MAD MAX: DID I MISS SOMETHING?

Hmmm, even the poster likes Furiosa more than Max

Back in 2015 when the Oscar nominees were announced, I was surprised to see that George Miller's MAD MAX: FURY ROAD racked up 10 nominations (it would go on to win 6, all for technical things like editing).  When I posted about this on this blog, I dismissed the film  as "vastly overrated", and called Tom Hardy's lead role performance somnambulistic.  When SPOTLIGHT  went on to win Best Picture that year, I had no objection, thinking it a far superior and relevant film.
Recently, in the inevitable rush to summarize the last decade, various media outlets (like The AV Club online magazine) have been releasing  their lists of the best films of the decade.  And lo and behold, Fury Road has been topping or placing highly on many of them.  Now, I tend to agree with critical consensus over the ones made by the Academy over the years (I daresay that CITIZEN KANE has held up better than HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY!) , yet I really disagree with the critics regarding Fury Road.  While I generally liked the film, the notion that it's better than say, MOONLIGHT or SELMA seems crazy to me.  I could probably come up with one hundred films released in the last decade that I liked more than Fury Road.  Am I too out of  step?  Am I snob who dismisses it as "just" an action film? (Yes,  but that doesn't make me wrong!). Have the nation's film critics all been replaced by twelve year old fan boys, or did I miss something?  In the interest of being open minded, I have decided to watch the film again with as little bias as I can muster. I don't like to think that my opinions are written in stone, maybe there's more to the film than I thought.
First, some words about the Mad Max series in general: the first film was the debut feature of George Miller, an Australian born emergency room doctor who used actual motor related injuries he saw as inspiration for the film!  Starring a then unknown Mel Gibson, made for only around three hundred thousand dollars and shot mostly in semi legal fashion around the Australian outback, it became a worldwide cult hit.  Looked at years later, it holds up pretty well, especially in its opening scenes that sets up Miller's skill with a chase scene, not to mention his willingness to put his cast and  stunt people in some pretty precarious situations.  If the movie descends into standard issue action film cliches in it's later scenes (with post apocalyptic law man Max getting revenge on some evil  bikers after they kill his wife and child), it's still entertaining given its budget. Its success led to an inevitable sequel in 1982, MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR (released in America as just THE ROAD WARRIOR).  In my opinion, this film is the best in the series, as Miller, armed with a bigger budget, created even more impressive action scenes than the first, (the film's climax still stands as one of the best chase scenes ever)  while Gibson had grown to be far more comfortable on camera and used his natural onscreen charisma to good effect.  It would prove to be an even bigger hit than the first film, making an international star out of Gibson (which, looking back, may not have been  a good thing!).  Perhaps most interestingly for the series as a whole, THE ROAD WARRIOR was the first film to really lean into its post apocalyptic setting; in the first film, that setting was mostly a budget issue, and society overall still seemed to be functioning.  But in the second film, the world is a big ugly anarchic desert  with scarce resources full of road gangs willing to kill for those resources.  It was a bleak view of the future, one that Gibson's cynical mercenary character fit right into; he was not unlike the famous Man With No Name that Clint Eastwood played in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns of the 1960's.  The third film in the series, MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME, released in 1985, toned done that bleak view, and lightened up the main character, perhaps because of Gibson's increasing popularity, or to widen the audience appeal by getting a PG-13 rating.  The result was an almost maddeningly uneven film, with the first half having some of the best scenes in the series, and the second containing some of the worst.  The film opens with Max, alone again, stumbling into a society known as Bartertown, a ramshackle society run on methane and led by Auntie Em (played surprisingly well by Tina Turner).  The film's first half jettisons chase scenes and builds instead to a very exciting and well done man to man battle that finds Max and his towering opponent bouncing around on giant rubber bands in a huge dome.  Unfortunately, the film falls apart as Max encounters a group of annoying children in the desert, and the film ends with a chase scene that merely tries to rehash the climax of the second film with diminishing results.  It even ends with a ridiculous scene of Auntie Em letting Max go after wrecking half her army chasing him!
After the fourth film, director Miller would go on to make other films like 1987's THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK and 1998's BABE:PIG IN THE CITY  but he apparently never stopped thinking about returning to the Mad Max universe.  He tried to gear up production for one as early as 2001, but first the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and then the Iraq war affected the budget and locations, and he would instead make the animated film HAPPY FEET in 2006.  Finally, after years of storyboarding and delays, and the decision to recast the role of Max from the too old Gibson to Tom Hardy, Miller was finally able to start shooting in the African country of Nambia with a small army of crew and cast members, including olympic gymnasts and Cirque du Soleil members for the stunt scenes. After shooting for 120 days,  Miller's wife Margaret Sixel  took on the Herculean, months long task of editing the film's reported 480 hours of footage into a releasable film.  (She would win an Oscar for her troubles). 
Surprisingly, it only opened at #2 at the US box office (behind Pitch Perfect 2, if you can believe it!) and was only a moderate hit (around $150 million in America) considering its budget.  But critics and fan boys embraced it so strongly that it's reputation has swelled in social media, making it the opposite of the far more successful AVATAR, which has seen its reputation diminish over time despite being one of the biggest money making films ever.  Perhaps it plays better on TV and computer screens than the 3D effects heavy AVATAR.

