2024
OSCAR NOMINATIONS
There’s no point in reiterating what I’ve
said about the movies that dominate this year’s Oscar race (see below for a
few) other than to give the Academy voters a pass: there weren’t many good
movies to choose from. Ridiculous nominations are the result of too many voters
and too few movies.
I was most surprised by the lack of
support for two films, both about broadcasting, that were among the year’s
best, “September 5” and “Saturday Night.”
Has there been a more influential
television show in the last half-century than “Saturday Night Live”? No program
is even close and “Saturday Night” blends a nearly real-time document with
plenty of myth about the 90 minutes leading up to its debut at 11:30 p.m. on Oct.
11, 1975. Director Jason Reitman, utilizes handheld camera shots and long takes
to capture the nonstop backstage chaos, bringing the show’s comic legends (John
Belushi, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner and guests Andy Kaufman, George
Carlin, Jim Henson) to life. At the center is ringmaster-producer Lorne
Michaels played by the frenetic Gabriel LaBelle. At a minimum, the show
deserved nominations for best picture, best director and best screenplay. It was
shut out.
The voters for best actress seemed to go
out of their way to ignore the year’s best work. Marianne Jean-Baptiste
delivered what may be the most impressive performance of the year in Mike
Leigh’s “Hard Truths” but was left out of the five nominations. Also deserving
in this category, even though their films had problems, were Nicole Kidman in
“Babygirl,” Danielle Deadwyler in “The Piano Lesson” and Tilda Swinton in “The
Room Next Door.”
In the supporting category, Natasha Lyonne
was worthy of recognition as the rebellious, but loyal daughter in “His Three
Daughters.” The film also should have earned a screenplay nomination for
writer-director Azazel Jacobs.
Whether “The Brutalist” or “Emilia Pérez”
wins the top prizes, 2024 will not be remembered as a great year for movies or
the Oscars.
While I’m still not finished with my 2024
viewing—the short life of the theatrical release window makes it impossible to
keep up—here’s my Top 10 right now:
2 A Complete Unknown (James Mangold)
3 Conclave (Edward Berger)
4 The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
5 Saturday Night (Jason Reitman)
6 Hard Truths (Mike Leigh)
7 The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi)
8 His Three Daughters (Azazel Jacobs)
9 The Old Oak (Ken Loach)
10 Knox Goes Away (Michael Keaton)
This epic rendering of an immigrant’s journey, in all its complexities, announces itself, at 214 minutes, as a film demanding attention. While director Brady Corbet does not deliver the masterpiece he clearly set out to create, there’s enough heartbreaking insight, humanized by a superb performance by Adrien Brody, to make it one of the year’s best films.
Brody’s
László Tóth, a prominent Hungarian architect, arrives in America after being
liberated from the death camps, separated from his wife and his artistic dreams
buried by the horrors of the Holocaust. His cousin, who has remade himself as a
gentile selling furniture in Philadelphia, gives László a job but never fully
accepts this living reminder of what the Jews suffered during the war.
But László modernistic design of a wealthy
landowner’s library eventually leads to Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce)
contracting him to design a community center on his property, which will serve
as a memorial to Van Buren’s recently deceased mother.
The unpredictable, often unreasonable
relationship between László and Van Buren pushes the movie forward even after
László’s wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones of “The Theory of Everything”), who now
suffers from severe osteoporosis, and his niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) join
him. His much-delayed work on Van Buren’s edifice takes a toll on László as
does his foreignness, his Jewishness, his artistic obstinance, all spurring distrust
and a lack of respect.
The picture suffers from numerous abrupt
edits, leaving scenes before they are fully resolved and forcing the viewer to
make assumptions of how characters went from point A to point B. (No doubt the
original cut was longer.) But more damaging is the disappointing final 30
minutes or so in which László disappears and others reveal the central
symbolism of his work.
