The Best Films of 2023

Martin Scorsese, left, Lily Gladstone, and Robert DeNiro all received Oscar
nods for Killers of the Flower Moon. Some say Leo DiCaprio, right, was snubbed.

It's been a while since I've posted here, and it feels good to be back, even if only for a brief visit. I didn't write about movies last year because I simply missed too many of them to make a credible commentator on what was worth viewing and why.

But, fortunately, this year is different; though I still missed some important films (I've listed those at the end of this post), I find that I saw enough of the Academy's Best Picture contenders to be in a position to make an informed review. So, here goes.

A lot of people would say the race for Best Picture this year is a tight one, and I would agree. My own list has no single outstanding #1, and no 2023 release I've seen thus far has achieved the level required to get my highest rating of four stars. (That's not unusual - to give four stars, I have to believe the film was nearly perfect.) But four pictures this year got three-and-a-half stars from me, and that ain't bad. Plus, it's always possible I'll catch one later that meets the test. But, for now, here are my top picks, along with a few quibbles, of course ...

• Killers of the Flower Moon - Marginally my choice for #1, this film has been criticized by some for being too long. That's hogwash! A film can be too long at ten minutes (if it stinks), or not long enough at three hours. In my theatrical viewing of this near-masterpiece, the time flew by, as a nuanced and complex story was told extremely well. The acting is superb - even incorporating spoken Osage dialogue by the three leads, all of whom learned the language for their parts - and the visuals are riveting. An unnecessary and distracting cameo by director Martin Scorsese right near the end dimmed it slightly for me. But Lily Gladstone is so subtly brilliant as the hub around which this wheel revolves, if she doesn't get the Oscar for female lead, I'll be shocked. Pee first, then see it. (image at top of this post)
• Anatomy of a Fall - A truly original thriller/mystery organized around a family that shares three languages (German, French, and English), with a brilliant performance by its female lead, Sandra Huller, who has been rightly nominated for an Oscar. I've seen zillions of foreign films, but never one that handles the multiplicity of languages in an international family so fluidly and poignantly. The French/German couple speaks English at home as a compromise - to me, this says a great deal about our changing world and, in the context of the film, about their troubled marriage. (image at bottom of this post)

• 

  Gael Garcia Bernal is brilliant in Cassandro.

  Cassandro - This may be the best recent movie you've heard nothing about, but don't dismiss it. Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal masterfully portrays the real-life, gender-bending Mexican wrestler Cassandro, who turned his disadvantage into success in the ring as an "exotico." I'm straight, white, American and male, and don't care much for wrestling - but I absolutely loved this touching, hilarious, and life-affirming film about a gay Mexican wrestler.
• The Holdovers - No surprise here, it's gotten plenty of attention, all of it well deserved. At first, I was reluctant to praise this film too much, because I myself lived in a similar setting (a New England prep school) for four years, and would have a natural bias to enjoy the story - but it seems audiences and critics everywhere agree that it's first-rate, especially due to superb acting by its trio of stars: Paul Giamatti (always terrific), Da'Vine Joy Randolph in a breakout performance that earned an Oscar nod, and Dominic Sessa in a terrific debut. (see image above at left)

  

  American Fiction features an all-star cast of black actors, led
  by Jeffrey Wright, a past Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe winner.

• American Fiction - Satire is so tricky. I liked this picture a lot, and probably would have rated it higher if it wasn't so stuffed with clichés. Or maybe they were put their intentionally as part of the joke? So, for example, when Jeffrey Wright's upper-middle-class black character (in a perfect performance that should win him a statuette) gets passed by while trying to hail a cab, exactly at the moment when he tells someone on his phone that he doesn't believe race matters, it seemed just too on the nose. Otherwise, though, the film is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking, with some nifty plot twists and a highly original script, drawn from the 2001 novel by an outstanding writer, Percival Everett.
• 
  Asteroid City - Based on the tiny sample of people I know who go to the movies, Wes Anderson's pictures tend to be polarizing. That is, they either love them or hate them. This one I loved. It's predictably very quirky, stuffed with great actors, and its scenic design is both wildly colorful and just plain wild. A work of art, not to everyone's taste, but extremely well done. And it's got Scarlett Johansson. Need I say more?
• Dumb Money - This film features an outstanding Paul Dano as the basement-dwelling nerd who catapulted Game Stop into a Wall Street phenomenon through an options trading short squeeze. And, yes, I did find myself confusing it at times with 2015's The Big Short. What distinguishes Dumb Money is the excellent ensemble acting that supports Dano's awesome performance, and the spate of relatable characters they portray as they get swept up in the Game Stop drama. Despite the geeky subject matter, it is actually a hugely entertaining movie about something we all know quite well: Money.
• 
  The elephant in the room is Oppenheimer. It got how many Oscar nominations? My favorite number: 13. OK, so it's a really big Hollywood-style film with massive production values, with a pretty interesting story, and the acting in it is really very good - especially the lead, Cillian Murphy, and supporting actor Robert Downey, Jr. (actually, my favorite in it was Florence Pugh, even when dressed). But it's just so darn bombastic! (Pun acknowledged.) It hits a very high dramatic note right at the start - and then it stays there, for three hours. For all that effort, it could have been better, my friends.
• 
  Barbie - Ah, the feminist political football that is 2023's highest-grossing film! If only everybody would settle down and just accept Barbie for what it is - a fun, Boomer-esque, merch-hawking popcorn movie about dolls and humans. Where's the harm in not being the perfect statement for our time? I wore pink pants, popped the collar on my polo shirt, and enjoyed the spectacle. And then pretty much forgot about the whole thing.
• 
  Past Lives - Not terrible for a directorial debut, but my clear candidate for the year's most overrated film. What got me was how the story revolves around a presumably irresistible young woman who I found utterly unappealing. I don't mean this by her appearance - no shaming going on here - I mean her personality was simply terrible. So the whole thing fell apart. And it really felt like a first-time script (which it is): awkward, self-indulgent, unrealistic. Sorry, just not worthy of all the hype. 

