AMC Best Picture Showcase Day 2

So just a few random thoughts on the Best Picture Selections this year. Last week we watched two films with Lucas Hedges back to back. He was in "Lady Bird" and "Three Billboards". Timothée Chalamet was in "Lady Bird" and today's "Call Me By Your Name".  Nick Searcy was in "Three Billboards" and "The Shape of Water". Today we had Bradley Whitford in back to back "The Post" and "Get Out". Finally Michael Stuhlbarg was in "The Shape of Water, "Call Me By Your Name" and "The Post". These actors have got to have great agents to get into the top pictures of the year not just once, but two and three times.

"Phantom Thread" and "The Post" were the two films I needed to catch up on, and while I admired them both, I don't see either of them as a likely winner in the big category. "Phantom Thread" lacks anybody likable in the cast of characters, and "The Post" is so traditional that it won this award two years ago when it was called "Spotlight".

Speaking of actors who appeared back to back in some of the films on the program, we had a historical event do exactly the same thing. "Dunkirk" was followed by "Darkest Hour" and it was almost as if Joe Wright's film was just another segment of the Christopher Nolan film. It's Title Card would read Parliament: Two Weeks.

I feel confident in my choice of "Dunkirk" as the best film of last year but I am not at all confident that the Academy will go along with me. 

Dunkirk   Christopher Nolan's film was the most visually impressive, forward moving, and meaningful film of the lot. Listening to the score and watching how he masterfully integrated three separate time lines into a single narrative with clever overlaps and great timing, I know that this was the best directing job this year. Nothing against Guillermo Del Toro, but this complex story, logistical nightmare and historical memorial is simple better constructed than the odd fish love story. This is a film that tells a real historical story that will last long after the fashion of the fairy tale set in a mythological era in U.S. history, is a charming oddity. 

Some people complain that the characters here are not well developed, that is true. This however is not a character piece but a prism on the events that were taking place during a military disaster that became a turning point in a manner that was most unexpected. 



Darkest Hour  This film was even stronger the second time I saw it. The first viewing I was overpowered by Gary Oldman's performance. He will surely be the winner in the acting category. I admired the film before but I have come to really respect it on this second encounter. Joe Wright manages to make a tale of political intrigue into a fascinating study of a character and the country who's character he came to represent for the duration of the war. The one clumsy moment is a scene set in an underground train car. The only reason it is clumsy is that it feels so distinct from everything else, like a deliberate movie moment. That shows that the rest of the movie does exist as something more than the typical fare.  But even that scene works emotionally because it bespeaks of a real sense of what the British people felt at the time. 





Call Me By Your Name  I am being a little facetious when I say this film is a pain in the neck. That's because in the first half I went to sleep and got a crick that is staining my muscles still. My least favorite of the nominees, this film is slow moving, meandering and confounding. I felt like I was listening to a play frequently, with dialogue written eloquently but sounding artificial. A couple of podcasters that I listen to love this film and especially the sequence with Michael Stuhlbarg as the father of Elio, consoling his son on the "special" friendship he had with Oliver. It ends on s deliberately false note when the Dad tells his son that he doesn't think that Mom knows about the nature of their friendship. The mom had just picked up a near weeping Elio at the train station and she dropped hints for the previous hour that she knew how special Elio thought Oliver was. When Mr. Perlman says he never had a relationship with anyone like Elio had with Oliver, we can believe him because he so obtusely ignores how insightful his wife is. This will probably win the Screenplay Award, and it shouldn't, if it takes the big prize I might yell loud enough to ruin my voice for a month.  

The Post  So this was the one new film we saw on day two. This has the phrase "Oscar Bait" pasted all over it. It features Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, a ton of high end supporting players and it was directed by Steven Spielberg. The subject matter concerns the fight of the press against preemptive shut down of news publication. It is a first amendment issue that was understandably important, yet at the same time it ignores some pretty egregious behavior. We can always applaud someone after the fact when their actions seem just and there was no blow-back,  but there were issues regarding the acquisition of the Pentagon Papers that probably still need to be discussed.  Spielberg and co-screenwriters Josh Singer and Liz Hannah, manage to make a bureaucratic legal process look and sound like a courtroom drama with some mystery tied in.  Singer in particular is working on familiar ground since he won an Academy Award two years ago for a very similarly structured newspaper story "Spotlight".

