"Nine Days" Review

 
 

    The question of why we are here has been brought up a lot in movies. Nine Days, the stunning debut feature of music video and commercial director Edson Oda, asks a different, more piercing question: Why do we deserve to exist? It sounds cynical, if not outright callous, but then again, we never chose to be alive. What if we were someone else? What if we never were in the first place? Plus, if there is someone out there running the whole show, why did they give us the gift of life? In one of the most impressive and thought-provoking pieces of speculative fiction I’ve seen recently, we get a vision of the beyond where the ones with the power over the future of humanity are, in fact, only human.

    Will (Winston Duke) resides in a house in the middle of a desert, quite literally removed from the rest of the world. Sitting in front of stacks of CRT TVs depicting the points-of-view of a number of humans, Will takes notes on what he sees, and records what he watches onto VHS. Occasionally, he chats with his friend Kyo (Benedict Wong). Suddenly, one of the TVs…goes dark. Not long after, a group of new visitors show up at Will’s doorstep to be interviewed. They are visitors, but they aren’t human…yet. They are new souls being considered for the opportunity of life. In nine days, one of the souls will become a human newborn and fill the vacancy on the TV wall. However, for the souls who do not make it through the series of tests Will has planned, their existence will be erased, and these nine days will be all that they experience.

    It’s the kind of job that is typically reserved in fiction for all-powerful beings whose awesome powers typically give them little concern over those they watch over. However, Will is not a god. In fact, he is human. Or, at least, he was. Will is dead, and as a member of the deceased, he has the experience to determine who passes muster as a potential new life. He has also retained his memories, thoughts, feelings, and emotions, which aid him in his decision. After all, who better to decide who experiences humanity than a former human themselves…right?

    The film ultimately focuses on a small number of candidates: Mike (David Rysdahl), Alexander (Tony Hale), Maria (Arianna Ortiz), Kane (Bill Skarsgård), and Emma (Zazie Beetz), each with a distinct personality. (Fans of Hale’s comedy work will definitely find a lot to like in this film.) What quickly becomes apparent is that the appearance of free-spirited Emma has had an impact on Will, whose role as arbiter is shaped by his own experience as a living person. Of course, that also means that the souls themselves are dependent on whether or not they fit Will’s definition of who is worthy of life….and he doesn’t take the experience of living lightly.

    To go into too much detail would be criminal, as not only is Nine Days is one of the most powerful cinematic experiences I’ve had recently, but also accomplishes a massive amount of world-building on a surprisingly small scale. Every one of the main characters feels fleshed out, and it’s likely every member in the audience will have their own opinions on who they’re rooting for. Perhaps you may even see yourself in some of the characters. Without giving too much away, Oda also delivers some emotional set-pieces so mesmerizing I don’t even want to describe them here. If you didn’t know he worked on music videos and commercials before, you probably will by the end of this film. (Furthermore, no death scene in film history prepared me for the elimination of unborn souls.)

    The production design and the characterization extend further to the TV wall. It isn’t just a mere set decoration with B-roll footage. Oda makes it clear that these are human lives, and some of them end up getting bits of character development themselves, almost as if they were part of their own movies we never get to see all of. This film runs nearly two hours minus credits, and it uses that runtime well. Between Will, Kyo, the souls, and even the micro-arcs on the TVs, there’s a lot of movie here.

    Not only is Will’s power over the course of our reality a major part of the dramatic core of the movie, but so are the consequences. With multiple possibilities, what do you do when the soul you picked doesn’t work out? Whoever gets picked won’t exist in a vacuum. We’re all interconnected, and we don’t know how their lives will affect the lives of others. Further adding to the world-building are the higher levels of the film’s world that are implied. When asked if he’s God, Will responds he’s just a “cog in the wheel.” This film raises a lot of questions, and I won’t tell you how many are answered. Perhaps the film’s ambiguity may be a good thing, as the audience is left to interpret things on their own. This is a film that mesmerized me, threw me through an emotional wringer, and has stayed with me ever since I saw it. I’ve said a lot, but I really want you to experience this film for yourself. You won’t see anything else like it right now.

