Live-Action Oscar Shorts; Sing Sing; Nickel Boys

The Last Ranger

Last year, most of the Oscar nominated live-action short films were available for streaming, but this year only two were--I'm Not a Robot on YouTube and Anuja on Netflix. So I was forced to spend the $15 at IFC to see them in person. All five shared a common theme--the individual crushed by an oppressive system or outside evil forces, mostly based on real events. It's hard to chose a winner, since each was powerful in its own way. The Man who Would Not Remain Silent chronicles a harrowing train ride where in Serbia where paramilitary thugs are pulling Muslims off the train, presumably for execution. Anuja follows two Indian sisters toiling in a sweat shop. The younger has an opportunity to go to school but it means leaving her sibling behind. I'm Not a Robot is a darkly funny, but ultimately scary semi-sci-fi tale about those Catchpa tests to prove one is not a bot. 

The last two really shattered me. A Lien follows a couple applying for a Green Card for the undocumented husband when ICE makes a surprise raid. Trump appears on the TV in the waiting room and the couple's baby daughter is in danger of being taken into custody. The direction is very taut, adding the suspense as the wife scrambles to retrieve passports and stop her kid from being seized by ICE. In The Last Ranger, it started kind of slow as a ranger watches over a herd of rhinos in an African game preserve and the father of a young girl looks for work. They all come together in a tragic collision as poachers seek to mutilate the rhinos for their black-market-prized horns. Like A Lien, the action started with an seemingly innocent series of scenes--the park ranger chatting with her supervisor, the unemployed father advising his daughter to play quietly and not disturb her grandmother--but then it picked up tension surprisingly quickly for a devastating outcome. If I were an Oscar voter, I'd go with The Last Ranger.

Nickel Boys

I also caught up with the final two films nominated in the major categories--coincidentally both are about African-American men held in prison situations--Sing Sing and Nickel Boys. Colman Domingo is brilliant as an intelligent prisoner involved in the theater program and most of the cast are ex-cons playing themselves. Nickel Boys is a stunning piece of work, filmed totally from point-of-view shots. Director RaMell Ross and cinematographer Jomo Fray weren't even nominated for Oscars. The National Society of Film Critics chose it as Best Picture and I'm tempted to go along with them. Final Oscar predictions to come before Sunday night's big show.

Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts; Wiseman at Lincoln Center

Magic Candies

On Presidents' Day, I had an early morning appointment with my physical therapist and had the rest of the day free. So I decided to treat myself to a cinephile's double feature of unusual movie fare. At 10:45 AM, I went to IFC and took in the Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts. Then after lunch I took the subway to 66th St. for Lincoln Center Films' Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution Retrospective screening of Welfare (1975) at 2:30 PM. The following Thursday, we took in Wiseman's Juvenile Court which I saw in high school 50 years ago. 

The Animated Shorts were all enjoyable. It's difficult to predict which will win. My favorite was the joyfully silly Magic Candies from Japan. An isolated little boy chews on mysterious candies and each produces a different startlingly effect. The sofa tells him to remove the TV remote from its cushions and requests that the boy's father stop farting into it. The boy's dog speaks. His late grandmother returns to him in the form of bubble gum balloons. A delightful visually stunning fantasy. The voters will probably go for the more complex and adult Wander to Wonder or Beautiful Men. In the British Wander to Wonder, three tiny humans who starred in a kids' TV program are coping with the death of their normal-sized creator. The detailed clay-motion creatures were expressive and pitiful as they struggled for survival amidst the debris of their late creator's corpse and the remains of his TV studio. Beautiful Men is the strikingly realistic of three bald Belgian brothers traveling to Istanbul for hair transplants, but they have only been booked for one treatment. Sibling rivalry and suppressed emotions boil just beneath the surface of this touching stop-motion tale. Yuck from France was cute and In the Shadow of the Cypress from Iran was mystifying and beautiful (The Iranian filmmakers cannot leave their country due to diplomatic breakdowns between the US and Iran.)

Oscar Nomination Reaction and Early Predix

Barbieheimer dominated the
Oscar nominations.

The Oscar nominations held few surprises--Oppenheimer and Barbie, the two blockbusters of last summer which brought audiences back into the theaters following the pandemic, reaped the most nominations. Oppenheimer is the probable Oscar champ--a big, three-hour epic of an historical personage. There has been some grousing about Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie being overlooked for Best Director and Actress, but they have received nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and as a producer for a Best Picture candidate respectively. 

