Completed Category: Original Screenplay

I love to think about the Screenplay categories! In fact, I want one of my next checklist projects to be: Watch All the Nominated Screenplay Films Ever.  That will take a while. In the meantime, this year: 

Original Screenplay
ANORA
Written by Sean Baker
THE BRUTALIST
Written by Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold
A REAL PAIN
Written by Jesse Eisenberg
SEPTEMBER 5
Written by Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum; Co-Written by Alex David
THE SUBSTANCE
Written by Coralie Fargeat

I only just this week completed this category because I had September 5 lingering for a while simply because #IAmVeryBusy and also I knew it was easily available to rent on demand as opposed to some others in which one must still be in pursuit* and so I knew I'd get around to it as soon as I could get around to it. 

*This year, we're looking in pursuit at you, Porcelain War. And with Ukraine having become a daily news story this week, at that! Every damn year, we are forced to go through this with one or two nominated flicks - a refusal by the distributor to, ya know, distribute the film during the two months between Oscar nominations and Oscar ceremony. It's so fckng stupid, every damn year. It's like - "Hi! We want to give you our money! Please take it in exchange for a streaming rental  of your film!"   "No."  "OK well, could you have it play in theatres across the country/world?"  "No."  "Hmm, well, we really want to see it? Can we please? Remember, we are trying to pay you for this. Money for your film! Isn't that what you wanted?"   "Why oh why is the film industry dying nobody goes to movies why oh why won't they see my film i weep i wail i gnash my teeth why oh why!"  "Um..er..." 

Anyway, that was a tangent about a totally different category. Back in Screenplay-land, September 5 is available, and I paid for a streaming rental and watched it! Amazing how that works! I enjoyed the movie and thought it was well done, everyone all tightly crammed in the control room and whatnot. I was also like, hey! I know her! about the actress playing translator and much more Marianne - not a real person, a composite character - as she starred in last year's International nominee The Teachers' Lounge.  Good for her, Oscar-ing it up two years in a row.  I think this screenplay fully and completely did its job, keeping you interested and invested, while laying out and guiding you through the story, but I am pretty sure it will not win, as people are heavily invested in voting for some of its competition. 

The Brutalist is going to get votes, in this and in other categories. I think it is going to get more votes in other categories.  First of all this thing is long and it pummels you, and I mean, as a story it's fine and all (if a little bit terribly intense) but its strengths are more so in the Directing, Cinematography, Score, and other elements of its pummeling you for four hours of your life.  We could possibly see it sweep all its nominations, but I don't think so. Don't worry, you're still the Brutal-est screenplay. 

Although I've gotta say, The Substance almost gives ya a run for yer money in the brutal department!  The Substance  is glorious and crazy and ridiculous and socio-philosophical and wonderful and I love it. That being said, the ending where it gets a little shaky (or splattery) before bringing it all home is its weakest point. I still love it and I forgive it all its flaws and won't mind even a tiny bit if it DOES win here - and it does have a chance - but I think we have to seriously reckon with the other two competing nominees. 

A Real Pain accurately describes its character played by Kieran Culkin, who is likely to win Supporting Actor for his co-starring lead role. This is a typically perfect kind of Screenplay winner: indie vibes, but famous people, and interesting content that raises some socio-political questions, and also fun. I personally related immensely to this film, because I too took a trip to Poland as an adult and met up with a group of other adults (on a Habitat for Humanity build) and then took a week by myself to go see my great-grandparents' hometown. So I was nostalgia-loving this in addition to being entertained by it. The only annoying thing about this film is its accurately described title (lead!) character, whom you want to throttle. Screenwriter (and co-star) Jesse Eisenberg just won the BAFTA, too, and had no speech written, he said, because he didn't think he would win. True? Maybe. A Real Pain had all the buzz for quite a while. What overtook it? 

A film that had even earlier buzz, then cooled a bit, but has surged back even more since nominations day: Anora. This thing is a well-done screenplay of misfit friends, another title character who comes into situations like a wrecking ball (but is met with other wrecking ball types who outdo her in that department), surprising scenarios, an ante that gets upped a few times, and the edginess that people love to love in their films. I personally walked away from Anora shaking my head and wondering #WhyAreMen, but the sex-work-is-work prostitution apologists will be out in droves making sure that question doesn't get too much attention to distract us from the feel-good train wreck of Anora. 