"Last Film Show" Review [Tribeca Film Festival 2021]

 

 

 

    It was mere days before tickets would go on sale for the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival when the event was cancelled due to the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Not long after, all theaters in New York City closed. After a year of horror, the festival has returned, not just with widely accessible at-home screenings but many in-person screenings as well. Even better, for those lucky enough to get tickets to the in-person events, they were all free! The festival opened with multiple simultaneous screenings of Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights across all five boroughs as a tribute to New York City. Yet, it was the second night that featured what I felt was the perfect film to play as New York City’s movie theaters and film festivals begin to slowly return. Pan Nalin’s Last Film Show is a moving tribute not just to the art of movies, but the experience of watching movies in a theater as well.

 

    Last Film Show takes place in 2010, with nine-year-old Samay living in Chalala, in Gujarat, India, a place where the most successful residents have learned English and gotten out of Chalala. Samay’s abusive father, a tea-seller by the local train station, is taking him to the movies. His father hates the movies as he considers them a corrupting influence, but this one is a religious film, so it’s okay. One screening later, Samay wants nothing more than to make films, much to his father’s anger. Samay sneaks out to the movies to escape his home life, but is banned from the local cinema for sneaking in without a ticket. However, Fazal, the projectionist, agrees to let him sit in the projection booth and watch the films in exchange for the meals Samay’s mother packs for him. The more Samay befriends Fazal, the more he learns about 35mm film projection, and soon he and his friends try to replicate the magic of what Samay sees at the movies using the limited means available to them.

 

    While stories about kids becoming inspired to make movies are nothing new, the premise of this film is easily unlike many, if any, other such films I’ve seen. However, while the topic of 35mm film projection may be niche, the story presented here certainly isn’t. Even those who aren’t film enthusiasts are likely to be won over by the antics of Samay and his friends. In fact, I don’t want to spoil some of the film’s best scenes and biggest laughs, but let’s just say the film went in some directions I definitely did not expect.

 

    I’ve certainly seen a lot of love letters to the art of cinema, but I don’t think I’ve seen any as endearing to me as Last Film Show. Lead actor Bhavin Rabari gives a spectacular performance as Samay, alternating between stoic fascination and expressive wonderment as he learns to love the movies. Some of my favorite scenes involved him acting out and parodying the films Fazal plays, often with the projectionist involved. Inspired by the films he watches, Samay soon demonstrates a knack for storytelling and an interest in visual flair. It’s Samay’s little scenes in this film that really affected me, like as when he tells tales with matchbox art and separated film frames, or when he looks out the window of the train through a green bottle he found. (Fittingly for a movie about movies, the film as a whole is shot beautifully.) In one of my favorite scenes in the film, Samay and his friends ride bikes with colored strips of film leader over their eyes, tinting the world around them.

 

    The film’s bittersweet ending contains a powerful and devastating statement about those who consider art as disposable, and the final moments of this film nearly moved this cinephile to tears. Since many, if not most of the films at Tribeca are world premieres, it’s always a gamble on what you’re going to see. Not every film ends up being a winner after all, and some really aren’t. Yet, the real reason to go to festivals like Tribeca is the chance that you may see something magical before anyone else, something that you want to tell everyone you know about in the hopes that they may one day see it. Last Film Show is one of those films. It’s a movie about the power of movies, especially the power of the experience of viewing and enjoying them, something that resonates particularly hard in the troubled times in which I write this. The film has already sold in a number of countries, and I hope it eventually gets distributed in the United States as well.

 

Meeting director Pan Nalin

"The Amusement Park" Review

    Every now and then, a film comes along that you can’t believe exists, but are absolutely glad that it does. The Amusement Park is the kind of film, with a story that seems too bizarre to be real, and if not for the collective efforts of dedicated film preservationists, nobody might have ever seen it. The film was originally made in 1973 by a Lutheran organization which wanted to make an educational film on the subject of elder abuse and ageism. It was to be a feature-length PSA to be shown in community centers, churches, and anywhere else there would likely be an audience who would take the film’s message to heart. To direct the project, the group picked a work-for-hire filmmaker who had completed his first feature a few years earlier.

