The Final Three Oscar Nominees

Over the last three days, we have taken in the final three movies that have been nominated for Best Picture of the Year by the Motion Picture Academy.

Here are capsule reviews of those last three films.

"Past Lives"

Two twelve year school classmates in Seoul, Korea, a boy and a girl, develop a liking for each other, and they go on date together arranged and supervised by their mothers.  Soon thereafter, the young girl and her family emigrates from Korea to the United States for her father to advance in his career.

Twelve years later, he is still in Korea, she is now in New York City pursuing a career in writing.  They find each other on social media and resume a long distance relationship.  After a bit, she realizes that it is not going to work and suggests that they take a break.

Twelve more years later, she is now married, and he is taking a vacation to New York in hopes of actually seeing her once again.   

I've left out a lot of details here, of course, but when the two discuss their past lives, as well as the present, we are presented with  touching movie that is a sweet, touching, funny, and heartbreaking all at the same time.  Had this film not been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, I would not have been inclined to see it, but I am so very glad that we did.  It's terrific, and I would urge you all to see it.

Three and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

"Poor Things"

I had never heard of this movie until the Academy Awards nominations were announced and this one led the way with 11 different nominations.  After seeing it this week, I'm not really sure that I can tell you what it is even about.  It is a take on the Frankenstein tale, that tries - sometimes a little too hard - to make pronouncements on morality and the human condition.  Through the first  twenty minutes or so, we were both thinking "Are you kidding me?" and were we even going to be able to sit through it.  But we stuck it out and are glad we did.

Visually, it is an amazing movie to look at, and Emma Stone, long one of my favorites, was terrific in it.  She probably is not going to win the Best Actress award for which she is nominated, but she is certainly deserving. (More on that when I do my Predictions Post later this week.)  There is scene on a dance floor with her and Best Supporting Actor nominee Mark Ruffalo, that is terrific.

It's a strange movie.  I liked it, didn't love it, and it's probably one that I'll never watch again, but we are both glad that we saw it, if for no other reason that the awesome performance of Emma Stone.

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

"The Zone of Interest"

And then there is THIS one.

I can picture the "pitch meeting" for this one.  

Hey, let's take a look at the private lives of the Nazi Commandant of the Auschwitz death camp and his family.  Commandant and Aryan looking wife live with there five kids in a more-than-modest home with beautiful lawns and gardens, and even a swimming pool, just outside of the walls of the infamous concentration camp.  They even have house servants recruited from among the camp inmates, and they get the first pick of the clothing, jewelry, and other personal effects confiscated from the prisoners.  Only trouble is that there is the constant noise of those trains coming in everyday, plus all the smoke that belches out of those smokestacks with accompanying ashes 24/7.  And let's not forget the stress on the poor Commandant as he struggles to keep up the production machine required in killing thousands of people week after week after week.

So, who green lighted this movie, and did they want us to feel sorry for this guy, his wife, and his Hitler Youth kids?

I think that you can gather that I did not like this one.   Had I only seen seven or eight of the nominated for Best Picture movies, I'd have skipped this one, but having seen nine of  the ten, seeing this one and going 10-for-10 became a priority, but man, I hated this one.

We must always be reminded of and never forget the horrors of Nazi Germany, but please let's not disguise it as motion picture  "art".

Zero Stars from The Grandstander.

*******

So, for the first time ever, I believe, I (Linda took a pass on "Zone of Interest")  have now seen all ten Best Picture nominees prior to the actual presentation of the awards.  In addition to that, I have seen seventeen of the twenty Acting nominees, all five of the Director nominees, and nine of the ten Screenplay nominees.   It has been an interesting and fun experience.

Later this week, I will be delivering my Grandstander Oscar Predictions, but until then, as a possible sneak preview, here is how I rank the ten Best Picture nominees;

1. Oppenheimer
2. The Holdovers
3. Anatomy of a Fall
4. Killers of the Flower Moon
5. Past Lives
6. American Fiction
7. Poor Things
8. Barbie
9. Maestro
10.  The Zone of Interest