Review: "Punk the Capital"

 

"That's what punk rock really is, it's music that's not a product."

I don't now if I agree with this quote -- plenty of punk rock was a product, a rebellion that like most successful rebellions results in the movement getting amalgamated into the mainstream rather than the other way around. But as shown in the historical documentary "Rock the Capital," in the case of the punk movement in Washington D.C. in the late 1970s and early '80s, it was more of a community than a major musical watershed.

Even if you're not a punk aficionado -- I'm not, though I like plenty of it -- you'd be hard-pressed to name a lot of notable bands, songs or personalities that came out of the D.C. scene. It's doubtful many people have heard of The Slickee Boys, Untouchables, The Enzymes, Bad Brains, Teen Idles or even Minor Threat, probably the biggest name in the bunch.

Henry Rollins of Black Flag and the RollinsBand came out of this scene and appears in the documentary to express his appreciation, though he left pretty early on and didn't appear to look back.

It seems like rock 'n' roll documentaries seem to fall into one of two camps these days: nostalgic look-backs at big-name acts, or wistful remembrances of bands that didn't last long or never broke out into pop culture consciousness. "The Sparks Brothers" is a recent example of the latter, and "Punk the Capital" follows the same route, though it's about the scene rather than one group.

Directed by Paul Bishow and James June Schneider, it's a carefully curated look at a thriving night scene in a place known for rolling up the streets at 6 p.m. when all the federal government workers went home to the suburbs. In this take, D.C. punk was less about spit-flecked rejection of society than simply pushing the musical edge wherever they could find it.

So the scene consisted of preppie children of government workers, Black social activists, blue-collar teens, geeks in glasses, and everything in between. It boasted a few women, though it was certainly a testosterone-fueled crowd, bringing slamdancing from the coasts to D.C. along with a few of the nastier tinges of punk.

We get a nice spread of musical tastes in the 90-minute runtime, with all kinds of sounds and colors, though the one unifying element is speed -- these guys played lightning fast. Someone notes that the Beatles played 12 songs in just over an hour at their first U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum. Minor Threat's set of a dozen songs might last 13 minutes.

These bands, someone says, "make The Ramones seem like they're asleep."

The D.C. punk scene was notable for waves of rising and falling, becoming very popular and then nearly dying out entirely. Tiny record shops like Yesterday and Today barely kept the sound afloat. Around 1979 it was rescued by more or less taking over a women's art collective called Madams Organ (after the Morgan Adams neighborhood in which the building sat), with some bands even living there for a time.

It was a performance venue, meeting place, residence and hangout all in one. Admission was rarely charged, and when a local record label was started to support them, Dischord, bands were shocked when they eventually started to receive checks in the mail.

I can't say as I dug all of the music in "Punk the Capital," but the energy of the crowds and bands is infectious. Performances often became participatory in which audiences members would crash the stage, or a singer might hand the microphone over to someone in the crowd to sing a few lines.

Newer bands came on the scene, doing something new or different that would shock even the bands started a couple years earlier. I was amused by the group Half Japanese, all bespectacled nerds, who seem barely acquainted with their instruments. But they're clearly having a helluva time.

By the middle of the 1980s the punk movement had become something of a joke in pop culture, like the mohawked jerk blasting his boombox who gets sleeper-pinched by Spock in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." That's how a lot of people saw punk: angry young men spitting at society, and inviting disdain in return. Later, tinges of white supremacy would become associated with skinhead haircuts and loud, angry music.

This lively doc shows a multi-varied music scene that embraced anger but wasn't animated by it -- it simply was another emotion to tap for energy. One of the Big Brains members, Daryl Jenifer, talks of all things how they were motivated by the concept of PMA -- positive mental energy. They saw their music as a way to strive, accomplish anything they wanted and change the world.

One song by Minor Threat, "Straight Edge," even kicked off a mini-movement within the punk world that stressed abstinence (or at least moderation) of booze, drugs and promiscuous sex. How delightfully weird to have a genre where adherents are dismissed as "punks" embracing the power of the individual mind over societal muck.

I can't say that watching "Punk the D.C." made me want to rush out and buy this music. (In part because you often can't, since much of it was never professionally recorded.) But even if you don't appreciate the hyper, clashing sounds, you can't help but respect the bravura youth who found humanistic harmony in what others heard as cacophony. 

 

Review: "Queen Bees"

“Queen Bees” is sort of a “Mean Girls” for the golden years set -- nice older woman moves into a retirement home ruled by a group of imperious gals, clashes with and then joins them, helps them chill out a bit and also finds a nicely creased fellah to get all moony with.

It’s pretty predictable stuff, and you can practically map out the entire plot beforehand with sure-handed accuracy. But it’s also genuinely warmhearted, has some solid funny moments and features an admirable cast of older performers.

If movies were a meal, this is meatloaf with mashed potatoes and buttered corn: familiar comfort food. It won’t wow anyone with originality, but if you like that sort of thing you’re sure to come away satisfied.

This movie, directed by Michael Lembeck from a screenplay by Donald Martin, is notable if for no other reason that it isn’t often you see an 88-year-old actress as the lead in a mainstream film. That would be the inimitable Ellen Burstyn, who plays Helen, a fairly recent widow who clings to her independence.

Her daughter, Laura (Elizabeth Mitchell), is pushing her to sell her home and move into the nearby Pine Grove community. Her loving grandson, Peter (Matthew Barnes), acts as the supportive middleman and peacemaker between them.

But when Helen, who has a tendency to lock herself out of her house, accidentally burns down her kitchen, she agrees to move into Pine Grove for a month while repairs are done.

She soon runs afoul of the titular group that has all the other seniors running -- OK, ambling -- away in fear. They rule the central table in the dining room, decide who is or isn’t in the bridge club, and do early morning exercises in the courtyard with military precision, complete with whistles to wake everyone up.

Jane Curtin plays Janet, the iron-fisted leader of the group who takes a special dislike to Helen. But when one of their bridge foursome dies, Sally (Loretta Divine) recruits her to be her partner. It seems that she and the other queen bee, Margot (Ann-Margret), have been bucking under Janet’s stern yoke, and see Helen as a means to shake things up.

I enjoyed the portrayal of elderly folks in a rather closed community, and the comparisons to high school society are apt. Because the women outnumber the men, romance tends to be a by-committee type of thing. For example, Margot is currently sharing the amorous affections of one randy stud played by Christopher Lloyd (not me, the talented one) with a few other women. Lloyd is clearly having fun in a humorous role, complete with a squirrel’s nest toupee, though he gets one terrific, brief dramatic scene.

The other piece of the puzzle is James Caan as Dan, who moves in shortly after Helen and quickly commences with pitching woo at her, inviting her to every event going on at the retirement home. Helen resists, but soon finds those tender feelings welling up inside just when she thought they were long gone.

Caan’s a little worse for wear these days, walking gingerly with a noticeable stoop. But his scenes with Burstyn still have plenty of magic, and when they gaze into each other’s wet eyes with a feeling of longing and joy… well, I defy you not to get a little misty yourself.

“Queen Bees” is a story about fitting in, taking chances and the need to love and feel loved -- all of which are vital at any age. 

Review: "Awake"

I checked, and the idea for "Awake" originated in 2019, well before the coronavirus outbreak. I wanted to be sure, since it seems like a creepily accurate encapsulation of our anxiety-ridden, sleep-deprived times.

Gina Rodriguez stars in this science fiction story that registers closer to cautionary tale than technological fantasy. A mysterious global event results in the shutdown of all our fancy technology, which is a pain but fixable. But another, more serious side effect soon rears its head: nobody can sleep. 

The scientists are baffled. People still get tired, and their cognitive abilities rapidly decline. But no matter how exhausted and frustrated they get, they cannot sleep. And this is not just an annoyance: the human brain needs downtime, and without it will swell and cause erratic behavior and eventually... kill the person.

So this is actually an extinction event, with a few people racing against time to find a cure.

Rodriguez plays Jill, a former soldier who was drummed out of the service for drug addiction, though she still serves in the reserves and works security in a quasi-military laboratory. A single mom with two kids -- adorable moppet Matilda (Ariana Greenblatt) and reliably disengaged teen Noah (Lucius Hoyos) -- Jill snatches expired pills from the medical waste bins to sell to drug dealers and pad her meager income.

Director Mark Raso, who cowrote the screenplay with his brother, Joseph, based on a story by Gregory Poirier, puts us immediately into the action a few minutes into the movie, and uses the events to build characterization rather than dilly-dally with a lot of endless, needless exposition, unlike some other Netflix creatives.

(Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, "Shadow and Bone.")

Jill's car suddenly dies along with everyone else's, an accident pitching them into a lake from which they barely escape. Matilda actually drowns, but is luckily revived by a sheriff's deputy involved in the fracas.

People soon do all the thing panicked people do: buy out groceries, raid pharmacies for sleeping pills that do not work, get into arguments that turn into scraps that turn into deadly melees. Jill tries to keep it together, even going into work, but learns that the Army doctor with a dark past (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who helped her get her job is leaving with a special unit investigating something miraculous: a woman who can sleep.

Turns out Matilda can, too, which immediately makes her a unicorn in a world suddenly very suspicious of anything or anyone different. Jill tries to hide Matilda's status, but it is discovered when her religious mother-in-law (Frances Fisher) takes the girl to her church to be prayed over. 

This results in a truly harrowing and haunting sequence where the well-meaning preacher (Barry Pepper) tries to lead his flock to peace and faith rather than accusations and conflict. Look around at the real world right now -- how do you think that works out?

There are moments of hope, such as getting a bitchin' 1970s Dodge sedan running -- older cars, with their lack of digital add-ons, are less vulnerable -- and running into a prison convict (Shamier Anderson) who joins their crew, gifting himself the name of their ride. He should be an enemy to be fought, but turns out to be the most amiable, reliable person they'll meet. 

Things go on from there. At 96 minutes, "Awake" is fast-paced and energetic, but also finds moments to quietly ratchet up the suspense and sense of foreboding. Jill shows her mettle as a warrior mom determined to protect her children from all comers, even though everyone (and herself) find they can no longer think straight. 

