2023
OSCAR NOMINATIONS
For decades, I’ve used this space to
disparage the selections made by the usually nearsighted Academy voters. But I
must give the group props this year as they did an admirable job of voting in a
respectable collection of nominees, most prominently withstanding the “Barbie”
propaganda machine that attempted to equate its box-office success with being a
good movie.
The picture still scored best picture, best screenplay and best supporting actor nods, but the voters left director Greta Gerwig out of the five nominated filmmakers. “Barbie” fanatics somehow see her exclusion (is it a snub when someone finishes sixth or seventh in a vote?) as a comment against female empowerment. Instead, they should be more upset that Celine Song for “Past Lives” (a best picture nominee) and Nicole Holofcener for “You Hurt My Feelings” (totally ignored) were left out; these women, by my account, were the outstanding female directors of 2023. Gerwig’s spot on the five select directors was most likely taken by another female filmmaker, French director Justine Triet for “Anatomy of a Fall,” displaying the Academy’s recent move toward rewarding more international pictures.
From my perspective, the filmmaker who
should be most upset with the directing nominations is Bradley Cooper (he was acknowledged
for his acting and screenwriting), whose “Maestro” direction establishes him as
one of Hollywood’s best filmmakers, bringing style and thoughtfulness to the
bio-pic genre.
The film that Academy voters completely
whiffed on was “All of Us Strangers” (see my review below), a riveting,
superbly written and acted study of a gay man coming to grips with his life and
the loss of his parents. Actors Andrew Scott and Claire Foy both deserved
recognition, along with director Andrew Haigh’s script.
Most of the other misses by the Academy
were in the supporting categories: considering all the nominations for “Poor
Things” I don’t know how they left out Willem Dafoe, who gives the film’s best
performance. Among supporting actresses, three of the finest performers working
in cinema: Penelope Cruz (“Ferrari”), Rosamund Pike (“Saltburn”) and Viola
Davis (“Air”—why do voters always ignore movies released before May?) should
all be competing for the Oscar.
The Academy voters disagreed with my
objections to “The Zone of Interest” (see below) but there’s always one of
those every year. Yet seeing one of my longtime favorite actors, the underrated
Jeffrey Wright, among the nominees made up for much foolishness.
Here’s my Top 10, though there’s still a
few pictures I still need to see. (I will be shocked if “Oppenheimer” isn’t the
big winner next month at the Oscars.)
1 Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
2 Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
3
Maestro (Bradley Cooper)
4 All
of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)
5 The
Holdovers (Alexander Payne)
6 Killers
of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)
7
Ferrari (Michael Mann)
8
Napoleon (Ridley Scott)
9 Past
Lives (Celine Song)
10 American
Fiction (Cord Jefferson)
Just below this fine collection of films are Paul Schrader’s “Master Gardener,” Christopher McQuarrie’s “Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One,” Ben Affleck’s “Air” and Nicole Holofcener’s “You Hurt My Feelings.” My complete list of the year’s best will be posted in a week or so.
ALL
OF US STRANGERS (2023)
Few films have successfully tackled
loneliness, one of the most prevalent aspects of the human condition; the thin
line between maudlin sympathy and clear-eyed insight is hard to navigate. With
subtlety and sincerity, writer-director Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers”
examines sadness in the human heart through a man’s imagination.
Andrew (a quietly intense Andrew Scott), a screenwriter living in a brand-new apartment complex in London, faces his solitary existence—he seems to have no friends or colleagues—by conjuring up very realistic apparitions of his long-dead parents, visiting them in his family home.
Mom and Dad (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) are surprised by their son’s visit but quickly accept the situation (while recognizing they are dead) and try to understand what has become of 40something Andrew they last knew as a 12-year-old. Yes, it sounds hokey, but Haigh makes it work perfectly.
The conversations are sad, heartbreaking
but also deeply revealing and impactful for Andrew, who still has issues from
his youth. When he announces to his parents that he’s gay, the discussions grow
more intense, more to the point of his disappointment about his life.
Around the same time, the other resident
in the high-rise, Harry (Paul Mescal), shows up at Andrew’s door, drunk and
seeking companionship. Quickly, a bit conveniently, they become intimate and
inseparable, but mostly staying in Andrew’s apartment.
Haigh’s script, loosely based on Japanese
novelist Taichi Yamada’s book, puts much of the burden to make the film work on
the actors and the four principles deliver.
Scott, who richly deserved an Oscar
nomination, has been working in film (“Spectre,” “1917”) and on the British
stage, giving an acclaimed performance as Hamlet, since the mid-90s. On the
heels of this memorable film, Scott will play infamous conman Tom Ripley in an
upcoming series.
Mescal, who scored a best actor Oscar nod
in 2022 for “Aftersun,” gives Harry a dangerous, mysterious aura while being a
caring lover to Andrew. This could be a star-making year for Mescal as he plays
the lead in Ridley Scott’s sequel to “Gladiator.”