Since Brody received the Academy Award for
his performance in Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” (2002), his best work has
been in small roles (I loved his Dalí in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris”),
but he’s never emerged as a star. While his László doesn’t match his role as
“The Pianist,” another artist who escaped from Nazi horrors, his architect in
“The Brutalist” (the title refers to Brutalism, his style of architecture)
keeps one interested in his fate over the lengthy picture. Though at points I
felt like his character was more symbol than man.
Pearce delivers the film’s most
interesting speeches as he continuously reflects on his place in the world,
giving his most memorable performance since “Memento” (2000). Jones’ character
is refreshingly bright and independent and feels underused until the end of the
picture.
Corbet, who wrote the picture with his
writing partner and wife Mona Fastvold, has been acting in TV and features
since 2000 and took up directing in 2015. His debut, “The Childhood of a
Leader,” earned him a best director award at the Venice Film Festival. His only
other feature is the overwrought “Vox Lux” (2018), with Natalie Portman as an
egotistical pop star. In “The Brutalist” he displays a good eye for individual
scenes (greatly aided by British cinematographer Lol Crawley) but is less
impressive connecting all the dots.
Even if it wins best picture, the film’s
excessive running time will keep most moviegoers away, even those who stream
six hours of a Netflix show about bickering rich people in an evening. To me,
it didn’t feel overly long, though I could have done without the 15-minute
intermission.
TWIN
PEAKS (1990, TV)
David Lynch, who died on January 16,
directed just ten features, five of them between 1980 and 1992, yet he may be,
this side of Martin Scorsese, the most influential filmmaker of the past half
century
Yet, his most memorable creation was for
the small screen. Starting with the basic formula of a morning soap opera
(there were a half dozen of them still airing at the time) with a large cast of
characters all with secrets and most involved in illicit affairs—selling or
using drugs, business corruption, cheating on one’s spouse—Lynch and co-creator
Mark Frost added a murder mystery, quirky comic themes (mostly centered on
donuts, coffee, fruit pies and Deputy Andy) and the supernatural all set in a
small lumber town in the Pacific Northwest.
I was surprised, in rewatching the first
season (on the free streaming service Pluto) that the pilot and second episode
offer a very perfunctory introduction to the story, following the discovery of
the body of Laura Palmer, a popular high school student.
It’s only at the end of episode three
that Lynch flips the switch and we enter a surrealistic underbelly of this
world: Special Agent Dale Cooper, sent to Twin Peaks by the FBI, has the first
of his many dreams. There’s a one-armed man, a dancing midget who announces
“Let’s Rock!” and the dead girl, who whispers to Cooper the name of her
murderer. This all happens in the red room, a place the show will return to
often as it spins off the rails, defying reason and the expectations of primetime
ABC television viewers.
As in most of Lynch’s works, music plays
an integral part in creating the mood. His longtime collaborator Angelo
Badalamenti composed the haunting, often industrial soundscape to “Twin Peaks,”
but Lynch adds an eclectic collection of pop music—from the Big Band era onward—that
helps define many of his characters.
His revival of “Twin Peaks” in 2017 for
Showtime doubled down on the disturbing and bizarre aspects of the original and
stands as the director’s last great creation. Whether on TV or the big screen
(or on YouTube with his daily weather reports), Lynch was an artist whose
vision of our world was sometimes hard to grasp—I have no idea what he was
saying in “Lost Highway” or “Inland Empire”—but you always knew he would never
back down from putting his camera straight into the eyes of the best and worst
of civilization.
THE
SUBSTANCE (2024)
I see more than my fair share of dumb
movies, but I usually manage to avoid the stomach-turning gross-out horror pics
that the younger generation seems to thrive on. Then, the Academy voters
included this film and its star, Demi Moore, in its nominations, so I took a
deep breath and did my duty.
What I endured was the most disgusting,
unwatchable movie ever nominated in the once-prestigious best picture category.
