The animated features this year are pretty strong (strong enough that a perfectly delightful Frozen II got left in the dust). Not as strong as 2019 – where Spider Man: Into the Spiderverse was easily my favorite Oscar watch of the year –  but definitely no complete duds. If anything, I would say that the race is so tight that there are no clear winners. But because you came here for the hot takes, here is as much as I can muster on this year’s nominees – from most bad to least bad. But seriously, they’re all pretty good.

 

• How to Train Your Dragon: Hidden World (aka – How to Train Your Dragon 3) – Having not seen HTTYD 1&2 I expected to be pretty lost coming into the franchise so late, but they handled it pretty well for the stragglers and it held together fine as a stand-alone movie. I liked especially that Toothless looks just like my cat, and I straight-up ugly cried my way through the final scene (I am very easily manipulated by sentimental children’s movies). But for all its good-heartedness, I found it predictable and forgettable and am a little surprised to see it in the mix (seriously, I thought Frozen 2 was better and I also never saw Frozen 1).
• Toy Story 4 – I am always impressed when Pixar can find an innovative way to refashion the same characters and themes into a new story that is still fun to watch. It’s kind of like that episode of the Simpsons where Marge finds a discount Chanel suit and just keeps sewing it into different shapes to try and impress the rich ladies of Springfield (until it ultimately turns to shreds). I admire the innovation, but am still aware that I’m being served the same essential story every few years. You’re paces away from shreds, Pixar – quit now.
• Klaus – It’s nice to see a Christmas movie that is doing something different, and I found Klaus to be refreshingly new feeling – while still embracing the sentimentality that the best holiday movies require. Also, Jason Schwartzman, Rashida Jones, and JK Simmons made for a pleasingly quirky voice lineup that I could support. If I had kids, I might put Klaus in the traditional Christmas movie rotation – at least until they’re old enough to watch Scrooged.
• Missing Link – How was this movie not more popular? It seriously bombed at the box office, and frankly I’m can-I-speak-to-your-manager grade outraged about it. Laika is the gold standard when it comes to stop motion, and this movies looks SO GOOD in every single goddamn detail. Also, a sweet and fun story of a wayward Sasquatch feels more interesting than the standard kid’s fare (while still maintaining a wholesome central theme of finding a place where you can fit in even if you’re a weirdo). It was also legitimately funny and well cast (and I’m not normally a Zach Galifianakis booster).
• I Lost My Body – Public Service Announcement: This movie is not for children. More than anything I think that kids would be bored by it, but also there’s some graphic hand severing and themes of suicide. I do love to see animation used in “adult” movies, but I actually didn’t like the animation style of this one at all. It looked ugly and clumsy to me and the story was so bizarre right out of the gate that I expected to really hate it. Somehow tho, it sucked me in and spit me out a fan. I won’t do spoilers because you should definitely see this one, but the plot is smart and sweet and completely unexpected and you really feel like you’re along for the ride on an emotional and physical level. Also, big props for being the only animated film in this year’s lineup to have a non-white protagonist (don’t you argue with me that Bonnie from Toy Story 4 “might be” hispanic), and to realistically show people being poor without the “Little Match Girl” tragedy or “Little Princess” happy ending veneer. Ugly animation aside, I think this one will get the win (let’s say 75%) and it genuinely deserves it.

Don’t get me started on why I think the real golden age of cinema was when movies needed to be 90 minutes long to fit on a VHS tape. I’m a firm believer that the art of editing for time has been completely lost in the advent of the blu-ray. Any movie over 2 hours (which is most of them these days) gets an automatic eyeroll from me, and part of my overall quality judgment of any movie is how many times I check my watch – or in the case of The Irishman, pause the Netflix to see how much time is left.

Clocking in at 3 hours and 29 minutes, I’ve been dreading having to watch The Irishman since before it was even nominated. A coworker suggested breaking it up like a mini-series and watching it over a few days, which was a brilliant and useful idea that helped the medicine go down easier, but also posed the questions – where is the line between movie and mini-series? I feel like the Irishman absolutely crossed that line (and could have been much improved by a few well placed commercial breaks), but whatever. Apparently Martin Scorsese and the Academy insist that its a “movie”, so here we are.

I will say that I hated the Irishman less that I thought I would. I don’t love Scorsese or mob movies, so I started at a disadvantage, but it was an interesting enough story to carry me through (with frequent pausing for snacks and pee breaks). That said, there is absolutely NOTHING remarkable or award-worthy about this movie. It’s just a super straightforward screen version of a possibly-true book written by some mob guy who claims to have killed Jimmy Hoffa. Of course the Academy has boners for it because it stars all their dusty old favorite guys who only play mobsters (or watered down versions of mobsters). It’s like their favorite band got back together for a farewell tour. Both the director and the lead actors (Pesci, De Niro, and Pacino) are all in their late 70s and we’re all just really relieved that they got to do one last project together before one of them dies.

But don’t confuse this relief with award-worthiness. This movie was fine, but I didn’t find the acting or direction to be anything spectacular. In fact, Robert De Niro couldn’t have made a less convincing Irishman if he was wearing full Lucky the Leprechaun drag. Everyone did the thing that they always do just fine, and it was nice to see that Ray Romano is still getting work. Oh, and for some reason none of the women had any lines. I give it a solid C for effort – although it could have been a still-not-award-worthy but better movie (B+ even) by losing about an hour and a half worth of weight.

I give its chances of taking home the gold about 20%, but it’s sort of sweet that they wanted to give ole Martin one last pat on the back.

I’m not much for war movies, but 1917 was pretty ok. Much like Dunkirk before it, Sam Mendes took the “big war, small story” approach, which I much appreciate over bloody epic battles or tense displays of strategy. The production design was impeccable and a joy to watch, and the relative unknown lead actors (with appropriately haunted old-fashioned faces) wore the story just right. I’m not 100% sure if they were acting or just genuinely traumatized by what they were experiencing, but it’s unimportant. I only looked at my watch in the last half hour and I even got a little misty at the appropriate times.

 

Some gimmicky weirdness

The big thing about 1917 that is getting everyone so hyped (and 100% why the directoral Academy nod was given) is the whole “illusion of one continuous take” thing, and I’m just not on board. Which is interesting, because the same trick worked great for me with Birdman. But dreamlike timelines work in a movie that’s doing the magical realism dance – not so much with a hyperrealistic war film. The moments in 1917 where the gimmick of continuousness felt most unwanted is when the movie shifted into a sense of unrealness. It kicked me out of the story. The awkwardly compressed time, the too convenient blackouts and explosions… I was more consumed with finding the seams between scenes than I was at the plot itself.

About that plot

Too often, dramatic movies that are trying to be taken seriously go too hard with the tragedy (I hate it). 1917 wasn’t guilty of that, but just as bad/possibly worse are dramatic movies that tie up their sadness into a neat and satisfying bow by the end. If you look at 1917 too closely, it feels less like a war drama with a sensitive heart and more like a Hallmark movie that someone took out back and tried put down like Old Yeller. Weave in celebrity cameos by Dr. Strange, Hot Priest, and Mr. Fucking Darcy, and suddenly, it’s really just Love Actually  – but instead of running through the airport to stop his crush from getting on a plane and leaving before he can tell her how he feels, our protagonist is running through a battlefield to try and stop a doomed attack plan and tell his fallen friend’s brother that he died with honor. It’s all very noble and sweet, and couldn’t possibly have been more contrived if Rick Grimes showed up with cue cards to deliver the message himself. It wasn’t bad, exactly, but the acting and the cinematography deserved better than the script had to offer.

I liked it in the moment, but I don’t think 1917 is going to hold up in the long run – which means about an 85% chance of a Best Director win for Sam Mendes.

I should have known when this years “hot pick” for the Oscars was a 3.5 hour Scorsese epic parade of history’s favorite farty old men that it was a harbinger of bad decisions to come. Every single one of the movies I definitely don’t want to see made the 2020 nominations cut, unlike almost all of the ones on my list that actually looked interesting. Glad I leveraged my few weeks of ignorance to enjoy Hustlers and The Farewell before the the dark cloud of  “white guys having a hard time” moved in. Forecast for the next month is 100% chance of heavy eye rolling with a side order of falling asleep before the end credits.