This movie year has been an exciting one because I've been able to see most of the nominated films before the nominations came out. It was easier this year because big films reaped many nominations in multiple categories. In previous years, the field was dominated by smaller films like Nomadland, CODA, and Parasite which got fewer citations. Plus many of the acting categories featured performers whose nominations were the only ones for their films--I still haven't seen some of last year's nominees. 

Portraits of Oppression on Oscar Short List

The ABCs of Book Banning
Credit: MTV Documentary Films

There is a common theme among the films on the Oscar short list. Since the list came out I've been trying to catch as many of the shorter films as possible before the final Oscar nominations come out on Jan. 23. Many are available on YouTube or the various streaming services and they don't take up too much time. I even managed to catch a few on Paramount + which we recently rejoined so we could watch the Fellow Travelers limited series. The common thread is the return of oppressive and authoritarian movements or tendencies toward them. The Nazi Holocaust has always been a popular subject for Oscar-nominated docs, but with so many dictatorial leaders coming to the fore these days, new films chronicle repression. 

Just yesterday morning I streamed two 30-min. pieces linked by right-wing crushing of thought and creativity. The ABCs of Book Banning focuses on efforts in the USA to restrict access or ban books from school libraries which dare to document the stories of anti-semitism, LGBTQ people, African-American history, and other "scary" topics. Last Song from Kabul is a heart-wrenching portrait of Afghanistan's only all-girl orchestra. Of course, once the Taliban took over, their school was disbanded and the students, both male and female, left their families and flew to asylum in Portugal. 

In the two films, there were scenes of fascist thugs burning books--Nazis in the ABC film for historical context and the Taliban in the Kabul piece. In the ABC film, a 100-year-old year speaks before a school board, comparing their book-banning tactics to those of the Nazis her husband died fighting in World War II. The Taliban is also shown burning and destroying musical instruments. I never understood why the extremists hate music. Not just Western music, but ALL music including Afghani and Indian songs.  

Golden Globes Reaction; Oscar Films Update

Oppenheimer was the big winner at the 86th annual Golden Globes Awards, winning five awards including Best Picture--Drama, Best Actor in a Drama (Cillian Murphy), Supporting Actor (Robert Downey, Jr.), Director (Christopher Nolan), and Score. The GGs were duller than usual with an unfunny host (Jo Koy, who spent too much time blaming his bad jokes and delivery on the writers) and an unsuccessful attempt to be more serious. The GGs had always been a big ratings grabber because the attending celebs had access to free booze and tended to let their hair down. But this year, the awards were given a reboot. Dick Clark Productions bought out and disbanded the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, reorganized the electorate to hopefully reflect more diversity and avoid the scandals of the past (such as awarding Pia Zadora an award because her millionaire husband gave the membership some expensive gifts.)

Barbie won the new, made-up category of Cinema and Box Office Achievement, so that Poor Things could triumph in the Comedy Picture category.

Side note: Evidently there was yet ANOTHER award ceremony the night before the GGs in Tinseltown. The Astra Awards presented by the Hollywood Creative Alliance honored Barbie with 8 wins. Oppenheimer got 4. The Hollywood Creative Alliance was founded in 2016 as the Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society and renamed in 2019 to Hollywood Critics Association. In 2023, the organization changed its name a second time, and rebranded its awards as the Astra Awards. These accolades are not to be confused with the Critics Choice Awards, the SAGs, or the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. And what about the Golden Sattelites? Do they still exist?

More Post-Oscar Pix

Triangle of Sadness

I've seen two additional Oscar-nominated films after the actual Oscar ceremony thanks to streaming services: Triangle of Sadness (Best Picture and Original Screenplay nominations, plus Golden Globe Supporting Actress nomination for Dolly DeLeon) on Hulu and Aftersun (Best Actor for Paul Mescal) on Amazon, rented for $6.99. 

Triangle is a clever social satire from Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund (there's an umlut over the o but I don't feel like figuring out how to type one). The Oscar-nominated screenplay is divided into three parts: 1) the romance of two supermodels where they squabble over who picks up the restaurant bill (the woman earns more than the man, yet she still expects him to pay for them both); 2) a journey on a luxury yacht resembling Ship of Fools; the supermodels are just two of the passengers who also include a crass Russian capitalist and a British couple (Oliver Ford Davies is the husband) who manufacture grenades; 3) the ship sinks after an attack by pirates and a storm at sea resulting in much vomiting and diarrhea. The last part is a modern spin on JM Barrie's The Admirable Crichton in which I appeared as a Stable Boy in a high school production . Of course, Abigail the toilet attendant on the ship (DeLeon), becomes the captain on the desert island since she is the most capable of hunting and fishing. The balance shifts as Abigail pressures the male supermodel into a sexual relationship in return for food. Funny, sharp, scary.

