Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell is a new documentary on Netflix about Christopher Wallace (better known to all as Biggie, Biggie Smalls, and the Notorious B.I.G.) that in roughly ninety minutes will tell us "what rap planet this guy came from." That's fundamentally sort of the problem with the film. It's a fine documentary (or at least fine enough), especially for music fans and in particular rap and Biggie fans. But it's a documentary that wants to tell you everything. Biggie's music won world-wide acclaim; simply letting us hear more of it would have better accomplished the film's objective, and yet we hear surprisingly little of it.
Most of what we get instead are talking heads. Many of these are necessary, though, like when jazz musician Donald Harrison talks to us about how he recognized Wallace's talent for music early on. Faith Evans (Wallace's widow and collaborator) and Sean Combs also provide essential narratives of what the actual Christopher Wallace was like, not simply as an artist but as a person.
But the most compelling scenes feature Biggie's mother, Voletta Wallace. An immigrant from Jamaica and a fan more of country and western music than gangsta rap, she has been protective of her son's legacy since his death, and her voice can be heard on several Biggie tracks and the final album he appeared in: The King and I, by Evans. Voletta's candor is almost slightly ironic because any criticism that has ever been issued towards Christopher Wallace (aside, I suppose, criticism of his lyrics) has been from his mother. Yet her discussion of her son further humanizes him in a way much of the rest of this documentary fails to do so. They are candid moments that help enlighten viewers on the narrative behind some of his lyrics.
Voletta's immigrant identity clearly had an impact on her son's music. One of his best songs ("Respect" from the album Ready to Die) takes heavy inspiration from Jamaican music. Being the child of an immigrant, we are told, also helped Biggie be established as an "outsider," and one wonders if this added to his natural shyness. However, one will likely be disappointed if they wanted more of a character study of Christopher Wallace, though the documentary certainly is a film for musicologists with its discussion of the musical inspiration for Wallace and his impact on the music world.
But that can only take a film so far, and the essential problem with Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell is that most audience members (including critics) get bored easily by biographical films, as they can be quite dull and fall heavy on the telling side instead of showing us something new. Biographical documentaries are not much better. The usual elements are all there: a rags-to-riches story of a musical genius who also had a lot of tragedy and drugs in his life. Essentially, you've seen this before.
What fans of Biggie already knew—that his rap was a different kind of rap, that his music was loved around the world, that his collaborations with Puffy made them comparable to other brilliant artistic pairings (like Coppola and Pacino or De Niro and Scorsese, we're told)—they will be reminded of in this documentary. But if fans were hoping for something more, they are likely to be disappointed. It often simply feels like talking heads reminding us that he was a genius. Simply listening to his songs is a much more potent lesson than most of what is found here.
There have been more than enough articles by now about what an unusual year 2020 was. The pandemic, the injustice, the chaos, the fires, the violence. It was a year to remember, one in which society will hopefully learn from as we move forward. (I think we're all still not sure if 2021 is that much better.) The motion pictures arts industry, though, persevered and continued doing what it does. Remarkably, the 56 films nominated for Oscars at the 93rd Academy Awards more or less feel like films nominated in any other year. That's either a plus or a minus, depending on your perspective.
One noteworthy aspect of these nominees is that, slowly but surely, attempts to increase the diversity of the nominees seems to be working. There is an international feeling to these films, for example, and it's possible that all four winners in the acting categories could be non-white, which would be a first. It's also worth remembering that films like Judas and the Black Messiah would have hardly stood a chance at being nominated for Best Picture even ten years ago. The Academy still has a long way to go, though they've done so much better than the Golden Globes, which notoriously has not.
What's my overall take on these nominated films? Like most years, there are good, bad, and ugly movies on this list. I am disappointed that some of my favorite films from the previous year, like Miss Juneteenth, His House, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Saint Frances, Boys State, Host, The Invisible Man, On the Record, and Disclosure were not nominated, but this always happens. Most of the films that have been nominated by the Academy, however, are certainly worth a watch.
Without further ado, here is my ranking of all 56 films nominated for Oscars this year:
56. A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon Animated Feature Film (Richard Phelan, Will Becher, Paul Kewley)
I can't even remember if I finished Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon; that's how much I did not enjoy it.
55. The One and Only Ivan
Visual Effects (Nick Davis, Greg Fisher, Ben Jones, Santiago Colomo Martinez)
The One and Only Ivan feels like a collection of outtakes from the recent Dumbo remake, and it's completely devoid of energy and full of bad Bryan Cranston acting. The effects are great, but the movie is far from it.
54. Hillbilly Elegy
Actress in a Supporting Role (Glenn Close), Makeup and Hairstyling (Eryn Krueger Mekash, Matthew Mungle, Patricia Dehaney)
It's fair to say that expectations were a little higher for Hillbilly Elegy, a movie many hoped would finally get Glenn Close an Oscar. Instead, it's a dreadfully boring two-hour film in which people repeatedly scream at each other. Even the Onion poked fun at it.
53. Yes-People Short Film (Animated) (Gísli Darri Halldórsson, Arnar Gunnarsson)
This short from Iceland features interesting animation, but there isn't much of a plot (or point) to it.
52. Emma. Costume Design (Alexandra Byrne), Makeup and Hairstyling (Marese Langan, Laura Allen, Claudia Stolze)
I wish I could say I liked Anya Taylor-Joy's recent work, but I don't. They're either slightly overrated, like The Queen's Gambit, or terribly overrated, like Emma. There is nothing in this newest Jane Austen adaption that's worth remembering.
51. Pieces of a Woman
Actress in a Leading Role (Vanessa Kirby)
What Pieces of a Woman has going for it mainly is its women actors, especially Venessa Kirby's nominated performance as a woman struggling through the aftermath of a miscarriage. Ellen Burstyn is also fantastic as her overbearing mother. However, Shia LeBeouf is also in it, and he's very...Shia LeBeoufy. Sexual assault allegations against him last year only make some of these moments even more difficult to watch. The film is also challenging to watch past an hour, as it drags on and on.
50. Better Days
International Feature Film (Hong Kong)
Hong Kong's entry in this competition this year is Better Days, a melodrama starring Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee that tries to tackle two societal issues: bullying and the immense pressure students (particularly in Asia) are under. (The enormous pressure from school entrance exams in China is unlike that of any other nation.) Better Days is a film I wish I had liked as much as everyone else (it currently has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but the film is considerably over the top in a way that almost fetishizes bullying, and it unfortunately just feels like a one-note film.
49. Pinocchio
Costume Design (Massimo Cantini Parrini), Makeup and Hairstyling (Mark Coulier, Dalia Colli, Francesco Pegoretti)
This newest adaption of Pinocchio has a captivating performance by young Federico Ielapi in the title role and marvelous costumes and make-up effects. Also starring in the film is Roberto Benigni as Geppetto, who took a big risk here, given that the last time he appeared in an adaption of this famous story, he was universally trashed for it. This time, though, he does a good job. That being said, it's impossible to watch Pinocchio and not compare it the 1940 animated Disney classic; even if the Disney version didn't exist, this newer film would still suffer because it lacks any kind of emotional punch.
48. The Midnight Sky Visual Effects (Matthew Kasmir, Christopher Lawrence, Max Solomon, David Watkins)
George Clooney gets to show off his directing and acting abilities in this sci-fi flick about a dying man racing to get a message to a spaceship not to return to Earth because the world has ended. However, Clooney doesn't really offer the others in this impressive cast (which includes Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Demián Bachir, and Kyle Chandler) much to do. The end result is a film that may look fascinating at times but ultimately is rather dull.
47. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
Original Song (Savan Kotecha, Fat Max Gsus, Rickard Göransson)
While there are some moments that genuinely work, namely the earnestness and silliness of it (as well as the sweet—yet morbid—humor) and its fantastic songs (especially the Oscar-nominated song "Husavik", which, frankly, is the best of the nominated songs), Eurovision Song Contest is often a rather lazy comedy from people who have made much better and funnier work in the past.