 

The debut feature in question was Night of the Living Dead, and the director's name was George A. Romero.

 

    After a few days, the film was completed and screened for the organization, which rejected the film and shelved it. Apparently, Romero went a tad too far with the film’s theme. According to a taped discussion played after the screening I attended, Romero moved on and, given the project’s nature as an educational film, never thought much of it. Now, a few years after his death, The Amusement Park has finally been rescued and restored from battered, faded prints to be released beyond its initial intentions, as a theatrical and streaming release. Yes, folks. This isn’t just any long-lost film by one of horror’s great directors. Take a seat, turn off the lights, and get ready to take notes and think about what you’ve learned afterwards, because George A. Romero made an educational scare film.

 

    At the outset of The Amusement Park, an elderly man (Lincoln Maazel) enters an all-white room where a bandaged, bloodied elderly man looking exactly like him is seated. The other man seems in no mood to talk, get up, or do anything for that matter. The first old man decides to go outside. His injured doppelganger says that there’s nothing out there for him, but the man doesn’t listen. The old man finds himself at an amusement park and decides to have himself a fun day at the fair. At first, things are exciting, but the more he explores the park, the more he realizes he is descending into a hellish nightmare from which there is no escape.

 

    Make no mistake, this really is a full-on educational PSA. It begins with Maazel introducing the film as himself, discussing the kinds of issues we should be thinking about during the movie. The amusement park includes a roller-coaster where the requirements include not just health but basic income (and that the riders must not fear the unknown). Pony rides are described on a sign as public transportation. A traffic cop harasses a senior at the bumper cars.

It’s almost kind of amusing thinking about what would’ve happened had this film been released, and how its intended audience would’ve reacted to it.

 

Here’s the thing about The Amusement Park: I actually found it terrifying to watch.

 

    The film is frantically edited, and mainly shot in handheld wide-angle lenses, resulting in a work that’s fittingly disorienting and unnerving. Yet, the scariest thing about The Amusement Park is honestly the educational elements. Romero isn’t out to sugarcoat the issues at hand here. This is an extremely effective piece.

 

    Since the film is only 52 minutes, I don’t want to give too much away in terms of the film’s set pieces. Perhaps the most memorable segment involves a young couple going into a fortune teller’s booth to see their future. They want to know what life will be like when they grow old together. The fortune teller’s condition is that they must watch the crystal ball’s prediction all the way through. Oh, they’re together all right. The young woman sees herself in a decrepit apartment with an uncaring landlord, trying desperately to get help for her increasingly unresponsive husband. Her plight is rendered with garishly wide-angle point of view shots. I felt a tinge of dread every time the woman went up the stairs, for the landlord didn’t seem to mind the fact they were in disrepair.

 

The most remarkable aspect of The Amusement Park is that, while it uses a lot of anxiety-inducing visuals, the horror is real. The pre-taped discussion afterwards said that many of the issues at play in the film still haven’t been resolved.

 

    The best horror, in my opinion, gets past the speculative, grotesque, and supernatural, and plays to the things that truly terrify the audience. This was truly one of the most surprising cinematic experiences I’ve had in recent memory, and it’s a must-see for fans of horror or weird cinema in general. In true educational film fashion, Maazel closes the film with a lecture telling the audience to think about what they have just watched in relation to their own lives, because at the end of the day, we all get old eventually. “I’ll see you at the park...someday,” he says. You know that gimmick horror films have where they tell you to keep reminding yourself, “It’s only a movie?” Well, in this case, it isn’t, because literally nobody is safe from the horrors of real life, otherwise known as The Amusement Park. 

 

The Amusement Park will be available to stream on Shudder starting in June.

 

 

 

Oscars 2021 Report: Statuettes and Limitations

 

 

So....the Oscars happened.

 

After a year marked by mass death and Hollywood crippled by production shutdowns, it was finally time to celebrate some of cinema’s biggest achievements. Now, I understand there are those out there who think that this ceremony is nothing more than what is supposed to be only 3 hours of celebrities patting themselves on the back and using the platform of a nationwide television broadcast to promote political causes even though ratings for the ceremony are at an all-time low, but I’m not going to talk about that.

