Oscar Quest 2018: “The Post”

The Post!

“By all means,. do go on with your precious newsplaining.”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This time of year is my annual Oscar Quest, during which I venture out to see all Academy Award nominees for Best Picture, regardless of whether I think I’ll like them or not, whether their politics and beliefs agree with mine or not, whether they’re good or bad for me, and whether or not my friends and family have ever heard of them. I’ve seen every Best Picture nominee from 1997 to the present. As of February 21st I’ve officially seen all nine of this year’s Best Picture nominees. I’m not sure I’ll be able to cover the other seven in full before the Oscars telecast on March 4th, but let’s see how far I can get before I burn out.

Onward to nominee #4, Steven Spielberg’s The Post. With multiple Oscar honorees Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep in the marquee, this based-on-a-true-story salute to American journalism in the face of government malfeasance is one of the more old-fashioned films in the race, wielding a confluence of history and star power in the name of attempted topical relevance.

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Oscar Quest 2018: “Call Me by Your Name”

CMBYN!

The one indie-film theater in Indianapolis has numerous nice touches, including nifty digital poster displays by each screen’s entrance.

Longtime MCC readers know this time of year is my annual Oscar Quest, during which I venture out to see all Academy Award nominees for Best Picture, regardless of whether I think I’ll like them or not, whether their politics and beliefs agree with mine or not, whether they’re good or bad for me, and whether or not my friends and family have ever heard of them. I’ve seen every Best Picture nominee from 1997 to the present, and look forward to pushing that statistic even farther back into cinematic history if only some kindly programmer would — pretty please with sugar on top –bring Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies back into print, or at least show it on basic cable. I mean, just once would be lovely. I refuse to settle for watching someone’s grainy YouTube upload or pay collectors’ prices for a vintage VHS copy.

Some nominees stuck with me for weeks and months after; some were pleasantly surprising; some I could take or leave; and some like Chocolat and The Reader, I’d rather forget forever. It’s entirely possible that one day the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will nominate something that I absolutely, positively refuse to watch (they came close one year), but it hasn’t happened yet. For now, I remain on a roll.

As of February 21st I’ve officially seen all nine of this year’s Best Picture nominees, but have only written about two of them, Dunkirk and Lady Bird, which I caught in theaters in 2017. I’m not sure I’ll be able to cover the other seven in full before the Oscars telecast on March 4th, but let’s see how far I can get before I burn out.

Every year I can always rest assured there’ll be at least one Best Picture nominee that I won’t be able to bring up at church. This year the most obvious candidate is Call Me by Your Name. Why not start the attempted writing marathon there?

(Fair warning: mild spoilers ahead. It’s not a plot-twist kind of film, but I dug in on a couple of points.)

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“Lady Bird”: One Last Year in the Nest

Lady Bird!

A rare instance of a Catholic character who doesn’t try winning a film by dismantling the entire church brick by brick. Maybe in the sequel.

Lady Bird could be the name of either a super-hero or a happy animated pet, but in this case this lovely little film’s title has been like a chant among critics who’ve pegged it as a strong contender in the upcoming awards season. Considering how much I enjoyed lead actress Saoirse Ronan in the 2015 Best Picture nominee Brooklyn, I was looking forward to checking this out, and was surprised and delighted when it got a wide release in our area. I appreciated the opportunity to get a head start on my annual Oscars quest and to take a low-key break from this crowded blockbuster season. Contrary to how this year’s MCC reviews have been trending, I do like a broader spectrum of film beyond comics and explosions. Honest! I’ve moaned about it before, and I’ll keep moaning about it till our side of the city finally advances its aesthetics: I’d see more indie films in theaters if we had someplace that played them regularly within twenty miles of home.

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“Dunkirk”: Three Short Films About a Big Busy Beach

Dunkirk!

Probably the closest we’ll ever get to a Bane solo movie.

Before we begin our usual movie discussion format, I present to you a historic milestone here on Midlife Crisis Crossover: our first guest movie reviewer! Reprinted here in its entirety is the full summation of Christopher Nolan’s latest Best Picture nominee Dunkirk as presented to me by my wife Anne, a lifelong World War II student/expert who can deliver literally hours’ worth of speeches on numerous aspects of it without using a single note card. It’s extremely rare for Anne to write or co-write anything here on MCC because she thinks of this site as my thing and prefers to read my creative takes on our experiences. She’s contributed to maybe three or four past entries, tops, but now we can add our Dunkirk entry to her official MCC bibliography.

Take it away, Anne:

“THEY TOOK THE MIRACLE AT DUNKIRK AND MADE IT BORING!

…ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for Anne, won’t you?

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MCC Home Video Scorecard #11: Where the Movies Begin or End

MST3K The Return!

Repeat to yourself, “It’s just Netflix, I should really just relax!”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: the recurring feature that’s me jotting down capsule-sized notes about Stuff I Recently Watched at home. In this batch: frankly, I’ve procrastinated returning to this idea for so long that my list has grown out of control and consumes far too much of my MCC idea back-burner file, so I’m dumping all its current contents here, zipping through whatever recollections have stuck with me, and resetting the counter to zero. Three cheers for fresh starts!

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MCC Live-Tweeting: Oscars 2017

Jimmy Kimmel!

“You want one of these so bad? Go make a movie that doesn’t suck, you lazy bum.”

The 89th Academy Awards began in style with Justin Timberlake singing or possibly lip-syncing his big Trolls single “Can’t Stop the Feeling”, but ended with all the feelings at cross-purposes when final presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty — reunited fifty years after Bonnie & Clyde lost to In the Heat of the Night — made Oscar telecast history by inadvertently announcing La La Land as the winner when in fact the name printed on their card was Moonlight. La La producer Justin Horowitz broke the news when, after their speech time had already begun, he approached the mic and tried to re-announce the award. At first the audience thought he was just being humble and demurring. Then everyone realized he was serious and extremely classy as he held the card up for the cameras to see. Much confusion and Twitter quips about “fake news” ensued till things were confirmed and the Moonlight team tentatively took the stage and took their turn at thank-yous.

Between those memorable moments, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel hosted in an effort to drum up business for his own show by bringing in his own bits such as “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets”, practical jokes, his Matt Damon feud, and I couldn’t tell you what else because I’ve never watched his show unless tonight’s Oscars telecast counted as an episode of it.

Right this way for the list of winners and a running commentary!

Crunching Numbers, “Hidden Figures”

Hidden Figures!

In the 1960s, the Academy Awards were a very different experience down in the “Colored Audience” section of the Kodak Theatre.

Remember yesteryear when the media and movie fans complained that the Academy Awards nominees were distressingly monochromatic? What a difference a year makes, when studios choose to give leeway to filmmakers willing to bring something different to the table. Of course it helps when the “different” films are also really good films. Hidden Figures isn’t the only Best Picture nominee to figure that last part out, and I’m betting it won’t be the last.

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MCC Home Video Scorecard #10: Oscar Catch-Up Time

Hacksaw Ridge!

“Lord, let me please have just one more Oscar nom. Just one more…”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: the recurring feature that’s me jotting down capsule-sized notes about Stuff I Recently Watched at home. In this batch: we prepare for Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony starring ABC’s Best Pal Jimmy Kimmel, with brief notes on two Best Picture nominees and one nominee in another category for value-added variety.

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“Manchester by the Sea” by the Wayside

Manchester by the Sea!

“C’maaahn, kid. This movie’s a bummer. Let’s get outta here and get you signed up for a Mighty Ducks reboot instead.”

Have you ever walked out of a movie feeling lost and grumpy like Grandpa Simpson? It’s just me, isn’t it?

After all the critical fuss over the Oscar-nominated Manchester by the Sea, I expected to walk out of the theater with my heart ripped to pieces and/or some tears shed, as befitting a film about the grieving process. Maybe it’ll hit me years later, like when I saw Ghost for my second time and had a weirdly intense reaction. I put off this entry for a few weeks to allow time for a surprise epiphany to hit me and upend my interpretation. So far, nada.

