The OSCARS 2021

[Chris Knipp]

ALAN S. KIM AND STEVEN YEUN IN MINARI

Johann:
Mank is the logical cinephile's choice, a celebration of cinematic complexity recreating a memorable, generous period of Hollywood production.

Other titles in the list also have virtues of their own.

I go always by what moves me most.

Mank dazzled me but left little emotion and has faded from my mind and heart.
Let's look at the other Oscar candidates. ]

Best Picture
The Father
Judas And The Black Messiah
Mank
Minari
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
Sound Of Metal
The Trial Of The Chicago 7

Some indeed may be most moved by The Father, touching as it does on the sadness of an old man losing his touch on memory and functionality, however I found it manipulative of our emotions.

I think we can dismiss Sound of Metal and Promising Young Woman. The first approaches a too special world it cannot quite reach, that of the deaf; the second hits on a hot concern, sexual harassment, but even if you grant the excellent Carey Mulligan's casting as right, the whole movie seems fake and forced.


Nomadland is overhyped, for what reason I don't know (accidents or distribution and promotion?) which bring out that it too, despite its apparent seamlessness and authenticity, is in its own way artificial. The plunking down of a very famous actress among a lot of "real" people to jazz up a story about semi-homelessness was a shrewd or lucky move on Chloe Zhao's part and I'm happy for her, but the whole thing feels totally false to me, and frankly not all that interesting.


The Trial of the Chicago 7 I like a lot: I'm such a big Aaron Sorkin fan I will forgive him almost anything and the casting is fun, the subject an essential moment in modern American history. It's just that this seems more like a great slice of TV than a movie movie. It lacks cinematic qualities.

Which leaves us with my two hands-down favorites, Judas and the Black Messiah and Minari. The acting in Judas is tremendous, the cast, director, and most of the writers are black, the subject matter is even more crucial to America's current concerns than the other thematically "relevant" films on the list.

But Minari is the film that I anticipated most eagerly and the one that moved me the most. Its subject, a little Korean family making its way in midwestern America, is a new and important one. Its director and actors, everyone involved, is working as if it matters more than their life itself. This is a deeply meaningful and beautiful film.

And so Minari is my first choice, Judas and the Black Messiah my strong runner-up.



DANIEL KALUUYA (CENTER) AS FRED HAMPTON IN JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH