Monthly Archives: March 2025

Editorials

The Lost Year – What Has Changed in Cinema Five Years After the Covid Pandemic

When we entered the year 2020, global box office was at it’s peak.  Carried by major franchises like Marvel and Star Wars as well as a flurry of rising markets in places like China, global box office receipts hit a total of $42 billion in 2019.  And the movie theater business was thriving as a result.  The only thing at the time that theaters had to worry about was the rise of streaming, which was about to explode into the new year.  Netflix had dominated the market through the decade, but both Disney+ and Apple TV+ made their big launch in the Fall 2019 season, and HBO Max, Peacock and Paramount+ were gearing up for theirs in the months ahead.  Indeed, were things to remain the same in 2020 it was very likely that Hollywood was going to see yet another big year of generated revenue off of multiple modes of entertainment.  Unfortunately, history had other plans, not just for the movie business, but for everyone and everything.  There were news stories of a novel coronavirus starting to rapidly spread across China in the latter months of 2019, and while medical professionals were raising alarms about what they were seeing, it remained business as usual through the start of 2020 here in America.  The new year rang in without incident.  We had a Super Bowl and an Oscars ceremony that were exciting but normal.  And at the box office, the most noteworthy thing to happen was the surprising turnaround success of the Sonic the Hedgehog (2020).  But, the news of the virus spreading began to go from the back page to the front page, and suddenly the fear of the virus coming to our shores no longer seemed remote, but certain.  Eventually, all quarantines failed and the Covid-19 virus strain had reached North America and soon after it would be a global pandemic, the likes that our world hadn’t seen in over 100 years.  People suddenly growing ill and even dying was horrible enough, but the necessary step we had to take after in order to stop a bad situation from getting even worse would themselves have a harsh effect on everyone.  No one was spared from the fallout of this new pandemic reality, including the movies.

On March 16, 2020, it was announced that the three biggest movie theater chains in North America would be closing all of their location, and independent theaters followed suit, bringing all of cinema to a complete standstill, something that it had never experienced before.  The last time a global pandemic happened that reached all corners of the Earth, it was in 1918 with the influenza pandemic, also commonly referred to as the Spanish Flu.  Movie at that time were still in their infancy; a novelty that had yet to reach every town in America.  The incubation rooms of movie theaters just didn’t exist in those days, so Hollywood and the theatrical industry just never had to think about such a event happening that would affect their business in such a profound way.  It’s kind of astounding to think of the passage of time it was in between these two monumental pandemic events, that the whole of cinema history from D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of the Nation (1915) to the aforementioned Sonic the Hedgehog happened in between them.  All the movies of Charlie Chaplain, Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Billy Wilder, William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Quentin Tarantino, were seen in between these pandemics.  And also how much the movie experience changed within those 100 years, going from small screening rooms to giant movie palaces to the the multiplexes we see today.  The movie business had seen it all, except a global threat that brought all life to a standstill.  But, the movie theaters had no choice.  In order to prevent our medical system from being overwhelmed by this rapidly spreading virus, all businesses had to conform to the recommended guidelines set by the CDC, which said the best way to mitigate the spread was social distancing and wearing of masks.  This left virtually all non-essential businesses unable to function as is, especially movie theaters and other entertainment venues that compact a lot of people into a confined space.  In the months ahead, there would be flexibility with these guidelines in less populated areas, but considering that the hot spots for the virus were in densely populated centers like Los Angeles and New York, the very markets that the movie business was reliant upon, it became very clear that this pandemic was not going to go away so quickly.

To give you a sense of the impact that living through a pandemic had on a movie lover’s experience, I’m going to share my own personal journey through this uncertain time.  I live in one of those big city markets (Los Angeles to be exact) and March 2020 was a pretty surreal time.  It wasn’t just the movie theaters that shut down, but all production in general.  Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the world, with many residents here reliant on there being an active industry continuing to make more movies.  But, those studio lots also were emptied of non-essential workers, and the industry quickly had to adapt to a new “work at home” normal.  For me, as an avid movie goer, I had to adapt to one of my favorite past times now being unavailable for an unknown amount of time.  It would be five whole months before I would see the inside of a movie theater again, and it wasn’t even my local theater either.  Just to show how much I value being in a movie theater, I drove 120 south to San Diego just so I could watch Christopher Nolan’s Tenet in the brief window that movie theaters were allowed to re-open in parts of California, with San Diego being the closest one.  Eventually, closer theaters would re-open in Ventura and Orange County, but anything in a short driving distance remained closed for an entire year; finally re-opening in March 2021.  But, even with those restrictions in place, I still went out of my way to get as close to having the theatrical experience as I could.  One of the things that saw a surprising revival in the midst of the pandemic was the Drive-In experience.  Two such drive-in theaters still existed in my area, the Vineland Drive-In in the City of Industry and the now demolished Mission Tiki Drive-In in Montclair.  They may have been further out than my local theaters, but they were always open every night, and I managed to make my way to these places at least once a month through the pandemic period.  For the sake of my sanity during that time, these places were life savers because they filled that need to see movie on the big screen.

But if there was anything to also fill that void, it was streaming.  I already had a Netflix account long before the pandemic, but I was fairly new to Disney+, HBO Max and Apple TV+ as I became an early subscriber to those services.  Little did I know that they were going to be the sole outlet for Hollywood movies for quite a while before theaters re-opened.  While I still went out of my way to see a movie first on the big screen, there were other movies that I had no other choice but to watch them at home.  A lot of studios had to offload their 2020 releases onto streaming platforms, while the bigger films were pushed further back on the calendar.  Streamers were the beneficiaries, but such a drastic measure would have downstream repercussions, especially when it came to compensation for actors and filmmakers who had theatrical percentages written into their contracts.  But, with box office so depressed by the pandemic, movies either had to wait a bit longer for their release, or go straight to streaming, and a lot of movies ended up in the latter column.  Apple TV+ for instance landed the Tom Hanks war flick Greyhound (2020), while Disney made the controversial choice of releasing their Pixar film Soul (2020) on Disney+.  There was also the Premium VOD model where movies were made available to rent at a premium price on platforms like Amazon, Apple, and Vudu, which is how Dreamworks chose to release their sequel Trolls World Tour (2020).  Studios were desperate for any revenue they could get and the streamers could leverage that by getting them to agree to shorter theatrical windows.  Nevertheless, the number of movies that could get released, either through streaming, theatrical, or a combination of the two was limited.  Hollywood was just uncertain about what the future was going to be for their industry.  The pandemic would pass in time, but what would be left of the theater industry?  Was streaming indeed the future of exhibition and movie theaters obsolete?  Just like all the rest of us waiting on the vaccine to help speed up a recovery, the movie theater industry was just taking things one day at a time.  Movie production finally started again, but under a new normal of constant testing and safety protocols, which led to lengthy productions and bloated budgets.  But, as time passed, things would clarify itself as the pandemic finally passed.

The outbreak of Covid-19 was a shock to the system for every aspect of life; one that we hopefully won’t have to repeat in our lifetimes.  Going into 2021, after a year of masking and social distancing, we were finally able to start the recovery once the vaccine became widely available.  Movie theaters took a while to recover, however.  Even with movie theaters in the major markets of Los Angeles and New York allowed to operate again, there were still social distancing measures put in place.  People had to sit with empty seats on either side for the first couple months.  And even in that situation, the choices of movies was still fairly light.  All the blockbuster films were still being held back until later in the year, so what we were getting in early 2021 were low risk movies that the industry was comfortable with playing in half full theaters.  But, there were some movies that managed to shine through.  Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) managed to be the first post-pandemic movie to cross the $100 million mark, even with a hybrid streaming/theatrical release.  A Quiet Place: Part II also became the first movie since March 2020 to have an opening weekend above $30 million.  But, even as blockbusters started to return to the market, it was still evident that the pandemic took it’s toll on the theatrical industry.  Between 2020 and now, it is estimated that nearly 3,000 screens have been lost due to the after effects of the pandemic across the country.  Small, independent cinemas were hit the most by the lockdowns, and the big chains barely scraped by.  AMC, the largest chain, may have fallen into bankruptcy by now had meme stocks not come to their rescue.  But even five years out, some theater doors remain shuttered and a few of them lost forever.  One of the crown jewels in Los Angeles’ collection of movie theaters, the Arclight Hollywood (home of the Cinerama Dome) still sits empty to this day, with it’s door boarded up like an abandoned home.  In terms of returning back to the heyday of the theatrical market of the 2010’s, it would be impossible given the fact that there were just fewer venues in general to host these movies now.

But, the last five years have also shown us that the theatrical market is not on it’s way out either.  If anything, the theatrical model has proven to be surprisingly resilient in the face of cataclysmic change.  One of the surprising signs emerged during the Holidays of 2021.  Right before Christmas, Marvel and Sony put out their film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), their highly anticipated sequel that not only performed as well as the other films in the series, but also broke records, even in the midst of some lingering Covid protocols.  Movie theaters by this time had been loosening their social distancing standards so that they could finally fill all the seats in an auditorium, but masking was still enforced.  None of this stopped people from seeing No Way Home, and the film went on to have a #2 all-time opening weekend of $260 million and an eventual worldwide total of $1.9 billion.  It defied all protocols and showed that a movie could indeed perform like it used to before Covid.  But, it wouldn’t be the case with every movie.  Apart from Spider-Man, there weren’t a whole lot of movies that played to sold out crowds.  But, the right kinds of movies would come in the years that followed, including Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), Barbie (2023), Oppenheimer (2023), Inside Out 2 (2024), and Wicked (2024).  What these movies showed more than anything is that there are just some films that can only play on a big screen to be fully appreciated, and it was motivating the studios to reconsider their decisions in what movies they wanted to focus on.  A lot of films that were once green lit as a big draw for streaming were now being looked at as a possible theatrical release instead.  The recent success of Moana 2 (2024) is an especially good example of the trends shifting back in theatrical’s favor.  Had Disney moved forward with their Disney+ Moana project, then they would’ve missed out on a billion dollar worldwide gross; a cash flow that they can now benefit from that they otherwise would not have seen from streaming.