Writer-director Coralie Fargeat, who has made one previous feature, “Revenge,”
seven years ago, attempting to satirize Hollywood’s obsession with youth (now
that’s a new concept), ogles over the naked, or scantily dressed, stars, Moore
and Margaret Qualley, as if she’s making a soft-porn picture. On top of that,
she throws out all reason in her haphazardly stitched together script; Fargeat’s
nomination for original screenplay is a real head-scratcher.
Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) is a longtime
Hollywood star who gets dumped from her morning television gig as an aerobics
instructor. Dennis Quaid plays Harvey (wonder how they came up with that name?)
who never stops making sexist, sleazy comments about actresses. In case you can’t
figure out what a pig he is, the director puts the camera about one-inch from
his face to make him look even more disgusting.
Almost as easy as going to your local CVS
and apparently cost free, Elisabeth obtains a magic potion called The Substance
that promises to recapture her youth. It’s unclear (that’s the operative
description of this film) if Elisabeth realizes that her younger self will be
“birthed” out of her spine and that she’ll have no memory or control of what
that creation will do. Qualley, naming herself Sue, makes the best use of her
beauty by auditioning to replace Elisabeth on the aerobic show—didn’t those
disappear after the 1980s?
The extensive process, which clearly
should require a medical professional’s assistance, dictates that the old
version and the new version are “alive” during alternate weeks. And though
Elisabeth fights off any desire to end the transformation once things go awry,
I had no idea what she was getting out of this. She just as easily could have
hired a young actress to live out her life—at least then she could have talked
to the woman about her experiences.
Moore has a few memorable scenes—repeatedly
redoing her makeup before a date is the film’s only poignant moment—but for
much of the movie she’s naked and unconscious on the bathroom floor.
There are many other holes in this story,
but most offensive is the film’s treatment of these women: They are brainless
Barbie dolls who have no friends or hobbies or even the most Hollywood of
necessities, a charity.
If filmmakers are looking for real stories
of misogynism in Hollywood they are endless, including many starring another
character named Harvey.
HARD
TRUTHS (2024) and THE OLD OAK (2024)
Two of the finest British filmmakers of
the past 40-plus years released movies this year that will probably mark the
end of their careers.
Not surprisingly, as longtime advocates
of social justice, Mike Leigh (“Hard Truths”) and Ken Loach (“The Old Oak”) both
deal with the plight of UK’s minority population in their films. Also not
surprisingly, both films are among the best I saw in 2024.
Eighty-one-year-old Leigh, best known for
“Naked” (1993) and “Secrets & Lies” (1996)—eight of his films have found a
spot on my yearly Top 10s—examines the emotional complexities of the extended
family of a deeply distressed woman, played ferociously by Marianne
Jean-Baptiste. Pansy is both depressed and angry at the world, constantly
berating her soft-spoken husband Curtly (David Webber) and their isolated,
overweight adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett)
While I wouldn’t rank “Hard Truths” among
Leigh’s best—that’s a high bar to hurdle—it showcases one of the most powerful
performances he’s ever directed. Jean-Baptiste earned an Oscar nomination as
the daughter of a white woman in “Secrets & Lies” and later was among the
stars of the long-running CBS drama “Without a Trace.” In this new film, she
shows an astonishing range of emotions as Pansy, giving one of the best
portrayals of depression I’ve ever seen. That Jean-Baptiste was ignored by the
Academy, along with Leigh’s script, makes no sense, especially considering the
competition.
The movie’s cinematographer, Dick Pope,
who has been shooting Leigh’s film since “Life Is Sweet” (1991) and scored an
Oscar nomination for the director’s “Mr. Turner” (2015), died in October.
Loach’s picture studies the reaction in a
small, one-time coal mining town when a group of Syrian refugees relocate
there. TJ (Dave Turner), a middle-aged native who owns the town’s tavern, the
Old Oak, becomes an advocate for the immigrant community despite his strong
connections to longtime residents. The Syrians are led by Yara (Ebla Mari), a
young woman who is determined to integrate the refugees into the community.