 

The star-studded experimental TV movie by Glenn Weiss managed to accomplish a primarily maskless celebration at the cost of the usual spectacle associated with the Oscars. All the musical performances were broadcast as part of the pre-show, and there were no elaborate onstage antics. However, I don’t want to talk about that either, because I never cared about the spectacle. I never gave a damn about who was presenting, the in-jokes, or the musical performances. The only reason I watch the Oscars is for the real-time suspense over who wins, and all I wanted was a show that was about the talent who may or may not be recognized for their achievement. Well, be careful what you wish for, I guess. Anyway, this blog is going to be about the awards and nothing more. The only other complaining I could do is that there could’ve been more clips of the movies, and that we didn’t need Questlove’s trivia segment (we were so close to a ceremony without diversions). Well, also about the ending, but we’ll get to that.

 

The big thing about this year’s show was that a lot more small-scale films were nominated, with Nomadland, Minari, Promising Young Woman and Sound of Metal getting multiple nods. Unfortunately, that seems like something that will be unique to this year, so let’s move on to who won.

 

First of all, The Father received an absolutely deserved win for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was based on a play, but after watching the movie I can’t imagine how, as the film took full advantage of the cinematic medium. It was especially impressive as the director adapted his own work. Emerald Fennell won Best Original Screenplay for Promising Young Woman, a rather odd duck among the major awards contenders. It felt like something I’d see at a Fantastic Fest-type event rather than major awards ceremonies. I’d say the competition for that one was pretty fierce, as Emerald managed to beat out Lee Isaac Chung for Minari and Darius Marder, Abraham Marder, and Derek Cianfrance for Sound of Metal.

 

Judas and the Black Messiah’s Daniel Kaluuya won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. Not much I can say about that one, as in my opinion, practically all the nominees deserved the award for something. I can, however, say that Minari’s Youn Yuh-jung’s win for Best Actress in a Supporting Role was extremely well-deserved, as she was easily my favorite part of the film. Chloe Zhao won Best Achievement in Directing for Nomadland, making her the second woman to win the award and the first Asian woman to win the award in Oscars history. Zhao took a simple yet effective approach to Nomadland, using a cast primarily comprised of real-life nomads, with documentary-style cinematography and a naturalistic feel that made many scenes in the movie feel spontaneous.

 

Sound of Metal won Best Sound, of course. All joking aside, the sound design in that film made it a clear frontrunner for me in that category. The film did a great job depicting the perspective of its newly-deaf protagonist with the muffled audio during his point-of-view. This was actually the first film to receive the award, which was created by combining best Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. I think the film did a great job with both.

 

Soul won Best Animated Feature Film, in a victory most people were expecting. Yes, it beat Wolfwalkers, but what can you do? I was also correct in my guess that If Anything Happens I Love You would win Best Animated Short Film. The film is currently available on Netflix and is definitely worth the watch.

 

Police brutality time-loop film Two Distant Strangers won Best Live Action Short Film, which I wasn’t expecting, nor would it have been my pick. However, being a genre hybrid of social-issue drama and science-fiction, it was definitely a standout among the nominees in terms of premise, and I’m glad it got noticed. It’s also currently available on Netflix. Colette won for Best Documentary Short Subject, which was my favorite win of the night as, while it wasn’t my preference among the nominees, Colette’s victory meant that the video game industry has won its first Oscar. The film was co-produced by Oculus and Electronic Arts, both of which got thanked during the acceptance speech.

 

Another Round received a win for Best International Feature Film, a victory that I was hoping wouldn’t happen but also seemed inevitable. It was far from the best film nominated though, with Quo Vadis, Aida? and Collective being the two films I thought deserved to take it home. My Octopus Teacher won for Best Documentary, scoring a win for cephalopod fans everywhere. It also beat out Collective, and admittedly, I’m kinda pissed that Collective went home with nothing. It was truly one of the best films nominated and, in my opinion, deserved both awards.