It's basically a twist on the familiar zombie apocalypse, but instead of the dead eating the living, we let our failings and fears consume us from within. Again, sound familiar??

"Awake" is a tidy little thriller that scares us with the immediate perils Jill and her family will face, and on a deeper level with the implications of their catastrophe, which seems like a descending staircase with no turning. 

Remember, it's always darkest just before it becomes pitch black.

Fearless Oscar predictions 2021

 

 

Will this be the lowest-rated Oscars telecast ever? Frankly, I don't care if it is.

Hurrah to the studios and filmmakers who still put their movies out in 2020 despite pandemic and shutdown and death and mayhem. Raspberries to those who fled the scene, endangering the entire industry because they didn't want to take a write-down on their flicks.

We needed the movies more than ever last year, not just as an escape or entertainment but to put a mirror up to our collective faces and stare at the blemishes there. Not everyone liked what they saw, nor should they.

So the Academy Awards nominees for last year are bereft of the big-budget blockbusters, superhero flicks, fast cars and slick spies, CGI showpieces and other high-profile flicks we're used to. But those movies also tend not to contend for the Oscars other than in some of the technical categories, so it won't really have much impact on who wins.

But it's likely that TV audiences won't tune in because their favorites aren't represented. Overall I think the quality of films up for contention is about what we'd see in a typical year, or at most a half-step below. 

For those who love cinema, there was plenty to celebrate. As is often the case, my favorite films -- "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "Mank," "Wolfwalkers" and "Emma" were my first ranked four -- have not fared very well during the awards season. My fifth, "Nomadland," seems poised for a good showing, including an odds-on favorite to win Best Picture. I'll take it.

So let's get to my annual picks and predictions for the Oscars. As always, I provide my prediction of who will win, and my pick of who I think should win. And, in an act of pure puckishness, I cross out the names of some nominees who I deem undeserving and replace them with better candidates -- the dreaded "Chris Cross."

Best Picture

The Nominees: 
The Father
Judas and the Black Messiah
Mank
Minari
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7

The Chatter: "Nomadland" has led the way for most of the awards season, and for good reason. It's a film of immense stillness and confidence, with another quietly spectacular performance for Frances McDormand. The title of filmdom's "greatest living actor" is unofficial and arbitrary, but for my money the mantle has passed from Meryl Streep to her.

Writer/director Chloé Zhao, in just her third feature film, has reached the heights of Hollywood filmmaking, and seems poised for a long and fruitful career. 

"Mank," an early favorite, has fallen badly, dismissed as stodgy old-school Hollywood filmmaking. (I'm stodgy and old-school, so I loved it.) "Promising Young Woman" has made a late charge, and though I'm not a fan of the movie I respect its audacity and originality. It appears to be the main stalking horse.

"Judas and the Black Messiah" has a chance as the film that best represented unrest about racial injustice happening around us. But I wouldn't be surprised if "The Trial of the Chicago 7" sneaks in. It's an "actor's movie," and they make up the biggest voting branch.

Prediction: "Nomadland"

Pick: "Mank"

Chris Cross: Nothing on the list of nominees I disliked, though I'll take "Emma," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and "The Personal History of David Copperfield" over "Minari," "Sound of Metal" or "Woman."

Best Actress

The Nominees: 
Viola Davis, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"
Andra Day, "The United States vs. Billie Holiday"
Vanessa Kirby, "Pieces of a Woman"
Frances McDormand, "Nomadland"
Carey Mulligan, "Promising Young Woman"

The Chatter:  This has been the hottest race of the awards season, with McDormand, Davis and Mulligan trading blows during the preliminary award contest. Davis won at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, so I think she's going to overtake McDormand, one past Oscar winner against another. The Oscars often give Best Actress to a film that wasn't even nominated for Best Picture, so there's much precedent for a Davis win. Mulligan will have her day.

Prediction: Davis

Pick: McDormand

Chris Cross: Let's kick Kirby to the curb in place of the captivating Anya Taylor-Joy from "Emma."

Best Actor

The Nominees: 
Riz Ahmed, "Sound of Metal"
Chadwick Boseman, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"
Anthony Hopkins, "The Father"
Gary Oldman, "Mank"
Steven Yeun, "Minari"

The Chatter: Fairly weak field this year. Boseman appears to be the sentimental favorite, and it's the Academy's last chance to honor the late icon. Wisely, they chose not to do it for the awful "Da 5 Bloods."

Hopkins and Oldman are past winners collecting more laurels just by being nominated. I thought Yeun was rather flat in a movie where the female characters outshone him. Ahmed was terrific in a tiny movie few people saw; as they say, "the nomination is his award."

Prediction: Boseman

Pick: Oldman

Chris Cross: I'll once again defend the much-ridiculed "The Call of the Wild" because it has one of Harrison Ford's best performances. Really. Go check it out, the CGI dog isn't as bad as they say. Goodbye, Yeun.

Best Supporting Actress

The Nominees: 
Maria Bakalova, "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm"
Glenn Close, "Hillbilly Elegy"
Olivia Colman, "The Father"
Amanda Seyfried, "Mank"
Yuh-Jung Youn, "Minari"

The Chatter: Really solid list, apart of the head-scratcher of Bakalova for the barely-watchable "Borat" sequel. Close, nominated a million times without winning, has a shot but Youn would see to be the favorite in a battle of the grandmas. I was very happy to see Seyfried make the list in a career-changing performance. Colman wowed me way more in "The Father" than she did for her best actress win (really a supporting) for "The Favourite."

Prediction: Youn

Pick: Close

Chris Cross: Nix to Bakalova and yay to Lily Collins in "Mank."

Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees: 
Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Leslie Odom, Jr., One Night in Miami
Paul Raci, Sound of Metal
LaKeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah

The Chatter: Typically one of the most competitive categories, rather limp this year. On the one hand, I'm thrilled that LaKeith Stanfield, one my favorite young film actors, got his first Oscar nomination. On the other, it's in the supporting category even though he's clearly the lead of "Judas." Worst, he'll compete against co-star Daniel Kaluuya, who appears poised to win. I can't even pick him because it's such an egregious example of category-hopping.

Sacha Baron Cohen was fine in a movie that's basically just a series of characters delivering speeches to each other. Raci is a strange pick, an unknown actor in a not particularly interesting role. Strange we're not hearing pushback about the two hearing actor playing deaf characters both getting nominated. Odom was fine but I thought Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X was the standout of "Miami."

Prediction: Kaluuya

Pick: Kaluuya

Chris Cross: Can't hear you Raci, talk less Cohen, wrong guy Odom. Instead let's invite Caleb Landry Jones from "The Outpost," Ben-Adir and Peter Capaldi for "The Personal History of David Copperfield."

Best Original Screenplay

The Nominees: 
"Judas and the Black Messiah," Will Berson, Shaka King, Keith Lucas & Kenny Lucas
"Minari," Lee Isaac Chung
"Promising Young Woman," Emerald Fennell
"Sound of Metal," Derek Cianfrance, Abraham Marder & Darius Marder
"The Trial of the Chicago 7," Aaron Sorkin

The Chatter: I would bet Fennell will win here, because the Academy loves to dole out screenwriting awards as consolation prizes or encouragement for up-and-coming filmmakers. 

I still can't believe David Fincher's "Mank," based on a screenplay written 20 years earlier by his deceased dad, Jack, was ignored. I guess screenwriters really don't get any credit.   

Prediction: "Promising Young Woman"

Pick: "Judas and the Black Messiah"

Chris Cross: I'll replace "Trial" with "Emma" and "Woman" with "The Personal History of David Copperfield," two lovely, vibrant adaptations of musty old British novels. Plus "Mank" for "Minari."

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Nominees: 
"Borat Subsequent Moviefilm," Peter Baynham, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jena Friedman, Anthony Hines, Lee Kern, Dan Mazer, Erica Rivinoja & Dan Swimer
"The Father," Christopher Hampton & Florian Zeller
"Nomadland," Chloé Zhao
"One Night in Miami," Kemp Powers
"The White Tiger," Ramin Bahrani

The Chatter: What the hell is up with the Borat love? It was so long and so not funny. Plus it has too many screenwriters to be taken seriously. But it tweaked the right politicians, so I guess it's golden.

Ironically, "Nomadland" is the favorite even though it seems like such an original, distinctive vision. Chloé Zhao came up with a fantastic character from a nonfiction book about modern nomads. The only other film that has a shot is "One Night in Miami."

Prediction: "Nomadland"

Pick: "Nomadland"

Chris Cross: Kaput, "Borat." Hooray, "The Outpost."

Best Director

The Nominees: 
Thomas Vinterberg, "Another Round"
Emerald Fennell, "Promising Young Woman"
David Fincher, "Mank"
Lee Isaac Chung, "Minari"
Chloé Zhao, "Nomadland"

The Chatter: Zhao looks to be as close to a lock as any contest this year, and deservedly so. A lot of people were surprised by Vinterberg making it onto the list, including me.

Prediction: Chloé Zhao

Pick: Chloé Zhao

Chris Cross: I'll keep Fincher and Zhao and say goodbye to the rest. Instead let's laud George C. Wolfe for "Ma Rainey," Autumn de Wilde for "Emma" and Regina King for "One Night in Miami."

Best Documentary Feature

The Nominees: 
Collective
Crip Camp
The Mole Agent
My Octopus Teacher
Time

The Chatter: A strong year for docs but oddly none of my favorites, such as "Desert One," made the list. "Collective" was by far the best of this bunch.

 Prediction: "Collective"

Pick: "Collective"

Chris Cross: I'll take "The Painter and the Thief" and "Desert One" over "Time" and "The Mole Agent," which was pleasant but is basically a documentary about making this documentary.

Best Documentary Short

The Nominees: 
Colette
A Concerto Is a Conversation
Do Not Split
Hunger Ward
A Love Song for Latasha

The Chatter: Alas, I did not get to see any of the doc shorts this year, just ran out of time. 

