No, not the ceremony because I can’t be bothered with that, but the films themselves. For once I’ve actually seen a few and am quite tempted to see several others.
Must admit that Anora completely passed me by but I’m keen to see it now. Wasn’t at all interested in Conclave but now I’m tempted. Also can’t wait to see A Complete Unknown (only just out here in Spain) and I’m Still Here sounds good. Emilia Perez on the other hand I don’t think I’d see it if I was paid to.
The Brutalist I like less with every passing day since I saw it. Really liked the first half and at the interval I was well primed. By the end though I was yawning and fidgeting more than I ever have before in the cinema. It goes nowhere, slowly and pompously. And Adrien Brody’s was the kind of self-consciously actorly performance I can’t be doing with. Good soundtrack though.
Outright loved A Real Pain. Funny and moving and in a blessedly short 90 minutes a whole lot deeper than the Brutalist. Kieran Kulkin a well deserved supporting actor winner even if he was obviously the leading actor…
Very glad No Other Land won best documentary. A very hard watch but an important one.
Any other views, reviews or recommendations?
I hated Anora so much that I gave up on it long before the end. Sleazy and stupid, for me the only outstanding element was the editing. I have no idea what people are seeing in it.
A Real Pain also tried my patience, with Kieran Culkin delivering a reprise of his Roman Roy character from “Succession”, minus the expensive wardrobe and Rolex. Best Screenplay? Hard to believe that most of it wasn’t improvised.
I did enjoy A Complete Unknown, despite the historical revisionism. I hadn’t seen Timothee Chalamet in anything before, but he delivered a convincing performance, as did pretty much everyone else.
If any of the nominees (that I have seen) deserved to win Best Picture, for me it was Conclave. Intriguing story, excellent performances all around and beautifully shot.
I must track down The Brutalist and I’m Still Here.
Absolutely loved Conclave. Sumptuous to look at, beautifully performed and you get to spend two hours watching a bunch of Vatican priests being messy bitches – what’s not to like. Would probably have been my pick.
Really enjoyed A Real Pain. I know that to some extent it’s Kieran Culkin on rails, but I thought the film really put its finger on a certain personality type many of us have probably encountered at one stage or another. Also welcome the return of 90 minute long movies.
Thought A Complete Unknown was also excellent. So many things could have gone wrong, given the subject matter, but the movie found a way to swerve them all. Excellent performances all round, and obviously the music doesn’t hurt either.
Dune Part Two, I appreciated but didn’t love. Big fan of Villeneuve, and the movie is obviously a huge technical achievement with some superb worldbuilding, but for me it lacks a little soul.
The Substance I found to be a mixed bag. Some parts excellent, some a lot less so. I liked the return to practical effects and Demi Moore’s performance, but I thought it was way over-long and particularly didn’t enjoy the third act. Overall it felt like watching a super high end segment of Tales From The Crypt that ran for two and a half hours instead of 10 minutes.
I’m Still Here I only saw over the weekend and I’m still digesting. Thought it was great.
The rest (Anora, The Brutalist, etc) I’ve not yet seen. Seems like a pretty strong line up all in all, the last few weeks have been a really good time to be going to the cinema.
Complete Unknown was very enjoyable. The liberties taken regarding the going electric finale did throw me and at that point I felt aware this is a film with people pretending to be characters, i.e. I don’t believe you! Drifting a little into familiar biopic territory. The acting was great, especially the main role. I liked the transformation into rock star, how they showed the selfishness of the artist who puts his work first, before everything, including the women in his life. The way he was in the domestic environment reminded of Don’t Look Back, very convincing. The songs were great, how the lyrics fit the scenes.
Also haven’t seen Anora, nor Conclave. I liked A Real Pain and A Complete Unknown a lot although I am not sure either will stand as all-time greats. Emilia Perez was a lot of fun, and ditto The Substance. I agree with Bingo that The Substance didn’t end well – it became ridiculously over the top, but of the nominees I have seen it is overall the one I enjoyed the most.
