Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Streaming Has Won the Hollywood Debate. Is Best Picture Next?

      by

      A few years ago, the entertainment industry was arguing over whether movies on streaming services even counted as a film. Now, one is poised to win the Oscars’ top prize.Three years ago, Hollywood was engaged in a knock-down, drag-out fight over the future of cinema — what, exactly, constitutes a film — with the Oscars as the boxing ring.Netflix and other streaming insurgents insisted that the delivery route was irrelevant, that a film could be primarily viewed on an iPhone and still be a film. Theaters? Ticket sales? It didn’t matter.The Hollywood establishment, or at least most of it, was incensed: Big screens, they argued, are part of the very definition of cinema. “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie,” Steven Spielberg told a reporter at a European press junket at the time. “You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar.”And now?Unless the predictions are wrong and something unexpected awaits inside those gold leaf-embossed envelopes at the 94th Academy Awards on Sunday, a streaming service film — in a first — will win the Oscar for best picture. “CODA,” a dramedy from Apple TV+ about the only hearing member of a deaf family, is favored to receive the prize, having already won top honors at the predictive Producers Guild Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Writers Guild Awards.A Netflix film, “The Power of the Dog,” could nudge past “CODA” to win the best picture trophy, awards handicappers say. But most are not predicting a win for nominees from traditional studios, including “Belfast” and “West Side Story.” Apple TV+ and Netflix have both campaigned aggressively, with Apple spending an estimated $20 million to $25 million to promote “CODA” and Netflix’s push for “The Power of the Dog” costing even more.“CODA,” which stars Troy Kostur and Marlee Matlin, has already won top honors from the Screen Actors Guild.Apple TV+For an industry in turmoil, with tech giants like Apple and Amazon upending entertainment-industry business practices and threatening Hollywood power hierarchies, the welcoming of a streaming service into the best picture club would amount to a seismic moment. Television and film have been merging for years, but lines of demarcation remain, with the Oscars as one. (Last year’s winner, “Nomadland,” from Searchlight Pictures, a traditional studio, was mostly seen on Hulu, but only because a lot of theaters were closed; it played in roughly 1,200 theaters in the United States and had an exclusive IMAX run.)Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.The Hosts: Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes plan to keep the show moving and make it funny, though they will acknowledge the war in Ukraine.‘Seen That Before?’: Four of the best picture nominees this year are remakes or reboots of earlier films.Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage. Hollywood Legend: Danny Glover will receive an honorary Oscar for his activism. He spoke to The Times about his life in movies and social justice.Return to the Playground: For his Oscar-nominated short film “When We Were Bullies,” Jay Rosenblatt tracked down his fifth-grade classmates.Among this year’s best picture nominees, “I think there’s a lot of the academy that might not even know what is a streaming movie and what isn’t a streaming movie,” said the producer Jason Blum, whose Oscar-nominated films have included “Get Out,” “Whiplash” and “BlacKkKlansman.”The digital forces that have reshaped music and television have been chipping away at cinema for a long time. “If ‘CODA’ and Apple win, which seems pretty likely, it will be in part because of Netflix, which has been banging on the academy door for years, and fighting the good fight — or the bad fight, depending on who you ask — to get streaming movies considered,” Mr. Blum said.The pandemic accelerated the disruption. Traditional studios like Paramount, Universal, Sony, Warner Bros. and Disney rerouted dozens of theatrical films to streaming services or released them simultaneously in theaters and online. For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, citing the coronavirus threat, allowed films to skip a theatrical release entirely and still be eligible for Oscars. The academy had previously required at least a perfunctory theatrical release of at least a week in Los Angeles.This is about more than Hollywood egotism. The worry is that, as streaming services proliferate — more than 300 now operate in the United States, according to the consulting firm Parks Associates — theaters could become exclusively the land of superheroes, sequels and remakes. The venerable Warner Bros. has slashed annual theatrical output by almost half and built a direct-to-streaming film assembly line. Last week, Amazon boosted its Prime Video service by acquiring Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the old-line studio behind “Licorice Pizza,” which is nominated for three Academy Awards, including best picture.In a year when Hollywood largely failed to jump-start theatrical moviegoing, streaming services solidified their hold on viewers. Global ticket sales totaled $21.3 billion in 2021, down from $42.3 billion in 2019, according to the Motion Picture Association. (Theaters were closed for much of 2020.) Some theater companies have gone out of business, others have merged; the world’s biggest theater chain, AMC Entertainment, racked up $6 billion in losses over the past two years and its stock has dropped 66 percent since June. At the same time, the number of subscriptions to online video services around the world grew to 1.3 billion, up from 864 million in 2019, the group said.One film that struggled at the box office was Mr. Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” which received an exclusive run in theaters (per his wishes) of about three months. It collected about $75 million worldwide (against a production budget of $100 million and global marketing costs of roughly $50 million). “West Side Story” is now available on not one but two streaming services, Disney+ and HBO Max, where it has almost assuredly been viewed more widely than in theaters. But the film was never able to recover — among Oscar voters — from being branded a box office misfire. It received seven nominations, and is poised to win in one category, for Ariana DeBose as best supporting actress.Mr. Spielberg’s also-ran presence in the current Oscar race makes the ascendance of streaming contenders all the more striking: a lion in the fight to keep the Academy Awards focused on theatrical films is pushed aside. However unlikely, it is possible that “West Side Story” could come from behind and win the best picture trophy. So could Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” for that matter. Such an outcome would be a bit like 2019, when academy voters, turned off by an over-the-top campaign by Netflix to push “Roma” to best picture glory, instead gave the prize to “Green Book,” a traditional film from Universal Pictures.“The Power of the Dog,” from Netflix, is seen as another strong contender for best picture.Kirsty Griffin/NetflixIn 2019, the Oscars-centered clash between Old Hollywood and New was so heated, particularly on Twitter, that the Justice Department sent an unusual letter to the academy warning that changes to its eligibility rules could raise antitrust concerns. At the time, there was a push inside the 10,000-member academy to come up with a reasonable way to ensure that only films with robust theatrical releases were eligible for Oscars.Flickers of resistance remain.“There are many great companies that are streamers that like to loosely throw around the word ‘cinema’ without supporting it as cinema,” said Tom Quinn, chief executive of Neon, the indie studio behind “Parasite,” which won the 2021 Oscar for best picture, and “The Worst Person in the World,” a screenplay and international film nominee this year. He was referring to the tendency by the majority of the streaming companies to limit a film’s theatrical release, opting instead to release it on their apps.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Adam Project’ | Anatomy of a Scene