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The MCC 2016 Oscar-Nominated Short Film Revue

Piper!

Many of you may recognize one of the nominees from last summer…

Each year since 2009 my wife and I have paid a visit to Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not. We like to do both sets as a one-day double-feature date, which gives us time between showings to look around the fashion mall connected to the theater and gawk at clothing and cookware with triple-digit prices we could never conscionably pay.

First up: my rankings of this year’s five Animated Short Film nominees, from not-bad to peachiest. They’re probably available on iTunes or other streaming services, but I honestly haven’t checked. Links are provided to official sites where available if you’re interested in more info. Enjoy where possible!

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Yes, There’s a Moment After the “Lion” End Credits

Lion!

“Hey, mister! I’ll trade you this fresh fruit for an Oscar!”

My wife and I first heard of Lion when we attended last fall’s Heartland Film Festival preview night here in Indianapolis. I’m sorry we missed its festival screening, but now that it’s been nominated for Best Picture, once again the film and I crossed paths as part of my annual Oscar quest.

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“Fences”: Living On After the Dreams Have Died

Fences!

My annual Oscar-quest begins anew! Every year since 1997 I’ve endeavored to see every film nominated for Best Picture in the Academy Awards race, even if its place in the running can be attributed to blatant studio machinations, even when I know a film and I will be at odds with each other the entire running time. Fences, on the other hand, met my high expectations and then some. The only real issue I had wasn’t the film’s fault. I misread the theater seating chart, bought the wrong assigned seat, and got myself stuck in the second row from where the the cast all looked like towering monster heads.

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You Can’t Spell “La La Land” Without L.A.

La La Land!

After the 2014 Best Picture nominee Whiplash gave us a world where collegiate jazz is a nightmarish torture chamber of brutal perfectionism that only the most warped can survive, director Damien Chazelle rebukes his own darkest timeline with the nostalgic club jazz and vintage Hollywood set pieces of La La Land, an eye-popping, romantic pageant wired like an old-fashioned musical but keenly aware of our compromised 21st-century tableau that rewards far fewer dreamers than previous eras did.

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“Sully”: Meddling in the Miracle on the Hudson

Sully!

“Look, I’ve tried to cooperate patiently with this inquiry, but for the last time, I don’t know anything about this ‘David Pumpkins’ fella.”

Director Clint Eastwood’s new drama Sully takes us back to a time when every so often the national media had reasons to write headlines about good things that happened, even if meanwhile behind the scenes everything later fell apart, but the follow-up headlines were such dull sequels to the original inspiring pieces that they were relegated to the back section of the newspaper after the obituaries and sharing a page with The Family Circus, which no one reads and so everyone would assume that was that And They All Lived Happily Ever After. It’s also one of those early-bird Oscar hopefuls that the major studios release in autumn so they can be rushed to convenient home video in time for AMPAS voters to catch them at their leisure at home, rather than being expected or remotely willing to visit their local theater twenty or thirty times over the course of the voting season so they can get honestly informed about their choices. Then again, should Oscar voters be any more informed than those of us who vote in every political election? Are we hypocrites for wishing Hollywood always aimed for high standards of integrity than we do when it comes to naming the winners in their own history books? I like to think if Sully himself were an actor, he’d be disgusted about the whole process and deliver a great speech to shame them all into being more scrupulous film fans, and then maybe go on to run for President, because you know he’d do it sincerely and not as a promotional precursor to his forthcoming “SullyTV” project. Sully’s noble like that, but good luck getting him to admit it.

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Oscars 2016: Nonwhite Presenters Present Bright Spots in White Cinema

Chris Rock!

“I counted at least fifteen black people in that montage!”

Thus did emcee Chris Rock kick off the 88th Academy Awards after an animated intro full of lamps with adjectives on them and Oscar statuettes being imbued with all the colors of the rainbow. After the actors and actresses of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences offered up their second consecutive slate of twenty white nominees in a row, the Academy faced an online onslaught of #OscarsSoWhite criticism and went into full damage control mode, enlisting writer/director and former BET CEO Reginald Hudlin as an additional producer and basically giving second-time host Rock a free pass to do whatever came to mind. This served him well for a surprisingly outrageous monologue and a few later comedy bits, until later in the ceremony when he threw away a significant chunk of goodwill on a quick, pointless, unfunny, racist gag that had nothing to do with anything.

