A Too Brief "One Hundred Years of Solitude"

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez is one of those towering works of literature that I never managed to finish.  The book was too much for me, with so many characters that shared the same names to keep track of, and I had to admit defeat after only a few chapters.  Now Netflix has made a miniseries from the first section of the book, covering the lives of the first two generations of the Buendía family, and the early years of the town they help to create in the wilderness, Macondo.  Authenticity and respect of the source material is paramount here, because of the status of the novel and its author, so the series was shot in Colombia with many non-professional actors, in Spanish, with a mostly Colombian creative team.  There was clearly a lot of effort put into this production, and the show  reflects this.

Márquez's novel is one of the primary examples of magical realism, so the story of the Buendías takes place in a world where the dead can stick around as apparitions, the weather seems to change whenever something momentous happens, and curses and bad omens have as much impact on the the characters as science and technology. The story begins with a pair of cousins, José Arcadio Buendía (Diego Vásquez) and Úrsula Iguarán (Marleyda Soto), who marry in spite of the warnings of their family, and leave to find a new home.  Eventually they build the town of Macondo, have three children - José Arcadio (Édgar Vittorino), Aureliano (Claudio Cataño), and Amaranta (Loren Sofía) - adopt two more - Rebeca (Akima) and Arcadio (Janer Villarreal) - and live through several decades of upheaval, misfortune, and cyclical destiny.  

I can't say much as to whether the miniseries is a good adaptation of the source novel, but I liked it very much as a piece of epic storytelling.  We get to watch several characters live out their entire lives, from birth to death over the course of eight episodes.  We see the influence of forces beyond the characters' control upon multiple generations.  As Macondo grows, it accumulates more problems - plague, politics, and unwelcome outsiders.  It's a little difficult to be truly invested in the characters when their choices seem to be predetermined, and so many of them are so stubbornly self-destructive, but I found many of their stories very moving regardless.  The elder José Arcadio is a self-styled inventor, alchemist, and dreamer who spends most of his life in the pursuit of impossible wonders, failing at every pursuit, and leaving Úrsula to run the household and look after her brood.  Multiple characters fall in love with the worst partners, have brushes with incest, and hold terrible grudges.  The performances are strong, with Claudio Cataño, Édgar Vittorino and Marleyda Soto making the strongest impressions.  

The production values of the series are very high, with the town of Macondo as its centerpiece.  There's a repeated motif of children running through multiple locations, helping to show off the town and the Buendía home as they change over time.  The show starts in the 1800s and progresses through the Colombian civil war at the turn of the century, referencing and recreating a good amount of Colombian history in its later chapters.  There's not as much emphasis on the magical realism elements as I had expected, with the showrunners devoting most of their attention to the more tangible everyday lives of the Buendías.  Characters have visions and José Arcadio befriends an immortal gypsy, Melquíades (Moreno Borja), at one point, but these events are portrayed with restraint and subtlety.   So when it does rain flowers, or a plague of insomnia turns everyone into zombie-like shambling figures, the magic of the magical realism has far more impact. 

This is the first official dramatization of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and it's a prestige project through and through.  I think it's probably too enamored of the source material to work as well onscreen as it could have, and the story needs some additional streamlining, but I had no trouble getting to the end of this one.  I'm glad that the miniseries version gave me the opportunity to finally connect to and appreciate this story.  I hope that it'll be back for a second series to finish adapting the rest of the novel.     

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The Mysterious Emilia Pérez

"Emilia Pérez" is an odd movie.   And the more I learned about the movie, the odder it got.  This is a Spanish language musical about a transgender Mexican drug cartel leader, Manitas, who secretly transitions and creates a new persona - Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón).  All the creatives behind it are French.  The writer and director is Jacques Audiard, who won the Palme d'Or a few years ago for the Tamil language film "Dheepan," but mostly works in his native language.  French singer Camille wrote the songs.  The fabulous costumes came from a Yves Saint Laurent designer.  Everything about the movie strikes me as very French, despite three Spanish speaking leading ladies being given the opportunity to shine.  I understand why it's gotten some raves, because it goes very big and the performances are all very impassioned and melodramatic.  However, I've historically had some difficulty with French cinema, and could not wrap my head around this.

