The Father (2020)

This is another horror story for boomers, in which Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony, an irascible Englishman with dementia, and Olivia Colman is his daughter Anne. Florian Zeller directs and co-wrote the script based on his own 2012 play Le Père, with co-writer Christopher Hampton. It is superb, but not easy to watch, especially for us who occasionally struggle to remember a word, a name, or something else.

The movie is somewhat non-linear, and has six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay, and dozens of other accolades. Colman doesn't have much use for her 1000 watt smile, so, when she does light it up, it's wonderful.

The only track from the soundtrack by Ludovico Einaudi that's online is this one, but he has plenty of other tracks available on both Apple Music and Spotify.

Zeller has said that he renamed the character Anthony (in the play it was André) because he was determined to cast Hopkins in the title role. And Hopkins suggested some of his favorite operas for his character to enjoy.

Hopkins was last blogged for The Two Popes, Hampton for A Dangerous Method, and Einaudi for Nomadland (also vying for Best Picture). After Colman won the Best Actress Oscar for The Favourite (her character was also named Anne, Queen Anne), she starred as Queen Elizabeth in seasons 3 and 4 of The Crown. This is Zeller's directing and feature screenwriting debut.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics support the patriarchy, averaging 98%, while its audiences are a little rebellious at 88. We paid to rent it on Apple TV on the 26th, and it's also available to stream on Prime and other platforms.

Better Days (Shaonian de ni - 2019)

This story of a Hong Kong high school girl who is bullied while she and her classmates are preparing for the college entrance exam, which will decide their futures, is both a thriller and a teen love story, with a languid style that occasionally left me wishing it had been just a bit shorter than 2:16. It's good, but too long.

 

Dongyu Zhou is the girl Chen Nian and Jackson Yee plays handsome street punk Xiao Bei. Derek Tsang directs from a screenplay by Wing-Sum Lam, Yuan Li, and Yimeng Xu, based on a 2016 Young Adult novel by Jiu Yuexi. The novel's title has many English translations, including Young and Beautiful; In His Youth, In Her Beauty; and The Youthful You Who Was So Beautiful; and it's now being reprinted under the name Better Days. Nan Chen is credited as a co-screenwriter and the movie is nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar.

One reviewer noted that the story points to the "animalistic nature of adolescence — an age when kids are old enough to cause vital damage but not old enough to care." The movie has "bookends," beginning and ending with a flash forward to Chen teaching an English class to Chinese kids. At the end, Yee reads some info about what the Chinese government is doing to stop bullying. Not surprisingly, Chinese censors banned this movie for over a year. The post script makes it sound like it's based on a true story, but my research tells me otherwise.

The soundtrack by Varqa Buehrer isn't available to stream, but he does have some tracks on Apple Music and Spotify.

The cinematography is inventive, with work by Jing-Pin Yu and Saba Mazloum.

 
Zhou is 29 (she doesn't look that old) and has been acting for ten years with 38 credits and 70 combined nominations and wins, 25 of which are for this project alone. Yee has also been modeling and acting for ten years, but he was only ten when he started. He's now a solo musician as well as an actor. This is Tsang's fourth feature, Buehrer's first, Yu's seventeenth, and Mazloum's seventh.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics have seen no days better, with a perfect 100% average, and its audiences are satisfied, coming in at 97. I paid a small fee to rent it on Apple TV on March 28, and it's available on Prime as well.

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020)

This masterpiece is about people who met at a summer camp for disabled teens around 1971 in the Catskills and grew up to fight for their rights. We laughed, I cried, we cheered. Michelle and Barack Obama are among the producers and the directors/writers are James LeBrecht (one of the original campers) and Nicole Newnham.

Combining archival footage from the 70s through the present with new interviews, it is edited to perfection. Everyone should see this. It's the third of the five Oscar-nominated documentaries I have watched so far (Jack has seen two) but, despite our love for My Octopus Teacher, Jack and I think this is a shoo-in for the award.