Prediction: “A Love Song for Latasha”

Best Animated Feature

The Nominees: 
Onward
Over the Moon
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
Soul
Wolfwalkers

The Chatter: We may be getting close to thinking about putting this category out of its misery. Instead of eliciting a wave of terrific animation, it's led to a lot of perfectly serviceable movies getting Oscar nominations. The Disney/Pixar film usually wins, though the Irish-produced "Wolfwalkers" is vastly superior.

Prediction: “Soul”

Pick: "Wolfwalkers"

Chris Cross: "Onward" and "Shaun the Sheep" don't deserve to be here, but I don't have anything to replace them with.

Best Animated Short

The Nominees: 
Burrow
Genius Loci
If Anything Happens I Love You
Opera
Yes-People

The Chatter: Disney/Pixar always wins... but there isn't one this year!
 
Prediction: "If Anything Happens I Love You"

Pick: "If Anything Happens I Love You"

Best Live Action Short

The Nominees: 
Feeling Through
The Letter Room
The Present
Two Distant Strangers
White Eye

The Chatter: TERRIFIC slate of shorts this year.

Prediction: "Two Distant Strangers"  

Pick: "Two Distant Strangers"  

Best Foreign Language Film

The Nominees: 
Another Round
Better Days
Collective
The Man Who Sold His Skin
Quo Vadis, Aida?

The Chatter: I didn't see enough of these, but "Collective" was terrific. Since "Another Round" also scored a director nomination, it would seem to have an edge.

Prediction: "Another Round"

Pick: "Collective"

Best Cinematography

The Nominees: 
Judas and the Black Messiah
Mank
News of the World
Nomadland
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Prediction: "Mank"

Pick: "Nomadland"

Best Film Editing

The Nominees: 
The Father
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Prediction: "Sound of Metal"

Pick: “The Father”

Best Sound

The Nominees: 
Greyhound
Mank
News of the World
Sound of Metal
Soul

The Chatter: The Academy has combined the categories of Sound Editing and Sound Mixing into a single award, mostly to avoid confusion because nobody really understood the difference, even the Academy voters. It makes sense although the two are really entirely different crafts done by separate teams. Obviously the movie all about aural loss and dissonance is the standout.

Prediction: "Sound of Metal"

Pick: "Sound of Metal"

Best Production Design

The Nominees: 
The Father
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Mank
News of the World
Tenet

Prediction: “Mank"

Pick: “Mank"

Best Original Score

The Nominees: 
Da 5 Bloods
Mank
Minari
News of the World
Soul

Prediction: “Soul”

Pick: “Soul”

Best Song

The Nominees: 
“Husavik” from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
“Fight For You” from Judas and the Black Messiah
“lo Sì (Seen)” from The Life Ahead (La Vita Davanti a Se)
“Speak Now” from One Night in Miami
“Hear My Voice” from The Trial of the Chicago 7

Prediction: “Speak Now”

Pick: “Husavik”

Best Makeup and Hair

The Nominees: 
Emma
Hillbilly Elegy
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Mank
Pinocchio

Prediction: "Ma Rainey"

Pick: "Ma Rainey"

Best Costume Design

The Nominees: 
Emma
Mank
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Mulan
Pinocchio

Prediction: "Ma Rainey"

Pick: "Emma"

Best Visual Effects

The Nominees: 
Love and Monsters
The Midnight Sky
Mulan
The One and Only Ivan
Tenet

The Chatter: God help us, "Tenet" is going to win more Oscars than "Mank."

Prediction: "Tenet"

Pick: “The Midnight Sky”

Requiem for a fallen giant

 

Really, for the first few years I knew Ed Johnson-Ott, I had no idea how tall he was. Ed was using a wheelchair at that time, he the film critic for NUVO Newsweekly, and me the newly ensconced entertainment editor for the Indianapolis Star. 

I guess we were supposed to be rivals, but we came to be the very best of friends. For awhile his health improved and he was able to walk with just the aid of a cane, and I realized he was a big man, must've been well over six feet in his prime. As our relationship deepened from adversaries to colleagues to friends, I came to realize he was as gigantic a person as I've ever known.

Ed passed last night. He was a great writer, an even better friend, and an even better human being.

Please forgive me if this paean is as much about me as it is Ed. His loss has affected me on the deepest of levels. Since I moved to Indiana 16 years ago, I only have made three really important friendships. With Ed's passing and that of Star columnist Matt Tully a few years back, two are now gone. I'm not the type to make friendships easily, but they do tend to last. 

I'll carry Ed in my heart forever.

Before I fell in love with Ed as a person, I fell in love with his writing. There was just such a natural ease about it. He referred to his takes on movies as essays, not reviews, and often they were about him as much as they were the film. Reading one of Ed's pieces felt like sliding into a table at a diner for coffee with an old friend to chat about movies, even if it was the very first piece of his you'd ever read.

It affected my own writing style. My reviews had tended to grow into overly wordsmithed ruminations meant to impress the reader as much as inform. Lots of "vocab words" and complex run-on sentences. The sort of thing where you realize the writer is smart, and very much wants you to know how smart they are.

I knew I wanted to write more like Ed, and over the last dozen years I've adopted a simpler style that, if not exactly trying to emulate Ed's, at least took his gentler, more humanistic approach to heart. I even learned to put personal reflections in.

Ed dealt with a lot during the 16 years I knew him. His health, obviously, which landed him in and out of the hospital repeatedly over the last few years. On one occasion I went to visit him and found out he was at a different hospital from the last time. Ed had been in a terrible car accident decades ago where a friend was driving in an altered state and crashed (into a telephone pole, I think it was). His stomach was torn open, a disability that followed him the rest of his life, while the friend was unscathed.

I asked him once if he resented the guy who put him in a wheelchair, and he said not even for an instant. That's just the kind of guy Ed was: the man had no hatred in his heart. Even if he disagreed with you or thought you were behaving badly, he approached you with advice and kindness, never anger or harsh words. 

I remember one time we were out together and some young fellows were acting the fool. Ed, three feet lower in his wheelchair, spoke to them quietly but firmly about how great it was they were enjoying being young, but to have consideration for others while doing it. They stopped, listened and went about their way, a tad less rambunctious. 

Ed never had a lot of money, and his living situation continued to deteriorate over the years. At one time he made his living as a film critic, NUVO paying well enough and a syndication deal with other alt-weeklies making up the rest. It gradually went away, bit by bit, to the point NUVO had to stop paying him. 

Still, he wrote on. Never even considered quitting.

He lived in a ramshackle duplex in Downtown Indy. It was a scary neighborhood when I arrived in Indy, but has now gentrified with a huge, expensive condo building across the street now. His son, Donnie, lived with him for a few stretches, but it was a small place and they had their clashes as his adopted son desired his independence. 

The place got in worse and worse shape as Ed's health grew poorer again. He developed COPD and had to use oxygen tanks  to breathe. He had a car (given to him by a cousin) but stopped driving it because he felt he was no longer safe behind the wheel. We developed a system for press screenings where I would drive to his house, load him in his car with his tanks and wheelchair, go to the movie theater and then do it all in reverse afterward.

Ed lost a ton of weight as a result of his various ailments, which in a strange way actually helped him. His BP improved and the doctor said it was making it easier for him to breathe. He downscaled from the big, heavy oxygen tanks to a portable, lighter battery-powered machine that assisted his lungs. He loved his skinny new look, going from somewhere around 300 pounds when I met him to about 160.

He asked me to take some pictures on the stoop of his place to show off his hot new bod:

Still, he struggled to take care of himself and the place was a mess. Every time I came over I helped pick up, and suggested he consider an assisted living facility. He resisted, holding onto his freedom. He did agree to get a home healthcare aide, which helped for a time. He had a few of them over the span of a couple of years, some good, some not so good. One aide stole from him, but even then Ed was hesitant to report him to his employer.

I grew seriously worried when his mental state began to waver. Sometimes he'd be all there and other times he'd be confused and disoriented. He didn't have dementia, but the combination of his health challenges and medication would leave him addled.

One time I came over and there were pills strew all over the floor of his place, some of them crushed. I carefully put them back into their bottles (thank God for color coding) but the decision was finally made to give up his place. Fortunately Ed had turned 65 and could now receive Medicare, and moved into a nice rehabilitation center on the northeast side of Indy.

All the while, Ed kept reviewing movies. Maybe more sporadically than before, but whenever he could. He had another friend who would pick him up and drive to a movie theater, watch it together, and then work on the review collaboratively. Ed's fingers shook -- he had Parkinson's, on top of everything else -- and had lost the ability to type. Even a special laptop for people with disability I arranged for him from Easterseals Crossroads didn't help. So Ed would talk and the friend would write it down, and they'd turn it into an essay.

Even then, Ed worried that the work wasn't representative of his voice. I told him honestly that reading them, it sounded just like the same ol' Ed. I think this reassurance was important to him. Even with all his problems, he couldn't stand the idea of letting his readers down.

Ed seemed happy at the rehab center. He liked not having to worry about meals or meds, it was all taken care of. The last picture I took of him was January of last year. He wanted me to post it on his Facebook page, because in all the moves and complications, he'd lost access to his social media and email accounts. He wanted everyone to know he was doing OK.

I'd go see him every few months, bring him food or talk on the phone. It could be hard to get ahold of him. Most of the time he wouldn't answer the phone in his room, and voicemails never seemed to find their way to him. You'd just have to call and hope he picked up.

A couple of times when I saw him he was very confused. One time they'd had to move him out of his room because of a fire alarm, and he became convinced that they'd relocated him to another facility without telling him. He finally had a moment of clarity.

"Chris, is this one of those moments where an old person becomes confused about where they are and what's going on, but everything's actually OK?"

But then I'd go back a few weeks later and it'd be Ed, same old Ed, with all his brilliance and heart.

Ed and I talked a lot, about the deepest stuff that you really only share with a spouse or best friend. We shared our worries, our hopes, our disappointments, our sadness and pain. I'd had a lot of the latter over the last few years, with family deaths, job loss and my own health issues. We talked about our relationships, sex, insecurities, body image, all of it. 

He once reminisced about when he was younger and riding a bike with a lover on a hot day, and they took their shirts off. His boyfriend had a camera and took a picture, and he remembered being mortified at the time of his paunch and love handles being captured for all eternity. He still had that photo, and looked at from time to time to remind himself that he had no reason to be ashamed of his body. 

Ed had found his way to a place of practicing self-love long before anybody had given a name to it. What's more, he encouraged me to follow his trail. 

(Though it's something I still struggle with. Even today, I hate to be photographed and, though I'm on television every week, I never watch the footage.)

I hope people will remember Ed as a film critic. He truly was one of the great writers in Indiana history, certainly a giant of Hoosier journalism. There should be tributes and memorials. 

The Indiana Film Journalists Association exists because of him. In late 2008, after I'd been laid off from the Indy Star, Ed encouraged me to keep reviewing in whatever capacity I could. He mentioned that he and former Star critic Bonnie Britton (gone now as well) had tried to organize an Indiana critics group years earlier, but nothing ever came of it. 

He and I decided to try again, and found four other critics to join our little club. Our goal was to draw attention to our own work by giving out awards, and lobby for screenings that the studios had allowed to dwindle to a tiny trickle. But we also wanted to encourage young writers to try their hand at film criticism. Today we have two dozen IFJA members, and the studios actively solicit our attention.

As important a writer as Ed was, I hope people will remember the human being even moreso. He truly was one of the best people I've ever known. He always chose kindness over hatred, engagement over isolation, and listening over shouting.

We came from opposite places in a lot of ways: politically, geographically, sexually, professionally. But Ed never let it divide us.

I haven't been able to see Ed in person over the past year, which breaks my heart. But with a breathing disease and now a senior citizen living in an assisted facility, he was in the highest risk group for COVID. Since he couldn't access email regularly, even after the IFJA bought a tablet for him, occasional phone calls were all we had.

We tried to arrange a meeting in December, after we'd heard the rehab center was allowing outdoor meetings. I picked up his favorite Indian chicken dish as a treat, and had one more. 

The studios send DVD screeners to critics at year-end to make sure they see all their movies for awards voting, and it turns out Ed's had been piling up at his old house. The guy who lived there had been saving them, and got hold of my email address. I put together the whole pile, dozens of films, in a box along with a portable DVD player and headphones.

Alas, we could not meet. The facility was still not allowing in-person visits, even outdoors. So I dropped off the food, DVDs and player for him to enjoy. We talked later about how much that meant to him. I take great joy in knowing he spent the holidays in the company of a bounty of the love he and I both loved. 

Our last phone call was a few weeks ago, and Ed sounded strong and hale. Funny, smart, wonderful. Vintage Ed. 

He told me he loved me. I told him the same. It was something we'd started saying to each other about 10 years ago. In my upbringing, men aren't supposed to say that to each other, and other than my father, Ed was the first one I'd ever said it to. I only wish I'd said it earlier and more often.

We'll always have the movies, Ed... and, so much more.

Review: "Nobody"

Hutch Mansell isn’t the sort of guy to make a strong impression on you… or any kind.

He’s a middle-aged suburban dad who punches the clock at work, does his father/husband duties at home dutifully if without a lot of zeal, avoids trouble and doesn’t appear to have any major vices or hangups.

Hutch, played by “Better Call Saul” star Bob Odenkirk, is smallish in stature and physically closer to timid than imposing. His father-in-law and brother-in-law (Michael Ironside and Billy MacLellan), who run the machine shop where he does the books, push him around because they know he won’t push back.

When a pair of nervous thieves break into his house in the middle of the night, Hutch is content to hand over his valuables without a fight. Even when his teen son, Blake (Gage Munroe), tackles one of the intruders and Hutch has a clear shot to take out the other one, he demurs and lets them flee.

The cops tell him he did the right thing, but at this point everyone is convinced he’s a wimp.

But as we’re about to find out, Hutch is a “Nobody” -- someone with a dark past that he’s spent the last few years trying to stash away. The break-in winds up being the match that lights a long-dormant fire he’s been secretly longing to stoke.

I’m not sure what you’d call “Nobody,” directed by Ilya Naishuller from a script by “John Wick” writer Derek Kolstad. It wears the clothes of a standard revenge action/thriller, but I couldn’t help detecting dark notes of humor throughout.

Certainly the presence of Odenkirk, a veteran comedy writer/actor, underlines that theme. Easing up on 60, he’s basically the polar opposite of a screen badass. Though when Hutch’s glare finally hardens, we feel like we ought to take a step back.

Hutch winds up getting into an epic duke-out with some hoodlums on a city bus. I like the way Naishuller and the stunts team stage these -- very gritty and bloody, without any superhuman kinetics or resistance to injury. Hutch gets as good as he gives, and is pretty well a pulp by the end.

Turns out one of the toughs is the kid brother of Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksey Serebryakov), a peacocking local Russian mob kingpin. He vows payback, leading to ever-escalating levels of violence, which Hutch knows he should do more to avoid but really revels in -- at one point literally crossing his fingers hoping the Rooskies will respond to his latest instigation.

The always-terrific Christopher Lloyd (not me, the talented one) turns up as Hutch’s dad, wasting away in a nursing home but still boasting a quick and well-placed pinkie finger. RZA makes a late appearance as an old chum with similar talents and inclinations. Connie Nielsen plays Hutch’s wife, who has a different reaction than you’d expect to his relapse.

“Nobody” is simultaneously very grim and a helluva lot of fun. We all sometimes entertain the daydream we could break out of our tame identities and be a Bond or Bourne. This time the bruiser is pretending to be one of us -- not putting on a mask, but taking one off.

Review: "Desert One"

What do we think of when we think of the American hostage crisis in Iran? If you're like me and was a kid at the time, your first memory was of a bunch of angry, militant Muslims taking innocent people captive and holding them for more than a year.

You probably also think of Jimmy Carter, a well-meaning president whose response was ineffectual and weak. Most people think his lack of military action emboldened the Ayatollah Khomeini, the ersatz leader of a fundamentalist movement that would eventually bring its long, spidery arm to our shores.

Almost certainly, the failure to protect American lives contributed to Carter's stunning defeat in the next election, ushering in the era of Ronald Reagan. (Whatever you think of that.)

Later, as I grew older and more informed, I learned about America's ill-conceived interference in Iran, toppling a democratically elected government in the 1950s to install a Shah who was amenable to our petroleum policies, as a succession of presidents (including Carter) turned a blind eye to his human rights abuses.

While this didn't change my mind about the despicable nature of the hostage takers, it colored my thinking about how anger is like a magic ball that, once put into motion, tends to just keep bounding around if you let it.

"Desert One" is the outstanding new documentary that takes a sobering look at the crisis with a focus on the one aspect most people have forgotten or never knew about: the failed rescue attempt.

Even as Carter's administration began negotiating for a diplomatic solution, they authorized the development of a military option. We get to meet these men, most of them members of the then-new Delta Force partnering with elite pilots of the Air Force. They spent months training for a very specific mission to break into the former American Embassy in Tehran and snatch up the hostages.

In April 1980, after it became clear the Iranians were stalling for time and basking in the glow of international attention for their brazenness, Carter gave the go-ahead. And everything immediately fell apart.

Director Barbara Kopple is a giant of the documentary genre, a two-time Oscar winner (including the immortal "Harlan County U.S.A.") who knows exactly how to present history in a way that's both illuminating and emotionally impactful.

She carefully traces the steps of the mission, talks to the actual men who took part as well as their wives and children, lands interviews with Carter himself and key administration figures like defense secretary Robert Gates. We listen to campaign officials who constantly fretted about the impact of the crisis on the reelection, even as Carter himself stoically separated duty and personal glory.

We also learn from some of the former hostages themselves. Then, for good measure, she talks to the Iranians on the other side of the equation, including government officials and members of the student groups who actually stormed the embassy and held its occupants captive for 444 days.

I learned much that I did not know. How the pilots trained to fly helicopters and C-130 planes using night vision goggles, a device previously only used by ground troops. And the mother of one of the hostage Marines traveled to Iran and spoke out critically about the American government's actions, a simple woman who couldn't see how her emotions were being exploited by the Iranian media.

The operation itself was a complicated puzzle involving multiple moving pieces that seemed impossible to ever fit together. But it was undone before they ever got close to the embassy by two factors: the omnipresent desert dust storms that fouled up the aircraft instruments and the decision to pick a staging area, called Desert One, that was near a virtually abandoned road.

Or so the faulty intelligence said. Turns out the road was frequently traveled upon, and within five minutes of setting down the soldiers encountered multiple vehicles, including a bus full of 40 family members and a tanker truck they inadvertently blew up, sending a towering column of fire into the sky like a beacon.

Then, even as it became clear the mission was fatally botched, the attempt to abort it turned it from a failure to a disaster, as a helicopter taking off for home flew blindly into one of the transport planes, blowing it up and costing the lives of eight men.

The hardest part of the movie to watch is the TV footage of the Iranians unwrapping their remains in front of huge crowds of people gloating their deaths. Kopple expertly contrasts the stoic recollections of the survivors with a woman in a hijab, one of the student captors, coolly recounting how happy she was to see their bodies.

"Desert One" feels like dry, forgotten history breathed back to life and writ large. The events of the hostage crisis and the failed attempt to end it are but half a lifetime ago, yet already fading from the public consciousness. Forgetfulness and doomed repetition and all that

My only real quibble with the movie was Kopple's choice to, very briefly near the end, discuss the "October Surprise" notion that Reagan's incoming administration interfered with negotiations to ensure the hostages would not be released until after Reagan's election. No direct evidence is offered, because there is none; it's pure conspiracy theory bunk, as determined by Congressional investigations lasting a dozen years.

To give it voice, even in the lackadaisical "who really knows" way that Kopple does, does her otherwise excellent documentary no credit -- not to mention the men whose memory it slurs.