And the streaming market has also changed dramatically in the last five years after Covid.  In the immediate months of the lockdown, streaming was the only game in town, and it saw a rapid growth as people were now stuck in their homes with no other outlet than to watch whatever was on TV.  It was a strange confluence of events with the global pandemic happening just as the streaming wars was about to ramp up.  And in that time, we saw some bold moves made by the studios to bring more eyes to their platforms.  Some of those moves, however, would prove to foolish in the long run.  Warner Brothers’ decision to release their entire 2021 schedule on HBO Max day and date alongside theatrical in a program called “Project Popcorn” proved to be a disaster, because it clearly diminished box office while bringing only a scant few subscribers to their platform.  That failed experiment is largely the reason it’s called Warner Brothers Discovery now.  Disney’s decision to release three Pixar movies in a row on Disney+ without a theatrical release also proved to be a foolish move because it diminished the once valuable Pixar brand and caused them to underperform once they finally put the beloved studio’s movies in theaters with Lightyear (2022) and Elemental (2023).  It wouldn’t be until Inside Out 2’s record performance that Pixar finally found their way back after their parent company neglected them.  But what the streaming wars also showed us is that a crowded market also has drawbacks of it’s own.  While there were good things to watch on all the platforms, the total cost of having to subscribe to all of them proved to be too much for a lot of people whose wallets were hurt by the pandemic and the inflation that followed it.  Churn has been the worst enemy of streaming platforms, as people are choosing to subscribe only when they see one particular show or movie they like, and then they cancel immediately afterwards.  The viewership numbers were just not justifying the enormous costs the studios were putting into creating exclusive content, and that led to a bunch of the Hollywood studios starting to reign things back in and playing it more safe.  Ironically, all of these potential Netflix killers failed to do just that, as Netflix still remains the top performer in the market, though even they felt a bit of the contraction in the market post-pandemic too.  One important thing that Hollywood also took away as a lesson is that box office returns are a better way to gauge the success of their movies, because it’s a definitive sum that tells you how much a single project is worth in the market, as opposed to the lump sum of a streaming subscription that’s spread across the entire catalog.

Now that it’s been five years since the initial beginning of the lockdown, I can tell you that I still have terrible memories of that experience, but I also memories of the bright moments that helped me get through it all.  Had my desire to see movies on the big screen not been so key to my happiness in that time period, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to go out to the Drive-In theaters in my area.  Sadly, their revival during the pandemic was short lived.  The Mission Tiki in Montclair has since been leveled and turned into a housing development for the city, while the Vineland Drive-In is only open for special events and the occasional summer program while mostly operating as a swap meet during the day.  During the pandemic, I may have watched 20 or more movies between the two of these venues, so I am eternally grateful for what they gave me in that lost year and I’ll miss that part of the experience for sure.  Even though the lockdowns lasted the longest in my area compared with every other part of the country, we were lucky to not see many closures in the wake of the pandemic.  All of my local theaters managed to re-open, with some of them being salvaged by new ownership.  Sadly, the Arclight Hollywood is still in limbo, and despite some promises made by the property owners to eventually get it up and running again, the theater still sits empty with their screens still dark five years later.  In terms of the theatrical experience itself, it does feel like things are back to normal, except when it comes to the choices in movie itself.  Hollywood still is suffering from a post-pandemic identity crises as it tries to figure out what’s worthy of theatrical and what’s worthy of streaming.  This unfortunately is leaving the movie theaters themselves with a slim selection of movies to put in their theaters.  It’s either a choice between low risk indies or increasingly hollow blockbuster films based on established IP.  The mid-level movie is all but gone from the multiplex, and that’s making the range between the movies all the more greater.  Movies either need to break the bank, or be so small that they don’t risk losing money.  It was said that it would take a few years for the theatrical market to make a full turnaround, and I believe the last few turbulent years have proven that.  But, movie theaters still endure, which is astonishing given the near apocalypse that they faced during Covid.  The movies faced a test they were never prepared for with the pandemic, and though there were casualties along the way, somehow we found a way to get us close to normal again.  I feel closer to the theatrical experience even more now after having my local theaters closed for a full year.  Hopefully it will remain with us for quite a while longer, and that cinema itself will be able to find that happy medium between what belongs on the bog screen and what does not.

 

Movie Reviews

Disney’s Snow White (2025) – Review

There are few titles in movie history as monumental as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937).  Once considered Disney’s folly, the original Snow White became a landmark in movie history by becoming the first feature length animated film ever made.  And had it not also been a financial success, it’s possible that the animation industry would have looked a whole lot different.  While Mickey Mouse may have made Walt Disney Animation a household name, it was Snow White that turned Disney into an empire.  With the massive profits that Walt Disney gained from the record breaking box office of Snow White, he was able to build a new studio to house his rapidly growing company and continue to create more animated masterpieces in the same vein as Snow White.  But even as the years have passed, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves has never lost it’s relevancy.  It is still celebrated today by all generations.  Even nearly 90 years later, young audiences still are discovering the film and becoming  whole new generation of fans.  Disney certainly still holds their crown jewel in high esteem.  Snow White as a character is still represented as a key member of their Disney Princess line-up, which has become an immensely powerful brand within itself.  Both her and the Dwarves are still visibly present in their theme parks around the world and have a strong presence in everything from books, to games, to all sorts of merchandise put out by the Disney company.  Snow White is still a valuable name in the animation business, and even if Disney doesn’t have a claim to the character due to public domain laws, their version of the character is still the one that most people will think of first.  Over the years, Snow White has also been a part of all the changing business plans of the Disney company as well.  In recent years, Disney has been revisiting all of their animated features of the past and giving them live action (ish) adaptations, hoping to generate more profits off of already built in fandom.  The results have been mixed creatively, but very fruitful financially.  It was hoped by many that Disney would leave the films of Walt’s era alone and just remake the more recent Disney movies, but alas in the last five years we’ve seen remakes for Dumbo (2019), Pinocchio (2022) and now Snow White (2025) gets the live action treatment.

Like I said, the Disney live action remake trend has been a mixed bag.  Sure, there are movies like Beauty and the Beast (2017) and The Lion King (2019) that fall way short of the original films creatively, but at the same time there’s a movie like The Little Mermaid (2023) that turns out to be a pleasant surprise.  And I would argue, some of their remakes measure up really well to the original like Cinderella (2015); a perfect example of taking the already familiar elements of a beloved animated classic and giving it a fresh re-imagination.  But, the fact that Disney has been relying on this trend a tad too heavily in place of taking any actual creative risks and making something new is leading to a lot of discontent with audiences and even fans.  For the most part, Disney has been playing things a bit too safe with their remakes, either just copy and pasting the animated films completely in fear of changing the formula, or making nonsensical changes that rob the films of the edges that made them stand out in the first place.  It making a lot of Disney fans nervous now that Disney is now taking the re-make approach to the movie that started it all.  Snow White holds a special place in Disney history, because without out it, none of what followed would have happened.  But, Disney has had a rough time financially in a post-pandemic and post-strike environment and love or hate the remakes, they have been making money for Disney.  Even the most hated ones of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King still grossed over a billion dollars each.  So, it’s inevitable that Disney was going to eventually get to Snow White.  The only thing we can hope for is that the execution of the remake does justice to the original.  Sadly, Disney has had a lot of struggles with this one.  With the shake-up during the strike, Snow White was delayed a full year from it’s original Spring 2024 release.  And there was plenty of controversy around the casting of the film, with Snow White being played by a non-Caucasian actress and the Dwarves not being played by actual little people but instead being animated.  And of course, this led to a pretty toxic discourse around the movie, especially targeted at actress Rachel Zegler who plays the title role.  Sadly this has created negative buzz around the movie and Disney could be seeing the folly of trying to remake one of their beloved classics.  But discourse aside, it ultimately comes down to whether it’s a good movie or not, and ultimately we shouldn’t judge this film unless we’ve seen it.  So, is Disney’s Snow White the fairest one of all or another poisoned apple?

It’s difficult to recap the plot to Snow White considering that it’s a re-telling of one of the most famous fairy tales in the world.  But, there little changes to the original tale that does make this a little different, so I’ll go through the basic details here.  After a peaceful kingdom loses their beloved and kind queen, the King (Hadley Fraser) falls into despair after the loss, but finds solace in the arrival of a beautiful young woman who comes to his court.  He takes her hand and remarries, giving the kingdom a new queen.  But The Queen (Gal Gadot) proves to be a deceiver and manipulates her way to the throne after tricking the King into going on a crusade far outside of the kingdom.  With the King gone, the Queen now has supreme power and she imposes her will on all her subjects.  The princess, Snow White (Rachel Zegler), is forced into servitude in the Queen’s castle and she spends her days wishing for an escape from the wicked queen’s rule.  One day, she finds a thief in the castle pantry named Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) who proves himself to be shockingly defiant in response to the Queen’s oppression and he swears fealty to the true king; something that catches Snow White’s attention.  The queen dooms him to a slow death, but Snow White helps Jonathan escape, showing mercy that has too long disappeared in the kingdom.  Her kind action prompts the Queen to consult her magic mirror, to reaffirm that she is the “fairest one of all.”  But this time, the mirror reveals that Snow White has supplanted her as the fairest, and the Queen’s jealous temper erupts.  She instructs her Huntsman (Ansu Kabia) to take Snow White far outside the castle and have Snow White slain, with her heart returned to her in a jeweled case.  The Huntsman does not go through with the order and tells Snow White to hide far into the woods to escape the Queen’s wrath.  Snow White eventually finds shelter in a small cabin, where she finds tiny beds to sleep on.  But, the cabin belongs to the magical dwarves who mine diamonds in the mountains.  The dwarves, named Doc (Jeremy Swift), Grumpy (Martin Klebba), Happy (George Salazar), Sleepy (Andy Grotelueschen) Sneezy (Jason Kravits), Bashful (Tituss Burgess), and Dopey (Andrew Barth Feldman) agree to let Snow White stay so she can be safe.  But, Snow White means to find out what happened to her father the King, and doing so will put her in danger of being discovered by the Queen and her royal guard.  Will Snow White bring back peace to the kingdom and find a way to overcome the evil might of the Queen?

