97th Academy Awards

The 97th Academy Awards are history with a huge sweep of awards for Anora including newbie Mikey Madison over heavily favored Demi Moore as Best Actress. Director Sean Baker collected four Oscars for Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Editing, a first for anyone! Other films could only take token awards the primary one being The Brutalist which saw Adrien Brody triumph over surging Timothee Chalamet whose A Complete Unknown got shut out. Most technical awards went as expected. Flow won Best Animated over popular The Wild Robot. 

Host Conan O'Brien kept things moving and did a solid job. The opening duet with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande was outstanding although the subsequent musical numbers seemed average and unnecessary.  There were nice tributes and a couple of political statements. In the end, the drama centered on the best lead categories of acting.
Am so glad Anora with its heart of gold ruled the day. And now, time to see a new movie.

2025 Oscar Predictions for 2024 Films

 

It is safe to say that most Oscar awards seem to be predestined this season with a couple of suspenseful matches.  What started out as a strong candidate, The Brutalist, seems to have fizzled in light of the heart and soul of a small film, Anora, which could be a multiple Oscar winner. In fact it is doubtful any film will win more than 3 or 4 Oscars.  I have tried to see as many of the Oscar candidates especially Best Picture. There are many great films and some, like Sing Sing could have easily been a Best Picture nominee.  So I will give my best guesses and a couple bold picks based on my gut.  There are always surprises among the winners. I hope you enjoy the show Sunday evening because it celebrates movies!

Picture- Always go with my heart, Anora

Director- Sean Baker for Anora

Actress- In my heart Mikey Madison for Anora and though one who truly deserves it is Fernanda Torres for I’m Still Here, Demi Moore for The Substance seems destined for her first Oscar.

Actor- Got to go with my gut and Timothée Chalamet who excelled as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown over Adrien Brody’s powerful performance in The Brutalist.

Supporting Actress- Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Pérez.

Supporting Actor- Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain, right film at the right time.

Adapted Screenplay- Conclave

Original Screenplay- Anora seems to have it over The Brutalist.

Cinematography- The Brutalist

Costume Design- Wicked

Film Editing- Conclave

Makeup and Hairstyling- The Substance

Production Design- Wicked

Score- The Brutalist

Song- “El Mal” from Emilia Pérez

Sound- Dune: Part Two

Visual Effects-Dune: Part Two

Animated Feature- The Wild Robot

Documentary Feature- No Other Land

International Film- I’m Still Here

Animated Short- Beautiful Men

Documentary Short- I Am Ready, Warden

Live Action Short- The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

ANORA AND ITS HEART

 

Anora is a low budget film about people beneath the mainstream who happen upon a once in a lifetime chance at happiness.  It’s a drama that immediately captures your attention and never let’s go.

Annie (Mikey Madison) is a stripper at a club who meets a wealthy, young Russian.   It turns out that this man has access to vast, family money and is smitten with her.  When Annie realizes that this dream relationship may be the start of a path away from her tawdry lifestyle to true happiness, events begin to move quickly in a whirlwind courtship until some harsh realities threaten to undermine everything.

Director Sean Baker (The Florida Project) has depicted the lives of the less fortunate, and here he creates a totally believable world of sex and glitz inhabited by real people with needs and longings.  The film also asks the question, “How would we know love if it were in front of us?”  The audience experiences first hand Annie’s budding romance filled with her euphoria and despair. The film borders on the outrageous with its almost preposterous, at times humorous setup, and yet you want to champion Annie; she is someone worth rooting for.  The narrative, which slowly evolves into a wild adventure, later takes a decidedly surprising turn, and the film is so much the better for it. The relatively unknown cast is led by an Oscar caliber performance by Madison whose streetwise Annie elicits sympathy and pathos.

This deceptively simple story about damaged souls ultimately exudes compassion and hope.  With a passing similarity to Pretty Woman, it’s an independent production bereft of stars but contains a great deal of heart and is one of the best films of the year bolstered by Madison’s star making performance. 

***** of ***** stars

An Acting Giant

Actor/author Gene Hackman has passed at 95. This masterful, character performer over six decades, emerged from TV's Golden Age amid fellow actors Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall, and after numerous small roles, made a significant mark in the classic, Bonnie and Clyde. He followed with many high profile, prestigious films including his Oscar winning lead in The French Connection, Mississippi Burning, and his other Oscar winning support in Unforgiven. He made blockbuster films like The Poseidon Adventure and A Bridge Too Far, and displayed his comic abilities in Young Frankenstein and Superman. He did memorable films like Hoosiers The Conversation, Uncommon Valor, and I Never Sang for My Father. He worked with major stars and new directors in more recent films like Get Shorty, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, and The Royal Tenenbaums. Truly an acting giant.

Roberta Flack

https://youtu.be/4t0Xo3-Ga_4?si=pJQ2y1njFk8AnoIy 

An Unconventional Visionary

 

Film director David Lynch has passed at 78. This unconventional filmmaker set the world afire with his first feature, a nightmarish cult classic, Eraserhead. He soon followed with the richly lauded The Elephant Man, the daring, surrealistic Blue Velvet, and his grandest epic, the innovative, quirky TV series Twin Peaks which spawned three seasons and a prequel film, and also influenced a host of TV shows including Picket Fences, Northern Exposure, The X Files, and Stranger Things. Despite a mixed reaction to his studio-interfered version of Dune, he directed Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive, and his G rated masterpiece, The Straight Story. One of his last works was as an actor, gloriously playing John Ford in Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans. A best director nominee three times, he was awarded a lifetime achievement Academy Award in 2019

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Returns

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer made a glorious return to network television and NBC where it originally aired 60 years ago in 1964! It is one of the best holiday specials ever made and the original songwriter Johnny Marks not only wrote the original but penned the other gorgeous songs. I remember watching this way back when, and it has never lost its charm. (And it seems the scenes here are not shortened as previous broadcasts had done.) A true classic!
 

Master Music Producer

 

Composer and musician Quincy Jones has passed at 91. This legendary music producer (as well as arranger and conductor) had a career spanning seven decades that ranged from early jazz collaborations with such greats as Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and Frank Sinatra to scoring for TV and films which included Sanford and Son, Ironside, In the Heat of the Night, Roots, The Wiz, and The Color Purple. One of his first hits was with Lesley Gore and It's My Party. His collaborations with Michael Jackson produced some of the most popular albums of all time including Off the Wall and the blockbuster, Thriller. He followed up with the ultimate charity single, We Are the World, that had a remarkable collection of superstar artists, and had an impressive string of his own album classics including Body Heat, The Dude, and Back on the Block. Besides seven Oscar nominations and being awarded the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, he garnered an Emmy, a Tony, and 28 Grammy Awards out of 80 nominations. This giant of multiple music genres was inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.