My first thought was that "Emilia Pérez" simply reeked of inauthenticity, both as a film about Mexican characters and as a transgender narrative - and boy have there been plenty of transgender narratives in film this year to compare against.  However, "Emilia Pérez" is a musical, and also arguably taking place in the heightened world of telenovelas - the famously melodramatic Latin American soap operas.  Karla Sofía Gascón is a veteran of the genre, having spent much of her early career in Mexico.  The unlikely plot, involving multiple twists and turns, mistaken identities, and the past coming back to haunt everyone, are familiar components of this kind of storytelling.  I'm not saying that the film should be forgiven for its glib portrayal of gender transitioning, or its simplistic take on Mexico, but I think the choices make more sense in this context.  "Emilia Pérez" is a fantasy, and some exaggerations are to be expected.

The best thing about the film is unquestionably the performances.  Zoe Saldaña made the movie for me as Rita Mora Castro, an Afro-Latina lawyer who Emilia hires in secret to facilitate her transition.  Saldaña gets to sing and dance and rage and take charge of the screen in a way that she doesn't get to often enough.  Selena Gomez has a more limited role as Manitas's abandoned wife Jessi, a wronged woman who is expected to put up with far too much.  I like her very much as an actress, but she feels a bit miscast, despite nailing her song numbers.  As for Karla Sofía Gascón,  she does what she can, but the character of Emilia Pérez is constructed of such disparate parts that often seem to be working against each other.  The whole plot is predicated on Emilia becoming a saintly figure through her transition, but gradually being undone by her inability to cut ties with her past.  However, Manitas and Emilia feel like entirely different people, and it was a mistake to not give Emilia any sign of internal life pre-transition.  Gascón has a wonderful presence, but ends up coming across as more of a caricature or icon than a full-blooded human being.

"Emilia Pérez" feels similar to "Annette," the Leos Carax musical with a similarly outlandish story that works best if you treat it as allegory.  A major problem I have with both is not liking the music at all.  In the case of "Emilia Pérez," it's entirely due to the style of the songs, which are mostly very internal and angst-ridden.  The language barrier is an issue for me, as is the total lack of any earworms.  I wonder if this would work better as a stage musical, since the plot is so disjointed and the ending is so abrupt.  I haven't yet mentioned an entire subplot involving Emilia falling in love with the widow of a man she killed, because it goes absolutely nowhere and I don't understand why it's in the film, except to give Adriana Paz a role.  Some of the fundamental construction of the story and music here is so lacking, it comes across as downright amateurish.  I don't speak Spanish, but there have been some significant complaints circulating about the misuse of dialects and local vernacular too.

I'm left wondering why on earth Jacques Audiard and his collaborators decided to make this film - about this subject matter, in this language, and in this format.  Audiard is a fine director, and I respect his commitment to showing us the human condition in many different forms, but this was clearly biting off way more than he could chew.  I'm not disappointed, really.  Just very puzzled and a little at a loss for words.  

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"A Man on the Inside," Sneaks in the Heart

The latest Michael Schur comedy is a very welcome star vehicle for Ted Danson, playing retired college professor Charles Nieuwendyk, who is given an unusual employment opportunity.  Private investigator Julie Kovalenko (Lilah Richcreek Estrada) has been hired to look into a theft at a San Francisco retirement home, and needs a senior citizen to be her "man on the inside."  Charles fits the bill, and is delighted at the prospect of playing spy and detective.  However, he unexpectedly finds himself connecting to the residents and staff of Pacific View Retirement Community during his assignment.