Foy (“The Crown”) and Bell (“Billy
Elliot,” “Rocketman”) are conventional 20th Century parents whose
concerns for their son, who grew up without them, represents the fragile
relationship that most children have with their mother and father. I can’t
imagine anyone not relating to their scenes with Scott.
Haigh, with this film and “45 Years”
(2015), which earned Charlotte Rampling a best actress nomination, displays an
ability to take stagey, occasionally claustrophobic stories and turn them into
compelling cinema.
THE
ZONE OF INTEREST (2023)
British director Jonathan Glazer
specializes in snail-paced, quietly horrific stories—“Birth,” “Under the Skin”
and, his best, “Sexy Beast”—but his chilly approach to filmmaking seems
reductive and inappropriate in this off-centered slice of the Holocaust.
Just outside the fences of Auschwitz, where
the most inhuman crimes of the 20th Century were being committed
daily, the commandant of the death camp, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), his
wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and children enjoy a tranquil life, seemingly
untouched by the conflict devasting Europe.
Glazer lingers over mundane moments of the
family’s day-to-day existence without entering into the camp where Jews are
being slaughtered.
I can imagine this approach working for
part of the film—maybe as a 15-minute opening—but when the film’s most intense
conflict arises when Rudolf must leave his home in Poland, I gave up. Maybe I’m
too dense, or too schooled in Hollywood filmmaking, to appreciate the
director’s take on mass murder, but I found nothing of substance or value in
the German-language film.
This picture adds little to the rich legacy
of big-screen depictions of the camps and the arrogance of the Nazis. Its
inclusion among best picture and best director Oscar nominations is a travesty,
worse than the praise for the goofball 1998 comedy “Life Is Beautiful.”
THE
LOST MOMENT (1947)
The
most famous directing one-offs in cinematic history include two masterpieces,
Charles Laughton’s “The Night of the Hunter” (1955) and Jean Vigo’s
“L’Atalante” (1934), and three memorable pictures, “One-Eyed Jacks” (1961),
Marlon Brando’s only turn behind the camera, and two 1970 cult favorites, “The
Honeymoon Killers,” directed by Leonard Kastle, better known as a composer of
operas, and “Wanda,” made by actress Barbara Loden. (Vigo and Loden also
directed a few short films.)
Other one-time directors include actors Jack
Lemmon (“Kotch”), Anthony Quinn (“The Buccaneer”) and Frank Sinatra (“None but
the Brave”).
This film, a Hitchcockian, romantic
mystery, deserves a spot among the better efforts made by one-and-done
directors. Martin Gabel was a well-known member of the Mercury Theatre, on
stage and radio, and then later a movie character actor, usually playing a tough
guy in such films as “Deadline-U.S.A.” (1952), “Tip on a Dead Jockey” (1957),
“Lady in Cement” (1968) and “The First Deadly Sin” (1980). He was also married
for 40 years to television personality Arlene Francis.
Before he started acting in films,
possibly inspired by the success of his Mercury boss Orson Welles, Gabel was
hired to direct “The Lost Moment,” based on Henry James story “The Aspern
Papers,” and headlined by two major stars, Robert Cummings and Susan Hayward.
While not quite “Citizen Kane,” the picture combines noirish shadows with literary secrets and features an intense performance by fellow Mercury player Agnes Moorehead. Cummings plays Lewis Venable, a rather unethical book publisher determined to find the long-lost love letters written by 19th Century romantic poet Jeffrey Ashton. This performance ranks with his best film work, “Kings Row” and “Saboteur.”
Pretending to be a writer, he rents a
room in the estate of elderly Juliana Bordereau (Moorehead, wearing a prosthetic
mask to look 100 years old) in hopes of obtaining, or stealing, the letters. But
keeping an eye on everything in the house is her strangely robotic niece Tina
(Hayward), who seems to be under the spell of the household’s past. The
late-night meetings between Lewis and Juliana, who claims to never sleep, are
memorable.
The gothic mood maintained throughout and
the fine performances—also Eduardo Ciannelli as the local priest and Joan
Lorring as the oppressed, gossipy housekeeper—reflect well on the first-time
director. Gabel is greatly aided by a pointed, unsentimental script by Leonardo
Bercovici, who went on to work on the adaptations of two other mystical tales,
“The Bishop’s Wife” (1947) and “Portrait of Jennie” (1948).
Hayward was nominated for best actress
five times in the late 40s and 1950s, starting with “Smash Up: The Story of a
Woman” the same year she made “The Lost Moment.” But I would argue that her
best performances were not in those melodramas that made her famous but in
lesser-known picture such as this one, along with “Deadline at Dawn” (1946),
“They Won’t Believe Me” (1947), “The Saxon Charm” (1948) and “The Lusty Men”
(1952).
I was unable to find any information on
why Gabel never directed again; it’s hard to believe he didn’t have the chance
after this impressive start. The film can be streamed for free on Youtube.
ANATOMY
OF A FALL (2023)
I’ve
read that this critically acclaimed courtroom drama failed to receive an
international film nomination because France authorities were upset at director
Justine Triet’s comments about President Emmanuel Macron when she accepted the
Palme d’Or at Cannes. Instead, the Academy voters rewarded the movie with
nominations for best picture, director, actress, original screenplay and film
editing!