Clearly there's some overlap

In many ways, Miller seemed to consciously make FURY ROAD as a  throwback to THE ROAD WARRIOR: the toned down violence of the third film is rejected to bring back the harder, R rated action of the second.  Story wise, we once  again, have a raspy voiced, hideously masked villain (the absurdly named Immortan Joe*) who leads a cult like group of bikers.  Again we have cynical wandering outsider Max encounter a society built in the chaos of the desert, focused around on rare resources (gas in the second film, water in the fourth).   And again, we see Max learn to respect and aid a group of renegades against that hideous cult leader.  And, or course, both films end with a smashing, crashing chase that features multiple vehicles and impressive stunts.  The big change in FURY ROAD is the addition of Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa, who betrays Joe because of her disgust of his use of women as essentially breeding machines in his twisted little society. .  Theron is definitely the best thing about the film; she's no Wonder Woman with super powers, instead her strength is driven by her sense of righteousness and steely determination.  That determination give her action scenes an extra edge, since we are always aware of what she's fighting for and against, even when she's fighting Max himself.
Theron and her character are so good in this film, that it actually leads to the film's biggest flaw: she's  a better character than Max.  Unlike him, she has to carry off a major betrayal knowing full well that it will put her own life in danger, when she could have just gone along with Joe's corrupt society.  Max, on the other hand, just kinda shows up.  Seriously, he gets taken captive in the first scene and spends much of the first part of the film bound up while the story unfolds around him.   Personally, I found my interest in the film flagging every time the film cut away from Furiosa to catch up with our so called hero.  And even when Max inevitably starts to get involved in the story, much of the time he still seems almost tangential to what's going on, spending more time reacting than being active.  So here's a bold assertion:  Max shouldn't be in this film all.  I think a much better film could have been made with Furiosa being the main character that's just set in the Mad Max universe.  I think this not only because of Max's lack of connection to the plot, but also because of Tom Hardy's performance.  I already called Hardy somnambulistic in this film, and I stand by that statement.  Now, I wouldn't exactly call Mel Gibson's acting in the first three films great, but he was compelling and strong enough to carry the action.  Hardy often seems barely involved with what's going on around him; he grunts, points and looks bored throughout most of the film.  (Honestly, given the huge amount of footage that Miller and his wife had to edit for this film, one has to wonder how  Hardy could have been worse in the outtakes!  Did he burp in every shot?)  The weakness of Hardy is really displayed in a scene that clearly calls back to the second film:  In THE ROAD WARRIOR, late in the film, a bruised and battered Max declares that he will drive the huge tanker truck in the final chase.  It's a big moment for him, in that up to that point he has only shown self interest. but here he finally does the right thing, and Gibson plays it well, finally showing some humanity in his soft spoken delivery.  Conversely in FURY ROAD there is a moment when Max suggests to Furiosa and her compatriots that they could fool Joe and his army by doubling back.  Again, it shows Max doing the right thing for the first time in the film, but Hardy's mumbling, ridiculous line delivery kills it.  He's not exactly Mr Charisma! 

