Completed Category: Best Original Song

 Oh, this weird little category!

Original Song
"Dear Me" - from Diane Warren: Relentless
"Golden" - from KPop Demon Hunters
"I Lied To You" - from Sinners
"Sweet Dreams of Joy" - from Viva Verdi!
"Train Dreams" -  from Train Dreams

Now, listen.  I am going to tell you right now that I greatly enjoyed the Diane Warren documentary, and I don't care what anyone thinks about my enjoyment of it.  Notably, it did not make the shortlist for Documentary Features, but this latest song that Diane wrote did in fact get her another Original Song nomination, and she once again, I'm sorry to say, is unlikely to win. I learned so much about her and her life and her friend group, and I will tell you that her prickly personality, stream of f-bombs, and liking animals more than people all really work for me.  The song "Dear Me" is performed by Kesha and is not the greatest Diane Warren song. Oh well. Try again next year! 

Another movie I love, but am not picking to win this category? Train Dreams.  I still want all of you to watch that gorgeous, sad, lovely movie (it's on Netflix!) when you are in an appropriate, thoughtful mood.  The song, performed by  Nick Cave, very much fits the vibe of the movie, but it's not anything next level as a song.  Moving on... 

Viva Verdi! is the "Huh?" movie of this year's Oscar nominees. Well, it's a documentary about some folks living in the retirement home in Italy designed by Verdi himself (!) as a home for retired/older musicians. It was a really interesting little slice of life, but again, not nominated as a doc but rather for the song "Sweet Dreams of Joy."  Well, it was fine.  You can actually enjoy the folks singing a lot of more famous songs throughout the film in little snippets, by the way, if you're into that kind of thing.  But the movie also features their personalities and some history. It's available to rent on the Jolt indie film streaming service (I told you, Huh?)  Thanks, Jolt!  It's an honor for you to be nominated, Viva Verdi. 

Right, then. Sinners vs. KPop Demon Hunters.  It is going to be hard for anything to beat the extremely popular and now Grammy-winning "Golden" and KPop Demon Hunters delighted everybody, or at least a lot of bodies. But there is a tiny smidgen of a chance that Sinners busts out to a big night and collects trophy after trophy including this one for "I Lied To You."  That of course would mean Sinners seizes the glory - and the Oscars - from One Battle After Another  or as I now think of it One Nomination After Another.  A girl can dream. 

Which of these movies and songs did you like? 

Order I want them to win:  
Keeping in mind that I'm not sure how much I care, really?  And that as much as I liked Sinners I'm not all that into blues, which I know is like an egregious sin among most guitar players but I said what I said? Probably the same as the... 

Order that I think they're likely to win: 
Golden, I Lied to You, big gap here, still in the gap, still in the gap, Train Dreams, then another gap and then Dear Me or Sweet Dreams Of Joy  

Completed Category: Lead Actress, featuring 5 women

Quick reminder that I am #TeamBugonia and I would love for that film to be rewarded in spades but let's get real about the Best Actress  situation, shall we? 

Actress In A Leading Role
Jessie Buckley - Hamnet
Rose Byrne- If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
Kate Hudson - Song Sung Blue
Renata Reinsve - Sentimental Value
Emma Stone - Bugonia 

First, I would like to congratulate the Academy for nominating five women in this category. Please keep doing that!

Second, the reality of this situation is that Jessie Buckley is heavily, heavily, heavily favored to win this.  And I'm not really mad at that, other than it being no fun to have foregone conclusions or even frontrunners; we want suspense!  I liked Hamnet, it was lovely and faithful to the book, her character is earthy and witchy, and also I think Jessie Buckley could maybe play me in the movie of my life.  The only thing I'm bummed about is we have had to endure all of Yorgos Lanthimos' weirdo films, including his multiple collaborations with Emma Stone, including the psychotic Poor Things for which she won her second Oscar for goodness' sake (should have been Annette Bening in Nyad that year!!!)  and I was so very sick of their madness and then Bugonia  this year was so wonderful. Based on everything the two of them have put me through, my expectations couldn't have been lower, so I was pleasantly shocked at how fantastic it was. The best thing Yorgos and Emma have done to us by far, and THIS is the year that she has no real chance? Sigh. 

Well but them's the breaks. You know who else likely has no chance and whose performance I greatly enjoyed? Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue. To be clear, that movie was a mess, with both screenplay and tone swinging wildly all over the place and hitting very little, but I could watch Kate singing Neil Diamond songs with Hugh Jackman for another two hours or two days or two months maybe.  Absolute Kate Hudson performance charm doing its thing, with some surprise serious moments to really act some different emotional stuff. (Because the movie is all over the place, as mentioned.) 

I could be the tiniest bit worried that Renata Reinsve could pull some votes because people have lost their minds about Sentimental Value. This is another film that I liked, after gingerly approaching it with trepidation due to the previous off-putting collaboration from that actress and director.  It's no Bugonia, but I really liked it. But it's as if people had decided they were going to nominate her before they even watched it. And nine nominations for the film? Nine?!  We kinda need to calm down about Sentimental Value.  

And then there is Rose Byrne.  She won the Golden Globe for Actress-Musical or Comedy (Jessie Buckley won Actress-Drama of course) and some people are whispering that she maybe upsets and wins the Oscar for the lunatic shitshow that is If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. And there is nothing I want less for this movie than an Oscar, except for how much I want my life to be nothing like anyone's in this movie at any point ever.  I do have legs, and if I could kick a film with them, I would kick this one. It is an excruciating journey through several people's terrible behavior, terrible choices, and terrible reactions to other people's behavior and choices.  You know how I've praised Hamnet for having three kids in big roles and none of them even slightly annoying? Yeah, If/Legs/Kick is the exact opposite of that.  The child is a total nightmare in every way from first scene to last.  I am on the hamster's side and everything about this flick can go away. Rose Byrne was definitely fierce and committed and whatnot but my goddesses can we please just not. 

And so. 

Order I want them to win: 

Emma Stone, Jessie Buckley or Kate Hudson, then a big gap, Renata Reinsve, then an even bigger gap, then Rose Byrne please no no no no although at least she is a woman but still just no 

Order I think they will win: 

Jessie Buckley

Then maybe if there's like voter fraud or we ban Shakespeare or some other crazy thing, maaaaaaybe people will make psychotic choices for Rose Byrne, or get nostalgic about their years of loving Kate Hudson and her family, or feel proud of themselves for watching Renata Reinsve in films with subtitles, or remember how much they like Emma Stone even though they gave her Oscars for all the wrong movies.  

But probably it'll be Jessie. 

Two Completed Categories: Adapted Screenplay and Original Score

Welcome to the end of the first week of Oscar nominations! 

Have you made your checklists? Have you added up your totals of how many you need to see?  Have you lamented the fact that unless you are in Southern California you might not get to see Viva Verdi before the ceremony?  Have you asked yourself why you haven't yet moved back to Southern California?  I have done all of these things!

As of nominations morning, I already had two completed categories. 

Adapted Screenplay
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
One Battle After Another 
Train Dreams 

Original Score
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Sinners

Similar nominees! Let's see what separates them, and what we think. 

First of all, I'll make it clear from the outset this year that I am a full-fledged member of #TeamBugonia. I love it, and I absolutely love it.  It is the best thing Emma & Yorgos have done, by far.  I was getting a little tired of their cinematic antics and when the Lanthimos-directed Poor Things earned Emma Stone another Oscar a couple years ago I was miserable; I loathed that flick. And I was dreading Bugonia, and my expectations couldn't have been lower as I grudgingly headed into the theatre back in November. Much to my pleasant surprise, it was fantastic.  I will be thrilled if it wins anything, although I don't know that it will. More on that as we move through the season. 

On the other hand, I am completely not buying the hype for One Battle After Another.  Yes, it was wild and had moments of hilarity and serious themes and staggering sequences and great performances. It was also interminable. I call it One Scene After Another. Enough. 