      by

      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Riz Ahmed Toast South Asians at Pre-Oscars Party

      by

      South Asians in Hollywood celebrate their achievements this year.BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The dirty secret about film industry parties is that they’re rarely fun. Hardly anyone feels like they’re in with the in-crowd. There’s a lot of posturing, peacocking and busying oneself with one’s phone.The opposite was true at a party to celebrate the achievements of South Asians in this year’s Oscars race on Wednesday night.Three weeks ago, Maneesh K. Goyal, a New York restaurateur, was talking with Anjula Acharia, who is Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s manager, and Shruti Ganguly, a film producer. “We realized there were 10 Oscar nominees of South Asian descent this year,” Mr. Goyal said. “My immediate response: ‘We should throw a party.’”Ms. Chopra Jonas signed on as a host, and so did Mindy Kaling, Kumail Nanjiani and Bela Bajaria, the head of global TV at Netflix. The United Talent Agency offered its Beverly Hills offices.“I wasn’t sure if we’d be in a conference room, or something,” said Richa Moorjani, a star of “Never Have I Ever,” who wore an embroidered blazer and matching pants by a Dubai label named OTT.The party was held at the United Talent Agency offices in Beverly Hills.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesJanina GavankarKrista Schlueter for The New York TimesPoorna Jagannathan, center, and Radhika Jones, right.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesNo beige carpeting here: Around 5 p.m., guests filtered into an airy courtyard with a gazebo decked out in gold streamers. They were proud to be in one another’s presence. “To have this depth of talent, to have enough nominees to throw a party, this was not the case five years ago,” Ms. Bajaria said. “It’s not just writers, directors and on-screen talent. There are agents, assistants and executives” — like herself — “who have green-light authority.”As Ms. Bajaria surveyed the crowd of 125, the actress Poorna Jagannathan sidled over and grabbed her arm. “Have you seen the new Indian Barbie?” Ms. Jagannathan said, referring to the limited-edition doll released for Women’s History Month, and who Ms. Jagannathan thinks Ms. Bajaria looks like (“I’m not so sure about that,” Ms. Bajaria said).Who needs plastic when real world role models abound? At the bar: Radhika Jones, the Vanity Fair editor, in a Falguni & Shane Peacock dress, and Noora Raj Brown, Goop’s head of communications. By the step-and-repeat: Janina Gavankar, of “The Morning Show,” in a fuchsia crop top and trousers, and the comedian Lilly Singh, in a suit with fringe cuffs.Under the streamers: Aziz Ansari, the comedian and actor who recently released a Netflix special; Manish Dayal, who stars in the medical drama “The Resident”; and Riz Ahmed, the actor and rapper, who is up for two Oscars this year, for the short film “The Long Goodbye” and the animated feature “Flee.”Riz Ahmed gave a speech.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesLilly Singh and Jay Sean, right.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesThe aloo tikki station.Krista Schlueter for The New York Times“It’s really emboldening when you’re surrounded by people who share your experience,” Mr. Ahmed said, addressing the party as pink streaked the sky.Collaborations were discussed. (“Make business plans,” Ms. Chopra Jonas said.) Trade secrets were disclosed. (“If you need an Indian outfit, Kynah is a one-stop shop,” Ms. Moorjani said.)Although the party officially ended at 8, dozens of guests lingered for another hour, even though the aloo tikki station and bar had closed.“A lot of us grew up trying to hide our racial identity and culture,” said the actor Adrian Dev (“Westworld”), who wore a navy blue sherwani. “Now I’m the exact opposite.” More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      Watch Ryan Reynolds Meet His Past Self in ‘The Adam Project’