While the investigative aspect of "A Man on the Inside" provides a nice hook, and carries through the whole season, the show is really about Pacific View, a very affluent and well-maintained senior care facility that is populated by a wealth of older character actors like Sally Struthers, Clyde Kusatsu, and Veronica Cartwright.  The facility is managed day to day by the dedicated director Didi Santos Cordero (Stephanie Beatriz), who becomes a major POV character.  Julie is also a constant presence, regularly getting updates from Charles and keeping him on track.  She impersonates Charles' daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) during the investigation.  The actual Emily lives in Sacramento with her husband Joel (Eugene Cordero) and their three screen-addicted boys, but tries to stay in her father's life as much as she can.   So, we've got both older and younger characters to represent a lot of different perspectives, keeping a nice balance in the cast. 

"A Man on the Inside" is all around a very pleasant, very heartfelt show.  It tackles some difficult subjects at times, such as Charles addressing the lingering emotional issues from the death of his wife, and a woman named Gladys (Susan Ruttan) at Pacific View who starts having memory issues.  However, it's got a great mix of comic actors and the premise is a lot of fun. Charles spends most of the early episodes trying to get the hang of being undercover, which is not as easy as it looks.  He makes a lot of mistakes and gets himself into a lot of misunderstandings, earning him a grumpy rival named Elliott (John Getz), but also some genuine new friends, like Virginia (Struthers), Flo (Margaret Avery), and Calbert (Stephen McKinley Henderson).   

I really appreciate the way the humor in the show is pitched a little slower and more gently than most modern sitcoms.  As you'd expect, there are a lot of jokes about the main characters being old and out of touch, but it's always with a lot of sympathy and compassion.  Probably the edgiest jokes involve a few digs about Elliott being a misogynist, but there's not much bite to them.  Most of the laughs are very character based, and a lot of it boils down to Charles being this irrepressibly curious and genial man, suddenly thrust into a new environment where his odd behavior can often be excused as eccentricity.  Ted Danson is an absolute delight every moment he's onscreen, and I'm so glad that he and Michael Schur got another chance to collaborate after "The Good Place."

"A Man on the Inside" is loosely based on a Chilean documentary, "The Mole Agent," where the ornery undercover senior citizen its center was more intent on advocating for the forgotten residents of the senior home that he infiltrated.  "A Man on the Inside" is more of a typical American sitcom, and while it touches on many of the same themes, and has plenty of moments of poignancy, it comes from a very different point of view.  The Schur universe is a much nicer place, where everyone is fundamentally good at heart, and Pacific View is an unusually well-run community where everyone cares about each other.  I prefer to think of it as not so much unrealistic as aspirational.

Also, extra kudos for the San Francisco setting, which makes me very nostalgic.    

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And "Anora"

Moderate spoilers ahead.

At the time of writing, "Anora" is far and away the best American film of 2024.  Like most of Sean Baker's work, it's about a sex worker - this one a New York based stripper and escort named Anora Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) who goes by "Ani."  She meets a young Russian client named Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) who doesn't speak much English.  Ani speaks a little Russian, enough to charm Vanya and keep his attention.  Soon they're flying off to Vegas together, and getting married.  However, Vanya is the son of a powerful Russian oligarch (Aleksei Serebryakov) and a formidable mother (Darya Ekamasova) who are not happy about this turn of events. 

"Anora" is a film that kept me on my toes.  Initially I was wary of the modern-day Cinderella story it seemed to be telling, with its long sequences of watching Vanya engage in hedonistic behavior, including multiple encounters with Ani.  He pays her for lap dances and strip teases - some far more explicit than mainstream films usually feature - escalating to sex and a whole week of exclusivity.  I wasn't buying the love story, but I liked the performances - Madison gives Ani some real hardscrabble grit and shrewdness, while maintaining her vulnerability.  Vanya is deceptively naive and unruffled by any situation.  Eventually I let myself be convinced that they could be happy together.  And that's when the movie took a swerve.

