Oscars nominations and Critics Choice reaction

My first reaction is that I don't really have a strong one. There aren't really any huge surprises with this morning's Oscar nominations, given how the awards cycle has gone so far.

In general this seems like a pretty solid list, a good representation of the best in 2019 cinema but perhaps lacking in any notable bold choices.

Coupled with the Critics Choice awards last night given out by the broadcast critics association, of which I'm a voting number, we've gone from an Academy Awards outlook that seemed very hazy to one that has quickly come into focus with some clear frontrunners.

Renee Zellweger and Joaquin Phoenix are now strong favorites for Best Actress and Actor, respectively, after securing wins at both the Golden Globes and Critics Choice. Ditto for Laura Dern and Brad Pitt in the supporting categories.

If these four also sweep the Screen Actors Guild Awards this Sunday, I think we can go ahead and pencil them in as locks for the Oscars.

Cynthia Erivo getting a Best Actress nod for "Harriet" puts me over the moon. I still can't understand why others haven't embraced that film, which I put number two on my Top 10 list. Hopefully this will be a big boost to her career.

Antonio Banderas snuck into Best Actor for "Pain and Glory," which also pleases. A very layered, sensitive performance for an actor known for broadcasting maximum machismo.

I guess the big "snub" everyone will be talking about is Greta Gerwig not getting a director nod, mostly in the context of once again having an all-male lineup. My thoughts on the good-not-great "Little Women" are well known, so I'll not belabor them.

I find it interesting that Jordan Peele also did not receive a directing nod, after both he and Gerwig did for their debut films in 2017, and no one seems to be complaining about that. Personally I thought Peele made a better and bolder film the second time around with "Us," while Gerwig fell back on a very safe and conventional choice to make the 8th film iteration of a 150-year-old novel.

Interesting to see the tie for director at the Critics Choice Award. So it appears to be a two-way race for the Oscar, with Bong Joon Ho having a slight edge over Sam Mendes. (The CCs did nominate Gerwig in this category, since we don't stick to a hard cap of five nominees.)

The Academy stuck with nine nominees for Best Picture, with "Uncut Gems" being the likely shut-out. Adam Sandler was shut out, as was the entire film with zero nods. I'm fine with that, as I found the movie interminable.

Both Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins made the cut for Best Actor and supporting, respectively, which likely startled a lot of people. Both wonderful performances in the sort of movie about religious faith that Hollywood usually eschews. Also got a surprise screenwriting nod in the Adapted category.

So Tom Hanks is officially a supporting actor for "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood." I believe it's the first time he's been nominated for a non-lead role. It's the right call, of course, especially given all the rampant category-hopping in recent years.

But I'm still gobsmacked by the idea that someone would make a Fred Rogers movie in which he's a supporting character. I think others felt this way too, reflected in the lack of any other nominations and the film's relatively lackluster box office.

A very good year for Netflix, though it doesn't appear either "Marriage Story" or "The Irishman" will be serious contenders to rack up a lot of wins. It'll be another year for Adam Driver. Would've liked to see "Dolemite Is My Name" get some love, if not for Eddie Murphy then at least in costumes or other "tech" categories.

"Parasite" appears to have the International Feature Film category, as it's now called, all wrapped up. Doesn't seem to have a shot at being the first foreign language film to win Best Picture, as many people were hyping just a couple of weeks ago. Though I'd say Ho has a very good shot to win.

As I've previously noted, nine out of the last 10 Oscar winners for director have either been women, POC or non-American. Despite not racking up as many nominations as they're due, this has been a great category for diversity with the Academy Awards.

My favorite foreign film, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire," was shut out due to arcane Academy rules about each country only having one "official" submission. Silly.

Another weak year for animated feature, with the virtually unseen "Klaus" being this year's sneak-in. Given the weakness of the Disney/Pixar lineup for 2019, it might be time for the "How to Train Your Dragon" franchise to finally notch an Oscar.

After trading Best Picture wins at the Globes and Critics Choice, "1917" and "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" appear to be in a two-way contest for the Oscars. In addition to the SAG awards, the Producers Guild of America awards next weekend, and the Director's Guild of America the following weekend, things should solidify very soon.