Some things do come into clear focus after viewing. Like the utter decency of Jimmy Carter, a genuinely selfless and goodhearted man -- too good, perhaps, to make the harsh judgements required of an American president. Even Ted Koppel steps out of his reporter's reporter role to comment on how inept Carter's stance seemed at the time.

And how the Iranian people had lived for decades under the yoke of a tyrant who Americans supported, betraying their own commitment to freedom and democracy. Their anger and, to a point, their actions were not entirely unjustified. Still, it's not hard to see the seeds they planted bearing much more poisonous fruit.

Most of all, we see the bravery and dedication of men who were honed to a fine edge by their sense of duty and then betrayed by circumstances and poor planning. Sometimes true heroism is best seen when everything goes awry and the mission ends with tragedy and ignominy.

There's a poignant moment about some British military contractors delivering a message to the Americans right after their failure, which I'll not repeat here so you can fully experience it for yourself. It's the sort of thing you rightly remember for the rest of your life.

Certainly, I will remember "Desert One."

Review: "Rob Schneider: Asian Momma, Mexican Kids"

"I used to be Rob Schneider. Now I'm just Elle King's dad."

He says this without a scintilla of resentment or regret. Rob Schneider is older, lumpier, possibly wiser, and most certainly funnier than he's been in years.

He shows all this off in his new Netflix comedy special, "Rob Schneider: Asian Momma, Mexican Kids," a meditation on aging and looking back on a career that, by his own admission, has cooled. And he seems fine with that.

Schneider looks more like Billy Crystal than Deuce Bigalow these days. And yes, he still dallies in "problematic" spheres of comedy, enshrining male lust and ethnic speech patterns. He just does it in the slightly more apologetic way of aging men who have come to terms with the fact they aren't cool anymore.

I've never had a very strong impression of Schneider. I liked him in his "Saturday Night Live" days, and I remember he would sing on some of the Christmas specials, imitating Elvis or what have you. He went onto a solo film career of comedies ranging from lowbrow to awful.

Schneider seemed like a guy smart enough to know his movies weren't very good, and he got quite thin-skinned and defensive about it. I recall he once publicly attacked a Los Angeles critic who trashed his latest flick in a huge ad he took out, which prompted Roger Ebert to respond with a scathing column that ended with, "Your movie sucks."

This later became the title of one of Ebert's collections of reviews.

This helped take the knees out of Schneider's star wattage, leading to leading roles in smaller movies and then supporting parts in other people's movies. For awhile he was part of the Adam Sandler "make work" projects for his buddies, notably "Grown Ups," but found himself left out of the sequel -- reputedly due to "scheduling conflicts," which is the Hollywood-ese equivalent to the corporate world's "spend more time with his family."

Schneider didn't even get to ride the "Hotel Transylvania" gravy train, and he's mostly done bit parts and voice work the last decade. Let's be blunt: he's a has-been.

"Asian Momma" reflects his acknowledgement of this fact, which at times takes on the tone of a confessional of the sniggering schoolboy who has grown up but still can't help cutting up.

I learned some things about him. Starting with the fact his eldest child is in fact Elle King, a crooner with a magnificently soulful voice. After his stand-up set Schneider brings her out for a duet of Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" that is achingly haunting but also joyful. It's the first time they've ever performed together in public, he says.

I also discovered that Rob Schneider is Asian-American. No, really. His wife is Filipina and his repertoire of various Asian accents of English are collected from his childhood; he even breaks out in Cantonese at one point. He mimics his mother's constant demands for straight A's in schools and hectoring ways.

"It's not racist. It's accurate," he semi-apologizes after one long screed. He jokes that in the Great Awokening, he may be Asian but he's not Asian enough to get any jobs out of it.

Much of the second half of his set is devoted to Schneider's third marriage and two young children, ages 3 and 7. They've been married 10 years and he's lived in constant fear that she will divorce him. We understand why. Her Mexican accent gets its own parody-slash-pedestal, going through a long routine of pestering his wife for sex and getting shut down.

It's an old, familiar tune sung by many a comedian, but Schneider puts his own naughty-boy spin on it. I laughed plentifully, at first sympathetically and then genuinely.

There's also a brief moment of sober lucidity where he defends himself as mate, even though he's probably shorter, less handsome and (now) less of a celebrity than she might have once hoped.

"Maybe I am your Prince Charming," he insists, a joke with a bedrock of self-awareness.

Yes, Rob Schneider spent much of his lifetime scraping the bottom of the comedy barrel. He knows that now, even if he's not taking any of it back. The funny has not fled him.

Even if his movies did indeed suck, a third act to redeem the second seems not unreasonable.

What we miss when we miss going to the gym

Though it may seem trivial given everything that’s going on -- including the virtual shutdown of movie theaters, libraries, live performances, museums and other centers that form the basis of our culture -- one area I’m feeling quite personally is the loss of our public gyms. I visited our local YMCA on Saturday, and I fear it will be my last visit to a workout facility for a while.

This pains me for a number of reasons, both physically and spiritually.

Thirty years ago this year, I wandered into the basement gym at my NYU apartment building to perform an awkward workout. And in a way, I never really left.

During the three ensuing decades, I have never missed going to the gym for more than a week. And even those occasional misses were owing to things like travel, illness or surgery. Even if one part of my body was temporarily immobilized -- including most recently the excision of melanoma on my shoulder -- I still found a way to exercise the rest of me.

I am not a gym rat by disposition. In fact, it’s fair to say I dislike working out. I loathe “muscle culture” and the performative aspect some people bring with them to the gym. Dudes who grunt loudly during their reps or women who do butt lifts right in front of the treadmills while the area off to the side is empty earn their eye-rolls.

But it’s something that’s become so ingrained into my day-to-day existence that having it suddenly removed feels traumatic.

My relationship to my body, like many people, has evolved over the years. I was painfully thin and self-conscious as a child and teenager. I still remember the older boys on my block being fascinated with my toothpick-like arms, forcibly rolling them in their larger, rougher hands to marvel at the lack of muscle tissue. My senior year in high school I struggled to get above 135 pounds.

Then came college, where the proverbial “freshman 15” became double that or more. It was around the time I was somehow both scrawny and doughy that I started lifting weights and doing cardio.

Practices become patterns, patterns become habits, and habits become lifestyle. The first couple of years, I worked out without fail every other day.

There actually existed a brief time in my early 20s when I was in really good shape, though I was largely unaware of it at the time. I managed to build a little muscle mass and trim down, and daresay I was fairly “cut” by standards of the time. I was even approached by a photography student about doing some modeling, which I turned down because it involved nudity.

(Here’s where my brain was then: I thought she was making fun of me, because no one could possibly want to see me without my clothes.)

The years turn and now I’m a middle-aged guy with the accompanying aches and pains. My workout goals today are simple: keep the flab at bay, maintain a little muscle tone and flexibility. I’ve incorporated more core exercises and stretching. I had to permanently give up bench presses upon doctors’ orders after operations on both shoulders.

My biggest change was dropping from three gym visits a week to two. After our second child arrived, it just became too difficult and stressful to find the time, especially with two parents trying to coordinate workouts. I found myself getting frustrated at missing my regular workouts, which often led to skipping another. Once I gave myself permission to stay at two for the time being, I’ve been able to maintain the schedule with little compromise.

I’m hardly buff and could stand to lose 10 pounds, but I take some measure of pride in having a better-than-average “dadbod.” My torso slopes inward rather than outward from top to bottom. When I buy shirts or suit jackets I get a small, secret thrill from picking from the “slim” or “fitted” selection.

My late friend Matthew Tully and I would bump into each other at the same Y, and talked about how the age of 45 seems to be a major breaking point for most men. It’s around then you make the commitment to try to live healthfully, or largely give up and let yourself go to pot. Ironically, before his bout began with the cancer that would eventually claim his life, Matt was at or near the best shape of his life.

I didn’t think I liked socializing at the gym -- get in, work out, get out was my creed. But I fear I will miss the sense of connection with familiar faces at the front desk or in the main wellness center. There is a very small but reliable group of regulars with whom I exchange a few words or just a nod.

My teensy bit of fame as someone who regularly appears on local television occasionally leads to strangers initiating conversations about movies. At first I found it weird but admit to enjoying being solicited for my opinion on what to see.

For someone who doesn’t really like to exercise, I am afeared of breaking my 30-year habit. Early this morning I was able to take a 45-minute brisk walk and do quick sets of sit-ups, push-ups and dips (balancing on the backs of two chairs). But it can’t substitute for the free weights and specialized equipment at a gym.

There are many communal experiences we’ll have to eschew for the time being. It feels like putting your life on hold, or at least parts of it. But sometimes you have to subtract in order to add, or in this case risk losing even more.

Oscars postmortem 2020

It was a historic night at the Oscars, though not a particularly great one if you think the best films should prevail. C'est la vie.

"Parasite" became the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, and also the first Cannes Palme d'Or winner to also take the Academy Award in 65 years, the last one being "Marty."

It's pretty rare for my favorite movie to win Best Picture, so I'm used to disappointment. I liked "Parasite" but it didn't make my top 10 or even my list of also-rans. I found it intellectually interesting but not very emotionally engaging. None of the characters really stood out to me.

Oddly, the maid is the only person I found myself somewhat identifying with. It seemed like it borrowed too obviously from other movies, particularly "Shoplifters" and Kurosawa's "High and Low," and the Tarantino-esque bloodletting ending pretty well lost me.

Lack of competition

Still, in an overall weak year for films there wasn't really a strong frontrunner to oppose it. Even though "1917" won most of the key preliminary awards, including the usually predictive Director's Guild prize, I think the groundswell of support for picking a foreign film swept people up.

I hear a lot of people calling for this to be the start of a trend, with more foreign films vying in categories beyond the International Feature. "Cinema is the global language," yada yada.

Honestly, I hope not. Aside from truly exceptional films from abroad, the Academy Awards have always explicitly been part and parcel of the Hollywood industry.

