2022 ACADEMY AWARDS
Academy members have been rewarding safe, crowd-pleasing
entertainments since this Oscar thing started in 1927. I’ve always wondered: what
possessed voters to select “Around the World in 80 Days” as the best picture of
1956 or, in the 1960s, “The Sound of Music” and “Oliver!”? And how foolish does
1990 best picture “Dances with Wolves” look compared in loser “Goodfellas”?
In the past 20 years, what had been the
occasional unexplainable pick became the norm, starting with head-scratching
best pictures “Crash” (2005), “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008) and “The Artist”
(2011). With the expansion of the membership and the decline in the quality of
American films, it has become rare that a first-rate picture is celebrated at
the end of the Sunday night show. In the past six years, only “Parasite,” a
South Korean movie, and “Nomadland,” an offbeat indie picture, were worthy best
picture selections. While “Everything Everyone All at Once” is a better and
more ambitious film than 2018’s “Green Book,” or 2021’s “CODA,” its strongest
selling point is telling an Asian American story, even if that drama remains
buried under a numbing flurry of CGI.
While Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie
Lee Curtis gave good performances and each provided emotional high points for
the television show, it would have been nice to see at least one of the actors
from “The Banshees of Inisherin” recognized, not just the donkey. (See my list
of the year’s best on the website.)
And while I’m all in favor of diversity in
movies and, by extension, movie awards, too often debates about selections
focus on the gender, race and ethnicity of the nominees rather than the quality
of the performance, writing or directing. Need it be said that not all actors
in high-profile films are equally worthy of being honored?
Giving Brendan Fraser the Oscar over Colin
Farrell was the biggest miscarriage of Oscar justice of the night, but the low
point was the trailer for “The Little Mermaid” that Disney, ABC’s parent
company, foisted on viewers. The cynic in me has already penciled in the remake
on next year’s best picture nominees.
Almost as bad were the clips marking
Warner Bros. 100th anniversary: half the movies in the montage
weren’t Warner pictures but were from MGM, whose library was acquired by the
studio a few years ago. Like the clips that aired last year of “The Godfather,”
it was a piece of advertising not worthy of being part of the Academy show.
Though I never expect the Oscars to mirror my
opinions on films, I remain baffled as to why three mainstream but superbly
entertaining films—“Nope,” “The Woman King” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out
Mystery”—were all but ignored by Academy voters. Each deserved a spot in the
best picture competition.
If I ran the show, I’d ink Jimmy Kimmel to
a long-term contract, hire better writers to improve the presenters’ chit-chat,
do a better job of selecting In Memoriam people (no Paul Sorvino or Melinda
Dillon?) and bring back the live presentation of the honorary awards (instead,
they hold a dinner in November). Can you image what a great moment it would
have been had Michael J. Fox accepted this year’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian
Award Sunday night?
TO
LESLIE (2022)
If it takes questionable campaigning to
score Oscar recognition for low-budget, barely released pictures such as “To
Leslie,” then I’m all for it. While I am not ready to install the film’s star
into the acting pantheon as some have insisted, Andrea Riseborough gives a
superb performance that should elevate this relatively unknown to starring
roles.
This downbeat character study opens with
grainy video of an overly enthusiastic woman being interviewed on local TV
after winning the lottery. Jumping ahead six years, she’s a homeless, alcoholic
lost soul, looking like she should be hospitalized.
Attempts to stay with her apprehensive
20-year-old son (Owen Teague) and then with her hateful, bitter sister (Allison
Janney) end with her being thrown out because she just can’t keep away from the
bottle.
Riseborough captures as well as anyone has
the hopeless bar fly who makes herself a figure of ridicule as she attempts to
allure men. Leslie is the person you cross the street to avoid or look away
from when you’re drinking at the bar. A sad, lonely life, but one that she
seems to have brought on herself, alienating every relative.
Leslie finds a bit of stability when a
motel manager (a miscast Marc Maron) hires her as a cleaning lady, going out of
his way to steer her toward the straight and narrow.
Sadly, without the surprise best actress
nod for Riseborough (I still maintain that few of the voters saw the movie),
“To Leslie” would have disappeared amid the onslaught of star vehicles and
sci-fi/comic strip films.
Director Michael Morris (a director and
producer on “Better Call Saul”) and screenwriter Ryan Binaco have created the
kind of gritty, down-and-out tale that flourished in the 1970s and early 80s. This
film would fit nicely on a double bill with “Scarecrow” (1973), “Mean Streets”
(1973), “Stranger Than Paradise” (1984), “Barfly” (1987) or pretty much any
Cassavetes film.