The mystery to me is the critical acclaim for The Brutalist. I found it overlong, and self important; it felt like it started with a load of Big Themes – immigration and assimilation; Anti-Semitism; the corrupting power of American wealth and patronage (obviously very current); the tortured male artist; architecture and art as an expression of personal suffering, etc etc, and then built a story and characters around those themes. It didn’t get inside the characters at all, and for a film about a fictional character it fell into the trap of a standard biopic (probably deliberately – that is exactly what it presented itself as) of telling a story chronologically – one damn thing after another – and skipping very quickly over a life in a fairly disjointed way. There was no narrative arc or story to engage you. Nice to see Daniel Blumberg get the Oscar for best score, though – I remember seeing him performing in a church in Totnes a few years ago and thinking there was something compelling, if not exactly easy, about his music.
With you on The Brutalist no flow to it. Disjointed no character development and no real interaction. Episodic but it seems as if bits were left out. The niece starts talking at some point, there’s no reference to why she does.
@blue-boy I remember Daniel Blumberg leading his indie bands, Cajun Dance Party and then Yuck. Enjoyed both of them.
No Other Land is hard to watch, profound and humbling. Especially in light of the ongoing misery in Gaza and West Bank but I think, the over-used word “brave” has to apply to the filmmakers here.
Incidentally, as the directors walked up to the stage to accept their award last night to a majority standing ovation, those stony-faced refuseniks who remained seated should be ashamed of themselves. It reminded me of the furore in Germany after the co director Yuval pleaded for reconciliation in Gaza when he accepted an award at the Berlinale last year. This is what he posted after the ceremony,. where his comments were labelled anti-semitic, by those experts in the German government.
“A right-wing Israeli mob came to my family’s home yesterday to search for me, threatening close family members who fled to another town in the middle of the night. I am still getting death threats and had to cancel my flight home. This happened after Israeli media and German politicians absurdly labeled my Berlinale award speech — where I called for equality between Israelis and Palestinians, a ceasefire and an end to apartheid — as ‘antisemitic’.
The appalling misuse of this word by Germans, not only to silence Palestinian critics of Israel, but also to silence Israelis like me who support a ceasefire that will end the killing in Gaza and allow the release of the Israeli hostages — empties the word antisemitism of meaning and thus endangers Jews all over the world. As my grandmother was born in a concentration camp in Libya and most of my grandfather’s family was murdered by Germans in the holocaust, I find it particularly outraging that German politicians in 2024 have the audacity to weaponize this term against me in a way that endangered my family.
But above all else, this behavior puts Palestinian co-director Basel Adra’s life in danger, who lives under a military occupation surrounded by violent settlements in Masafer Yatta. He is in far greater danger than I am. I’m happy our award winning film, No Other Land, is sparking an important international debate on this issue — and I hope that millions of people watch it when it comes out this year. Sparking a conversation is why we made it.
You can have harsh criticism of what me and Basel said on stage without demonizing us. If this is what you’re doing with your guilt for the holocaust — I don’t want your guilt.”
I haven’t seen No Other Land yet, am interested to do so. The excellent documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone is viewable on Vimeo. It was commissioned by the BBC but removed from iPlayer after it was revealed that the 13-year-old narrator’s father was in the Hamas-administered Palestine government (500 media celebs signed a letter protesting against the BBC’s decision).
I was disappointed to see that the capybara from “Flow” didn’t win Best Performance by a Rodent in a Supporting Role.
Nickel Boys and The Substance were my favourites of those nominated for Best Picture on account of being the only ones I’ve seen. Nickel Boys was a rare case of me preferring the film to the book. I loved the “Peep Show” trick of seeing everything through one or the other of the protagonist’s eyes. I watched The Substance and Heretic in the same week and thought both were great fun. Silly of course, but very enjoyable. A Different Man with Adam Pearson should have got some recognition.
The Mrs and I have recently had Saturday evenings on the sofa watching Anora and Emilia Perez – both entertaining but not exactly knocked out by either – and Conclave, which we enjoyed by far the most, even though we had both read the book. Brilliantly filmed, and excellent adaptation and all the cast are top notch.