There’s really no way to compare this film to the original animated classic.  Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is one of the most monumental film achievements ever made.  It’s impossible to escape the long shadow that that movie cast, and really that has been the thing that has affected every adaptation that has come out since.  No other Snow White stands out against the classic animated one, because they inevitably have to be contrasted against it, and so far, all have come short.  This new Snow White, by being so closely tied with the original as it’s being released by the same studio, is almost inevitably going to end up the same way and that assertion is correct.  The live action remake of Snow White is undoubtedly inferior to the original in every way, but it’s a bit unfair to compare this new film to a long time established masterpiece.  So, yeah I’m grading on a curve, but I feel it’s more enlightening to put the movie in perspective of the kind of film it actually represents, and judge it on it’s merits based on that.  This film is part of a wave of live action remakes of Disney’s own animated classics, and that’s the field of films in which I’m judging the movie in it’s proper context.  So, how does it fare as a remake?  It’s frankly just average.  It is no where near the best of the remakes, nor is it anywhere near the worst.  There are things about the movie that I do genuinely think work and come close to making the film much better than expected.  But then, it also has things that absolutely don’t work at all and end up dragging the movie down.  The biggest problem with this movie is it’s inconsistency.  I do admire the effort that was put into the movie; it’s not a lazy copy and paste effort like The Lion King was, nor a overly produced mess like Beauty and the Beast.  It’s just that you can tell that there was a lack of focus in this movie.  There are islands of brilliance in the film, but they disconnected by a coherent vision.  The film was made by Mark Webb, who previously helmed the two Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies as well as the indie romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer (2009).  Webb is putting in a effort to make the movie feel grand and meaningful, but his limitations as a director, especially when directing musical numbers, is very apparent.

I have to compare this with what helped make The Little Mermaid (2023) work for me.  Mermaid was directed by Rob Marshall; someone with plenty of experience directing musicals both for the stage and on screen.  His musical numbers in Mermaid were visually inventive and kinetic, and that helped to make the movie a much more visual feast than it otherwise could have been.  Mark Webb’s background is more in drama and action, and while he puts that experience to good use in some of the more grounded moments in Snow White, his lack of musical direction is very apparent.  The musical sequences here, for the most part, are shot flat and without flair.  It especially doesn’t bode well for Snow White that it’s coming out on the heels of Universal’s mega-hit musical Wicked (2024), which featured extravagant musical sequences done by director Jon M. Chu; someone with a lot of experience directing to music.  While the original Snow White was itself a fully musical production, this film dispenses with all but two of the original songs from the animated classic, and instead creates almost an entirely new musical soundtrack, courtesy of the songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, best known for their work on La La Land (2016) and The Greatest Showman (2017).  The new songs here are not great but also not the worst I’ve ever heard, but they don’t really fit into this story either.  Really, the best musical sequences in the movie are the ones that reuse the songs from the original film, those being “Whistle While You Work” and “Heigh-Ho.”  It think it’s a lesson in not trying to reinvent the wheel.  It’s only more glaring how the new songs don’t work as well when you also include the classic songs which everyone already loves.  But, at the same time I still see passion put into trying to make the musical sequences work.  It’s not the butchering of the same songs that we saw in The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.  In a way, the fact that Snow White actually is attempting to do something new as opposed to constantly reminding us about something much better, is a plus in it’s favor.  Over time, I just accepted that it wasn’t going to follow the original exactly, and that helped to make most of the movie feel more surprising.  But, at the same time, the movies best moments are the one that come closest to how they played out in the animated film.

The movie does have one saving grace that helps to elevate it from being much worse than it could’ve been.  Ironically, it’s the thing that most internet naysayers thought was going to sink the film in the first place, and that’s the lead actress in the role of Snow White herself.  From the moment she was cast in the role, the worst corners of the internet immediately started to hound her.  The worst of them pointed out that she was a Latina actress playing a role that more often is played by white Caucasian performers, highlighting the line “skin white as snow” as gospel to the portrayal of the character.  Others were upset by public statements the actress made about politics and what she thinks about the more outdated aspects of Snow White’s story.  And to those complaints, I say who cares what she looks like or what she believes or says as a public figure.  What matters is can she do justice to the role of Snow White, and I can definitively say yes.  Rachel Zegler is far and away the best thing about this movie.  She has a wonderful singing voice and is a compelling actor as well.  And I think she pulled of the look of Snow White just fine, especially when she is wearing the iconic blue and yellow dress. A lot of other complaints and worries were leveled at the Seven Dwarves themselves.  Some speculated that the year long delay was due to an unconfirmed rumor that real little actors were being replaced with CGI characters, purely because actor Peter Dinklage made a complaint about it in an interview one time.  I don’t buy it because to me it seemed like the Dwarves here were always meant to be animated.  The problem is that making animated humanoid characters in a live action film runs the risk of heading into the uncanny valley with the final result.  The Dwarves here do take some getting used to, but ultimately I warmed up to them.  They are some of the more entertaining characters and I thought they worked well in relation to Zegler’s Snow White.  The portrayal of Dopey was especially well done, and there are some wonderful moments in the movie that center around his character.  Oddly enough, when the movie actually centers on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, which is the very core of the story itself, that’s when the film actually works best.

It’s all of the stuff surrounding Snow White and the Dwarves that falls short.  Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the movie is the Queen herself.  The Evil Queen of the original animated is one of cinema’s most unforgettable and terrifying villains.  While the movie does a good job of making Gal Gadot look like the classic villainess with those incredible Sandy Powell designed dresses, everything else about the character pales in comparison.  The character is poorly written, and Gal’s performance tries to compensate by going full vamp and it just doesn’t work in the movie’s favor.  Gal Gadot also is not the greatest singer, and one can only imagine what it would’ve been like if someone with a more powerful voice had the part instead.  But not everything about her performance is a waste.  I actually thought her best work in the film came when she performs as the Old Hag.  Buried under some good make-up effects, Gal is able to disappear into a character, and she delivers some decent moments of menace there in disguise.  While definitely not as terrifying as the hag from the original, it at least allows Gal Gadot a chance to show some acting chops other than just looking the part.  One other wasted element of the movie is the romantic lead.  I understand the plan around changing this part of the story.  By removing the Prince from the original, and making Snow White fall in love with a brave commoner, it allows for her to have more agency over her own story rather than a damsel in distress.  But, the character of Jonathan does not have much character to speak of, so he’s little more than a plot device.  It would be an insult to the movie, but the Prince in the original was barely a character as well.  The actor Andrew Burnap does the best he can, and has a fine singing voice, but the character is fundamentally superfluous to the film overall, other than delivering on the love’s first kiss part of the story.

If you had been following any of the discourse around this movie, and God help you if you did, you would be led to believe that this movie was doomed from the very start, and that this is going to be the movie that destroys Disney.  The worst avenues of the internet has been especially cruel to the actors in this movie, particularly Rachel Zegler who it turns out is the saving grace of the movie.  My worst fear is that if this movie doesn’t perform well at the box office, Disney is going to take the wrong lesson and fault Rachel for the film’s failure, and that it will lead to more restrictions placed on actor’s being able to speak their minds (as is their right) during the making and promotions of the film.  Rachel Zegler never spoke ill of the movie she was working on and she’ll probably tell you that she adores the original animated film, but she just saw there were inherent problems in the original fairy tale itself that she was eager to deliver a modern reinterpretation of.  You may not have agreed with her opinions, but she should have the right to still say it.  And Disney should recognize that her role in this movie is the thing that helps to salvage it.  To the complaint that this movie is going to ruin Disney for good, I would say that if they were able to survive box office disasters like John Carter (2012), The Lone Ranger (2013) and Tomorrowland (2015), as well as surviving Covid and the string of flops they had in 2023, then they’ll weather it here as well if that’s what happens to Snow White.  Maybe Disney’s reliance on live action remakes will flounder after a disappointing run for this movie, but I doubt it, especially with the upcoming Lilo and Stitch remake already generating massive hype.  For me, I do wish I enjoyed this movie more, but at the same time it didn’t make me hate and resent the film either.  There are good things there, particularly Rachel Zegler’s spirited performance and surprisingly also the Dwarves.  In essence, there’s a good Snow White and the Seven Dwarves movie in there, surrounded by a lot of mediocrity in everything else.  It’s definitely not the fairest one of all, but at the same time it’s far from the worst.  It’s very, very average.  I definitely wouldn’t say that you should immediately Heigh-Ho off to the theater to see it, but if you have young children eager to watch it, I think they’ll have a good time.  Other than that, stick with the original classic and you’ve have a better happy ending.

Rating: 7/10

Focus on a Franchise

Focus on a Franchise – Sony’s Venomverse

It may be hard to believe now, but there was a time when Marvel Comics was in deep financial trouble.  Back in the 80’s and 90’s, Marvel was feeling the pain of a declining market in comic books and at one point was even looking at possibly filing for bankruptcy.  But, the also saw the success that their rival, DC Comics, was having when they brought one of their top characters Batman to the big screen.  Having a hit movie helped in turn to sell more comic books, and Marvel saw this as a model that could work for them as well.  There was only one problem, Marvel didn’t have the backing of a large media corporation that owned their catalog like DC had with Warner Brothers.  So, in order for Marvel to get their comic book characters onto the big screen in order to be competitive with DC, they let the rights to their comic books go to any studio that would be willing to take them on.  Given that many of the Hollywood studios were interested in following what Warner/DC had accomplished, most of them took Marvel up on that offer.  The result was a flourish of Marvel representation on the big screen over the course of the late 90’s and early 2000’s.  Marvel, as a brand, was able to rebuild itself now that movie goers were becoming familiar with their characters.  But, this came at a cost.  While many of the Marvel characters managed to prosper on screen, it also left the rights to the characters scattered across the industry, with Marvel themselves having very little creative control over stories and character traits.  This led to many separate continuities that themselves clashed with the story-lines that Marvel was building on the comic book page at the same time.  Marvel realized they needed to have a singular home and not just a bunch of them.  So, in the mid 2000’s, producer Kevin Feige began work to establish Marvel Studios; a production wing of the Marvel Corporation that would take creative control of the characters in association with all the different studios that held the rights.

