2023 Best Picture Oscar Nonimees Ranked

Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese) - This is the kind of film American Fiction satirizes, bloated Oscar bait about the suffering of a disenfranchised group. Hell, even the title was pre-ridiculed by Daniel Clowes in Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001) - remember The Flower That Drank the Moon? But if it's gotta exist, let it be the work of a master. Scorsese's account of the slaughter of the Osage in 1920s Oklahoma is rich in novelistic detail and earns every moment of its 206-minute [sic] running time. And I'd say that this showcases a career-defining performance for Lily Gladstone if the exquisite Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt, 2016) hadn't already done so. A-minus.

Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan) - I'd probably knock it down to B+ today. But I had it at A-minus when I reviewed it after Barbenheimer weekend.

Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos) - I can't believe it either. Reviewed here. B+.

American Fiction (Cord Jefferson) - Tender, welcome evocations of Black middle-class quotidian existence vie with corny satirical jabs at white liberal well-meaningness, promising yet another two-steps-forward, six-steps-back prestige project. But then there's the ending which I initially loved because I thought Jefferson was offering us a pomo Choose Your Own Ending type of dénouement à la Clue. Watching it more closely a second time, I now realize it's more conventional than that. Still, it's looser and jazzier than most prestige projects ever get. I'm impressed. B+.

The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)  Like American Fiction, a film to curl up with at various points of the year - December for this one, July for the former. Reviewed here. B+.

Barbie (Greta Gerwig) - Reviewed here. B+.

Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet) - Solid. But only the ambiguity of "did he fall or was he pushed?" and its was-it-really 152-minute running time save it from a certain Investigation Discovery feel. Saint Omer (Alice Diop, 2022) covers similar ambiguities with more complexity and a better ventilated conception. It expands where Anatomy of a Fall implodes into its overly localized concerns. And Saint Omer is half an hour shorter. B.

The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer) - One of the biggest disappointments of the year from a director capable of the very best (Birth, Under the Skin). Reviewed here. B-minus.

Past Lives (Celine Song) - Even more localized than Anatomy of a Fall, a considerable feat given that the film concerns a woman who leaves her native South Korea to become a writer in the USA. Bittersweet if you don't think too hard about it. I just want to know if all the talk about 80,000 layers of fate and past lives and future lives is an apologia for ghosting. A much better film about the importance of living this present life: Journey to the Shore (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2015). B-minus.

Maestro (Bradley Cooper) - Ugh. And it looked so enticing on the New York Film Festival lineup. Panned here. C-minus. 

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Two non-processual biopics

As a non-narrative type, I prefer a generous portion of process to help a biopic go down, some sort of explanation about the function of those institutions that surround the principals and their personal dramas. It's why The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006) remains my favorite biopic/middlebrow film - damn near every nanosecond concerns process. House of Gucci (Ridley Scott, 2021) dives deep into the sordid relationship between Patrizia Reggiani (a perfectly fine Lads Gaga) and Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver). But even though their squabbles lead to murder, they make for conventional drama, especially when there's not much camp to spare (apart from some fab outfits). I was much more fascinated to learn that Gucci flooded the market with fake Gucci goods to pump up the brand, a subject that could've filled at least an hour of screen time. Instead, we're treated to 158 minutes of soapsuds. Too bad we can't set James M. Cain on this to watch it snap.

Aline (Valérie Lemercier, 2021) seemed promising since the trailer appeared to hoodwink us into thinking its story of Québécoise chanteuse Aline Dieu had nothing whatsoever to do with Celine Dion. But a fatal lack of camp (or even kitsch) allows for few yuks. Lemercier, who co-wrote the screenplay and stars as Aline, hits all the highlights of Dion's life with Wikipedia-worthy dutifulness. The sole perversity is 57-year-old Lemercier's decision to play Dieu at all ages of her life, even as a child, which makes for some eerie CGI moments. I wanted to stay in the record store where Dieu records were flying out the door and learn more about the Québécois music industry. But of course, Dieu/Dion transcended locality and then some and so soon we're off to Vegas and the Oscars and a good nap.

House of Gucci: B

Aline: B-minus

Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982)

I learned a lot and that's about the best I could say for this Wikipedia article masquerading as a blockbuster. So in the spirit of the film, I searched its Wikipedia page for dissenting voices and was struck by this trenchant comment from Makarand R. Paranjape: “Gandhi, though hagiographical, follows a mimetic style of film-making in which cinema, the visual image itself, is supposed to portray or reflect ‘reality.’” But a closer reading revealed that this was trotted out as a positive critique. Scare quotes won't make Attenborough's mimetic approach any less stillborn. The film is mere reportage and thus stylistically indistinguishable from other impersonal Oscar winners like Patton or Spotlight. 

Grade: B-minus

Happy Birthday, Greatest Album of the 1970s!

The genius begins with the very title. It wasn't Too Much Too Soon; it was New York Dolls in Too Much Too Soon which means you'd have to make its discographical entry look ugly by capitalizing "in" like so - New York Dolls: In Too Much Too Soon. But you'd do it to honor an achievement as cinematic as it is musical. For their second release (and last for 32 years), the New York Dolls starred themselves in a movie-album complete with playlets, sound effects, impersonations, and bits of dialogue. Inspired by record-writers Leiber and Stoller, this gimmicky m.o. doomed the Dolls to a short shelf life in a musicscape where Hollywood films had long since stopped belching up the most popular songs in America.

Their taste in covers didn't help either (nor did the fact that four of these ten songs were covers). By 1974, capital-r Rock's premium on authentic expression was an article of faith. So today, in the post-postmodern/poptimist era, it's difficult to hear how revolutionary it was to pay tribute to such novelty numbers as The Jayhawks' (or was that The Cadets'?) "Stranded in the Jungle" or The Coasters' "Bad Detective" (which was neither produced nor written by Leiber-Stoller, by the way) or to treat a relatively recent dance tune like Archie Bell & The Drells' "(There's Gonna Be) A Showdown" with a gravitas usually reserved for rock's blues forefathers. And when they paid homage to the latter with their take on Sonny Boy Williamson's "Don't Start Me Talkin'," they sassed it up like a bitch queen reading you to filth. Coupled with the pre-punk noise they were kicking up, this shameless alignment with the camp, the novel, and the cinematic gave the listener a glimpse of a utopia that collapsed masculine and feminine, gay and straight, rock and pop.

So in an attempt to juice even more pleasure out of the thing, I finally watched the album's namesake, the 1958 film Too Much, Too Soon based on Diana Barrymore's (daughter of John, aunt of Drew) memoir. Sadly, it's a dutiful social problem film akin to The Lost Weekend, maybe slightly trashier but not trashy enough to inspire visions of utopia.

The best part is when the oily tennis stud John Howard (Ray Danton) is preventing Barrymore (Dorothy Malone) from walking around with goosebumps.

But goosebumps she gets when faced with this.

And really, who can blame her?