A Complete Unknown failed to win a single award. I can’t say it was robbed as I haven’t seen any other of the nominated films (yet), but they must be pretty good
Pffft. The whole shebang was rendered a farce when Claw Machine from I Saw The TV Glow wasn’t nominated for best song.
Does the bravura statement, rustling of papers and collar fingering betray that I have yet to see any of the best picture nominees?
Mind, I have seen four of the nominees for best animated film, although it sounds like I may have yet to see the best of them..
Two weeks from now hardly anyone will rember who won
Some of us remember Dance with Wolves won in 1991 – now widely seen as a travesty that it came out on top of Good Fellas.
Yeah, and if you go back another decade from 1991, you get to the notorious year of 1981, when “Ordinary People” somehow beat “Raging Bull” to win Best Picture. I’m still seething at the injustice of it now!
The Oscars have always been and will always be a nonsense, but I have to admit that I prefer Dances With Wolves to Goodfellas and Ordinary People to Raging Bull.
Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction is the one that always makes me laugh.
What about “Driving Miss Daisy’s” Best Picture award, Bingo?
Did you rate it higher than “Born on the 4th of July” and “Dead Poets Society”?
Goodfellas is one of the greatest films I have ever seen. For me Scorcese:s best and he has made some magnificent ones.
I’m not really a Scorsese guy.
I love The Color Of Money, Taxi Driver, King of Comedy, After Hours, Cape Fear and that’s about that.
He hasn’t made a film I regard as great in decades and I think he really coasts on past glories. The last one I really enjoyed was The Departed, and it’s not as good as the original.
Horses for courses.
I mean – absolutely ridiculous, isn’t it?
I feel like the Oscars getting it all wrong is a longstanding tradition to the point where I’d almost be a little miffed if they started getting it right.
Ultimately, it’s a meaningless industry back scratch, voted on by some of the most insular, cosseted people on the planet. It opens a door to the interpersonal politics of La La land, but it certainly doesn’t tell you what is and isn’t good cinema.
Birdman over Boyhood. That was another one.
I’ve seen A Complete Unknown and Conclave and enjoyed them both. Conclave would have been the winner, probably. Haven’t much interest in The Brutalist or Anora from what I’ve heard.
All that said I’m more likely to watch ACU a second time.
Just watched the Substance this evening. I enjoyed it a lot despite (or because of) its sillines. Up there with those early Peter Jackson films in the gory body-horror stakes. But I’ve no idea why it couldn’t have been 90 minutes rather than 140.
Watched most of them. For me not one is anything like outstanding. Conclave was Ralph and Stanley being Ralph and Stanley. Timothy’s Dylan impersonation was uncanny but the film itself was decidedly average. The Brutalist was about 3 hours too long. Anora was good fun but bloody hell, too much sex! Emilia P was just plain bonkers. No idea why the fuss about Substance, silly beyond belief. Nickel Boys and A Complete Pain were very good to watch on a rainy weekday night but Oscar worthy, nah.
Looking forward to watching Flow,mind
Think you’ll like “Flow”, Lodey. Especially if you’re a fan of the African secretary bird, who really puts in a shift in that film.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250303-cheesy-and-clichd-why-the-oscars-ceremony-needs-a-major-shake-up
Out of what I’ve seen so far Emilia Perez was the pick of the bunch. I wasn’t looking forward to it and knew very little about the film other than there were songs in it and that a controversial actor had caused quite a stir. But blimey, it was refreshing and quite brilliant. Interestingly it touches on similar themes to Conclave which I saw the night before the Oscar’s ceremony. Enjoyed it but couldn’t quite see why it was such a favourite for best film.
Substance went a little further down the weird road than I would have liked but Demi Moore was excellent in it. As for Anora it was saved half way through by the introduction of strong comic characters that took the film in a direction that I was more comfortable with. The earlier scenes went over the top in the depiction of the often mentioned In speeches “sex industry”. As Jason Isaac’s said in the pre Oscar show, if the film was about cleaners, I doubt If they would have showed half an hour of hoovering. No way was this best film.
Looking forward to seeing a Complete Unknown further down the line and indeed some of the animated films that looked interesting in the clips.