Initially, Marvel Studios was there to be the development force for the movies, with distribution being handled by a couple different studios.  Then the unexpected happened.  Disney, which had been sitting out the super hero genre completely all this time, not only decided to add their mouse eared hat into the ring, but they also decided to purchase Marvel as a whole.  Now, Marvel had what they always sought, which was the backing of a singular media operation, and Disney was eager to not only put them to work, but to bring all the disparate Marvel properties back into the fold.  It wasn’t going to be easy.  20th Century Fox held the rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four, Universal had the Hulk, Sony Spider-Man, and Paramount held onto Iron Man, Thor and Captain America.  Surprisingly, Paramount gave up their characters without a struggle.  Universal also granted approval for use of the Hulk, just as long as Disney didn’t create a solo Hulk movie.  Fox resisted for the longest time, and Disney’s Marvel Studios had to figure out creative ways to build their Cinematic Universe without iconic characters like Wolverine and The Thing, which still remained under Fox’s control.  That all changed when 20th Century Fox was put on the market, and Disney ended up with the winning bid to merge it’s library of properties into theirs, the Marvel characters included.  Now,  15 years after Marvel Studios’ launch, nearly every character that originated from Marvel comics now has been brought into one home.  But of course, that doesn’t include everyone.  Sony, which had great success with the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, still have the rights to make Spider-Man movies.  Now, in order to capitalize on the MCU’s success, they did grant Disney to use Spider-Man in a profit sharing deal so that the character could appear on screen with the other Avengers.  But, as long as Sony keeps making movies on their own, they still maintain the rights to Spider-Man and the characters closely associated with him.  This soon led to Sony wondering if they could create a Cinematic Universe of their own solely on the strength of the Spider-Man branch of the Marvel family tree.  In particular, they were interested in seeing if Spider-Man’s legendary rogues gallery could indeed provide compelling enough stories to justify their own solo movies.  That’s what led to the Spider Villain universe, which as we will see, was perhaps not the ideal touchstone to build a cinematic universe competitive with the likes of the MCU.  And indeed it was not.  So, let’s take a look at the short-lived attempt to build a rogues gallery cinematic universe.

VENOM (2018)

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

To kick off this Spider-Man centric universe, it made sense to start with perhaps the most well known of Spider-Man villains.  The alien symbiote wearing Venom is one of the most iconic characters in Marvel comics, and a character with a big enough fan base that it’s easily justifiable giving him his own movie.  What really also helped the development of this movie is that it included the involvement of actor Tom Hardy.  Hardy, who’s no stranger to comic book movies after bringing Bane to life in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), seemed right for the role given his well built physique and intensity that he usually brings into every performance.  The film was released in the midst of the peak moment in comic book movies.  The MCU was in between it’s two parts of the Infinity War arc and rival DC was about to witness it’s biggest hit with Aquaman (2018), so audiences were primed to enjoy anything that was super hero related.  Typically, Venom as a character is portrayed as a foe to Spider-Man, but as would be a pattern with Sony’s Spider movies, they wanted all their marquee characters to follow in the footsteps of the popular webslinger.  So, Venom became less villainous and more of a reluctant hero.  Hardy’s Eddie Brock, who typically is a rival to Peter Parker at the Daily Bugle newspaper, was instead turned into an independent, online journalist and relocated to San Francisco.  The unfortunate result of taking Eddie/Venom out of their element in New York and in competition with Spider-Man is that all of the characters iconic motivating factors are missing.  What they are replaced with is a generic super hero origin story, of Eddie becoming one with the symbiote Venom (who’s also voiced by Tom Hardy) and learning to harness the power it gives.  The one thing that helps to elevate the film above cliché is Tom Hardy’s committed performance as both Eddie and Venom.  Even if the movie is bland, he is still immensely watchable, especially as you watch him struggle to handle sharing a body with a wisecracking alien.  There are some pretty inspired screwball bits that Hardy full-heartedly throws himself into, and it helps to make the movie at the very least entertaining.  It turns out that was enough as Venom performed well at the box office and led to the green-light for several more films to follow.  And the strength of that success is why this cinematic universe in particular soon developed the name of the Venomverse.

VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE (2021)

Directed by Andy Serkis

In the closing credits of the first movie, we were treated to a teaser scene where another famous Spider-Man foe made an appearance.  The scene introduced Cletus Kasady, better known in the comic books as the supervillain Carnage, and it was revealed that he would be played by actor Woody Harrelson.  This got audiences very excited, knowing that we were being promised a showdown between two of Spider-Man’s most iconic foes, and that they were being played by heavyweights like Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson.  Harrelson’s folksy mid-Western persona was just perfect for the hillbilly psychopath that Cletus is portrayed as in the comics too.  It also really added to the pedigree of Oscar-nominated stars alongside Hardy and actress Michelle Williams returning from the first film, and likewise with Naomie Harris joining the cast as the villainous Shreik.  Casting Harrelson seemed to be the result of Zombieland (2009) director Ruben Fleischer having made the first Venom, but by the time the second movie got started, Fleischer had dropped out.  But, the film got the benefit of gaining beloved character actor Andy Serkis jumping into the director’s seat.  Indeed this sequel had an insane amount of talent behind it.  It’s just too bad all of that was wasted on a colossally underwhelming film.  The biggest disappointment of the movie is Carnage himself.  It seems like the movie is too afraid to go all the way with the character; showing just exactly how he earned the name Carnage, as the comic books have explored in much more gory detail.  Carnage just comes across as not that much different from Venom; only with a shade of red in it’s skin.  It’s a real shame he is wasted here, because they honestly got the right actor for the role, and it just feels like the film is restraining him throughout.  The only modestly entertaining parts of the movie are the Venom/Eddie scenes.  It’s strange that the only good chemistry between any of the actors is with Tom Hardy acting against himself.  Remarkably, Let There Be Carnage managed to overcome it’s shortcomings and perform just as well at the box office as it’s predecessor, all the more impressive given that it did so while theaters were still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.  Still, it left many people (Carnage fans especially) upset that Sony was not delivering these Spider-Man adjacent characters with the screen presence they deserved.  But some hope came in the form of a mid credits scene that had Venom jumping universes and finally ending up in the MCU, with the hope that we were finally going to see him match up against Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.

MORBIUS (2022)

Directed by Daniel Espinosa

Making a movie centered around the character of Venom makes sense.  You have a villain who’s just as iconic as the hero himself and has the kind of fan base that could be relied upon to build a franchise.  So, what was Sony thinking when they greenlit a Dr. Michael Morbius movie?  Morbius is not so much a villain in the Spider-Man branch of the comic book universe as he is an anti-hero who’s sometimes and ally and sometimes an adversary.  Morbius fits within the mystical side of the Marvel comics universe, but is often in association with Spider-Man, hence why Sony had the rights to the character.  The thinking must have been since they had the rights to the character, than they should try to give him his own movie in order to fill out their roster of franchise characters.  In order to make audiences give a damn about the character, they sought out Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto to play the role.  Unfortunately, it becomes almost immediately clear that this kind of movie is well outside Leto’s comfort zone as an actor.  At least he’s not butchering the role like he did in his awful Joker performance in Suicide Squad (2016), but still his performance as Morbius is wooden and uncompelling.  It honestly shouldn’t be that difficult to make a vampire super hero interesting.  The one who did deliver on this front is actor Matt Smith, playing the villain in the film.  Smith hams it up in his performance and is undeniably the best part of the film.  Otherwise Morbius is just another bundle of super hero clichés, on top of vampire movie clichés as well, and all still neutered to get that coveted PG-13 rating.  While objectively not the worst super hero movie ever made, it was almost immediately viewed as one of the worst by general audiences, and it marked the beginning of what would be a steady downfall for the Sony Vemonverse.  The sad thing is that the movie performed so poorly the first time that it became something of a joke online, where memes started to pop up around it.  Unfortunately, some Sony executive misread this memeing of the film, believing that it was positive word of mouth and they made the foolish mistake of re-releasing the film into theaters to bank off of buzz that was not really there, where it flopped a second time.  It was indeed not “Morb-ing time.”  While the film was mediocre at best, I will say that it does feature the worst mid credit scene out of all the Venomverse movies, with poor Michael Keaton shoe-horned in as The Vulture from the MCU, transported through some multiverse mishap and now left in another, lesser universe.  That’s a fate worse than death I’ll say.

MADAME WEB (2024)

Directed by S.J. Clarkson

Things were unraveling quick for Sony’s Venomverse after the terrible performance of Morbius, and it was only going to get worse.  Things were bad in general for the entire super hero genre as a whole, as 2023 saw numerous films flop across the board, even from heavy hitters like Marvel and DC.  Super Hero fatigue was finally setting in, and Sony still had three films in active development.  They tried to delay the inevitable, but ultimately they had to face the music in the following year, with all three remaining Venomverse movies releasing throughout 2024.  And the first one is what I believe to be rock bottom.  Madame Web, which centers around a truly obscure character from the Marvel comics, is to me the absolute worst movie to ever come out of this franchise, and frankly the worst ever to be connected with Spider-Man at all (you’re off the hook Amazing Spider-Man 2).  Where to begin with all the problems of this movie.  Everything from the plot, to the screenplay, to the editing just feels off.  You can tell this movie went through numerous re-workings to try to bring some coherence to the whole thing, and none of it worked.  Dakota Johnson’s performance is without passion and personality.  It’s a big problem when your lead feels like they are sleepwalking through the role.  And none of the supporting characters are any better.  The villain, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) also is poorly defined, and it’s very obvious that most of his lines were added in later through bad ADR.  But what feels most insulting about this film is the tone it sets.  The movie seems to insist on itself, making too much of an effort to take all of the stuff in the film seriously.  Just like Morbius it tries too hard to make the story feel edgy and moody, though I think based on the few times that the movie attempts some humor, a lighter tone wouldn’t have helped much either.  Pretty much everything that the Venomverse got wrong in creating it’s competing cinematic universe in the super hero genre is found in this movie, and audiences all agreed.  The writing was on the wall for the Venomverse, and all they had left to show was one final dance with their central symbiotic anti-hero.