46. The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Actress in a Leading Role (Andra Day)
Inevitably, there was a major movie about a drug-addicted famous singer. Last year, it was Judy, and this year, it's Billie Holiday, who is depicted being mercilessly harassed by the U.S. government because of she frequently sings the civil rights-themed song "Strange Fruit." Any one of the women nominated for Best Actress would be a fine choice, but perhaps because Andra Day makes her acting debut here, she does her own singing, and there are so many intimate scenes that she pulls of bravely, I'm rooting for her. It's just a pity that her performance is in yet another hackneyed biographical film.
45. Tenet Production Design (Nathan Crowley, Kathy Lucas), Visual Effects (Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley, Scott Fisher)
This Bond-like action flick revolving around time travel seems (on paper) like it utilizes much of the winning formula that writer/director Christopher Nolan used for films like Inception and Dunkirk. Audiences, though, may have reached the limit of their patience, with the consensus among many being that this is a loud and emotionless dud that is insufferable as it is incomprehensible.
44. Genius Ioci Short Film (Animated) (Andrien Mérigeau, Amaury Gover)
Genius Ioci, the French animated film directed by Adrien Merigeau, is about a character who sees chaos everywhere. "I find chaos," she says. So, too, will the audience, as this film is a little impenetrable and very French, but the abstract animation is spectacular to look at.
43. Mulan Costume Design (Bina Daigeler), Visual Effects (Sean Faden, Anders Langlands, Seth Maury, Steve Ingram)
Mulan was a movie that seemed to consistently drip with more and more controversy each month, whether it was the abhorrent views of its stars, its orientalism, or Disney's bone-headed decision to film it in Xinjiang (where Uighurs and other groups are held in concentration camps). Perhaps because of this, Mulan was not exactly a box office success, and while it wasn't awful, it wasn't particularly good, either.
42. Opera
Short Film (Animated) (Erick Oh)
Opera, directed by Korean animator Erick Oh, may be a bit deep, philosophical, and allegorical (which might mean it's not for everyone), but its elaborate, Renaissance-inspired animation contains what must be over a hundred things going on simultaneously in one long shot lasting about nine minutes. You won't be able to take your eyes off any of it.
41. Over the Moon
Animated Feature Film (Glen Keane, Gennie Rim, Peilin Chou)
You ought to check out Over the Moon for its breathtaking animation alone; there is no other film on this list with such omnipresence of colors. It is also worth noting, especially during a painful and unjust period for Asians and Asian-Americans, that there are more stories like this, although there are still not enough. While Over the Moon is a pleasant watch, especially for children, and its animation is exceptional, the story is a bit peculiar: a young girl whose widower father is starting to date again wants to prevent their union by going to the moon to find the moon goddess Chang'e...or something. It's a bit non-sensical, but if one can get over that and the film's pretty forgettable songs, one should more or less like it.
40. The Man Who Sold His Skin International Feature Film (Tunisia)
The Man Who Sold His Skin, written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, aims to offer biting simultaneous critiques of the art world and the exploitation of refugees. In this case, the story, an increasingly allegorical one, focuses on a Syrian refugee in Belgium named Sam (played Yahya Mahayni) whose back is elaborately tattooed for it to be shown off and sold as art. Some of the decisions Hania makes in this story regarding the message and Sam's actions might perplex some, particularly with who the film decides is a hero and who is a villain, but it is a compelling story nevertheless.
39. Another Round Directing (Thomas Vinterberg), International Feature Film (Denmark)
Another Round, Denmark's nominee for Best International Feature which scored an upset nomination for Best Director when Thomas Vinterberg was nominated over Regina King and Aaron Sorkin, is about four teachers experiencing a bit of a midlife crisis who decide to experiment with Finn Skårderud's idea that humans are born with a blood-alcohol-level deficit of 0.05. While experiencing an initial improvement in their teaching practices, things predictably start to unravel. Though the film's unintended message being that alcohol equals better classroom lessons is a peculiar one, Another Round does well thanks to Mads Mikkelsen's leading performance.
Best Picture (Ceán Chaffin, Eric Roth, Douglas Urbanski), Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Oldman), Actress in a Supporting Role (Amanda Seyfried), Cinematography (Erik Messerschmidt), Costume Design (Trish Summerville), Makeup and Hairstyling (Gigi Williams, Kimberley Spiteri, Colleen LaBaff), Production Design (Donald Graham Burt, Jan Pascale), Sound (Ren Klyce, Jeremy Molod, David Parker, Nathan Nance, Drew Kunin
Mank swept the Oscar announcements with ten nominations, and yet it's difficult to see how it will go home with more than a few, if any. It faces stiff competition in its likeliest winning category (Cinematography), and it surprisingly was not nominated for its screenplay by Jack Fincher, the late father of the film's director, David Fincher. The latter Fincher has waited patiently for the top prize (many believe he was robbed a decade ago when The King's Speech defeated The Social Network), but this year, that award is Chloé Zhao's to lose. Mank itself is more or less decent but a little full of itself, and I'm not sure how Gary Oldman was nominated for his clunky performance as the famous screenwriter.
37. If Anything Happens I Love You Short Film (Animated) (Will McCormack, Michael Govier)
Halfway through its short runtime, If Anything Happens I Love You takes an unexpected turn. Perhaps, given its title, it won't be unexpected. At any rate, most of the previous moments (detailing a husband and wife falling out of love and their arguments visualized through 2D animation of fighting shadows) struggle to provoke much emotion. One could argue that when the film takes its sudden turn, it is being manipulative, for who wouldn't be moved by such an event? Nevertheless, it's what will help the short stay with you.
36. The Life Ahead Original Song (Diane Warren, Laura Pausini)
Nominated for Best Song but perhaps surprisingly not for Best International Feature, this Italian film, the third adaptation of the 1975 novel about a young Muslim boy under the care of an older Jewish woman, features the legendary Sophia Loren in her first role in six years. She's supported by fantastic performances by Ibrahima Gueye as Momo, the young boy, and Abril Zamora. The Life Ahead, directed by Edoardo Ponti (Lauren's son)is a bit on the forgettable side, but it's not a bad film. Incidentally, this is Diane Warren's twelfth Oscar nomination, but unfortunately, she hasn't won yet.
35. Burrow Short Film (Animated) (Madeline Sharafian, Michael Capbarat)
The appropriately named Pixar film Burrow is a breath of 2D-animation fresh air. At only six minutes, the film, written and directed by Madeline Sharafian, is the eighth part of Pixar's SparkShorts series, the group of films Pixar employees made for a limited budget with just six months. Featuring Mozart music and a cast of furry animals with limited space underground who nevertheless team together to overcome difficult odds, Burrow is a quite pleasant, agreeable film for all ages.
34. Collective Documentary (Alexander Nanau, Bianca Oana), International Feature Film (Romania)
Similar to the Macedonian film Honeyland last year, Collective is nominated for both Best International Feature and Best Documentary. The film, which focuses on a group of journalists from the Romanian sports newspaper Gazette investigating the government's handing of the aftermath of the 2015 fire tragedy at the Colectiv club and the controversy regarding Hexi Pharma diluting disinfectants, certainly has a variety of admirers, with NPR's Linda Holmes and even Barack Obama being fans. It goes without saying that due to the subject matter of Collective, it may be a difficult watch for some viewers, but it is definitely worth a watch.
33. A Love Song for Latasha Documentary (Short Subject) (Sophia Nahil Allison, Janice Duncan)
Directed by Sophia Nahil Allison, this documentary details the painful episode in 1991 in which Latasha Harlins was murdered in a convenience store by Soon Ja Du. (Despite Du being tried and convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Judge Joyce Karlin gave Du a light sentence that included probation and community service. Harlins' murder and the light sentence Du received are credited with contributing to the 1992 Los Angeles riots.) Most of the film contains interviews with Shinese Harlins (Latasha's cousin) and innovative animation and reverse effects. Given that this country is in the midst of more gun violence and racial injustice, this humanizing portrait is necessary viewing.
