I find myself having a bit more time this Oscar season, so I’m dusting off an old regular feature I used to write. Every year I break down the Best Picture contenders on the podcast, but I used to complement these pods with blogs writing about films that weren’t nominated for Best Picture, but show up elsewhere. This was something I did for several years back on Live in Limbo, where the podcast originally started at. Twice a week (if my schedule allows it) I will break down the odds that three or so films have to win their categories. Each nomination will be given a Frontrunner, Darkhorse, Longshot or Just Happy To Be There (JHTBT) designation.
Click HERE to read past entries. In this edition I will be talking about Sing Sing, Maria, September 5 and Inside Out 2.
Sing Sing dir. Greg Kwedar
The film has three nominations.
Best Actor – Coleman Domingo Longshot
Best Adapted Screenplay – Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John Divine G Whitfield Longshot
Best Original Song – “Like a Bird” Abraham Alexander, Adrian Quesada Longshot
In Greg Kwedar’s second feature film, he takes on the real life story of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison. Using real life former inmates and members of the RTA group, Clarence Maclin and John Divine G Whitfield who co-wrote the script with Kwedar and Clint Bentley. The film tells the story of John Whitfield (Coleman Domingo), an incarcerated man, who helps run the prison’s theater program to help rehabilitate inmates and find their own purpose in life. When Divine Eye (playing himself) auditions to join the group, he brings a turbulent energy into the fold as most of the members have decided to put their past lives and anger behind them and focus on enriching themselves while locked up. Divine Eye still carries anger with him that manifests itself in needing to always have a makeshift weapon on him, even in the safe confines of the theater room. Whitfield helps to break Divine Eye’s barrier down and even helps set up his parole hearing.
Domingo is nominated for the second year in a row, after Rustin, showcasing how he is one of the most exciting actors currently working in Hollywood. Here he is playing one of the co-writers of the screenplay and brings a quiet confidence to a man who lives with so many regrets the only way he can forgive himself for the pain he caused others is to help his fellow inmates. Later in the film after helping Divine Eye get a parole while being denied himself one, Domingo has an incredibly powerful scene where he unleashes all the pent up anger he has inside him. He gives a delicate and strong performance, one that will be looked back on as one of the best of the era. Despite working with a mostly non-professional cast, Domingo doesn’t stand out in a negative way, he is as naturalistic as they all are. It’s a shame the Best Actor race is so tight, because in a different year this is a shoe in for Domingo. Instead he must settle for fourth fiddle and a longshot to win.
As mentioned already, the screenplay was based on the real life experiences of the people who wrote it, with many of the real former inmates also playing themselves. The only experienced actors in the main cast are Domingo, Paul Raci and Sean San Jose. Using the same situations the cast had been in before adds an authenticity and realism that grounds every scene. Not only do the actors all do commendable jobs, but the thesis of the movie, that arts programs rehabilitate inmates, is something that is commendable with the message coming across so strongly. There are monologues and scenes that will break your heart and moments your heart will flutter with joy. In another year when A24 would have actually cared about releasing this film wide and properly marketing it, it would have easily been nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Divine Eye and of course been a frontrunner to win Best Adapted Screenplay. Instead it must settle for a longshot, stuck behind three actual Best Picture nominees and just ahead of a fourth one.
Normally the Best Original Song category is such a crapshoot for who gets nominated and who wins, but “Like a Bird” is such a genuinely great song that it’s impressive it made the cut. Adrian Quesada, who is one half of the soul group Black Pumas and Abraham Alexander a singer and guitarist both co-wrote and sang on the song. It’s a simple acoustic based number with a soul beat behind it. It perfectly captures the melancholic feel that the movie leaves you with and it plays over the credits showing viewers the real life inspirations of the film. It’s a tender song that likely would have made for a killer live performance, but apparently the Oscars are scraping the Best Original Song performances this year, so we won’t get the pleasure of hearing it live. Unfortunately “Like a Bird” is up against a one-two punch of Emilia Pérez songs and of course the ever present Diane Warren, leaving this tender ballad as a longshot.
I expect Sing Sing to go home with 0 wins.
Maria dir. Pablo Larraín
The film has one nomination.