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE (2024)

Directed by Kelly Marcel

Though it wasn’t the last film to be released out of the Venomverse due to the reshuffling of the schedule in response to the strikes of 2023, Venom: The Last Dance was the last film that Sony put into active production and as it would turn out, it would also mark the end of this very short lived cinematic experiment.  Not long after it’s release in October 2024, it was announced that Sony was halting all of their non-animated Marvel films indefinitely, pretty much sealing the fate of the franchise.  The filmmakers behind the Venom franchise probably saw the writing on the wall early on, and decided to make this film have a sense of finality to it.  This movie, more or less, wraps up the storyline for the Eddie Brock and Venom relationship.  The best thing I can say about the movie is that it brings the series back to basics and focuses on what worked best in the first film, which is the character dynamic between Eddie and Venom.  Indeed, the movie works best when you are watching Tom Hardy deliver his effectively eccentric performance.  Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is a mess.  It introduces the dark force behind the symbiote alien race; a sinister interdimensional being called Knull (voiced by Andy Serkis) and the story revolves around a cat and mouse chase between Knull’s minions and Venom, who it turns out has the key to destroying him.   Despite having an impressive supporting cast, including some multiverse breaking casting choices of previous Marvel actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor and Rhys Ifans, there’s not a whole lot of interesting things added to this series to make it feel like the series is going out with a bang.  That is except for Venom, who remarkably enough remains the best character in the whole series, and he actually receives a poignant send off in the film.  So, even despite the many flaws that the movie has, particularly it’s uneven tone, it had the good sense to bring it’s story full circle and close a chapter on this Venom story line.  Unfortunately, due to Sony moving it’s movies around the calendar post-strike, it’s not the final note that the cinematic universe on

KRAVEN THE HUNTER (2024)

Directed by J. C. Chandor

With the Actors and Writers strikes still raging on into the fall of 2023, Sony decided that they were going to move their comic book movie release for that October back a full year, with this movie finally being seen during Christmas 2024.  Hopefully, with the industry back to normal by then, Sony was hoping to have a better atmosphere for their Kraven the Hunter movie to prosper at the box office.  Boy were they wrong and then some.  Not only did it not perform well, it was the lowest grossing film in the Venomverse franchise, and given that it came out after the last Venom, this would be the final take from this franchise that audiences would ever receive.  There’s a fundamental problem at the core of the film; the fact that the character at it’s center played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson is not in any way Kraven the Hunter.  Sure, he’s named Kraven, but any resemblance to the world’s greatest hunter found in the Spider-Man comics is completely lost.  Kraven is one of the greatest adversaries Spider-Man has ever faced, and the Kraven’s Last Hunt storyline in the comic books is often heralded as one of the greatest in the Spider-Man series.  All of that is lost in translation here, as Kraven is given the Venom treatment and turned into a vigilante hero that doesn’t hunt wild animals but rather saves them.  Oh, and he has super powers given to him through voodoo magic mixed with lions blood, making him stronger, more agile, and able to communicate to animals.  And if you think all that’s lame, just wait until you see what they did to the Rhino (played by Alessandro Nivola).  It’s a mess of a movie, but at the same time, also far from the worst.  It’s a much easier watch than Madame Web and Morbius, mainly due to a few decent action scenes, especially a chase scene through the streets of London.  It’s also not as infuriating as Let There Be Carnage.  Honestly, divorced from the Spider-Man stuff, this could have been a decent if a bit cheesy Beastmaster adaptation.  Also, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is giving it his all in the performance, especially in his physicality of the character.  It’s the connection to Kraven the Hunter that ultimately dooms the film, because this is clearly at odds with what the character should actually be.  And unfortunately, with the fact that it was moved into it’s position coming after Venom: The Last Dance, this is how Sony ended up closing their failed Venomverse experiment; with a whimper.

Despite ending the shared universe experiment that they were centering around the character of Venom, the Spider-Man rights aren’t going to end up reverting to Marvel Studios and Disney anytime soon.  The simultaneous animated Spider-verse that Sony has been running is still going strong, with two critically acclaimed movies already becoming box office hits and a third on the way.  But, one thing you’ll notice about all of the Venomverse movies is that there is a significant character missing in all of them; Spider-Man himself.  That’s because the Spider-Man that everyone loves actually belongs in the MCU, the franchise that Sony doesn’t have creative control over.  In order to make Spider-Man movies, they have to work together with Marvel Studios rather than in conflict with them like they were trying to do with the Venomverse movies.  What we ended up learning is that the characters associated with Spider-Man cannot sustain movies on their own, except maybe Venom.  Michael Morbius and Madame Web were supporting players in Spider-Man’s storyline in the comics, and that’s honestly how they should have been brought to the big screen as well.  Kraven the Hunter should also be the central villain of a Spider-Man movie, and not a hero in his own story.  Were were briefly teased that maybe Tom Hardy’s Venom would be given a place in the MCU, but that turned out to be short lived as he was sent back to his original universe in the mid credit scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).  Strangely enough, the only real lasting legacy we may see from the Venomverse is that Eddie Brock left just a tiny piece of symbiote in the MCU before being whisked back to his universe, which you would expect to be a story point for a future plot in either Spider-Man’s storyline there or in the greater MCU.  If anything, the Venomverse is another shining example of how not to build a cinematic universe.  The fact that they were so limited by what stories they could tell since they were closed off from much of the Marvel universe and even Spider-Man for the most part.  And the characters that they did have were not beloved enough to make people care.  We’ll see how long Marvel and Sony remain at odds about what to do with the Spider-Man adjacent properties that exist within this outdated agreement harkening back to Marvel’s less successful days.  The hope is that an updated agreement can be reached someday that allows Marvel to have it’s say again with these characters, or that maybe Sony will release it’s hold on them and let Disney bring the last few strays back into the fold at Marvel.  Either way, we do know that the Venomverse is dead and despite some brief inspiring moments it was largely a futile attempt to do Spider-Man without Marvel.

Movie Reviews

Mickey 17 – Review

It’s been a long six years since Bong Joon-ho last had a new film hit theaters.  With his last film, Parasite (2019) taking him to the peak success of his celebrated career, winning both the Palme d’Or at Cannes as well as Best Picture at the Academy Awards, people were interested in what he was going to do for a follow-up.  Bong Joon-ho has been a filmmaker that has worked in two different worlds through his bod of work.  He has made small scale thrillers in his native South Korea, of which Parasite is one of them.  He also has worked in Hollywood, making ambitious high concept science fiction films like Snowpiercer (2014) and Okja (2017).  After achieving the industry’s highest honor with Parasite, there was a lot of speculation about what his next move would be.  Bong decided to jump on the capital he built through Parasite’s success and look to Hollywood once again for his follow-up project.  And indeed, he was making the most of the opportunity by getting a big studio like Warner Brothers on board.  For his new film, Bong found his project in the science fiction novel Mickey 7, about a space explorer who gets re-cloned every time he dies on an expedition.  No doubt he saw potential there in the idea of a man being re-carnated over and over again for the sake of science and exploration, as well a areas in which to inject some social and political satire into the story, which is another trait that his films all share.  It’s quite the shift for him given how Parasite was a far more scaled down production compared to what he had been making.  Would it be the right choice after winning over so much universal praise for his Oscar winner?  A lot of that would certainly ride upon the execution and whether he could hit the right tone and message with his story.

One thing to Bong’s benefit is that this movie put him on a collision course with actor Robert Pattinson.  The British actor who became a household name due to his work on the divisive Twilight movie series, has been spending the last decade trying to shake off the glittery vampire aura of that popular franchise and show the world what kind of actor he really wants to be.  Pattison in reality is a character actor who just also happens to have movie star good looks.  He could easily be the next Brad Pitt, but instead he wants to be the next Gary Oldman; an actor who prefers to disappear into a performance and even make some strange choices along the way.  He has been able to prove that through some bold choices in his roles, whether it’s playing a paranoid lighthouse keeper in Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse (2019) or a strung out bank robber in the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time (2017).  Even still, Pattison will occasionally use his star power to work in a big Hollywood film once and a while, like appearing as the caped crusader in Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022).  But in general, he has done a great job at redefining who he is as an actor to audiences, and I’m sure that he’s very happy that he’s no longer looked at as the “Twilight” actor anymore.  At this point in his career, it makes sense that he would want to work with Bong Joon-ho, because he’s a filmmaker who values actors giving unconventional performances in his movies.  Bong’s not afraid to let his actors go big and broad in their performances, and that seemed like the ideal parameters that Pattinson was looking for.  And with a movie like this that allows for him to play the same character in a multitude of different ways, the pairing of actor and director was a natural fit.  The only question is, does Mickey 17 manage to bring out the best in both the filmmaker and actor, or do their artistic instincts end up spoiling the potential of this movie?

The movie takes place a couple hundred years into the future.  Earth’s climate has been thrown into chaos by pollution and neglect, and human beings are looking to flee to other across the galaxy.  Meanwhile, the governments of Earth are also dealing with the ethical questions about human cloning as the science behind that has advance to the point that a human being can be 3D printed out like new.  Disgraced politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) proposes a solution for both problems.  He will command an expedition to another livable planet far beyond Earth and use human clones to do some of the more dangerous work on the expedition since the practice is not illegal in space.  He dubs the human clones that will be a part of the mission Expendables, and seeks willing volunteers for the mission.  Enter Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) who signs up for the Expendables program as a means of getting off the planet due to him and his business partner Timo (Steven Yeun) being hounded by a ruthless loan shark.  Mickey quickly learns that being an Expendable means that he’ll have to get used to dying.  By the time the expedition reaches the new, icy planet they’ve dubbed Nifelheim, Mickey has been re-printed a total of 16 times, after previous versions were killed due to solar radiation, temperature extremes, and air borne viruses.  But, even as the expedition advances, and is increasingly ruled over by Marshall and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette) like a monarch through cult of personality, Mickey has found companionship with a fellow crew member named Nasha (Naomi Ackie) who becomes his girlfriend.  But, on one scouting expedition, Mickey 17 has come across the native creatures of the planet, giant pill bug looking beings they’ve dubbed Creepers.  He falls into their cave, but surprisingly doesn’t die.  In fact the Creepers help him out of the cave.  Mickey 17 does finally find a way back to base, but when he reaches his quarters, he finds a shocking surprise, that another version of him, Mickey 18 (also Pattinson) is already there.  Now both Mickeys have to deal with the dilemma of being “multiples” which is forbidden even in space.  The only question is, which one will get to live and who will get erased?

With a budget ranging around $120 million, this is Bong Joon-ho’s biggest budgeted film to date.  But the large scale of the production was not the only factor that accounted for the long gap between this and Parasite‘s release.  No doubt Covid delayed much of the development of this film, but even after cameras stopped rolling, it still took a while for his movie to make it to the big screen.  The first teaser for this film was release in early 2023, a full two years before it would actually hit theaters.  The change in management at the Warner Brothers studios no doubt also contributed to it’s delay, with the new regime under David Zaslev not quite sure what to do with this film, but also having it too far down the production pipeline to change course.  So, it kept getting pushed back as the studio kept re-shuffling their release calendar.  It went from a Spring 2024 release to getting delayed a full year to Spring 2025, but thankfully one final move actually moved it ahead a month to March instead of April, with it swapping places wit Ryan Coogler’s upcoming Sinners, which is the first sign of confidence that Warner Brothers has shown in this film.  And with all of those delays, one has to wonder if it did the movie any harm or good.  At least the film finally is getting the chance to be seen.  The only thing is that those unfamiliar with Bong Joon-ho’s style of filmmaking may find the experience to be a little jarring.  This movie has very little in common with Parasite, which while it had it’s bizarre and comical moments, was for the most part a thriller with social commentary behind it.  Mickey 17 is a far broader and less restrained film that harkens back a bit more to his earlier movies like The Host (2006) or Okja (2017), and like those films, Mickey 17 is heavy on the social commentary and broad when it comes to it’s sense of humor.  The only difference is he’s got a significantly larger budget to work with.  Sometimes a director may lose a bit of their sense of style when playing around with more resources at his disposal, but for the most part Mickey 17 still feels true to Bong’s sensibilities as a filmmaker.  Unfortunately, the bigger production also elevates his shortcomings as a director as well.

If Mickey 17 has a major flaw at it’s core, it’s that Bong Joon-ho can’t quite resolve the tone of the film.  The movie swings wildly from broad comedy to tense action thriller, and it doesn’t give you much time to connect with either side.  In it’s individual parts, it has really inspired moments, but puzzle just doesn’t have all the right pieces to full come together.  In general, the movie works best as a slapstick comedy, with Bong Joon-ho really unafraid to make the violence feel gratuitous to the point where you just have to laugh at it in how extreme it goes.  The social commentary, while a tad bit on the nose, also gets plenty of laughs as well, and I do appreciate just how much Bong is willing to mine the situations in the movie to the point of absurdity.  The way Nasha takes advantage of having two Mickeys in her company adds a hilarious wrinkle to her character, and yes the movie goes where you think it will with that aspect of their relationship.  The problem with the movie is that Bong kind of gets stuck within these scenes and makes them go longer than they should.  The film is nearly 2 hours and 20 minutes long, which is pretty lengthy for a film like this.  The fact that the scenes go longer than they should leads to the disjointed feeling that the movie has as a whole.  The transitions from the comedic to the thrilling don’t quite sync up and the movie as a result feels to be at war with itself.  The best was I would describe the film is that it’s Snowpiercer with Okja’s comedic tone, and it’s not a perfect marriage between those type of movies.  At the same time, you don’t get the sense that Bong Joon-ho is phoning it in.  He’s trying to make this movie work as best as he can, but the project just seems to have slipped out of his grasp and the result ends up being a bit messy.  The ambition is there, but the production just couldn’t quite come together.

If there is one thing that does help this movie rise above it’s failings, it’s Robert Pattinson’s outstanding performance.  He instantly makes Mickey a uniquely original character, putting on a showcase for his talents as a character driven actor.  You would hardly believe that this is the same actor who has recently donned the cape and cowl as Batman.  In both voice and physicality, Pattinson disappears into the character, and on top of that he even gets to play that character twice with distinct personalities that make them feel like different people.  The film of course follows it’s title, and makes Mickey 17 the main protagonist of the story.  Mickey 18 is identical in body and voice, but as we learn he is far more assertive and aggressive in his persona compared to Mickey 17’s shy and good-natured behavior.  This dynamic between the two really helps to fuel the best parts of the movie, and Pattison brilliantly makes each Mickey not only their own character, but also fully rounded and engaging as well.  It really mattered that Bong Joon-ho needed the right actor for this part, and he certainly landed on the perfect guy with Pattinson.  It’s the subtleties that really make the performance shine; from the different postures that the Mickeys have to the Steve Buscemi-like high pitched voice he uses and making two variations on that as well.  Pattison definitely carries the movie and helps to smooth out the short comings of the script.  He’s also supported by a strong supporting cast as well, all of whom are also delivering on the broad, screwball comedy aspect of the film.  Mark Ruffalo is also a standout as Kenneth Marshall.  He’s an obvious allegory for real life cult of personality demagogues we’ve seen in politics recently, and Ruffalo clearly knew the assignment well and makes Marshall as hilariously repulsive as possible.  Toni Colette, whose great in just about everything she’s in, also does a great send-up of the vapid politician’s wife.  A lot of the minor characters also are wonderful to watch in this movie, particularly in the way they show how amateurish this space expedition is to it’s core with the actors hilariously playing up the ineptitude they display in their daily roles.  But overall, it’s Robert Pattinson’s movie and this film is the best showcase yet for displaying his talents as a chameleon like actor.

When making a science fiction adventure, there inevitably needs to be some inspired, imaginative ideas on display in the story you are telling.  Mickey 17 I would say is half inspired.  There are some really fun sci-fi concepts found in this movie, but they are mostly centered around the space station setting where most of the film takes place.  It’s when they land on the planet Nifelheim that the movie starts to lose it’s creative spark.  The most creative moments involve the day to day atmosphere of the Marshall expedition’s home base, because you can just tell the half-assed nature of the entire operation just through the visual story-telling of the way that the base looks.  The space station looks very much like a hastily assembled factory where things are just duct taped together enough to keep from falling down completely.  And meanwhile, the Marshall’s living quarters are furnished with lavish furniture and bright colors, clearly showing the obvious class divide between management and the workers.  It is nice to see much of the movie relying on fully built sets rather than filling out the ship with green screen.  It works better for the message of the movie when the space ship is claustrophobic and full of cold, ugly steel.  The movie’s imagination unfortunately runs out once you leave the spaceship.  The planet Nifelheim is about as generic and unimaginative as you can imagine.  We’ve seen ice planets before in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Interstellar (2014), and they were far more visually interesting than what we see in this film.  Pretty much all we see is barren open tundra with no interesting features, and it’s all blurred out by an omnipresent snow storm.  Maybe this was to save on the budget with the visuals, but it just comes across as dull in the end.  Even the Creeper’s cave feels boring, with no visually imaginative touches to be seen.  The Creepers themselves are animated well, but the fact that they are just essentially giant versions of a bug we are all familiar with on Earth is another missed opportunity to show a little imagination with this science fiction concept.  So, the movie is half inspired as a science fiction fantasy, but there are so many missed opportunities that you can tell would have helped to make the movie better if they had gone a different way.

It’s hard to follow-up an Oscar winning film with something that can equally perform on the same level; even for some of the best filmmakers.  One cannot blame Bong Joon-ho for striking while the iron is hot and getting a major studio on board for his next, ambitious project.  And it certainly was not a wasted opportunity either.  You can definitely see that Bong put the money up on that screen and delivered a film that not only is ambitious, but also satisfies his tastes as a filmmaker.  It’s just unfortunate that all the pieces don’t quite come together despite all of his well-meaning efforts.  A lot of the elements in the movie, the screwball comedy, the high concept science fiction, and the social commentary just feel like they were done better in some of his other movies like Snowpiercer.  But, there are things about the movie that really do shine too.  The movie is definitely worth seeing for Robert Pattison’s performance alone.  He really did create a true original character that I’m sure is going to be endearing to most audiences who see this movie.  Even if the film gets mixed reviews, I feel like you’ll see almost universal praise for Pattison’s performance, and I hope it opens the door more for him to continue to play these kinds of oddball characters in future films.  And while the satirical elements are a bit on the nose they are still nevertheless funny and for the most part earn their laughs.  I just wish the overall movie had a tighter edit and a more imaginative setting on the alien planet that they ultimately land on.  In general, it’s a slightly above average movie mainly due to the performances, and especially because of it’s main character.  For Bong Joon-ho, it’s not easy getting a movie like this made and as it turned out it was a struggle getting it released as well.  But, I hope the experience doesn’t deter him from being a risk taker either.  It will be interesting to see where he goes from here; either staying in Hollywood or returning to his roots in Korean cinema.  Either way, Mickey 17 may be a flawed but still worthwhile experiment on his part and hopefully it’s a stepping stone to something even better for him as a filmmaker in the future.

Rating: 7/10

Movie Previews

The 2025 Oscars – Picks and Thoughts

A year’s worth of preparation finally culminates this Sunday in the heart of Hollywood.  Every studio has put up their top tier campaign strategies into effect, but ultimately it all comes down to the final count that is a closely guarded secret in the PricewaterhouseCoopers accounting offices.  It’s Oscar season and the town is at the edge of it’s seat seeing who the Academy will crown as the best that the industry had to offer in the last year.  Unlike the last two years where one movie was clearly going into the ceremony as a clear favorite, Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2022 and Oppenheimer in 2023, this year’s Academy Awards has been a bit of a toss up.  There are several categories where a movie or performance is clearly favored above the rest, but the big one at the end of the night, Best Picture, is still without a front runner.  What has defined this year’s Oscar season, however, is a very contentious negative whisper campaign that has been aimed at taking down some of the perceived front-runners.  In one case in particular, the smear campaigning seems to have work, and for many, it was warranted.  When the nominations were announced a month ago, people were shocked by the strong showing of the Netflix produced Emilia Perez, a musical about a Mexican drug lord who transitions into a woman.  The movie garnered 13 nominations, only one off of the record, and it left many in the industry scratching their heads.  The movie’s critical reception was mixed and audiences were definitely not happy with it either.  Not only that, but the two groups of people that the movie was attempting to represent, Mexicans and the Transgender community, were also condemning the film, stating that it was a gross misrepresentation of them.  So, was this really the front-runner?  Only a few weeks after the nominations were announced, a scandal broke out where old racist tweets from the film’s star Karla Sofia Gascon resurfaced, and it created a backlash that has essentially killed any chance of Emilia Perez taking home the top prize at the Oscars, or much else.  Apart from this, there was even criticism leveled at another Oscar favorite, The Brutalist, because the production team used a bit of AI technology in post-production.  These different criticisms has made this one of the nastier Oscar seasons we’ve seen in quite a while.