The original music by Bear McCreary is not available online and even I don't remember it, despite our having watched the movie Tuesday. The score is overshadowed by a fun mix of songs from the earlier period, such as For What It's Worth, Freedom, and Truckin'. Here are two song lists, from which you can play those songs, on Spotify and what-song.com. And don't miss the rendition of Amazing Grace sung by one of the main subjects, Judy Heumann, which is not available to stream (Spotify has substituted Aretha's version). Just watch the movie!

McCreary was last blogged for scoring 10 Cloverfield Lane. LeBrecht has been working in sound departments of movies for decades and this is his directing and writing debut and his feature producing debut. Newnham has experience in all three positions in various documentaries.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics have put down stakes on this one, with a perfect 100%, and its audiences nearby at 93. It was made for Netflix and that's where you'll find it.

Collective (Collectiv - 2019)

I feel a little guilty for not liking this documentary about health care fraud in Romania uncovered after a deadly 2015 fire at a nightclub called Collectiv. There's so much real life loss and tragedy that I found it hard work to watch. Nominated for Oscars in both the documentary and international feature categories, as well as many other accolades, it features dedicated reporters, officials both crooked and not, actual video of the fire as it started, and one notable maimed survivor as well as families of some victims.

The director/co-writer/cinematographer is Alexander Nanau, co-writer is Antoaneta Opris, and composer is Kyan Bayani.

It has been compared to Spotlight for its portrayal of reporters unmasking corruption in high places.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are not as shallow as I, averaging 99 and 93%, respectively. As a paying member of the Independent Feature Project, I have access to stream their nominees. Other people can rent it on iTunes, Amazon Prime, and other outlets.

Where to watch Oscar nominees (web links)

This link from the L.A. Times tells you how and where to watch every Oscar nominee this spring. VOD, short for Video on Demand, means you'll have to pay, occasionally in addition to your subscription.

My list of nominees and winners sorted by title, will give you a fuller picture of what to watch. Look at how many lines are below each title and pick one with a lot. For example, Da 5 Bloods was nominated for an Oscar only for its score, which is very good. But It has over a dozen other accolades in the awards I have chosen to follow, and more that I have not recorded.

My Octopus Teacher (2020)

WOW WOW WOW! Watch this Oscar-nominated documentary for the magnificent cinematography, if nothing else. But there is much more––a man's free diving in shallow South African waters helps relieve his depression and teaches him and us about marine zoology. The music is lovely and the editing is outstanding.

The directors are Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed and the host/star is Craig Foster, who founded the Sea Change Project. The cinematography is by Ehrlich, Foster, Roger Horrocks, Dave Aenmey, Michael Raimondo, and Warren Smart, with aerial photography by Foster's son Tom Foster.

The lilting and emotional score by Kevin Smuts can be streamed with a subscription to Apple Music and for free on Spotify. Dan Schwalm assisted Ehrlich with editing.

I did a deep dive (heh heh) and found this fascinating Sea Change Project article on the making of the movie, which I recommend as well. Then here's some info on the common octopus, which answered my question after watching it: where is its mouth?

I noticed a credit for a colorist, Kyle Stroebel, especially because of the brilliant colors on screen.

Craig Foster's narration goes back and forth between the first person (I) and the second person (you), which takes some getting used to.

It's Ehrlich's and Raimondo's debut project, while Reed, Craig Foster, Horrocks, Schwalm, Smuts, and Stroebel have plenty of other credits. Smart has worked on one other project and Tom Foster has worked a lot, but only in the sound department.

Jack and I loved it, Amy and Deb each told me they did, and so did Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences, grading 100 and 95%, respectively. It's only 94 minutes on Netflix. Get schooled!