      by

      The director Shawn Levy narrates a sequence from the film, which also features Walker Scobell.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.The central idea behind the Netflix sci-fi adventure “The Adam Project” is presented in this comical, yet tender, living room scene.The 12-year-old Adam (Walker Scobell) is questioning a strange man (Ryan Reynolds) he has found in the shed behind his house. They have the same mannerisms, the man knows the kid’s dog’s name (Hawking) and they’re both wearing the same watch. Could it be they are past and future versions of each other?“I wanted this scene to not only lay out the premise of the movie,” said the director Shawn Levy, “but to do so in a way that would essentially establish a pact with the audience as far as tone, that this movie would have a somewhat fluid, blended tone that vacillates between comedy and poignancy.”In the sequence, Scobell must mimic Reynold’s mannerisms. Levy said it came easy for the young actor, who is making his screen debut.“When we cast Walker, we knew we had found this revelation who had never done anything, and we knew the kid was smart and authentic and talented,” Levy said. “What we didn’t know is that he had been watching the ‘Deadpool’ movies since he was 7, so he shows up on set and he gets to co-star with his hero, whose rhythms and inflections he has literally ingested for half of his very young life. So we never needed to teach Walker how to say and do things the ‘Ryan Reynolds way.’ He already knew how.”Read the “Adam Project” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Peter Bogdanovich Had a Vision for This Film. Now It’s Finally Being Seen.

      by

      “She’s Funny That Way” wasn’t exactly the movie he set out to make, but the director’s cut was feared lost. How it came to be shown at MoMA is a complicated saga.Cash from a dentist’s office. Urns with ashes. A set of Chuck Close holograms. These are some of the items that Eric Eisenberg, 54, said he had found in storage lockers. A self-described “full-time eBayer,” Eisenberg makes a living buying lockers in arrears at auction and then selling the goods online. In one such purchase, he came across a tape of a movie called “Squirrels to the Nuts” and added it to his eBay listings.James Kenney, a 51-year-old English lecturer at City University of New York, is a lifelong fan of Peter Bogdanovich and had a habit of looking up the filmmaker’s work on eBay. He wasn’t originally searching for a tape, but after he found Eisenberg’s listing in 2020 — and another Bogdanovich expert deepened his suspicion that it might be something special — he recalled bargaining down the price to $100.It was, most likely, the only screenable copy of Bogdanovich’s preferred cut of what turned out to be the final fiction feature of the director, who died at 82 in January. It’s a version that had been feared lost and will play for the first time publicly at the Museum of Modern Art beginning on Monday.How the movie evolved from a cut that satisfied Bogdanovich, director of “The Last Picture Show” and “What’s Up, Doc?,” to a release that he was, by most accounts, resigned to — and how the tape of the earlier version came up for sale online — is a complicated saga.At MoMA, moviegoers won’t see a completely polished movie; what’s on the tape wasn’t color-corrected and lacked a final sound mix and official credits. But Louise Stratten, who wrote the movie with Bogdanovich and was one of its producers, called it “the rough version of the director’s cut,” with all the scenes in place and no trims to be made. In the months before he died, Bogdanovich had been working on putting out a fully finished version of the cut that was on the tape, said Stratten, who was married to the director from 1988 to 2001. She said it will be available soon for home viewing.Remembering Peter BogdanovichThe filmmaker, who became one of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors in the ‘70s before a public fall from grace, died Jan. 6, 2022.Obituary: Peter Bogdanovich was hailed for his ability to coax nuanced performances, and for the bittersweet luminosity of movies that conjured a bygone past.Streaming Guide: The director loved the world of classic Hollywood so much that it’s as if he never left it. Here are nine of his film highlights.‘She Is Funny That Way’: Bogdanovich’s last movie didn’t turn out exactly as he hoped. How the  director’s preferred cut landed at MoMA is a complicated saga.From the Archives: Read our original reviews of Bogdanovich’s most acclaimed films: “The Last Picture Show” and “Paper Moon.”By the time “Squirrels” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2014, it was called “She’s Funny That Way.” That version ran around 20 minutes shorter than the MoMA cut with a substantially different structure: It was told in flashback as a former prostitute turned movie star (Imogen Poots) recounts her story to a reporter (Illeana Douglas); it culminated in a cameo from Quentin Tarantino. The cast also featured Owen Wilson as a philandering stage and film director, Kathryn Hahn as his actress wife and Jennifer Aniston as a therapist with a flagrant lack of empathy. Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson served as executive producers.“She’s Funny That Way” opened theatrically in the United States in August 2015 to a muted response. “There’s barely a whiz-bang punchline or smoothly executed setup to be found in a movie that longs to be a sparkling bedroom comedy and winds up a tortured, fizz-free farce,” Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for The New York Times.But the “Squirrels” cut, assembled earlier, does not have that framing device with Douglas, which was the product of a reshoot. The humor is drier, the pace is more leisurely and characters like a judge played by Austin Pendleton have more screen time. How a private eye (George Morfogen) is connected to a playwright (Will Forte) is established earlier in the movie, allowing for a bigger comic payoff when all the principals finally converge at a restaurant. The ending is completely different. As Kenney noted in a blog post about his discovery, this version emerges clearly as a successor to other Bogdanovich pictures like “They All Laughed” (1981), another bittersweet ensemble comedy in which characters with intimate connections keep bumping into one another across New York.Peter Bogdanovich arriving for the 2015 premiere of the film.Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesBut at a preview screening in New York in 2013, the response wasn’t as good as anyone had hoped. “We got some feedback about people thinking it was old-fashioned, and that a lot of parts of it were unbelievable in terms of characters being at the same restaurant at the same time — things you’ve kind of just got to go with,” said Pax Wassermann, the original editor, who is married to Bogdanovich’s daughter Alexandra.Wassermann also recalled a producer’s anxiety over Aniston’s late entrance, almost 30 minutes in. Bogdanovich and Wassermann worked on the film in New York, but when the production set up a parallel editing bay in Los Angeles, with the editor Nick Moore (“Love Actually”) taking a pass at the movie, Wassermann quit, he said, so that Bogdanovich could be present for the editing on the West Coast and not feel pressured to stay with his son-in-law.Moore, who spent several weeks on the edit before leaving for another commitment, recalled working with Bogdanovich as a “lovely time” and didn’t have any sense of a tumultuous production. “It was as difficult as they always are,” he said, “but it wasn’t monstrous.” Of Bogdanovich, he said: “I don’t remember him ever being distressed at all. Honestly, there were fireworks at times, but I always got the impression that he enjoyed that. He loved fighting for what he wanted.”Peter Tonguette, an occasional contributor to The Times who is the author of “Picturing Peter Bogdanovich,” which features extensive interviews with the director, corresponded with the filmmaker throughout the making of the movie and viewed 10 cuts in all. He characterized what happened during the editing as a “committee approach” in which Bogdanovich chose to “try to be part of that committee,” participating in the reshooting and reshaping process even if he regretted the changes.It had been many years since Bogdanovich, who also made documentaries, had a fiction film in theaters that he wrote and directed, Tonguette pointed out. “Peter had gone to war with studios before,” he said, “and I think he felt it had really hurt him in the industry.” Tonguette recalled that Bogdanovich forwarded him a detailed note he had written proposing changes as late as May 2014, as proof that he was committed to improving even a watered-down film at a granular level. “A compromised hit is better than no hit at all, so he wasn’t going to go against the movie,” even though it wasn’t the movie he wrote and shot, Tonguette said.Kenney said it was clear when he watched the “Squirrels” cut that it was different from the start — and better. “Whether it’s a four-star film or a three-star film, it’s a four-star talent working at full caliber,” he said.Stratten remembered getting a positive response from the “She’s Funny That Way” audience at Venice, but added, “Every time we would watch it together, we would just say, well, there’s a better movie there.” The recovered “Squirrels” cut, she said, is “the movie we intended to make.”She and Bogdanovich suspected the tape had come from the editing bay in New York, before the changes in Los Angeles. Harbor Picture Company in SoHo, where editing took place, is indeed listed on the tape label. It is also, by Eisenberg’s estimate, “about 150 yards” from the Manhattan Mini Storage where he bought the locker. (He remembered walking over.)Several messages left at Harbor and emails to company representatives went unreturned.“It sounds kind of like a comedy within a comedy,” Stratten said. “It almost sounds like it’s a part of the movie.”Even before Kenney got a digital copy of the tape to Bogdanovich in November 2020, Stratten said, they had been trying to find out what materials still existed. “It’s incredible that this happened while Peter was alive, because Peter and I wanted to do a director’s cut, and then this fell into our laps as if it was just a huge gift,” she said. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Oscars 2022 Predictions: Who Will Win Best Picture, Actor and Actress?

