Best Picture:
The Father – Florian Zeller brought his wonderful and moving play to the screen, about a proud but aging man raging against the dying of his light, and revealed himself to be an astonishingly good film director as well. The artistry brought here, from performances to visuals to design to story structure, should be seen, regardless of how Oscar ends up feeling about it.
“…an ingeniously wrought puzzle-box of environments, memories and emotions… the film has a good deal of humor woven into it… but still takes itself, and you, seriously enough to deliver some profound truths about where many of us, or our beloveds, may find ourselves eventually.”
Judas and the Black Messiah – the filmmakers here primarily came from a comedy and short films background; I think a lot of people are pleasantly surprised that this team turned out this genuinely dramatic movie. It’s a major league feature; artful, instructive, entertaining, revelatory and powerful.
“The film’s a bit stretched out – there’s a fantastic 90-minute movie here, but the film runs a touch past two hours… But this is a very good movie nonetheless, created by filmmakers who took a big leap of ambition… and nailed the landing.”
Mank – My personal favorite, but most viewers found David Fincher’s film excruciatingly fussy and, ultimately, not very likable. As an old-school film geek, though, I happily swam around in his profoundly noir-ish creation from beginning to end through multiple viewings.
“There’ll be a little too much bouncing around, and a few too many unfamiliar faces, for some in the course of the story, but of all the Oscar-contending films I’ve seen this year, I feel like this one aspired to the most, and achieved most of what it set out to do.”
Minari – a crowd-pleasing family chronicle about a Korean father struggling to make the best of farm life in rural Alabama for his family. There’s a lot to like here, but I think the economy of Lee Isaac Chung’s approach overall keeps it from being the film it could have been.
“Chung’s film displays an extraordinary amount of intelligence, empathy, good humor and gracious humanity without softening the rigors of starting over in a new place with some new ideas and putting a lot of familiar things at risk. Chung has seized on an insistent Steinbeck-ian tone here, and it pays off.”
Nomadland – everyone loves an upset, but I doubt that’ll happen here. This has been the consensus pick here for months now, and I have no real argument with that. Frances McDormand tosses the ball back and forth with her poignant but strong-willed real-life co-stars to create a unique ensemble success.
“Zhao is scrupulous about not presenting anything in the film in specifically social or political terms. Some of the institutionalized misery that comes out the other end of relentless western capitalism… is ripe for assessment, but Zhao zeroes in on the people and their particular circumstances… One can argue that Zhao should have been more forthcoming about these issues, but there’s no mistaking the elegiac tone of her film; you come away feeling like something is definitely dying – these people, a way of life, commonwealth, connectedness, the economy, this country.”
Promising Young Woman – like a few other films here dealing with racial injustices, Emerald Fennel’s film shows us quite plainly how much denial is involved with how Western society views sexual violence against women. Her film, and Carey Mulligan’s superb lead performance, combines dark humor and an unpredictable romance in the course of Cassie’s mission of instructive revenge against horny dopes, but the final scenes are devastating and quite brilliant.
“But just when you’re thinking the narrative isn’t committed enough, losing seriousness, or Fennell’s losing her nerve, she sets up a few vicious twists that validate Cassie’s righteous crusade while confirming our worst impressions of her targets. There’s some strong medicine delivered here, and not everyone will think it’s justified. But it’s all smartly structured and artfully presented…”
Sound of Metal – an undeniably compelling portrait of a reformed-addict musician dealt yet another seemingly insurmountable obstacle; the loss of his hearing. Riz Ahmed’s laser-focused performance is the draw here – the rest of the film tells an involving story, but in less-than-artful fits and starts.
“I had some issues with the narrative structure, and it’s alarmingly choppy and abrupt for having a running time a bit over two hours…, but the story is excellent, the performances are solid… and Nicolas Becker’s sound design is superb, uncannily and empathetically including us in Ruben’s sensory journey.”
The Trial Of The Chicago 7 – the raw material of the story, and much of what surrounds it, is undeniably important American history. Aaron Sorkin’s well-intentioned presentation thereof should be seen – it’s very good, don’t get me wrong – but a better director might have levelled out some of the clockwork contrivance and surface gloss that inevitably comes with his otherwise admirable writing pyrotechnics. Some of the best individual scenes of the year are here, but, ultimately, it doesn’t hold together very long afterwards.
“Sorkin’s made a clever and engaging chamber drama with and around this history, but he (and his 43 (!) producers) still fail to bring it up to its rightful historical scale.”
Best Picture:
Should win: Mank or Nomadland
Will win: Nomadland
Best Actor:
Should win: Riz Ahmed or Anthony Hopkins.
Will win: Chadwick Boseman.
Conspicuous in his absence: Delroy Lindo for Da 5 Bloods.
Best Actress:
Should win: Carey Mulligan or Andra Day (U.S. vs Billie Holiday suffers from an overlong and ramshackle structure, but Andra Day is wonderful.)
Will win: Frances McDormand or Viola Davis.
Best Supporting Actor:
Should and will win: Daniel Kaluuya. Not really supporting, and these two-nods-for-one-film nominations usually cancel each other out, but Kaluuya is great here. Chicagoans will be rooting for Paul Raci, and rightfully so.
Best Supporting Actress:
Should win: I’m rooting for Amanda Seyfried here, who’s radiant as Marion Davies in Mank.
Will win: Yuh-jung Youn’s turn in Minari is guileless veteran professionalism, and entertaining as well.
Best Director:
Should and Will Win: Chloe Zhao.
Periscope In The Bathtub 