Adapted Screenplay is an interesting category. As much as Bugonia is my favorite of the five films, I don't know if it's the best adaptation of previously published material. It is based on a Korean movie, Save the Green Planet!  For this category, I think about what it took to take the prior work and turn it into this work, and in that sense I think there are two other strong contenders, both of which I also like immensely, Hamnet and Train Dreams. 

Hamnet is a wonderful, earthy, lovely, witchy, gritty, literary book that I found to be such a clever re-imagining of what led to Hamlet,  and the film was beautifully faithful to the book while giving us a glorious cinematic experience.  I am 100% OK with Hamnet winning everything, too. 

Train Dreams is a slight, odd novella that I read last year in anticipation of then-months-off Awards Season, and when I read it I thought it might work better as a film. I now agree with myself. The book is barely more than an idea, but the movie is another earthy, gritty, quietly powerful bit of art that rewards quiet contemplative viewing.  Did you see it?  What did you think? 

And Frankenstein?  Again, not so much the screenplay moved me here as Guillermo del Toro's weird and wondrous and lush filmmaking vision.  But it was beautiful and bookended well, with lots of great choices -- and his films don't always necessarily land for me, either, but this one surely did. 

And then there's Original Score, which is always hard for me to decide short of a true marvel (for example, The Brutalist last year or Gladiator more than two decades ago) because I honestly sometimes forget to pay attention.  When I contemplate these nominees now, I have to think back to how I was ushered through the film.  And honestly, all of them are fine, although it is unnecessary to reward One Battle After Another here. The music of Sinners was absolutely a huge part of it, but not necessarily because of the Original Score. It's possible that Sinners, a stunning movie, will pick up a slew of awards including this one. But the same can be said for Hamnet.  Will Bugonia and Frankenstein be shut out? 

Order I want the Adapted Screenplay nominees to win from my #1 pick to no thanks: 
Train Dreams, Hamnet, Bugonia, Frankenstein, One Battle After Another
Order I think they will win, if you'd like my help in your Oscar pool (ha!): 
Hamnet, One Battle After Another, Bugonia, Train Dreams, Frankenstein 

Order I want the Original Score nominees to win: 
Bugonia, Hamnet, Sinners or Frankenstein, One Battle After Another 
Order I think they will win (although I'm really truly not sure): 
Sinners, Hamnet, One Battle After Another, Frankenstein, Bugonia 

Well, that's two categories done out of 24! 
How about you? 
Is your Oscar nominee viewing off to a good start? 

Completed Category: Documentary Feature

My second-to-last completed category!  One more nominee to see after this. 

Documentary Feature Film
Black Box Diaries
No Other Land
Porcelain War
Soundtrack To A Coup d'Etat
Sugarcane

Let me just say, once again, that whether a documentary is interesting or good is not based on the topic.

 There can be an amazing documentary about a subject in which I have no interest that has me riveted. Or, the opposite: a topic I would love to know more about can be covered in a terrible documentary, making for an excruciating 2.5 hours, such as is the case with Soundtrack To A Coup d'Etat.  Holy cow is this a boring look at the mid-twentieth century tragic and murderous foreign policy of Belgium and the U.S., and political shenanigans in the Congo, up to and including the murder of Patrice Lumumba. I am deeply interested in this history! This documentary bored me immensely. Also, it was irritating. There's this whole jazz motif going on, and it drove me straight up a wall.  I really don't like jazz and I'm pretty sure that's related to how much I hate this film.  The film is constructed of various jazz music that is sometimes lyrically appropriate and sometimes relevant because the film at that time is talking about when Louis Armstrong or whoever traveled to Africa at that time -- so many layers, like a piece of jazz music, right?  Ugh. It was awful. There were actually close-ups of people singing where you could see their saliva - gross, shudder.  And the shots of Dizzy Gillespie's puffy cheeks gave me the fantods. Now, on the other hand, the frequent clips of Malcolm X talking were by far a highlight of this film - more of that, please. Less of everything else.  Side note: this is not solely about "We Didn't Start the Fire" (Belgians in the Congo!) but also a fair bit of Car 54 Where Are You?  (Khrushchev's due at Idlewild!) 

Anyway. Onto the four good documentaries! 

Black Box Diaries - haunting, stunning achievement, quite personal while being globally relevant, as one woman documents her pursuit of justice in the aftermath of a sexual assault. Why are men. 

No Other Land -  depressing, infuriating look at oppressively macho Israeli military posturing over a bit of land that they would like to forbid Palestinians to live on, for no discernible reason.  

Porcelain War - still more depressing stuff, with art and nature and beauty struggling to keep their heads above the mass of violent warfare that is the Russian invasion of and war in Ukraine.  

Sugarcane -  another personal depiction that meanders through major trauma and its effects years and decades later on the survivors of "Indian schools" in Canada as well as on their descendants. I really thought this was well done, with the weaving of one personal search for healing amid the wider community and even world search for healing related to this horrible bit of history. 

There is really only one that I can't bear to see win, but my order in which I'd like to see them win:  Sugarcane, Black Box Diaries, Porcelain War  (really, any of those three!), then No Other Land

Order in which I think they'll win: 
Maybe Porcelain War? Or Black Box Diaries.  I might like Sugarcane more than some other people do, but I did notice Lily Gladstone's name as an Executive Producer, which probably means she'll have  successfully campaigned it to some extent.  No Other Land probably won't work for some people. I don't know who votes for Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat ... Steely Dan fans? Overwrought fever dreaming men? I don't know. 

Which documentary did you think was the best? 

Completed Category: Original Song

 This past weekend I finished up Original Song. After watching both Feature and Short Documentaries for a few days, I really wanted to watch something where nobody killed anybody. I turned to Elton John: Never Too Late. 

Original Song
"El Mal" from EMILIA PÉREZ
Music by Clément Ducol and Camille; Lyric by Clément Ducol, Camille and Jacques Audiard
"The Journey" from THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT
Music and Lyric by Diane Warren
"Like A Bird" from SING SING
Music and Lyric by Abraham Alexander and Adrian Quesada
"Mi Camino" from EMILIA PÉREZ
Music and Lyric by Camille and Clément Ducol
"Never Too Late" from ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE
Music and Lyric by Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Andrew Watt and Bernie Taupin

It's always interesting to see how many nominees in this category are her for Song and Song alone, and how many are from films nominated for other stuff. This year, it's a 3/2 nominees split and a 2/2 movies split, as there are two songs nominated from the spectacular mess that is Emilia Perez. 

Unfortunately, even though it's a total disaster and the music is so dumb, E.P. might win. The influencers seem to have decided on "El Mal" so that the two noms don't split the E.P.  vote.  Godz do I ever dislike that movie. 

Anyway, the other movie that is a "real" nominee and not just a Song nominee is Sing Sing, which got nods for Adapted Screenplay and Lead Actor (Colman Domingo) as well. I would love for it to sneak in and have a chance. The movie makes people think about such important things (wrongful incarceration, finding purpose in life, making art, perseverance, healing etc.) but it might end the night with no wins. 

Elton John: Never Too Late was a pleasant enough documentary to watch and Elton is, of course, mega-talented, but I don't get a lot of feelings of grandeur from this song, at all. He already has not just Oscars but he's an EGOT person! No offense to Brandi and Bernie but this song this year just isn't it. 

You know who doesn't have a competitive Oscar yet? Despite 16 nominations?  Diane Warren! And here she is again, with a song written for a flick that many people did not pay any attention to until she was nominated for her umpteenth Oscar for it. This movie, actually, was an enjoyable watch, because it told such an interesting story from history that nobody remembers. And listen, I've heard far worse Song nominees. (Like the two nominated songs from E.P.!)   Let's give Diane the Oscar. Seriously. Please? 