The leisurely film sometimes plays more
like a Frontline report than a more subtle drama as Loach and his longtime screenwriting
collaborator Paul Laverty offer a balanced look at the positives and negatives
of the immigration story at the community level. But TJ’s dilemma—the older
citizens threaten to boycott his business over his friendship with the
Syrians—keeps the film interesting.
Turner, a career fireman and bartender,
who had small roles in Loach’s two previous pictures, “I, Daniel Blake” and
“Sorry We Missed You,” brings unpretentious sincerity to his performance as TJ,
bringing authenticity to small-town views. It’s the kind of performance that
have made Loach’s films so memorable over the decades.
Mari is equally fine in her first film
performance and the first time she’s acted in English; she grew up in a part of
Syrian under Israeli control, working in local theater.
The 87-year-old Loach, not as well-known
as Leigh in this country, has never held back his socialist views and hostility
to the positions of the British government. Until the 1980s, he mostly worked
in television and then broke through internationally in the ‘90s with
“Riff-Raff” (1991), “Raining Stones” (1993) and “Ladybird Ladybird” (1994).
WICKED
(2024)
Like a Marvel origin story, this
fast-paced, overstuffed musical seeks to explain a movie character we thought
we understood—in this case, incredulously, the Wicked Witch of the West from
“The Wizard of Oz.” For younger readers, she was the one who harassed Dorothy
and her friends (and Toto, too!) because the visitor from Kansas accidentally
crushed her sister to death.
This tale—based on the Tony-winning 2004 Broadway
hit—begins with the Wicked Witch’s death being celebrated in the land of Oz
(and a glimpse of Dorothy’s crew headed back to the Emerald City) before
Glinda, the Good Witch (pop singer Ariana Grande), remembers their time
together in college.
Cynthia Erivo (Oscar nominated for
“Harriet” in 2019) plays Elphaba, the future wicked witch, who was born with
green skin (picking up from the 1939 original) and a chip on her shoulder.
Glinda, the pretentious, haughty blonde who everyone loves, is forced to room
with the abrasive Elphaba as the first half of the film mimics the foolishness
of a Harry Potter sequel. Not until they get out of their version of Hogwarts,
arriving in Oz for a meeting with the Wizard (a way too flip Jeff Goldblum)
does the picture get interesting.
Except for the high-spirited production
number, “One Short Day,” when they arrive in Oz—featuring the play’s original
Broadway stars Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel—the songs struck me as time
killers. But then I doubt songwriter Stephen Schwartz (“Godspell” and countless
animated musicals) was targeting senior citizens.
It’s not a bad musical, but it suffers
from way too many songs, some just 30 seconds long, and poor casting. Erivo
looks like she’s a 45-year-old among teens, (the actress is 37) while Prince Fiyero,
the romantic interest, is played by a 36-year-old (Jonathan Bailey).
Most shocking was that after 2 hours and 30
minutes, it ends with “To Be Continued.” Director Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians,”
“In the Heights”) should have turned it into a streaming series.
Margaret Hamilton’s performance as the
witch in the original classic, along with her flying monkeys, scared the
bejeebers out of three generations of kids. The idea that someone would turn
her into a sympathetic character is hard to grasp—what’s next, the troubled
boyhood of Hannibal Lecter?—but how can you argue with 10 Oscar nominations.
NOSFERATU
THE VAMPYRE (1979) and NOSFERATU (2024)
If there were to be remakes of this 1922
vampire picture, I cannot think of two directors more qualified for the job than
Werner Herzog and Robert Eggers.
Right after the novel’s copyright expired,
Herzog made his version with his best friend, wild-man Klaus Kinski, as Count
Dracula (Herzog uses the names from Bram Stoker’s original story) along with
Isabelle Adjani and Bruno Ganz as the victimized young couple.