And there you have it - a highly opinionated take on ten of the top films of 2023. Others I plan to see include The Zone of Interest, Maestro, The Boy and the Heron, 20 Days in Mariupol, and Society of the Snow. Notably not on my list to be seen is Poor Things, due to my dislike for Emma Stone's acting and my doubts about having the stomach for another Yorgos Lanthimos grossout. I do hope you will forgive me. And please do go out and support your local movie theater. Enjoy!

Samuel Theis and Sandra Huller star in Anatomy of a Fall, an intriguing international
mystery that could win a statuette for the German actress.

The Best Films of 2021

Adrien Brody, center, joins a stellar cast in Wes Anderson's film The French Dispatch

Last year at this time, I expressed concern that the pandemic would impact film production in such a way as to give us a weak crop of movies in 2021. Turns out, my fears were unfounded. Indeed, 2021 was a really solid year for the movies, as evidenced by the current Oscar races.

Not that the Academy has gotten it right (do they ever?), but its picks for Best Picture consideration are (mostly) quite worthy of the attention they're getting, and the nominees in the major acting categories include performances from a large range of films not in the Best Picture race, broadening the Academy Awards' coveted exposure for those performers and their latest films.

I've seen seven of the ten Best Picture nominees, with hopes to watch two of the remaining three: CODA, which I am hampered from seeing by my lack of Apple access, and Don't Look Up, which I intend to catch via one or another friend's Netflix account (I'm skipping West Side Story, because I'm not much of a Spielberg fan, and I wonder why anyone thought a remake of that classic was even a good idea).

Benedict Cumberbatch is a strong Oscar contender
for his performance in The Power of the Dog

Of the others, a couple clearly fall short, a couple truly belong at the top, and the rest are worthy also-rans. But my pick for the best movie of the year, The French Dispatch, got no nominations at all, which is completely insane (and I'm not alone in this thought - see Richard Brody's commentary, in which he argues it should have won eight Oscars). But, hey, film is a popular art medium, and we're all entitled to our opinions. What's important is that we see the movies and enjoy them, and that we dare to have opinions of our own. To wit, here's my lineup of the films from 2021 that I've seen and enjoyed the most, starting with my top pick:

• The French Dispatch - Usually, when a movie includes more than one or two Oscar-winning actors, you can bet it will be a bomb. This one, directed by the incredibly creative Wes Anderson, has half a dozen, along with several others who've been nominated multiple times without winning - yet it somehow balances all that talent into a hilariously raucous, uniquely bizarre homage to/satire of The New Yorker magazine. I can't wait to see it again.

• 

  Penelope Cruz in Parallel Mothers:
  Still mesmerizing after all these years

  Drive My Car - Well received, and deservedly so, this Japanese masterpiece simmers for a full three hours, but never flags. Despite its foreign pedigree (and the inclusion of - count 'em - eight different languages), this film is a true contender for Best Picture and (I assume) a lock for Best International Feature. Proof that you can still succeed in this business without CGI, pyrotechnics, bankable stars, etc., Drive My Car sets a new standard for art-house filmmaking.
• Parallel Mothers - The latest collaboration between director Pedro Almodóvar and his top muse, Penelope Cruz, it tells the story of the titular mothers brought together by cruel chance, but also beautifully threads together parallel stories of historical significance in post-Franco Spain. Featuring Almodóvar's usual droll humor and high style, Parallel Mothers produced a Best Actress nomination for Cruz but, inexplicably, no International Feature nod for the film itself.
  
• Wife of a Spy - Technically a 2020 release, this film never made it to local theaters, but I was delighted to watch it twice via a reasonably priced Kino Lorber streaming rental. A beautifully filmed and sensitively acted story that offers a unique perspective on the early years of WWII in the Japanese city of Kobe. Won best director prize at Venice in 2020. 
• The Hand of God - The Italian director Paolo Sorrentino won the 2013 Best Foreign Film Oscar for The Great Beauty, his brilliant homage to Rome and lost love, and his latest film, also nominated in that (recently renamed) category is a worthy bookend, this time taking a look at Naples. For me, it falls short of The Great Beauty as a work of art, but it holds together better as a story, which weaves soccer fans' fervent worship of Diego Maradona into Sorrentino's own coming-of-age. If you loved Cinema Paradiso, or anything by Fellini, this film is for you.
• The Power of the Dog - Considered a front-runner for Best Picture (along with CODA), Jane Campion's elegiac Western is so beautifully photographed that it can be easy to forget how grim it actually is. Outstanding ensemble performances hold up a relatively thin storyline, which is understandable given that it's based on a text from the 1960s. Compare it to Brokeback Mountain or There Will be Blood to understand why I didn't rate it higher.

