CNN;
(d) Spider-Man: Far From Home should have been Best Picture nominated in tribute to how excitingly & even profoundly it emotionally connected with hoi polloi ticket buyers, not to mention the fact that its success all but saved exhibition during a pandemic-and-streaming-besieged year; and…
(e) Stanley NelsonJr. and TraciCurry’s Attica deserves to win the Best Documentary Feature Oscar over Summer of Soul, mainly because of its overall excellence plus the fact that it’s an actual documentary rather a found-footage showcase.
Handicapping the nominees & predicting winners is interesting as far as it goes but everyone does it — advocacy is where it’s at.
…and do you care that three big awards ceremonies are happening this weekend? The Directors Guild Awards are happening Saturday, and we all know that’s a lock for The Power of the Dog‘s Jane Campion along with The Lost Daughter‘s Maggie Gyllenhaal for First-Time Feature. Then comes the BAFTA awards on Sunday afternoon (12 noon Pacific) but that organization has been more or less woked and Stalinized to death so nobody cares. Then comes the Critics Choice awards on Sunday evening, but they’re also on their own little orbit. Not even nominating Parallel Wives‘ Penelope Cruz for Best Actress constitutes some kind of aesthetic blockage, no?
Last night Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman, costars of Being The Ricardos. were given the Maltin Modern Master award by the Santa Barbara Int’l Film Festival. Inside the Arlington Theatre, I mean. Kidman appeared remotely due to a hamstring injury. The legendary Leonard Maltin himself handled the interviewing honors. It was a generally pleasant evening.
Neither Javier nor Nicole will win in their respective categories — Will Smith will take the Best Actor trophy, and the Best Actress Oscar will be won by either Jessica Chastain or (my fondest wish) Penelope Cruz, aka Mrs. Javier.
But I’d like to nominate or even hand an award to Javier for being the best person nominated in a major category — the kindest and warmest and most accessible fellow in the 2022 Oscar constellation.
Why? It’s all subjective but it comes down to something that happened 15 years ago in Cannes. That would be 2007 — the No Country for Old Men year. Javier and I were sitting on the the Cote d’Azur beach in the evening, and I bummed a Marlboro light from the guy, and as we parted company a few minutes later he gave me another — one to grow on, so to speak. I’ve never forgotten that moment, and that’s why I like him so much.
Update: I’m now thinking I might’ve gotten that wrong. The extra Marlboro Light episode might have happened at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, either in ’07 or ’08. But what’s the difference?
So the (apparently) likely winner of the Best Picture Oscar was directed by Sian Heder and the locked-down Best Director Oscar winner is Jane Campion. So women are definitely ruling the roost on 3.27.22. A white male winning in either category is a strict nyet.
With Oscar voting beginning on Thursday, 3.17, and ending on Tuesday, 3.22, women everywhere will be voting for this pair — where is the downside in not being on Team Heder-Campion?
With The Power of the Dog finished as a Best Picture winner and eight other nominees (Belfast, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, West Side Story) more or less scratched due to this and that factor, CODA seems like the most likely champ.
I hate to admit this but where else can I go?
CODA has only three nominations (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Oscar), and a filmwiththreenomsorlesshasn’twonBestPicturesincethelate ‘20s and early ‘30s — GrandHotel (’32) had only one Best Picture nom but it won — Best Picture winners Broadway Melody of 1929 and Wings had three or fewer.
The New Academy Kidz (virtue-signallers, gender and POC representation is everything, down with white males) believe that West Side Story can’t win because (a) it flopped commercially and (b) it’s a white man’s movie (directed by a white man, originally written by an English white man, adapted by a white man in the mid to late ’50s, recently re-adapted by a white screenwriter).
The New Academy Kidz don’t like King Richard for Best Picture, apparently, because they don’t like that the story was focused on a gnarly, obstinate, not hugely likable man of color (i.e., Richard Williams). Sends a mixed message — they only want POC characters who are 100% sympathetic.
In the view of “Yvan,” an Awards Daily commenter, the state of the Oscar race is about mediocrityprevailing.
“Yvan“: “CODA, Will Smith and The Eyes of Tammy Faye? After all of the great films and performances last year, this is what’s it come down to? I’m gonna keep following along in hopes of Kristen Stewart or Penelope Cruz prevailing on Oscar night but wow, DeBose aside, this is shaping up to be an exceptionally bland set of TV movie winners.”