The Everything - March 26, 2023

Of D.W. Griffith's many apologies for Birth of a Nation, this might be the best.

A quick wrap-up of everything else I watched this week. Although this week it's everything I watched. Following a couple hectic days of work Laura and I went to Chicago to hang out with friends.

Broken Blossoms (1919) - Problematic in its casting, but it's such a passionate and progressive tale of intolerance (better than the movie D.W. Griffith made that was called Intolerance). It's a stunning work about a Chinese immigrant who falls for the daughter of an abusive boxer in England and the xenophobia he faces for daring to be kind.

A Florida Enchantment (1914) - Now here's a truly horrific piece of racist filmmaking. A woman finds some magic seeds that reverse your gender traits... and proceeds to cause light chaos. The queer-coding is lovely. The depiction of black people is deplorable. Pass!

The Rest - March 19, 2023

The calmest moment in Yes, Madam!

A quick wrap-up of everything else I watched this week. It's the week after the Oscars. Goblin mode is activated. Choices are made on a whim. It feels good.

Chris Rock: Selective Outrage (2023) - Netflix's first live comedy special aired just a week before the Oscars, and considering "The Slap" is the only thing anyone remembers from last year's awards, I bet that was intentional. This isn't Rock's finest material... but it doesn't really need to be. We're just waiting for him to talk about Will Smith, and he knows it. He saves his thoughts on the incident for the last ten minutes, and they're certainly worth it. But feel empowered to use that fast forward button to get there.

A Dog's Life (1918) - One of two Charlie Chaplin shorts we watched for our movie club this week, which has started a new series where we each were assigned a decade from the 1910s to 50s. I know the screen comedians of the time were largely coming from the world of vaudeville, but it feels like Chaplin is inventing the Marx Brothers here.

NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET - Ranked

Can't blame him for trying.

There isn't a better horror set up than the one found in Richard Matheson's short story "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." There are spine-tinglers like "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Lottery", and "The Monkey's Paw" that come close - but none bury themselves in your core quite like "Nightmare." The premise is simple: A passenger spots a gremlin on the wing of an airplane mid-flight, can't convince anyone else it's there, and must decide whether to take action or not when the monster starts tearing the plane apart. What's less simple is the thematic range the story covers. For starters, it contains all three styles of conflict: Man vs. Nature (the gremlin on the wing of the plane), Man vs. Man (the passengers and crew who don't believe the protagonist) and Man vs. Self (the protagonist questions their own sanity throughout). It's a paranoid thriller that plays off of a widespread phobia (according to a National Institute of Health article that I did not read up to 40% of travellers have some fear of flying), and the story captures isolation, claustrophobia, and desperation in such an acutely relatable way. Whether you believe what's happening or not, you sympathize with the passenger, and you're scared for him and everyone else onboard.

If you've never read the story or seen any of its filmed adaptations, you've no doubt run across reference to it some way or another. It's a classic work that has been sited, parodied and ripped off hundreds of times over the past 60 years. I read the story last week and decided to track down the various filmed adaptations. Naturally, this has led to the following ranked list. You could knock them all out in an afternoon (including reading the original) if you wanted. But if you had to choose one, which should it be? Let's break them down from best to worst.

95TH ACADEMY AWARDS - A Review

The only way Everything Everywhere All at Once could have been better would have been the addition of Brendan Fraser.

It's the Daniels' world and we're all just living in it. Everything Everywhere All at Once walked away with seven Academy Awards last night - Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing, and acting awards for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Jamie Lee Curtis. Even though the film had become the juggernaut of this Awards Season, it was still kind of a shock that the film wound up with so many statues. For the Oscars to embrace something as strange and creative and existential as EEAAO is really a testament to the radiant joy and love that Daniel Kwan and Daniel Sheinert brought to the film, along with the absolute star power that its cast carry.