 

I should probably comment on the technical and art awards too. Those tend to get ignored, but they’re also among the fields I tend to be interested in, so I feel I should pay attention to the winners. Who knows? That could be me someday. Sound of Metal won Best Achievement in Film Editing, beating out my favorite of the nominees, The Father. Mank won Best Cinematography and Production Design, and while a lot of people thought Mank didn’t deserve to win anything, I agree with those wins. The film was heavily stylized in both categories so a win for those makes sense. I also agree with Best Achievement in Visual Effects going to Tenet because the time-based action was pretty awesome. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom won for Best Achievement in Costume Design, as well as Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling. Judas and the Black Messiah’s “Fight for You” won for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song), while Soul won for Original Score. I don’t have much of an opinion on those, so let’s move on.

 

Tyler Perry and the Motion Picture and Television Fund both won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and with that, we come to the part of the broadcast that everyone was talking about. Yes, the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of the Year was announced third-to-last, breaking decades of tradition and practically derailing the rest of the show. Best Picture went to Nomadland, which I think deserved it wholeheartedly. Frances McDormand also won Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in the film. While other contenders like Promising Young Woman’s Carey Mulligan and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’s Viola Davis gave more overt performances, McDormand managed to say so much by expressing so little. Also, since she was an established performer among a mainly non-actor cast, the fact that she blended into the setting so seamlessly ironically made her work in the film stand out.

 

Well, it’s time to get this over with. The Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role seemed like it was going to go to the late Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. I had been wanting to avoid talking too much about the actual broadcast because I wanted to make this about the movies and people that won, but I can’t ignore this. The only reason I can think of to switch up the lead acting and best picture nominations was to end the show with a touching send-off to Boseman, and when the award went to Anthony Hopkins instead, I was shocked and disheartened for about a minute or two, and then I felt happy for Hopkins’ win. The truth is, I had been ready to predict Boseman as the winner until I saw The Father. Anthony Hopkins gave one of the best performances of the year in what was easily one of the best films of the year. It was a well-deserved Oscar, and I cannot stress this enough.

 

That said, why did they end the show like that? There was no reason to, and doing so completely derailed the momentum. Anybody watching the broadcast knew that the main reason to stay up until the end was to find out who won Best Picture, the big award, which is when the director, actors, writers, producers, editors, cinematographers, makeup artists, production designers, musicians, caterers, distributors, and everybody else involved discovers that their collective effort was recognized as the best film of the year at the industry’s most prestigious awards show. The ratings for this ceremony have been declining for years, but there are still holdouts like me who watch for the real-time reveals over who wins, and they managed to find the one way to screw that part up.

 

In the end, this was as bare-bones an Oscars as you can get, and I’m fine with that. However, while I have decried the excess spectacle during a typical ceremony, I’m really only saying that as someone on the outside. Let’s be honest, if I were up for the award, I’d want the big fat show too. Hell, I would’ve settled for the Oscars we got this year. If my college graduation in January 2021 had been like this year’s Oscars, I would’ve been fine, because I got nothing for that, only an on-demand video speech from the college president. If, after the lonely dumpster fire of the last year, all of these people want an iota of a ceremony where they can find any excuse to see each other’s faces, let them have one. Making a movie is a tough job, and they deserve it.

 

So there was my report on the Oscars, with as little said of the actual ceremony involved as I possibly could. Let’s hope next year’s Oscars is a return to normalcy. Okay, I’ll say one more thing about the ceremony. Those Oscar table lamps were pretty cool. 

 

 

 

Hidden Gold 2021 Part 2: Features

   

     Now that we have the shorts out of the way, it’s time to discuss the big guns, the feature films that that will compete for Oscar gold this Sunday. I’ve got to be honest: I watched most of these in a marathon before the actual nominations were announced. Normally, I’d have been all over the new releases when they came out, but…well, you know.

 

    Most of my predictions for what would be nominated were correct, some weren’t, and in some cases I was pleasantly surprised. For example, Jena Friedman, a comic whose Soft Focus specials for Adult Swim I absolutely loved, got co-nominated for her writing work on Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the title of which Priyanka Chopra Jonas unfortunately had to read in full while presenting the nominations. As I’d expected, Mank cleaned up with ten nominations, and if my predictions are also correct, it will barely win any of them.