The second part of "Anora" turns into a raucous comedy, where we're introduced to three more characters: an Armenian priest named Toros (Karren Karagulian), his brother Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and, and a younger Russian man named Igor (Yura Burisov).  Vanya's father has paid these three to look after Vanya while he's in America, and they're frantic when they realize their charge has somehow gotten married on their watch.  Initially they come across as threatening, but Ani proves to be much more than they bargained for, and it's impossible not to feel bad for all of them.  These are not the Eastern European thugs of your usual action movie, but blue collar guys trying to do their jobs, who do not want to get violent, and aren't used to dealing with this amount of aggravation.  The situation escalates into an absurd odyssey across New York, where we get to know everybody a little better - including Ani and Vanya in some very different contexts.  

Some of the reviews I've read find this middle section too drawn out, but I think it's vital, especially for Ani's character.  Suddenly, she's not the perfect fantasy girl from the unlikely romance, but a stubborn, resourceful scrapper who refuses to be intimidated by three men who each dwarf her in size, and who will out-curse, out-threaten, and out-scream anyone who tries to talk down to her.  The intensity of the film ratchets up to dizzying heights, and the whole tone shifts.  Suddenly Ani's not the underdog we're rooting to find a happy ending, but a loose cannon in a precarious situation that just keeps getting weirder and wilder.  And it's all vital setup for the third act, where you find out who Ani really is.  Sean Baker really hits his stride here as well, nailing well-observed character moments, fun visual punchlines, and some gutting social commentary when you least expect it.  Extra kudos for nailing the feel of pornographic fantasy while avoiding the venality.

There's a lot going on in "Anora" that I'm still unpacking.  Ani's relationship with her Russian heritage is a big piece.  Vanya's status as a privileged millennial 1%er is another.  The characters' relationships with technology, specifically their phones as facilitators of courtship, is a third.  I don't think I've seen a film so in tune with the transactional, depersonalized nature of intimacy among many young adults.  Then you have the portrayal of sex work, the immigrant narrative, the New York setting, the subversion of the "Cinderella" story, and so many more layers under all the vibrancy and excitement.  I'm glad that Mikey Madison is getting so much attention for her work, along with Yura Burisov as Igor - who quietly ended up giving one of my favorite performances of the year by just being present and observing the madness going on around him.

And all kudos to Sean Baker for capturing the act of seeing in a way that really hit home.  He hasn't missed yet after four films, and is really overdue for all the acclaim he's finally receiving.  

  

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My Top Ten Episodes of "Star Trek: Lower Decks"

I decided not to write a season review for the final season of "Star Trek: Lower Decks," because despite a good amount of serialization, the show has always worked best as an episodic series for me.  Also, I lost track of the seasons at some point and binged the whole ending in one go.   So I'm just going to skip ahead to the Top Ten episode list, where I'll be discussing my favorites episode by episode, and the last season will definitely get some representation.

Episodes are unranked and listed by airdate.  Despite the overrepresentation of the first season, I really enjoyed the show consistently the whole way through.  Lots of "Trek" references ahead, and it gets pretty nerdy.  

"Moist Vessel" - You can see the influence of "Rick and Morty" the most clearly in the first season.  Mike McMahon is an alumnus, and definitely brought some of the sensibilities of that show with him to "Lower Decks."  Here, we get concepts that you could never do in a live action "Star Trek" show, like the terraforming agent wreaking havoc on the Cerritos and the ascension ("Space koala!").  And yet, the best gags are character based, with Mariner's priceless reactions to being promoted. 

"Terminal Provocations" - This is the first Badgey episode, and the one where he works the best.  Honestly, the joke wore pretty thin after they brought them back a few times, but Badgey's introduction is absolutely priceless.  Having a holographic assistant character based on Microsoft Office's Clippy is funny enough, but then they're also a talking Starfleet icon badge?  And they're evil?  And Rutherford has to resort to some pretty extreme violence to put him down?  It's perfect.  

"Crisis Point" - The entire episode is a spoof on the "Star Trek" movie franchise, complete with modified credits sequences, ridiculously drawn out beauty shots of the Cerritos, J.J. Abrams lens flares all over the bridge, and Mariner playing a campy Khan figure named Vindicta.  Of course, the meat of the story is Mariner confronting some of her own issues through the holodeck therapy, and Boimler finally learning the truth about Mariner being the Captain's kid - which predictably freaks him out.  