Best Cinematography – Edward Lachman JHTBT
Maria completes Pablo Larraín’s “Important Women” trilogy after previously tackling Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana. He turns his sights to Maria Callas, the most renowned opera singer of the 20th century. After netting both Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart Oscar nominations for Jackie and Spencer respectively, Angelina Jolie seemed like a frontrunner to get a nod for playing Callas. Unfortunately she fell short (despite a terrific performance), but the movie still netted one nomination for cinematography.
The film is shot with a hazy orange glow, as Maria Callas is in her later years in the midst of a drug induced span of events. She believes she is being interviewed for television, with the reporter being played by Kodi Smit-McPhee (a character named Mandrax, which not so subtly is the drug she has been taking) and is recounting important life events. We see her as a young child being forced to sing to enemy soldiers for money by her mother during the second world war. Her complicated love affair with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), who ended up marrying Jackie Kennedy after her husband’s death. All while in the present she is seeing if she can regain her singing voice and make a comeback. The movie is dreamy and beautiful to look at, all while knowing that there is something rotten underneath. The scenes in her apartment are sweeping and one sequence that is a dream musical in the rain is stunning photography. The film shows restraint, mostly in the story department, not getting viewers hooked into the film as much as Larraín’s earlier work. Since this is the only nomination for the film, it proves to be too much of an uphill battle against three Best Picture nominees and one film that this is it’s biggest category, it very much is just happy to be here.
I expect Maria to go home with 0 wins.
September 5 dir. Tim Fehlbaum
The film has one nomination.
Best Original Screenplay – Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, Alex David JHTBT
On September 5th 1972, during the Munich summer Olympics, a terrorist group called Black September broke into the rooms of Israeli players, holding them hostage in exchange for Israel to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. They periodically execute people to show their seriousness, ramping up the intensity of the event. The ABC sports team that is there covering the games, is located right across from the hotel where the hostage crisis is happening, forcing them to change lenses and be the source of news about the event. The news crew catches everything from potential police raids to the hostage takers to be seen walking around the room.
The screenplay is a tense thriller, even if you know the results of how the hostage crisis went down. The film uses real footage of the games and hostage crisis to help add credibility. Seeing the actual interview’s that Jim McKay was conducting is impressive and sobering. The film presents the crew like the reporters in All The President’s Men, dogged in pursuit of capturing the scene for everyone around the world to see. It all goes well until Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), the head of the control room, decides to state on air that the hostages had been freed when they didn’t have a double confirmation yet. The film then goes into the ethics of reporting and the trouble with being first versus being right. The movie is exciting and fast paced with great dialogue and plenty to think about, especially as the real world politics about Palestine and Israel today are making headlines. Much like Maria, it is a shame the Best Original Screenplay is stacked with Best Picture nominees and this is the only category it shows up in, making it just happy to be there.
I expect September 5 to go home with 0 wins.
Inside Out 2 dir. Kelsey Mann
The film has one nomination.
Best Animated Film Longshot
Much like Gladiator II covered in part two of this series, Inside Out 2 is another long delayed sequel, although it doesn’t quite match the 24 year gap between the Gladiator films. Inside Out came out in 2015, and represented the tail end of the golden period of Pixar. The film showed viewers how the emotions inside us control our bodies and how they work together to form a person. Riley, the human the emotions live inside of, is now 13 and is entering high school, which everyone knows is a fraught era to be in. We get the return of the core five emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust but when puberty kicks in we get the addition of Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui. These emotions fight for control of Riley over who gets to model her sense of self, something that could very well define who she is for the rest of her life.
With how big of a hit the first film was (almost $900 million), it was inevitable that a sequel would eventually come, even if it took nine years. This film turned out to be an even bigger success raking in $1.6 billion, representing the largest gross of any Pixar film, almost $500 million more than the second place Incredibles 2. The film shows Pixar continually pushing the boundaries of computer generated animation, with the look of the hockey scenes, the movement of large piles of memory balls and other aspects are all stunning to look at. Unfortunately it lives nowhere near the lofty status that the original was. Losing Mindy Kaling and Bill Hader due to pay disputes look even sillier now at how much the film grossed. Normally if a Pixar film is nominated, then it is considered a frontrunner, but not this year, and not with the strong showing from smaller studios. While you likely will still be moved watching Joy battle the other emotions to ensure Riley lives a happy life, it won’t break your heart in a million pieces and delicately put it back together like the original. This film is a longshot to win as it looks to be a two horse race between The Wild Robot and Flow.
I expect Inside Out 2 to go home with 0 wins.
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