32. Colette Documentary Short (Anthony Giacchino, Alice Doyard)
Colette is a documentary short about a 90-year-old French Resistance fighter named Colette Marin-Catherine who journeys to the German concentration camp where her brother was killed. Accompanying her is an aspiring historian named Lucie Fouble. Both, expectedly, find the experience to be a life-changing and immensely difficult one, with scenes of Colette reacting to the mayor of Nordhausen and both Lucie and Colette moving about the camp being the most memorable. Filmmakers Anthony Giacchino and Alice Doyard capture, as they say, the authentic experience of someone like Colette.
31. Greyhound Sound (Warren Shaw, Michael Minkler, Beau Borders, David Wyman)
The World War II thriller Greyhound, directed by Aaron Schneider and written by the film's star, Tom Hanks, certainly possesses flaws: its formula is predictable, making the film at times stale, and its score by Blake Neely too obviously channels the works of Hans Zimmer. Of the two Tom Hanks movies last year, this is the less interesting one. However, its visual effects and sound effects are more or less convincing, and while, with one battle sequence after the other, there is not much room for character development, it still makes for an engaging experience, especially as the Greyhound desperately tries to outmaneuver the U-boats. Schneider and Hanks also deserve credit for packing such a punch in under 90 minutes.
30. My Octopus Teacher Documentary (Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed, Craig Foster)
My Octopus Teacher was the last movie I saw in 2020, putting it on Netflix at the end of a restless night. It was a miracle I was able to stay awake, as narrator Craig Foster's soothing voice is a sedative. Still, this documentary, about Foster's year building up trust and perhaps even rapport with an octopus off the coast of South Africa, proves to be a moving and engaging one, especially as we witness all the perils this creature deals with to survive on a daily basis. It definitely seemed like a fitting film to conclude 2020.
29. Love and Monsters Visual Effects (Matt Sloan, Genevieve Camilleri, Matt Everitt, Brian Cox)
Love and Monsters is a post-apocalyptic tale about a young man played by Dylan O'Brien and his dog on their way to a colony to find a girl he dated before the world ended. The film's action and horror sequences work better than its comedic moments, and because most of the characters are not particularly interesting, much of the tension will stem from whether or not the dog survives in their battles with giant mutant insects. That being said, if you're into post-apocalyptic films, this one will certainly suffice, and it has earned its nomination for Best Visual Effects.
Time mostly focuses on Sibil Fox, an entrepreneur and activist who served time for an armed robbery she committed with her husband, Rob, who received a significantly harsher punishment of 60 years. The documentary, directed by Garrett Bradley, takes its 80 minutes to depict Sibil's long fight to free her husband. Time is shot in black and white, a rare thing for documentaries, and its music by Jamieson Shaw and Edwin Montgomery is fantastic. However, its argument that slavery evolved into mass incarceration of people of color was more effectively made in the Ava DuVernay-directed documentary 13th a few years ago.
27. Hunger Ward
Documentary (Short Subject) (Skye Fitzgerald, Michael Scheuerman)
Of all the films on this list, Hunger Ward is the most difficult to watch. The documentary depicts child malnutrition in Yemen due to the Saudi-led and U.S.-supported war crimes in the Yemeni Civil War. (More than 85,000 children have died of malnutrition in Yemen since 2018.) It goes without saying that one will be witness to some of the children struggling through this terrible conflict, and the film bravely depicts their horrifying conditions. Whether you can make it through the film or not, please consider donating to support Yemeni healthcare workers in hunger wards depicted in this documentary.
26. White Eye
Short Film (Live Action) (Tomer Shushan, Shira Hochman)
White Eye is a short film from Israel in which a man named Omer (played by Daniel Gad) one night discovers his stolen bicycle outside a meat-packaging plant. Through the course of the film's realistically tense twenty minutes, Omer tries to track down the thief and retrieve his bike. Things, though, are more complicated than they seem. The film, directed by Tomer Shushan, offers subtle yet powerful moments that can feel like gut punches, with many viewers around the world (due to the themes involving refugees, race relations, and immigration) likely responding to it.
25. Wolfwalkers Animated Feature Film (Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart, Paul Young, Stéphan Roelants)
Wolfwalkers, from Ireland, certainly features some of the most gorgeous animation of any of the animated films on this list. Its traditional 2D animation is very much welcomed in this age of omnipresent 3D animation. Taking, it seems, heavy thematic inspiration from the animated films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Wolfwalkers also conveys an important reminder about humans' destruction of the environment and other species, as well as gently reminding its audience that for the most part, they have nothing to fear from wolves. Additionally, the voice cast is great, particularly Eva Whittaker, Honor Kneafsey, Simon McBurney, and Sean Bean.
24. One Night in Miami Actor in a Supporting Role (Leslie Odom, Jr.), Original Song (Odom, Sam Ashworth), Adapted Screenplay (Kemp Powers)
One Night in Miami, based on the play by Kemp Powers (who adapted it for the screen and who co-directed Soul), features some of the finest acting of last year. Thus, while I found the film a bit more boring than most others did, it was surprising when the Academy didn't nominate Regina King, the Oscar-winning actor who made her feature film directorial debut and was widely expected to be nominated. (It wasn't that surprising, though. The Academy doesn't appear to be the biggest fan of Black women—or any women, for that matter—directing films.) That being said, the performances by its four leads are quite good, with the best being Leslie Odom Jr.'s role as Sam Cooke. Odom, in either the acting or song category, is the film's best chance at an Oscar win.
23. Onward Animated Feature (Dan Scanlon, Kori Rae)
Onward, the considerably less memorable Pixar film from last year, is nevertheless a fun, heartfelt one, focusing on the relationship of two elf brothers voiced by Tom Holland and Chris Pratt. Onward is fortunate to feature such moments because its humor is lacking (in a way that Soul, for the most part, is not), and its climactic scene is very Marvel-y, which probably was inevitable given that it stars Spider-Man and Star-Lord. Still, Onward is worth the watch, and kids will likely be enthralled by it; the movie may be more forgettable than Soul, but that doesn't mean it's not good.
22. Feeling Through Short Film (Live Action) (Doug Roland, Susan Ruzenski)
Making history as the first film to star a Deaf/Blind actor (Robert Tarango) in a lead role, Feeling Through is a humanist piece of art about an unlikely friendship between a Deaf/Blind man named Artie trying to get home late at night and a young man named Tareek (played by Steven Prescod) who helps him along the way. Directed by Doug Roland and executive produced by Oscar-winner Marlene Matlin (who is also deaf), the film has been gaining lots of discussion heading into the contest. It's worth reminding people of the importance of representation in film; even just a decade ago, Artie very likely would have been played by someone who wasn't Deaf/Blind.
21. Nomadland Best Picture (Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, Chloé Zhao), Actress in a Leading Role (McDormand), Director (Zhao), Cinematography (Joshua James Richards), Film Editing (Zhao), Adapted Screenplay (Zhao)
Nomadland will likely win Best Picture this year, although that would make it one of the most mediocre movies to have won in recent memory. This is not to suggest it's bad. Chloé Zhao, who seems on track to make history as the first woman of color and only the second woman ever to win Best Director, is about as deserving of the word auteur as anyone, given that she could win a whopping four Oscars for her work here. Her ability to take a somewhat different source material and turn it into compelling cinematic narrative is remarkable, and it's always a joy to watch non-actors in films like this (a film in which they constitute the majority of the roles) because it makes everything seem much more authentic.