Cue also this year’s roundup of “shocking Oscar snubs” articles – but don’t be fooled,  nothing here is shocking. The Academy is like ” We honored some black people last year! Wasn’t that enough?” And of course, as is tradition, most female directed (and driven) films were sent to the chum factory to make way at the big kids table for the menfolk. It’s still infuriating, but it’s not new.

Please (always) be reminded that the Academy Awards is not an accurate or valuable judge of film quality. Its only real value (beyond the fire red carpet looks) is to highlight the gender, race, and socioeconomic biases of some dusty old boomers whose taste in movies is roughly akin to that of adults who order off the children’s menu. Which is to say, bland and familiar. I know that there are a few good ones in the mix that don’t deserve my scorn (Little Women and Parasite, obvi). But I mourn the films that aren’t coming to my neighborhood now with their lack of Academy endorsement, and have plans to fully atone in February for what I am about to do. Queen & Slim, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Atlantics, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Clemency, The Souvenir (more complete list TBA)… I’m coming back for you!

Come play with us

In the meantime, if you’re interested in going on this ill-fated chicken nugget binge of an Oscar Sprint with me, misery loves company.

This jaunty button will download the official 2020 fillable Oscar Sprint spreadsheet™. That’s 53 mostly not-great movies (the shorts are usually ok!) to see before February 9th. If you’re Portland Area, the Nickelodeon has a bunch showing now and usually gets the Best Pictures noms back in if they have already gone. PMA Films also has all the shorts already on the calendar. Save for the doc and foreign categories, you should be able to Redbox or stream the rest.

Despite my stupid title for this review, Uncut Gems is a fantastically well made movie. I’m not sure if I “liked” it exactly, because it’s hard to like anything that beats you up and leaves you bleeding and naked in the trunk of a car. It’s 2 hours and 15 minutes of some of the most frantic, stressful, emotionally manipulative filmmaking that I have ever experienced, and now it’s 2 am and I’m UP because I have been mildly traumatized and my fight or flight reflex is still unwilling to deactivate. So maybe I love it?

With it’s hyper-up-close shooting style and aggressively too-loud soundtrack, Uncut Gems is essentially one big chase scene where the main character is in an endless tunnel desperate trying to outrun a boulder of his own bad decisions. Imagine not knowing if Indiana Jones gets crushed or not for over TWO HOURS. By the last 10 minutes of the movie I was plugging my ears and watching through the filter of my sweater the way I do when I’m waiting for a jump scare in a horror movie because they’d been waving Chekov’s goddamn gun around for so long I knew I could not emotionally handle the inevitable BOOM.

*insert 7 hours of sleep here*

For whatever reason, Uncut Gems isn’t showing up on many Best Picture prediction lists. I could insert a Seinfeldian “what’s the deal with” monologue about it here, but we know exactly what the deal is. Say it with me again… The Academy is old. The Academy is white. The Academy has really bad taste. I know the Safdie brothers are young and weird and the movie is a symphony of F-bombs, but there’s also something about it that feels legitimately fresh, and it’s a real bummer that the critics aren’t giving it the Oscar buzz that it deserves.

But let’s talk about Adam Sandler

Even more confoundingly so, the thing that IS getting Oscar buzz is Adam Sandler. Let me state for the record that I frequently enjoy Adam Sandler and will 100% give him props for commitment to a role that took way more stamina than the average 50+ comedian can generally muster. The yelling! The running! The straight up FREAKING OUT! He brought it all to the table, and he should be applauded for that. Can you give someone an Oscar for just not going into cardiac arrest in the middle of a clearly emotionally and physically punishing film shoot? If so, proceed.

On my way home from the movie I made a joke about Kevin Garnett’s star turn, and my husband came back with “yeah, he didn’t have to act either.” And he’s right. Howard Ratner isn’t as much of a stretch or a departure for Adam Sandler as the critics want you to believe. The MOVIE is the departure for Adam Sandler, but the acting is the same-old Sandler tuned to a different frequency. And it’s great casting, and it totally works, but if you can’t feel the the Happy Gilmore “ARE YOU TOO GOOD FOR YOUR HOME” energy here, then I don’t think you know what acting actually looks like.

Much like the Julia Robertses before him, Adam Sandler has a thing that he does/way that he is that people really love. You can put it in different costumes, send it to different locations and time periods, and change the tone from happy to sad – but it’s still the same thing. Adam Sandler knows how to flip his shit in any given setting (see also the Punch Drunk Love pudding incident), but the award for me goes to the Safdi Brothers for realizing how great he would be as this character. Sorry, Adam! Just kidding, you’re worth $420 million and I don’t feel bad for you at all.

I give Uncut Gems a 15% chance of nomination due to the Sandler-factor, but I just don’t think that the Academy farts will be able to see the genius in this one.

UPDATE: Snubbed. I’m reasonably furious.

Let’s be straight up here – I don’t love Cats the musical. In fact, I blanketly hate ALL Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. This is mostly thanks to my older sister who mainlined ALL the ALW throughout late 80s and early 90s, and who subjected me to them on continuous loop via the very thin wall separating our childhood bedrooms. She has since (mostly)  recanted this devotion, but the damage is done. HOWEVER, as much as I despise ALW, I do love a big, splashy, high-budget mess of a movie that is destined for spectacular failure. And much like the rest of the world, I entered into the cinematic Cats experience with the objective of basking in the warm glow of someone throwing cat ears on the Hindenburg. I was not disappointed.

Yes, Cats the movie is not good

Yes, you will Google “WTF is a Jellicle Cat” during the opening number and you will be disappointed and still ultimately confused by the answer.

Yes, this is absolutely T.S. Eliot’s fault and I hope he feels bad about it from beyond the grave.

And yes, Cats is completely plotless and all over the road like a story told by an overexcited toddler while trying to ride a bike for the first time.

But no, I’m not going to spend (too much) time trashing it in hopes of ending up on a Buzzfeed listicle of savage Cats tweets. Everything mean that can be said about Cats has already been said a thousand times in a thousand different ways. What I want to do here is solve the mystery of why this roster of A-list performers all doubled down on a movie that everyone knew the whole time was destined to be humiliating.

Here’s what you’re forgetting

On my way up the elevator a few days ago, I got into a conversation with a coworker about Cats that ended with him yelling “NOOOOOOOOOO, NOT IDRIS ELBA –  HE WAS PERFECT!” and then walking away. I too have never been more second-hand embarrassed for so many people simultaneously for such an extended period of time – and I could physically feel Idris plummeting in rank from my “Celebrities I’d Like to Fuck” list the minute he disrobed from his Macavity the Mystery Cat (not made up) trenchcoat. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN TO GOOD (and also hot) ACTORS?

Check the math

Although I was not able to unearth any photographic evidence, I am positive that Idris Elba has participated in at least one unfortunate production of Oliver! staged in a high school cafetorium. Confirmed by his Wikipedia page, our Mystery Cat started doing plays in high school which means that however white his teeth or pristine his bone structure (and it IS pristine), he is 100% guaranteed to be a theatre geek. And (I speak from experience), it isn’t a stink that ever wears off.

If you grew up belting along with (original cast) Phantom in your bedroom or practicing your Tony award acceptance speech in the bathroom mirror – it might also seem like a DREAM COME TRUE when an Academy Award winning (also drama nerd) director asks you to play the role of Rum Tum Tugger (also not made up) in a fabulous cinematic adaptation of your favorite ALW musical. In fact, it’s the role you’ve been waiting to play your whole career. Being a good actor in no way precludes you from having shitty taste in musicals. And as a person who once jumped at the chance to play Mr. Bumble opposite my sister in an extremely ill-advised cafetorium production of Oliver!, I totally get it. 

Cats is just a bad high school play with a really big budget – and that makes it sort of forgivable. It’s a joyful failure – the glossy CGI sequel to Waiting for Guffman that we’ve been waiting for. 

Before it’s release, Cats showed up on a variety of Oscar prediction lists – although I suspect its chances have plummeted precipitously since then. I give it about a 5% chance of nomination mostly because I know how hard they tried. Plus, but I bet they all had a super good time together at Denny’s after curtain call.

UPDATE: Can we really even call this a snub?

 

 

I normally just watch whatever I want up until the Oscar noms come out, recklessly confident that there will be enough crossover for me to (mostly) complete my list before the opening montage. But with this whole 2-weeks-earlier situation, I’m really panicking. I gotta bust out the strategery for the next few weeks if I want to come even close to total takedown for 2020, so I’m surveying the Vegas odds for likely candidates and hoping for the best. Fingers crossed that I didn’t watch The Lighthouse for nothing. Here’s the list I’m currently working from – which is a combo of the betting odds + these IndieWire predictions:

Movies I Want to Watch Immediately:

• Uncut Gems
• 1917
• Queen & Slim
• Dolemite is My Name
• The Farewell
• Jojo Rabbit
• Hustlers
• The Two Popes
• Clemency
• Toy Story 4
• Missing Link

Movies I Will Only Begrudgingly Watch (and why):

• The Irishman – Martin Scorsese, stop trying to tell me that this mini-series is a movie, it’s not. Also, I don’t like you much. 
• Marriage Story – Noah Baumbach is a bad director, fight me. 
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – I’m addicted to you (Quentin Tarantino), but I know that you’re Toxic.
• Richard Jewell – Who keeps letting racist grandpa get behind the camera?
• Bombshell – WHY IS THIS MOVIE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY A MAN?
• Judy – Another tepid biopic (see also Rocketman)… Do I have to?
• Joker – I’m done crying over the plight of sad, white, violent men. 
• Pain & Glory – Wow the plot of this seems so boring. 
• Frozen 2 – I did not see Frozen 1. 

Long Shots I Might See, but Probably Not:

• Rocketman
• Ford vs. Ferrari
• The Report
• Waves
• A Beautiful Day in the the Neighborhood
• The Aeronauts
• Dark Waters

Here’s hoping that at least half of these get snubbed! Although I suspect any and all snubbage will be committed only to films that are actually interesting. At least I can take the next two weeks of ignorance and squeak in a few more genuinely good movies. 2020 is already shaping up to be a real slog.

 

The Academy has a palate for heavy fare (can you get gout from overwrought movies?), and after the sprint I’m always pretty hungover and don’t want to watch anything with too much nutritional value for a while. The lists below represent only movies that I saw in theatres, and do not include anything that I RedBoxed or streamed. Probably not much for Oscar contenders on that list anyway, although I will say that Escape Room and The Hole in the Ground were both super solid low-impact (no torture or hyper-realistic violence) horror flicks, if you’re into that sort of thing.

2018/19 Oscar Sprint Movies (watched from 1/9/19 to 2/18/19 – hot takes here):

• The Favourite
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• Shoplifters
• Green Book
• Of Fathers & Sons
• Free Solo
• Can You Ever Forgive Me
• Cold War
• 2019 Oscar Animated Shorts
• 2019 Oscar Documentary Shorts
• 2019 Oscar Live Action Shorts

2019 Movies I Watched for Actual Fun (after shaking off the stink of Green Book)

* Might be nominated for 2019/20 (but probably just for technical stuff), **Likely will be nominated for 2019/20, ***Definitely will be nominated for 2019/20

• Won’t You Be My Neighbor N/A
• Us**
• Avengers: Endgame**
• Booksmart*
• Detective Pikachu
• Spider-Man: Far From Home*
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
• IT Chapter II
• The Lighthouse**
• Parasite***
• Knives Out**
• Cats*
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker*
• Little Women***

I’m surprised to see so many movies on this list with at least vague Oscar expectations, although what you can actually extrapolate from this data is that Hollywood really  fell down on the haunted house movies this year (it’s the thing I watch when I’m not chasing after the Academy). Despite the relative quality of this list, I’m very worried about how short it is. The Oscar broadcast got bumped up a full 2 weeks this year (last year they were 2/24, and this year they are 2/9) which gives me LESS THAN A MONTH after nominations (1/13) to get my shit together and see all these films. Feeling completely out of shape for this year’s sprint. Fingers crossed that they just nominate Parasite for every award in every category and call it a day. I’ve already got the panic sweats about having to watch all 3 hours of The Irishman.