Video review: "Joker"

Like a lot of movies centered around a singular great performance, “Joker” suffers somewhat from being so dominated by its central character. This is, of course, the madman villain from the Batman franchise, indelibly played by Heath Ledger and less so by Jared Leto.

Now Joaquin Phoenix tackles the role in a grim, R-rated psychological drama that seems barely tethered to the comic book world that spawned it. Like Phoenix’s other amazingly off-kilter performances of recent years -- “The Master,” “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot” -- he brings such singular, loopy energy to the role that you come away believing no other actor could’ve played the part.

You could argue “Joker” is a comedy, especially as it’s directed and co-written (with Scott Silver) by Todd Phillips, best known for gross-out comedies like “The Hangover” trilogy. Certainly there is a dark undercurrent of humor here, with Phoenix playing Arthur Fleck, a pitiable clown whose dream is to make the whole world laugh.

But there’s so much of a creepy vibe as we follow Arthur on his journey toward becoming the Joker that you’re more likely to grimace than chuckle.

He lives with his mother (Frances Conroy), a feeble-minded invalid, and yearns after his down-the-hall neighbor, Sophie (Zazie Beetz). Just as things start to look up for him, Arthur begins a long spiral into madness and mayhem.

Robert De Niro plays Murray Franklin, the TV talk show host Arthur idolizes. When video of Arthur bombing at stand-up comedy goes viral, Murray is among those to pile on.

I’ve heard the complaint that “Joker” somehow idolizes “incels,” a term first used to describe, then insult, men who are unable to have relationships with women. I learn this has become an online community where men embrace the term and project their negative emotions on others, often in misogynist ways.

These critics must have not seen the movie I did. The idea that “Joker” is a celebration of pathetic loser who feels squeezed out by society is pretty bonkers from where I sit. Examining how a person reaches a place of utter nihilism is an act of creative bravery, not indulgence.

But maybe “Joker” is the perfect reflection of our age, in which we are urged to shun that which we don’t understand rather than engage with it.

Video extras are a mite disappointing, consisting of just four documentary featurettes:

• “Joker: Vision & Fury”
• “Becoming Joker”
• “Please Welcome… Joker!”
• “Joker: A Chronicle of Chaos”

Movie:

Extras: 

Review: "The Sisters Brothers"

You might be tempted at first to think "The Sisters Brothers" is a Western comedy. It stars John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix as a pair of gunslinger siblings operating out of the Pacific Northwest circa 1851. One's a drunk, the other's a wet rag, and the trailer makes it look like they get into all sorts of hijinks while frequently tussling verbally and occasionally physically.

But this is a serious-as-salt production from French director Jacques Audiard, who has made some excellent pictures including "Rust and Bone" and the little-seen but marvelous "Dheepan." He adapted the screenplay along with Thomas Bidegain from Patrick deWitt's novel of the same name.

It's part anti-Western, part existentialist rumination on manhood, along with a decent amount of shoot-em-up thrown in. The movie feels like a bunch of eclectic pieces that work well together, for awhile.

Charlie Sisters (Phoenix) is the hard-bitten one of the pair, a born killer who has no thoughts beyond earning his next bounty and spending it on drink and whores. Eli (Reilly) is the older, wiser one. He's not soft; he doesn't hesitate to put a bullet in a man's head when he's down. But he does these things because it is Charlie's way, and so it must be his as well.

He is his brother's keeper, which he regards as both duty and prison.

They work for a man called the Commodore (Rutger Hauer, only glimpsed) who sends them off on various assassination missions. They all involve revenge for stealing something from the Commodore. Eli ponders aloud why the Commodore is robbed so frequently. Charlie doesn't really care.

Their latest job involves Hermann Warm (Riz Ahmed), a chemist who has come up with a formula that he thinks will make it easier to pan gold from the water in California. Jake Gyllenhall plays John Morris, a detective assigned to locate Warm and track him until the Sisters Brothers can arrive.

Morris is a curious figure. He doesn't seem prone to violence, has the refined manners of a rich man's son and mostly watches his quarry from a distance while writing his thoughts into a journal he's keeping. Unlike the Sisters, we get the sense manhunting is simply a phase he's passing through on the way to other adventures.

I won't give the plot away, other than the first two-thirds of the story involves following these two men in their parallel journeys, one pair tracking the other on their way down the coast to San Francisco.

Phoenix has been giving one terrific, offbeat performance after another lately, but here he plays a more or less straight character, a prototypical Western anti-hero. He's very deliberate about not thinking too hard about anything. Eli, on the other hand, is a cauldron of swirling thoughts and regrets. He carries a red shawl from a lady friend like a totem, a reminder of their fading youth and foul choices.

It's probably one of Reilly's best performances. Unfortunately, the movie loses steam during its last half-hour or so. The story reaches a natural end point, and then it keeps wandering away on the prairie, like a cowpoke with nowhere to go and in no hurry to get there.

Review: "You Were Never Really Here"

Joe -- which may not be his real name -- is a lonely person, stuck somewhere between hero and villain, not caring much about the shadings between the two. He’s a man of mystery, but also a complete open book, in that everything about him is laid bare without pretense.

Played by Joaquin Phoenix in another one of his bizarre, affecting, only-he-could-pull-it-off performances, Joe is a hired thug who specializes in tracking down young girls who have been kidnapped and put into the sex trade. He’s an ex-something -- soldier, cop, maybe DEA or ICE -- we’re never really sure. Clearly his past life taints him.

Joe’s body is thick, strong, crisscrossed with scars. Hair and graying beard grow unchecked, pinned back as necessary when the work becomes wet… which is often.

“You Were Never Really There” is a sketch of a man who has no self-identity beyond what he does. Joe is brutal, preferring to use a hammer to split open the skulls of those he encounters. (It says something that he buys a fresh one for each job.) Yet he speaks with a gentle, muffled voice, even when interrogating someone he needs to squeeze for information.

He has lived with violence all his life; it is his constant companion but not his bride.

Writer/director Lynne Ramsay, whose last feature was the disturbing “We Need to Talk about Kevin” in 2011, gives us a very spare, deliberately paced film about revenge and persona. Based on the novel by Jonathan Ames, Joe is a man haunted by demons, but able to keep them at bay -- until his latest job goes bad, bad, bad.

Without giving anything away, it involves working for a state senator (Alex Manette), whose daughter, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov) has been taken. Much is left unspoken, but the politician knows more than he is saying.

“I want you to hurt them,” is his final instruction to Joe, along with the promise of $50,000.

Joe’s life is quiet and ordered, outside of the grim work he performs at night. He cares for his elderly mother (Judith Roberts), who is homebound and watches TV all day. Joe nags her for having expired food in her fridge, or taking too long in the bathroom. But it’s clear he would never leave her.

Flashbacks give hints to domestic violence in their past. To calm his nerves, Joe likes to go into the closet of his boyhood bedroom and place a plastic bag over his head. He’s not trying to suffocate himself; certainly he gains no sexual pleasure from it (or possibly from anything). It’s just his way of coping with the past by recreating it.

There’s not much else to the story. John Doman plays Joe’s frontman, who finds him jobs in exchange for a cut. Angel (Frank Pando) is his bodega banker, handling the cash for his own little piece of the action. His dealings with both men are curt, unemotional. They are the closest things to friends a guy like him can have.

Ramsay takes her time building the ingredients of her tale, which is based on a novella by Jonathan Ames. She favors long shots that just show the things Joe is seeing as he travels from place to place. I daresay some people will find the movie slow or even dull.

I think it has a darkling loveliness that’s hard to compare. The inharmonious musical score and soundtrack of old songs, especially “Angel Baby,” lend the film a creeping nostalgia. Phoenix is moody and mesmerizing, worth the price of admission all on his own.

In the end, “You Were Never Really There” is an existential portrait of a killer, someone who sees himself as utterly empty, who only realizes the value of things after he has lost them.

Review: "Irrational Man"

I’ve liked a lot of Woody Allen’s stuff over the past decade, as he got out of his comfort zone and did crime dramas, period costume trifles, romantic European adventures -- anything besides self-involved New Yorkers spinning in their own delusions and neuroses. For a guy nearly age 80, I think the last 10 years been his most fertile period since the 1980s.

(Most people consider the ’70s his heyday, but really aside from “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall” his flicks of that era are rather overrated.)

“Irrational Man” is the dry, tasteless chaser at the end of a long and exquisite banquet. This morality-play-cum-murder-mystery is flat and stale, playing out like fourth-string Dostoevsky warmed over with postmodern irony and angst.

Joaquin Phoenix plays Abe Lucas, a rock star philosophy professor – such persons exist only in the movies – who’s come to a tiny provincial liberal arts college in Rhode Island to teach for the summer. His reputation precedes itself: he’s a boozer, womanizer, moody rebel and suicidal free-thinker. Half the campus is gabbing about him even before Abe anticlimactically pulls up in an aging Volvo, his untucked shirt swaddling a protruding beer gut.

It’s an insular community where everybody knows everyone else’s business. Rita (Parker Posey), a fellow professor whose mid-life crisis seems to ooze from her very pores, has soon wrangled Abe into her bed. But his deepest relationship is with one of his students, a smart and discerning lass named Jill (Emma) whose parents are both music professors at the college.

They strike up a friendship that soon becomes more, at least to Jill, though Abe goes to great lengths to deny it. Meanwhile, her boyfriend, Roy (Jamie Blackley), practically vibrates with jealousy toward his older rival, though he labors to make a joke of it.

Abe is searching for a reason to go on living, and he thinks he’s found it by stumbling upon the idea of ending another person’s life. He and Jill overhear the tale of a corrupt judge ruining an innocent woman’s life. Abe becomes obsessed with the idea of pulling off a Hitchcockian murder. The fact that he has no attachment to the victim and no motive for killing him will ensure the perfect crime.

It doesn’t, of course, because otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie. Things go on, with Abe moralizing his act to himself while Jill plays Nancy Drew, slowly circling a corkscrew of clues that inevitably leads back to the man she (thinks she) loves.

Allen’s storytelling method is to have Abe and Jill pass the narration back and forth between them, so we perfectly understand their thought process and interior monologue. The problem with this approach is that neither character ends up holding any mystery. How much better to make it a game about the impressionable student trying to suss out if the professor she’s sleeping with could be a murderer, or the morally compromised teacher worrying about being bested by his pupil.

In the end “Irrational” is more an exercise than a movie, a bunch of smart, educated people engaged in a grand game of deception – of each other, their moral posturing and, mostly, of themselves.

Video review: "Her"

The quirkiest of the nine movies nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture last year is “Her,” which not coincidentally is probably the one that most of the people reading this haven’t seen, or possibly even heard of.

Correct this tragic oversight right now – your cinematic life will be the richer for it.

I know a lot of people were put off by the bizarre premise: a lonely man falls in love with his computer. This might sound like the set-up for a bad raunchy comedy, but in fact this tender drama from writer/director Spike Jonze (“Being John Malkovich”) offers trenchant observations about loneliness and romance.

Set in the not-at-all-distant future, “Her” shows how we use technology to bring us all closer together, but in fact our gadgets and apps actually serve to drive us apart. Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore Twombly, whose sorrow from a recent breakup seems to seep through his skin.

He installs a new operating system for his computer that is supposed to simulate a full human personality. Dubbing herself Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), she quickly becomes his social crutch and, surprisingly, his soul mate.

The movie wisely doesn’t get bogged down in the science fiction aspects of the story – whether Samantha is really sentient or not, or where exactly her consciousness resides. She’s represented as a voice inside Theodore’s head via ear buds, and she “sees” through the camera of a little compact computer he carries around. Jonze and his actors simply invest their belief that Samantha is real, so we accept her as such.

Funny, sad and insightful, “Her” is exactly the sort of ambitious small film waiting to be rediscovered on video.

The DVD comes with a making-of documentary, “Her: Love in the Modern Age.” Upgrade to the Blu-ray combo pack, and you add a couple of featurettes: “How Do You Share Your Life with Somebody” and “The Untitled Rick Howard Project.” (The latter refers to the original title for “Her.”) These include perspectives from Jonze, his cast and crew.