As I've said before, whenever people complain about foreign films not winning more Oscars, I ask them to remind of all the American films that won a slew of prizes at the Korean/Spanish/Swedish/whatever film awards. There's nothing wrong with being an institution primarily aimed at celebrating work from a particular country or language.

Nobody complains when the BAFTAs always go to British movies.

(Notably, Cannes and many other film festivals that give out coveted awards are explicitly international by design.)

I've noticed more and more foreign films creeping into the short film, documentary and animated categories in recent years, to the point of dominating them. Only one out of five documentary features and live action shorts were set in America, and as it turned out they both won.

I guess nativism is fine for those "smaller" categories.

I think "1917" was hurt by not having any acting nominations. Actors make up the largest bloc of Academy voters, and they love movies with meaty parts. Casting a couple of unknowns who were as much stuntmen as thespians undoubtedly diminished its chances, even with a few name actors in bit parts.

Playing footsie with QT

So it fell to "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" to take up the slack, and I think in the end people recognized it as a wonderful-looking movie with some nice performances and a haphazard train wreck of a script. But I lost track of how many times Quentin Tarantino drew praise from the stage, even by people who weren't in his movie.

It's the oldest story in the world: young, rebellious upstart becomes part of the institution. Strange the way he's beloved in the #MeToo age, given the fetishistic way he divides up women's bodies into subjects for his leering gaze. In an age focused on giving women their voices, here's a guy who literally resurrected a starlet so he could render her wordless.

Bong Joon Ho paid homage to both Tarantino and Scorsese in his acceptance speech, and then seemed to realize he couldn't leave out the other two guys, so he slipped in some half-hearted praise.

It was definitely a spread-the-love around night, with the four for "Parasite" leading the parade. All four favorites in the acting categories won, which is a little boring. Usually when you go into the ceremony with four locks, it means there's going to be one upset.

My money was on Renee Zellweger, who ended up winning for "Judy," a perfectly fine but not great movie. That's actually a not uncommon occurrence for someone to win Best Actor or Actress without their film receiving any other nominations.

I honestly don't pay much attention to the speeches -- that's when I'm tweeting out my responses to the award -- though I couldn't help zero on Joaquin Phoenix's utterly kooky and cryptic callout for... not stealing baby cows' milk, or something. It's not too often you hear an Oscar speech that talks about artificial insemination.

Look, dude, eat what you want and I'll do the same.

The utterly placid "Toy Story 4" won animated feature, thus securing this as the Disney/Pixar award even when they produce substandard fare. Thus it goes that the "How to Train Your Dragon" saga comes to a close with zero Oscar wins, losing to a Mouse House movie every time. How depressing.

In terms of predictions scorecard, I was right on 20 out of 24, which is pretty good for me. I think my best ever was 21. I missed on musical score, best picture, best director and sound editing. I actually got all the short film categories right, which is usually where I run astray.

So we pull the shroud over 2019, a slightly subpar movie year imho. Many of my favorites didn't even rate nominations, which isn't all that unusual. In the scramble to find foreign films to honor, a lot of terrific homegrown ones like "Harriet," "Late Night" and "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" were overlooked.

Fearless Oscar picks and predictions 2020

I'd say 2019 was a slightly below-average movie year. I saw three I'd deem excellent, another handful of bordering-on-great ones and then a bunch of merely goods. Drops off pretty hard after that.

We entered the awards season with no clear front-runners, though a consensus has definitely emerged, especially in the acting a categories. "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood," "1917" and "Parasite" appear to be the major contenders to take the biggest prizes.

The usual yipping about diversity, but as I've always said the Oscars are a reflection of the filmmaking business. What goes in the front is what you get out the back. So the movies that get made are too white and male, resulting in a slate of nominees that follow.

Trying to pump up decent but hardly outstanding fare like "The Farewell" doesn't help the case.

The biggest area of complaint is five men nominated for director, with Greta Gerwig held up as the woman who got screwed. I do think several of those nominees don't deserve a nod, but Gerwig's utterly safe, conventional "Little Women" -- after the ravishingly original and bravura "Ladybird" -- just doesn't rate.

So here are my picks and predictions for this year's Academy Awards. As always I pick the film I think will win, and the one I think should win (of those nominated). And I cross off some unwarranted nominees in favor of some more deserving ones: the dreaded-but-delicious Chris Cross.

Best Picture

The Nominees: 
"Ford v Ferrari"
"The Irishman"
"Jojo Rabbit"
"Joker"
"Little Women"
"Marriage Story"
"1917"
"Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"
"Parasite"

The Chatter: As soon as I saw "1917" in late November I said it would be a serious Best Picture Contender. It has all the classic "Oscar pedigree" ingredients: period picture, antiwar, British, great costumes and production design, made by people who previously had Oscar wins or nods. The Producer's Guild gave it its award, which is usually a good predictor.

"Parasite" is the main stalker, as it would be the first foreign language film to ever win the top award. ("The Artist" from 2011 is not counted, even though it was French, because it was an ersatz silent picture.) In the end, I think the voters will feel winning the foreign award will be enough. After all, there aren't any American films winning Korea's top film award, are there?

Hollywood loves movies about itself, and OUaTiH has been much stronger than anyone expected. But "Parasite" won the Screen Actors Guild Award and they're the largest voting bloc, so I'm guessing the voting will be split and leave enough room for "1917" to narrowly win.

A few months ago everyone thought Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" would be an awards juggernaut, then it came out (barely) in theaters and most people recognized it as an overlong buffet of warmed-over gangster tropes. "Jojo Rabbit" and "Joker" are a little too weird/dark for Oscar voters.

I'm happy that "Ford v Ferrari" got a nod. It's the best sports flick in awhile, and they tend not to get much Oscar love. My two favorite movies were "Late Night" and "Harriet," though I recognize I'm an outlier on those.

Prediction: "1917"

Pick: "Ford v Ferrari"

Chris Cross: Out go "Little Women," "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" and "Parasite." All fine films but not without obvious failings or flaws. In go "Late Night," "Harriet" and "The Last Black Man in San Francisco."

Best Director

The Nominees: 
Bong Joon Ho, "Parasite"
Martin Scorsese, "The Irishman"
Todd Phillips, "Joker"
Sam Mendes, "1917"
Quentin Tarantino, "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"

The Chatter: Despite the outcry over all men getting nominated, director has actually been the most diverse award in terms of recent winners. Nine of the last 10 who took the prize were people of color, women or non-Americans. Being a white Yank dude may help get you nominated, but not take home the prize.

This one's a tough call. Sam Mendes won the Director's Guild Award, which historically has been the most predictive prize for the Oscars. But I think Bong Joon Ho has got a lot of juice. Plus, concerns about diversity may prompt voters to go for the one non-Caucasian nominee.

Usually when I make daring picks I get burned. Let's go the safer route with Mendes.

Personally, I'll throw out the entire lot except Mendes. People tend to downplay the "one shot" aspect of "1917," but it's hard to pull that off logistically and still have it work artistically. And it does.

I did not see a better-directed film last year than "Portrait of Lady on Fire," so Céline Sciamma would be my pick if she were nominated. And let's get the people in the chair for "Marriage Story," "Harriet" and "Ford v Ferrari," too.

Prediction: Sam Mendes

Pick: Sam Mendes

Chris Cross: Noah Baumbach, Kasi Lemmons, James Mangold and Céline Sciamma replace Bong Joon Ho, Martin Scorsese, Todd Phillips and Quentin Tarantino. If I could add a sixth, it would be Jordan Peele for "Us."

Best Actress

The Nominees: 
Cynthia Erivo, "Harriet"
Scarlett Johansson, "Marriage Story"
Saoirse Ronan, "Little Women"
Charlize Theron, "Bombshell"
Renée Zellweger, "Judy"

The Chatter: I'm not really sure what happened with this year's acting categories. A couple of months ago it looked absolutely wide open in all four races. Now the same quartet has run the table at every single major award leading up to the Academy Awards.

Historically, that means one of them is going to be a surprise. But since I can't fathom which one it will be, I'm going with the safe predictions.

Lead actress was a very competitive category this year. Hard to strike any of the women here as they are all well-deserving of the nominations.

One of the biggest perceived snubs was Lupita Nyong'o for "Us." I get why it happened: horror is not a genre that gets attention from Oscar voters. And some found her strange, eerie voice used for the dual character funny (or offensive, bizarrely). But I thought it was next-level work for her.

The one that really kills me was Emma Thompson not getting nominated for "Late Night." Again, I get it -- it's from a streaming studio, it got little media buzz, it's a comedy, albeit a dark one. But it was a fierce and uncompromising portrayal of a complex older woman, which is not something we see a lot at the movies.

Of those nominated I'll take Erivo with Theron as a close second. I loved "Harriet;" I think it's a lot more nuanced and interesting than people give it credit for. Theron's transformation into Megyn Kelly was so convincing it was almost unsettling. 

Zellweger has this thing locked up. Hollywood loves movies about itself, and it loves comeback stories, and "Judy" has both.

Prediction: Zellweger

Pick: Erivo

Chris Cross: I want Thompson and Nyong'o in badly, tough call on who to knock out; I'll go with Ronan and Zellweger.

Best Supporting Actress

The Nominees: 

Kathy Bates, “Richard Jewell”
Laura Dern, “Marriage Story”
Scarlett Johansson, “Jojo Rabbit”
Florence Pugh, “Little Women”
Margot Robbie, “Bombshell”

The Chatter: As strong as Best Actress was, the supporting category was a little limp this year. I liked all the nominees, though for me Johansson was the standout. It's the perfect sort of supporting role: distinctive, memorable, yet utterly in service to the story and the journey of the main character. 

Being a double nominee is not really a good thing, as no one's ever won both awards and usually they end up losing both as perhaps a backlash against their good fortune. 

People are complaining this is a lifetime achievement award for Laura Dern, and I'm actually fine with that. It's long been a tradition in the men's categories to honor an outstanding body of work by giving them an award for something other than their finest performance -- see Newman, Paul, for "The Color of Money" -- so I don't see any reason against doing it for the women. 