      by

      In an interesting year with a duel for the top award and some wide-open races, here’s how our expert is marking his ballot.Best PictureEmilia Jones and Troy Kotsur having a moment in “CODA.”Apple TV+, via Associated Press“Belfast”✓“CODA”“Don’t Look Up”“Drive My Car”“Dune”“King Richard”“Licorice Pizza”“Nightmare Alley”“The Power of the Dog”“West Side Story”In a novel twist, this race has become a face-off between the best picture candidate with the most Oscar nominations (“The Power of the Dog,” with 12) and the one tied for the least (“CODA,” with just three). Still, “CODA” has recently surged after key wins with the actors, writers and producers guilds, the sort of bounty that almost always points the way to best picture victory. Though it’s awfully rare for a film to win Hollywood’s top prize without nominations for editing and directing — in fact, it hasn’t happened since 1932’s “Grand Hotel” — “CODA” can bypass those statistical precedents with an appeal that goes straight to the heart. In a year when I think voters are desperate to crown a crowd-pleaser, “CODA” is the clear favorite.Still, “The Power of the Dog” shouldn’t be counted out: Netflix has spent heavily to try to earn the streamer’s first best picture win, and the film’s 12 nominations indicate broad strength across several different branches of the academy. The tricky part is that the Oscars use a preferential ballot, which asks voters to rank the 10 nominees and tends to produce a winner that consistently shows up in the No. 1 and No. 2 slots. That favors a likable consensus choice like “CODA” instead of the more polarizing “Power of the Dog,” which will have to net a whole lot of No. 1 votes to offset the ballots cast by voters who found Campion’s film a little too austere.Best DirectorJane Campion, right, with associate producer Phil Jones, during production.Kirsty Griffin/NetflixKenneth Branagh, “Belfast”Ryusuke Hamaguchi, “Drive My Car”Paul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza”✓ Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story”Campion is the first woman to be nominated for best director twice, and her win could make even more Oscar history, since it would follow Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” victory and mark the first time this Oscar has gone to women two years in a row. It’s true that Campion stepped into a controversy of her own making at the Critics Choice Awards, where she compared herself to Venus and Serena Williams but said the tennis superstars had never had to compete against men like Campion had. That diminishment of the sisters’ accomplishments caused an internet furor, but the older-skewing academy rarely pays attention to social-media conflagrations, and Campion remains the prohibitive favorite.Best ActorWill Smith opposite Demi Singleton, left, and Saniyya Sidney in “King Richard.”Warner Bros. Javier Bardem, “Being the Ricardos”Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Power of the Dog”Andrew Garfield, “Tick, Tick … Boom!”✓ Will Smith, “King Richard”Denzel Washington, “The Tragedy of Macbeth”The best actor Oscar rarely goes to young men, and bankable movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Matthew McConaughey were only able to win it once they were on the other side of 40 and had paid an appropriate amount of dues. That’s why Smith is so perfectly situated: His two other nominations, for “Ali” and “The Pursuit of Happyness,” came when he was a superstar in his 30s, and now that he is a lightly grizzled 53-year-old who has proved himself over four decades, the timing is right for his first Academy Award win. All the better that in playing the father of the tennis phenoms Venus and Serena Williams in “King Richard,” Smith has found a character-actor role that he can animate with every ounce of his movie-star charisma.Best ActressJessica Chastain as the Christian broadcaster Tammy Faye Bakker.Fox Searchlight Pictures✓Jessica Chastain, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”Olivia Colman, “The Lost Daughter”Penélope Cruz, “Parallel Mothers”Nicole Kidman, “Being the Ricardos”Kristen Stewart, “Spencer”Last year’s best actress winner, Frances McDormand, had a leg up on her competition by hailing from the best picture winner, “Nomadland.” This year, none of the best actress nominees come from movies in the best picture race at all, which gives you a sense of just how wide-open this field is. Chastain won the Screen Actors Guild Award for her role as the disgraced evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, but this could