And the 2017 Oscar Goes To...

It's time for the third installment in an annual Pop Culture Scribe tradition: my Oscars blog post, where I discuss all the movies and people I would love to see taking home an award. While the world is in disarray, Hollywood forges on, and though the night is sure to prove full of incendiary political speeches, I am simply keen to celebrate the escapism that cinema has afforded me in a particularly heinous year. So let's sally forth and see who brought us the most cinematic joy.

Best Picture: This is a surprisingly difficult category for me this year. The nominated films feel like a pointed response to last year's #OscarsSoWhite debacle, featuring a slightly more diverse and empathetic array of stories and performances. Most signs point to La La Land, and I would not begrudge its win at all. In a year full of terrible news, it was a shining beacon of art and beauty that managed to be both fantastical and poignant at the same time. But then you have movies like Manchester by the Sea, Fences, and Hell or High Water, that featured searing performances, gripping dialogue, and were divine. Then there were biopics like Hidden Figures, Lion, and Hacksaw Ridge, that made you believe people could accomplish extraordinary things. However, if I had to pick a film that moved me and truly transported me, it would be a tie between Moonlight and Arrival. I cannot think of two more diametrically opposed films - one is a three-act story of a black boy growing up in Miami, the other is the tale of a cognitive linguist attempting to talk to aliens and save the human race. And yet both feature powerful central performances, deft direction, stunning cinematography, and stirring scores. All of the nominated movies were great this year, but those two are my pick for the most magnificent of the bunch; they are as close to perfect as movie-making gets.

Best Director: Anyone but Mel Gibson. La La Land, Arrival, Moonlight, and Manchester by the Sea are the four best movies I saw this year, and I would be happy with a win for any of those directors. Damian Chazelle probably deserves it for La La Land as it would have been the greatest challenge in terms of directorial logistics. He didn't just film his actors talking, he also had to shut down a California freeway and film dancers pirouetting on cars in the baking heat. But Barry Jenkins would be the first black director to win an Oscar and no one could argue with his directorial wizardry in Moonlight. So give him an Oscar to make up for the fact that he might not win Best Picture.

Best Actor: Casey Affleck seemed to be the favorite for Manchester by the Sea, and I wouldn't dispute that from an acting standpoint (sexual harassment allegations are another story). But Denzel Washington could beat him out with that incredible performance in Fences, and while I ordinarily prefer awarding first-time winners, Denzel would be the first black person to win three Oscars. That would make the night rather more special that awarding a white misogynist. But the three remaining actors, Viggo Mortensen, Andrew Garfield, and Ryan Gosling are all sentimental favorites of mine, and I would be secretly ecstatic if any of them won. The Mortensen and Garfield performances anchor their respective movies and are what elevated Captain Fantastic and Hacksaw Ridge to Oscar caliber, while Gosling deserves an Oscar because there is no other current Hollywood actor who has the charm and grace to pull off that La La Land performance. However, it's impossible, so while I dream about a three-way tie, I shall wait to see if Affleck or Washington are the actual winners on Sunday.

Best Actress: First off, Amy Adams was robbed. We all love Meryl, but I would replace Streep's nomination for Florence Foster Jenkins in a heartbeat for Adams' work in Arrival and then give her the Oscar. As that is not an option, I'll have to go with my second-favorite performance of the year: Emma Stone in La La Land. Much like her co-star, I can't imagine any other actress who could have sashayed into that movie with such aplomb. While much has been made of her audition scene at the end of the movie, it's her audition scene at the beginning that wowed me at the outset. Taraji P. Henson was a delight in Hidden Figures, while Natalie Portman and Isabelle Huppert completely commanded the screen in their respective performances in Jackie and Elle. But Emma Stone was the one who made me forget it was a performance and let me revel in the character and her story. Give the woman an Oscar.

Best Supporting Actress & Actor: These are a lock for Viola Davis and Mahershala Ali, and deservedly so. Their performances in Fences and Moonlight were indescribably affecting and they should get the award. But again, as I keep re-iterating throughout this post, the other nominees were pretty great, and while a win for anyone else would be a surprise, it would not be particularly upsetting.

Best Original Screenplay: It seems like Damian Chazelle has the edge here for La La Land, but I would argue that if we're truly talking about "originality," the rightful winner would be Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou for The Lobster. I mean come on, that movie was absolutely bonkers in terms of its premise and yet managed to be funny and heartbreaking. I would also argue for Taylor Sheridan's Hell or High Water, by far the screenplay with the wittiest insight and dialogue this year. Then we have Mike Mills' and Kenneth Lonergan's equally moving scripts for 20th Century Women and Manchester by the Sea. Oh who am I kidding, just give everyone the prize, they all wrote something incredible.