"No Small Parts" - The first season had some significant competition, but the appearance of a special guest star convinced me it had to be on this list.  I think the big sacrifice play would have had a lot more impact if it stuck, but this was still a chance to see the Cerritos handling a major crisis with some real stakes.  Bonus points for the introduction of exocomp Peanut Hamper and turning the dopey Pakleds from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" into some pretty formidable villains.  

"I, Excretus" - This is one of my favorite episodes of the entire series because Boimler demonstrates his ability to be a total badass for the first time.  He spends most of the episode grinding a holodeck training simulation of a Borg mission until he's turned himself into the coolest action hero ever.  Meanwhile, it's nice to see Freeman and Mariner getting along, and other familiar "Trek" plots and scenarios getting goosed in the other simulations - including a wild new take on "The Naked Time."

"Grounded" - I picked the premiere of season three instead of the finale of season two because I love the way that it shows how much Mariner has progressed as a character over the last two seasons.  The big cliffhanger isn't resolved because of her efforts, but boy does she put in the effort.  This involves hijacking a theme park ride, complete with a hologram of Zephram Cochrane, then hijacking the Cerritos, and finally being brought down a peg when she learns Starfleet did the right thing anyway.  

"Reflections" - This is easily the best Rutherford episode, where we finally learn what's going on with his sinister implant and discover what a different person he was in his past.  I haven't written enough about Tendi, but this is such a good Tendi episode too - giving her relationship with Rutherford some emphasis.  This is also the episode where Mariner and Boimler are essentially stuck manning a recruitment booth at a job fair the whole time, and Mariner gets the opportunity to process her life choices. 

"The Inner Fight" - Nerd that I am, I absolutely loved that the last two episodes of season four paid so much tribute to the original "Lower Decks" episode of "The Next Generation" that was a big inspiration for this show.  They brought Robert Duncan McNeill back again, this time to reprise his one-episode role as the bad influence Nick Locarno!  I also found it very sweet that Mariner had a significant connection to the departed Ensign Sito in her younger days - I always loved that character.

"Starbase 80?!" - At last, the crew of the Cerritos visits the notorious backwater Starbase 80, which offers some interesting surprises.   Most of the episode functions as a horror thriller, with a giant bat and something that's turning people into zombies.  However, the "don't judge a book by its cover" message is delivered just right, and the new characters are all delightful.  I was so glad that the "Lower Decks" series finale provided an extra coda to this episode that ties up a lot of loose ends.  

"Fissure Quest" - I suppose that it was inevitable that "Star Trek" would end up exploring the multiverse, and this is the best possible result.  The episode is spent with the crew of an entirely new ship, populated by alternate versions of familiar characters - Boimler's clone, a Garak and Bashir who got married, a T'Pol, a Curzon Dax, and many, many Harry Kims.  It's pure fanservice, and yet it works so well because nobody's playing the material for laughs.  I hope to see this group of characters again one day.

Honorable Mentions:  "Those Old Scientists" (Technically a "Brave New Worlds" episode, or it would totally be on the list), "First First Contact," "Hear All, Trust Nothing," "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place," "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption," "Caves," and "The New Next Generation."

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Oscar Aftermath 2025

The Oscar ceremony was a nice break from reality this year.  There were a few shots at activism related to ongoing conflicts overseas, but not much related to the current Trump administration.  Kamala Harris was rumored to be making an appearance, but those were only rumors.  I had a pretty good bead on all of the winners well in advance, with the exception of Mikey Madison surprising in Best Actress, so there wasn't much suspense.  That left the usual pageantry and production snafus to enjoy, which I did.

 

Conan O'Brien hosted this year, which was a great choice.  He's very much of the old school late night host mold, but still current enough and silly enough to put a giant sandworm playing the piano on stage, pull up old headshots of nominees, and devote a whole opening musical number to promising to not waste time.  His monologue was only so-so, but a real stroke of genius was inviting some of the local first responders onstage to be lauded for their efforts in the recent disaster efforts - and then having them deliver a few below-the-belt jokes to capitalize on the goodwill.  Conan's audience interactions were great, and I will be very disappointed if the disappointed John Lithgow bit doesn't become a widespread meme immediately. 