"Stop, this action scene is too exciting!"

Losing Max would also eliminate one of the other big flaws in the film; the bratty girl character that pops up randomly throughout the film.  Yes, every once in  a while, Max has a vision of a little girl that cynically chides him verbally.  Is this character supposed to add depth to Max?  To make him more human? If her insults are supposed to be somehow pushing Max into doing the right thing and helping Furiosa, why do they feel so random?  Why does he imagine the girl  showing up even after he's moved towards helping Furiosa?  Even worse, her presence stops the film's action dead in its tracks; great action scenes are about pacing and building to a big climax, not having some kid freeze things to a halt.  And there's never any explanation as to who this kid is: in the first film Max had a son who was still a toddler and no other children.  Some have theorized that she is one of the kids from the third film, although that hardly explains why Max would start thinking about her while he's in the  middle of a life and death car chase!
Ok, there are a lot of things in this film that I do like: although it's a repeat of The Humongous character in the  second film, the messiah like hold that Joe holds over his followers is interesting and well thought out, especially since Furiosa's rebelling over his treatment of women gives the film an anti patriarchy feminist kick.  I also like the idea of one of his Joe's men (Nux, well played by Nicholas Hoult) being able to break away from Joe, effectively showing that even good people can get caught up in a cult under the right conditions.  And yes, as much as the kid stopping them annoys me, the action scenes are undeniably exciting and the relentless pace of the film, which is almost all chase scenes, is impressive.  I do love the fact that most of the effects in the film were achieved without the usual CGI trickery, adding a realistic sense of danger and  excitement every time we see people hanging off of poles while riding on speeding vehicles.  But I still don't think anything here tops the ending of the second film. 
I went into what was my third viewing of this film after writing the first half of it, wondering if my opinion of the film would change after seeing it again.  The answer is no, I still think that it's a well made, sometimes exciting film that's partly sunk by a lame lead performance.  I still don't see how this movie, above all others, could be thought of as one of the best films of the last decade. 

*This may be off topic, but I would like to mention just how annoying I find all the silly names in this film series.  I mean: Toecutter, The Humongous, Master Blaster, Furiosa.   Are these film characters or professional wrestlers?

THE PROBLEM WITH OSCAR BAIT

In the recent debate about Martin Scorsese's disparaging comments about Marvel movies, I tended to agree with his opinion that those movies aren't really cinema.  In his comments, he compared them to theme parks, which I think is reasonable.  But the seemingly endless stream of superhero movies aren't the only kind of movies in modern Hollywood that are problematic; there's also what are often referred to as Oscar bait films.  Now, while I think the Oscar season (which comes around the last three months of the year) is really the only time when you can see movies made for mature audiences in big multiplexes, the inevitable result can be movies a little too determined to win awards.

An Oscar bait film in one that seems so calculated to please middle brow audiences, with a serious subject matter and plenty of obvious, heavy handed, uplifting moments, that it becomes smug, self satisfied cinema.  Since winning an Oscar can translate to  millions of more dollars at the box office, Oscar bait films  seem to be actually marketing  themselves to the Academy while you're watching them.
The perfect example of such  a film was 2017's THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE.  From its historical setting (it's a holocaust drama) to it's too pretty cinematography, to its high minded speeches and brave, noble heroine (the titular character hides Jewish refugees from the Nazis), it's a movie that practically screams "love me!" at the audience, as it brazenly apes the far superior SHINDLER'S LIST.  While disliking such a film is like kicking a puppy, its cloying nature is overwhelming.  It also functions as an example of how Oscar bait can suffer from overreach; despite its obvious ambitions for award glory, the film was mostly critically panned and garnered zero awards.
I bring up the subject of an Oscar bait movie because I just saw the Kasi Lemmon film HARRIET, and it practically drips with such Award desiring fervor.  Unfortunately, it's just not that good of a film.  I say that as an admirer of Lemmon, who's past films like EVE'S BAYOU (1997) and the sadly underrated TALK TO ME (2007) are really good.  But with HARRIET she mostly stumbles. 