  

  Newcomers Alanna Haim and Cooper
  Hoffman are both terrific in Licorice Pizza

  
  
• Licorice Pizza - Yet another off-the-wall romp by a director named Anderson (this time, it's Paul Thomas, rather than Wes), this totally enjoyable movie makes about as much sense as its title (which refers to a well-known record store, but is never explained in the film). Just plain fun, with solid lead actors and a bunch of whacked-out cameos, particularly Bradley Cooper as a psychotic Jon Peters.
• Belfast - Gorgeous black-and-white cinematography and equally gorgeous stars make this film almost irresistible, while at the same time running counter to its disturbing  Irish troubles storyline. The disconnect can be explained by the fact that Belfast is director Kenneth Branagh's personal memoir, but it's still perplexing. That said, I'm a photography junkie, and I really enjoyed the film.
  
• King Richard - This movie got somewhat mixed reviews, understandably so, because it makes Richard Williams look like a better man than he really was, thanks to a remarkable and Oscar-worthy performance by Will Smith. Flipping the script on my basis for a decent drama (a good story, well-told), this great story, fairly well-told, remains astonishing even though we witnessed it in real life. I still shake my head in wonder at the mere fact of the Williams sisters and their visionary father.
• The Card Counter - A taut thriller that features a career performance by Oscar Isaac as a professional gambler with severe PTSD from having served in the prison at Abu Ghraib. Also features a strong performance by one of my all-time favorites, Willem Dafoe. Overlooked by the Academy, but well worth viewing.
• Hive and Dreamland - Two honorable mentions: The first is a rare feature out of Albania, which realistically portrays the true story of a group of war widows who overcome extreme patriarchy to develop a successful international condiments trade; and the second is a Bonnie and Clyde-style period piece directed by Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, a son of Albany who appears to have a very promising future in the business. Both are available on DVD.
• Just one more: For pure fun (and nostalgia if you're a late Boomer or early Gen-Xer), smoke a little weed and watch Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Jason Reitman updates dad Ivan Reitman's 1984 classic with a terrific young cast and lots of vintage special effects that I promise you will find hugely entertaining. Available on DVD. 

Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura star in Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car

The Best Films of 2020

Luca Marinelli portrays the title character in Pietro Marcello's brilliant Martin Eden.

There are a lot of ways to be confused about the past year in movies. First, just seeing a film in a theater was impossible for much of the year. Then, with massively delayed releases, there's the question of whether a given movie counts as being from 2020 or not. Finally, there's the whole streaming thing - not that I really care what the source of a great film is, or what the Academy has to say about it, but there is still that old divide between cinema and TV ... never to be the same after Netflix, Amazon, et al.

So I will construct the following list with the knowledge that a few of the films are considered to be 2019 releases, but never made it to a local theater, and seem to have been left stranded in terms of Oscar consideration, whether last year or this year.

Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins star in The Father

As for me, despite the extraordinary challenges of 2020, and my own stubborn resistance to cable TV and all other subscription services, I managed to see a lot of great movies in the last year (five of the eight Best Picture nominees among them). This included actually going to the theater (an excellent option as venues have adopted safety guidelines and more people are vaccinated every day); paying for the occasional one-time stream at home; watching with trusted friends who have those monthly subscriptions; and borrowing DVDs from the library (due to the pandemic, some films that would otherwise have been screened at local theaters ended up being available on DVD first).

The following list is mostly non-hierarchical, and will include movies everyone has heard of as well as some more obscure titles. In the end, it turns out there were a lot of really good movies made or released in the last year or so, from all over the world. It will be interesting to see if that trend can continue, as I think it's safe to assume production schedules were completely whacked out for most of 2020 - and that the movie fare of 2021 may suffer for it. Let's hope not, but let's also celebrate the great ones we've got now.

• Martin Eden - One of those 2019/2020 crossovers, this Italian-language film became my top pick early on, and stayed there with little serious competition for a long time. Adapted from a 1909 Jack London novel to a non-specific time in 20th-century Naples, Martin Eden tells a story of the class struggle from a very personal perspective, with superb acting by the very charismatic Luca Marinelli. It garnered a lot of praise at Cannes and elsewhere, but nothing from Oscar. Paying $12 to view it at home seemed like a great bargain.
  
• Beanpole - The other nearly perfect film I saw last year that crossed over from 2019 and also was ignored by Oscar, Beanpole ("Dylda" in Russian) reveals the history of post-WWII Russia that we never learned in school, seen from the viewpoint of a shell-shocked young woman and her beloved, a traumatized female soldier. Every actor in this film is outstanding - but, even more impressive, the flawless direction and gorgeous cinematography are the product of a team of twenty-somethings. Amazing!
• Judas and the Black Messiah - One of my two top picks among the Best Picture nominees, this is a beautifully crafted history lesson that resonates with our current turbulent times. Ensemble acting so good, they couldn't find a lead actor to nominate, though Daniel Kaluuya could have been it.
• The Father - My other favorite among the Bests, powered by a masterful performance on the part of Anthony Hopkins, and equally great support from Olivia Colman. The film puts you inside the mind of a man with dementia, while painting a touchingly deep portrait of the life he lived before his decline. Both actors would be well served if they were to win a statuette tonight. [Note: Hopkins won.]
• Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always - A perfect example of why I love indie films: Character-driven, non-name actors who bring the goods, original story, loose ends. It's a lot harder than you may think to make a movie about an economically and socially challenged teen seeking an abortion without sliding into melodrama or sentimentality, but Never, Sometimes makes it look like a breeze. Writer-director Eliza Hittman is worthy of Oscar attention, but hasn't gotten it - yet.