Format changes this year included not having any of the Best Song nominees actually performed.  It was a sorry crop of nominees anyway, thanks to the inexplicable support for "Emilia Perez."  Instead, we had the show open with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande doing an Oz medley, and later on there was a Quincy Jones tribute and a whole James Bond extravaganza that feels a few years too late. Did Amazon sponsor that one?  The presenters were decent - Ben Stiller got to do a great physical bit -  and I liked having actors pay tribute to the craftspeople, but I still missed having the clips.  There were good speeches (Zoe Saldana), weird speeches (Kieran Culkin), bad speeches (Camille), really bad speeches (Animated Short turning into a power struggle), and Adrien Brody beating the Greer Garson record for longest acceptance speech in Oscar history.  Of course the show ran over, but at least they didn't hit the four hour mark.  

It was a bad year for the Oscars' production design.  The virtual backdrops were often very busy looking, and showrunners were having trouble getting what was on the screens to look right on the broadcast.  The orchestra was elevated above the stage, and for some reason partially blocking the central screen at times.  This resulted in the worst In Memoriam segment I have seen in a long time, which not only had the musicians blocking the screen, but also headshots of the deceased superimposed over their tribute clips, resulting in visual chaos.  And they left out Tony Todd.   And whoever decided to have a choir up there singing Mozart's "Requiem" as the accompaniment needs to be held accountable.  At least Morgan Freeman  was recruited at the last minute to pay respects to Gene Hackman. 

I didn't watch the reportedly disastrous live broadcast on Hulu, which apparently didn't account for  the extended running time of the ceremony and kicked a lot of people off the feed right before the announcement of  Best Actress.  I was hoping that this would be a viable alternative to my having to wrangle the local ABC broadcast signal every year - always a dicey proposition when you live in an apartment.  Alas, no such luck.   As long as we're  saving movie theaters, maybe we should also look into maintaining the television broadcast networks for situations like this.    

In the end "Anora" won big, and Sean Baker especially (tying Walt Disney's trophy count), but nearly all the Best Picture contenders walked away with something.  There were more Bob Dylan jokes than Trump jokes, and it's always great to see Goldie Hawn, Mick Jagger, and Bowen Yang.  June Squibb did a solid comedic bit with ScarJo.  The Quincy Jones number was worth it to see Whoopi, Oprah, and Queen Latifah looking fabulous.  Not everyone who won should have, but there were no glaring misses either.  And I hope Conan considers coming back regularly in the future.    

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Rank 'Em: Your 2025 Best Picture Nominees

There's been a lot of Oscar drama this year.  I like this batch of nominees fine, and appreciate that the international influence seems to be here to stay, though there are a few choices that I'm not on board with at all.  Below, find this year's nominees ranked from best of the best, to least of the best.  I'll keep the spoilers to a minimum.  

1. Anora - At the time of writing, this is my favorite film of 2024, an unpredictable, genre-defying romantic-comedy from Sean Baker.  It tells a very old kind of story, but with modern characters and sensibilities that offer all kinds of interesting social nuances to consider.  There are many other films this year addressing current issues and social ills, but no other film feels as timely and immediate.  "Anora" is also a delightful watch, zig-zagging from class comedy to Cinderella-sendup to genuine heartbreaker.  I know who I'm rooting for on Oscar night.   

2. The Substance - I'm probably putting this too high up in the rankings, but I adore Coralie Fargeats's crazy showbiz gorefest.  "The Substance" is a grindhouse horror movie through and through, but somehow it's stormed into the awards race and refuses to get out of the spotlight.  Demi Moore is the frontrunner for Best Actress and deserves it, giving us a portrait of self-loathing that is at the root of the film's squelchy body horror nightmares.  And I take the nomination as further proof that Hollywood is still in love with stories about itself, no matter how monstrous and gruesome.