Best Adapted Screenplay: I don't see Arrival winning anything else, so this is the category where I'm hoping Eric Heisserer has a shot at getting this movie some awards love. But a win for Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney for Moonlight is more likely and perfectly acceptable.

That's all for the major categories I care about. The only other award that truly matters to me this year is to ensure Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul win Best Original Song for City of Stars, because that song has been stuck in my head for months now and I still love it. Though there's a strong chance that the two songs nominated from La La Land will split the vote and we could end up with a win for Lin-Manuel Miranda (which would be awesome as it would complete his EGOT), or Justin Timberlake (which would be a travesty and might result in me throwing something at my TV). So let's see what tomorrow night brings. I don't anticipate being too disappointed, but I'm certainly curious to see how the Academy feels about the world in general and movies in particular this year. 

20th Century Women: A Guide to Parenting

Before watching 20th Century Women, the most important fact to note is that it is based on the real-life experiences of writer-director Mike Mills. Raised by his single mother, this movie is an ode to an unconventional upbringing, and you will find laugh-out-loud moments, thought-provoking moments, and moments that bring a lump to your throat.

Set in Santa Barbara, California, in 1979, this is the story of young Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), who is being raised by his divorced mother, Dorothea (Annette Bening). She rents the rooms in their house to a hippie named William (Billy Crudup) and a punk music-loving photographer, Abbie (Greta Gerwig). Julie (Elle Fanning) is Jamie's childhood friend who spends all of her time at his house to get away from her therapist mother, who is too busy solving others teens' problems to realize that her own daughter is spiraling. When Dorothea realizes that her son is turning into a difficult teenager and she doesn't know what to do with him, she turns to Abbie and Julie for help. Her logic is that they know him best and can talk to him in a way that a mother can't. Therefore, they must share their life experiences with him and help him through this phase of his life.

What follows is a sweet, funny story about what happens when a group of women teach a boy how to become a man. Abbie shares all of her feminist literature with Jamie, which is both educational and hilarious as it leads to fistfights with other boys over their poor understanding of female sexuality. Julie shares stories of her sexual exploits, all while rebuffing Jamie's advances because she wants them to remain friends. Dorothea loves him dearly but, like all parents, she is not infallible, and she struggles to find the right balance between trusting her son and disciplining him. The two of them try to regain their footing, striving to find a way to talk to each other about important things without arguing. As the supporting players chip in to do their part, the result is a warm and wise film that chronicles how parenthood is an endless parade of mistakes borne out of love.

The three women in this movie deliver outstanding performances. Bening exudes wisdom and kindness in every frame, saying so much with her eyes even when her dialogue is delivered quietly with a minimum of angst. Gerwig is spectacular as Abbie, portraying a strident feminist you would actually want to have meaningful conversations about the patriarchy with while you are doubled over with menstrual cramps. And Fanning continues to be one of my favorite young actresses today, delivering a sweet and honest performance as a young teenage girl who is trying to figure out her life, and is self-aware enough to not hurt Jamie but still hurt herself.

Shot vibrantly by cinematographer Sean Porter, with beautiful production design by Chris Jones, and steeped in literary and lyrical references to the 70's, this movie may be about a very specific period in time but tells a story that feels universal in scope. Everyone will be able to relate to some part of this story, whether it's the teenage angst, the parental pain, or discovering your identity through books, music, or interesting new people. 20th Century Women is a quiet movie that hasn't gotten much fanfare, but like most quiet movies, it speaks loudest to your heart.

Elle: A Woman's Revenge?

I watch a lot of movies, and yet sometimes I despair that my tastes are entirely too prosaic. Having grown up on a steady diet of Bollywood films and then graduating to golden age Hollywood musicals and eventually modern Hollywood, I have always made an effort to steep myself in both independent cinema and commercial blockbusters. However, European cinema continues to be a hit-or-miss experience. While Germany's Toni Erdmann was one of my favorite movies this year, watching France's Elle was a much more challenging endeavor.

The movie is the story of Michele (Isabelle Huppert), a divorced woman who, at the very beginning, is raped in her house by a masked man. She spends the rest of the film trying to figure out who her rapist was and then plays an extremely dicey game of cat-and-mouse with him once his identity is revealed. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's a pretty funny movie if you can ignore the rape part. Which may be my issue with the film. I don't have the stomach for rape scenes, and this movie is constantly shocking you by flashing back to the event and giving you different perspectives on it. While I understand it is necessary for characterizing the PTSD most rape victims suffer in the aftermath of the event, it is a rather relentless cinematic experience. Even outside of the rape, this is an exceedingly violent movie, as Michele is a video game developer and therefore is involved in creating gratuitously bloody games, and also has a terrifically disturbing back story where her father went on a murderous rampage when she was ten years old. All of this might explain why she chooses to address the rape in the unconventional way she does, but it doesn't make me feel any better about it.

I won't spoil the rest of the movie, but suffice to say, Michele is both forthcoming and reticent about her horrific experience, choosing to divulge the details to certain people but then being secretive about other aspects of it. If it wasn't in French, I would have completely given up on it, but there's something about the Gallic sense of existential ennui that makes this approach to violation seem understandable. You uncomfortably chuckle at the funny moments and then realize you're not quite sure why you're laughing when none of this is OK. But Huppert is delivering such a virtuoso performance that she simply sweeps you along for the ride. Before you know it, the movie is over and you are left contemplating what exactly it is that you just watched.

Ultimately, Elle is a movie I will never watch again, but it is sufficiently intriguing to watch once. It does seem to be a vastly polarizing movie (people either loath it or think it's a masterpiece) but I seem to be mostly ambivalent. I can understand why Huppert has received an Oscar nomination - she is a magnetic presence and throws herself into this role with abandon - but I am entirely too puzzled by what the point of this film is supposed to be. It's written and directed by men (David Birke and Paul Verhoeven respectively, based on the novel Oh... by Philippe Dijan) and perhaps what's lacking is a woman's touch of nuance and empathy in this particular situation. Elle is frightening, funny, exploitative, and dark;  I think I'll stick to watching La La Land. 

Jackie: A First Lady's Legacy

About fifteen minutes into watching Jackie, you can't doubt why Natalie Portman has received so many nominations for this performance. She owns this movie from start to finish and while I knew very little about Jacqueline Kennedy at the beginning, I certainly felt like I knew her inside and out by the end.

Like the best biopics, Jackie does not go over a sweeping timeline but instead focuses very precisely on John F. Kennedy's assassination and the days leading up to his funeral. The script by Noah Oppenheim is incredibly clever, propelling the story along in an engaging fashion while giving you an insight into Jackie's mind during this tumultuous time. We gather up her life story in bits and pieces through her conversations with a journalist (Billy Crudup), brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy (Peter Saarsgard), social secretary Nancy Tuckerman (Greta Gerwig), and a priest (John Hurt). She is fragile and firm in equal measure, still in shock after cradling her husband's bloodied skull in her lap, but determined that he must have a true presidential legacy and be remembered for all of the great things that he wanted to accomplish before his life was tragically cut short.

One of the most difficult things to portray on film is a person's mental state. Much depends on the actor, but when the whole point of Jackie is that she retains her outward composure, how do you capture her inner turmoil? Director Pablo Lorrain employs some shaky camerawork, close-ups that let you look right past Portman's outward calm and into her brimming eyes, and scenes where Jackie dazedly wanders around the White House wearing multiple outfits as she contemplates how her life is crashing down around her. But of course, the true indication of Jackie's mental state is the Oscar-nominated score by composer, Mica Levi. It is a jangly, disturbing soundscape that occasionally feels like a traditional score and will then suddenly swoop into unanticipated dissonance that throws you off-kilter. It's rather extraordinary and is an excellent example of how music can add a whole other dimension to a motion picture.

Jackie is a compelling movie, featuring a stunning central performance and a well-paced story that goes behind the scenes of one of the most infamous moments in modern history. Given a choice between this and Hacksaw Ridge, Jackie is the kind of biopic I prefer, intense in its specificity, yet delving so deep into the character that you feel like you have experienced a lifetime with them. The movie is tightly edited and unconventionally narrated, jumping back and forth in time to give you the same sense of unreality that Jackie Kennedy must have been experiencing as these events unfolded. It is well-directed, impeccably scored, and wonderfully-acted. See it.

Lion: Searching for Home

Well, I've finally watched the ninth Best Picture nominee of the year, Lion. And with that, I can say that Hollywood has really had a very good year. Director Garth Davis gives us a moving story, made all the more remarkable by the fact that it's true, and continues to prove that sometimes real life is more unbelievable than fiction.

Adapted from Saroo Brierley's autobiography, A Long Way Home, Lion is the story of Saroo (Sunny Pawar), a young boy from a tiny Indian village. He lives with his mother, brother, and sister, and while they lead a difficult life as poor manual laborers, Saroo knows that he is loved and cared for. However, one night his life is turned upside down when he gets separated from his brother, is whisked away to Kolkata on a train, and becomes one of the 80,000 children who go missing in India every year. Any number of horrible things could happen to him, but he miraculously finds his way into the right hands, and ends up being adopted by John and Sue Brierley (David Wenham and Nicole Kidman), a couple from Tasmania, Australia.

Flash forward to twenty years later and the adult Saroo (Dev Patel) starts having flashbacks about his childhood. What follows is a dawning realization of how his current life of privilege is so different from his past life of poverty. Using his remarkably vivid memories and the maps on Google Earth, he sets out to retrace his steps and find his birth mother. However, he does not want to disappoint his adoptive mother, leading to a great deal of heartache as he struggles to reconcile his Indian and Australian identities and understand what it is that he wants to find.

Patel's and Kidman's performances are great and deserve their respective Supporting Actor and Actress nominations, but the real star of the film is Sunny Pawar, who plays the five-year-old Saroo. His bewildering journey from Khandwa to Kolkata is a whirlwind of fear and danger, and the second half of the movie can't pack as much of an emotional punch as the first. The Brierleys also adopt a second orphan son, Mantosh (Divian Ladwa), who has a host of psychological problems and never fully adjusts to his new life in Tasmania like Saroo did. However, the movie isn't quite sure what to do with his story and Luke Davies' script is vaguely unfulfilling with respect to Saroo's life in Australia.

Overall, Lion is a well-crafted film that deserves to be seen by a wider audience, if only to raise more awareness of the lives of Indian street children (visit lionmovie.com to learn more). It is one of the more "feel-good" Oscar movies of the year, ending with some rather touching footage of the real-life Saroo at the end of his search. It is also a reminder that technology can facilitate astonishing miracles. In a country of one billion people, this lost boy found his home, and someone should give him an Oscar for that feat alone. 

Hell or High Water: Twenty-First Century Western

Hell or High Water flew completely under my radar this year until awards season arrived and I saw this movie receiving all sorts of acclaim. Intrigued, I finally watched it, and within the first twenty minutes, I was a fan.

The first thing to note about this movie is how funny it is. Written by Taylor Sheridan, the dialogue and random tangents are a sheer delight from start to finish. There are jokes about how hard it is to rob a bank in Texas now that everyone has a conceal-and-carry permit and can shoot right back at you. There's a rancher herding cattle in the middle of the road who bemoans that this is still a job in the twenty-first century. And there's a waitress in a diner who goes on for ages about that idiot from New York who showed up that one time and tried to order trout when all she serves is steak. Does that have anything to do with the plot of the movie? No. Does that make it any less delightful? Nope.

The actual plot centers around two brothers, Toby and Tanner (the delightful Chris Pine and Ben Foster). Their mother died recently and left her ranch to Toby's two sons. Unfortunately, the ranch was mortgaged, and unless the men can find a way to pay the bank loan, they will lose the ranch and the newly-discovered oil that has been found on the property that will guarantee a lifetime of prosperity for Toby's sons. Tanner has just gotten out of prison and is an expert bank robber, so of course, they do the only thing that makes sense - they start robbing branches of the Texas Midlands bank, which is the bank that holds the mortgage. Paying the bank back with money they stole from it? That's Texas justice.

Jeff Bridges plays the curmudgeonly sheriff who is a week away from retirement and must figure out who's responsible for this sudden rash of bank robberies. Together with Alberto (Gil Birmingham), his half-Mexican, half-Native American partner (who comes in for an eye-watering deluge of racial jokes and takes it all in his stride), they play a captivating cat-and-mouse game with the bank-robbing brothers, until things come to a head in true Western fashion.

Hell or High Water is a brilliant movie, witty, cinematic, gorgeous, and gripping. Set in the lonely expanses of West Texas, it will make you yearn for those landscapes and some barbecue. It perfectly captures what it means to be a working-class Texan and the sense of family, honor, and justice that can motivate people to do crazy things for the sake of their loved ones. Directed impeccably by David Mackenzie and shot beautifully by cinematographer Giles Nuttgens, this is a theatrical masterpiece that will be a highlight of your award show viewing. Don't miss it.

Hacksaw Ridge: Peacefully Waging War

Hacksaw Ridge is a fine film that is elevated by a particularly wonderful performance by Andrew Garfield. It is a fairly standard biopic, but there is nothing standard about the individual it chooses to celebrate.