Order I want them to win: A Real Pain, September 5, The Substance, Anora or The Brutalist

Order I think they will win: Anora, A Real Pain, The Substance, then a gap and then The Brutalist, September 5. 

This is too close to call.  But I do think the bolder Anora might succeed here.
Which one do you think will win? 

Completed Category: Directing

 Oh boy, let's kick off some completed category posts! 

Achievement in Directing

Anora *Sean Baker
The Brutalist * Brady Corbet
A Complete Unknown * James Mangold
Emilia Perez * Jacques Audiard
The Substance * Coralie Fargeat 

Directing is always so intense.  And in this category, there are always directors nominated for some very serious flicks, and some staggering accomplishments, and more often than not there is a "what the heck did I just watch," and sometimes those three things overlap. Ooh, like in a Venn diagram! 

As we will discuss several times throughout the course of this bloggage, The Brutalist  should henceforth be known as The Brutal-est, as it pummels you for four unmerciful hours. Well, that's not actually true: you get an intermission!  I like intermission at the theatre; I can easily go get my popcorn refill. Anyway, should Brady Corbet win for The Brutalist?  I mean, he really might do so.  And there are all sorts of #SeriousCinema reasons, but also he took years and years, apparently, to film the thing, and no one thought he could pull it off, of course. The Los Angeles Times called it a "whopper of a film."  At the very least!  And there were some things I liked about it very much - the Original Score for example, which is not this category, and the way he shot the early-on-in-the-flick men-paying-for-sex scene without making it about gazing at women's bodies. At all. This is the complete exact precise opposite of... 

Anora.  Well, well, well, what have we here? Sean Baker (who? I know. This category has all first-time-in-this-category nominees for the first time since James Cameron was the king of the world! Sean Baker is the director of The Florida Project, that's who, so we know he) has a way of getting his movies' long-haired, sharper-than-you-think-they-are, but-also-sharper-tongued, young women  to carry us through a motion picture.  In both of these films of his that I've seen, we watch these people who are a bit less "there but for the grace of god go I" and a bit more "good god, will someone, anyone, make some better choices, please!"  But Anora has captured a lot of viewers' hearts, and as one person I know put it, "That was way better than it had any right being."  I personally very much dig the misfit friends stories, and hooo-boy do we get one of those here.  I can't exactly say that I never wanted this long dark night of lost souls to end, but it was entertaining and propelled you right along. I am not here for anyone to blather on about mistreated "sex workers" and I do not feel sorry for the character Ani, nor her colleagues, and least of all would I ever feel a shred of sympathy for the many, many, many gross disgusting men both in the film and in the real world who buy human flesh. If I walked out of The Brutal-est saying "What just happened to me for four hours?" I walked out of Anora saying "Why are men."  That said, she (the main character) reminds me of the gals from Long Island I met when I lived in New York. Also, Sean Baker is Gen X! We need more Gen  X winners. Like maybe...

Coralie Fargeat!  Who's she?  She was born in the mid-1970s like the coolest kids were, she's French, and she directed The Substance.  I loved The Substance.  Yup, I'm sold.  Did it spiral just a wee bit out of bloody control as it careened toward its ending?  It did.  Do I forgive it this flaw? I absolutely do.  This film is a marvelous work and it's a wonder, but nothing at all like other films I've called "marvelous" or a "wonder" over the years.  It's wild and bizarre and so very L.A. and it tackles profound societal issues and it might earn Demi Moore - Demi Moore! she's one of those very-very-late Baby Boomers who feels like an honorary Gen-Xer - an Oscar. #TeamTheSubstance? Maybe. But I could also find myself on ... 