3. Nickel Boys - I've never seen filmmaking in first person singular achieved as well as it is here.  RaMell Ross beautifully executes what could easily have been a gimmick, and you can't imagine the film being any other way.  What the camera is doing doesn't seem to work for everyone, but I couldn't keep my eyes off the screen.  The experience is so immersive, so intimate, and so haunting, it's impossible to come away unmoved.  The moments that stayed with me were often the incidental ones, emphasizing precious human connections in the midst of misery and adversity.  

4. The Brutalist - The more I consider "The Brutalist," the more I appreciate it.  This is a film of soaring ambitions, astonishing scope, and unusually weighty, meaningful themes.  Not all of it works, especially the ending, but the parts that do work offer the kind of cinema that we really don't see enough of.  I've sat through a lot of mediocre passion projects from very big name directors over the last few years, and seeing Brady Corbet pull off something this massive on a tiny budget is inspiring.  I'm also rooting for Adrian Brody for Best Actor, who hasn't done work this good in ages. 

5. Dune 2 - Denis Villeneuve did everything right here, repositioning Paul Atreides as an anti-hero and laying out his rise to power in more sinister terms.  I continue to love the production design, the grand scale spectacle, and the sprawling cast.  The sandworm sequence is one of the high points of the year.  However, it was harder to engage with the story in this installment, and so much was condensed that it lost some of the human element.  The supporting actors are the MVPs here, especially Zendaya, Javier Bardem, and Austin Butler - who simply didn't get enough screen time.

6. I'm Still Here - Maybe it's because the nomination was so unexpected, but I wanted more from "I'm Still Here."  Anchored by a fine performance from Fernanda Torres, it's a solid memoir about a family living through a dictatorship and dealing with tyranny firsthand.  However, it's a much smaller story than I anticipated, very personal and limited in scope.  There are other international films I would have nominated for Best Picture instead, like "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" or "The Girl With the Needle."  "I'm Still Here" strikes me as very good at what it's doing, but not exceptional.

7. A Complete Unknown - I keep forgetting that this is a nominee, because the movie feels so slight.  I'm not a Dylan fan, or very familiar at all with this corner of American music, so the material didn't hold much appeal.  However, watching a collection of talented actors play '60s folk music legends for a few hours was charming.  I appreciate that Bob Dylan wasn't lionized all out of proportion, and Monica Barbaro was a great surprise.  I can't quite wrap my head around what Timothée Chalamet is doing, but I appreciate that he's not giving us a typical Bob Dylan impression.

8. Wicked - They got the casting right, which goes a long way toward balancing out some of the glaring production flaws here.  I'm with the detractors of the film's cinematography and the unforgivable kneecapping of the "Defying Gravity."  However, "Wicked" is undeniably a good time at the movies, and a fabulous showcase for Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande if nothing else.  As with the "Dune" movies, it's difficult to judge based on an incomplete narrative, but as incomplete narratives go, the first half of "Wicked" is pretty swell.  I don't expect "Wicked: For Good" will be better.   

9. Conclave - I do not get it.  I simply can't take the film seriously.  The sequence of events is too ludicrous, the politicking is too didactic, and the final twist at the end is several levels of ridiculous.  Despite some good performances and plenty of Vatican eye candy, "Conclave" is such a heavy-handed message movie that it feels more like a parody of Oscar bait than an earnestly made film.  It's certainly entertaining, and has priceless camp value - Tedesco vaping is iconic - but I can't rank it any higher than this.  The fact that it's a frontrunner in the race strikes me as understandable but unfortunate.

10. Emilia Perez - It's not a bad movie.  It's ambitious, vibrant, weird, and not afraid to go big and melodramatic.  However, it's also remarkably tone deaf.  I'm not surprised that the film got made in 2025, but I am surprised that it got so much support in festival circles before anybody realized that it is a terrible trans narrative, terrible representation for its Mexican characters, and totally useless as a musical.  Zoe Saldana's performance is fantastic, and really should be in a much better film than this one.  I hope this will be a springboard for her to better things.

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