 

    Of the better known of the nominees, Nomadland is the clear frontrunner for me in general, having already racked up a ton of award wins, and in my opinion a Best Picture Oscar is in the cards. Minari and Promising Young Woman have also been winning big, the latter being an unexpected awards contender. Not that I didn’t think it was good, but it’s not the kind of movie I typically expect to see at awards season, and that I’m always pleasantly surprised to see there when it is. Sound of Metal is looking like a major contender for the acting awards, while the late Chadwick Boseman may win Best Actor in a Leading Role for his powerful final performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

 

    Now, let’s get to the best feature films of this year, those that you may not have seen but absolutely should, whether they win or not. Typically, the highest quality films are mainly nominated in the International and Documentary categories, and this year is no different. Frankly, I consider these films to be some of the best films of the year overall, on par with if not better than many of the Best Picture nominations.

 

    Let’s first look at the documentary selections. Alexander Nanau’s Collective is also not only my favorite of the documentary nominations, it may in fact be one of the best films nominated overall. Collective chronicles a group of Romanian sports reporters investigating the aftermath of a nightclub fire, as dozens of survivors begin dying under suspicious circumstances. The truth they uncover is bigger and more horrifying than they ever could’ve imagined. I don’t want to reveal too much about this film (truly one of the most stunning pieces of documentary cinema I’ve seen recently), but I hope it gets seen by as many people as possible. This was originally slated to be released stateside in May 2020, before those plans were derailed by the pandemic. Had Collective come out under normal circumstances, I would’ve seen it as a testament to the power and necessity of dedicated journalism, but in the wake of the pandemic it gains a new dimension that makes this film one that is absolutely not to be missed. I can only hope the Academy agrees.

 

    If they disagree, though, my next guess for the Best Documentary winner would be Amazon’s Time. The film follows entrepreneur Fox Rich as she campaigns over two decades to get her husband Rob released from prison for a burglary they committed together in the early 1990s. Mixing her video diaries over time with footage shot in the present day, all presented in gorgeous black and white, the film presents a portrait not only of one woman’s quest to see her husband released, but the passage of time in relation to one’s family.

 

    Netflix’s Crip Camp is another documentary film that, while I don’t expect it to win, I also think shouldn’t be missed. An astonishing true story of social justice, the film begins with the story of a summer camp in the early 70s in Berkeley for people with disabilities. Those who attend the camp finally feel they have a place where they belong, but when the summer ends and they have to return to their sobering regular lives, the camp members begin a fight for civil rights that takes them to the nation’s capital. Crip Camp is an inspiring, empowering, and captivating movie that must be seen to be believed.

 

    Finally, Netflix’s My Octopus Teacher is one I did hear being talked about a bit at the time of release, but if you haven’t seen the film, now is the best time, as it’s up for an Oscar. The film follows filmmaker Craig Foster who, while diving in a South African kelp forest, bonds with an octopus that changes his worldview. One thing all these films have in common is that they feature ordinary people (or octopi) who find themselves in real-life stories that are as engaging as fictional dramas. I think that’s the beauty at the heart of documentaries: you never know what will happen if you decide to just start filming.

 

    For the international films, I have heard some say that Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round may take home the gold statuette. The film is about a group of teachers who decide to improve their lives in a decidedly unorthodox way: based on the writing of an obscure philosopher who believed humans are born with a deficit of alcohol in their blood, they each drink during the day to see if they perform better in life. The comedy that results from this premise quickly gives way to poignant drama. While I don’t agree that it should win, it’s easy to see how it could. Vinterberg has been nominated before, and the film has racked up a considerable amount of awards. Another film I would definitely keep an eye on is Derek Tsang’s Better Days, which has also been highly awarded; it’s also a film I liked considerably more than Another Round. Better Days follows a bright but bullied (and I mean bullied) student who befriends a street punk who agrees to protect her, until a shocking development threatens their relationship. It’s part social issue drama, part gritty crime movie, and part love story, all wrapped in what feels like the darkest anti-bullying afterschool special ever made.

