Catching Up with The Oscar Nominees

We spent much of this past weekend catching up on the movies that have been nominated for Best Picture of the Year by the Motion Picture Academy.  We saw three of them via the wonder of Streaming. Allow me to share my thoughts on them in the order in which we saw them.

"American Fiction" 

This movie found itself at the top of many critics' Ten Best lists for 2023, and it is a well deserved.  It tells the story of an African American writer, Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, played by Jeffrey Wright, who writes serious fiction and real novels.  However, he is having a hard time getting his newest novel published.  What is even more frustrating, the best seller lists are filled with novels by Black authors that are describing the "Black experience" in ways that White editors, publishers, and readers are just lapping up.  One night, Monk begins writing, as a lark, one such novel.  It is filled with gangstas, mutha-fuckers, thugs, and white cops beating up on Blacks.   And he writes it under a pen name, Stagg R. Lee, who is using the pseudonym because he is "an escaped fugitive", which only adds to the cachet of the novel.  Well, guess what happens?

His agent takes the manuscript, the publishers are fighting each other over it, and a Spielberg-type movie guy is willing to pay millions for the movie rights.  Funny complications ensue.

All of this takes place while Monk faces several family crises at the same time - the death of a family member, an aging parent slipping into the clutches of Alzheimer's Disease, and dealing with an estranged brother.

I would describe this as a "serious comedy."  The satirical nature of the movie is both smart and funny, and the family issues are relatable to all of us.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

"Anatomy of a Fall"

German novelist Sandra, her French husband Samuel, and their eleven year old sone, Daniel, live in the French mountains near Grenoble, France.  She has been published, but he has a years long case of writer's block, and is now having to teach part time, all while working on renovating the attic of their home in order to turn it into a Bed & Breakfast to help with the finances.  Aside from Samuel's annoying habit of playing raucous techno music EXTREMELY LOUD and on a continuous loop while he works in the attic, all seems fairly normal with the family.

One day, though, Samuel winds up dead, the victim an accidental fall from that third floor attic window where he was working.  Before long, though, questions arise as to whether or not this fall was really an accident, and soon Sandra is arrested and put on trial for the murder of her husband.  What then ensues is a courtroom drama, and seeing the French court system in action was fascinating.  Flashbacks, investigations, a recorded conversation on a flash drive, and the testimony of eleven year old Daniel makes for a terrific movie. 

I was unfamiliar with any of the actors in this film, but I will give full props to Sandra Huller, who played Sandra.  She is nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, and if she wins it, it will not be an injustice.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

"Maestro"

Or, as I prefer to call it, the "Bradley Cooper Vanity Project."

Cooper is certainly one of the better actors working in the movie biz these days, and he has proven himself to be a very good director, but this biopic of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein has Oscar Bait written all over it and just screams of Cooper saying "Look at me acting and give me an Oscar!"  I guess he is getting his wish because he has been nominated for an Oscar in three different categories: Actor, Director, and Original Screenplay.

Which is not to say that he doesn't do a great job of portraying Bernstein.  He talks like him, looks like him, and man, oh man does he smoke like him.  That Bernstein lived to the age of 72 and didn't die of lung cancer is miraculous.   And a truly deserved Oscar nomination for Carey Mulligan, who I have never seen be anything less that great in anything, as Felicia Montealegre, Leonard Bernstein's wife.  Her scenes depicting her battles with cancer later in life were all too realistic, and were, speaking from my own personal experience, very difficult to watch.  Mulligan is also nominated for Best Actress, and, like the above mentioned Sandra Huller, she would be most deserving of the honor.

It's worth seeing, but be prepared for a LOT of Bradley Cooper acting.

Two and one-half Stars from The Grandstander.

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So, we have now seen seven of the ten Best Picture nominees, fifteen of the twenty acting nominees, three of the five directing nominees, and six of the ten screenwriting nominees.  Pretty good representation.  We are determined to see Past Lives, available on streaming, and Poor Things and The Zone of Interest, which are available only in theaters, but not showing anywhere currently in Pittsburgh, to my knowledge.  We want to see them before the Oscars are presented on March 10.

Of the seven Best Picture nominees that I have seen, here is how I currently rank them, if I were a voting member of the Academy:

1. Oppenheimer
2. The Holdovers
3. Anatomy of a Fall
4. Killers of the Flower Moon
5. American Fiction
6. Barbie
7. Maestro

This list will be updated as I see the other movies, and there will be my usual Oscars Prediction Post, too.  All my opinion, of course, and you know what is said about opinions and everybody having one.