The Midnight Sky (2020)

Sorry, George Clooney, we did not love this bleak story of a scientist in an Arctic outpost trying to contact some astronauts and warn them not to return to our destroyed planet. Clooney directs and stars and assembled a top-notch cast, including Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, and Tiffany Boone as the space crew, and Caoilinn Springall (KAY-lin) as a mysterious little girl on earth. The acting is all good.

I'm not sure whom to blame for our reaction––Lily Brooks-Dalton's 2016 book Good Morning, Midnight or the screenplay adapted from it by Mark L. Smith or Clooney's direction. The story is definitely non-linear but not confusing.

The movie is, however, rightly nominated by the Oscars and elsewhere for visual effects.

Alexandre Desplat's music––funereal to ethereal to exciting––has earned some nominations, too, as has Martin Ruhe's cinematography. I'm streaming the soundtrack with my subscription to Apple Music and it's also available free on Spotify.

Clooney was last blogged for acting in Money Monster, Jones for On the Basis of Sex, Oyelowo for Middle of Nowhere, Chandler for First Man, Bichir for The Hateful Eight, Clooney for directing Suburbicon, Smith for co-writing The Revenant, and Desplat for scoring Little Women.

Boone played young Mia in two episodes of Little Fires Everywhere and the only one of Ruhe's projects I have seen is The American, which I did not enjoy (sorry again, George! We're still fans!).

For a change, Jack and I are in the same same time zone with the critics at Rotten Tomatoes, who are averaging 51%, though not as dark as its audiences at 26.

The movie was made for Netflix and we streamed it on the 16th.

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Animated Disney princess turns action hero, with messages about unity and honesty, in an Asian milieu. Not my genre but I didn't hate it. My favorite parts were Awkwafina as the voice of the dragon and the scenes where she flies and and swims. Battle scenes, not so much. Raya is voiced by Kelly Marie Tran, Namaari––love the hairdo––by Gemma Chan, and Namaari's mother by Sandra Oh.

Apparently Raya is only the fourth Disney princess without a love interest, after Merida in Brave, Elsa in Frozen, and Moana. I've yet to see Frozen II and Moana. The grandchildren adore those, as does Jack.

Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada are credited as directors and Paul Briggs and John Ripa as co-directors. I don't know the animation world so well and don't know how that works. The screenplay is by Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim with six more story writers.

I did enjoy the score by James Newton Howard, available with a subscription to Apple Music and free on Spotify.

Though the filmmakers were careful to use only Asian voice actors, apparently there has been some controversy because most of them are from the "wrong parts" of Asia. The movie takes place in SOUTHEAST Asia, and only Tran is a native of that region. Oh well.

After I wrote about Awkwafina in The Farewell, I liked her silly sitcom Nora from Queens (her real name is Nora Lum). After Tammy, Oh won a Golden Globe for starring in Killing Eve. Chan was last blogged for Let Them All Talk, Estrada for Blindspotting, Lim for Crazy Rich Asians, and Howard for News of the World,

Tran has dozens of credits, including some Star Wars work, this is Hall's fourth feature, Briggs' and Ripa's feature (co-)directing debut after working other jobs in animated movies, and Nguyen has written some TV episodes.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are shining brightly, averaging 94%, and its audiences aren't dragging far behind at 86.

The grandchildren loved it so we gave it a look (separately, for now) after renting on Disney+ on March 11. 

The White Tiger (2020)

I loved this story of class disparity in India, wherein a young man, Balram, works to get out of poverty in the early 2000s––no easy task. The first act is often quite funny. Then our hero says, "...and this is where my story takes a darker turn." Adarsh Gourav leads the cast, aided by Rajkummar Rao as Ashok (a-SHOKE) and Priyanka Chopra Jonas as Pinky. Gourav is brilliant, both as the subservient, smiling younger man with shorter hair and in flash-forwards with a ponytail and intense demeanor. Rao's and Jonas's characters are kindly sympathetic, for the most part, in contrast to lots of master-servant mistreatment. There is a disturbing scene near the end.

