The run-up to the OSCARS 2023

[Chris Knipp]

The run-up to the OSCARS 2023

AFI and Golden Globes (The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, HFPA) and other awards nominations are being announced.

See the article "‘The Banshees Of Inisherin’ leads 2023 Golden Globe nominations" by Orlando Parfitt in Screen Daily today (12/12/22) on the Golden Globes nominations. THE BANSHEES OF INISHIRIN leads. The Golden Globes to increase diversity has doubled its number of voters, adding 103 people. The Golden Globes ceremony will be Jan. 10, 2023. Didn't like the original AVATAR but have to admit the new one looks rather cool in trailers.

The Golden Globe Film category nominations were:

Best Drama
The Fabelmans
Top Gun: Maverick
Elvis
TÁR
Avatar: The Way of Water

Best Musical or Comedy
Babylon
The Banshees Of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Triangle Of Sadness

Best Director - Motion Picture
James Cameron - Avatar: The Way of Water
Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Baz Luhrmann - Elvis
Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin
Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans

Best Motion Picture – Animated
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Inu-Oh
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Turning Red

Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language
All Quiet On The Western Front
Argentina, 1985
Close
Decision To Leave
RRR

Best Actor, Drama
Austin Butler - Elvis
Brendan Fraser - The Whale
Hugh Jackman - The Son
Bill Nighy - Living
Jeremy Pope - The Inspection

Best Actress, Drama
Cate Blanchett - Tár
Olivia Colman - Empire of Light
Viola Davis - The Woman King
Ana de Armas - Blonde
Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans

Best Actor, Musical or Comedy
Diego Calva - Babylon
Daniel Craig - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Adam Driver - White Noise
Colin Farrell - The Banshees Of Inisherin
Ralph Fiennes - The Menu

Best Actress, Musical or Comedy
Lesley Manville - Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
Margot Robbie - Babylon
Anya Taylor-Joy - The Menu
Emma Thompson - Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Brendan Gleeson - The Banshees of Inisherin
Barry Keoghan - The Banshees of Inisherin
Brad Pitt - Babylon
Eddie Redmayne - The Good Nurse
Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Angela Bassett - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Kerry Condon - The Banshees of Inisherin
Jamie Lee Curtis - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Dolly De Leon - Triangle of Sadness
Carey Mulligan - She Said

Best Screenplay
Todd Field - Tár
Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin
Sarah Polley - Women Talking
Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner - The Fabelmans

Best Original Score
The Banshees of Inisherin
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Women Talking
Babylon
The Fabelmans

Best Original Song
“Carolina” - Where the Crawdads Sing
“Ciao Papa” - Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
“Hold My Hand” - Top Gun: Maverick
“Lift Me Up” - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
“Naatu Naatu” - RRR

[Chris Knipp]

AFI's top ten (foreign films excluded) were:

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
ELVIS
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
THE FABELMANS
NOPE
SHE SAID
TÁR
TOP GUN: MAVERICK
THE WOMAN KING
WOMEN TALKING

I'm going to watch THE WOMAN KING (now on Amazon Prime), and guess I have to watch NOPE (rental on multiple platforms) and want to watch WOMEN TALKING but it's not in theaters in this area yet, nor is AVATAR. As usual titles on the pre-Oscar lists contain movies we can't see yet. AVATAR starts showing locally this Friday (Dec. 15, 2022). Let me comment that saw BANSHEES (which is emerging as a top non-US awards nom favorite) on the big screen, but did not review it because I found it depressing. And frankly, repetitious. All the Martin McDonagh writing quality, excellent production and superb cast not withstanding.

[Chris Knipp]

Oscar Shortlist for International Feature Film and Documentary

(Most of my 2022 foreign favorites are missing including: HIT THE ROAD, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, A HERO, PARIS 13TH DISTRICT, ONE FINE MORNING, THE HAPPENING. I do want to see CLOSE, RETURN TO SEOUL, HOLY SPIDER, SAINT OMER, and CAIRO CONSPIRACY.)

Best Foreign

Argentina, ARGENTINA, 1985
Austria, CORSAGE
Belgium, CLOSE
Cambodia, RETURN TO SEOUL
Denmark, HOLY SPIDER
France, SAINT OMER
Germany, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
India, LAST FILM SHOW
Ireland, THE QUIET GIRL
Mexico, BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS
Morocco, THE BLUE CAFTAN
Pakistan, JOYLAND
Poland, EO
South Korea, DECISION TO LEAVE
Sweden, CAIRO CONSPIRACY

Documentary

ALL THAT BREATHES
ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED
BAD AXE
CHILDREN OF THE MIST
DESCENDANT
FIRE OF LOVE
HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG
HIDDEN LETTERS
A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS
THE JANES
LAST FLIGHT HOME
MOONAGE DAYDREAM
NAVALNY
RETROGRADE
THE TERRITORY

[Chris Knipp]

2022 films I watched and didn't review or may want to watch


EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

Watched:
ALCARRÀS (Carla Simón) (NYFF). Metacritic 87%. Watched but didn't review, so shapeless it's hard to describe, or enjoy.
RRR (S.S. Rajamouli), one of the talked about movies of the year, but, not looking for a tumultuous 3-hour Indian docu-drama, didn't finish. On Netflix.
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. (Daniels) Multiple category Oscar possibilities so I forced myself to watch. It leaves me cold, and is going to win big.
EMPIRE OF LIGHT (Sam Mendes). Watched in a theater, didn't seem worth reviewing.
NOPE (Jordan Peele). Many platforms. Watched, enjoyed, didn't review. Very clever but somewhat slight.