HUSTLE
(2022)
Adam Sandler, after years of making a mint
by playing the dumb guy in juvenile comedies, has delivered two nuanced
dramatic performances in a row, both as basketball-obsessed characters.
Proving that his work in “Uncut Gems”
wasn’t a one-off, the 56-year-old memorably depicts an NBA scout with an eye
for raw talent who’s desperate to finally get off the road. His shot at an
assistant coaching job disappears when the longtime owner of the Philadelphia
76ers (Robert Duvall) dies and his son (Ben Foster), a rival of Sandler’s Stanley
Sugerman, takes over the team. (Queen Latifah gives an upbeat, genuine
performance as Stanley’s wife.)
Back beating the bushes for future stars, Stanley
discovers a poor, humble young man (played by NBA player Juancho Hernangomez) in
a small town in Spain and quickly bonds with his family.
While the plot outline is about as cliché as it gets, director Jeremiah
Zagar and screenwriters Taylor Materne and Will Fetters turn the story into a
fascinating look at the trials and tribulations of a foreign player getting a
shot in the Association.
Sandler’s sincerity and clear love of
basketball (in “Uncut Gems” he was an obsessive NBA gambler) and the
participation of dozens of NBA stars (including LeBron James, Seth Curry, Trae
Young, Anthony Edward and legend Julius Erving) turn the film into one of
2022’s best.
This
month, Sandler will receive the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American
Humor, but he also should have been among the Oscar’s best actor nominees.
TRIANGLE
OF SADNESS (2022)
I will not go so far as to say this is the
worst film ever nominated for a best picture, best director and screenplay
Oscar considering that the last 20 years have been lousy with poor choices by
the Academy, but the selections are pretty egregious.
While I think most would agree that the
world of fashion and influencers and the filthy rich are worthy of
slash-and-burn satirizing, the effectiveness of any mockery comes down to its
execution—compare a Will Ferrell comedy to a Cohen Bros. picture; Jerry Lewis
to Stanley Kubrick.
Indulgence defines this Danish (though
primary in English) film primarily set on a luxury yacht with a collection of
international travelers. It strains to show the well-to-do as inconsiderate,
delusional and self-righteous. For reasons I never really grasped, much of the
focus is on a pair of young, attractive but vacuous influencers played by
Charlbi Dean (who tragically died in August at age 32) and Harris Dickinson.
But the main drama of the first half of
the film is the attempts by the boat’s staff to keep its captain (Woody
Harrelson) sober long enough to attend dinner.
When he does finally emerge from his
cabin, the yacht runs into a violent storm, spurring disrupted stomachs among
the passengers, depicted in repulsive
literalness
by director Ruben Östlund. If this wasn’t unpleasant enough, Östlund subjects the
audience to a long, sophomoric debate over capitalism between the captain and a
Russian passenger (an amusing Zlatko Buric).
For reasons I won’t go into—I don’t
want to spoil the “fun” for those who plan to see it—some of those aboard end
up washed ashore on a deserted beach, where a yacht employee (Dolly de Leon)
takes control of the group.
That’s where the film turns into a 1970s
Lina Wertmüller film, growing more didactic and idiotic by the minute. To be
clear, the great Italian director did it well 50 years ago; “Triangle” plays
like an amateurish remake.
Östlund previous high-profile pictures,
“Force Majeure” (2015) and “The Square” (2017) both share with “Triangle” a
willingness to strip individuals and institutions of their veneer of
respectability and an absence of subtlety.
But clearly many disagree with my
assessments: “Triangle” captured the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film
Festival along with all those Oscar nods; “The Square” scored a foreign film
Oscar nomination; and “Force Majeure” managed a Golden Globe nomination.
THE
LAST FULL MEASURE (2020)
Though this based-on-a-true-story drama
has all the markings of a TV movie, leading inevitably to an emotional,
feel-good finale, a strong script and heartfelt performances from an all-star
cast of Hollywood veterans playing Vietnam vets win the day.
Set in 1999, a Defense department
staffer, Scott Huffman, ready to move on to greener pastures, finds himself
saddled with the task of investigating a long-ignored request for a Medal of
Honor by those who witnessed the acts of an Air Force man during the Vietnam
War in 1966. Posthumously, Airman William Pitsenbarger had received the Air
Force Cross by was denied the higher honor.
As Huffman (played generically by Sebastian
Stan) interviews the men who are pushing for Pitsenbarger’s medal, the story of
his heroism and the admiration from those who were there inspires the young
lawyer. While the idea that all these vets have strong anti-social attitudes
seems a bit reductive, but it gives a collection of fine actors, including
William Hurt, Samuel L. Jackson, Ed Harris, John Savage, Peter Fonda and, most
memorably, Christopher Plummer as Pitsenbarger’s father, some touching moments.
The impressive cast also includes Diane Ladd and Amy Madigan.
Plummer, who seemed to improve with age—he
was 90 when this was released—has one of his best moments in his long,
illustrious career when, looking out a bedroom window, he remembers watching his
son cut the grass as a boy. It was his
final big screen performance, as it was for Fonda.
Also giving what may be his best film
performance is Dale Dye, as a senator whose connection to the war is crucial to
Pitsenbarger getting his due. The long-time military adviser on dozens of
pictures (“Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Saving Private Ryan” and
the television series “Band of Brothers”), Dye has acted in more than 80 films
since 1986.
Writer-director Todd Robinson, best known
for “Lonely Hearts” (2006), his remake of the cult classic “The Honeymoon
Killers,” provides this superb lineup of actors with poignant backstories and
memorable dialogue, creating a fine addition to the Vietnam War film catalogue.
THE
PALE BLUE EYE (2022)
For some reason, writer-director Scott
Cooper gets no respect. Since his debut as a director in 2009 with “Crazy
Heart,” which earned Jeff Bridges a long-deserved best actor Oscar, Cooper has
made five films; I’ve seen four of them and all are excellent.
His latest, which quietly debuted on
Netflix in January after a very limited theatrical release in December, stars
Christian Bale (who also headlined Cooper’s “Out of the Furnace” and
“Hostiles”) as Augustus Landor, a melancholy detective, circa 1830, who is
recruited by the superintendent of West Point academy (the always superb
Timothy Spall) to solve a hideous crime. After a cadet hanged himself, someone
breaks into the medical facility and steals his heart.
Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley from the
“Harry Potter” films) gives a quirky performance as Poe, counterbalancing the
intensity of Bale. Together, they uncover some strange goings on at the Point.
Toby Jones as the trusted academy’s doctor
and Gillian Anderson as his eccentric wife liven up the story as does
92-year-old Robert Duvall, hidden under a bushy beard, who plays an expert in
ancient symbols.
While not as compelling as his 2017 Western,
“Hostiles,” Cooper’s new film, adapted from a novel by Louis Bayard, is one of
the more entertaining pictures of 2022, impressively recreating the era and
providing another well-written role for Bale.
A
BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY (1991)
Edward Yang, who directed just eight
features before his death of cancer at age 59, is one of the preeminent
filmmakers to emerge from the Taiwanese New Wave of the 1980s, along with
Hsiao-Hsien Hou and Ang Lee.
Yang first gained international fame on the
festival circuit with “Taipei Story” (1985), a look at the struggle of a young
Taiwanese family and the influence of Western values, starring his fellow
filmmaker Hou.
But it was “A Brighter Summer Day,” a
four-hour, documentary-like film, which brought Yang into the conversation of
great directors, earning 11 nominations at the Taipei Golden Horse Film
Festival, the one of Asia’s most important festivals. I finally saw it recently
after it landed at No. 78 on Sight & Sound Top 100.
The first thing any newcomer to Asian films
needs to prepare for is the incredibly slow pacing. If most Western cinema
fast-forwards through life, filmmakers on the other side of the globe prefer to
let the action play out in what seems like slow-motion.
The film follows the in-fighting between
high school students (a milder version of Western youth gangs) in the 1970s,
caught between the traditional ideas of their parents and the growing American
influence. Chang Chen, who later starred in “Happy Together,” “Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon” and, in 2021 “Dune,” plays the 14-year-old who has his feet in
both worlds along with his off-and-on girlfriend, played by Lisa Yang.
Though I probably have more interest in
the film’s themes than most Western filmgoers as my wife grew up in Taipei in
the same era, this film was a bit of a slog to get through. At two hours, it
might have been a pretty good film; at four it grew tiring.
To me, Yang’s “Yi Yi: A One and a Two…”
(2000), for which he won best director at Cannes, is a much better picture. (It
landed at No. 90, making Yang one of the few filmmakers to have two movies on
the Sight & Sound list.) The story focuses on a multi-generational family, seen
mostly through the eyes of 8-year-old Yang Yang (a wonderful Jonathan Chang).
“Yi Yi” is equally slow-moving (and almost three hours long), but its vivid
acting and insightful writing make it more digestible for Western audiences.