It’s nearly a scene-by-scene remake of F.W. Murnau’s silent reworking of Stoker’s story (penned by Henrik Galeen) with Kinski made up to resemble Max Schreck, the count in the original. Kinski’s Dracula looks like a living skeleton, with a white, bony head made even creepier with bright red lipstick and black eyeliner. By draping Kinski in black cloaks, at times he seems to be just a floating head. (Far from Bela Lugosi’s 1931 version, “Dracula,” in which the vampire shows up for afternoon cocktails looking like an overdressed, unthreatening uncle.)
Ganz, who went on to a great career in
Germany and America, highlighted by his stunning portrayal of Hitler in
“Downfall” (2004), seems uncomfortable with English in “Nosferatu.” (The film
was shot in German and English simultaneously.) While Adjani, among the leading
French actresses of the era, who earned an Oscar nomination for “The Story of
Adele H” (1975), isn’t given much to do as Dracula’s object of affection.
While visually, Kinski dominates the film,
the most memorable performance is given by Roland Topor, a French artist and
writer involved in European avant-garde filmmaking. He plays Renfield,
Dracula’s insane sycophant, who while being held in a mental institute laughs
uncontrollably for no reason.
Now Eggers, director of the atmospheric
“The Witch” and “The Lighthouse,” has made a version that also follows the plot
of Murnau’s film while adding in all the graphic violence and sex that could
only be hinted at 102 years ago (even Herzog’s version is very PG). But the
explicit realism doesn’t equate to a scarier experience; in fact, at points
this tale was so over the top it almost felt like a parody.
The story, set in early 19th
Century Germany, begins with teen Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp, Johnny’s daughter, who
resembles Adjani) experiencing horrible dreams of being possessed by some evil
spirit. Fast forward a few years and she’s a newlywed, brokenhearted when her
husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult of “Juror #2”) is tasked to travel out of the
country to finalize a real-estate deal.
After an arduous journey, Thomas arrives
at the Gothic castle of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard, under a mountain of
prosthetics), a tall, specter of a human with long arms and claw-like hands who
speaks in an almost unworldly voice. (At points, I could have used subtitles to
decipher his deep, vaguely Eastern-European accent.) Murnau renamed the vampire because of
disputes with Stoker’s heirs and Eggers follows that name change.
One look at this creature and most would
run for their lives, but Thomas, who comes off as foolishly innocent as Pip,
hangs in there, to his regret.
Back home in Wisberg, Ellen’s nightmares
have returned, accompanied by seizures and screaming fits. Reluctantly, her
doctor calls in an expert on possession and other occult matters, Prof. Albin
Eberhart von Franz (Willem Dafoe, of course). The casting of Dafoe is another
connection to the original—he played actor Schreck in “Shadow of the Vampire”
(2000).
Maybe the scariest segment of the original
silent was Orlok’s voyage across the sea—taking the long way around, I guess—to
his new residence in Wisberg. In Eggers’ film (compared to the silent version),
it’s less clear what’s happening aboard the ship, but when it crash-lands at
the port, Orlok is the only man still “alive.”
Eggers
usual cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, nominated for “The Lighthouse” and this
film, shoots Orlok’s castle as if it’s an outpost of hell but he and the
director keep the Count in such deep shadows and at a distance that, at times,
I felt like he was an extra rather than the main character.
There is much to appreciate in this
film—Dafoe, as always is a joy to watch play another eccentric character—but
too much talking and too much explaining takes away too much of the story’s
horrific magic.
David Lynch as Gordon Cole in "Twin Peaks" (ABC-TV)
Kyle MacLachlan and Sherilyn Fenn in “Twin Peaks” (ABC-TV)
Michelle Austin hugs Marianne Jean-Baptiste in “Hard Truths” (Bleecker Street Media)
Klaus Kinski is “Nosferatu the Vampyre” (Twentieth Century Fox)
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