20. The Present Short Film (Live Action) (Farah Nabulsi, Ossama Bawardi)
The Present, directed by Farah Nabulsi, is the kind of film that very likely will make your blood boil. Depicting the terrible apartheid conditions Palestinians face, Nabulsi and her co-writer Hind Shoufani accomplish such a task in a simplistic, succinct way, showing us a man (played by Saleh Bakri) trying to get through an Israeli checkpoint and back to get to his wife to give her a present. Much of the film's success lies not just in Bakri's performance but also in the guerrilla filmmaking of Nabulsi, as much of the checkpoint footage was shot without official permission.
19. Quo Vadis, Aida?
Best International Feature (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Written, directed, and produced by Jasmila Žbanić, Quo Vadis, Aida? centers on an English-teacher-turned-UN-translator named Aida (played by Jasna Duričić) desperately trying to save her family from the chaos and violence in the lead-up to the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian War in 1995, in which more than 8,000 people were slaughtered. The film contains one tense moment after another, especially as as the Dutch UN forces, Bosnian military officials, and everyday Bosniak citizens are caught up in moments in which the audience essentially knows what's coming, even if one is unfamiliar with the Srebrenica massacre. These tense moments, however, are not gratuitous, as they may have been in the hands of weaker filmmakers.
18. The Mole Agent Documentary (Maite Alberdi, Marcela Santibáñez)
The Mole Agent is the third film to make the shortlist for Chile's Best International Feature (after No and A Fantastic Women), but it suffered a similar fate and was not nominated for that category. However, it has richly earned a nomination for Best Documentary. The film is about an older man named Sergio who is hired by a private investigator to go undercover for a few months at a retirement home where a client believes her mother is being abused. The resulting content is not what I expected; instead of being similar to Collective (a hard-hitting tale of investigative journalism), The Mole Agent is a delightful, tender film that simultaneously submits to its viewers reminders of society's cruelty to older people.
Da 5 Bloods, one of two Spike Lee movies of last year (the other being the David Byrne concert movie American Utopia) starts better than it finishes, but it is a movie that impressively changes gears frequently and features amazing performances by its main actors (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr.) as four Vietnam War veterans returning to Vietnam to retrieve gold they had buried during the war. It also features one of the final performances of Chadwick Boseman as the group's squad leader. How Lindo was robbed of a nomination is something I will never understand, but apparently Oscars are still so white, even in this year of slightly more diversity.
16. News of the World Original Score (James Newton Howard), Cinematography (Dariusz Wolski), Production Design (David Crank, Elizabeth Keenan), Sound (Oliver Tarney, Mike Prestwood Smith, William Miller, John Pritchett)
News of the World is a Western (Tom Hanks' first, actually) that shines the most when it engages in moments of thrills, especially as the character Hanks plays (a Civil War veteran who makes a living telling people the news and who tries to reunite a young German girl with her family) engages in tense gun fights with some very bad guys. Other moments, though, certainly have the potential to roll one's eyes, but the film deserves its nominations, especially its gorgeous cinematography.
The White Tiger probably likes to think of itself as a more woke version of the Best Picture-winning Slumdog Millionaire, but it doesn't seem to have succeeded. At its core, it's still a Western-gazing film focusing purely on the struggles of Indians. That being said, what worked in Slumdog Millionaire also works in The White Tiger, with the latter feeling more rightfully combative and shunning Hollywood's liberal do-gooder attitudes about rags-to-riches stories, and it doesn't feel quite as cringy as Slumdog Millionaire. The White Tiger, in addition to its rich screenplay adaption by its director, Ramin Bahrani, features stellar acting from its cast.
14. A Concerto Is a Conversation Documentary (Short Subject) (Ben Proudfoot, Kris Bowers)
A Concerto Is a Conversation is an intimate, sweet documentary depicting a conversation between composer Kris Bowers (who co-directed the film with Ben Proudfoot) and his grandfather, who doesn't have much time left as he's struggling with cancer. The two discuss their history, particularly the grandfather's struggles growing up in the Jim Crow era. The film, crisply edited and finely accompanied by Powers' music, accomplishes so much with so little time. It's one of the most charming of the films on this list.
13. Do Not Split Documentary (Short Subject) (Andres Hammer, Charlotte Cook)
The Field of Vision documentary Do Not Split,directed by Anders Hammer, bravely depicts the 2019-2020 protests in Hong Kong with fierce and unhindered determination. Much of the shocking footage in this short documentary contains the brutal tactics by the Chinese Communist Party and the police against the pro-democracy protests in the city, day and night. (The CCP has, shockingly, not been thrilled with the nomination.) Audiences outside of Hong Kong are likely to get their most intimate look at the chaos there they've ever seen, which serves as a potent reminder during these days in which the world is forgetting what happened and what continues to happen there. China is certain to be a topic of Oscar night, as Better Days will represent Hong Kong at the ceremony, Mulan features a Chinese cast, Over the Moon is a China-U.S. production, and Chloé Zhao, who is from China, is nominated for Nomadland.
12. The Letter Room
Short Film (Live Action) (Elvira Lind, Sofia Sondervan)
This Oscar-nominated short has star power: Oscar Isaac plays a letter inspector at a prison who becomes very interested and invested in correspondence between a woman and a man on death row. The Letter Room has a few humorous moments throughout, but it's a simple tale and very watchable. Isaac, who also is an executive producer of the film, gives yet another commendable performance, making everything he does on screen look so easy.
11. Two Distant Strangers Short Film (Live Action) (Travon Free, Martin Desmond Roe)
Two Distant Strangers is a film in which it is better if you know as little as possible about it going in. If you do require at least some information, know that it utilizes a popular formula while engaging in serious societal issues; the reasons for the juxtaposition of the two should be obvious to most viewers. One can debate whether or not marrying the two for a film like this is appropriate or not, but in the end, it's an engaging yet deeply painful story, all the while offering a forceful repudiation of Green Book-mentality that the Academy awarded just a few years ago.
10. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Actor in a Leading Role (Chadwick Boseman), Actress in a Leading Role (Viola Davis), Costume Design (Ann Roth), Makeup and Hairstyling (Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neal, Jamika Wilson)
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the adaption of August Wilson's play directed by George C. Wolfe, while arguably coming across as too theatrical, is worthy of much praise for is its fine performances. Should Chadwick Boseman win, he would be the third actor to have won posthumously, after Peter Finch for Network and Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight. But like Finch and Ledger, Boseman (while he does have stiff competition from Steven Yeun and Riz Ahmed) likely gives the best performance of the bunch. You can't take your eyes off him. Boseman and his fellow-nominated performer, the incomparable Viola Davis, are supported by a great cast that includes Michael Potts, Colman Domingo, and Glynn Turman, all of whom could have been nominated, as well.
9. The Father Best Picture (David Parfitt, Jean-Louis Livi, Philippe Carcassonne), Actor in a Leading Role (Anthony Hopkins), Actress in a Supporting Role (Olivia Colman), Film Editing (Yorgos Lamprinos), Production Design (Peter Francis, Cathy Featherstone), Adapted Screenplay (Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller)
The Father, co-written by director Florian Zeller and adapted from his 2012 play, is the most heartbreaking cinematic undertaking of the pain of dementia yet. The last big Oscar movie to tackle the subject was Still Alice in 2014, but there are notable differences between the two, namely in how theatrical and unpredictable everything is in The Father, with two actors playing each role (except for Anthony Hopkins playing the main character, the one thing that remains constant throughout the film) to help audiences understand what the protagonist is going through. Indeed, it's difficult to tell what is real and what isn't. Like Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Father sometimes is too theatrical, but Hopkins' performance as Anthony, an older man suffering from dementia, is able to secure complete empathy from the audience, even as they may cringe at his behavior. Hopkins has been on a roll as of late; this is the Oscar-winner's second consecutive nomination.