• 

  Orion Lee and John Magaro star in First Cow

  First Cow - An elegiac step back in time, this is the kind of film you need to allow to take its time, and then it will work its magic on you. Set in the early boom Northwest, it provides a most unusual take on the buddy movie, slowly, quietly, sadly, and beautifully. Underappreciated director Kelly Reichart deserves more notice than she's getting for this one.
• Nomadland - Yes, it's a very good movie, and Frances McDormand is superb as always, as are the rest of the people who essentially play themselves throughout her character's odyssey. But it's also the most overrated film of the year. Try checking out the template (I've no doubt Chloe Zhao has done so multiple times), which I did by sheer coincidence on DVD the same week I caught Nomadland in the theater. That would be Agnes Varda's 1985 film Vagabond. So similar, but much better.
• Minari - The second-most overrated film of the year. Yes, it's still very good, with excellent acting ... but it's also marred by a grotesque, unnecessary, stereotyped magical Christian character, as well as just being kinda small. Films like this can - and in the right hands do - tell the intimate story while evoking the grand; but Minari never transcends its subjects' limited lives.

• 

  Sasha Baron Cohen leads the ensemble in Chicago 7

  The Trial of the Chicago 7 - Brilliant ensemble acting takes this history lesson to another level. It's a perfect companion piece to Judas (and possibly to One Night in Miami as well), but stands on its own as it evokes eerie parallels to our current times. Though I lived through the Viet Nam era, I was too young to know many of the details of these events in which our justice system was manipulated by the government to demonize black people and anyone who would challenge the status quo. Sound familiar? 
• My Octopus Teacher - Nominated Winner for Best Documentary Feature, this is so much more than a nature film, as it shares a deeply personal human story enrobed in an octopus's brief, luminous lifespan. Indeed, it is a relationship movie. You'll never see seafood the same way again.
• The Life Ahead ("La vita davanti a se" in Italian) - Sophia Loren directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti. Need I say more? Actually received an Oscar nomination for best original song (which I don't recall) but had a lot more going for it than that. Loren pulls off a great performance in a difficult role.

As in prior years, there are films that I haven't seen yet, but intend to, that possibly would have made this list. They include Sound of Metal, One Night in Miami, and Mank (and, perhaps, Promising Young Woman). But, first, I've got to catch up with tonight's film - a retro-futuristic Brazilian Western called Bacurau. Oscar will have to wait.

Ibrahima Gueye and Sophia Loren star in The Life Ahead

The best films of 2019

George McKay, center, probably deserved an Oscar nod for his lead role in 1917.

Well, I'm a little late to the party, but I have a couple of good excuses - and, anyway, at least I get to publish my list before the Oscars are announced this evening. Proud to say, this year I actually saw every Best Picture nominee (and all but one in an actual movie theater - the one being Joker, which I caught on DVD the day after it was released in that format).

Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem
star in Everybody Knows

As usual, I have a quibble or three with the Academy, but it looks like the front-runner this year is 1917, which is also my top pick, so you never know. Following right behind, however, is a film that got zero notice from the Academy (though some critics gave it due props), which is sadly ironic in that it's an all-black production that easily deserved the attention and could have helped to save the annual hue and cry about Oscars-so-white if it had been properly recognized.

Instead, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is this year's most-overlooked movie at Oscar time (see my full review here). Honestly, I'm not cynical enough to think that Academy voters disregard good material just because the people who made it are black; rather, I think they are simply too self involved to be able to appreciate a lot of fare that isn't right up their alley - hence, outstanding non-traditional or foreign material often gets overlooked.

That said, you may notice that the much-ballyhooed Korean film Parasite didn't make my short list (though its Oscar success may have helped the Academy dodge the racism bullet this year). I acknowledge that Parasite is extremely well made, but it is too brutally dehumanizing for my taste. I've gotten the impression that many people found its class-struggle story to be groundbreaking - however, 2018's Japanese production Shoplifters told a very similar story, while humanizing all its subjects, which to me was both more difficult and much more worthwhile. (Then again, a movie-savvy friend told me that Parasite was his favorite film of 2019 and Shoplifters his favorite of 2018, so maybe I'm just confused.)

Other films that the Academy liked more than I did were Ford v. Ferrari, which told a very good story, but in such a drawn-out fashion and with so much time spent inside a race car that I got bored (despite great performances by Christian Bale, Tracy Letts, and others, as well as a lot of unsubtitled but perfectly executed Italian dialogue - a surprise treat for me); and Little Women, which also featured some very good acting but was almost unbearably twee and, at times, so anachronistic as to be groan-inducing.

But the rest of Oscar's favorites made my list - so, here we go:

1. 1917 - This is what a truly great movie is supposed to be. Advice to anyone who a) hasn't seen it and b) hasn't seen the trailer: Don't watch the trailer, it will ruin the film - just go see it. And, yes, I mean GO to a movie theater and immerse yourself in the darkness for an unforgettable experience.
2. The Last Black Man in San Francisco - A stunning achievement by a crew of first-timers, strikingly original and deeply personal. Will hold up just fine on video, so borrow this one from your library or (if you must) stream it.
3. The Irishman - Scorsese and his team of regulars do it again. Forget what they say - it's not too long!
4. Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood - Tarantino does it again, only this time with a bit more subtlety (though not too much of that, after all, it's Tarantino). Leonardo DiCaprio is really good here, but Brad Pitt is even better, and ought to win the Supporting Actor Oscar.

5. Jojo Rabbit - Imperfect, but enhanced by extreme originality, it's gratifying to see a film this quirky get noticed by the stuffy ol' Academy. Probably won't win anything but, in this case, the nomination is the prize.
6. The Farewell - Nominated for a bunch of less prestigious awards (and winning quite a few), this movie was inexplicably left out of the running for Oscar, despite being a near-perfect indie film by an American (albeit Asian-American) director. The story would fit any family, especially any family with recent immigrants, but ol' Hollywood apparently couldn't relate. Extra props to UAlbany product Awkwafina, who starred and earned a Golden Globe for her efforts.
7. Transit - Similar to Jojo Rabbit, in that it re-imagines a WWII scenario with deft originality, this film takes place in the France of the present, but depicts the displacement of people there under the German Nazi invasion of the 1940s. Lyrical, beautifully filmed, heartbreaking.
8. The White Crow - I'm no ballet critic, but I enjoyed every minute of this adaptation of the true life of Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev, probably because it so effectively shows how the passion of a great artist helped him overcome terrible odds.
9. Joker - Much better than I expected, and not at all a comic-book movie (though based on comic-book characters), this film captured my attention and never let it go. Joaquin Phoenix will win the Best Actor Oscar for his brilliant performance as the horribly mentally ill Arthur Fleck.

10. This is a tie. Marriage Story and Everybody Knows have significant commonalities - family relationships gone dramatically awry, superstar casts, indie vibes - but they are also starkly contrasting: One takes place between brutally competitive New York City and Los Angeles, the other in a charming Spanish village; one involves a rather superficial decision to divorce, the other a decades-old, crime-laced mystery. But they share crackling dialogue, beautifully shot scenes - many of them intensely intimate - and a couple of nice twists. While Marriage Story earned best-actor nods for Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, Everybody Knows got bupkus, though its male lead, Antonio Banderas, was nominated instead for his work in Pain and Glory. Obviously a good year for him - and for Johansson, who also was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Jojo Rabbit. Impressive achievements for both.

Still to be seen: I've yet to catch up with the aforementioned Pain and Glory, and would also like to catch The Two Popes (which had each Pope interpreter get an Oscar nod), and another African-American themed movie called Waves that got an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (compared to 92% for Little Women and a perplexing 68% for Joker).

In all, 2019 was a far better than average year for films, as was 2018 - a promising trend, with Amazon and Netflix deserving much of the credit.

Transit, starring Franz Rogowski, center, was one of the best films of 2019
and earned a 94% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes

The Best Films of 2018

The ensemble cast of Hirokazu Koreeda's Shoplifters

I suddenly realized the 91st Academy Awards will run tonight, and I haven't posted my annual take on the best films of the year.

So, in haste, I give you my Top Ten picks of 2018. As usual, there are caveats. I confess that half of this year's eight Best Picture nominees have thus far escaped my viewing. This is - again, as usual - intentional: Specifically, no one who has seen The Favourite has been able to convince me I shouldn't miss it; the reports on A Star is Born, though more positive, still left me willing to leave it for later; while I do plan to see Bohemian Rhapsody one of these days, I don't expect to see it as a film worthy of serious consideration; and I actually have no idea what Vice is about, but I'm pretty sure it's not my kind of movie (and if that attitude undermines my credibility or offends anyone, I sincerely apologize).

Of the four remaining BP nominees, I do include two of them on my list (see below). As for the other two: We started to watch Black Panther at home, but the dialogue was so badly written I had to leave the room after 10 minutes (my wife enjoyed it, however); and BlackKklansman is a pretty good Spike Lee movie with the usual Spike Lee faults (i.e rather preachy and 15 minutes too long), but it's way overrated and, by my reckoning, only the third best film of its genre that I saw in 2018 (the genre being African American-made movies with political or social messages). Spike can do better (and has on many occasions).

So, here's my list:

1. A tie (unprecedented in this blog): Shoplifters and Roma - I previously wrote about Roma, in the context of its brilliant cinematography and how it relates to the work of pioneering Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo. So much has already been written about this film, that I will simply say this: It deserves to win the Oscar for Best Picture and probably will. Given that both Roma and Shoplifters are among the Best Foreign Language Film nominees, I just hope the Academy will leave Roma out of that race and award the statuette to Shoplifters, which is a deeply affecting slice of Japanese life at the margins, beautifully photographed and superbly acted. And, speaking of Oscar-nominated foreign films, today I will spend three hours in the theater soaking up the German entry, Never Look Away, following my usual Oscar-day tradition to see a movie rather than watch the awards show.
2. see above
3. Leave No Trace - A brilliantly quiet film based on the true story of a PTSD veteran raising his young daughter in the woods near Portland, Oregon.
4. Green Book - Again, much has been written about this one, not all of it in praise. I didn't worry about whether the film had an appropriate point of view in terms of racial stereotyping - I just enjoyed the ride, as did its main characters. The acting, cinematography, and storytelling are all first-rate, and the story it tells is fascinating.

5. Blindspotting - The most underrated movie of the year, and I have no idea why it's been overlooked. With a strong original story, which is a neat twist on the interracial buddy drama, this film has many layers addressing criminal justice, gentrification, and race relations - along with really great music.
6. Three Identical Strangers - Talk about fascinating stories! This documentary sucks you in and explodes right before your eyes. An absolutely compelling film.
7. Cold War - This gorgeously photographed and scored period piece is so sad that it's pretty hard to love. But also hard to dismiss. In Polish, French, and several other languages, it's yet another Best Foreign Language Film contender.
8. Can You Ever Forgive Me? - Many have commented on Melissa McCarthy's star turn in this quirky biopic about has-been-author-turned-criminal-forger Lee Israel. She and her co-star, Richard E. Grant, both received well-earned acting nominations for their exquisitely entertaining portrayals of an extremely unlikely pair of co-conspirators. 
9. Juliet, Naked - Another somewhat overlooked film this year, its title misleads a bit - it's actually about a stripped-down recording of a hit rock album that helps to pull a depressed musician off the edge and back into the limelight. Ethan Hawke and Rose Byrne give this rom-com some real life.
10. Sorry to Bother You - Noted as a strong first feature by writer-director Boots Riley, it also features an irresistible breakout performance by Tessa Thompson as an off-the-wall performance artist. Part of an intriguing current wave of Black science fiction, this film bothered rightly and well.