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Her"

So, yes, “Her” is about a guy who falls in love with his computer.

There’s more to it than that, of course, but that will be the shorthand you hear about the new drama starring Joaquin Phoenix from writer/director Spike Jonze.

Those two, of course, are noted in their respective vocations for breathtakingly original work that often borders on the loopy – such as Phoenix’s brilliant, vexing turn in last year’s “The Master,” or Jonze’s audacious live-action adaptation of the iconic children’s book, “Where the Wild Things Are.”

If you’re tempted to tune out based on that dismissive description: don’t. “Her” is the best film of the year, and possibly the kookiest.

But despite the silly premise, the movie is anything but. There is not a drop of cynicism or irony in this lovely, sad contemplation on love and loneliness.

Phoenix is simply a marvel as Theodore Twombly, a smart, crushingly depressed man going through a bitter divorce who finds a new lease on life by installing an operating system (OS) designed to perfectly simulate a human personality. Dubbing herself Samantha and voiced by Scarlett Johansson, the OS coaxes Theodore out of his pit, helps build him back up, and then becomes his soul mate.

Both are as surprised by this development as anyone, but Phoenix never wavers in the portrait of a lonesome man reaching out for a human connection, even if it’s a fake one. It’s yet another Oscar-worthy turn from an actor who defies categorization.

Theodore works at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com, which is exactly what it sounds like – writers are hired by people to compose lyrical, deeply personal letters to each other. Theodore is the best there is, having acted as the surrogate for some couples for nearly a decade.

The irony, of course, is that he is performing much the same function for his clients as Samantha does for him. Perhaps that’s why a relationship with her is not so alien to him, since Theodore already existed as the ghost in the machine.

Set in the near future, “Her” arrives at precisely the right moment to comment on our technological evolution, where we’ve created amazing ways to stay connected that leave us more isolated than ever before. With our Siris and our Google Glasses, computers have become our crutches, the prism through which we experience an altered version of our real lives.

Jonze doesn’t get too mired in the specifics and semantics of the science fiction aspect of his tale. Samantha is represented as an ear bud Theodore wears perpetually, through which she speaks to him, and vice-versa. She can “see” through a little tri-fold compact device he carries that includes a camera and screen. Essentially she lives inside his head, though later she can interact with others via phone or speakers.

At first, it seems like Theodore is the only one carrying on an interpersonal dialogue with his OS. One early, funny scene has him walking around a carnival with his eyes closed, Samantha acting as his guide to tell him where to go and what to do. But as time goes on, it seems that more and more people are in the same state, ambling around Los Angeles in individual bubbles of self-imposed solitude, talking to their computers and ignoring the flesh-and-blood creatures around them.

One of them is Amy (Amy Adams), Theodore’s neighbor and old college chum. She seems contented and happily married at first, with Theodore taking the role of the hopeless, romantically inept friend. Later, though, their roles get somewhat switched around.

“I think anybody who falls in love is a freak,” Amy says. “It’s a crazy thing to do. It’s a socially acceptable form of insanity.”

Johansson is wondrous as Samantha, existing as a complete character despite having only a verbal component. We believe her as a real person, because she believes it and Theodore believes it. She may live in the ether of hard drives, communication nets and data clouds, but Samantha is solid and relatable.

Bracingly imaginative and splendidly crafted, “Her” is one of the year’s unlikeliest successes.

Vide review: "The Master"

Ambitious, vexing, jubilant and depressing, “The Master” is a film that neither Hollywood nor audiences quite knew what to do with.

It was first touted as “the Scientology movie,” received respectful but somewhat puzzled reviews, and was then largely ignored by ticket buyers. But it scored three Oscar nominations for its wonderful acting, including Joaquin Phoenix, who I think gave the performance of the year.

It is writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first film since “There Will Be Blood,” and if there’s any mainstream filmmaker today who deserves to be called an auteur, it’s him.

The tale is about Freddie Quell (Phoenix), an unhinged, alcoholic veteran struggling to assimilate back into society after World War II. He stumbles into the den of Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the charismatic leader of a quasi-religious order called “The Cause,” and the two men each discover the other satisfies a yearning in themselves they didn’t even recognize.