Want to watch:
ALL THAT BREATHES (Shaunak Sen) (NYFF) Important Indian doc I want to watch, coming 2023 on HBO. (Watched, from Mostly British: great! Superbly made and moving film.)
NO BEARS (Jafar Panahhi) (NYFF), definitely want to watch, now at Film Forum but inaccessible from where I am now.
ARGENTINA, 1985 (Santiago Mitre). Political thriller available on Amazon, watched, a bit conventional, but good. Won Best Foreign, Golden Globes.
CAIRO CONSPIRACY aka BOY FROM HEAVEN (Tarik Saleh). Thriller set at Al Azhar University in Cairo, want to watch, not yet available 2/23Pa.
BAD AXE (David Siev). Important doc, plan to check out on Amazon.
HOLY SPIDER (Ali Abbasi). METASCORE 68. Grim Tehran serial killer tale from Cannes Competition, might watch. But deterred due to the depressing subject.
JOYLAND (Saim Sadiq) Pakistani, dancer falls for trans woman. On Amazon, not yet watched
NOVALNY (Daniel Roher). Doc about Russian poison assassination attempt, on HBO.
Watched: an entertaining film with thriller qualities, as people say. Not my favoriate 2022 doc, though.

[Chris Knipp]

FROM METROPOLITAN, CHRIS EIGEMAN AS NICK, CENTER

Holiday watches, Christmas 2022:

A Whit Stillman trilogy

METROPOLITAN (1990)
BARCELONA (1994)
LAST DAYS OF DISCO (1998)

A perfect entertainment because these films are cozy, sophisticated, witty, and ageless and METROPOLITAN takes place over Christmas vacation with members of the preppy class attending dances and deb after parties in Manhattan. Stillman's dialogue is like if WASP preppies made a Woody Allen movie with script by Jane Austen. Everything comes out in fully framed sentences and paragraphs and is often very funny. BARCELONA, not quite so interesting, came out of Stillman's living in that Spanish city and is about a slightly older age group, beyond the deb parties. LAST DAYS OF DISCO finds Chris Eigeman, Nick in METROPOLITAN, a manager of a huge Studio 54-style discteque where drugs and money laundering are involved, but a beautiful young woman (Chloe Sevigny, then 24) is working with friends for a small publishing house. Stillman is an 'auteur' whose capturing of dry humor in sophisticated dialogue among the denizens of or refuges from the upper class is rather unique. Unfortunately, he has not been able to get the funds for many films, and his 2014 "COSMOPOLITAN" pilot for a six-part TV series about young sophisticated American expatriates in Paris did not lead on to the desired series. But he did in 2011 make DAMSELS IN DISTRESS, featuring Greta Gerwig, about a trio of young women at a college seeking to raise social and cultural standards; and in 2016, most recently, he made LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP, the logical outcome of his sensibility: the adaptation of a never-before-on-screen minor Jane Austen novel.

Rewatched (in part): Matt Reeves' THE BATMAN (R. Pattinson) for its broody gorgeousness.

[Chris Knipp]

The Golden Globes Winners.

BEST PICTURE, DRAMA: “THE FABELMANS”

BEST PICTURE, MUSICAL OR COMEDY: “THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN”

ACTRESS, DRAMA: CATE BLANCHETT, “TÁR”

ACTOR, DRAMA: AUSTIN BUTLER, “ELVIS”

ACTRESS, MUSICAL OR COMEDY: MICHELLE YEOH, “EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE”

ACTOR, MUSICAL OR COMEDY: COLIN FARRELL, “THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN”

SUPPORTING ACTOR: KE HUY QUAN, “EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: ANGELA BASSETT, “BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER”

DIRECTOR: STEVEN SPIELBERG, “THE FABELMANS.”

SCREENPLAY: MARTIN MCDONAGH, “THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN”

NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE: “ARGENTINA, 1985”

ORIGINAL SCORE: JUSTIN HURWITZ, “BABYLON”

ORIGINAL SONG: “NAATU NAATU,” FROM “RRR,” BY COMPOSER M.M. KEERAVANI AND LYRICIST CHANDRABOSE

ANIMATED FILM: “GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO”