I Watched Every Oscar Nominee for Five Consecutive Years - Was It Worth It?

Here we go again!

 On March 15, 2021, Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas announced the year's Oscar nominations remotely from a random studio somewhere in London. That's not how it normally happens, but it was the most normal I had felt since the beginning of COVID: sitting on my couch, watching two celebrities fake enthusiasm and struggle through names and categories. The feeling didn't last, but shortly thereafter I realized it was feasible - maybe for the first time - for me to watch every nominee before the ceremony aired. Not just Best Picture (my usual goal), but everything across all 23 categories. The ceremony had been pushed to the end of April and most films were getting digital releases as cinemas were either still shuttered or hobbling along with reduced seating and dodgy air filtration promises. I hadn't set foot in a movie theater for over a year, and this seemed like a decent way to fill the hole in my movie-loving heart.

The Best of the First Half of 2024

Feels like this maniac is running most of our control panels right now.

These are stressful times. Not just at the box office, where it's panic 24/7 - either because of the latest flop or because the "wrong" movie (a sequel, usually) broke through, suggesting we can kiss originality goodbye or whatever. It's also the upcoming U.S. presidential election, where the fate of democracy will lie in the hands of one of two very old white men (where there's a clearly superior choice whose win still wouldn't reassure me too much*). It's also work. And the heat. And the state of the world. And the fact that I'm just not drinking enough water.

So when I tell you I have bounced off of 2024's biggest titles, largely due to how they skew a little too thematically close to the bombastic internal and external conflicts of our world (I'm talking about the year's top two commercial successes, Inside Out 2 and Dune: Part 2... But, inexplicably, not Civil War?) and have spent a great deal of my downtime building an audio/visual pillow fort around myself out of semi-niche feel-good entertainment like Taskmaster and Eurovision and the Savannah Bananas, I need you to know that things aren't normal. I'm still seeing a lot of movies (as my Letterboxd can attest), but I don't always have the bandwidth to deal with the larger spectacles (Sorry Godzilla x Ghostbusters: The [Insert Adjective Here] Empire) or the emotionally resonant second chapters. That won't necessarily be clear from my picks for the best (so far) of the year. But stick with me. I'll try to put my madness into words. And be a little more cheery. (Apologies again, it's probably the dehydration.)

MEAN GIRLS - A Review

These are obviously the coolest kids on campus. Why are you so stupid, high schoolers? 

I want to get this out of the way: Although I was a junior in high school when the first movie came out, I did not worship at the altar of Mean Girls. I didn't see it until its DVD release, liked it well enough, but didn't return to it for a decade. Those two screenings didn't leave much of an impression. I remember a kid at the beginning talking about God giving us guns to fight "the dinosaurs and the homosexuals" (biting satire for a progressive kid educated at a small Christian K-12), and a strong focus on cliques (which we didn't really have in said Christian K-12 of maybe 600 students). But mostly I remember it making me feel bad, because everyone in the 2004 movie was so terrible to each other. I still found it funny and appreciated the callbacks in social circles (mostly yelled phrases like "She doesn't even go here!" or "You can't sit with us!"), but the Mean part of the title was a little too accurate.

This could all explain why I liked this, the fourth-ish (It was a parenting book?) iteration of the story and a translation of the Broadway hit, better than the original. It probably reads as basic or declawed to fans of the 2004 version, but I found it to be more empathetic than its cinematic predecessor. Partially because the core performances don't come across as sinister, partially because I am now in my 30s and no longer fear running into any of these characters in the real world, and largely because, yes, the musical is way less aggressive than the non-musical. And that's for the best.

Top 10 of 2023

May December, the kind of character study that turns questions like "When do you think she'll start doing the lisp?" into high drama, is my pick for best of the year.

Every year is a great year for cinema, and we should stop pretending it isn't. Instead, I propose we focus on how the cinema was great in the given year. 2023 was a volatile year for filmmaking, yes, but another way to put that would be it was a subversive year. We saw the WGA and SAG go toe-to-toe with the major studios and come out on top. Rather than compete, we saw the summer's two biggest films triumph as a most unlikely double feature. Sequels and superhero movies were largely rejected by audiences, instead favoring original stories. While it was falling victim to that trend, Disney tossed away Sound of Freedom and a smaller studio turned it into the most successful money-laundering scheme of the year... It's been a year of unexpected change. Not all good, but undeniably subversive. 

BARBENHEIMER - A Review

Image by Vinithasree3 (via Twitter)

Twenty years from now a middling movie will be released about this weekend in the summer of 2023 where filmgoers placed all of their hopes on the dual releases of two auteur features: Greta Gerwig's subversive yet commercially friendly toy adaptation, Barbie, and Christopher Nolan's mammoth examination of the man who led the development of the atomic bomb and the existential toll it took on him, Oppenheimer. I don't know if I'll go see that film (Will we ever recover from this wave of minor key how-was-it-made movies like Tetris and The Beanie Bubble?), but given the opportunity I will definitely go see these two juggernauts back-to-back again. Both films had their predetermined audiences (children and the nostalgic for the former, any number of nerd subset and your dad for the latter), but when they joined hands and strode into your local cineplex on July 21 they brought just about everyone else with them too, becoming a bona fide cultural phenomenon in an era where the zeitgeist is on to the next exciting thing before the current thing has even wrapped. (Look no further than last thing Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part 1 for proof.) The films smashed box office expectations and created a much needed moment of unity amongst film communities. I don't know how long the high will last, or when the backlash (beyond the boneheaded conservative pearl-clutching that was happening before the films were even released) will arrive, but I'm trying to hold onto this vibe for as long as possible. Because I had a great time at the movies. And, from what I could tell, so did everyone else. Let's get into it.

An Imagined Conversation with You, the Stranger I Feel Obliged to Explain My Two Month Absence To

How it feels returning to a dormant blog.

Me: [Opens door cautiously, after more than two months away. It lets out a long squeak. The air is stale. I enter.]

You: [Stepping out of the shadows into a beam of light that shines through a hole in the roof] Well, well, well... Look what the cat drag-

Me: -AH! What? You get to start this convo?

You: Yeah, dude. I've been here this whole time. But you haven't. Where have you been?

Me: Things have been... hectic. But, sorry, you've just been in here? Waiting for the next post?

You: No rest for the hypothetical, bro.

Me: Yikes. Is every blog like this?

You: Yes.

Me: There must be millions like you.

You: Millions. And we're very disappointed in you lot.

Me: I bet.

The Rest - May 7, 2023

"...My eyes are circles."

A quick wrap-up of everything else I watched this week.

Abbott Elementary, the rest of Season 2 (2023) - The season ended strong with some romantic sparks and a fight for public school values. Quinta Brunson is running the best sitcom on TV right now and I hope the WGA strike is resolved quickly (in the writer's favor, of course) so they can get back to penning season 3.

Evil Dead Rise (2023) - It's significantly more traditional than the original Sam Raimi trilogy, but there are some solid scares, a fair amount of practical effects and a wonderful cast - especially Alyssa Sutherland, who manages to bring a level of pathos and humor to the role of a possessed mom that could easily have been one-note. The themes of family and urban isolation also help. Certainly worth a watch if you're a fan of the franchise.