2023 Oscars

It's that time of year again and this year looks really crappy so far.  I have seen 6 of the best picture contenders and not been overly impressed by any.  But, with three to go (not even counting Avatar 2 as a real entrant here), I may still find one worth watching.  On to the ratings:

Everything, Everywhere All at Once

So, I'm going to start by saying something I never thought I would say.  I'm actually thinking a Russos brothers movie could win best picture.  Granted, this film has some big flaws.  The first and most major is that it was about 45 minutes too long.  They could have cut out the middle 45 minutes and literally not changed one single thing.  

The premise is that a Chinese-American middle aged Mom is the only one who can save the world by traveling through many different mutil-verses and eventually finding the right one to save the world or something like that.  Honestly, that part didn't even matter.  What does matter is that her daughter is slowly revealed to be her arch-nemisis (much like her life on Earth where her teenager is, like most teenagers, the most worrisome part of her life.)  After about an hour and a half of non-stop karate/ multiverse jumping/ find out your daughter is an evil emperor nonsense, the film gets to the final scene; a birthday party in the family laundromat.  The redeeming part of the movie occurs in the final few scenes where Mom and daughter finally reconcile and realize how lucky they are to be related.  Without giving too much away, the final 15 minutes rescued this film and somehow, has it in the lead for me as I pass the halfway point.  Again, I'm talking about the Russo brothers winning an Oscar- not sure which part of the multiverse I got switched into but this isn't Earth for sure...

Overall Rating 3.0

 All Quiet on the Western Front

This remake of the classic World War I film told from the perspective of a German soldier was good.  Not great, not groundbreaking and frankly, I'm not sure the remake was much better than the original- other then the filmmaking quality and special effects etc.  A decent movie but definitely not best-picture worthy in my book.  If you have never seen the original, watch this one.  If you have seen the original, I would encourage you to think carefully before committing to watching a redo that really didn't need to be redone.

Overall Rating 2.5

Top Gun: Maverick

If this doesn't show what an awful year this was for films, I don't know what does.  If you would have tried to get me to bet on a Trifecta that included Jerry Bruckheimer, the Russo Brothers, and James Cameron all being nominated for best picture in the same year, I wouldn't have taken 10 million to 1 odds.  In fact, there are no odds even imagined that could have lured me into that bet.  Yet, here we are.  In what could be the worst movie ever nominated for best picture, this cookie cutter remake of the original is about as realistic as the aforementioned bet was- until five days ago when nominations came out and I started to wonder about my place in the multiverse.

This movie was similar to the first one in plot and pacing with the requisite twists:  Tom Cruise is the only teacher who can train for a specific against all odds mission- Goose's son is part of the possible flight team, there is a new girlfriend at the same old bar- etc etc.  EXCEPT, the beach volleyball scene has been changed!!! To beach football.  That's about the biggest deviation in the film.  

I will give credit- as all Bruckheimer films are, the craftsmanship was beautiful; the shots were stunning, the dogfighting was superb.  But the special effects and CGI can't cover the glaring canyons where the plot and dialogue should have been.  My 14 year old was convinced that I had already seen the movie after the third or fourth time I said the upcoming line before the actor.  

Overall Rating: 1(For technical effects only)

Elvis

OK.  So some disclaimers before I write this review.  1.  I'm not an Elvis fan.  Never have been.  Before my time and just never saw the big deal.  I think he was a generational thing more than a musical thing.  2.  I HATE Baz Luhrmann.  He butchered two of my favorite stories; Gatsby and Romeo and Juliet.  Never saw Moulin Rouge because it was from him.  Not my favorite director at all- not even close.  

On to the film.  I would say it was bad at best.  Why he chose to tell an Elvis story from the perspective of Elvis' manager instead of Priscilla or maybe ELVIS is a mystery to me.  I got the feeling about half way through that Tom Hanks knew what a piece of crap this was and mailed it in.  The only redeeming piece of this movie was Elvis himself, Austin Butler, who was charismatic and carried the movie from start to finish.  The rest of the movie was extremely mediocre; including Tom Hanks which I don't say very often.  

Overall Rating:  1

TAR

So I had really high hopes for this one.  The world of conducting classical music is a mystery to me and I assumed that Lydia Tar was a real person who had a compelling story- I'm thinking about recent films like tick, tick boom and others.  Little did I know that Lydia Tar is fictional and the story is too.  That being said, I was still open-minded and thought that it could still be pretty good.  With the exception of the acting of Cate Blanchett, I was mostly disappointed.  The plot was nothing new.  It was basically a lesbian Harvey Weinstein movie but not with movies; with classical music.  But people in charge using their power to persuade others to have sex with them and then one day, someone commits suicide and it all blows up.  Not very original at all at this point in time.  And while Cate Blanchett was very good in her role, I think the overall general dislikability as a character will hurt her in the race for best actress.

The movie was beautifully shot, well executed in every way (the music was outstanding as you would imagine) and really educated me on some of the finer details of both conducting an orchestra and also classical music in general.  But that, like Top Gun, doesn't paper over the cracks (or canyons) in the unoriginal script and dialogue.  Very disappointed overall.  

Overall Rating 1.5

The Banshees of Inishiren

I heard good things about this film but didn't realize it was an allegory for Britian/ Ireland or Ireland by itslef (I'm not even sure what the allegory is) until after I had seen it.  Which really hurt my opinion of the film.  I was asking myself why would these characters behave in such irrational ways so when I found out it was an allegory, it made more sense.  That being said, without the allegory, the film was weird.  Cutting off your own guitar playing finger because your friend won't leave you alone makes zero sense.  

Admittedly, I don't know the English/Irish history well enough to know exactly which events correspond to cutting off one's own finger and removing what little pleasure you have from an otherwise seemingly miserable life.  I do know that the idea is off the charts ridiculous.  But. I am assuming that either Ireland or England pulled some sort of politically assinine move that the screenplay writer felt was in line with cutting off your own finger so I can see it that way.  

So the choice is to judge the movie on face value or as an allegory for the British/ Irish thing which I don't know well enough to do without going and reading a ton of stuff on the events of history.  And I'm not sure I want to do that so I'm saying that on face value, this movie was OK; scenery and acting were great; fantastic cinematography but plot was obtuse at best.  This movie really needed some sort of political thread to base the allegory on as the movie played out or at least a warning at the beginning that something else was going on.  But the either "know it yourself" or you miss the whole point thing didn't work for me as a best picture nominee.

Overall Rating 2.0