After
seeing the film, I think there were more artistic reasons why the French
declined to put it forth to the Academy. It’s a fine, if inconsistent, film,
but not as interesting as a dozen murder-mystery streaming series I’ve watched
in the past few years. “Anatomy of a Fall,” with dialogue half in French, half
in English, follows the investigation and then the trial after a well-known
writer’s husband falls (or is pushed) to his death from a second-floor window.
Sandra Hüller, who plays the wife in “The Zone of Interest,” portrays Sandra
Voyter, who eventually lands in the docket, accused of murdering her husband.
Combining typical elements of “Law and Order” with an intense domestic drama (better explored in films such as “Marriage Story,” “Fences,” “Manchester by the Sea”), the picture focuses on the unrelenting questioning by the prosecuting attorney that attempts to dig into the less-than-perfect marriage between Sandra and Samuel (Samuel Theis). It occasionally flashes back to arguments and situations between them and with their young son, who plays an important part in the court’s deliberation.
I understand Triet’s nomination (with
co-writer Arthur Harari) for the film’s screenplay—the story remains compelling
from start to finish—but too often the direction felt disorganized and choppy. I
usually have no problem with long films, but this one certainly did not need to
be 2 hours and 30 minutes.
The film offers an intense dramatization of
a very complex marriage, focusing on how difficult it is to judge relationships
from the outside, but constructing the story around a crime might not have been
the best plan.
FIVE
MINUTES TO LIVE (1961)
I’ve
seen more than my fair share of bad movies, but few are as incompactly written
and acted as this offbeat, D-level heist picture.
Beloved country-western musician Johnny
Cash stars, giving one of the most inept
performance in film history as Johnny Cabot.
This dumb-as-nails loser joins Fred
Dorella (Vic Tayback, the restaurant owner from the TV show “Alice”) in a plot
to kidnap the wife of a small-town bank president and then hold up the bank.
Most of 80-minute crudely shot and directed
picture—I’m
guessing it played mostly drive-ins—has Johnny trying to act tough as he holds
the frightened wife (Cay Forester) captive in her home. His jittery, baritone voice, which made him
one of the most acclaimed singers of the century, and his clumsy line readings
(I doubt there were many second takes), make his character hard to take
seriously.
A series of phone calls signally when Fred
has completed the bank robbery keeps getting confused and even the
actors—certainly Cash—seem baffled.
All the while, Johnny points an oversized
pistol—it looks like something left over from a low-budget Western, at the
wife. The best moments in the film are when 7-year-old Ronnie Howard comes home
from school early and screws up the robbers’ plans. Howard gives the most
accomplished performance in the picture.
This mess was director Bill Karn’s
follow-up to his drive-in “classic,” “Ma Barker’s Killer Brood.” Not
surprisingly, “Five Minutes to Live” ended his career.
Unlike his director, the Man in Black went
on to appear in numerous TV movies and a few features over the next 30 years
(including co-starring with Kirk Douglas in “A Gunfight”); certainly, it was
all uphill from “Five Minutes to Live.”
THE
IRON CLAW (2023)
As a kid, one of the highlights of each
weekend was watching “Studio Wrestling” on Saturday morning. The star of the
Pittsburgh show was Italian-born Bruno Sammartino, who was always touted as the
World Champion of Wrestling. But even to an 11- or 12-year-old, it was clear
that the contests were staged for laughs, scripted battles not much different
than a “Three Stooges” short.
In
Dallas, the Von Erich family took it much more seriously. Led by a demanding,
masochistic father, former wrestler Fritz (in the film played an intense Holt
McCallany), the four sons all end up in the ring, for better or worse.
The film, written and directed by Sean
Durkin (“The Nest”), alternates between sweaty success between the ropes and
devastating personal tragedies without much subtlety between. The acting is
fine throughout but the camera keeps turning away, and the script falls short,
just when you think one of these sons are going to reveal their inner demons.
Another difficult balancing act the movie
tries to pull off is the Von Erich belief that they are athletes, ignoring the
reality that they are in the entertainment business. One of the best moments of
the film comes late when new wrestling superstar Ric Flair (wild-eyed Aaron
Dean Eisenberg) comes into the locker room after what looked like an incredibly
intense battle with Kevin. Flair clearly understands he’s just an actor, has a
good laugh and wants to go out drinking with his opponent.
What “The Iron Claw” does best is portray
the us-against-the-world mentality of so many traditional-value Americans, who
refuse to admit that, maybe, they are taking the wrong path.
PHOTOS:
Margot Robbie in "Barbie" (Warner Bros.)
Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott in “All of Us Strangers.” (Searchlight Pictures)
Susan Hayward and Robert Cummings in “The Lost Moment.” (Universal Pictures)
Sandra Hüller in “Anatomy of a Fall.” (MK2 Films)
Harris Dickinson, Zac Efron, Stanley Simons and Jeremy Allen White are wrestling brothers in “The Iron Claw.” (A24)
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