8. Judas and the Black Messiah Best Picture (Shaka King, Charles D. King, Ryan Coogler), Actor in the Supporting Role (Daniel Kaluuya), Actor in a Supporting Role (Lakeith Stanfield), Original Screenplay (Will Berson, Shaka King, Kenny Lucas, Keitha Lucas), Cinematography (Sean Bobbitt), Original Song (H.E.R, Dernst Emile II, Tiara Thomas)
Judas and the Black Messiah, much like several other films on this list, is certainly a film for our times. This will become more than evident when viewing this given all the turmoil currently in the United States. And while its story is quite an important reminder of the government's history of oppressing its own people (and its storytelling methods will likely engage most viewers), its strongest qualities are its acting performances. Despite the oddity in having both Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield nominated in the Supporting Actor category despite being in lead roles, they are among the most memorable performances of the year. Also great are others in the cast, namely Dominique Fishback, Jesse Plemmons, and Martin Sheen (though his J. Edgar Hoover makeup is distracting).
One could argue that Cohen and team are nominated for this award because the first Borat didn't win the Oscar in the same category fourteen years ago. (It lost to The Departed.) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is noticeably weaker than the first movie, partly because our tastes have changed and partly because Borat doesn't seem as fresh as he did all those years ago. Still, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is undoubtedly the funniest film on this list, and comedies should be rewarded more. In a year of such deep and painful films, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm offers the right balance of escapism and justifiable alarmism. Furthermore, any movie that takes aim at anti-maskers and Rudy Giuliani is commendable in my book.
6. Soul Animated Feature Film (Peter Docter, Dana Murray), Original Score (Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Jon Batiste), Sound (Ren Klyce, Coya Elliot, David Parker)
It's difficult not to compare Soul to Inside Out, but given their similarities (and the fact that they were both directed by Peter Docter), it's impossible not to. Unfortunately, Soul falls short compared to Inside Out. Still, Soul contains the usual Pixar magic: stupendous, imaginative animation mixed with complex ideas and emotional moments. How could it not be about such things? There are certainly laughs, too, with moments involving a cat being the funniest. But the thought of the film is what audiences likely will remember the most; a lot of this movie spoke to me, for example. I just wish the filmmakers had gone further with the sentimentality.
5. Sound of Metal Best Picture (Bert Hamelinck, Sacha Ben Harroche), Actor in a Lead Role (Riz Ahmed), Actor in a Supporting Role (Riz Ahmed), Film Editing (Mikkel E.G. Nielsen), Sound (Nicolas Becker, Jamie Baksht, Michelle Couttolenc, Carlos Cortés, Phillip Bladh, Original Screenplay (Darius Marder, Abraham Marder, Derek Cianfrance)
Sound of Metal is able to be didactic without coming across as too offensive, although the film's depiction of deafness and from whose perspective the film should have been has caused some understandable debate. The debate aside, the two performances that will stay with you the longest are Riz Ahmed as the main character, a heavy metal drummer who loses his hearing, and Paul Raci as Joe, the man running the center that helps deaf people. Both acting jobs are earnest and about as naturalistic as any acting from the previous year. If Chadwick Boseman were not the frontrunner this year, this award would very likely go to Ahmed.
4. Promising Young Woman Best Picture (Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell, Josey McNamara), Actress in a Leading Role (Carey Mulligan), Directing (Fennell), Film Editing (Frédéric Thoraval)
Promising Young Woman, the revenge thriller written and directed by Oscar-nominated Emerald Fennell in her feature film debut as a director,features a performance by Carey Mulligan that is quite likely her finest so far. With all due respect to Vanessa Kirby and Frances McDormand, this year is a really tough year to pick a winner between Mulligan, Davis, and Day. (With Day's win at the Golden Globes, Davis' SAG win, McDormand winning the BAFTA, and Mulligan being the victor at the Critics Choice Awards, this category is the most challenging to predict this year.) While the film, particularly its climatic moments and resolution, have been a bit divisive, Promising Young Woman is perhaps the most thought-provoking of the films on the list, tackling the most obvious MeToo scenarios and the less discussed versions.
3. The Trial of the Chicago 7
Best Picture (Marc Platt, Stuart Besser), Actor in a Supporting Role (Sacha Baron Cohen), Cinematography (Phedon Papamichael), Film Editing (Alan Baumgarten), Original Song (Daniel Pemberton, Celeste Waite), Original Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 features one of the best ensemble casts of the year (and possibly ever), with stellar performances by Eddie Redmayne, John Carrol Lynch, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Rylance, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Frank Langella, who, in my humble opinion, should have been nominated instead of Sacha Baron Cohen, who got the nomination for his shaky performance as Abby Hoffman. Aaron Sorkin's script is among his best ever, and his direction is quite good, as well. That intro is exhilarating, perfectly edited by Alan Baumgarten, yet it's just so disappointing that Sorkin ends the film in such an unbelievably cheesy and old-fashioned way.
2. Crip Camp
Best Documentary (Nichole Newham, Jim LeBrecht, and Sara Bolder)
Higher Ground Productions is on a roll. The company, founded by the Obamas, also won last year in this category for American Factory, which detailed the cultural complexities when a Chinese company took over a former U.S. car factory. In similar fashion, Crip Camp educates audiences about a tale they ought to be more familiar with: campers with disabilities from a summer camp in the 1970s who later became activists in the disability rights and independent living movements. The film does so in a way that comes across feeling less gazing than Sound of Metal does. Crip Camp is even better than American Factory, featuring a rich amount of power, charm, and exceptional filmmaking.
1. Minari
Best Picture (Christina Oh), Actor in a Leading Role (Steven Yeun), Actress in a Supporting Role (Yuh-jung Youn), Directing (Lee Isaac Chung), Original Score (Emile Mosseri), Original Screenplay (Chung)
Lee Isaac Chung's humanist tale is the film on this list that has stayed with me the longest. His semi-autobiographical story is of a Korean-American family in 1980s Arkansas trying to make it as independent farmers. Steven Yeun plays Jacob, the father of the family, who is bitter about Korean city folks and incredibly eager to achieve the American Dream. Yeun, the first Asian-American to be nominated for Best Actor, faces stiff competition from the other nominees, but it is his finest performance in his fantastic career. He's not alone; the entire cast—Han Yen-ri as the mother, Alan S. Kim and Noel Cho as the two children, the legendary Youn Yuh-jung as the grandmother, and Will Patton as a local farmer employed by Jacob—are phenomenal. Like Crip Camp, it was one of the best films of 2020, and I hope it scores an upset and wins the top prize.
One of the highest honors bestowed upon iconic actors over the years has been to declare that one could listen to the actor read the phonebook. As far as I know, there's never been a film containing an actor reading the phonebook for our entertainment. There is, however, a new one featuring Tom Hanks reading the newspaper from town to town in the Old South.
In the new Western News of the World, directed by Paul Greengrass, Hanks plays a Civil War veteran whose new profession involves him roaming around Texas reading the newspaper for a dime and bringing common folks the news of the world. It is not stated in the film if his audience is literate or not. They could have been among the twenty percent of the population who were illiterate at the time, or perhaps they could read but just liked hearing the news from a man we in the real world know as a two-time Oscar winner who has frequently been called "America's Dad." It's also a timely and comforting voice for audience in front of the screen, for one of the first news items he reads involves an epidemic of meningitis. Hanks, who was one of the first celebrities to catch COVID-19, calmly provides his audiences with just the facts.
Sometimes, however, the facts enrage his audience members. The news of the illness incites moans of concern and disappointment among his listeners. So, too, does news of the Grant administration's demands that Texas ratify the Thirteenth, Fourteen, and Fifteenth amendments before rejoining the Union. News of the World takes place in 1870, five years after the Civil War ended and seven years before Reconstruction ended and Jim Crow began. Not-so-subtle hints at this history present themselves as the camera focuses on the sole Black person in the audience as Tom Hanks' Captain Jefferson Kidd references the changes happening across the nation.