really go to any of the five nominees: Chastain, Stewart and Kidman all gave the kind of transformative biopic performances that Oscar voters love, while Colman and Cruz are critical favorites from much better-reviewed films. I’m going to play it safe by picking Chastain, but feel free to live dangerously in your own Oscar pool.Best Supporting ActorTroy Kotsur opposite Marlee Matlin as his wife in “CODA.”Apple TV+, via Associated PressCiaran Hinds, “Belfast”✓ Troy Kotsur, “CODA”Jesse Plemons, “The Power of the Dog”J.K. Simmons, “Being the Ricardos”Kodi Smit-McPhee, “The Power of the Dog”Smit-McPhee was recognized by year-end critics’ groups for his performance as Kirsten Dunst’s crafty son in “The Power of the Dog,” but once the televised awards shows began to weigh in, Kotsur cleaned up at SAG, the Indie Spirits and BAFTA. With his warm and funny acceptance speeches at those ceremonies, Kotsur has become this season’s breakout performer, and the Oscars can surely count on him for a winning moment that is both heartfelt and historic, since Kotsur would be the first deaf man to earn an acting Oscar. He is instrumental to the tear-jerking third act of “CODA,” and he has a personal narrative every bit as compelling as what you see on the screen. This is Kotsur’s to lose.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage. Hollywood Legend: Danny Glover will receive an honorary Oscar for his activism. He spoke to The Times about his life in movies and social justice.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?Return to the Playground: For his Oscar-nominated short film “When We Were Bullies,” Jay Rosenblatt tracked down his fifth-grade classmates.Secret Sounds: Denis Villeneuve and the “Dune” sound team explain how far they went to create an aural experience that felt familiar.Best Supporting ActressAriana DeBose, with David Alvarez, in “West Side Story.”Niko Tavernise/20th Century StudiosJessie Buckley, “The Lost Daughter”✓ Ariana DeBose, “West Side Story”Judi Dench, “Belfast”Kirsten Dunst, “The Power of the Dog”Aunjanue Ellis, “King Richard”It’s Anita’s America, and we’re just living in it. The key supporting role in “West Side Story” has proved to be catnip for Oscar voters across decades: Rita Moreno won the Oscar for her Anita in the 1961 film, and DeBose is well-positioned to repeat for playing the part in Steven Spielberg’s reimagining. Musical performances often do quite well in this category, as previous winners Anne Hathaway (“Les Misérables”) and Jennifer Hudson (“Dreamgirls”) can attest, but if there’s a dark horse in the race, I’d look to Dunst: She’s worked with a lot of academy members who can appreciate the hard-earned awards breakthrough she managed with “The Power of the Dog.”Best Original ScreenplayLeonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence in “Don’t Look Up.”Niko Tavernise/Netflix“Belfast”✓“Don’t Look Up”“King Richard”“Licorice Pizza”“The Worst Person in the World”This is one of the night’s toughest races. Many of my fellow pundits are picking Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” but if it couldn’t win in this category at the BAFTAs despite being a box-office hit in Britain, I don’t expect a sudden reversal from the academy. Besides, Oscar voters tend to take the “original” part of this category very seriously, voting for films that feel sui generis. To my mind, that leaves “Licorice Pizza” (which won the BAFTA), “Don’t Look Up” (which won the WGA Award) and “The Worst Person in the World,” which could earn votes here in a race where it doesn’t face “Drive My Car.” Ultimately, I think that the environmental satire “Don’t Look Up” prevails because of its topical, urgent subject matter.Best Adapted ScreenplayEmilia Jones as the hearing daughter of deaf parents in “CODA.”Apple TV+✓ “CODA”“Drive My Car”“Dune”“The Lost Daughter”“The Power of the Dog”The path to best picture almost always cuts through the screenplay categories, so this race could provide a crucial sneak preview of the night’s ultimate winner, especially because it contains another face-off between “The Power of the Dog” and “CODA.” The latter film won at the Writers Guild, where “The Power of the Dog” wasn’t eligible for a nomination — but at BAFTA, where both films competed, “CODA” still pulled out a victory. If “CODA” (adapted from the French film “La Famille Bélier”) can win over a snobby bunch of British voters, there’s no reason to think it will fall short with the academy.Best Animated FeatureA scene from “Encanto,” with Stephanie Beatriz voicing the central character, Mirabel. Disney✓ “Encanto”“Flee”“Luca”“The Mitchells vs. the Machines”“Raya and the Last Dragon”“The Mitchells vs. the Machines” has won most of the awards doled out by the animation industry, and it shares an innovative elan — as well as the producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller — with “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which previously triumphed in this category. Still, it will be tough for any film to beat “Encanto,” which has the year’s most viral song, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” as well as a popular pitchman in the songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Mitchells may have triumphed in their battle against the Machines, but “Encanto” boasts even heavier artillery.Best Documentary FeatureNina Simone, as seen in “Summer of Soul.”Searchlight Pictures, via Associated Press“Ascension”“Attica”“Flee”✓ “Summer of Soul”“Writing With Fire”This race is filled with worthy contenders, including the animated refugee story “Flee,” which made Oscar history when it was nominated in the documentary, animated and international categories. But “Flee” is up against juggernaut front-runners in all of those races, and here, that No. 1 pick has got to be “Summer of Soul,” the Questlove-directed documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Oscar voters often fall for music docs — past winners include “Searching for Sugar Man” and “20 Feet From Stardom” — and the previously lost concert footage of artists like Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder and Mahalia Jackson is catch-your-breath, stomp-your-feet wonderful.Best International FeatureReika Kirishima, left, and Hidetoshi Nishijima in “Drive My Car.”Sideshow and Janus Films“Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom,” Bhutan“Flee,” Denmark“The Hand of God,” Italy✓ “Drive My Car,” Japan“The Worst Person in the World,” NorwayThis should be a no-brainer, since voters gravitate to films in this category that have also made the best picture and best director lineups. (Think “Amour,” “Roma” and “Parasite.”) Therefore, the odds favor “Drive My Car,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s insightful three-hour drama about grief and art, which swept the major critics’ groups and kept amassing momentum as awards season continued. Still, I’d keep a watchful eye on the wonderful romantic dramedy “The Worst Person in the World,” which came out awfully late this season and has been winning a healthy share of Hollywood admirers. If enough voters gravitate to that Norwegian film because they think “Drive My Car” is taken care of, Hamaguchi’s breakthrough may run out of gas before reaching its destination.Best CinematographyBenedict Cumberbatch, left, and Kodi Smit-McPhee in “The Power of the Dog.”Kirsty Griffin/Netflix“Dune”“Nightmare Alley”✓“The Power of the Dog”“The Tragedy of Macbeth”“West Side Story”“Dune” won at BAFTA and with the cinematographers guild, and it’s probably the safer choice. But there have been several recent profiles of the “Power of the Dog” cinematographer Ari Wegner, who would become the first woman to win this Oscar. In a squeaker, that’s who I’m picking.Best ScoreZendaya in “Dune,” which has music by Hans Zimmer.Warner Bros. “Don’t Look Up”✓“Dune”“Encanto”“Parallel Mothers“The Power of the Dog”Even more than the powerhouse visuals, the rumbling, uneasy score of “Dune” makes the best case for watching the movie in a theater.Best SongDaniel Craig and Ana de Armas in “No Time to Die,” which is also the title of its nominated song.Nicola Dove/MGM, via Associated Press“Be Alive” (“King Richard”)“Dos Oruguitas” (“Encanto”)“Down to Joy” (“Belfast”)✓“No Time to Die” (“No Time to Die”)“Somehow You Do” (“Four Good Days”)If “Encanto” had submitted “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” instead of “Dos Oruguitas,” or if Beyoncé had done any campaigning for her rousing “King Richard” song, things might be different. But since they didn’t, expect a victory for Billie Eilish and Finneas for “No Time to Die,” the third James Bond theme to win in a row.Best Sound“Dune” is nominated for audible effects like sand crunching. Warner Bros. “Belfast”✓“Dune”“No Time to Die”“The Power of the Dog”“West Side Story”The sounds of “Dune” are designed to hit you in the solar plexus, and they bleed into the score and the edit in all sorts of memorable ways. Plus, the story behind crafting those sounds is fascinating: Who knew it involved Rice Krispies?Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Infinite Storm’ Review: Climb Every Mountain, Ford Every Extreme