Update, 3/11/19: I recently caught another very good 2018 release (on video at home), and would have placed it somewhere in my Top Ten, let's say tied for 9th place, had I seen it in time for this list. It's Bo Burnham's debut feature, Eighth Grade, which offers a glimpse into the interior life of a 13-year-old girl who's trying to figure out how to grow up and find her place in a world dominated by social media. Burnham's script is astute, poignant and quite funny, and his star, Elsie Fisher is a full-on revelation.

Thomasin McKenzie and Ben Foster star in Leave No Trace

The Roma-Bravo connection

An image from Alfonso Cuaron's Netflix film Roma

It’s in black and white; it’s in Spanish and indigenous languages, with subtitles; it takes place in early 1970s Mexico; and it is being distributed by Netflix. Yet Alfonso Cuaron’s autobiographical Roma sits atop many critics’ lists of the best films of 2018 and, improbably but also certainly, it will be a serious contender at next year’s Oscars.

Threshold by Manuel Alvarez Bravo

My friend Dick, who saw the film at home, urged me to catch Roma on the big screen if I could – in order to better experience its outstanding cinematography – and I am passing that advice on to you. In my case, I didn’t really have a choice, as I don’t subscribe to Netflix or any other media service (not even cable TV), so I was especially pleasantly surprised to learn that I could go to the Spectrum in Albany and see it there (it's also showing at Images Cinema in Williamstown, Mass.).

The Daydream by Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Though I have avoided reading any reviews of Roma until after I post this commentary, there’s no doubt it has been extensively covered in all the publications that offer such content, so I won’t try to add to those assessments here. Rather, I wish to share my perception of the connection between the work of the great 20^th-century Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo and the imagery seen throughout Cuaron’s movie.

Striking Worker Assassinated by Manuel Alvarez Bravo

It can’t be coincidence – Cuaron (who did his own cinematography on this project) clearly was emulating Bravo’s content and style. And, why not? The film takes place in Mexico City (with a few short side trips into the countryside), where Bravo plied his trade for a remarkably long time (he was active until his death at age 100 in 2002), and where he made pictures of everyday life with a surreal twist, a description that could apply to Roma as well.

Sparrow, Light by Manuel Alvarez Bravo

From the floor-washing shots that open the film to the nearly endless still held under its closing credits, and throughout the rest of Roma, I was reminded again and again of images from the Bravo catalog. I present some of those images here as examples for those who’ve seen the movie (or plan to see it); I think you’ll agree that there’s a strong relationship.

title unknown by Manuel Alvarez Bravo

So, why should we care? Well, for one thing, Bravo deserves to be better known. If the attention this film is getting could also expand his following, that would be good for his legacy and for the new fans he will acquire. Admittedly, I have a bias (don’t I always?) – when I began making black-and-white photographs in 1972, Bravo’s work in photo books was among my earliest influences. And it nicely stands the test of time, as Cuaron’s film underscores.

Dog Number 20 by Manuel Alvarez Bravo

But there’s more to all this than nostalgia for a simpler time. Indeed, Roma describes a time that was brutally complex. But perhaps it takes a simpler medium – slowly moving black-and-white – to help us understand the meaning of that time, and ours. I thank Cuaron for making this film, though it is painfully sad; and I thank him for revering and re-creating the subtly powerful style of Manuel Alvarez Bravo, one of the greatest photographers ever.

The Eclipse by Manuel Alvarez Bravo

The best films of 2017

Elizabeth Olson and Jeremy Renner star in Wind River

Here it is again - Oscar time. As I often do, I'm taking the opportunity to comment on some of the best films from 2017; however, as will become apparent in a few paragraphs, I feel I have reason to avoid prognosticating on what films or actors may win this year's statuettes.

First, a disclaimer: I have yet to see four of the nine Best Picture nominees. Those include at least three I plan to see when I can (The Shape of Water, Darkest Hour, and Call Me By Your Name), all of which come highly recommended. Would I pick one of those films as the best of the year? Possibly, though I don't expect that. For sure, though, I can't speculate on how the Academy will vote on Best Picture without seeing a bigger sample.

What I can say is that the Academy has definitely left out one of the year's best films due to politics, and that is Wind River, which unfortunately had a minor connection to the accused rapist Harvey Weinstein. Ironically, Wind River sends potent and well-crafted messages in support of women's rights, so to snub it even after the film's director and Native American producers excised the Weinstein name from their product is just plain wrongheaded.

Another film that is inexplicably absent from the Best Picture nominations is The Florida Project, which got one well-earned nod for Supporting Actor for the always-great Willem Dafoe - and that's it. Both Wind River and The Florida Project are in my Top Five, while the Best Picture nominated Lady Bird, The Post, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri are not - so, screw the Academy. That said, those are all in my second five, so maybe I should be a little more tolerant. Oh, well, call me cranky.

By the way, I'd say 2017 was a good year for movies but not a great one - none of these picks garnered my highest rating, though half of them came close. Why not? It's hard to pinpoint exactly, but when I recall a five-star movie - say Brokeback Mountain, or Spotlight - I find these offerings were slightly lacking in comparison.