Full disclosure: Jack found some of it to be on the slow side. I did not.

Ramin Bahrani, an American of Iranian descent, directs and wrote the script, based on the 2008 fiction novel of the same name by Aravind Adiga, with whom Bahrani became friends at Columbia University some thirty years ago.

Gourav has been nominated for Best Actor by the Independent Spirit Awards and Bahrani for Adapted Screenplay by his peers at the Writers Guild. Here's my running list of 2021 selected nominations and wins. Academy Award nominations come out Monday! I'm considering adding the BAFTAs––British Academy of Film and Television Arts––to the list, as both men were nominated there and the awards are considered the British Oscars.

As I type, I'm streaming the wonderful music by Danny Bensi & Saunder Jurriaans with my subscription to Apple Music, and you can also find it on Spotify. There are also plenty of songs. I've always liked Indian music, and this hits the spot, regardless of its authenticity.

The colorful cinematography by Paolo Carnera is also quite wonderful.

Today I watched this video interview with the director and stars, which I suggest you see after the movie.

Bahrani was last blogged for his first feature Man Push Cart (2005), which we watched after his two later ones, and Bensi & Juriaans for scoring The Current War. Gourav is a musician (he sings a pop song with Rao in this movie) who has done some acting in India. Chopra Jonas, like her character, was born in India but schooled elsewhere, and worked on dozens of Indian movies before being cast in some American movies and series. She's one of the producers of The White Tiger. I learned from the interview above that Rao is a big Bollywood star who had to work on his American accent to play Ashok. Carnera is new to me, though he's been shooting in Italy and France for decades.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics aren't blanching, with an average of 92%, while its audiences are slightly paler at  80.

I heartily recommend it, streaming now on Netflix.

Minari (2020)

Jack and I really liked this moving tale of a 1980s Korean immigrant family in Arkansas. There are some laughs in the second act but it's not a comedy by any means. With its many nominations and wins there's sure to be Oscar appreciation come March 15 (nomination day). Here is my running list of selected nominations and wins, sorted by title.

The ensemble cast is terrific, especially Steven Yeun as the father Jacob, Alan S. Kim (then seven years old) as David, and Yuh-jung Youn as the grandmother Soonja. They are ably backed by, among others, Yeri Han as the mom Monica, Noel Cho as big sister Anne, and Will Patton as their intense neighbor Paul.

Director/writer Lee Isaac Chung, the child of Korean immigrants, grew up on a farm in Arkansas himself, and also took inspiration from the American writer Willa Cather. Minari is the name of a perennial herb (here's more info).

I'm streaming the lovely soundtrack by Emile Mosseri as I write on Apple Music. You can also find it on Spotify. Han is the singer on Rain Song.

Director of Photography Lachlan Milne brings us lovely images, with Oklahoma subbing for Arkansas.

There has been controversy. The Golden Globes' slotted it into the Foreign Language category this year, saying it was because less than half of the movie's dialogue is in English. It won, by the way. The Farewell, also produced here in the US of A, was nominated for a Foreign Language Golden Globe last year (it did not win). Yet Inglourious Basterds was nominated for a (regular) Best Picture Golden Globe eleven years ago, and it, too, has less than half of its dialogue in English. Most of us remember that Parasite, entirely in Korean, won the Best Picture Oscar last year, but the Oscars do not have the language requirement. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which gives out the Golden Globes, has been rife with strife this year, based on their having zero Black members out of around 90, accusations of bribery, and more. Here's an exposé in the LA Times. 

Chung wrote a draft with more English but producer Christina Oh convinced him to keep the original script.

Patton was last blogged for American Honey and Mosseri for The Last Black Man in San Francisco (also produced by Oh). Yeun was in Okja, though I failed to mention him, Kim is making his screen debut, Han and Youn have dozens of film and TV credits in Korea, this is the fourth completed feature for Milne after quite a few shorts, and here is a New York Times bio of Chung.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are spicy, averaging 98 and 90%, respectively.