The film tells the story of Desmond Doss, a young man from Virginia who chose to enlist in World War II as a combat medic despite being a Seventh Day Adventist and strict pacifist. Naturally, this presents a challenge when he shows up at the Army and refuses to touch a gun. Desmond is subjected to abuse, ridicule, and bodily harm, and at one point his commanding officer tries to get him discharged via a Section 8 declaring him to be psychologically unsound. However, the psychiatrist declares there's nothing mentally wrong with the man, he is simply principled. It takes time, but eventually his unit and commander accept that they're going to have to go into battle with a medic who will not carry a weapon.

Their first assignment is the infamous Hacksaw Ridge in Japan, a bloody war zone that has resulted in massive American casualties. As they arrive they see dozens of wounded Americans being carted away, and it seems clear that this is going to be some kind of suicide mission. However, as with the Charge of the Light Brigade, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die. They head into battle and what follows is a gruesome, violent spectacle that pulls no punches about the horrors of war. Director Mel Gibson is not eager to sanitize this experience for you - if you ever thought war was glamorous, you will certainly lose all illusions after a few minutes of watching the battles in this movie. Young soldiers are dispatched with terrifying casualness, and as the bodies pile up, you start to wonder when the "inspirational" portion of this movie will commence.

Thankfully, Desmond comes to the rescue and we get to see how he single-handedly saves over 75 men, solely using ingenuity and insane luck. This being a Mel Gibson film, the religious overtones are high, but Garfield is such a sincere and earnest actor that you don't mind the preachiness quite so much. Instead your heart is in your mouth watching him sprint across Hacksaw, doing his best to save his fellow soldiers and even some wounded Japanese, because after all, a medic doesn't ever pick sides in a war. The final moments when he is reunited with his unit and the full enormity of what he has experienced dawns on him are truly exceptional, and that was the moment I knew Garfield deserved an Oscar nomination.

Hacksaw Ridge is an inspirational movie about a true American hero. At the end it even features interviews with the people featured in the film, hammering home how true life is often far more wondrous than anything a screenwriter could make up for a movie. The movie isn't told in any particularly innovative fashion, but with a spectacular central performance from Garfield, it is a film worth watching. 

Nocturnal Animals: Darkly Disturbing

By some strange coincidence, my friend Katie and I both ended up watching Nocturnal Animals all alone and late at night. Let me tell you right now, that is no way to watch this film if you are easily spooked. It is a stylish film noir-esque thriller that is deeply creepy and wonderful to experience when it's daylight and you're with someone who can reassure you afterwards that all will be well and you aren't going to be dismembered in your bed.

The movie stars Amy Adams as Susan, a seemingly well-off and successful art gallery owner in LA. However, it becomes quickly apparent that she is deeply unsatisfied with her life and her handsome husband, Hutton, (Armie Hammer), who is always off on philandering business trips. One day, she unexpectedly receives a manuscript from her ex-husband, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal), who she hasn't heard from for years. Now he has finally finished writing the novel he always wanted to write, and he has titled it Nocturnal Animals with a dedication to Susan. Intrigued, Susan starts reading this story at night when she is plagued with insomnia. Which is as bad a decision as choosing to watch this movie late at night.

Edward's novel is a disturbingly violent tale of rape and murder, and features Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a horrifying villain and the always reliable Michael Shannon as a Texas sheriff who might be the only good guy (of sorts) in this whole story. Gyllenhaal stars as the novel's protagonist and Isla Fisher as his wife, who appears to be a thinly-veiled allusion to Susan. In addition to this story-within-a-story, however, we also get flashbacks of Susan and Edward's real-life romance, courtship, and marriage, giving us an insight into what kind of people they were. It's also an insight into what might have spurred Edward into writing this novel, since his character seems to be a direct reaction to the criticisms levied on him by Susan in their marriage. It is a weird, mind-bending psychological thriller, expertly crafted and creepily told, with elegant cinematography by Seamus McGarvey and crucial production design by Shane Valentino to help keep all the narratives clear and distinct.

Writer-director Tom Ford is a great filmmaker but given his fashion background, what always stands out to me in his films is the aesthetics. Amy Adams' makeup and wardrobe are a particularly key example of how important is to get these details right, because they make it so easy to trace Susan's evolution as a fresh-faced optimistic Texan artist into a hardened woman who is now coming to terms with her life choices. Every actor delivers a standout performance in this film and while I cannot say I enjoyed it, I can say it wormed its way into a primitive part of my brain like the best Hitchcockian thriller, and managed to thoroughly alarm and intrigue me. I wouldn't want to watch Nocturnal Animals again, but I certainly appreciated watching it once.