This is supposed to be a resistance film, about the Media vs. the President in a time when everyone wants to be standing up to the current administration. The parallels are not really there to give this much resonance. This is a two hour commercial for the Washington Post and the heavy handed feminist slant in some of the visuals makes it feel too much like a lecture at times. That said, it is well made and the John Williams score is excellent as usual. Because "Bridge of Spies" and "Spotlight" are just a couple of years old however, this feels like it is old territory and not quite as distinctive as it needs to be. 

Get Out  This one is the outlier. You rarely get a horror film nominated for Best Picture, but if you do, it is usually more of a big budget film. This Jordan Peele written and directed film seemed to come in under the radar, it made a huge splash, and it is getting some end of the year accolades. The intersectionality of this film is in keeping with all the film buffs who are much more woke than I am. I just enjoyed the twist and the characters in the film. Rod from TSA is a saving grace that adds more straightforward humor to the mix. Instead of a haunted house we get a upscale suburban plantation. The need for subtlety on the race subject is probably eliminated by the DNA of the movie. Being an outsider in an nearly all white environment makes Chris, our lead character played by nominated actor Daniel Kaluuya, mildly uncomfortable but also keenly aware of how different the culture he is visiting is. 

While most people will consider the "Sunken Place" to be the most horrifying image in the film, to me it is the silent auction with bingo cards. We still don't know what is going on, but the suggestion is truly awful. Seeing it for a second time, I could pay more attention to some of the interesting choices that were made. Grandma and  Grandpa are certainly clever twists, although it seems strange that for the duration of Chris being a guest, the force required to hold those characters would be counter-intuitive to the actual plan. The creepy factor also takes Chris a little too long to respond to. His buddy is right, and he should be listening to him sooner. There is an outside chance this could take the award, the voting system gives weight to the number of ballots a film appears on, and this would be a popular ad to the list but not necessarily high on the list. Should it when I expect to see some "Get Out" Memes that mine the fertile teen speak use of the terminology. 

As an aside, let me rant about the misquotes being used to decorate the entry way to the theater. Both "Cool Hand Luke" and "Jaws" are misquoted in the floor below. 

Call Me By Your Name

This film is getting a lot of praise for the performances of the two leads, Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet. It is a love story between an older man and a 17 year old boy, but Kevin Spacey is nowhere to be found. The pace of this film is leisurely to say the least. The story is set in Northern Italy during the summertime so there is plenty of lovely scenery to surround the two attractive leads as they engage in a protracted dance of "love that dare not speak it's name".  The nature of the romance is about the only reason I can think that the movie is set in 1983, except for the ubiquitous presence of the Psychedelic Furs.

The story meanders through a whole lot of plot points that end up going no where. Elio, the boy, gets nosebleeds. Don't worry, there is no terminal illness coming, it is simply an incident that has no bearing on the characters and their relationships, but it does allow the movie to add two minutes to it's running time. There is also a seemingly competing romantic interest for each of the young men. One is more developed than the other, but again, neither has much to do with the central relationship.

Michael Stuhlbarg and Amira Casar are Elio's parents. They are erudite, sensitive and well educated. They are the kind of family that sits together in the afternoon, and has Mom read out loud 16th Century literature, which she is translating from German for them, and which also happens to pose the exact philosophical question facing Elio at this moment. Should the Knight reveal his affection for a forbidden love?  This screenplay is too precious for it's own good. Near the end of the film, Professor Perlman has a long talk with his son, which reflects his deep understanding of romance, human experience and poetry. The words sound like they were composed with great care but they are delivered as if they are random thoughts that a warm hearted parent can trickle off the tongue at a moments notice.

In addition to the slow pace of the movie, and the erotic theme, there are two or three other clues to show you that this is the indie darling of the moment. There are at least seven company credits at the start of the movie, which are of course referenced then in the title. Three sections have the obligatory cruise through the countryside accompanied by an indie alternative pop tune that is slow and meditative. If you thought that Rooney Mara eating pie in "A Ghost Story" was the weirdest food moment you would get in films this year, well be prepared to be surprised by Chalamet and his peach.

The actors are fine. Armie Hammer is appropriately casually arrogant in the way a young American must be. He flexes and poses in all the right ways to get the girls in the story hot, and of course it has the same effect on the lead. Elio is an artist, musician and intellectual with a brooding demeanor that suddenly warms up in a much too unclear manner. Staring out the window and  saying nothing is visual but it does not reveal the inner needs of the young man. Some of the events that take place are more useful at doing so, but they are often randomly distributed and the movie never seems to develop and dramatic urgency until the last ten minutes. It was a interesting story, that was told in a loose manner. A few good performances can't overcome the issues with the screenplay however.