Like every year, I will share my thoughts and personal picks for this year’s Academy Awards.  In particular, I will go in depth on the top categories and then do a quick rundown of all the remaining awards.  These are my personal thoughts, and not exactly my recommendations for placing bets; my track record is never flawless.  But, despite how well I do or do not pick the winners, I have made the effort to be as informed as possible, and that includes having seen most of the nominated movies, including all 10 of the Best Picture nominees.  I ever make an effort to see all of the nominated shorts.  So, with all that out of the way, let’s take a look at what to expect at this year’s Academy Awards.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Nominees: Peter Straughan, Conclave; Jay Cocks and James Mangold, A Complete Unknown; Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Lea Mysius and Nicolas Livecchi, Emilia Perez; RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys; Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin and John Divine G Whitfield, Sing Sing

The downfall of Emilia Perez is going to be felt across a number of categories in this Oscar ceremony, but even before then I feel it already had a slim chance in this category.  Overall, this is one category where a clear favorite has emerged, and that’s the suspense filled screenplay by Peter Straughan for the movie Conclave.  Based on the book of the same name by Robert Harris, Conclave’s screenplay is the quintessential wordy kind of script that features the kinds of things that Academy voters love; big monologues, intricate plotting, shocking twists, and extensive metaphorical subtext.  Covering the days leading up to the election of a new Pope, the movie shares a lot of parallel theming with the current political state of the world, so the film almost certainly is resonating with politically conscious Academy voters.  But is it deserving of the Oscar.  It’s not undeserving; Peter Straughan’s script is a taut and extremely well crafted piece of writing.  The one negative thing about it is that it isn’t particularly groundbreaking either.  It is a very standard, and well executed adaptation, that serves it’s purpose but doesn’t do anything that really is surprising or groundbreaking.  What really stands apart in this category for me is the screenplay for the prison drama, Sing Sing.  The movie, which shows us a story set around a true dramatic arts program at the Sing Sing prison in New York state, actually featured story input from former inmates who participated in the program.  One of those former inmates, Clarence Maclin, who also has a key role in the film, was nominated for his contribution towards the film’s story, which is an inspiring story in of itself.  Sing Sing is a wonderfully humane film that offers a much more subdued experience in comparison to the more bombastic Conclave, but even still it’s story and screenplay will hit a nerve because of the message behind it, showing the healing power of creating art.  Given it’s win already at the WGA Awards, this is Conclave’s Oscar to lose, and the movie’s recent SAG Award win also puts some more wind in it’s sails here.  But if Sing Sing manages to pull off an upset, it may lead to one of the most emotionally stirring wins we’ve seen in this category for a while.

Who Will Win: Peter Straughan, Conclave

Who Should Win: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin and John Divine G Whitfield, Sing Sing

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Nominees: Sean Baker, Anora; Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist; Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain; Coralie Fargeat, The Substance; Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, and Alex David, September 5

Without a doubt, the most stacked category of the night.  If any of these movies had come out in different years, they’d all be front-runners, but alas they have to compete against one another.  If one movie clearly has the least chance of winning, it’s September 5, because it’s the most conventional of the bunch.  Jesse Eisenberg has won a lot of praise for his screenplay for A Real Pain, and it is conceivable that he might come away a winner here, given that he’s already well respected as an actor in the industry.  Coralie Fargeat also has earned a lot of praise too for her screenplay that manages to weave a sharp critique of the unforgiving beauty standards placed on women in the entertainment industry with the genre of body horror.  But ultimately, it comes down to the two movies that are also the front-runners in the Best Picture race.  Just to give you a head’s up, you’ll be seeing me pick The Brutalist a lot here, because it was far an away my favorite movie of the year.  But, my number two favorite movie of the year was Anora, which is also nominated here.  I ultimately want to side with The Brutalist, though the odds right now seem to favor Anora, based on it’s WGA win.  For me, The Brutalist just has so many complex layers to it.  It’s this fascinating deconstruction of the idea of the American dream while also being a fascinating portrait of an artist.  In addition, it also tells you about the history of architecture in the 20th Century, and how art was able to persevere after the atrocities of the War and the Holocaust.  Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold’s screenplay is also incredibly well paced, making the colossal three and a half hour length feel far shorter than it is.  If Sean Baker does in fact win this year, I’ll still be happy.  He’s always been an incredible writer and great observer of human behavior, and Anora is definitely his most assured screenplay to date.  But, for me The Brutalist, crafted by an incredible husband and wife team of Brady and Mona, to me is working on a whole other level.  It’s a tough race, but I’ll be satisfied either way.

Who Will Win: Sean Baker, Anora

Who Should Win: Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Nominees:  Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain; Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown; Yura Borisov, Anora; Guy Pearce, The Brutalist; Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice

Many years you will see one nominee carve out an easy path to victory through a dominant presence in all of the bellwether awards leading up to the Oscars.  The closest thing that we have to a lock at this year’s Awards appears to be Kieran Culkin for his “supporting” role in A Real Pain. He has virtually swept through awards season, and there doesn’t seem to be any signs of any loss in that momentum.  If his name isn’t announced on Oscar night, it will be a stunning upset.  But, some would say that his presence here is cheating a bit.  His role in A Real Pain is really a co-lead with writer/director and star Jesse Eisenberg.  They share almost an equal amount of screen time in the movie.  The only reason it seems that Kieran was designated for the supporting actor category is because the studio Searchlight Pictures thought he would have a better shot at winning there, and it looks like they’re right.  And it’s not an undeserved win; he definitely is a standout in A Real Pain, and is a big part of why that movie is so beloved.  And he’s been a longtime fixture in Hollywood, having acted in movies since he was a child, alongside his famous older brother Macaulay Culkin.  But, for me, I feel like the more traditionally supporting performances of the nominees should be more deserving of the honor.  It was great to see Yura Borisov get recognized for his scene-stealing turn in Anora.  Jeremy Strong’s incredible performance as shadowy lawyer Roy Cohn in The Apprentice was also incredible, and the fact that he’s going up against his Succession co-star Kieran also adds an interesting wrinkle into this race.  But, for me, the performance Guy Pearce delivered in The Brutalist stands out above the rest.  Pearce, who surprising is nominated for the first time despite his active presence in Hollywood for decades, delivers a tour de force as a hot tempered business tycoon who both elevates and tortures Adrian Brody’s genius architect in the film.  His ability to balance the highs and lows of that character and making him a fully rounded personality in a film where he could have easily turned into archetype makes his performance extra special in the film.  So, Kieran Culkin is almost certainly going to win, but if someone else were to upset I would definitely want it to be Guy Pearce, which would certainly be a long overdue honor.

Who Will Win:  Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Who Should Win:  Guy Pearce, The Brutalist

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Nominees: Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez; Ariana Grande, Wicked; Isabella Rossellini, Conclave; Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown; Felicity Jones, The Brutalist

If there has been anyone who has managed to escape the implosion of Emilia Perez’s disastrous Oscar season, it’s been Zoe Saldana.  Zoe has still been cleaning up in all of the other ceremonies this Awards season, and it looks like she is also a lock for the Oscar, though maybe not quite as strong as Kieran in the Supporting Actor race.  The only question mark is how the Emilia Perez backlash is hitting with the Academy voters.  Are they going to be as forgiving as the other Awards have.  On the surface, her performance certainly has all of the hallmarks of an Oscar winning role.  She not only has to span a wide range of emotions through her performance, but she’s also singing throughout the film (in Spanish!) and dancing with some often complex choreography involved.  Zoe’s background in ballet certainly helped in this regard, and despite the movie receiving a lukewarm reception from audiences and critics, her performance has been almost universally praised.  The other problem with her nomination, though, is that it is yet another co-lead role masquerading as a supporting performance.  It could be argued that the film actually centers more around her character than it does the titular Emilia Perez.  For me, I do think Zoe is deserving of the recognition, but her performance is not as impressive as some of the others.  The Oscars are unlikely to favor Ariana Grande’s performance as Glinda in Wicked, though she was very delightful in her hilarious scene-stealing performance in the blockbuster.  Isabella Rossellini brings a great sense of veteran aura to this category, but her excellent performance in Conclave is extremely brief (less than 7 total minutes).  And Monica Barbaro’s performance as Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown is solid, but not particularly groundbreaking.  Once again, I hold up everything from The Brutalist in highest regard, and that includes Felicity Jones’ performance as the architect’s wife.  Her performance, like Adrian Brody’s and Guy Pearce’s works so magnificently with the operatic heights that the film sets to achieve, especially with the climatic confrontation near the movie’s end which is Felicity’s finest moment in the film.  With Zoe being an already beloved fixture in Hollywood, especially after being a part of major franchises like Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar, it seems like the industry is ready to give her some well earned laurels, but a Felicity Jones upset would be ideal too.