The film, though it is discussing relevant topics like disease and fake news, does not seem interested in pointing out that Kidd fought on the side that tried to keep Black people enslaved. For all we know, he could have been a slaver. The consequence of this omission is that the film features essentially an all-white cast. The only people of color in the film randomly show up just to nod their head when Kidd speaks. Even the sole group of Native Americans who appear in the film, practically unseen in a terrible tempest of sand, give Kidd a horse and then stoically walk on by in the worst Hollywood way.
The plot of News of the World is that while on his way to the next town, Kidd discovers a wagon party that was violently attacked. The only survivor is a young German immigrant played by Helena Zengel named Johanna Leonberger. She doesn't speak English and she basically doesn't speak German, either. She does speak Kiowa, however, the language of the Native Americans who raided her German family's farm and took her in. Being unable to communicate with her, Kidd finds he has no choice but to try and take her to her German aunt and uncle.
Johanna, who Kidd later finds out goes by the name Cicada, is similar to the real-life tale of Herman Lehmann, the son of German immigrants who was captured by Apaches in 1870. Eventually running away from the Apaches, he received asylum with a Comanche tribe. However, Lehman was eventually reunited with his German family, but he had difficulty readjusting and didn't like his white family members. Cicada feels this way, too, running away from Kidd and disobeying him whenever she can, sometimes perhaps to annoy and humiliate him. This, plus their obvious communication barrier, makes their odyssey even more complicated.
Zengel, the rising German star in her first Hollywood film, is terrific, but why couldn't the film (adapted from Paulette Jiles' novel) simply have the character be Native American? Given Hollywood's problem with diversity, this is disappointing. While child captives were not uncommon during this period, this story has already been told by Hollywood (The Searchers, Dances With Wolves, The Captives), and the point remains that this was a missed opportunity to add even a tiny amount of diversity. It's not surprising; the only somewhat diverse film Greengrass has directed features a cast mostly playing Somali pirates.
That complaint aside, News of the World is fine. It works better as a tense thriller than an old-fashioned Western, with its best moments being those in which Kidd and Cicada have to outmaneuver a variety of evil men trying to harm them. Unfortunately, these moments are few and far between, and while the sequences are unpredictable, the film's overall trajectory more or less is not, resulting in the kind of film you'll likely forget you watched several months from now.
It's not without its silly moments, either. Cicado picks up enough English to be able to ask something like "Captain, Johanna go?" This makes sense; children pick up languages considerably easier than adults do. Kidd, however, goes from learning the words for bird and buffalo to putting together relatively complex sentences in Kiowa like "you belong with me."
Awkwardness aside, Hanks, in his first Western, shines. His acting is made better when he plays off Zengel, who apparently didn't know who he was when she was cast. As Kidd, Hanks plays a man who is an empathetic and calm individual who knows how to defuse volatile situations but will use force when necessary. The way he reads the newspaper, as well, makes one wish there had been more of that in the film. Most people would, after all, probably watch Tom Hanks read an entire newspaper.
The anthropologist Philip Carl Salzman noted in 1983 that nomadic people tend to behave more independently, display self-sufficiency, and emphasize autonomy. These ideas are visualized in Nomadland, the new film adapted for the screen by Chloé Zhao, especially through its main character, Fern, played by Frances McDormand, in this cyclical drama about a woman who lives out of her van, working from temporary job to temporary job.
But Nomadland isn't simply a look at the psychology of an independent-minded nomad criss-crossing her way in a van across the American west. It's also a look at how economics can profoundly impact everyday people. Based on the non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder about older Americans looking for seasonal work after the Great Recession, Fern is a fictional character in a real-life crisis many will recognize.
With all that has happened in the past year, it might be easy to forget that 73,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States since 2001. Even without the pandemic, things have radically changed for a significant amount of workers in this country. Despite things in large part getting better (at least before the pandemic), the nation has tolerated certain segments of the public being left behind. It's the price we apparently are willing to pay. Nomadland is a reminder of the cruelty in doing so.
Fran was married to a man for years before his death, and they both worked in Empire, Nevada, the real-life census-designated place that now is a ghost town. With the factory closed and her job lost, Fran, with limited options, gets rid of most of her stuff and departs Empire to search for work. The first job we see Fern work in after she leaves is for Amazon in a warehouse for seasonal work. It's a bit surprising that Amazon would agree to let the production film there, but to paraphrase Wilfred Chan at Variety, Amazon is treated with kid gloves. Chan writes that "because the film is primarily a character study of [Fran], it exchanges Bruder's sharp indignation over capitalist exploitation for a muddled message about individual freedom that downplays the real stakes of gig labor." I agree. It all sometimes feels like quasi-Amazon propaganda, that they're the good guys trying to help those in need, when in fact, they often make the problem worse.
Zhao, to her credit, deserves praise for telling stories that most Americans never hear. Her previous film, the 2017 drama The Rider, focused on Native Americans in the Badlands and also featured a non-trained acting cast. The main character in that film is a rodeo star struggling with poverty after his career is cut short due to an injury. Her screenplay adaption of Nomadland, as Chan said, avoids the more overtly political messages of its source material, but it at least feels authentic and humanist. For example, the way the story occasionally jumps forward without showing us every step of Fern's path helps the film show the vast scope of her difficult and eventful year.
Aside from a little bit of Fern's background, not much of the others' is given, but this is not required. This film is purely about these characters' present. One important piece of information given, though, is when someone glibly defends Fran's nomadic ways as being a part of "American tradition" similar to the Pilgrims, and there's just so many mixed feelings upon hearing something like that. It's an important moment in the script. Zhao also deserves praise for offering friendly reminders of the gorgeousness of the west, especially as Fern goes to various locations, like Badlands National Park and redwoods.
And of course, should Zhao be nominated for Best Director, it will also be due to her ability to get exceptional performances from her cast members, both from the traditional and untraditional actors. In films like Nomadland, often the non-trained actors are more interesting than the trained ones. This is particularly true of real-life nomads in the film, namely Bob Wells, Swankie, and Linda May, who play fictional versions of themselves. McDormand and especially David Strathairn (the only other professional actor in the cast), though, have made a career of often being as naturalistic as possible, so they fit in seamlessly.
Yet this isn't to suggest that there are no issues with Nomadland. One issue is the focus on Fern's search for answers as much as for work. This is a slightly uncomfortable part of the film, almost suggesting that her struggles are due to some kind of "free spirit" and migratory disposition instead of the seismic changes to the workplace and a nation leaving behind a significant amount of its workers. Fern isn't necessarily a vagrant, proudly (sometimes stubbornly) refusing a helping hand or a warm bed and stability. "You know I'll pay you back, right?" she asks in one moment when given some money. It would be tempting to use words like "odyssey" for how Nomadland unfolds, for that would romanticize poverty, but sometimes it's just how the film feels. It shouldn't feel that way, though. It shouldn't feel like an adventure.
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King famously met only once. The two most iconic leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s had quite different views, with King calling for racial integration and Malcolm calling for racial separation. With previous efforts to unite and rally together having failed, the two met by chance in the halls of the Senate just for a few moments and cordially shook hands; they never met again. After Malcolm X's assassination, King wrote to Malcolm's widow, Betty, that while the two didn't always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, he "always had deep affection for Malcolm."
One Night in Miami is about a fictional conversation in 1964 between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cook, four huge figures who in real life were actual friends. The four of them were nascent yet simultaneously at a low point. This is evident in each scene that introduces us to them: Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay, and played here by Eli Goree) nearly loses a boxing match in London (it at first appears that he lost; it's only later revealed that he actually won); Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) bombs his performance at the Copacabana in front of an all-white audience; Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) is having increasing conflicts with the Nation of Islam; and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) is, despite his incredible success in the NFL, called a racial slur (quite casually) to his face.
While this long chat in Miami is (as far as we know) fictional, it seems that writer Kemp Powers (who adapted the screenplay from his award-winning 2013 play) must have imagined at least once what it would have been like if Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had in fact met behind closed doors, away from the cameras, and exchanged more than just a polite handshake. Whether or not Powers had thought of this, Cooke is the one would be the most like King; both were born in the South, were Christian, and died young. Cooke was an active member of the Civil Rights Movement, but in this film, Malcolm X believes he ought to be doing much more than singing for cold white folks.