The film's biggest flaw is that the character of Harriet Tubman in Lemmon's direction, script (which she co wrote with  Gregory Allen Howard) and Cynthia Erivo's performance never feels like a real person.  Instead, she functions as a symbol of nobility and bravery to such a degree she never comes across as relatable.  There is one brief moment in the opening scene in which she cries a single tear; after that she all stoic determination.  She is constantly making big speeches about freedom, and refusing to listen to the men around her who tell her what she can and cannot do.   She never makes a wrong move and seems superhuman in her ability to lead slaves to freedom.  The result is that we  admire her without really feeling for her as anything more than an important historical figure.  It doesn't help that the real dizzy spells that Tubman suffered from are translated here to actual visions that she uses to avoid capture.  Like I said, super human.
It should be mentioned this is often a problem with biopics, with writers and directors so determined to show their subjects in a positive light that they become blathering depictions of perfect people: from Gary Cooper's god like Lou Gehrig in THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES way back in 1942 to  Russell Crowe's noble James Braddock in 2005's CINDERELLA MAN, biopics too often just go too far in giving us someone to root for.  It would appear that Lemmon was intimidated by being the first director to ever bring to the screen such an important figure in African American history as Tubman, so she overcompensated on the character's bravery and lost her humanity.  I wish she had taken a page from the far superior 2014 film SELMA, in which director Ava DuVernay was able to show Martin Luther King Jr with complexity, displaying his flaws alongside his strengths.
It also doesn't help that Lemmon fills the movie with action cliches, as Tubman makes one narrow escape after another; while I'm sure the real Tubman's life was filled with danger, I can't quite believe that she came so close to losing her life so often.  Also, Lemmon clearly made this film with a young audience in mind, imagining American history teachers encouraging their students to see the film.  And while this may not seem to be a bad thing, it also means that the film's PG-13 rating limits its ability to accurately display the horrors of slavery.   2013's 12 YEARS A SLAVE, with its far more brutal and realistic depiction of slave life works much better than Harriet's almost sanitized view in my opinion.

So, will Oscar go for the bait of HARRIET?  I suppose it will, considering that it's important lead character is hard to pass over (Cynthia Erivo is a shoo in for a Best Actress nomination, partly because  it's always a bit of a stretch to find five movies that feature women in  lead roles to fill up that category).  And I will say that I while I'm listing all of its flaws, I don't consider it to be a lousy movie, or even a bad one.  I just wish that Lemmon weren't shooting for both Oscar glory and a mainstream audience, and instead had  kept to making a more real film with more realistic characters and story.  Tubman deserved better.

THAT'S NOT CINEMA

"That's not Cinema."