 

    My pick for the best of the international films, though, is, again, Collective, which follows last year’s nominee Honeyland as the second nomination double-header in both the international and documentary categories. Also highly acclaimed was Quo Vadis, Aida?, the intense story of a translator in 1990’s war-torn Bosnia working at a UN refugee camp who attempts to save her family. The film maintains a sense of urgency throughout, led by an outstanding performance by Jasna Djuricic.

 

    There is one more nominee for best international film, Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Man Who Sold His Skin, which I highly enjoyed. The film takes place in 2011 and is the story of Sam, a Syrian refugee who flees to Lebanon. An art collector agrees to give Sam a visa on one condition: he will have it tattooed on his back in order to become a living art exhibition. Sam travels to prestigious museums around the world with his visa tattoo, but at the cost of becoming a commodity. Mixing great performances with some absolutely brutal satire, the film is bound to be unlike many other Oscar nominees you may have seen. My main complaint is with the ending, which even with the film’s bizarre premise tested my suspension of disbelief. That said, those who want some truly adventurous cinema should check it out.

 

    There are two more films I’d like to discuss. First, if you haven’t seen Florian Zeller’s The Father, you absolutely should. Not only is it nominated for six Oscars, but it is truly one of the best films of last year. I’m sure there are those out there who heard that this film was about a father who starts succumbing to dementia and wrote this off as an acclaimed but stereotypical Oscar weeper (looking at you, Bill Maher). However, don’t be fooled. In fact, The Father was absolutely nothing like I expected, a stunning achievement that I honestly cannot easily put into words. This is because the impact of the film is purely cinematic, using many, many filmmaking tricks to achieve its emotional impact. I was personally floored. The Father’s star Anthony Hopkins is easily one of the contenders for the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and I believe that The Father could also take home the awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Production Design. I currently don’t have this one ranked highly in my predictions, it having earned far more nominations than wins at various earlier awards events, but I will say you shouldn’t be surprised if this one causes some upsets. 

 

    Finally, I’d like to bring up one film that I wish could win something, I really do, but barring a miracle I don’t think it will: Thom Moore’s Wolfwalkers. It’s currently nominated only for Best Animated Feature, but it’s easily one of the best films of last year. Wolfwalkers follows a young girl in 17^th century Ireland who wants to hunt wolves like her father, but after an encounter with the wolfwalkers, werewolf-like beings who live in the forest, she begins to question her town’s fear of wolves. There’s a lot about this film I could gush over, from its beautiful scenery, to its action and drama, to the absolutely breathtaking 2D animation (look out for the amazing “Wolfvision” sequences, a hand-crafted achievement in the age of computers). The truth is, though, that the Best Animated Feature award almost certainly has Soul’s name on it. Look, I absolutely loved Soul, and I don’t think it shouldn’t win just because it’s a Pixar-produced juggernaut of a film (not to mention that it and Wolfwalkers are the only two of the nominated five I think deserve the award). I just don’t want Wolfwalkers to be overshadowed if it loses, and I feel animated films still don’t have enough respect compared to their live-action brethren. However, that’s another blog post for another time.

 

    Well, there are my thoughts on the competing films that deserve your attention, especially since some are going to win regardless. Which ones? We’ll all find out Sunday.

Hidden Gold 2021 Part 1: Shorts

    It’s that time of year again. As of this writing, the Oscars are this Sunday, celebrating the best films of one of the most tumultuous years for cinema in recent memory (give or take some films from 2019 or 2021). I’m sure everybody reading this is just as excited as I am. Yes, this Sunday, we’ll all have our Oscar predictions written down, cheering for the winners we wanted, shouting at the ones we didn’t want, and most of all, yelling at our TVs because we don’t give a damn about the banter (especially when the presenters are dressed as the Cats cats). Okay, maybe not all, but I will. Since movie theaters opened up in NYC right after I got my first vaccine, I was even able to finish my Oscar list in the relative comfort of a theater seat. Hooray!