Freddie is a twitchy wreck, a guy who suspects that his mind isn’t right and is constantly trying to fake normalcy so he can fit in with those around him. Dodd is bombastic and slithery, a guy who’s been deluding others with notions of his self-importance for so long, he’s even fooled himself. In Freddie he sees a perfect test case for his odd theories.

“The Master” is less concerned with plot than the strange, spinning dance between this pair, with other characters such as Dodd’s wife (Amy Adams) forced to resentfully orbit around the gravitational pull they share.

It’s not always a smooth cinematic ride, but one worth taking.

Video extras are decent without being terribly expansive. There are three making-of featurettes, including “Back Beyond,” a 20-minute collection of outtakes and additional scenes set to music. It also comes with “Let There Be Light,” a 1946 documentary directed by John Huston about mentally wounded WWII veterans returning from war.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "I'm Still Here"

This film review is too late. Hours before I saw "I'm Still Here," director Casey Affleck admitted to the New York Times that it was all a hoax. Affleck called Joaquin Phoenix's "retirement" from acting to star in a mockumentary about the collapse of his life a bit of "gonzo filmmaking" after the style of Hunter S. Thompson, who blended journalism, fiction and pharmaceuticals.

There is plenty of all three in "I'm Still Here." It starts out as a raw documentary in late 2008, right after Phoenix abruptly announced he would make no more films, opting to become a hip-hop artist instead. He grows progressively shabbier, his hair and beard approaching caveman proportions, he snorts prodigious amounts of strange powders, his middle grows thick, and the sunglasses he wears constantly anywhere outside his house become swathed in progressive layers of tape meant to hold them together.

These humble wrappings cannot mask the disintegration behind them, nor can the revelation the whole thing was a sham repair the irreparable damage Phoenix has done to a once-promising career.

Here's why: "I'm Still Here" is a practical joke, and not a very good one, either in conception or execution. I'm still confused about why Affleck would make his revelation now, when the film was just expanding beyond a few cities. It seems he gave away the punch line before most people heard the set-up.

Affleck and Phoenix thought they were playing a gag on everyone else. At one point after his disastrous, mumbling, incoherent performance on the Dave Letterman show, Phoenix breaks down in tears: "Now I'm going to be a joke forever."

He would prove right, as a short time later Ben Stiller nailed Phoenix with a dead-on impersonation at the Academy Awards ceremony, which cemented the image in the public's mind. Having intentionally set up himself up as a punching bag for pop culture, Phoenix may find it hard to shake that persona.

Curiously, Stiller appears earlier in the documentary -- or mockumentary, I guess we should now call it -- to pitch Phoenix a role in his movie "Greenberg" (which was ultimately played by Rhys Ifans, brilliantly). This begs the question of whether Stiller was in on the joke.

In fact, once we know the film is a hoax, the only possible remaining entertainment value it has is in trying to guess which interactions are real and which are faux.

Certainly Phoenix, who comes across as a whining, colossally narcissistic brat, manages to fool a lot of people. He spends much of his time chasing around Sean "P. Diddy" Combs to convince him to produce his album. Combs, who is wary that he's being played, seems like the smartest person in the film.

I don't know much about rap music, but Phoenix is just terrible at it. He has no instinct for the rhythm and cadence of the lyrics he has (supposedly) written.

There's a lot of abuse directed at Antony and Larry, Phoenix's friends/assistants. No one who is really your friend accepts a paycheck for being one, but Phoenix apparently doesn't understand this. The film also contains a copious amount of frontal male nudity, and at one point Antony defecates on Phoenix while he's sleeping (or at least mimes doing so) in retaliation.

That could be an apt metaphor for the contempt Affleck and Phoenix are showing the audience with their grand, silly stunt. But the movie actually contains a better one: Attempting to flee the premiere of his "last" movie, "Two Lovers," Phoenix stands in a lonely stairwell in the bowels of the theater, vainly pushing on a door marked with huge letters, "Not an Exit."

Having faked his exit, Joaquin Phoenix may find people unmotivated to welcome him back in.

1.5 stars out of four