Recently, famed director Martin Scorsese, in an interview promoting his latest film, inflamed the internet by saying about Marvel Movies, “I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”  When another famed director, Francis Ford Coppola, echoed Scorsese's comments, he added “Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is." ,more uproar and backlash ensued.
Now part of this is an inevitable cycle of any art form, with the older generation (both directors are over seventy) lashing out the new generation in predictable fashion.  And anyone thinking that Scorsese and Coppola are making over the top critical statements should read Frank Capra's 1971 autobiography, in which the creator of films like IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE  ranted that"practically all the Hollywood film-making of today is stooping to cheap salacious pornography in a crazy bastardization of a great art to compete for the 'patronage' of deviates and masturbators."(!).  In other words, the old have always romantized the art of their formative years and rejected the new.
When Scorsese and Coppola first began making their movies in the late 60's and 70's, most mainstream movies were definitely for adults; the end of the production code in 1968 allowed them and other filmmakers to deal with subject matter that would have been impossible just a few years earlier.  This new artistic freedom resulted in movies that were both grown up and successful (Coppola's THE GODFATHER was not only a critically acclaimed film for adults, it also was the biggest hit  film of 1972). 
But the death knell of the grown up film as big box office came long before the Marvel Movies: when George Lucas's STAR WARS was released in  1977, it showed that if you updated the kiddie serial stories of Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon while adding top flight special effects, kids would not only flock to see them, they would see them again and again, and buy merchandise on top of that.  While hugely successful films had been around since the very start of the medium, no other movie had dominated the box office for so long, or had built such anticipation for its inevitable sequels.  And really, right then, the concept of a series of films as a franchise was born. 
Which brings us to today's Marvel Movies, which show just how much moviemaking has become about spectacle, with  bigger and bigger effect scenes with one over the top battle after another.  I agree with both Scorsese and Coppola  that these movies are repetitive and formulaic, with individual directors subsuming any personal style they may have into a sameness that matches all the other films in the series; lack of individuality is the point.  Now, film series are nothing new (between 1938 and 1950 a stunning 28 movies based on the comic strip Blondie were released!), but between the Marvel Movies and the DC movies, I can't think of a time when the main stream box office was so captured by one kind of film.  Scorsese compares these kinds of films to theme parks, but think of them more like fast food: mass produced variations on the same thing.  Spiderman is to Bat Man as the Big Mac is to the Whopper. 
Now, I'm not naive, I know that movie making is a business, and that these films make boat loads of money both in the US and overseas.     The logic behind them is obvious, with the modern viewing public having so many choices of watching movies in so many formats, giving audiences thrills on a big screen with good sound is one of the best ways to entice them into the theater.  This is also nothing new: back in the 1950's Hollywood responded to the rivalry of TV partly by making bigger and bigger epic movies in Cinemascope, providing images that no TV screen could equal. 
But the difference this time is that Marvel movies, and other blockbusters like them, are squeezing out smaller, more intimate films from screens, pushing them exclusively into art houses or home viewing, making it harder for them to catch an audience at all.  Disney, which owns the Marvel movies, has gobbled up so many theaters with these films and their other (mostly uninspired) big releases that it's hard for rival studios to get a foothold.
So how will this all play out?  Well, for people who care about movies for grown ups, the Oscars are probably more important than ever, with the prestige of nominations and awards bringing attention to movies that would have no chance of being seen by big audiences otherwise.  Really, without the Oscars, Disney could just buy all the multiplexes and only screen their films and few people could tell the difference.

GREEN BOOK (2018)

GREEN BOOK (DIR: PETER FARRELLY) (SCR: NICK VALLELONGA, BRIAN CURRIE AND FARRELLY)

The past year has been a strange one for the Academy of Motion Pictures!  First, back in August, there was an attempt to come up with a new category:  Best Achievement in Popular Film, which was a brazen attempt to expand the audience for the awards broadcast.  When that hit like a lead balloon, the Academy shrugged and shelved the idea for a later date.
Then the nominations came out, and, somehow, surprise hit biopic BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY was among the Best Picture nominations, even though its director, Bryan Singer, was facing multiple charges of sexually exploiting minors.  Also among the Best Picture ranks was the Netflix produced ROMA, which barely qualified due to its brief theatrical run, a decision that angered no less a personage than legendary director Steven Spielberg.  Then comedian Kevin Hart was picked to host the show, but when past homophobic jokes he had made came to light, he was let go and they decided to go without a host.  And then there was an attempt to shorten the broadcast by giving the awards for best editing and cinematography during the commercials, but when some prominent  directors pointed out that cinematography and editing were kinda essential to filmmaking, that idea, too was dropped.
And then there was the eventual Best Picture winner, GREEN BOOK.  Based on the true story of a Southern musical tour by pianist Dr Donald Shirley in the 1960's, it had a  modestly successful box office run in November, and faded into relative obscurity.   But then it was nominated for five Academy  awards.  This was after the family of Dr. Donald Shirley dismissed the film as a "symphony of lies", and after Mahershala Ali, who played Dr. Shirley in the film, publicly apologized for not having met with his surviving family after taking the role.  And of course, despite all of this, it managed to win Best Picture, quickly becoming the most controversial choice since 2004's CRASH.
Is GREEN BOOK really so lousy?  I don't think so, but it's a bland and safe choice for the Academy to make, which may be even worse.  Or sure, it's an amiable enough mismatched buddy comedy, with some funny moments and good chemistry between the stars, but its story is predictable, its feel good attempts at being uplifting are obvious, and it can't help falling into the trap of being yet another movie about race relations in which a noble white person learns a lesson about bigotry by saving a non white person.  The fact that this film would win the top prize from the same Academy that previously awarded far more powerful films about race, like TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE, and MOONLIGHT, feels almost like, well,  a country that goes from electing Barack Obama to Donald Trump.