Dern is only 52 years old but has been around seemingly forever doing consistently fine work. And she's Hollywood royalty, daughter of Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern. Between the three of them they have eight Oscar nominations, and this would be the first win for the clan.

Not a lot of standout contenders to knock any of these ladies out. They're calling Noémie Merlant a supporting actress for the wonderful "Portrait of a Lady on Fire," though really it's a co-lead. 

Kathy Bates is another pro who always shows up and does great work, but her nomination for "Richard Jewell" was really based on just one or two substantive scenes. Aka the Ruby Dee Effect.

Prediction: Dern

Pick: Johansson

Chris Cross: Merlant for Bates. 

Best Actor

The Nominees: 

Antonio Banderas, "Pain and Glory"
Leonardo DiCaprio, "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"
Adam Driver, "Marriage Story"
Joaquin Phoenix, "Joker"
Jonathan Pryce, "The Two Popes"

The Chatter: Usually this is a busy category, but I thought it not so competitive this year. I was very happy to see Banderas get in for the underrated "Pain and Glory." His career has been so marked by machismo and a vibrant masculinity, so I loved seeing him play a rather passive character, wounded both physically and emotionally.

Phoenix is a shoe-in to win in the sort of big, showy, dark performance that tends to do very well in this category. This is his fourth nomination without winning and he's probably had at least a couple other times he should have been.

Like Matthew McConaughey, there's very much a sense that "it's his time."

It's telling as the comic book genre reaches middle age that no one's ever been nominated for playing a hero but two people will have now won for playing villains -- and the same one, at that.

Adam Driver was terrific, and has grown so much as an actor. I remember first seeing him as the lunkhead boyfriend in an early episode of "Girls" and didn't think too much. A very layered, authentic performance in "Marriage Story." Speaking of time: His will come.

Pryce was terrific, despite using another actor for the flashback sequence and somebody else's voice for the Spanish lines. "Just Mercy" may just be the most overlooked movie of the season, so let's get some love for Michael B. Jordan. I didn't really see DiCaprio having to work very hard in that role, other than that one acting-within-acting scene.

Prediction: Phoenix

Pick: Driver

Chris Cross: Michael B. Jordan replaces DiCaprio.

Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees: 

Tom Hanks, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
Anthony Hopkins, “The Two Popes”
Al Pacino, “The Irishman”
Joe Pesci, “The Irishman”
Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

The Chatter: This is historically one of the toughest categories to break into with many worthy nominees, and this year is no exception.

I hate that Brad Pitt is going to win for playing himself. Stroll in, take your shirt off, be the coolest motherf*cker in the room. And that horseshit scene with Bruce Lee still rankles.

Similarly, Tom Hanks didn't play Fred Rogers; he played Tom Hanks playing Fred Rogers. Like David Oyelowo in "Selma," Hanks makes the odd choice of playing a historical figure whose iconography is closely related to their voice/speech, and not sounding anything like them. 

Pacino gets nominated for playing the blustery firecracker and Pesci gets nominated for playing the close-to-the-vest chessmaster, in basically a trade of their signature styles. Pacino was a hoot but I'm bewildered by the praise for Pesci, who I thought was very flat.

Hopkins is the best of the lot here, but in all honesty I can easily come up with five better. Christian Bale getting snubbed for "Ford v Ferrari" feels like highway robbery.

Prediction: Pitt

Pick: Hopkins

Chris Cross: Bale, Jamie Foxx, Shia LaBeouf ("Honey Boy"), Rob Morgan and Tim Blake Nelson replaces the entire board. Yes, I'm aware that's three from one film, "Just Mercy." Kills me that even with a five-swap I can't make room for Marc Maron ("Sword of Trust") or Jon Lithgow ("Bombshell").

Animated Feature

The Nominees: 

“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”
“I Lost My Body”
“Klaus”
“Missing Link”
"Toy Story 4" 

The Chatter: Terribly weak category again this year. I can't even remember the last time I thought there was more than a couple of deserving nominees. "How to Train Your Dragon" concluded a decade-long run with three feature films, a handful of shorts and eight seasons of a TV show. The GOAT animation franchise.

But "Toy Story 4" will win, because the Disney/Pixar film always wins.

Even Laika, the stop-motion studio that's made fantastic films like "Kubo and the Two Strings," had a substandard entry with the listless "Missing Link." Even "Frozen 2" didn't get nominated.

I like the idea of "Klaus," an old-school hand-drawn feature, more than the movie they actually made. "I Lost My Body" went over my head.

Prediction: "Toy Story 4"

Pick: "Dragon"

Chris Cross: I'll throw out "Missing Link," "Toy Story 4" and "I Lost My Body," but I don't have anything to replace them with. They just don't deserve to be here.

Best International Feature Film

The Nominees: 

“Corpus Christi”
“Honeyland”
“Les Miserables”
“Pain and Glory”
“Parasite” 

The Chatter: "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" is my pick, but it wasn't even eligible under the Academy's arcane rules for International Feature, as the former Foreign Language Feature is now called.

Every year I lament that I didn't get to see enough foreign movies, though I did better this year. The only one I'd knock off is "Honeyland," for categorical reasons rather than artistic merit. I think it's weird to be nominated as both best documentary and alongside fictional features. 

"Parasite" has a mortal lock on this category, and while I liked it I don't see it as the dazzlingly brilliant and original tale others do. Superficially and thematically it's very similar to the previous year's "Shoplifters," which I thought much more emotionally gripping, along with shades of Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low."

I saw "Corpus Christi" very late in the season and was dazzled by it. "Pain and Glory" would be second; it isn't among Pedro Almodovar's best, but it's autobiographical and touching.

Prediction: "Parasite"

Pick: "Corpus Chisti"

Chris Cross: "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" for "Honeyland"

Best Documentary Feature

The Nominees: 

"American Factory"

"The Cave"

"The Edge of Democracy"

"For Sama"

"Honeyland"

The Chatter: I saw a lot of great docs in 2019, none better than "One Child Nation." It took a subject you though you already knew, China's prohibition against multiple children, and dove deep into a much richer and darker story. 

It's interesting that "The Cave" and "For Sama" look at the same plight in Syria with slightly different angles. I liked "Sama" but in the end it's more difficult to do journalistic reportage on a bunch of people than just turn the camera on yourself.

I am outwardly suspicious of the veracity of "Honeyland." I won't belabor the subject here but it seems like they went well beyond recreation of events -- a commonly used tactic in documentary filmmaking, though most people don't know it -- to outright scripting of a narrative. It's pretty rare that real events play out like a three-act William Faulkner novel. 

"American Factory" will probably win because it has the Obamas' name attached to it. Though their involvement was more tertiary than is generally perceived; their production company didn't even form until a couple of years after the footage was shot.

"The Edge of Democracy" is actually the most traditional and best documentary here, exploring a complex foreign subject in a way understandable to American lunkheads like me.

Prediction: "American Factory"

Pick: "The Edge of Democracy"

Chris Cross: "One Child Nation" replaces "Honeyland"

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Nominees: 

“The Irishman,” Steven Zaillian
“Jojo Rabbit,” Taika Waititi
“Joker,” Todd Phillips, Scott Silver
“Little Women,” Greta Gerwig
“The Two Popes,” Anthony McCarten

The Chatter: I'll take "Jojo Rabbit" as the clear best in a weak field. It also won the Writers Guild Award, though that's not a terribly accurate indicator of the winner. I'd say Gerwig has a good chance at an upset here, buoyed in part by the perceived snub of her in the directing category.

The Academy has a long history of using the screenplay awards as a consolation prize, so picking "Jojo" to win is a bit risky.

Personally, I think the script for "Little Women" is the weakest piece in its puzzle. The parallel timelines, which pretty well represent the only divergence from seven (!) previous film adaptations, tended to leave people feeling confused or, in my case, distracted.

"Just Mercy" again deserves some love.

Prediction: "Jojo Rabbit"

Pick: "Jojo Rabbit"

Chris Cross: "Just Mercy" replaces "Little Women."

Best Original Screenplay

The Nominees: 

“Knives Out,” Rian Johnson
“Marriage Story,” Noah Baumbach
“1917,” Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns
“Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood,” Quentin Tarantino
“Parasite,” Bong Joon-ho, Jin Won Han

The Chatter: Other than "Marriage Story," the Academy got a lot wrong here. 

I liked "1917" a lot but the direction, cinematography and music are what carried it, not the story. It seems like you could write out everything that "happens" in the movie in a couple dozen pages.

Also liked "Knives Out" but I guess to me it seems overly obvious in what it's doing -- mocking the conventions of the mystery whodunit genre while indulging in every last one of its tropes. A fun but forgettable movie.

I would guess that workaday screenwriters (who don't direct or produce) seethe whenever Tarantino gets lauded for his scripts. He has a great nose for individual scenes but little ability at connecting them into lucid, satisfying narrative arcs. OUaTiH is borderline incoherent, and might still win if "Parasite" doesn't.

One of my complaints about "Parasite" is it didn't have one single likable, or at least identifiable character in the movie. They all felt like constructs to me. 

"Marriage Story" is very much an "actors' movie" with a lot of long dialogue scenes. But the characters are also very well-realized on the page, and in all that dialogue there's not one false moment.

I'm fine with booting the rest of the nominees in exchange for films from my top 10 list.

Prediction: "Parasite"

Pick: "Marriage Story"

Chris Cross: "Late Night," "Harriet," "Ford v Ferrari" and "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" replace "Knives Out," "1917," "OUaTiH" and "Parasite."

Cinematography

The Nominees: 

“The Irishman,” Rodrigo Prieto
“Joker,” Lawrence Sher
“The Lighthouse,” Jarin Blaschke
“1917,” Roger Deakins
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Robert Richardson

The Chatter: The most important aspect of a film's success after the direction, writing and acting is usually how it was shot. This is especially true with "1917" and its highly touted, or disregarded, "one single shot" aesthetic. 

Say what you will, this was an incredibly difficult undertaking, and Roger Deakins is liable to win his second Oscar in three years after being overlooked for a half-century or so. The only thing I can even compare it to is "Days of Heaven," which was shot entirely in the "golden hour" before sunset. 

The other nominees are solid, but I have to find a spot for the most beautiful-looking film of the year.

Prediction: 1917

Pick: 1917

Chris Cross: "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" for "The Irishman."

Best Film Editing

The Nominees: 

“Ford v Ferrari,” Michael McCusker, Andrew Buckland
“The Irishman,” Thelma Schoonmaker
“Jojo Rabbit,” Tom Eagles
“Joker,” Jeff Groth
“Parasite,” Jinmo Yang

The Chatter: I'm hoping "Ford v Ferrari" will do well in the other "technical" awards, since it is a work of tremendous craftsmanship. It's hard to tell the story of a car race in a way that translates both logistically and emotionally, and certain that was the case here.

Normally the Best Picture favorite is heavily favored to run these categories, but it's hard to argue "1917" had the best editing since there hardly is any. (For the record, I counted 10 hidden edits.)

No other big blockbusters like "Star Wars" or superheroes contending here, so the only real competition is probably Schoonmaker, a master of the trade who's been around forever.

Prediction: "Ford v Ferrari"

Pick: "Ford v Ferrari"

Chris Cross: "Avengers: Endgame" for "Parasite"

Best Sound Editing

The Nominees: 

“Ford v Ferrari,” Don Sylvester
“Joker,” Alan Robert Murray
“1917,” Oliver Tarney, Rachel Tate
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Wylie Stateman
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” Matthew Wood, David Acord

The Chatter: Time for my annual primer on the difference between sounding editing and mixing, which not even most Academy voters seem to really understand.

Despite the name, sound editing involves the actual production or recording of a sound on set or on location. Sound mixing is a post-production process by which those sounds are brought together, modified and blended to create the non-music soundscape.

There's actually a movement afoot to combine these two categories, which seems insane since they are done at completely different times and often by different teams. It's not like hair and makeup, which are generally performed simultaneously by a contiguous team of people.

Tough call here, but the sound in "1917" was pivotal as there were long sequences with no dialogue and often not even music.

Prediction: "1917"

Pick: "Ford v Ferrari"

Chris Cross: I'll stand pat with this list.

Sound Mixing

The Nominees: 

“Ad Astra”
“Ford v Ferrari”
“Joker”
“1917”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

Prediction: "1917"

Pick: "Ford v Ferrari"

Chris Cross: Ditto, standing pat.

Production Design

The Nominees: 

“The Irishman,” Bob Shaw and Regina Graves
“Jojo Rabbit,” Ra Vincent and Nora Sopkova
“1917,” Dennis Gassner and Lee Sandales
“Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood,” Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh
“Parasite,” Lee Ha-Jun and Cho Won Woo, Han Ga Ram, and Cho Hee

The Chatter: I feel like the nerd standing in the back of the room spouting, "Akshually, production design is critical to the final result of a motion picture" when it comes to these down-ticket categories. But it's true! Production design encompasses the sets, backgrounds, vehicles, props -- basically, everything you see onscreen that's not an actor or creature.

A lot of great work here among these nominees, all of which are period pieces except "Parasite." One area where that film genuinely succeeded was in the labyrinthine sense of nightmarish space in the two houses.

I think OUaTiH will prevail because it was a bright, colorful depiction of a dark era in American and showbiz history. And Hollywood loves seeing itself looking good.

I'll take "1917" as my take. In a bit of a flier I'll take the little-seen "The Last Black Man in San Francisco," which probably had a teeny fraction of the production design budget of these other films but reflected a very specific place, both physically and spiritually.

Prediction: "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"

Pick: "1917"

Chris Cross: "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" replaces "The Irishman."

Original Score

The Nominees: 

“Joker,” Hildur Guðnadóttir
“Little Women,” Alexandre Desplat
“Marriage Story,” Randy Newman
“1917,” Thomas Newman
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” John Williams

The Chatter: I seem to be outside the mainstream in believing that the best musical scores are often the ones you don't even notice. With rare exception, if you're sitting in a movie theater thinking, "Wow, that's great music!", then the composer has failed.

For instance, Hildur Guðnadóttir's excellent score for "Joker" doesn't really have a distinct melody you can put your finger on -- it's a somber tone poem of mood and layers of disquiet.

"1917" appears to be the favorite here, and it's a terrific score that largely drives the action in a film with little dialogue for long stretches.

I love John Williams but I'm not sure how he keeps getting nominations for doing variations on the same score he wrote more than 40 years ago.

In case you're wondering, yes, Thomas Newman and Randy Newman are related; they're cousins.

In general I've loved Alexandre Desplat's scores, but I found his one for "Little Women" overly cloying and distracting. Once again, please go rent "The Last Black Man in San Francisco."

Prediction: "1917"

Pick: "1917"

Chris Cross: "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" replaces "Little Women."

Original Song

The Nominees: 

“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away,” “Toy Story 4”
“I’m Gonna Love Me Again,” “Rocketman”
“I’m Standing With You,” “Breakthrough”
“Into the Unknown,” “Frozen 2”
“Stand Up,” “Harriet”

The Chatter: Elton John seems to have this locked up. I think if his song from "Rocketman" came out back in his heyday, it'd be a B-sider that no one would even remember.

To me it's crazy that Cynthia Erivo's song from "Harriet" isn't the runaway favorite.

I didn't think "Wild Rose" was a better than good movie, but Jessie Buckley's singing of "Glasgow" was rapturous. 

Prediction: “I’m Gonna Love Me Again”

Pick: "Stand Up"

Chris Cross: "Glasgow (No Place Like Home)," "Wild Rose" for "I'm Gonna Love Me Again."

Makeup and Hair

The Nominees: 

“Bombshell”
“Joker”
“Judy”
“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”
“1917”

The Chatter: "Bombshell" would seemingly have to win, right? It transformed Charlize Theron, who doesn't even really look much like Megyn Kelly, into an unnerving carbon copy. And Nicole Kidman into a very good fasciilimle of Gretchen Carlson.

OK, Jon Lithgow didn't look very much like Roger Stone. But he looked very different from Jon Lithgow.

Zellweger is actually older than Judy Garland was when she died, but they had to age her up considerably to play the part. I guess the latest version of the Joker makeup was fine. "Maleficent" would be the only real competition here.

I'm not even sure what "1917" is doing on this list, as there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary, other than that one scene where a soldier turns frighteningly pale in moments.

Prediction: "Bombshell"

Pick: "Bombshell"

Chris Cross: "Just Mercy" replaces "1917."

Costume Design

The Nominees: 

"The Irishman," Sandy Powell, Christopher Peterson
"Jojo Rabbit," Mayes C. Rubeo
"Joker,” Mark Bridges
"Little Women,” Jacqueline Durran
"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," Arianne Phillips

The Chatter: "Little Women" appears to be the strong favorite here, and indeed the March women had fantastic, beautiful clothes in every scene. Those poor, utterly destitute March women in their sprawling home with tables piled high with food prepared by their live-in maid. So wretched, they were.

Brad Pitt's spark-plug-T-and-Hawaiian-shirt combo became an instant classic in OUaTiH, but is that enough for an Oscar? And I've seen Scorsese's "murderous goombahs in killer suits" shtick before.

I'd actually argue that of the five nominees, costumes were must central to the storytelling in "Jojo Rabbit." The mother's shoes become a totem of the boy's lost innocence.

Ridiculous that "Dolemite Is My Name" isn't on this last -- and the favorite to win.

Prediction: "Little Women"

Pick: "Jojo Rabbit"

Chris Cross: "Dolemite Is My Name" for "The Irishman."

Visual Effects

The Nominees: 

“Avengers Endgame”
“The Irishman”
“1917”
“The Lion King”
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”

The Chatter: I'm throwing a dart on this one. I'm not sure how "Avengers: Endgame" is not the favorite here; people complain the superhero movies are all special effects and then don't want to reward them for that work.

It's not actually all that common for the Best Picture winner/favorite to be nominated in this category, so I'll take a guess that "1917" wins in the wake of its other awards.

I guess the animal CGI in "The Lion King" was very good, but the whole thing was such a cynical enterprise that I struggle to grant it credit.

I'm astonished "The Irishman" made this list since virtually no one thought the de-aging effects were very good. Whereas everyone thought the racing in "Ford v Ferrari" was very authentic.

Prediction: "1917"

Pick: "Avengers: Endgame"

Chris Cross: "Ford v Ferrari" knocks out "The Irishman."

Best Documentary Short Subject

The Nominees: 

“In the Absence,” Yi Seung-Jun and Gary Byung-Seok Kam
“Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone,” Carol Dysinger
“Life Overtakes Me,” Kristine Samuelson and John Haptas
“St. Louis Superman,” Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan
“Walk Run Cha-Cha,” Laura Nix

The Chatter: Always a tough category to predict. I still haven't seen all of them so I'll hold off on a pick for now and update when I do.

Prediction: “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl)”

Pick: *

Best Live Action Short Film

The Nominees: 

“Brotherhood,” Meryam Joobeur
“Nefta Football Club,” Yves Piat
“The Neighbors’ Window,” Marshall Curry
“Saria,” Bryan Buckley
“A Sister,” Delphine Girard

The Chatter: Very strong slate of nominees this year. If it were possible for actors to get nominations for short films, Maria Dizzia deserves one for "The Neighbors' Window."

Prediction: "The Neighbors' Window"

Pick: "The Neighbors' Window"

Animated Short

The Nominees: 

“Dcera,” Daria Kashcheeva
“Hair Love,” Matthew A. Cherry
“Kitbull,” Rosana Sullivan
“Memorable,” Bruno Collet
“Sister,” Siqi Song

The Chatter: A Disney/Pixar film always wins this category. Always.

"Kitbull" is nine minutes of perfection. All the feelz.

Technically, both it and "Hair Love" are products of the Pixar machine, but only the latter played in front of an animated feature film.

Prediction: "Hair Love"

Pick: "Kitbull"