Post-Oscar-Award Season Pix

For once I actually decided to continue trying to see as many Oscar nominated films after the ceremony, as well as films that received other accolades and nominations. 

Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry
in Causeway
Credit: Apple TV

Causeway was a intimate little indie (like To Leslie) with a familiar storyline--two damaged, disparate people form an unlikely friendship. Lynsey (Jennifer Lawrence), a young white lesbian woman, has returned home from Afghanistan after nearly getting blown up. She meets James (Oscar Supporting Actor Nominee Brian Tyree Henry), an African-American mechanic, dealing with his own post-traumatic stress following a car accident resulting in the loss of his leg and the death of his nephew. They meet when Lynsey's truck breaks down and reach out to each other. We've seen this scenario before, but it's handled with tenderness and subtlety. Director Lila Neugebauer has numerous Off-Broadway credits and the cast is stuffed with NYC theater actors including Tony winner Jayne Houdyshell (The Humans), Linda Emond (Enchanted April, Homebody: Kabul), Frederick Weller (Seascape, Some Men), and Stephen McKinley Henderson (Fences, Between Riverside and Crazy). Emond is particularly subtle as Lynsey's neglectful mother. She doesn't lay it on thick with a molasses accent or drunken slurring. She quietly displays the mother's selfishness in small details such as the way she casually tells her boyfriend on the phone she's not doing anything when her daughter is sitting right there. The screenplay has three authors, which is weird, but I was familiar with only one: Otessa Moshfegh from her novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation which I enjoyed.

2023 Oscars Films and Quick Predix

Everything Everywhere All at Once
will probably be the big winner
at tomorrow night's Oscars.
Credit: A24

I've been too busy to write anything in depth about the Oscars which are tomorrow night. But here are the Oscar nominated films I have seen so far. I might try to see one more tonight. Perhaps I'll do something radical and try to see all the nominated films AFTER the awards. The point is to enjoy great films. Guessing winners should be secondary. What's interesting is that award shows in general seem to be losing favor. The SAGs and the Independent Spirit Awards were both livestreamed on YouTube and not shown on any broadcast or cable network. As the Oscars lose ratings every year and become more and more out of touch with most moviegoers' sensibilities and lives, perhaps that is their ultimate destination. Another interesting note: I've only seen one of these nominated films in an actual theater. It's just so much easy to click your remote rather than getting in our car or bus, driving to the cinema, putting up with possible rude behavior, etc. Will movie theaters go the way of paper checks, books, LPs, magazines--charming remnants of a bygone, more personal, less digitized age?

8 Oscar Categories Won't Be Presented Live

Robin Robin is my favorite so far for
Animated Short, but this category
won't be presented live on Oscar night.

Several categories will not be presented live on the Oscars on March 27, like on the Tonys, yet there will be time for a bogus "Fan Favorite" award decided by Twitter users. The missing categories will be presented in a pre-broadcast ceremony. The winners will be announced during the televised show with a list of the nominees flashed on the screen and (presumably) brief excerpts from their acceptance speeches edited into the broadcast. The exiled categories will be Best Documentary Short, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Original Score, Production Design, Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, and Best Achievement in Sound. Why those and not Costume Design, Art Direction, Visual Effects??? This move is prompted by the falling ratings for the annual accolades and has been attempted once before. In 2018, a similar bloodletting of categories was proposed, then quickly abandoned following an industry backlash and threats of a boycott. Those cries have been renewed this year. We'll have to wait to see if history repeats itself and all the categories are restored to on-air status. The Tony Awards have been slicing and disrespecting numerous below-the-title artists for years now in order to keep their show from running overtime. This past year they only presented three awards during the CBS broadcast and presented the rest in a pre-show ceremony on Paramount Plus. Did anyone think of doing that for the Oscars? 

Oscar Nominees: Shorts, Flee, Ascension, plus a Side Trip to LMAD

A scene from Flee, nominated
for Best Animated Feature, International
Film, and Doc. Feature.

The never-ending quest to see all the Oscar-nominated films for 2022 (or as many as possible) continues. The plethora of streaming services has made it much easier to cram as many in as possible before Oscar night on March 27, also the fact that the ceremony is later than in recent years due to the COVID crisis. In addition, it's Presidents Day week which I have off from my job. This past Thurs. night, we watched Flee and killed three birds with one stone. This film about the real-life story of a gay refugee escaping from Afghanistan and settling in Denmark, is nominated in a trio of categories: Best Animated Feature, International Film and Documentary Feature.