Oscar Nominees List Continues: Licorice Pizza, Hand of God, Summer of Soul

Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim
in Licorice Pizza

With last Friday night's viewing of Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza on iTunes, I completed my quest to see all of Oscar-nominated Best Pictures. Incidentally, I've also viewed all of the acting nominees, all the directors and all but one of the Best Original and Adapted Screenplays (The Worst Person in the World is the only one missing). Alana Haim of Pizza should have been nominated for Best Actress. She plays Alana, the 25-year-old young woman in a push-pull romance with Gary, the teenaged former child actor hustling water beds and pinball machines in 1973 LA. Haim beautifully conveys Alana's conflicting desires to find a grown-up life and to cavort with Gary. There were also memorable cameos by Christine Ebersole as a star not unlike Lucille Ball, Harriet Harris as a bizarre talent agent, and Bradley Cooper as a wigged-out Jon Peters, boiling with rage because he's late for his date with Barbra Streisand.

Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God

I've also managed to see a few more nominees in the International Film and Documentary Feature categories. Like Pizza, Paolo Sorrentino's Italian The Hand of God is a coming-of-age film with a show-biz background. Fabietto wants to be a film director like his idol Fellini. Beautifully shot in Naples and like Fellini's Amacord, Hand of God follows Fabietto and discovers tragedy and joy as he leaves childhood behind. 

At first I didn't think I would like Questlove's documentary Summer of Soul about the 1969 Harlem Arts Festival. I'm not really a fan of r&b, but was I wrong. The festival was a summer-long celebration of all kinds of African-American music including the

Nina Simone in Summer of Soul

blues, jazz, pop, rock, gospel, soul, Latin-influenced, and Motown. The event was film, but never televised. The Woodstock festival was held at the same time and dominated the national consciousness. When there were only three broadcast networks, the producers of the event could not find any interest. The tapes sat in a basement for over 50 years. Questlove intercuts the footage of BB King, Stevie Wonder, the Staples Singers, the Fifth Dimension, Sly and the Family Stone, and my favorite Nina Simone with contemporary interviews and historical context. It's more than a record of a series of concerts, it's a portrait of a moment in time and how black consciousness was raised. Religion, fashion, hair styles, the moon landing, civil rights and unrest, all come into play. The highlight of the film was seeing Marilyn McCoo of the Fifth Dimension tearing up as she watched her younger self. This will probably win Best Documentary Feature.

There is one week left until the Big Oscar Night. Predictions soon.

Oscar Nominees/Buzzed Movies Seen:
West Side Story (in the actual cinema, Kaufman Astoria on a Monday afternoon, we were the only ones in the theater)
The Power of the Dog (Netflix)

The Lost Daughter (Netflix)
tick...tick..Boom! (Netflix)
Don't Look Up (Netflix)
Passing (Netflix)
Being the Ricardos (Amazon)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (Apple Plus)
CODA (Apple Plus)
Belfast (iTunes)

Nightmare Alley (HBO Max)

Dune (iTunes)

King Richard (iTunes)

Flee (Amazon) 

Ascension (Paramount Plus)

Parallel Mothers (iTunes)

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (HBO On Demand)

The Mitchells Vs. the Machines (Netflix)

Spencer (Hulu)

Drive My Car (HBO Max)

Licorice Pizza (iTunes)

The Hand of God (Netflix)

Summer of Soul or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised (Hulu)

Nominated Short Films

Lead Me Home (Netflix)

Three Songs for Benazir (Netflix)

Audible (Netflix)

Queen of Basketball (NY Times/YouTube)

On My Mind (The New Yorker/YouTube)

The Long Goodbye (YouTube)

Affairs of the Art (The New Yorker/YouTube)

The Windshield Wiper (YouTube)

Bestia (Vimeo--rented for $2.50)

Robin Robin (Netflix)