Viggo Mortenson & Mahershala Ali

The film began as a labor of love for writer director and actor Nick Vallelonga, who heard stories about the relationship between his father Tony and Dr Shirley and thought it would make a good film.  He interviewed family members that remembered the relationship, and listened to some old interviews with Dr Shirley and then co wrote a script with Brian Currie.  Peter Farrelly, mostly know for gross out comedies like THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and DUMB & DUMBER, was picked to direct the film (he also got a screenwriting credit).  A bit surprisingly, non Italian actor Viggo Mortensen was chosen to play the lead role of Tony, while Mahershala Ali was cast as Dr Shirley. The film was coproduced by Dream Works Pictures and Participant Media and released by Universal on a budget of around twenty five million dollars.  Although it did underwhelming box office at first, thanks to its Oscar win, it has grossed about eighty three million dollars in the US.
Set in the 1960's, it's plot tells the story of hefty sized New York night club bouncer Tony the Lip, who, in between his usual jobs, takes an unlikely position as a driver for renowned  African American pianist Dr Donald Shirley as he tours the Southern part of the country.  The two get to know each other and bond as they encounter the harsh, sometimes violent racism of the South at that time, and Dr Shirley introduces Tony to the Green Book, a travel guide for African Americans traveling in the South looking for safe places to stay and eat.  By the end of the film they become friends, with Dr Shirley visiting Tony's family during  Christmas dinner.

Putting  all the controversies about this film aside, it's simply at heart a mismatched interracial buddy comedy with  the usual racial stereotypes flipped (it's Dr Shirley who teaches Tony about proper diction, while Tony teaches him about Aretha Franklin and Little Richard).  Oh sure, there are some tense moments when racial tensions in the South could lead to possible violence for our heroes, but there's never any sense of real peril.  We know that they'll be fine by the movie's ending, leaving even the ugliest scenes of possible danger essentially bloodless.  It really is surprising to me that this film not only won Best Picture, but also Best Original Screenplay, considering it's predictable choices and easy formula of putting the characters in trouble and getting them out, and that it ends with that most hackneyed  of cliches, the big Christmas dinner.  Hardly an original idea! Also, a subplot about Tony considering a job with some local gangsters goes nowhere and plays up to the notion that you can't make a film about Italian Americans without some kind of reference to the mob.  And then there's the infamous fried chicken scene, in which Tony buys some chicken in Kentucky and practically forces Dr Shirley to eat some, even though he's never had it before; it really is ridiculous to believe that  Dr Shirley not only had never tried fried chicken before, but also has to be taught how to eat it!  The fact that he holds the chicken like it's some kind of foreign object adds to the absurdity.  (And it also feels like a commercial for the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise, with the logo prominently displayed).