Who Will Win:  Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez

Who Should Win:  Felicity Jones, The Brutalist

BEST ACTOR

Nominees:  Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown; Ralph Fiennes, Conclave; Adrian Brody, The Brutalist; Colman Domingo, Sing Sing; Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

A week ago, I would’ve thought that this was going to be yet another race defined by a clear front-runner.  But a surprise upset in the Best Actor race at the SAG Awards has suddenly made this category a lot more suspenseful.  Adrian Brody has looked for a while to be the favorite here with his masterful turn as architect Laszlow Toth in The Brutalist, a man driven to create a great work of art at great cost to himself.  His performance is so multilayered and unforgettable that he certainly looked like he was gearing up for an easy win at this year’s Academy Awards.  But last weekend, the Oscar race was shaken up by Timothee Chalamet picking up the SAG award for his performance as musician Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown.  It’s been a strong year for Chalamet all around, starting off with the strong holiday box office hold for his musical Wonka (2023), and then the colossal success of Dune: Part Two (2024) in the spring, and then finally culminating with the fruitful awards season release of A Complete Unknown.  Hollywood certainly loves it when an actor buries themselves into a performance as another famous celebrity, and Chalamet’s performance is certainly a strong one; points for being the rare actor in a musical biopic that does his own singing.  But, does he have enough momentum to beat Adrian Brody, the presumptive favorite.  The one negative that Brody has against him is that he’s the only one in this category that’s already won before, back in 2002 for The Pianist, becoming the youngest winner of the award to date.  Ironically, Timothee Chalamet could take that record himself this year, at his expense.  It’s all going to come down to these two, despite some exceptional performances from the other nominees; and bravo to the Academy for having the guts to nominate Sebastian Stan for his unflattering but complex portrayal of Trump.  Chalamet may be rising late, but I still see Adrian Brody winning his second Oscar here for a performance that truly stands as one of the most monumental seen on screen in a long while.  Given that the Academy voting closed days before Chalamet’s upset SAG win gives me a feeling that Brody’s victory may still be an inevitability, but who knows.

Who Will Win:  Adrian Brody, The Brutalist

Who Should Win:  Adrian Brody, The Brutalist

BEST ACTRESS

Nominees: Mikey Madison, Anora; Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here; Demi Moore, The Substance;  Karla Sofia Gascon, Emilia Perez; Cynthia Erivo, Wicked

This is without a doubt the most contested race of the evening, with two and maybe even three possible winners that could come away with the award on Oscar night.  First off, history was made this year with Karla Sofia Gascon becoming the first out transgender performer ever to be nominated for an Academy Award.  And that’s the only good thing I’ll say about her nomination, because she deserves no other praise given what the scandal has dug up.  Cynthia Erivo is justly praised for her incredible acting and singing as Elphaba in Wicked, though it’s unlikely going to be her night as well.  The other three performances are the ones that still have a good shot.  For me, the performance of the year belonged to Mieky Madison for her star-making role in Anora.  She is a force of nature in that film, and it’s been pleasing to see her star rise because of this movie.  After playing bit parts in movies like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) and Scream (2022), she took the opportunity to finally carry a movie in the lead and she ran with it.  Her character Ani is without a doubt my favorite from the last year, being both hilarious and at the same time real and grounded in a tragic sense.  Madison has done fairly well throughout awards season, picking up the BAFTA and Independent Spirit awards along the way.  But, she has to contend with industry veteran Demi Moore in what has been seen as a big comeback role for the former “Brat Pack” icon.  Moore finally achieved her first Oscar nomination after a nearly fifty year career in the movies.  It’s all the more remarkable that she’s nominated because The Substance is a fairly hardcore body horror movie that’s also sharply critical of the entertainment industry.  The fact that the Academy is overlooking all of that is a testament to the strength of Demi’s performance.  It seems likely that this is Demi Moore’s year, mainly because she’s a beloved fixture in Hollywood with a lot of friends in the Academy, and that this is a long overdue acknowledgement of her career achievements.  But, an upset win from Mikey Madison would certainly please me as well.  And it is possible that surprise Golden Globe winner Fernanda Torres may also steal away a win from both of them for her highly praised performance in I’m Still Here.

Who Will Win:  Demi Moore, The Substance

Who Should Win:  Mikey Madison, Anora

BEST DIRECTOR

Nominees:  Brady Corbet, The Brutalist; Jacques Audiard, Emilia Perez; Sean Baker, Anora; Coralie Fargeat, The Substance; James Mangold, A Complete Unknown

This is another race that comes down to two likely choices, and they both just happen to be the directors of my two favorite movies of the year.  Brady Corbet delivered something of a miracle this year with The Brutalist, a monumental American epic with a three and a half hour run time that feels a fraction of that length and was also filmed on a minuscule $10 million budget.  Naturally, that impressive feat of direction would make him a runaway favorite here, but his competition is the equally impressive work done by Sean Baker on his film Anora.  Baker has been a favorite in independent film for a long time, with he beautiful Neo-realist portraits of people on the fringes of American society.  Anora is his most assured feat of direction yet; a complex story of rags to riches and back to rags that runs the gamut of tones, while at the same time expertly handling the escalating amount of absurdity that his characters go through.  After an already impressive body of work built up over the last decade, it seems that the Academy is ready to give Baker his due respect as a filmmaker.  Baker has already won the key bellwether honor of the DGA Award leading up to the Oscars; a precursor award that almost always goes to the eventual winner.  But it’s not always 100%.  Corbet would indeed be the one and only other nominee that could steal away the Best Director honor from Baker.  You look at a movie like The Brutalist, and it is a movie that exemplifies capital “D” directing.  It’s is tough choice to make, but I think that if we see an indication of Anora having a really good night if it picks up the Screenplay and Editing awards, it pretty much cements Sean Baker’s front runner status and will inevitably see him taking the top honor as well.  And it would be well deserved too.  I’ve been a fan of Sean Baker’s work since the amazing The Florida Project (2017).  Seeing him join the ranks of Best Director winners would be a great result to see, but I would also like that for Brady Corbet as well.  The actor turned director may only be on his third film, but what an impressive film it is, and one that I can see becoming a celebrated masterpiece years from now regardless of what happens at the Oscars.  The DGA honor tells me Sean Baker has a slight edge, but Corbet has a good chance to upset.

Who Will Win:  Sean Baker, Anora

Who Should Win:  Brady Corbet, The Brutalist

BEST PICTURE

Nominees: A Complete Unkonwn; Anora; The Brutalist; Conclave; Dune: Part Two; Emilia Perez; I’m Still Here; Nickel Boys; The Substance; Wicked

This is without a doubt one of the most contentious Best Picture races we have seen in years.  There’s no dominant front runner like Everything Everywhere All at Once or Oppenheimer.  This year, it is very much up for grabs from a variety of films in this category.  One thing is clear, despite it’s dominant showing in the nominations, Emilia Perez’s chances of winning the top prize are almost 0 the weeks of scandal it has gone through; and that’s probably a relief to most people out there.  Wicked and Dune: Part Two were definitely the blockbusters that were most deserving of a nomination from last year, but that’s about as close as they’ll get.  The Substance and I’m Still Here have better odds in other races, namely Best Actress and International Film respectively, and Nickel Boys is here for it’s uniqueness, but perhaps too small to get noticed beyond that.  And musical biopics have always fared better in acting categories, so that keeps it from the top as well, though it depends on how many Bob Dylan fans are in the Academy.  That leaves three movies with a very strong shot at collecting the top Prize.  With it’s recent wins at the BAFTA and SAG awards, Edward Berger’s Conclave seems to have picked up a bit of momentum late into the race.  Of the top of the field nominees, Conclave is the most conventional Oscar bait of the bunch, though it is still a fairly good movie worthy of being here.  If the Academy is looking to play things safe, this is the movie that would benefit; a good old fashioned, lavish studio made drama for mass audiences.   But. as we’ve seen in recent years, the Academy has been willing to honor outsiders as well.  That’s why, like Best Director, this comes down to a showdown between The Brutalist and Anora.  Both have numerous accolades built up already.  If Anora wins, it will be only the second Palme d’Or winner from Cannes to ever make it to a Best Picture win, the first being Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (2019).  And Corbet also won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his direction, as well as a Golden Globe.  It’s a tight race, but with the wins at the DGA, PGA and WGA, I feel like Anora has the edge.  Certainly, because it was my favorite movie of the year, I would like to see The Brutalist win, but since Anora was my second favorite, I’ll be very happy to see it win the night as well.

What Will Win:  Anora

What Should Win:  The Brutalist

And here is my quick rundown of all the remaining categories with my picks to win in each:

Best Cinematography: The Brutalist; Best Film Editing: The Brutalist; Best Production Design: Wicked; Best Costume Design: Wicked; Best Sound: A Complete Unknown; Best Make-up and Hairstyling: The Substance; Best Original Score: The Brutalist; Best Original Song: “El Mal” from Emilia Perez; Best Visual Effects: Dune: Part Two; Best Documentary Feature: No Other Land; Best Documentary Short: Incident; Best Animated Feature: Flow; Best Animated Short: Magic Candies; Best Live Action Short: A Lien; Best International Feature: I’m Still Here

The fact that we are going into this Oscar ceremony without a clear front-runner should make things a bit suspenseful for this year’s show.  We may get an indication of who benefited from the last minute momentum through some of the earlier categories, but this may also be one of those Oscar years where the Academy likes to spread the wealth, and the inevitable Best Picture winner will likely only be the victor with one or two other awards.  A lot of the time, I tend to feel better when my favorite movie of the year has little chance of winning, because then I’m not left heartbroken.  But this year is interesting because it’s my two favorite films at the top.  If Anora comes away victorious, it will be the second year in a row where my runner up favorite wins Best Picture; last year’s being Oppenheimer of course.  I doubt we’ll see the least deserving film of the Best Picture race, Emilia Perez, win the big award, but then again this is the same Academy that gave that honor to Green Book (2018) six years ago.  I think we’re pretty safe from an embarrassing, tone deaf move like that from the Academy since there are so many strong contenders that have risen to the top.  One thing for certain is that this is going to be a much different ceremony than what we’ve seen in past years.  Because of the wildfires that devastated the townships Pacific Palisades and Altadena, the Academy Awards is planning to hold a more subdued ceremony in respect for those who lost their homes; including many who work within the industry itself.  There will many acknowledgements of the brave work done by the firefighters and first responders who helped to save lives in the tragedy, and a plea to those watching at home to help support those who still need help putting their lives together.  I hope the show is able to balance this serious tragedy with the pomp and pageantry that the Academy Awards usually shows.  One thing I know for certain is that Conan O’Brien will deliver a fun and energetic atmosphere as well in his first hosting gig.  O’Brien’s ability to put on a good show no matter the circumstance has always been one of his strengths, and I’m excited to see what he does on Oscar night.  So, with all that said, I hope my choices pan out well this year.  I feel like Anora is the movie to beat at this moment, but it could definitely be a nail-biter by the end.  So, let’s hope for a good Oscar ceremony this year, and hopefully another good year at the movies leading up to the next one.