Many of the most dramatic moments in One Night in Miami feature a sometimes heated argument between Malcolm and Cooke, with the former urging the latter to be more involved in the struggle for Black liberation. Most people don't like being lectured to, though, and Cooke fights back. Sometimes Clay and Brown need to break them up. Sometimes the arguing goes in different directions. The fundamental and consistent debate among them, though, is about what is best for their people during a time of terrible discrimination and violence.
Powers, the co-writer and co-director of last year's Soul and the writer of a few episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, was a reporter for seventeen years and used that experience to create distinct voices for characters. The playful yet tense dialogue he gives these four is theatrical, but not as much as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which might serve as a major competitor in awards season. One Night in Miami is the directorial debut of Regina King, who the past few years has picked up a variety of awards for her work in front of the camera in projects like If Beale Street Could Talk and Watchmen. For her debut, King has received rave reviews and is a contender for Best Director at the Academy Awards, which would make her the first Black woman to achieve that.
King sometimes lets some of the supporting bit players overdo it, but she gets quality work from her four leads, particularly Odom, who has dazzled audiences this year with his work here and in Hamilton. The best part of his acting in One Night in Miami is his singing; that is, unsurprisingly, his own voice singing some of Cook's famous songs. The others are commendable, as well. The British actor Ben-Adir commands attention in every scene, Goree has the haughty confidence of Clay down perfectly, and Hodge's well-played passivity serves as an appropriate balance to all the energy in the tight hotel room. The four succeed in pulling off possibly the most challenging aspect of such a project: portraying real-life figures without appearing like a cheap imitation. While the other supporting actors sometimes give distracting performances, others (like Beau Bridges) do not, and actors known primarily for their work on television shine here as well, with Lance Reddick as one of Malcolm's bodyguards and Michael Imperioli as Angelo Dundee being notable examples.
While the ideas are fascinating to listen to and the actors do a terrific job communicating them, audiences will have to decide their eagerness for watching what essentially is a long conversation in which they will be a fly on the wall. A result is that it sometimes feels repetitious. One Night in Miami sometimes feels not like a four-way conversation between icons but instead a diatribe by one of them (Malcolm) against another (Cooke) for not doing enough to support the cause, while the two others (Clay and Brown) are trying to discover what personal path they will take. Of the four, it is Brown who likely is the audience surrogate, partly because he says the least. He calls the evening a "strange night" and asks out of exhaustion what is going on. Audiences might feel the same way he does.
Twelve years ago, the Indian actor and director Aamir Khan describedSlumdog Millionaire as not being an Indian film, but a film about India, similar to Gandhi. His criticism was milder than what other Indian critics were complaining about, with some viewing the British film as insulting or only focusing on negative aspects of life in India.
I don't know what Khan thinks of The White Tiger, the new adaption of Aravind Adiga's novel on Netflix, but I suspect his views would be similar to how he felt about Slumdog Millionaire. It's is easy to see how The White Tiger could be another case of Hollywood poverty porn. NPR interviewed several Indians who grew up in poverty, and there are mixed reactions, with one saying that the film "catered to the white Western gaze, reinforcing stereotypes that the poor are helpless."
I am not Indian, I have never lived in India, and I have not experienced poverty; therefore, all I can do is read these concerns and allow it to affect my perception of a movie that I generally liked. Beyond that, it does seem (to an outsider, at least) that while there certainly is Western gazing in this film, director Ramin Bahrani (who also wrote the screenplay) is cognizant of complaints about Slumdog Millionaire and at least is trying hard not to repeat the same mistakes.
Part of his strategy in doing so is to focus on the politics a lot more. Instead of an earnest and sweet rags-to-riches tale that felt universal, The White Tiger tries a different approach, frequently comparing those who suffer from capitalism to chickens awaiting their violent end in a coup and casting a wide net of attacks against hypocritical politicians, the caste system, the rich, tribalism, and liberal do-gooders.
The vehicle for such an ideological message is the main character, Balram (played by Adarsh Gourav). Balram is a clever boy, becoming the only one in his class to be fluent in English. This impresses a teacher so much that he calls him a white tiger, a very rare animal in the jungle. White tigers, though, presumably are vulnerable, as their white fur can give them away, and so, too, Belram is at risk. Balram's dreams of enjoying his scholarship and studying are crushed when is father (Satish Kumar) dies of tuberculosis and his grandmother (Kamlesh Gill) orders him to work at home at the family tea shop so that they can pay off debts to the village landlord, nicknamed The Stork (Mahesh Manjrekar).
Balram grows up but still dreams of escaping the village and going on to bigger things. He's able to charm himself into getting a job as the driver of Ashok (Rajkummar Rao), The Stork's Western-educated and promising son. On the surface, Ashok is kind to Balram, certainly kinder toward him than The Stork or Ashok's older brother, The Mongoose (Vijay Maurya), are. Pinky (Priyanka Chopra Jones, who also is an executive producer of the film), Ashok's wife who was raised in the U.S., also displays kindness toward Balram. Their generosity, however, is superficial, and when push comes to shove, a more honest reality presents itself.
It doesn't matter, though. Balram becomes infatuated with them, constantly calling Ashok "sir" and using words like "master" and "serve" to Ashok and Pinky, whom he calls members of his family. "It is my duty to serve," he says without hesitating. Eventually, though, Balram can only take so many de-humanizing insults. "Do we loathe our masters behind a façade of love, or do we love them behind a façade of loathing?" he asks, in the film's best line taken from the book.
Gourav's performance is fantastic. He's given several moments to show what he can do physically and verbally, but his eyes do a lot of the work, too. His delivery of other well-written lines in this manifesto, like "When I looked at that cash, I didn't feel guilt; I felt rage," are spot-on. The audience is witness to Balram's metamorphosis from tea worker to driver to beyond, becoming sort of an Indian Robin Hood, fighting against modern-day India's "two-caste system" of those with bellies and those without, and Gourav's performances makes that transformation more fascinating.
Bahrani does a commendable job adapting this novel for the screen, and it is great that Western studios are diversifying their content to include more Asian stories featuring Asian performers. (It was not that long ago when actors like Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness would appear in brown face or when the only Indians in movies were those eating monkey brains.) Alas, the concerns about the West's portrayal of India continues to be problematic. The White Tiger is less awkward than films before it, but the West still has a ways to go.
"That is just asking for it." This is one of the lines from the creepy predators featured throughout this film; this particular one comes right at the beginning. The predators are a few guys hanging out at a club, venting about work and on the lookout for a hookup. Soon, they see a woman who has had too much to drink. They start to express concern; they want to make sure the really drunk woman at the club is alright, but this is all part of the strategy. It's a slightly more woke, slightly more polite version of the type of sexual predator we've come to know in pop culture, both in front of the camera and behind it. These guys will make sure the woman is okay, but also okay enough to go to bed with him. "Gosh, you're so pretty," they'll say, to really drive home their courteous, falsely deferential persona. It's like they're a feminist version of a rapist, and the ultimate villain in this tale is the attitude that boys will be boys.
2017 was the year of MeToo, but 2020 was the year of MeToo cinema. Three years after the beginning of the movement, which would bring about the downfall of Harvey Weinstein, John Lasseter, R. Kelly, Dustin Hoffman, and so many others, notable films like The Assistant, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and The Invisible Man have tackled the subject. None of those films have been quite as forceful as Promising Young Woman, the new film written and directed by Emerald Fennell, her full-length feature film debut. (She has acted in films like The Danish Girl and the Netflix show The Crown and has a cameo in this film.) One of the reasons why Promising Young Woman is important is because the inexcusable behavior of men is not always so obvious (at least to other men, that is). For example, after Weinstein's accusers finally got the attention of the world, many men surely felt relief that they themselves had never behaved like Weinstein. It wasn't until the behavior of other celebrities (like Aziz Ansari and James Franco) became known that the male population as a whole probably sat themselves down to have a self-reflection session.