It was one surprise in a night full of several, some of them not so tasteless. A few movies I really liked in 2015 came away with bragging rights, so I got that going for me.

Right this way for the list of winners and rundown of memorable moments!

MCC Home Video Scorecard #7: Oscar Prep Time

Bridge of Spies!

Oscar champ Tom Hanks weaves through an argumentative viewing public with past nominees Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) and Alan Alda (The Aviator) in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: the recurring feature that’s me jotting down capsule-sized notes about Stuff I Recently Watched at home. In this batch: we prepare for Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony starring Chris Rock and a crowd of soon-to-be-flabbergasted white folks with brief notes on the final Best Picture nominee, one nominee in other categories, and one tiny overlooked film that would make a great double feature with one of the other Best Picture nominees.

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“Room”: Your Life Should Be More Than a Bottle Episode

Room!

Every year there’s always at least one Oscar contender for Best Picture that was shot for $50 and had a marketing budget of about $20. This year’s Little Engine That Could is Room, which I’ve been interested in ever since we saw the trailer at the Heartland Film Festival preview night back in September. Unfortunately, its initial run lasted in Indianapolis for a week or two at a single theater on the other side of town, in a month when when we had far too many things going on. Its Best Picture nomination gave it a new reason to live, its distributor dug some spare change out of their couches, and it reopened here on twice as many screens last month. Behold the power of awards-season prestige.

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“The Revenant”: Furrier Road

The Revenant!

Through the rigorous weeks of shooting, Leonardo DiCaprio burned hundreds of unsold Growing Pains: Season 7 sets to keep warm.

With a week to go till the Academy Awards, I’ve seen all eight Best Picture nominees as part of my annual Oscar Quest. I’ve only written about five of them so far and have some catch-up to do. Usually the AMPAS voters love at least one film I’d rather not see, but I’m relieved to report the 2015 lineup gave me the best Oscar Quest I’ve had in over a decade. Early on, I’d gotten the impression that if any nominee would annoy me more than the rest, it would be Alejandro González Iñárritu’s next film stunt The Revenant. I decided to see it anyway and form my own opinions, whether justified or flawed.

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2015 Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films: Best to Not-Best

Bear Story!

Each year since 2009 my wife and I have paid a visit to Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not. Usually we do both sets as a one-day double-feature date, but a non-negotiable scheduling conflict cut into our window of opportunity. We saw the live-action shorts two weekends ago, and caught the animated shorts this past weekend.

Presented below are my rankings of this year’s five Animated Short Film nominees, in order from “So Many Feels” to “Had Drawbacks”. They’re probably available on iTunes or other streaming services, but I honestly haven’t checked. Links are provided to official sites where available if you’re interested in more info. Enjoy where possible!

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2015 Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Short Films: Best to Not-Best

Alles Wird Gut.

Local Dad Misreads Calendar, Mistakenly Celebrates “Take Your Daughter Day”

Each year since 2009 my wife and I have paid a visit to Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not. Usually we do both sets as a one-day double-feature date, but a non-negotiable scheduling conflict cut into our window of opportunity. We saw the live-action set this week, with hopes to catch the animated shorts next weekend.

This was the first time in years that neither Anne nor I hated any of the five live-action contenders. Oddly, this was also the first year in some time that not a single nominee featured any Hollywood actors we recognized. (I uncovered a few low-level ones after the fact, but they were strangers to us.) We don’t require familiar faces to enjoy a given work, but it’s nifty to have a lineup 100% guaranteed not to have slid in on marquee recognition alone. Presented below are my rankings of this year’s five Live-Action Short Film nominees, from the most Outstanding to the most Needs Improvement, as my old report cards used to label. They’re probably available on iTunes or other streaming services, but I honestly haven’t checked. Links are provided to the official sites if you’re interested in more info. Enjoy where possible!

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