I thought The Brutalist was rather pleased with itself, but, hey, many films are. I found the central theme of the film a bit too direct and overdone; it lacked a bit of nuance in its ‘don’t people dislike immigrants?’ theme. For the relatively meagre budget, however, it holds its own – it never looks like a cheap film – and there are some decent performances.
Conclave, A Complete Unknown and I’m Still Here are all worth seeing. I saw I’m Still Here yesterday, today Trump has effectively banned all protest on U.S. campuses if I heard the news item correctly. Quite apt!
No way am I watching a film three-and-a-half hours long with an interval, so I’ll leave others to praise/damn The Brutalist.
Of all those mentioned above, my faves were Anora (a worthy winner and a film that I do think will stand the test of time – the director has form, he directed the brilliant Florida Project) and A Real Pain, both of which had excellent endings… a surprisingly rare thing.
Jings, thanks for that, @deramdaze, having paid £4.99 for Anora on Prime. Appalling nonsense for wanking adolescents more like, with Beavis& Butthead style slapstick episodes from some B film library stock Slavs.
@gary would like to disagree and strongly .
I stride the middle ground – fast, funny and far far too much sex
The sex in it was alluring to me as Arsenal winning the league, and I think that’s the point.
Short of a war-zone, I can certainly think of no place in the world I’d least want to visit (as worker or client) than the club depicted in the film. I’d pay significant wedge NOT to go there.
The only encounter that appeared to be heartfelt in some/any way was that in the car in the final scene.
Exactly DD…Lodes is excelling himself in the wrongness department. It was funny and touching in its portrayal of a world that no sane person would want anything to do with. I have no idea if it deserved its Best Picture Oscar, but Mikey Madison sure deserved hers for completely convincing me that she was a sex worker. The homework must have been interesting.
I thought the same. The other contender for Best Actress, Demi Moore, was perfectly fine playing her role in The Substance but it was very much a role. Mikey Madison created a totally believable character to the extent that (having never previously heard of her) I couldn’t imagine her outside of it.
Also: she’s not conventionally pretty or glamorous – she’s a scrapper. Wouldn’t be surprised if she turned up in a Mike Leigh movie, although he probably can’t afford her now.
Generally the Palme d’Or tends to be more aligned with my tastes than the Best Picture Oscar. I read recently that only four films have won both: The Lost Weekend (1946), Marty (1955), Parasite (2019) and now Anora.
Technically, The Lost Weekend (1946) didn’t win the Palme d’Or, as the Palme d’Or wasn’t introduced by the Cannes Film Festival until 1955. But The Lost Weekend did win the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, which was the Festival’s highest award at the time.
So really only three films. A statistic that establishes Retropath’s opinion as even wronger than I’d previously thought.
Cannes has always struck me as the sort of world occupied by the creatures portrayed in Anora, so, of course they liked it’s scaled down cinema verité of how their mates behave.
That would explain why me and Cannes liked it, but what about all the others though, eh? My internet says it’s won “shitloads” of awards around the globe.
Well, I’ve seen A Real Pain, The Brutalist, Anora and Flow, but the film from this year’s Oscars nominees that I rate highest – by a comfortable margin – is the Danish film “Pigen med nålen” (The Girl with the Needle). It’s pretty grim, though. There aren’t many chuckles in it…
I saw I’m Still Here last night and it is really good. Fernanda Torres is brilliant. Well worth catching if you can.
Looks like 2024 wasn’t a vintage year?
I couldn’t stand A Real Pain. Specifically the adolescent Holden Caulfield selfish central character who seem to get away with bad behaviour without getting told in no uncertain terms to fucking button it. Yes his character is damaged but the way everyone just goes along with his shit is not my idea of fun viewing.
Yes, but what about going in first class to go to a concentration camp (had a point), or the guide, a well-meaning guy for sure, who might have been over-doing the stats at a cemetery (again, had a point).
My only problem with the film was that the Americans – both the ‘pain’ and his friend – seemed the need to smoke pot on numerous occasions… seemed a strange obsession (admittedly more by the ‘pain’) given their reason for being in Poland.