This was the first nomination for everyone on the film, and each win is as historic as it is earned. For Quan it was a welcome back after leaving acting in the 90s due to lack of roles for Asians. For Curtis, it was a legacy win following a long career in mostly genre films. For Yeoh it also felt like a career acknowledgment, while also being the first win by an Asian woman in the category. And for the Daniels, it will hopefully be a key that unlocks every door in Hollywood. These lovely weirdos were already going to find a way to make whatever they wanted next, but it's gotta be nice that every studio in the country will be fighting over who gets to throw money at them. I couldn't be happier for this cast and crew. And the studio of the hour, A24.

The Rest - March 12, 2023

This bear loves two things: Cocaine and Felicity.

A quick wrap-up of everything else I watched this week. (It wasn't all Oscar marathoning!)

65 (2023) - Adam Driver fights dinosaurs. What could go wrong? Well, everything, apparently. This movie has no heart, no stakes, and doesn't even seem particularly interested in the dinos. It's a tedious video game mission, set to easy and played on an old, dimming monitor.

Cocaine Bear (2023) - Another movie that coasts a little too much on its premise, but at least there are some laughs here. Ray Liotta is in fine form in one of his last performances, and there's a little blond kid who basically carries the film. Honestly, it might have been better without the bear.

Predicting the 95th Academy Awards

If it's anything like Windows, 95 is the year the Oscars really come into their own.

Sorry there wasn't a review this week. (Like you even noticed.) But here's the thing: I have always loved the Oscars. Passionately and unironically. And for the third year in a row I challenged myself to watch every nominee before the ceremony. Accessibility has finally reached a point where you can (legally) track down every nominee before the day in most places. And as a chronic procrastinator with a full-time job, I haven't had time for much else this week but plowing through the remaining movies. So today I want to dig in and make some bad predictions about how the 95th Annual Academy Awards will go down.

But first I want to talk about why I love the Academy Awards. The Oscars and I go way back. I know we watched them as a family every year, but the earliest memory I have of the ceremony is probably/inexplicably the Forrest Gump sweep. I have no idea why. But the following year is when the show started meaning something to me, because my favorite movie at the time, Babe, was taking the world by storm! It ran for months, had a ton of incredible TV commercials featuring those singing mice, and was nominated for a whole slew of Oscars. I was riveted. Seeing the VFX team take the stage was the highlight of 8-year-old me's year.

The Rest - March 5, 2023

What can't Michael B. Jordan do?

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

Causeway (2022) - Maybe too quiet for its own good, but Jennifer Lawrence and Bryan Tyree Henry are doing some of their best work here and I will always give extra points to stories about melancholy friendships. It's streaming now on Apple TV+.

Creed III (2023) - If this first feature is any indication, Michael B. Jordan is going to have an incredible directing career. The story is a bit familiar, but Jordan recaptures the energy Ryan Coogler brought to the first film and adds plenty of his own flair. The final fight is an all-timer.

TO LESLIE - A Review

Riseborough smiling at someone off screen... Probably Edward Norton.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

To Leslie is a familiar enough story. It's a tale of substance abuse (in this case alcohol) and the downward spiral that comes with it: self sabotage, betrayal, regret, rejection. Our protagonist is teetering on the edge of oblivion, and the audience waits to see if she will right herself or topple in. Which path the film takes isn't as important as how it chooses to do so, but the back half is the make-or-break for this sort of thing. Patience is required. If we're lucky, sincerity will outweigh manipulation and the performances will make us feel something beyond miserable.

We are lucky in this case, because Leslie is played by the wonderful Andrea Riseborough, who is one of those chamelon-like actors you don't recognize until their name comes up in the closing credits. She has been brilliant in Death to Stalin, Battle of the Sexes, and Possessor, amongst so many other roles, and it's about time she got to be a standalone lead. No matter your feelings on her controversial Oscar nomination this year, she is an absolute triumph in this movie. Remaining three-dimensional in the role of an alcoholic is a tricky task, and she makes it look easy. She runs the gamut of alcoholic behavior, and still comes across as sympathetic, even when you despise her. No matter how hopeless she seems, we still root for her.