"All the times you thought you'd never make it through
Felt just like the world had turned its back on you
Didn't stop you" 

Indeed!

Order I want them to win: 
"The Journey" times one million, then maybe "Like A Bird" 

Order I think they will win: 
"El Mal" (ugh), maybe "The Journey" if everyone's feeling a little wild, "El Camino" ugh, maybe "Never Too Late" because people like Elton and were maybe at that last Dodger Stadium concert featured in the Doc, and then poor "Like A Bird" sadly

Completed Category: Documentary Shorts

Friends, enemies, countrypeople, et. al., it's one of those years where I'm going to insist that you absolutely need to watch the Documentary Shorts. 

Documentary Short Film
Instruments of a Beating Heart
Incident
I Am Ready, Warden
The Only Girl In The Orchestra 
Death By Numbers

This year we have: life, death, death, life, and death.

Issues include: racism, death penalty, killing of civilians by police, school shootings, sexism, grief, the meaning of life, creating art, and overcoming obstacles. 

You can see the Doc Shorts in select theatres this week and honestly, yes, it's worth dropping whatever you have to do or have scheduled the next few days.  Seriously, get a babysitter, take the afternoon off work, skip your church group - or heck, gather up and bring your church group - and hie thee to the cinema. 

Now, this is certainly a viewer-discretion-is-advised situation, but on the other hand, this is documentation of real life, and nobody really exercised discretion to prevent the real-life people from having to witness and/or experience terrible things up to and including being shot and killed. 

For those who cannot get to the cinema, please watch the ones that are available at home via streaming. Here is the link to Incident, which should be required viewing for you, your family, your neighbors, your friends, your enemies, and whoever else you can find strolling blithely around this Earth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW65ChIjur4 

Incident depicts the killing of a Black man by police in Chicago, and the things the officers both instinctively and calculatedly say and do in the minutes following the incident.  I want this one to win. I think it might. I've never seen a Doc Short quite like it, the way it uses and split screens the various body camera and CCTV camera footage. 

I Am Ready, Warden depicts the lead-up to the execution date for a death row inmate, with input from the condemned man, his murder victim's son, his own son, a church lady who has become his adopted godmother, and a Texas government official. I also want this one to win. It could. It crafts this story so, so, so very well. The "cast" of characters really immerse you in the swirling realities of one man's sentence to death. 

Death By Numbers  depicts the written and spoken reflections of Sam Fuentes,  one of the survivors who was injured in the Parkland, Florida school shooting a few years back as she prepares to testify and speaks to the killer at the sentencing and victim impact statement days in court. She's a great writer. I hope she continues to heal and survive, and to gift us with her words.  I mourn the friends and teachers she lost that day as well as everything that has been taken from her and from other dead and living school shooting victims.  

One of the "feel-good" ones of the bunch is The Only Girl In the Orchestra, uplifting despite the gasp-out-loud sexism and affecting consideration of questions of what should we do with our lives? I recommend it for anyone who has: played music, listened to music, lived in New York, lived as an artist, admired a family member, admired a teacher, watched classic Westerns (no, seriously), touched a stringed instrument, moved a piano, or celebrated the gift of being alive.  It's on Netflix. 

The other feel-good one is Instruments of a Beating Heart, despite the occasional kids crying after either not getting a part they auditioned for or making mistakes as they rehearse the parts they did get. This is an adorable slice of life little film about 7-year-olds preparing to perform "Ode to Joy" with tambourines and whatnot for the incoming first graders at their school in Japan. I adore it. I recommend it to anyone who has ever tried to do something, failed, or succeeded.  It's available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRW0auOiqm4 

Order I want them to win:  THIS IS SO HARD
Maybe Incident or I Am Ready, Warden, then Instruments of a Beating Heart, as those three are such interestingly crafted documentary observances, and then the other two which are also A+ content if a bit more traditional let's-follow-this-person storytelling -- Death By Numbers  and The Only Girl In The Orchestra.  I will not be mad when any of these five win, except for the part where the other four have to not win.  

Order I think they will win:  I DON'T KNOW I said this is hard!!!!!! maybe Incident? 

Completed Category: Supporting Actor

 This is the other category I completed by watching The Apprentice. 

Actor In A Supporting Role
Yura Borisov - Anora
Kieran Culkin - A Real Pain
Edward Norton - A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce - The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong - The Apprentice

This is a category where I really like all five performances. I wouldn't be mad or at least not really mad when any of the five of them wins, except for the fact that one of the nominations belongs in another category! However,  I have a clear far and away favorite who I want to win, who will sadly not win. 

Three of these nominees are from films also nominated for Lead Actor. Will we have men from the same film in both of the men categories? (you know, the two for male actors? unless they get nominated in an Actress category of course).  It has happened before that the Lead and Supporting Actor winners are from the same film - including for one of my top Oscar-winning Best Pics of all time, The Best Years of Our Lives, as well as for Going My Way, Ben-Hur, Mystic River. Dallas Buyers Club, and most recently, Oppenheimer.  This shows us that a majority of the time the two men's categories (there are two) winners won for the same film, it was also the film that won Best Pic, but not every single time.  And so - theoretically A Complete Unknown could do this, even if The Brutalist  wins Best Pic, and I would like that. 

I don't think chances are strong for The Apprentice here. But it was a great honor for Jeremy Strong to be nominated, and he's Gen X!  Which I'm mildly obsessed with this year.  He made us feel all kinds of things, such as sympathy and affection for Roy Cohn, which is quite an amazing feat. This would be one of the best upsets of all Oscar time, if he wins. By the way, I still haven't watched Succession in which he's evidently great, and I need to do that. 

The other honor to be nominated is Yura Borisov. Where the heck did he come from, right?! Russia, actually, is the answer. Side note that he apparently voiced the cat in a The Master and Margarita film, which I didn't know existed until five minutes ago and which I need to have in my life. Anyway, he's freaking fantastic in Anora, and his part is so interesting, the way he is the least frantic of this gaggle of misfit friends - so, so well done. 

Now, everybody thinks Kieran Culkin is going to win, and he probably is, because he's category fraudulent here and was absolutely a co-star of A Real Pain. So, ugh. Moving along...

What if, indeed, The Brutalist the Brutal-est starts sweeping everything beginning with an early evening win for Guy Pearce?  I honestly wouldn't mind that much. We've had worse Oscar nights. I liked his performance even more than Adrien Brody's.  It was wild and bold and scary and fantastic. He is also Gen X. 

But you know who the best Gen X-er in this category is? My favorite, which I feel so, so strongly in my heart, is Edward Norton in A Complete Unknown.  Ed Norton as Pete Seeger was revelatory. I was transfixed by him in every scene as he conveyed so much about Pete Seeger, and about Bob Dylan, and about everything that was going on with and around them - it was wonderful beyond belief and him not winning Supporting Actor is the thing that is going to make me the absolute saddest on Oscar night. 

Order I want them to win: 
Edward Norton, Edward Norton, Edward Norton, Edward Norton, Edward Norton

Order I think they will win: 
Kieran Culkin the Category Fraud, Guy Pearce, possibly Edward Norton who should win, Jeremy Strong, Yura Borisov

Down with fraud! Up with Seeger! 

Completed Category: Lead Actor

 This is one of the two categories I completed by watching The Apprentice, which was 100% not on my radar until the Golden Globes nominations came around. 

Actor In A Leading Role

Adrien Brody - The Brutalist
Timothee Chalamet - A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo - Sing Sing 
Ralph Fiennes - Conclave
Sebastian Stan - The Apprentice

All of the men nominated in this category are men! Isn't that interesting! It shouldn't be, but it is. 

Anyway, the first of these films I saw was Sing Sing, a few months ago. While I really loved it, and Colman Domingo gave a commanding performance, I don't think this is his year to win. He is definitely going to rack up a bunch of nominations over a few years, though, which is great. He's great. The movie is a fantastic look at creating art and being human, even when locked up, and so this is like a 10 out of 10 for triumph of the human spirit. Some are sad that no Supporting Actors were nominated, but to me it was an ensemble triumph above all else. Humans need to be better than we are, and some of us are trying to be. Go watch Sing Sing. 