Cassie Thomas is surrounded by guys like these. She also has had to deal a lot with toxic femininity in her life, as some women in her past and present have engaged in subtle slut shaming and victim blaming. Cassie is played by Carey Mulligan in probably her best performance so far. Despite the film's title, Cassie dropped out of medical school and serves coffee at a local shop while living with her parents. But by night, she goes out to clubs, where her mission has a profound sense of purpose to end predatory behavior, as she goes from club to bar and puts on an act of being completely intoxicated, luring in seedy men before she can rain verbal justice on them.
Why is she doing this? It's best to leave that unwritten. Fennell doesn't reveal Cassie's reasons for a while, and even then only gradually. But part of Cassie's odyssey is hindered when she starts to fall for an old college classmate from medical school named Ryan (Bo Burnham), a seemingly sweet guy who is now a doctor. Cassie can't help but fall for him, and the two of them lip syncing in a pharmacy to Paris Hilton is the most joyous moment in a film that for the rest of its runtime is quite dark. Burnham, the comic who rose to fame in the early days of YouTube and who also wrote and directed Eighth Grade, provides the most complex acting of his career. Mulligan and Burnham are also supported by a great cast that includes Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Connie Britton, Sam Richardson, Max Greenfield, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Molly Shannon, and Alfred Molina.
The color palate used in this film, with Rae Deslich's set decoration, Nancy Steiner's costume design, and Benjamin Kracun's cinematography, is exceptional and makes the film feel like a less disgusting version of Birds of Prey. And aside from the technical aspects and Mulligan's acting, Fennell's writing and directing is the best part about Promising Young Woman. Her script features a lot of admirable strategic patience, only giving a few pieces of information at its own pace.
It's not perfect, though. For example, there are two major twists in the film. One takes place at the conclusion of the prologue, and the other basically starts the final act of the film. The first one is unexpected, and will start the journey of making things a little clearer. The second twist, while important, is also kind of predictable. Additionally, this is a black comedy, but some of the humor is unfunny at best and overly morbid at worst. There are other problematic moments as well. It seems like Cassie is able to get away with some of her actions (like smashing up a car with a tire iron) probably because she's a white woman.
That being said, Promising Young Woman certainly is a clever, more modern and sophisticated revenge flick than what we're used to seeing from Hollywood, and we should all greatly look forward to Fennell's next work.
The term "death by a thousand cuts" comes from the Chinese word "lingchi", which, according to Wikipedia, translates as "lingering death" or "slow process". In case your imagination isn't gory enough, lingchi was a torture and execution practice for roughly a thousand years, and in some cases there could be as many as three thousand cuts to the human body in the awful ordeal. Death could be achieved in as little as fifteen minutes, although some emperors ordered as many as three days of cutting.
Three days is minuscule compared to four years, which is how long Rodrigo Duterte and his ruling PDP-Lapang Party have controlled the Philippines. Elected in 2016 as a populist and nationalist, Duterte is notorious around the world for the extra-judicial killings as a result of his so-called War on Drugs. News organizations and human rights groups have claimed that the death count may be as high as 12,000, including 54 children in the first year.
Duterte may be infamous abroad, but he is beloved at home. The majority of my Filipino friends strongly support Duterte and his War on Drugs. The reasons why never really make sense to me; they'll usually say something about Filipinos needing a paternalistic or authoritarian figure to manage things and keep order. Opinion polls also show clear evidence that Duterte (sometimes nicknamed "Duterte Harry") remains popular, with numbers as high as 91 percent, even as the COVID-19 pandemic ravages the country and the War on Drugs continues. Typically, Filipino presidents rank much lower.
His popularity has remained sky-high despite critical reporting from journalists like Maria Ressa, co-founder of the online news site Rappler. Ressa, a 2018 Time magazine Person of the Year, has been a critic of Duterte's, and she has paid the price for it. The documentary A Thousand Cuts, directed by Ramona Diaz, focuses on Ressa and Rappler's reporting on the War on Drugs and the government's draconian response to their work. In addition to following Ressa's story, A Thousand Cuts also shows its audience other journalists at Rappler, like Pia Ranada and Patricia Evangelista, as well as the senatorial campaigns of Samira Gutoc (a Duterte critic) and Ronald dela Rosa, a big, bald, and bold police general who is short on policy specifics (other than that he's with Duterte) but does a lot of out-of-tune singing for his supporters at rallies. Duterte does not appear as frequently as Ressa, but his presence is always there, whether it be through his government's targeting of journalists or another dead body in the streets.
Some critics (especially those who admire Duterte) might describe A Thousand Cuts as one-sided, but this would be unfair. If an audience member is looking for balance, they would surely see it in the senate races; both of the candidates get about equal screen time to share their point of view. Beyond that, a "both-sides-of-the-argument" type of approach in this documentary would have made it too thoroughly bland and didactic in the wrong way. And for authoritarian leaders, a fair-and-balanced approach is not appropriate. Does a guy who has an approval rating in the nineties (despite botching a pandemic response and murdering thousands of people) really need a film to present his side of the story?
Riaz and her team have done a commendable job editing all their footage and archival footage covering so many complex topics and getting their audience invested. People from the U.S. may take special interest in such a film because of the similarities between Donald Trump and Duterte, but there's no reason why someone from Canada or Sweden or Japan, for example, wouldn't also find the film fascinating. One element that will help keep audiences' attention is Sam Lipman's score, which, while not an omnipresent part of the documentary, does help A Thousand Cuts feel increasingly like a political thriller as it inches its way towards the denoument.
With the way Diaz has presented everything, it's difficult to watch A Thousand Cuts and not notice obvious similarities between the Trump experiment in the United States and the Duterte experiment in the Philippines. Both have demonstrated the dangers of populism and "law-and-order" brutality, as well as attacks on the media. Early in the documentary, Duterte calls Rappler a "fake news outlet...pregnant with falsity." Both Trump and Duterte certainly have benefited from actual fake news and vitriol on social media sites like Facebook. (The #ArrestThoseBitches is seen in A Thousand Cuts, presumably referring to Ressa, Renada, Evangelista, and others.) Duterte is much more blunt than Trump. With Trump, he would often test limits by "joking" or re-tweeting someone. Duterte doesn't do that. He's much more direct. "If you end up dead," we hear him tell a journalist in the film, "it's your own fault." They both boast about their genitals, but even in that Duterte is more descriptive, as we see here. Ressa notes that while her sister lives in New York and she lives in Manila, both of them are ruled by similar leaders, "macho, populist, sexist at best," she says, "misogynistic at worst." They both use anger and fear to divide and conquer, she tell us.
The difference between the Philippines and the United States, though, is that Trump eventually lost in the U.S. True, Trump came to power (by losing the popular vote and with the help of Russia) and then won the second-most votes in the 2020 campaign. He tried to overturn the results, and his supporters violently stormed the Capitol to try and prevent the transfer of power. But it failed. Journalists haven't been convicted in the U.S. for reporting on politicians. Ressa notes that if authoritarians can get away with it in countries like the U.S., they surely can get away with it in countries like the Philippines.
But alas, it seems she's wrong. Trump is out of power and unusually mute, facing possible (yet increasingly unlikely) conviction. His approval rating was in the thirties, not nineties, and the growing consensus is that he will be historically ranked as one of the worst, if not the worst. Duterte, however, while term-limited, seems to be readying the presidential palace for his daughter. His war has been a failure but continues nevertheless. Ressa has been convicted of cyberlibel. It's possible that Trump or someone like him could win in 2024 or beyond, but it's just as likely that this will not be the case. Duterte's legacy, popularity, War on Drugs, and persecution of journalists, however, seems unlikely to go away. The cuts could keep coming.
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