And now for the list:

1. Phantom Thread - This has eked out my pick for best of the year because, despite being awkward and unresolved, it features excellent visuals, originality, and brilliant acting - not only by the incomparable Daniel Day-Lewis, but equally by his two female co-stars, Lesley Manville and Vicky Krieps. Manville and director Paul Thomas Anderson could win Oscars for this.
2. The Florida Project - Has all the characteristics cited above, with a double emphasis on originality. Few films manage to be so uplifting while exposing so much darkness. Very funny, when it isn't breaking your heart. The perfect antidote to Disney.
3. Loving Vincent - Speaking of darkness and light, this unique animated feature took 10 years to make and it was worth every minute. Comprised of 65,000 paintings, it tells the story of the year following Vincent Van Gogh's mystery-shrouded death by immersing us in his life-affirming art. Rightly nominated for best animated feature.
4. Wind River - Writer-director Taylor Sheridan knows how to craft a crime thriller, as he did last year with Hell or High Water (which he wrote but did not direct), and this one is set in a forbidding Western landscape, too. Grimly satisfying, I call it Winter's Bone meets Frozen River. Only an implausible extended shootout kept it from being my top pick of the year.
5. Dunkirk - Most films tell a story with dialogue, in combination with images and sound. Dunkirk relies almost entirely on the latter two elements to communicate a very vivid story of an unusual moment in a terrible war, and it nearly succeeds. Music plays a bigger role in this film than any actor did, but it doesn't feel melodramatic; rather, it is deeply experiential. And the visuals are spectacular.

The rest: I rated the following six films about equally, and so I present them in no particular order. A few got a lot of attention, whether fully deserved or not; some were perhaps undeservedly overlooked. 

Beatriz at Dinner stars Salma Hayek as a servile massage therapist who, during a very awkward dinner at a very rich client's house, suddenly finds her mojo. Some crackling dialogue follows, as do a few bizarre scenes within a set limited to the house and its environs.

The Post doesn't need much introduction. As a former newsroom staffer, I relished every moment of ink-stained nostalgia the film dished up, no matter how stagy. But it's Spielberg, and he always panders. Saved by Meryl Streep's masterful performance and, of course, a ripping great yarn.

Lady Bird is a small, character-driven drama featuring two terrific actresses who spar entertainingly as only a mother and teenage daughter can. Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf earned their Oscar nominations, and first-time director Greta Gerwig does herself proud. But, frankly, it's a touch forgettable.

The Big Sick also represents a directorial debut, and it is fresh and funny, even if underneath the bizarre stuff it is still a sticky romance. The young married couple whose life it's based on got a Best Original Screenplay nod for this one, and they are worthy of it.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has to be my pick for most overrated movie of the year (possibly to be unseated by The Shape of Water - we'll see), even though it is actually quite good. In fact, it's my kind of movie, so I'm not biased against it - but I'm a little perplexed that it's winning so much attention, especially because that doesn't usually happen to my kind of movie. Could be I'm just wrong on this one!

Patti Cake$ is perhaps this year's most overlooked film. It tells the story of a trio of misfits who try to break into the local New Jersey rap scene, and actually convincingly pull it off - almost. A few touching stories are intertwined, with a killer soundtrack of originals and plenty of colorful imagery to go with them. Check it out, I promise you will enjoy.

Vicki Krieps and Daniel Day-Lewis star in Phantom Thread

#Oscarsoirrelevant

Lucas Hedges, left, and Casey Affleck both received Oscar nominations
for their roles in Manchester by the Sea. Neither will win. Affleck won Best Actor.

OK, I admit it - if I really thought the Oscars were irrelevant, I wouldn't be writing about them. But, wait, I am more precisely writing about movies, not the Academy Awards, and movies are definitely relevant. So, as the title of this please implies, I do think the Oscars are relatively irrelevant.

This evening, as is my annual habit, I will not watch the awards show on TV - I will go to the theater and watch Oscar-nominated fare instead, and I will crane my neck around the standing and departing patrons to read the credits when they roll. In this way, I refresh my lifelong love of movies and rejoice in the fact that we can still go see them in a dark, public place.

Most would agree, 2016 was a pretty good year for the movies. A look at the nine "Best Picture" nominees shows an unusually broad selection that includes small-story indies, big budget sci-fi, a star vehicle or two, even a foreign film (Lion is foreign, right?). In sharp contrast to last year's controversially white slate of nominees, three of these films feature nearly all-black casts. Less unusually, a shameless paean to Hollywood is also on the slate (and it will sweep the awards tonight). Add note: It did not!

More important, these films are actually quite good (or reputed to be so - I have seen just six of them thus far). What do I mean by good? No doubt I've said it before in this space, but I will repeat the age-old formula for a worthwhile movie: A good story, well told. Yes, that is still the measure. And, while it's always possible that this will include a lot of car chases or senseless violence or CGI, these nine films generally don't rely on spectacle to hold the viewer's attention.

Instead, they feature a lot of really great acting, by (again) a very diverse slate of all ages and types, many of whom received nominations for awards (in addition to a number of outstanding performers in films that themselves did not garner a "Best" slot). The fact that the young and the beautiful will win the major awards (as always) doesn't diminish the positive value of a nomination for the never-fails Jeff Bridges or the ever-enchanting Isabelle Huppert or the otherworldly Ruth Negga (who also happens to be young and beautiful, but she still won't win).

So, nice going, Academy!