The next one I saw was Conclave, the pontiff-icating movie.  Will Ralph Fiennes win an Oscar, finally?  Perhaps.  He drives this spectacular conclave weekend and it's a doozy.  I had read the book and knew everything, and still felt all the requisite tension and emotions. I am 100% OK with him winning. 

After that I saw A Complete Unknown, and here we have some major competition for Ralph, because Timothee Chalamet contains multitudes, and one of those multitudes is now Bob Dylan. This is not a standard biopic, as I have mentioned elsewhere, rather a depiction of a period of time when some amazing strong personalities and talents came together in various ways with our man, with wondrous as well as heartbreaking results. Timothee is so very good, along with several other performers in this film. For a while, the buzz was that this was his award to lose. 

But then there's Adrien Brody. Is The Brutalist a juggernaut? Is it going to crash and burn?  Is it going to go off the rails mid-triumph, like its main characters?  Who's to say? I don't want to discount the work that Adrien Brody did, but this film really pummeled me, including his performance. (Don't do drugs, kidz.)  I want The Brutal-est to win some awards (mainly to stop the lunacy of certain other film) but in this category he really is in about 4th place for me. I don't think this is a common opinion, though. 

And finally, I saw The Apprentice. You know, not only was this movie not on my radar, but I didn't even know who Sebastian Stan was, so there's that. Why, what's that you say? No, I don't really follow the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or I haven't - but actually I've recently launched a project to watch it all in order and catch the ones I've missed. I'm only on Iron Man 2, though, so no Sebastian. But! Apparently he starred in I Tonya. Oops - I remember those guys, but I'll have to go back and look at it again to really realize who he was/is. At any rate, now I've seen him doing The Donald, and I have to say, this was quite a performance. It isn't just about nailing the mannerisms or whatever, but he really took us on a journey. I couldn't look away.  (And I am VERY capable of looking away from the actual current events.)  But, I think it's an honor for him to be nominated. 

Order I want them to win:
Ralph or Timothee, Sebastian, Colman, Adrien

Order I think they will win:
Adrien, Timothee, Ralph, Colman, Sebastian 

Who was your favorite Lead Actor performance?

Completed Category: Original Score

 This is one of the two categories I complete by watching The Wild Robot the weekend after the nominations came out. I had 7 out of 23 categories done, the first weekend! 

I am not indecisive in this post. 

Original Score
The Brutalist
Conclave
Emilia Perez
Wicked
The Wild Robot

I freaking love Wicked with all of my heart, but not because of the Original Score. We know I famously forget to pay attention to the Score sometimes, but also at Wicked one already has a lot going on musically and it's all fantastic and wonderful, so the Score performed perfectly, too.  But I think it's my 2nd place choice here. Conclave is another movie I love, and I appreciate all the tension that was built in that movie, but a ton of that was from the talking, not necessarily the Score. I've mentioned elsewhere that I'm not totally enthralled with The Wild Robot yet, although maybe it will grow on me a bit more? But honestly I think it's an honor for it to be thrice nominated.  And Emilia Perez can go to hell, although I suppose we can grudgingly note that any instrumental Score in the thing was less terrible than some of the songs they were singing.  

But, my friends, here is The Brutalist. And here is its chance to shine. 

Yes, it's The Brutal-est. Yes, it pummeled me. But the one really good way it pummeled me was musically. I was mightily impressed by the music as it pulsed and struck profoundly and made me sit up and take notice way the heck more than any other Original Score for a 2024 film I've seen, nominated or otherwise.  Gooooo, The Brutalist - in this category.

Order I want them to win: The Brutalist

Order I think they will win: The Brutalist, that's it, seriously, get it together everyone, nothing else, Price Waterhouse loses the briefcases, the Oscars are cancelled, Conclave, Emilia Perez, Wicked, The Wild Robot. 

Completed Category: Supporting Actress

 We'll make this quick, because this category - so often a fraudulent mess - is a total fraudulent mess. 

Actress In A Supporting Role

Monica Barbaro *A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande * Wicked
Felicity Jones * The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini * Conclave
Zoe Saldana * Emilia Perez 

(Pretend that there are a tilde and an accent mark where they belong. 

The smart money, if you will, says Zoe Saldana will win or possibly Ariana Grande, maybe, just possibly.  Neither one of them deserves to win, because they are both co-stars in their respective movies. They are actresses in leading roles, and their nominations here are nonsense. 

Of the actual Supporting performances: 

Monica Barbaro is freaking fantastic, like the others in A Complete Unknown, which is way less of a traditional biopic and way more of a study of some humans who came together, talked, sang, loved, learned, clashed, and changed the world. 

Felicity Jones, I suspect, might become another Cate Blanchett/Michelle Williams/Meryl Streep type who can show up to work knowing a nomination is a real possibility.  She does a lot in The Brutal-est (I mean - they all do. Of all my criticisms, I've certainly not said that was an easy flick to make!) but it's all so brooding and dark and dismal - I'm not thinking she's going to be the dark horse who surges ahead here. 

Isabella Rossellini?  I love her in Conclave  and the way she sure has some stuff to say to all the pontiff-icating men is stand-up-and-cheer time, for sure.  I would love for her to sneak in and grab that Oscar away from the excellent, fraudulent stars. 

Order I saw the movies: 
Conclave, Wicked, A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist, Emilia Perez

Order I like them:  Similar!  3-way tie, then Brutal-est, then ugh

Order I want their SUPPORTING actresses to win:
Monica for A Complete Unknown, Isabella for Conclave, Felicity for The Brutalist

Order I think they will win:  Zoe, Ariana, Isabella, Monica, Felicity

Category fraud is so goddamn stupid. 

Completed Category: Original Score

 This will probably be my last Category post besides Best Pic. 

And to be honest, I did what I did lots of years, which is really only love and pay attention to the score in one or two movies. I am known for forgetting to think about the Score until later except on rare occasions. And on those rare occasions, no one ever seems to love the Score that grabs me as much as I do.  Anyway...here we go. 

AMERICAN FICTION: I forgot to pay attention to the score very much in American Fiction. However, it was jazzy (duh, character named Thelonius Monk) without being annoyingly jazzy (I said what I said). And I will add one big plus: this movie has some wild tonal swings, but it pulls them off and you don't feel all over the place while careening from mockery to family tragedy to lampooning to frustration to family melodrama, and I think the score helped pull it all together! 

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY: Watched this a few days ago to complete this category. I knew I was completing this category and tried to pay a little attention to the score, but mostly I kept thinking about when the old familiar Indy theme kicked in and was obviously less struck by whatever original score stuff John Williams came up with for this. Side note, he's old! Will they give him another Oscar so he can be the oldest winner ever? Probably not, actually. 

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: Hey! I paid a little attention to the score in this one! In fact, I think it was so well done; I was absolutely entranced for the first hour or so as all the pieces are being laid out and there was this thrumming pulsing music underlying it all and drawing me in (making the time cruise by, I might add). Then there were also other emotions and time-period-evoking elements to the score as well. I would honestly think this has a chance and should have a chance. 

OPPENHEIMER: Oh but then there's this again! Recurring theme on the blog this year, eh?  Such-and-such is great, but Oppenheimer.  Well, it was fine work that I - surprise - didn't focus on as there was so much else going on in this flick. At any rate, there was certainly a lot to score! Well done, Gory. (Ludwig Goransson, can I call you Gory? What, no?) And I mean, including scoring scenes of actual atomic bombs and whatnot. This was a monumental task that not just anyone could accomplish. 

POOR THINGS: Didn't hate the Original Score, but sure did hate the movie! Let's just no thanks this. 