You can rent it now for $19.99 plus tax on iTunes, as we did last week, or Amazon Prime.

United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)

Despite wildly conflicting reviews, we liked this story of the legal and other troubles of the acclaimed jazz singer (1915-1959) in the 1940s. No one has any complaints about Andra Day's performance, acting and singing in the title role. In fact, Day won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama last Sunday, and wrote the song Tigress and Tweed, which was nominated there and elsewhere for Best Original Song.

Trevante Rhodes and Garrett Hedlund play FBI agents Jimmy Fletcher and Harry Anslinger; Leslie Jordan is interviewer Reginald; Miss Lawrence and Da'Vine Joy Randolph are Holiday's posse, Miss Freddy and Roslyn; Tyler James Williams plays Holiday's frequent collaborator, tenor sax man Lester Young AKA Prez; and Natasha Lyonne gets nice billing for just a few scenes as Tallulah Bankhead (I did appreciate her accent).

Director Lee Daniels works from a script by Suzan-Lori Parks, adapted from Johann Hari's 2015 book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs (The Opposite of Addiction is Connection). I really do not understand the vitriol this movie has inspired. But maybe I just loved being immersed in Holiday's music. In the 1970s I wanted to be a jazz singer (it's HARD!) and studied a little jazz history. Hearing Day's interpretations of the oeuvre was good fun.

The all-vocals soundtrack can be streamed by subscription on Apple Music and free on Spotify. Kris Bowers wrote the other music, but I can't find it online.

Paolo Nieddu's costume design, including reproductions of some gowns that Holiday wore in real life, had me oohing and ahing, but his work was ignored by the Costume Designers Guild Awards. I guess it was tough going up against Emma, Ma Rainey, and Mank. Here's my list of nominees for that and select other awards.

Rhodes was last blogged for Moonlight as the adult Chiron, Hedlund for Mudbound, Jordan for The Help, Williams for Dear White People (the movie), Lyonne for A Futile and Stupid Gesture, Daniels for The Butler, and Bowers for Green Book, after which he composed for the serieses Dear White People, Mrs. America, and Bridgerton, to name a few. After I wrote about Randolph in Dolemite Is My Name, we enjoyed her in five episodes of On Becoming a God in Central Florida and ten of High Fidelity.

Day, who is a Grammy nominated singer-songwriter, performed on screen as a singer in Marshall, and chose "Day" as her stage name because of Lady Day, Holiday's nickname. Parks wrote the screenplay of Spike Lee's Girl 6 (1996). Lawrence, who identifies as male, is a hair stylist who has been on several TV shows as himself. Nieddu has worked on Saturday Night Live, among others.

Just to give you an idea of the disconnect in reviews, when I first started this rough draft, Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences were averaging 56 and 77%. Today they are 53 and 87. We watched it on Hulu on March 2.

I Care a Lot (2020)

Jack and I really liked this glossy comedic caper about a woman who bilks elderly people out of their life savings using her wits and charm. It starts out as a boomer horror story and takes a turn from there.

Rosamund Pike won the the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for the lead role of Marla. Supporting cast includes Eiza González as Marla's accomplice Fran, Dianne Wiest as one of their marks Jennifer, and Peter Dinklage as Roman. I'm not going to spoil it by telling you who Roman is.

Director/writer J Blakeson is new to me but has other credits in both fields. Imdb does have a long list of goofs, so, remember, it's not a documentary.

Marc Canham's exciting score can be streamed on Apple Music and Spotify.

Pike was last blogged for A United Kingdom, Wiest for Let Them All Talk, and Dinklage for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Gonzalez was in Baby Driver and Welcome to Marwen, though I didn't mention her.

Wow, Rotten Tomatoes' critics are a bit less caring than we are, averaging 80%, but its audiences really don't give a darn at 37.

It was made for Netflix and we streamed it there a couple of days ago.