#TeamACompleteUnknown.  Wow, do I love me some Bob Dylan and some Joan Baez, which you already know if you've known me for more than about five minutes, not that anyone I know is reading this so I still have to document these things for posterity.  And this film with pitch-perfect (no pun intended) performances is not a traditional biopic; it's more of a study of some personalities that came together like atoms bonding and clashing and sharing electrons for a time and exploding into something more and sometimes causing damage and sometimes creating something heretofore undiscovered. It got three well-deserved acting nominations (more on Ed Norton, who is a revelation as Pete Seeger, in his category post coming soon), and the whole thing is so immersive and carefully considered and real, and someone like me whose go-to karaoke song has long been (like, for 2 decades+) Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" was primed and ready for A Complete Unknown, and yes, yes, I treasure it, and James Mangold's magnificent directing is a big reason why.   

You know what I don't treasure?  Emilia Perez. Why does this movie have to be. It is such a freaking trainwreck in so many ways, but oddly, it's not the Directing per se, just the whole entirety of the thing. I mean, don't get me wrong: director Jacques Audiard made a lot of terrible choices, such as making the film in the first place, pretending men can be women, collecting a bunch of terrible songs and terrible song-and-dance numbers and sprinkling them throughout the most implausible nonsense while pretending to take everything seriously, and pummeling the audience with a mix of zaniness and tragedy and plot holes. But it's not like Mamma Mia-shit-production values bad, nor like Everything Everywhere All At Once we-are-in-the-hands-of-10-year-old-boys bad; it's just bad-bad. 

Chronological order in which I saw the flicks over a month and a half:
Anora, A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist, Emilia Perez, The Substance

Order in which I like the flicks: 
A Complete Unknown 

The Substance

[--gap--]
Anora

[major gap]
The Brutalist

[major serious chasm gap]
Emilia Perez

Order in which I think they will win: 
The Brutalist, Anora, gods forbid Emilia Perez uggggh, A Complete Unknown, The Substance

I would be very happy to be wrong about my winner prediction!  But 4 out of 5 of these can win; the other will cause me to throw things at the TV. 

Thursday Television Trash

Q: What do you get when you combine The Deep End and Jersey Shore?
A: Hofstra Law School.

Oh, don't worry, it doesn't need to be funny. It's true.

Annoying Group of People #3: Long Islanders

Sure, sure, we knew that. But who knew just how long they've been annoying? Get this. I'm currently reading James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham. I've been reading it for a month because it's so long and detailed and plus I'm busy, but it really is historically fascinating and I have plunged into the world of ol' JM and all his peeps, such as Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe (they were all Virginia buddies) and eventually Dolley (whose Quaker parents are totally righteous, by the way!) and so forth.

One of Madison's pals from the "College of New Jersey at Princeton" was Philip Freneau, who by the way became quite the poet of their generation, so you know he's awesome, and literary. After college, Madison and his crew totally kept in touch while they all tried to figure out what to do with their lives. (Yes, another president in my bio-reading quest who at first had no clue what he should do with his life. Four for four.)

Madison was hanging out back at the farm plantation in Virginia, and friend Freneau was trying his hand at a teaching career, which he later abandoned. Freneau wrote a letter about how school teaching sucked. He had taught in Long Island for only a couple weeks, but loathed it because his pupils were "a brutish brainless crew...void of reason and of grace."

Ha! That's my boy, Freneau! I was ready to leave the brainless crew of Long Island after two weeks as well. Perhaps we poets just don't belong there.

Hi!

Well, it has been a while since I blogged. I guess that's what happens when one is busy graduating from law school! That's right, the deed is done. I am the proud owner of a J.D. I guess "owner" is all right to say, seeing as it came at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars -- much of which has actually not yet been paid, and is currently accumulating interest. Student loans -- gotta love 'em! But why dwell on that now? This is the grace period! A time for reflection, pride, joy, sense of accomplishment, and "HOLY CRAP DID I REALLY JUST GO TO LAW SCHOOL?!"

There have been so many amazing people supporting me in this law school endeavor and I am so glad that they (well, most of them) turned out to celebrate with a big party in our back yard on Saturday. Old friends, new friends, and good times around the grill! Then Sunday it was time for the actual ceremony, when more than a dozen tried and true friends and family members schlepped out to Hofstra on Long Island to witness the commencement. They were a fabulous cheering section.

The whole experience was kind of what I imagine and am told a wedding is like: so much is going on that it's actually hard to take it all in, and you have to remind yourself to concentrate on the things being said to commemorate the moment. And there are a zillion people from your past around and it's hard to find individual moments with them all, plus you find yourself saying the same thing over and over in response to the "So, what's next?" Also very wedding-like.

Despite the ups and downs of Hofstra (and more specifically, Long Island) life, I really enjoyed my graduation day. I like the law school dean and many of the professors, and I liked gathering with my friends and sitting there reveling in what we had all just accomplished. Senator Schumer was a nice surprise, too. And I like the pomp and circumstance.

Boy am I tired! Time for some rest ... but stay tuned to see what will be the next thrilling adventure!

Doom and gloom and bar examinings

Dismal. I am shaping up to have quite the dismal track record this year of blogging great thoughts. Sadly, I fear it is because I am lacking in great thoughts altogether; it's not that I'm not thinking them and just keeping them from my adoring fans. (ha) And, I know, who wants to start yet another blog entry lamenting that I've gone a week since the last post again? But ugh. So, why have I done it? What great and marvelous acts are keeping me from the bloggage? It is spring break. But that can't be why.

I am pretty excited about spring break, though. I previously mentioned how ridiculous the timing of our spring break is this semester, but it's finally here and I am SO thrilled to be on vacation that I have even started to stop being bitter about not being able to travel anywhere. (Started to stop? Hmmm.) I am SO thrilled, in fact, that I am seriously considering not looking at Facebook for the rest of the week because there are too many law school people on there, who continue to blather about law school -- even on spring break!

Speaking of not talking about law school, I have to continue to talk about it to explain part of why I'm so happy not thinking about it. That doesn't really make any sense, but just go with it. About a week and a half ago I finally decided realized that I am not going to take the New York bar exam this summer. And it was like a moment of clarity. A thing of beauty. I felt like a new person. Really, I felt lighter. I felt like I knew myself again. It has been very difficult for me to get anything resembling advice from anyone at Hofstra about whether to take the bar exam and whether to take the New York bar exam , because they are so caught up in law world that they can't objectively determine whether it is the right choice for any one person. It's just what everyone does: graduate from law school, begin reviewing for bar exam the next day. But if everyone jumped off a cliff, etc. Add to that the dose of Long Island Syndrome which prevents about 60% of my school (maybe more) from realizing there are in fact about 45,000 other places to live in the world and REALLY no one can understand why not take the New York bar exam. But I - I have never wanted to be a lawyer, really. I just wanted to study international law. And I have done that. And I have said from the beginning that I don't want to be a lawyer. So why did I get so caught up in the bar exam frenzy? And the New York inertia?

I feel like I got the best advice from a friend who is no part of Hofstra but who has been working as a big firm corporate lawyer in Manhattan for eight years. She stated, "If you are even thinking of not practicing law in New York, you probably shouldn't take the New York bar exam. Why would you suffer through that and then just leave?" It sounds simple, but try getting anyone in a law school to say it. They have a lot invested in people passing the bar exam. But that's just because they want to have higher bar passage rates so they move up in the U.S. News law school rankings and make more money. Law schools are all about making a profit.

Anyway, the point is that I make more sense to myself when I think about not wasting three months and not borrowing six thousand more dollars just to do something that has no purpose. When I could be finding a job. A job that I actually can do. Hello, McFly?

So spring break. Not so springy, I might add. We did have one lovely weather day, on Sunday. Brian's parents visited for a couple days and we took advantage of the nice day with a trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, near Prospect Park. That is a good part of Brooklyn. I like the park and I adore botanic gardens, and it was lovely to stroll there.

Also dismal, Michigan State's loss last night in the national championship game. It was dismal partly because we watched the game at Blondie's and then when it was over the regular game-watching excursions to Blondie's also ended, and all the Michigan State alumni left, depressed, saying, "See you in football season." Brian and I were two of the last group left sitting there, not feeling compelled to rush out in the mass people-who-have-to-get-up-for-9-to-5-jobs exodus. And that probably made me feel even more dismal, maybe even pathetic: it was as if I were willing there to be a celebration where in fact there was none. And then the usually reliable 7 train took forever when we were going home. Dismal.

But today is another day, another vacation day, another day of National Poetry Month (I'm writing a poem a day, as are hundreds of others), and another chance at productivity and sunshine.

Fools

It is with some trepidation that I note April in my near future. Tomorrow, in fact. We all know April is the cruelest month, etc. (thanks for the enlightenment T.S.!) and more often than not I find that apart from the start of baseball season a lot of bad things happen in April and all I do is wait for the May flowers to show up. What can you say about a month that is ushered in with the only occasion that really gives Valentine's Day a run for its stupidity money? ("Today let's all lie to one another and then laugh about it!") June actually tends to suck, too. Boo, April and June, but yay for March and May. So it's sad that today is the last day of March.

However, that does also bring me reeeeeeeally close to the end of this semester and the end of my law school experience. Approaching the end of the law school experience gives me a lot to contemplate. For example, the fact that I seriously have to return to Long Island only a dozen or so more times EVER is pretty damn great. Also, the fact that I will be able to read read read novels novels novels again, without even the tiniest hint of a suggestion that I should consider feeling guilty about not reading for school instead. Recently, of course, I have pretty much said "oh well" to the guilt and started reading whatever I want again, and I suppose I was always doing more leisure reading (1-3 books per semester on average) than my fellow law students. But that's probably the most awesome thing about law school being almost over.

Coming soon, I'll share my thoughts on the bar exam or lack thereof.

Welcome Back

Oh. My. God.

And so another semester has dawned and it has the distinction of being -- oh yes -- my last semester of law school.

And, just when I had started to get all "can't-believe-it's-almost-over" and even a little "oh-it's-not-so-bad" about this place, five insipid 1Ls (or possibly four 1Ls and a 2L) have plopped themselves down next to me here in the law school lounge to remind me that nothing -- nothing! not even having to pay off $100,000 in loans! -- could be worse than staying here on Long Island.

Being in Curacao over winter break is what initially bred the not-so-bad delusion. But there was one clear difference between taking law classes in Curacao and taking them here, and I ain't talkin' about palm trees. In Curacao, out of the 52 of us "studying" abroad, only about ten were from Hofstra. It was nice. So nice. Almost no one was from Long Island. People were from seven or eight different law schools. Conversations were interesting. If I ever needed confirmation that going to Hofstra was a terrible idea, Curacao may have been it.

But I didn't actually need that confirmation, for reasons such as today, back at the lounge. First, three girls sort of amble in, all loud and stupid as Long Islanders often are, and they proceed to figure out how to sit in some of the armchairs next to the arm chair in which I happen to be happily settled. After a bit of sitting, one of them giggles, "I feel so far away from you!" and what ensues is a somewhat less-than-the-motor-skills-of-a-preschooler display of moving her armchair closer to the armchairs of her friends. This shouldn't be too difficult, as her chair started the process about two feet away, but it required essentially switching the places of this armchair and the intervening small square side table. One of the friends helped, but her "help" would probably have been more effective had she been willing to lift herself out of her chair, rather than just sort of reaching with no leverage.

At any rate, they eventually manage to drag this table, that really probably weighs no more than one of our textbooks, the all of two feet she needs it to move so that she may be closer to her friends, but they manage to drag the table legs over my laptop cord two or three times during the process. The first two times, I just moved it out from under the table leg's path, but the third time when she left it there on top of the cord, I said, "Could you please watch out for the cord? Thanks." They were horrified, of course, but probably not just from my appalling bitchiness (?) as from the emergence of a voice without a twentysomething Long Island accent.

Then, they spend about a half hour talking about how they are waiting for the Dean's Forum to begin (a question and answer session that takes place here in the lounge where the deans meet with the students) so that they can get some free food, as there is pizza provided at the forum.

During this time, two more of their friends arrive. One of them is the sole guy in the group, so there is a lot of good-natured teasing of the sole guy about things that apparently bewilder him, such as laundry.