And so, order I want them to win: 
Killers of the Flower Moon
American Fiction or Oppenheimer
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
<big gap>
Poor Things

Order I think they will win: 

Oppenheimer
Poor Things UGH
American Fiction
Killers of the Flower Moon
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

I don't have a lot to say on this one, partly because I'm tired today/this week, so feel free to weigh in here with your Score thoughts if you have more words than I do.

Completed Category: Short Film (Animated)

 And now I'm done with all the Shorts!  Saw the Animateds yesterday. 

And guess what - regarding the question of which of this year's set of Shorts is clearly better or worse than another set of Shorts, I was actually good with all the Live Action and most of the Animated. And most of the Documentary Shorts. So basically, there was no omg-wtf set this year. 

That's not to say there weren't some heavy topics!  I'll keep my thoughts short, since the Shorts were short. (Which is how I like my Animation, by the way.) 

OUR UNIFORM:  I was into this and then it ended too abruptly.  It's a kind of meditation about how girls are forced to wear the hijab (nowadays) in Iran and at the beginning there was a disclaimer of no offense to anyone who chooses to wear hijab but that this was about the experience of being forced to wear it in a certain place. Eye roll. 

LETTER TO A PIG: This is a meditation on .. a lot of things. Including escaping death, but also war and pigs (not War Pigs though) and some other stuff.  I want to watch this again and maybe again and again. 

There was no disclaimer of no offense to anyone who has not hidden in a pig sty. 

PACHYDERME: This was creepy as f*ck. I do not want to watch it again and again. There was no disclaimer of no offense to anyone who had a positive experience in a house with an elephant tusk on display. 

NINETY-FIVE SENSES:  I did watch this one twice. (It's available online and I also saw the group of Shorts in the theatre.) I like this one a lot too. It is heavy. It is also about being alive in a way unlike anything I've ever seen before. It kinda sneaks up on you of how good it is.  There was no disclaimer of no offense to people who do not have five senses. 

WAR IS OVER! INSPIRED BY THE MUSIC OF JOHN & YOKO: It's about war.  I liked it a lot! I was thinking it was the best and might win until I walked out of the theatre and heard two people complaining that it was the worst of the five. What!? It was so good. War is bad. Chess and birds and cease-fires are good. There was no disclaimer of no offense to the wars that are not over. 

Order I want them to win:  top 3 might as well be a tie

Ninety-Five Senses
War Is Over! Inspired By the Music of John & Yoko
Letter To A Pig

then Our Uniform
then big gap then Pachyderme

Order I think they will win: 
I am pretty sure this category is one of my worst in terms of predictions? Sadly I don't keep stats so we'll never know but that is my impression. Once in a while I get it right. Hmmmmm... 

probably War Is Over! Inspired By the Music of John & Yoko? 

maybe Ninety-Five Senses? 
maybe Our Uniform? 

maybe Letter to a Pig  which was weird but I loved it
please not Pachyderme

Have you gone to see the Animated Shorts at your local cinema? 

There's also a Highly Commended but not nominated one that was kinda like The Shape of Water 🤣🐟 except about real fish - sort of.   Animators sure can do weird stuff! 

Completed Category: Documentary Short

 It's my first completed Shorts category this year, and quite the opposite of last year when I was thwarted and nobody would let me complete all of the nominees before the ceremony and it was mainly this category's fault because they weren't showing at a theatre in Atlanta (although the Animated and Live Action were) and one didn't become available online to rent/stream until last June!  How do I measure a year?  In Oscar nominees watched, that's how! But why dredge up the past? 

Anyway, so the powers that be decided to let me see all the Doc Shorts this year, thank you very much, and this I have now done. 

THE ABCs OF BOOK BANNING:  Hot topics do well at the Docs and at the Shorts and at the Doc Shorts, so this already starts out ahead. Is it well done? Yes. Are the featured people interesting? Yes. Does it invite me to look at this topic in a new way, or offer some fresh perspective?  Honestly not really. This series of reactions and analysis from a bunch of people, mostly young, about banned, challenged, and restricted books is not really breaking any new ground. Does it draw someone in who might not be interested in the topic at first? It does all right. People like charming little kids, right?  (They're not all that little.)  The first group of girls who started us off with their self-assured platitudes were a wee bit obnoxious, but some who get interviewed later are rad. The blond boy with the kind of mullet-look is by far my favorite.  "I just like to know stuff."  Yes. My man. Look for him. He's great. 

THE BARBER OF LITTLE ROCK:  Community development is my jam!  Haha kidding, it's just my job five days a week, as they say. But I fully loved Arlo Washington, his work, his team, the barber college, the way they drove around to show and point out the discrepancies between the predominantly white and predominantly Black communities on either side of a freeway, and the clear, cool-headed examination of the persistent racial wealth gap.  This absolutely featured interesting people, new perspective, and a way of drawing you in. I don't really fault it but it could have been a teeny tiny bit clearer on chronology but not in a way that mattered. Basically, good! Totally OK if it wins. 

ISLAND IN BETWEEN: I liked this one probably more than some people because I like to contemplate China and China-adjacent things and I am always fascinated by Taiwan, both so China and so not right now. This look at the Taiwan island that is just off the coast rightupthisclose to mainland China just really worked for me. But it might float in the middle of the pack here. 

THE LAST REPAIR SHOP: This one, though!  What a beautiful little slice of life, really well done, intimate (yet global in reach), a brilliant interweaving of stories, a profound look at how we really can make a difference.  I am one million percent #TeamTheLastRepairShop.  I always say any film that makes me feel positive feelings about humanity did a damn good job! In this case, the group of co-workers at a musical instrument repair shop and several kids in the Los Angeles Unified School District who have discovered how important playing a musical instrument is to them  tell their close-up stories, and the filmmaker weaves a pitch perfect macro out of the micro. I loved it! 

NAI NAI & WAI PO: Meh. This was kind of one note. Definitely was telling you it was more clever than it was. The premise of a guy documenting his two living grandmothers, who live together, was all right but the execution was...meh. Sometimes weird little ones like this resonate with people though, eye-rollingly to me. 

Order I want them to win: 
The Last Repair Shop
The Barber of Little Rock
Island In Between
The ABCs of Book Banning
Nai Nai & Wai Po

Order I think they will win: 
Like I said, probably The ABCs of Book Banning has the strong upper hand here
The Barber of Little Rock  has a chance
I hope The Last Repair Shop has more of a chance; maybe the L.A. connection will help? 
Nai Nai & Wai Po, ugh
Island In Between - just not sure how much this will wow people

Did you see the Documentary Shorts? 
What do you think? 

Completed Category: Original Song

 The category I completed earlier this week was Music - Original Song. 

And it just so happens, as I mentioned when the nominations came out, that this is the first category I unwittingly started on this year!  I was delighted on Nominations Day when I realized that I had seen... 

FLAMIN' HOT: "The Fire Inside" - This is Diane Warren's umpteenth nomination, and it has become kind of amusing in recent years for us Oscar completists to dredge up the increasingly random flicks for which she writes a song. But this year, I had a total moment with Flamin' Hot, the story of the guy who invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos, at the UnidosUS convention I attended for work; they showed the film (and served tasty snacks) at our Saturday night entertainment event, and both the real-life guy and the star of the movie were there, and... I kinda really liked it!  There is certainly a part of me that wants this to finally, finally, finally be Diane Warren's year. 

BARBIE: "I'm Just Ken" - But she is going to have to beat Barbie. Now, to be honest, I don't know that "I'm Just Ken" has much of a chance here. I think this song is fun, and that's all. In fact, I'm kind of like, Really?! about it even being nominated. I'm Just Ken was a fun phenomenon - but the song is pure silliness. Then again, we've seen the Oscars devolve into bigger lunacy than that, so who knows?  Still, the bigger buzz hype is for the other song from this film...

BARBIE: "What Was I Made For?" - ...because people are over the damn moon about Billie Eilish. And here's the thing: Yes, she's talented.  Yes, some of her songs are great. This song? Is kind of meh.  But people like it, and they want to give Barbie awards, and they want to give Billie Eilish awards, so this has a really really good chance. 

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: "Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)" - But this is the most interesting nomination, and the Osage singer Scott George was surprised by his nomination (read more here) and is kind of out of the whole Oscars loop, which is the absolute opposite of all of the above, and people might just want to give Killers of the Flower Moon something especially if they're voting against it for Lead Actress and.... I'm saying there's a chance.  I'm also really looking forward to the performance of this and hope they bring the Osage singers and that it's freaking awesome and important.  

AMERICAN SYMPHONY: "It Never Went Away"  - And then there's this song from a documentary, about Jon Batiste, and hey - the song is good. The doc is kind of forgettable, but he's really interesting, and this would put him one step closer to an EGOT, eh? 

Order I want them to win: 
"Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)" - Killers of the Flower Moon
"The Fire Inside" - Flamin' Hot
"It Never Went Away" - American Symphony
<big gap>
(tie) "What Was I Made For?" and "I'm Just Ken" - Barbie 

Order I think they will win: 
"What Was I Made For?"
"Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)" 
"The Fire Inside"
"I'm Just Ken" 
"It Never Went Away" 

But this one is really hard to call. There might be a late breaking switch in the vibe.  I might be back to revise my thoughts here. 

Also - the Ken part of Barbie was interminable. I know people love that movie. It was  - fine. 

Birthday Bloggage: Reflection Time!

Tomorrow, yikes!, is my birthday. I don't want to say I've been depressed, exactly, about this approaching birthday, but I have at least been nigh on discomfited, mostly along the lines of "why the !@#$%&* haven't I accomplished everything I wanted to have accomplished by now?!"

But that's never a really useful birthday-approaching thought process, now is it?

So I decided to give myself some good advice: "Accentuate the positive!" (so original, I know), and to take said good advice from myself, that is to say, to think about things that I DID do during the past year.

Some things I did while I was (*) years old:

• Worked on the writing of three new books -- yes, I now have three books in active progress.
  Negative spin: I have so many works in progress and haven't finished any of them.
  Positive spin: I have put into action THREE new book ideas and made progress on all of them! 
• Wrote a bunch of songs.
  Negative spin: What am I going to do with them? And they might all be terrible.
  Positive spin: Holy shite I've been writing songs! Like, lots of songs! I've discovered this whole new part of myself over the past nine months. It's incredible and I seriously don't know what to make of it, but I'm digging it. 
• Traveled all around the Midwest and even some other parts of the U.S., with no small number of road trips during the last year, having driven to: Iowa (twice), Nebraska, Wisconsin (several times), Michigan, Indiana, and we mustn't forget St. Louis for the total solar eclipse which was AWESOME and, related to the point above, was the genesis of the first song I wrote, an eclipse metaphor about the universe/love/life that just kind of poured out of my brain while I was sitting on the highway in post-eclipse traffic trying to drive back to Chicago.
  Negative spin: I didn't get to go on the Habitat for Humanity trip to Prince Edward Island I'd been planning to attend. Positive spin: So f-ing what? I got to see family, friends, three weddings, and the super-cool eclipse event that was apparently the opening of a new chapter in my life. 
• Lost weight - I finally shed all those back-in-the-U.S.A pounds.
  Negative spin: Don't really have one. Except that so many of my clothes are too unwearably big, ha! 
• Took even more classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music aka my second home these days, adding to my regular weekly guitar class several more including guitar fingerboard theory, vocal techniques (twice), songwriting (see above!), and perhaps foremost in my joy the Modern Country Ensemble, which I enjoy so thoroughly that I am now taking it for a fifth session in a row. It is a joy and a treasure, and every sixteen weeks we perform a real live gig. My Monday nights at the Old Town School are such a given, and now Tuesdays too...
  Negative spin: I'm busy. Positive spin: I love it. 
• Became a regular volunteer at the Old Town School of Folk Music, which enables me to afford everything I just mentioned in the previous point.
  Negative spin: Yup, really busy. Positive spin: I love it. 
• Made new friends. Building community is hard enough when adults stay put, and I gallivant about the world so much that I may have had it even harder, plus I actually really need solitude and seriously carve out time each week to be alone, but whether it was the whole staying-in-one-place-for-three+-years thing, or the whole hanging-out-with-music-people and hanging-out-with-books-people and hanging-out-with-yoga-people things, I have definitely made actual new friends during the past year, which is interesting and nice. I mean, I'm disgusted with so much of humanity (negativity!) that it's rather nice if rare when I find humans I like (positivity, check it!) 
• Finished my Prez Bio reading up through Dubya, which technically is the completion of my Prez Bios reading project, which you'll recall was launched during Dubya's administration and was called Reading a Biography of Every President In Order, To See Where We Went Wrong. Of course, since then we have gone even wronger, and I am going to also read books about Obama (after which point the presidency dies and my project dies with it so don't you even dare suggest...) but I did technically make it to the "end" of what I set out to do. Finally!
  Negative spin: What took me so long? Positive spin: I did that! 
• Speaking of books, some of the great ones I read this past year: A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk by John Doe et. al., Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee, Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Enlightenment by Robert Wright, American Plays of the New Woman ed. by Keith Newlin, and La vida util de Pilo Polilla  by Vivian Mansour Manzur, along with a bunch of other good and some not-so-good ones, AND I recently led in my local store the book group discussion of The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer, which was the inaugural selection of the Barnes & Noble nationwide book club. 
• Found interesting English/ESL teaching work with some non-profits, mostly teaching immigrants, which led me to discover how much more enjoyable it is to teach these classes as opposed to the for-profit school for which I'd been working (and which I swear drove me to drink) the previous couple of years here in Chicago. That was interesting to learn.
  Negative spin: I seriously didn't want to go back to the classroom at all... Positive spin: Work. Work earns money. Work accomplishes things. Work it. 
• Speaking of work, at all three of the part-time jobs that I had one year ago and still have, I have had my accomplishments recognized with different positions/training/new responsibilities kind of things. Negative spin: They weren't promotions to full-time massive-money-making career ops. Positive spin: Employers recognize that I am smart and do things.

And ya know, those are just a.) the easily listable things b.)that I'm willing to discuss on a public blog. I have also done other things on philosophical, personal, introspective, and psychological levels that either aren't as quantifiable or easy to notate or don't really need to be delineated here or whatever. But my point is - it was quite a year, now that I stop to think about it.

AND I saw Indigo Girls perform four times during it, plus Emily Saliers' solo show. So there. Not to mention dozens of other bands and singers, and totally I didn't mention how much new music I came to know about because of Spotify. I even succumbed to Spotify Premium this year. Consider me thoroughly Spotified. . 

AND I saw a bunch of good movies. 

AND I spent so much quality time with my kittens like you would not believe. 

AND I de-cluttered my closet and got rid of clothes I don't wear anymore and got rid of some other stuff around the house, too.

AND I continued to discover new restaurants and happy hours and hiking (walking) spots around Chicago and to look at the Lake on a regular basis. 

So although I did not in fact really conquer life, the universe, and everything in the ways I had planned to do... I did other things instead! 

Let's see what the next year brings. 

Twelve Days of Oscars, Day 10: Animated Feature and Visual Effects

I was very nearly thwarted on my way to seeing the film that is my pick to win one of these categories! Specifically, I was trapped in an elevator for a few minutes. (Not knowing, of course, as one never does when the elevator fails to function correctly, whether it would be a mere few minutes.) I was in the parking garage at the cinema and the elevator went to the ground floor where I needed to get off but the doors opened just an inch or so and then stayed stuck, unmoving, unable to be moved. I couldn't push or pry the door open from inside. It opened that inch or so and then just sat, stuck. Definitely not enough room to get any leverage or squeeze through. It was trippy, and I didn't feel particularly scared, as first of all I had my phone in my hand, and secondly there was an emergency call button right there on the panel, which I used to speak to a man who promptly sent help. But. My initial thought was that, oh no, I was now going to be late to see Coco!

