Oscar Nominees: Creator, Guardians, Perfect Days, etc.

In the quest to see all the Oscar-nominated films, I'm down to categories like Visual Effects and Sound (remember when they had a separate category for sound effects editing? What happened to it?) But in these fields, we have mostly action epics which I didn't bother seeing during the summer. When I had a house in upstate NY and before COVID, we used to go to these kinds of pix all the time, just to get out of the house. I do love a good sci-fi or superhero flick and have enjoyed most of the Marvel Universe and Star Wars franchise. (I get Disney + with the Hulu Plus Live TV package so I may as well watch them since I'm paying for it.)

Madeline Yuna Voyles and friend in
The Creator
Credit: 20th Century Studios

The Creator (Nominated for Sound and Visual Effects/Seen on Hulu): Almost every shot in this massive sci-fi blockbuster contains a visual effect with half the cast being transformed for their roles as simulants or robots. There's also lots of huge spaceships and explosions. The premise has great potential: in the year 2070, AI-powered lifeforms based in Asia are at war with the humans-only West--read imperialist, jingoheaded USA. Parallels to the Vietnam War are obvious. The hero (John David Washington, Denzel's son) has been recruited to seize an AI superweapon which can control all technology and destroy mankind. Turns out the weapon or asset is in the form of a child. The reluctant hero's stake: his wife is somewhere behind enemy lines. The only way he can find her and save humanity to retrieve the sim-kid. The visuals are stunning, but the action gets kinda repetitive after a while. Plus there are continuity issues where the action doesn't make sense. 

At least this huge summer-type pic provided employment for people I like from the theater such as Allison Janney,  Michael Esper (who I just saw in Appropriate on Broadway) and Ken Wantanabe (mainly a movie actor, but a Tony nominee for The King and I). Seeing Janney in a ridiculous role in an expensive piece of hardware-infused fluff made me think about the fact that an Oscar and 7-time Emmy winner has to appear in such silliness to pay the rent.

The Creator also raised issues about AI. The film takes the opposite approach of most similar flicks where artificial intelligence is seen as an existential threat. Here the AI-augmented beings are the victims of Uncle Sam's shock-and-awe campaign, symbolized by Nomad, the West's massive spaceship-arsenal. Spoiler Alert: It gets blown up big time and everybody cheers. In the high school classes I've taught, the kids were just beginning to use AI to cheat on assignments. They were obviously typing in the writing prompt into Chat GPT and copying what the software spit out. I can see the benefits of AI in professional situations, but it will make too many young phone-addicted minds even lazier than they already are now.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: (Nominated for  Visual Effects/Seen on Disney +): A big comic-book joyride full of spacewalks, mutants and violence. The final chapter in Marvel's trilogy featuring a gonzo band of misfits, constantly hurling insults and loving each other as they risk life and limb to save their scrappy comrade Rocket Raccoon from the clutches of the High Evolutionary. The art direction and special effects are stunning and the screenplay is pretty cool. I loved the giant organic space corporation, the suburbia full of half-animals/half-humans, the talking Soviet dog, the sarcastic byplay between Mantis (girl with anntenae), Nebula (former Doctor Who companion Karen Gillin, unrecognizable with a bald head and covered in green paint) and Dax the Destroyer. Chris Pratt is dryly funny as the hero and plays well off a hard-as-nails Zoe Saldana.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3

Nai Nai and Wai Po

Nai Nai and Wai Po (Nominated for Documentary Short/Seen on Disney +): I have now seen all the nominees in this category and it's difficult to predict a winner. This featurette profiles the directors' two Tawainese-American grandmothers who live together. We see them dancing, singing, and talking about farting for 16 minutes. Cute elderly Asian ladies mugging for the camera--How can it miss? 

Perfect Days (Nominated for International Film/Seen at the Angelika): Wim Wenders' poetic film chronicles the daily life of Hirayama (Koji Yakusho, Best Actor at Cannes Film Festival), a Tokyo toilet cleaner who finds the beauty in the everyday. He reads books, waters his plants, listens to cassettes of 1970s and 80s

Koji Yakusho and Arisa Nakano in
Perfect Days.
Credit: Neon

rock, photographs trees, and does his job meticulously, all while leading a solitary life. Not much happens. His younger colleague tries to date a hip girl who likes Hirayama's taste in music. Hirayama's niece drops in after running away from her affluent home. The hostess at his favorite restaurant receives a visit from her ex-husband. Hirayama's life intersects with these people briefly and he find joy in the encounters as he does in his music, books and photographs. The final shot is a stunning close-up of the protagonist, smiling and crying as Nina Simone's "Feeling Good" plays. Gorgeous and moving.

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)

Perfect Days (Angelika)

El Conde (Netflix)

The Creator (Hulu)

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 (Disney +)

*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 +)

Nai Nai and Wai Po (Disney +)

*short-listed but not nominated