Next, the group discusses whether or not to attend a certain happy hour tomorrow evening which takes place down the street from Hofstra. One girl, who apparently has a brief momentary flash of intelligence, says that she is not going to drive to school that day, so that she can drink and then not worry about driving. This absolutely baffles the other four members of the group. "How are you going to get home???!" they cry. She informs them that the bus goes right by her house. They consider this, but interrogate her further. A bus? They are so confused. They try to think of other solutions, such as going to the happy hour and not drinking, driving and drinking anyway, etc. Finally, in desperation, one of the girls says, "What if you drive your car to my house and we drive to school together?"

I'm not sure if that ever got resolved, because it was almost time to start eating the free pizza. The last few minutes were spent with the guy actually kicking my cord out of the plug as he attempted to stand up (the outlet, by the way, is in the FLOOR), as well as a discussion about how much they hate it when people raise their hands and make comments during classes. "It's like, I don't care about other people's opinions I just want to know what I need to know for the final!" one stated. The others chorused their agreement.

Four months more on Long Island, and then, so help me, once I've seen that damn lighthouse at Montauk I am out of here, never to return.

Vaster and vaster

Well, here I am. In Curacao! I know what you're thinking right now; you're thinking, "Where on earth is that?" This is even better than when I went to Honduras. For those who falter in geography double Jeopardy: Curacao Map. Yeah, have a look. Little island, eh? It was kind of trippy when we were landing in Aruba. (I stopped there first. Go on back to the map again if you need to, I'll wait.) I gazed out the plane window and just saw all this water. Sparkling and vast. And oh, looky there, a tiny little bit of land. It's so crazy. I'm just on this little bit of land. I *really* trip out at people who've lived there for their entire lives. Now, I like islands, and I like hanging out on them, unless there are cockroaches, but here I've seen hundreds of lizards and nary a roach (knock on wood), so this one would be flawless except for the fact that it really trips me out to be on this tiny, remote place!!

Islands are so weird! Not just Long Island. In fact, good ol' Wrong Island never even feels like an island, because you can get out of it via so many roads. And I mean, I realize that, technically, every piece of land is an island. But you know what I mean: island in the sense of what "island" connotes. Is there such a thing as geographic reverse claustrophobia? (Perhaps I just invented it. Hook me up with a DSM!) People with claustrophobia get anxious about being in small, confined spaces, right? I get a bit anxious when I'm confronted with the vastness that surrounds me.

So, our hotel is essentially at the water. Each day I go for my little run along a run path on the beach, gazing at all that vast sparkling. The Hilton and Marriott are down the road and I spend time there, too, for their beaches, spas, gift shops, and the like. Our hotel is sort of minimalist as far as fancy amenities go, but it does have a pool, restaurant with outdoor terrace seating and free breakfast, and a bar with an awesome peacemaking bartender. More later about the fight in which his peacemaking skills were on display.

Among other things since arriving, I have: attended "three weeks worth" of classes (accelerated winter session, of course), seen an old plantation house and slaves' quarters, clambered around rocky shores, drunk a pina colada on the most picturesque beach ever, eaten good food, gone to a dance club on the beach, drunk a lot of Heineken, met fun people, spoken a little Spanish, lounged on a beach chair, swum, walked across the floating bridge, danced...did I mention all that lounging on a Caribbean beach? I LOVE IT.

I'm sad I did not start blogging on the first day. Well, the first day I was stuck in Aruba for a while, but how about the second day? Being stuck in Aruba was all right; I met people also headed here for this program and every time an airline rep sort of ambled over to say, "Oh, your plane leaves maybe in thirty minutes" we knew it was time to go have another beer or two.

There are about fifty students, a mix of Hofstra and U Baltimore students plus one or two each from some other schools thrown in. The professors, of course, are totally cool and mellow. I knew they would be. However there is this little matter of having to do a semester's worth of reading, with glorious ocean views and tropical rum punches all around...

I will try to be a better blogger as the time goes on. Can't believe I'm one-fifth of the way through the trip already!

Some people who are having a worse day than I am

1. The Long Island Railroad workers who were out on the tracks in the nasty rain this morning wearing slickers and monster galoshes and still piecing together (no pun intended) Sunday's derailment. (There was even a small tent over one part of the track where they were working.)

2. Everyone at Guantanamo.

OK, then, I believe I've put things in proper perspective now.