Animated Feature: The Breadwinner, The Boss Baby, Coco, Ferdinand, Loving Vincent

Visual Effects: Blade Runner 2049, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, War for the Planet of the Apes

And indeed, after my elevator misadventure I was just a hair late getting into the Coco showing, but I could tell it was still the very beginning, with the kid voiceover narration introducing his family and his background. Let me just say, Coco is fantastic and deserves all the accolades it has been getting. Until that fateful elevator day when I saw it, I wanted Loving Vincent to win an Oscar. I absolutely adored Loving Vincent. It's unique and brilliant, and it's about my boy Vincent! (Van Gogh) The film is, as I understand it, painted. The process of painting animation is explained here, and it ends up looking really, really cool - Vincent's paintings, alive and fluid, telling his story. It was magical and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I was sure it deserved the Oscar. 

Then I saw Coco and thought - uh-oh. 

I really, really, really wish they could tie. It's the most fervently I've ever wished for an Oscars tie, or a tie for anything, really. 

Coco  is Pixar magic, and this year the magic tells a vibrant story set in Mexico Día de Muertos land. It's a boy who just wants to play guitar and release the music inside him who is thwarted by his family. I don't even want to describe the plot, because it's so much more than that, and the story hums and zips along as he wanders to the land of the dead. It's thrilling, touching, and spectacular. If it was any other Pixar film beating Loving Vincent, I'd be angry. If it's Coco, I understand. I seriously think if I was an Academy voter this year I would try to find one person to vote for one and I'd vote for the other, and encourage everyone I knew to do the same thing. 

As for the other nominees?  I didn't see The Breadwinner (really want to), and I really don' know that I'll make it to The Boss Baby, which is by all accounts terrible, and which is my absolute last priority on the checklist of all the nominated flicks. After the ceremony, I probably will lose interest  in checking that one off. I did see Ferdinand, and found it weirdly traumatic. It's about bulls who want to excel at bullfighting so as to avoid going to the slaughterhouse, who don't yet know that murder awaits them either way, but it's all talking animals/crazy characters/jolly times, so it's this kind of disconnect between the brutal truths of the plot and the song and dance and games you're watching. It was hard for me to experience. 

But Coco and Loving Vincent  are better films, seriously. 

As for the visual effects in otherwise "real" live action movies, I've seen three and a half nominees there: Blade Runner 2049, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Kong: Skull Island, and half of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Haven't yet got around to War for the Planet of the Apes - which, by the way, I hear is fantastic. But how are the visual effects? I don't know. Guardians...2's plot was so not interesting to me that even as I was watching (half) of it I kept forgetting what was happening, but it all did look really cool. Star Wars is, well, Star Wars. I might root for Blade Runner 2049 here, because I think that movie pulled off every visual thing that it did wonderfully. Kong: Skull Island was ridiculous, but enjoyably ridiculous, and you kind of believed that these various creatures and island things were interacting with the characters, so it's definitely no slouch in this category. 

What to do, what to do. 

My mother used to ask me, when I would rant about this or that person I "hated" (like, an annoying celebrity, or George Dubya, or whoever) versus some other awful person, "Whose elevator would you rather be stuck in?" It really makes you think. Like, Dubya is terrible, but you'd rather be stuck in his elevator than Charles Manson's, right? Whose elevator would you rather be stuck in, Anne Hathaway or James Franco? O.J. Simpson or Caitlin Jenner? Trump or Putin? Like such. Well, I really did get stuck in an elevator this week trying to see my animated features, and maybe that's a helpful way to make Oscar picks: which elevator would I rather be stuck in, one playing Coco on an endless loop, or Loving Vincent? 

That's actually quite hard, but it would probably be the latter because it's kind of calmer. What about a Blade Runner 2049 elevator or a Kong: Skull Island? Definitely either of those over the Star Wars: The Last Jedi elevator. 

Picks!

Animated Feature: PLEASE can we have a tie? I'll vote for my pick, Loving Vincent, and you vote for what I think will win, Coco. 

Visual Effects: Blade Runner 2049, I think, is my pick. And I think that either it or maybe the ...Apes will win? 

Previous Day of Oscar:
Day 9, Animated Shorts and Live Action Shorts

Twelve Days of Oscars, Day 8: Original Song and Makeup/Hairstyling

What do *these* two categories have to do with each other? you might be asking yourself. I think a better question would be, how intertwined is success in these categories with the greatness of the film? And my answer to that question is.... not at all.

Both Original Song and Makeup/Hairstyling (which was pretty much just "Makeup" until, like, five minutes ago, in the scheme of things) are these weird categories that can totally 100% merit an Oscar nomination while just being part of abjectly ridiculous, terrible films. And even if you're not hating on the films, subjectively, you can acknowledge, objectively, that they are not relevant to any part of the Oscar discussion other than these two categories. Seriously. This is a thing that happens. That is totally a thing that can, and does, happen. Let's check out the nominees:

Makeup/Hairstyling: Victoria and Abdul, Darkest Hour, Wonder
(and by the way, see, only three nominees? it's totes one of those weird categories that just does whatever the eff it wants)

Original Song:
"Mighty River" - Mudbound
"Mystery of Love" - Call Me By Your Name
"Remember Me" - Coco
"Stand Up For Something" - Marshall
"This Is Me" - The Greatest Showman

Seriously - these movies. The songs can exist separately from them, or they can be an important part of the movie, but they're never really, truly related to the greatness of the flicks like other categories are. OK, for a second I forgot that I even saw The Greatest Showman, by the way, which I absolutely did. It was weirdly entertaining and fun to watch, despite being objectively kind of not great, the exact opposite of The Florida Project, which was MISERABLE to watch but acknowledged by me to be "good" - or, well done, anyway. So, that song from The Greatest Showman was all right, I guess, but I didn't love it. Confession time: I haven't seen Marshall yet, so I'm not 100% equipped to judge. But. Is this category Coco's to lose? Or does "Mighty River" have a chance? I loved Mudbound. I'm cool with it winning here.What about the song from Call Me By Your Name, though? I don't know that that film, which I like lots, is going to win anything...

Clearly, another hard-to-pick category. Seriously, this is a category, though, in which I legit don't care if I don't check off seeing all the films; for example, when some Fifty Shades of  nonsense was nominated for Original Song a couple of years ago I was like, "NO thanks! Goodbye! Not completing the checklist this year!" Yeah. Don't care.

As for Makeup, do we all remember that Suicide Squad  won this category last year?

I haven't seen Wonder yet, but it could be triumphant here. So could Darkest Hour, I suppose, more so than Victoria and Abdul.. Since I haven't seen what they did in Wonder, I'm not really equipped to judge this small category.

So we'll leave Day 8 at that: two categories that include one-off nominees pretty much every single year and linger at the bottom of my priority checklist.

Will we get good performances of the nominated songs this year? What do you think?

Twelve Days of Oscars, Day 1: Sound Mixing and Sound Editing

Welcome to the Twelve Days of Oscars! That's right, we're just twelve days away from my favorite special occasion of the year, the Academy Awards. Let's spend these last twelve days of Awards Season having a look each day at some of the nominees! This is not even close to a judgment-free space. Laissez les opinions rouler!

First, a brief check-in: how am I doing this year with my progression through the checklist of nominees? Well, as of the day the nominations were announced (another special occasion - I always take that morning off work) I had seen 9 of the feature-length films with 33 still to go, plus I had seen none of the shorts (five each for Animated, Documentary, and Live Action shorts). As of this writing today, I have now seen 25 of the feature-length films with 17 more to go. Progress! I also still have to see all the shorts, but the Live Action and Animated have only just arrived at Landmark Century Centre this week, while the Documentary Shorts come to Music Box starting this weekend, so those will be attended to over the next week or so. (Those are Chicago-specific references, and obviously peeps elsewhere will find them unhelpful. But you know. Check your local listings, eh.)

