More Oscar Nominated Films

Here are more Oscar nominated films seen in recent days in the eternal quest to view all of them before the big ceremony on March 10. So far I've got most of the major categories covered. The only acting nominee I am missing is Danielle Brooks in the musical version of The Color Purple. But I did see her do the role on Broadway. There are only two films apparently unavailable--Animated Featured Robot Dreams and Documentary Feature To Kill a Tiger. The former might be coming to Hulu soon and you can only see the latter if you sign up for some Canadian streaming platform, but it might pop up somewhere. Here's a rundown of the latest Oscar contenders viewed:

Nimona

Nimona (Nominated for Animated Feature/Seen on Netflix): At first I was resistant to this sci-fi/fantasy based on a graphic novel. The title character is a shape-shifting teen who comes to the aide of a knight wrongfully accused of killing the queen in a weird futuristic/medieval kingdom. The knight happens to be gay but that doesn't seem to be a bad thing in this fantasy world. The bad thing is the knight is lowly born and not an aristocrat, that's his reason for being an outcast. That and suspicion of regicide or regina-cide. Nimona's outsider status is her weird power. The two unlikely allies bond in a quest to find the real culprit. It struck me as too woke and full of "teachable moments" (Not that I am against woke, but it felt forced here with everyone being totally accepting of the gay aspects of the characters, but not of their class.) It did kinda grow on me. Nimona's character was annoyingly overenthusiastic from the start but as we learn her backstory, she emerges as multidimensional. The animation is fun, particularly as Nimona changes her form and during the chase and battle scenes. 

Bobi Wine: The People's President (Nominated for Documentary Feature/Seen on Disney +): This detailed doc follows the title pop star/politician on his journey from recording artist to member of parliament to candidate for President of Uganda. The corrupt incumbent arrests him, has him beaten, and arranges for his supporters to be shot at and even killed. The film takes place over several years and ends with Bobi's unsuccessful run at the presidency, thwarted by the dictator's authoritarian tactics. It's a common theme among this year's docs both short and long-form: the rise of totalitarianism in various forms, repeated in the next film I saw.

Four Daughters (Nominated for Documentary Feature/Seen on Amazon Prime for $5.99): A Tunisian mother's family is splintered by jihadist extremism as her two eldest daughters become radicalized and join terrorists in Libya. Her story is enacted through interviews and recreations with actresses playing the missing offspring and the mother when the scenes are too emotional for her to participate. Just as the Ugandan administration crushes opposition, the jihadists oppress anyone who disagrees with them. The film also explores the complex relationship the women have with the hijab.

Four Daughters

El Conde (Nominated for Cinematography/Seen on Netflix): A delightfully dark satire imagining Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a 250-year-old vampire sick of life and ready to die. But he cannot

El Conde
Credit: Pablo Larrain/Netflix

stop killing people, sucking their blood and eating their hearts. His greedy children hire an exorcist nun to pose as an accountant and finish Pop off so they can get their inheritance. It gets even weirder than it sounds and is vastly entertaining. Edward Lachmann's Oscar-nominated black and white cinematography is brilliantly rich. The images of the depraved Pinochet flying over Chilean cities are hauntingly beautiful. 

2023 Potential Oscar Nominated Films Seen So Far
Oppenheimer (34th Street AMC and again on Amazon Prime)
Barbie (Regal Union Square)
Asteroid City (Angelika)
Golda (County Theater, Doylestown, PA)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Regal Kaufman Astoria)
Rustin (Netflix)
The Killer (Netflix)--Tilda Swinton could nab a Supporting Actress nod
Maestro (Paris Cinema mezzanine and again on Netflix)
May December (Netflix)
Past Lives (Amazon Prime)
Poor Things (Regal Kaufman Astoria)

The Holdovers (Regal Union Square--and again on Amazon Prime)
American Fiction (AMC Empire 25--Times Square)
Anatomy of a Fall (Amazon Prime)

Nyad (Netflix)

Napoleon (Amazon Prime)

Society of the Snow (Netflix)

The Zone of Interest (Angelika)

El Conde (Netflix)

*Still: A Michael J. Fox Film (Apple TV +)
Les Menus Plaisir--Les Troisgros (Film Forum)
20 Days in Mariupol (Frontline/PBS/Watched on the Passport app)
American Symphony (Netflix)

*Beyond Utopia (Independent Lens/PBS)

*Stamped from the Beginning (Netflix)

The Eternal Memory (MTV Documentaries/Paramount +)

Bobi Wine: The People's President (National Geographic/Disney +)

Four Daughters (Amazon Prime)

Elemental (Disney +)

The Boy and the Heron (AMC Empire 25--Times Square)

Nimona (Netflix)

Short Films
Live Action
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Netflix)
The After (Netflix)

*Yellow (YouTube)

Knight of Fortune (New Yorker/YouTube)

Red White and Blue (YouTube)

*The Shepherd (Disney +)

Invincible (YouTube)

Animated
*Boom (YouTube)
Pachyderm (YouTube)
*Once Upon a Studio (Disney +)

*Pete (YouTube)

Letter to a Pig (YouTube)

*Eeva (YouTube)

Documentary

*How We Get Free (Max)

Island in Between (NY Times/YouTube)

*Deciding Vote (New Yorker/YouTube)

The Last Repair Shop (LA Times/Searchlight/YouTube)

*If Dreams Were Lightning: Rural Healthcare Crisis (Independent Lens/PBS/watched on the Passport app)

*Between Earth and Sky (POV/PBS website)

The Barber of Little Rock (New Yorker/YouTube)

*Camp Courage (Netflix)

The ABCs of Book Banning (MTV Documentaries/Paramount +)

*Last Song from Kabul (MTV Documentaries/Paramount +)

*Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games (ESPN +)

*short-listed but not nominated