Now, here's why I have not seen three of the Best Picture nominees (Note to readers - I forgive you if you hate me for my biases. Then again, if I didn't have them, would I be worth the pixels?):

1. La La Land - First of all, I hate the title. Second, you may remember 2014's Best Picture Birdman, which was brilliant, worthy, and my own second pick of that year (right, Boyhood got robbed) - and which had one serious shortcoming, which was Emma Stone. She sucked in Birdman, and I am not convinced that she would be worth seeing in La La Land. The press calls her likable - sorry, I find her totally unlikable. La La Land is the Titanic of 2016 - the movie everyone will look back at and say "they nominated that for HOW many Oscars?!?" (BTW, I still have never seen Titanic.)
2. Hacksaw Ridge - This is probably an excellent picture, and I liked Andrew Garfield a lot in The Social Network (where he plays the first guy that Mark Zuckerberg screwed out of a lot of money). But I couldn't bring myself to go see a film that is, basically, the story of a religious fanatic. Yes, a really nice guy, sincere, selfless, etc. But I couldn't shake the feeling it would get all pious in the end. Atheist angst got the best of me there. 
3. Fences - Liked the preview, love August Wilson. But do I need to budget my precious movie-going time to what is, essentially, a stage play presented onscreen? Will catch it on DVD once the library picks up a copy. Expect to love it.

As for the rest, it's very easy to point out the best: Manchester by the Sea absolutely kills. You know when smart people tell you a film is too long, or too sad, that it must be a great one. This film is perfect.

Also excellent: Lion, Moonlight, and Hell or High Water. Why? Check the formula ... they all fulfill it. So, why not perfect?
Lion skews ever so slightly commercial, by making all the characters way too pretty to be real, and by purposely playing the emotional notes.
Moonlight is a fascinating film that has the courage to try a difficult approach - dividing the story into three parts with different actors for each. A fantastic effort that falls the tiniest bit short.
And Hell or High Water is a bit too reminiscent of the Coen Brothers to be considered truly original, which is what it seems to want to be. But it is a fun ride.

As for the rest: Arrival is very good - an understated almost-actioner that uses subtlety rather than sensationalism to make its points. But it stretched my credulity rather too far.
Hidden Figures - yep, it fulfills the formula once again - but I felt played by its Hollywood style. Too cute for its own good.

OK, gotta go to the movies! Have a good night.

Post-Oscar comments

Jacob Tremblay, left, and Brie Larson star in Room.

This year I did not run a "best films" post before the Academy Awards because I hadn't seen enough of the contending movies (yet) to offer much in the way of useful commentary. Sorry about that!

But I did honor my personal tradition of going to see a nominated film on Oscar night by catching the early show of Room, which received four nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actress, and for which its star, Brie Larson, took home the golden statuette.

So I missed Chris Rock's opening monologue completely, which I understand did not disappoint in skewering the players on all sides of the black-artists-matter controversy. This discussion is far from over, but I'm glad at least this phase of it is behind us. Adding a lot of politics into a public process that is, still, primarily about two things - art and business - just doesn't really help. 

In the end, for whatever reason, ABC got lousy ratings (no thanks to me!), and several films, especially Mad Max: Fury Road got a boost to their bottom line. And that's what Oscar's really all about. 

Room is, in a word, harrowing. I assume the critics have been enthusiastic about the film (though I'm waiting to read reviews until after I've fully processed my own reactions), but I can see why it did not win Best Picture.

The film that did win Best Picture, Spotlight, remains my own pick as the best of 2015 (as noted here in early January), so it is gratifying to share in the surprise of its come-from-behind victory over The Revenant (which I still haven't had the strength to face). I loved two basic things about Spotlight - terrific ensemble acting and the perfect fulfillment of the old-fashioned simple formula for a great movie: A good story, well told.

I also loved the fact that Spotlight got the newsroom details right, which is the sort of thing that done wrong can very easily ruin even a really good movie for me. Having worked for years at a daily newspaper, I was anxiously scanning every scene in Spotlight for a wrong note - and it passed with a perfect grade.

Not so Room. This film also involves a depiction of journalism, as a sidebar to the main focus of the story, but with very significant impact on the arc of the film and all its characters.

What happens is that an apparently top professional television news interviewer is shown asking leading, accusatory, and inflammatory questions of the extremely fragile subject Ma, and the people supposedly there to protect her do nothing. To describe what happens next would be a spoiler, but suffice it to say things don't exactly get better for Ma.

I reacted to this scene like any audience member was supposed to - feeling angry at the bad media exploiter who used this poor young woman for ratings. Then I stepped back and realized it was the filmmaker actually doing the manipulating here - so I'll redirect that anger. I don't think this was a fair depiction of a working journalist or fair treatment of an audience that has allowed you to take them this far into the world you've created. Not OK.

Maybe this is the essential difference between working with a true story (as in Spotlight) and embarking on a dramatic foray into fiction. In the true story, the drama is what it is - you can try to present it in a ramped-up fashion or not, but you can't change the facts. And it will be the facts - the story - that ultimately convince the audience of the experience they are having. In the fictional Room, I found myself retreating from the story because it did not add up to seeming true. (There's also a throwaway performance by William H. Macy as Ma's father, who disappears with nary an explanation.)

Playing with the audience's emotions may create an effect - but, ultimately, it doesn't win them over. To accomplish that, I think you need to be better than the writer and director of Room have proven to be. As for Larson winning the Oscar - it was a brave performance by a very promising young actress. But I think Cate Blanchett was far better in Carol - and, no doubt, many others already agree.

Cate Blanchett, left, and Rooney Mara star in Carol.