    Anyway, every Oscars ceremony has nominees who are overshadowed by the big-name stars and major films that were released, and even in these trying times there were nominated films that have been swept under the rug. I’m talking about films like the short, international, and documentary film nominations. They may be ignored by the TV audience, but in the end, some of them will also take home the little golden statue of glory. So, for those who want to be completely prepared for the Oscars, I thought I would discuss some films that you should watch (and watch out for) for this Sunday, along with some other picks that probably won’t win, but that I think are still worth a look.

    First up are the short films. With the pandemic, I was afraid I wouldn’t get to watch these, as I typically can see most of them only on the big screen during their NYC theatrical release. However, not only were the theaters open in time to play the shorts, but many have been released on demand for home viewing.

    I’ll start with the animated shorts. These are often my favorite shorts to watch for many reasons. They’re often the most lighthearted. They also often depict mature subject matter in a way that live action cannot convey. This year in particular brought the power of animation to light, as a way to produce films and TV when live action shoots weren’t safely viable. 

    My prediction for the winning animated short goes to Netflix's If Anything Happens I Love You. This is a devastating look at loss told in ways that only animation can, the short follows two parents who have lost their daughter, as they literally deal with the shadows of the past. If you don’t know how this short ends, I won’t reveal it, but the sparse visual aesthetics and simple yet powerful motifs of shadows charm even as they devastate. I expect this short to get a statue, and if it does it’ll be well-deserved. My pick for best animated short that probably won’t win is Erick Oh’s Opera. A massive pyramid shows the many factions of a society, from gods to royalty to the lower classes, culminating in a war. It was originally an 8K art installation and it shows, because this one looked amazing on the big screen. There is so much going on at once that it may require multiple viewings to catch everything, all rendered with a cute art style that belies the serious events happening onscreen. This one may be obscured by heavy-hitting competition from the likes of Netflix and Pixar, but I’d definitely give it a look.

    For the live-action shorts, I suspect that Palestinian contender The Present will take home the prize. The short concerns a man who attempts to go shopping buy an anniversary present for his wife, but the Israeli checkpoints make what should have been an afternoon trip a much longer and more suspenseful affair. This one is on Netflix, so feel free to check it out for yourself if you subscribe. That said, I would also look at Feeling Through, my favorite pick of the live-action short nominations and one that I feel could also take home the prize. The story of a young African-American man who has a life-altering experience with a deaf-blind man at a bus stop, this short is sweet and funny, with actor Robert Tarango, an actual deaf-blind man himself, stealing the show. While I don't think it'll win, I also wanted to bring up a nominated short that recently got distributed by Netflix, Two Distant Strangers, a social issue drama with a genre film twist. A dark take on the time-loop trope, the short follows a cartoonist who finds himself reliving a fatal encounter with a cop over and over again. It's rare I see films like this in the Oscar shorts program, and if you want some smart sci-fi, check it out now that it's widely available.

    As for the documentary shorts, my predictions for the possible winners include Netflix's A Love Song for Latasha, which examines the shooting death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins with an experimental touch, or Colette, in which a former French Resistance fighter visits the former site of a Nazi concentration camp to confront the ghosts of her past. Were the latter film to win, it actually be a fascinating first for the Oscars. Colette was originally produced by Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts for the virtual-reality video game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, making it the first piece of video game content to become nominated for an Oscar. Will it also be the first to win? That remains to be seen. My favorite of the nominees was Do Not Split, which presents an in-depth, front line look at the protests in Hong Kong during 2019 and early 2020. I will say that this one was my favorite particularly due to its subject matter, as I've always been drawn to stories of rebellion, but this one also held my attention the most overall. Finally, MTV returns to the Oscars with Hunger Ward, a wrenching look at the human cost of the civil war in Yemen through the malnutrition ward of a hospital; the short is currently available on Paramount+. In an unexpected turn for the brand, MTV seems to have been aiming for Oscar gold as of late with its documentary unit, which also includes last year's nominee St. Louis Superman and Oscar-shortlisted pandemic documentary 76 Days. The documentary unit is currently being run by Sheila Nevins, who used to be the president of HBO's documentary division, which also made regular appearances at the Oscars.

    Well, that's it for my thoughts on the short films. In my next blog, I'll look at the features nominated for Oscars, especially that you may have missed but are definitely worth your time.