      by

      Naomi Watts stars in a true-life drama about a woman who hiked up a mountain alone and returned with some heavy, unexpected cargo.When performers sign on as producers of their movies it can feel like a statement of intent. That’s the case with the true-life drama “Infinite Storm,” starring Naomi Watts as a grieving woman on an unexpected rescue mission. The movie has an appealing, streamlined trajectory: The woman hikes up and down a mountain, pausing to save a lost soul. With this role, Watts is reminding us that she can hold the screen by herself and without saying a word tell you everything you need to know about a character — and all the while looking fantastic.Early on Oct. 17, 2010, a New Hampshire woman named Pam Bales set off on a six-mile hike up Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast. The temperature was expected to hit the high 20s, with winds reaching 80 m.p.h. Bales, though, was a lifelong hiker and a search-and-rescue volunteer. So she stashed extra layers and snow goggles in her pack before heading into an area she called an office and playground. “At 5,000 feet, about three miles in,” she later wrote in Backpacker magazine, “the wind began to pick up around me.”Even for those who enjoy hiking (on level ground in lovely weather, thank you), this sounds like lunacy. The presence of a sympathetic performer like Watts, though, eases doubts even as it deepens the stakes. You’re already on Pam’s side when she wakes up at home in the gray early morning. Alone, she patters around her isolated house, which is filled with homey touches and picturesquely parked near a river. It’s quiet inside, which prompts you to wonder about the children smiling in the framed photographs. Mostly, you settle into the stillness and vibe on the methodical rhythms of Pam’s preparing for what looks like a very serious hike.The world comes into view and increasingly fills the silence. Pam stops by a restaurant, where she exchanges pleasantries with a friend (Denis O’Hare) and fills in some blanks. It’s a brief, outwardly perfunctory interlude: He tells her to be careful and she reminds him that it’s an anniversary of an unspoken event. The scene seeds the ground with questions (what is she commemorating and why?), but mostly seems construed to appease anyone who might be disturbed by all the quiet and a woman alone: She isn’t a nut, the scene reassures you, she has at least one friend and even a rationale for heading into the forbidding wilderness alone.Pam’s trek is the centerpiece of the movie, and it’s a doozy. The director Malgorzata Szumowska sketches in the forbidding lay of the land with sweeping aerial shots of the snowy mountain range that cut Pam down to speck size. Szumowska also shrewdly uses distance to accentuate Pam’s physicality, allowing you to see the character head to toe, just like when Fred Astaire danced. You see the labored exertion in Pam’s — and Watts’s — every step as clearly as the puffs of frigid air she exhales. As her efforts intensify, she warms up and strips off her shirt, revealing her midriff and the steady tensing of her muscled arms and shoulders.Watts is a supremely expressive actress and, like Astaire, a full-body performer. The image of her frolicking on a cliff for the giant ape in “King Kong” was the best part of that movie, and her character’s thrilling emotional workout in “Mulholland Drive” remains vivid. Watts is particularly brilliant at articulating a character’s inner being; she brings out what lies beneath so clearly and persuasively that you can see every thought and emotion fluttering into existence. That serves her character here beautifully, even if Pam’s goggles can get in the way. I could watch an entire movie of Pam — really Watts — going solo up this mountain.That Iron Woman trek takes a turn when the weather does, and Pam finds a man (Billy Howle) crouched in the snow and nearly frozen. She warms him up by stripping off his clothes (good to know!) and then vows to take him to safety. The going is agonizing, at times gripping, and is slowed down only by gauzy, explanatory flashbacks to Pam’s earlier life. These weaken the momentum; they’re also unnecessary. We don’t need to know anything about Pam’s past because her story is already evident in each step and every smile, and in a translucent performance that confirms watching Naomi Watts on this journey is destination enough.Infinite StormRated R for adult language and suicide ideation. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Wood and Water’ Review: The Distances Between Us

      by

      In this elegant feature debut about modern alienation, the German writer-director Jonas Bak casts his real-life mother as a retired secretary who travels to Hong Kong to visit her estranged son.“It’s really sinking in that time is gone, and it won’t return,” says Anke, a widow and retired church secretary, in reference to the life she led while raising a family. Even in her placid hometown in the Black Forest region of Germany, everything feels distant, rendered unrecognizable to her by the forces of modernization. “A sense of home,” Anke continues. “I don’t have that.”These feelings of alienation — and the kinds of connections that are forged in our increasingly globalized world — are subtly explored in “Wood and Water,” the poignant feature debut by the German writer-director Jonas Bak.Distressed by the three-year absence of her son, Max — whose most recent justification for not visiting are the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, where he lives — Anke takes matters into her own hands. She books a plane ticket, and makes her way to Max’s high-rise apartment. But he’s nowhere to be found.Casting his own mother (Anke Bak) in the leading role, the filmmaker uses elegant, fixed-camera compositions and melancholic long takes, opting for a contemplative mood that summons meaning from what’s left unsaid. With a kind of dissociative, jet lag-induced delirium, the film transitions — somehow fluidly — from the lush woodlands and desolate churches of southern Germany to the flickering lights and modernist textures of Hong Kong in the throes of mass demonstrations.Vulnerable in her solitude yet clearly drawing from an inner source of great strength and curiosity, Anke explores the city on her own: she lunches with a security guard, gets her fortune told, strikes up a conversation with a disembodied voice sleeping in the top bunk of a shared hostel room. Though seemingly insignificant, these fleeting moments prove nourishing.Thankfully, this film never succumbs to the fish-out-of-water narrative of so many travel movies that use international settings as catalysts for self-discovery. Anke’s problems with her son aren’t exactly solved by the film’s end, but a change does occur, and it’s prompted not by the unknowns of a strange land, but by the recognition of a common struggle to adapt and find peace in the face of life’s endless upheavals.Wood and WaterNot rated. In Cantonese, English and German, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 19 minutes. In theaters. More