Originally I had planned to write up a full review of each of these films, but life had other plans. Here are my thoughts on each of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture of 2021 at tonight’s Academy Awards.
LICORICE PIZZA
I went into LICORICE PIZZA without having any idea what it was about, and after watching it, I still only have a vague idea. Perhaps I just haven’t thought about it enough, or maybe my brain isn’t wired in a way to fully appreciate it. This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve failed to understand why a film has been nominated for a superlative.
The way I understand the film, it’s about how a teenager and a woman in her early 20s are both approaching their futures with very different levels of parental involvement. He’s Gary Valentine, a 15-year-old actor who enjoys serial entrepreneurship, with absentee parents who are mostly only around when he needs them, but rarely does because he does well enough maneuvering the world of business through his charm and personable nature. She’s Alana Kane, “25” (or so she tells people) and still living with her parents and older sisters, desperately trying to find her place in the world.
The troublesome nature of it all starts with their first encounter, where Alana’s working as an assistant with a photographer who’s taking student pictures at his high school. She KNOWS Gary’s 15, but after his relentless attempts to charm her never cease, she meets up with him at a restaurant and gives him her phone number anyway. Then she agrees to fly with him across the country to be his “chaperone” at a televised acting gig… and we’re supposed to think it’s natural?
Over the course of the film, Alana’s affection for Gary ebbs and flows, all the while wavering as to whether or not some of the immature aspects of him bother her. Through this, both of them encounter a few bizarre characters and situations the likes of which she never would’ve chanced upon without his involvement.
Cooper Hoffman does a really good job this early in his career, LICORICE PIZZA being his first film. His performance as Gary could’ve easily been nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award, though I’m glad it didn’t, as it’s easily the type of thing capable of turning a young actor into someone like Gary from this film. The opportunities for award nominations and wins should be present in the coming years, as it’s clear that Cooper has many of the same talents of his late father, Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Alana Haim has received plenty praise in her role here as Alana Kane, also her first feature film. Her performance felt very natural, and she had at least a couple moments that were really good. Somehow, though, I can’t shake the fact that the way her character was written is a large part of why this movie ultimately fell very short for me, and why it’s the film I’m least interested in seeing take home the big prize at the 94th Academy Awards.
LICORICE PIZZA, for me, felt like it was missing something. While I understand that some talk about it as a “slice of life” type of film, I’ve seen plenty of those manage to have a way to find a connective tissue that runs the course. While it got close, it ultimately falls short.
My Rating: 67 out of 100
DON’T LOOK UP
I wrote up a full review of DON’T LOOK UP already, but I can summarize some of it here.
The satirical look at the current state of heavily politicized discourse of scientific recommendations and discoveries is a rare case of writer/director Adam McKay producing a movie that falls short for me… but it’s also too long. Had it been 30 minutes shorter, they could’ve cut some of the plot points that cause this to run off the rails. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character became less interesting as he started to let his newfound fame affect him, and Jennifer Lawrence’s character became less interesting when she was pushed aside from the main narrative and her character stopped doing anything interesting.
Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Jonah Hill and Meryl Streep all provided interesting characters despite not having much depth. But that’s what you need in a satire, characters to drive the straightforward narrative., not a lot of stalled moments and detours.
It’s not an all out failure as a film, though. It was entertaining in parts, and if 30 minutes of the 2hr 15min runtime had been cut, it would’ve made a strong case for the Best Picture award… but it doesn’t.
My Rating: 75 out of 100
CODA
CODA delves into the life of a teenage girl whose parents and lone sibling are deaf, but she’s not. Back in middle school (around age 13), I got interested in American Sign Language, with a trip to Gallaudet University only adding to my fascination. The added level of difficulty deafness adds to a person’s life, and the way they are able to overcome, is incredible. It’s absolutely a topic worthy of examination in movies and television more than it has been. The film makers, producers, directors, actors and distribution companies who helped get this film out into the world all certainly deserve praise for helping bring light to an otherwise under-represented community. That said, too many people are over-praising a decent-not-great film simply for helping bring that awareness.
It’s not a great film. It’s good, but if the past year had more “great” films, this likely wouldn’t have found a way to get this nomination.
After watching CODA, I started to look around to see how others had responded to it, since I try my best not to have my opinion swayed by others, especially if the viewpoints are presented in less than 200 characters on Twitter. I was disappointed to see that there’s some hatred towards CODA, because although I didn’t love the film and found it to fall short of being great, I can’t understand why anyone would hate it.
Emilia Jones did a good job as the film’s lead. I wouldn’t advocate for her to replace any of the nominees for Best Lead Actress at tonight’s Academy Awards, but that says more about the quality of the role rather than speaking to her performance. She seemed to embody the character perfectly, her complicated relationships with each of her mom, dad, and brother all feeling very organic and mostly relatable. I was happy to see that Troy Kotsur got a Best Supporting Actor nomination as the father of the family, because after getting past some rough spots in the first part of the film, he had some really good moments with Emilia that deserve praise.
This is another example of a film that tried to fit too much in and would definitely benefit from some simplifying what it’s doing. I spent the early part of the movie REALLY disliking the parents, mostly because of how absurdly immature they were written, which isn’t even a factor in the second half of the film. I’d still recommend others watch CODA, because it’s definitely not a bad movie at all, and has a couple “feel good” moments to it. That doesn’t equate to it being worthy of a nomination for Best Picture, though.
My Rating: 76 out of 100
WEST SIDE STORY
Although I’ve never been a huge fan of musicals, I always really enjoyed the original West Side Story, probably because unlike other musicals, I understood what they were singing about, and it felt almost natural for them to be singing it. While I certainly didn’t feel like a remake was necessary, I’m a big fan of Steven Spielberg’s work, so I was interested in what he brought to it.
One of the things that felt like an improvement over the original were the sets and locations Spielberg uses. It helps it feel less like a Broadway show put on film and more like a glimpse into the story playing out in the real world.
I hesitate to make this review a comparison between the original version and this one, because I’d like to just look at the merits of what Spielberg produced. There are plenty of things to like, most notably the visuals and the dance scenes. I absolutely enjoyed it more than IN THE HEIGHTS (which wasn’t a bad movie itself).
My major issue with Spielberg’s WEST SIDE STORY is that I simply didn’t feel like there was enough chemistry between Ansel Elgort’s Tony and Rachel Zegler’s Maria… and that’s a huge problem when the story hinges upon feeling like those two are so madly in love that they would forsake friends and family to be together. When Maria first kisses Tony, it seems to come out of nowhere, and Tony only seems mildly interested in getting to know her better.
My Rating: 80 out of 100
KING RICHARD
I remember when Venus Williams started to become a big name in women’s professional tennis, and then her sister Serena Williams, and the way the media covered them throughout the first half of their careers, striking in its bold distaste of the duo. Not a huge fan of professional tennis (mens or womens) myself, I didn’t watch many of their matches aside from seeing the highlights during the sports news coverage. I did understand the cultural impact they were having and was intrigued by their journey, while being frustrated by the veiled racism from parts of the professional tennis world.
KING RICHARD did a great job of showing how Venus and Serena became great by focusing on their father and his methods of raising them and providing for their training. Will Smith did a great job of embodying the character, providing a reminder that his extraordinary talents absolutely include dramatic performances as an actor.
The young woman who portrayed Venus and Serena Williams did really good jobs given the difficulty of the roles they were portraying, having to deal with the acting and athletic parts of the job. Aunjanue Ellis got a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Richard Williams’s wife. Although I would say that she did a good job with the role, I was surprised she got nominated because I didn’t feel like the role had enough on-screen time. Jon Bernthal also did a great job in his limited supporting role, further showing that his talents extend beyond portraying tough guys on the verge of brutality.
If KING RICHARD wins the Academy Award for Best Picture, I won’t be completely surprised. I found other nominated films to be better, but this had enough heart and quality of production to warrant it’s place in the discussion.
My Rating: 80 out of 100
Continue to the second part of my reviews!
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