Right then. Let's begin with two categories that are related to the point of being indistinguishable for many an Oscar pool ballot-filler-outer, and which this year are EXTREMELY closely related in that they have the exact same five nominees. I refer, of course to Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.

Sound Mixing: Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Sound Editing: Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Most years, those categories have three or four of the same nominees and we can try to use the one or two different noms to help our friends understand the difference between the two categories. Not this time! But this does make it exciting to maybe place a side bet on whether the same one will win both awards with the exact same competition... 

To review, sound mixing is basically the soundscape of the film - the final mix that you hear, the levels of everything, a kind of overall masterpiece of finessing the sounds. Sound editing can be thought of kind of as sound effects - what sounds did they make and create to put into this movie? Yes, both categories do post-production work, but they're different jobs. Even though this year they are the exact same nominees.

I don't feel particularly passionate about these categories in general, even though I have done my share of audio work in the past, both in live theater and in radio jobs, but I appreciate them, plus I've seen all of the (same!) movies nominated in them, which is why I began with them today, this first of the Twelve Days of Oscars. So, let's consider.

I'm immediately eliminating Dunkirk from contention for Sound Mixing because I spent a great deal of my time watching that flick asking, "What did he say? What? Huh? I couldn't hear. I couldn't understand."  (Note: duh, I was watching it at home on DVD and would never dare to utter those or any other words out loud in a theater and neither should you, obviously.) On the other hand, Dunkirk had a lot of Sound Editing and effects that might deserve an award.

The Shape of Water has a really good chance of winning these, especially if it's going to win a bunch of other stuff, too, like Directing and Screenplay and - who knows? - maybe Best Picture. I personally find the film to be visionary and well done but so not my thang at all, but that's nothing against the Sound Mixing chances of it. Sound Editing, though? I don't think it was that special.

Blade Runner 2049 and Star Wars: The Last Jedi are interesting to consider here. They're such big, bold action flicks that are very much made of their cool effects, not just in sound and visuals but in building alternative worlds to immerse us in for two hours. Are viewers jaded because however many Star Wars films later we just expect it to be well done at this point, dismissing the Sound Editing skill in making sounds for all those spaceships, fake planets, lightsaber fights, and the like? What about the many different life forms/A.I./technology bits of Blade Runner 2049 that were rendered so realistically as they spoke to us?

Baby Driver, which is a bit of a different ride, does what I thought were stellar, emotionally magical things with the music and remixes woven throughout it both as sound effects and plot points. It definitely has an intriguing and I thought fantastically successful soundscape, and that is why I'm hoping it wins here.

So, I think  Baby Driver is my pick for Sound Mixing, and what the heck, Blade Runner 2049 for Sound Editing. If nothing else, I will defiantly keep reminding everyone these are two different awards and do my part by picking two different movies!  No, seriously though - I'm not saying it's wrong to want the same movie to win both of these. But I do have two different picks.

What do you think? What struck your ear when you watched the five films nominated in these two categories?

Half Birthday Checkup

November 13th is my half birthday -- six months since my actual birthday, the halfway point of this particular year of life -- so I decided it is a good time to check in with my goals and the things I was thinking about last May that I wanted to accomplish during this year.

I'm super into both New Year's Day resolutions AND new birthday year resolutions. I love the symbolic calendar-induced fresh start and I love making plans and lists and figuring out all the things I want to do. Careful readers of this blog/people who know me well understand that I tend to enjoy and excel at planning FAR more than executing, which is admittedly problematic...and which is part of what necessitates this half-year, half birthday check-in. 

I am well aware that there are many of you out there who scoff at New Year's resolutions and the like, with retorts such as "It's just a day on the calendar. You can set goals any day of the year. You can make changes any time."  Well, that's exactly right. So, do you? When you show me your awesome list of "March 8th resolutions" or "random Friday in September resolutions" and all you've done to achieve them, then you can feel accomplished. In the meantime, why make fun of my new calendar year and new birthday year dates? 

Anyway, today we are going to check in by opening up the journal and seeing what sorts of things I wrote last May 12th, 13th, and 14th, i.e., the day before, day of, and day after my birthday. Scary stuff, opening past journals, especially when they contain stream-of-consciousness morning pages, as these do. But, let's see what we find!

On May 12th I said that I wanted to:
- Heal our dying houseplant.  NOPE. FAIL. I re-potted it and everything and it just ended up dying and I felt sad because Brian and I got it a long time ago together and it has moved with us a bunch and now it's dead. 

-Go to five High Points this summer.  NOPE. FAIL. Totally took about sixty-five other road trips though (I'm exaggerating, but not by much) that are the main reason this goal got pushed aside. 

-Do 5Ks in June, July or August, and September, and then a November Turkey Trot. PARTLY ACCOMPLISHED, PARTLY FAILED. Could still do a Turkey Trot 5K and am eyeing the Santa Hustle.
-Go see more live music and shows. HEY! I FOUND ONE! ACCOMPLISHED! That's all I'did all summer, it felt like. And has somewhat continued through the fall. 

Then, on my actual birthday, the 13th, I was apparently way more into musing about the past than looking ahead, with paragraphs about the last birthday I went out to dinner with both of my parents, a digression into if/when/how my journey out of being a churchgoer would have been different if I had gone to Amherst, Oberlin, or Yale, as I wanted to do, and then this gem: "So many regrets. But how can we know what to regret?"  So that was my birthday head space, yikes! 

As for what I thought about doing in the year to come, I wanted to:
-"Read and read and read"  NOPE. I have not been reading much this year AT ALL and it sucks and that's how we all know something is wrong.
-Succeed at my Habitat fundraising. YES! ACCOMPLISHMENT!  Except then I didn't get to go on the October build and will be doing a Habitat trip next spring-ish instead, but I did raise the money for Habitat. Yay, Habitat. 

-Stay on track paying off credit cards. UM. NO. Unless paying health insurance premiums on one's credit cards counts as sound financial strategy? No? Huh. Shame, that. 

I did enjoy my birthday this year, though. We had a private yoga practice in the park, led by one of my favorite Chicago yoga teachers, with me and a couple friends, and then a group joined for dinner at our beloved neighborhood bar and grill spot for a birthday book swap. Maybe that cheered me up a bit for the next day's journaling? Let's see what I had to say on the 14th....

Regarding birthday yoga: "I am so grateful to the ladies who came and I feel so much gratitude to the universe, the sunshine, and the beautiful expanse of blue sky that was over my head - incredible."  Wow! That's a better mood. A little hippie-dippy, even. And, any goals, there, older and wiser Linda? 

-Be a better friend and do better at maintaining friendships.
-Plan a summer barbecue.
-Hang out with people enjoying life and just being. 

-"Every day I want to read read read" cropped up again.
-And then this articulate sentence with my plan for the year: "Write read yoga guitar baseball music." Which may make you think, "Wasn't she doing that anyway? Aren't those things always what she's doing?" Well, yes. Which tells me that over my introspective birthday weekend I didn't think I was living enough of my life. 

Looking at this last list, I'd give myself a solid two and a half accomplished. Actually probably three, but that's one plus one plus half plus half, not one plus one plus one...  (My real friends got that allusion to Clue, right??!?!)  

It would seem that in the next six months of this particular year of my life, in order to meet all my goals, I need to read (read read read read), pay off credit cards, visit more state high points, finish my "Five More 5Ks" plan, and be a better friend. Well. Let me get right to it. 

But I can't resurrect the dead houseplant. I'm sorry. Bringing things back from the dead is decidedly not in my job description.