And if the script is underwhelming, so is Farelly's direction.  Oh sure, he and cinematographer Sean Porter give the movie a pleasant enough glow (standard issue for Hollywood period pieces), and there's some nice scenery, but there are few if any memorable images or striking camera movements.  It's a pretty workmanlike job.  Not too surprising given that his previous film was the sequel to DUMB AND DUMBER!
I've already said that I enjoy the chemistry between the two leads, and that really is the film's saving grace: Viggo Mortensen gained forty pounds to play Tony, and while at times he seems to be over doing the Italian stereotypes, he does express the more tender side of his character and makes him feel  real.  Mahershala Ali won a Best Supporting Actor award for his portrayal of Dr Shirley, and he is the best thing in the film.  From his clipped, perfect elocution that turns into dry sarcasm when he ridicules Tony, to his sad, withdrawn loneliness and coiled anger when confronted with racism.  And I won't deny that, other than the aforementioned chicken scene, I really do enjoy all the moments of Ali and Mortensen playing off each other, and I particularly like the way that Dr Shirley helps Tony write letters back home to his wife Delores.  And Linda Cardellini as Dolores is also good, bringing a nice warmth and likability to every moment she's in. 
And finally, it must be mentioned just how much this movie resembles 1989's Best Picture winner DRIVING MS DAISY, which was also a period piece about a mismatched racial relationship that involved lots of driving.   And while I think GREEN BOOK is marginally better than that film, it does seem kind of pathetic that the Academy would pick such similar films, with the implication that somehow we've progressed because now it's the white person driving around the black person!

Look Familiar?

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

I think my misgivings about this film are pretty obvious.  My personal favorite film of the year was Barry Jenkins's gorgeous James Baldwin adaptation IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, which,  sadly, was not even nominated.  But I also preferred Spike Lee's BLACK KKKLANSMAN, Alfonso Cuarón's ROMA, and Bradley Cooper's A STAR IS BORN.

THE 2019 NOMINATIONS: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The 2019 nominations Academy Award nominations have just been announced, and my first impression is that the Best Picture race is a diverse mix, from big budget crowd pleasers like BLACK PANTHER (the first super hero movie to garner a Best Picture nomination)  and A STAR IS BORN, to lesser known films like THE FAVORITE and ROMA.  While I don't dislike any films in the list, I'm quite disappointed at the omission of Barry Jenkins's wonderful IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, which is up for Best Adapted Screenplay (Jenkins), Best Original Soundtrack (Nicholas Britell) and Best Supporting Actress (Regina King).  I suppose the Academy felt that Jenkins already had his moment when his equally great MOONLIGHT won Best Picture two years ago, but I prefer IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK to every other film on the list.  I'm also disappointed that Marielle Heller's wildly entertaining CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? isn't up.  Plus I think Wes Anderson's marvelous animated film ISLE OF DOGS was good enough to win a Best Picture nomination along with its inevitable nomination for Best Animated Film.   And while it came out early in the year, and was a low budget film, I wish that Bo Burham's EIGHTH GRADE were up for something, just for its painfully realistic view of adolescence!
The Academy also embraced controversy in some of its Best Picture choices, with both Adam McKay's Dick Cheney skewering (and highly divisive)  VICE  and Spike Lee's Trump bashing BLACK KKKLANSMAN both defiantly nominated in the face of a conservative president.  Controversial for another reason is Peter Farrelly's GREEN BOOK, a pleasant if predictable movie that, while based on a true story, has had its veracity attacked by family members of the real life character Dr. Don Shirley played by Mahershala Ali in the film.   And then there's the surprise hit BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, which has somehow wound up on the list despite the fact that director Bryan Singer has been accused of multiple sexual assault charges, and also reportedly had to be replaced during filming.  This will probably prevent the film from winning.

Even though I'm disappointed about the IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK snub, I'm still glad to see Yorgos Lanthimos's oddball costume drama THE FAVORITE up, which I thought would be too weird for the Academy to honor.   But I can't imagine that it will win.  Which brings us to what is the most likely winner:  Bradley Cooper's  A STAR IS BORN (which has eight nominations altogether). It looks like a strong contender partly because of Lady Gaga's surprisingly strong dramatic performance, and partly because her costar  Cooper also did a good job in his directoral debut.  Add to that the fact that the film's tragic plot is one that has resonated for decades (this is the fourth official version of this story!) and that the film is a popular hit with a strong soundtrack, and I think its chances are good to win the big award.  But then I thought the same thing about LA LA LAND two years ago, so what do I know?