As I write this post today, it has been just hours since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named its nominees for The 93rd Academy Awards, recognizing the best of what may have been its most unique year. 2020 was a pretty dreadful year all around. It was my most challenging, trying, and somber year. I’ve mentioned quite a few times in other reviews that most of the big blockbusters that were initially scheduled to be released were delayed to 2021 in hopes that the end of the COVID-19 pandemic would signal a return of moviegoers to the theaters. The jury is still out on each of these. Indeed, some theaters that closed their doors back in March of 2020 will never open their doors again. Others will see far less patronage because many movies have Video on Demand releases on the same day or shortly after their theatrical release.
Category Archives: Academy Award Nominees
Nomadland (2020)
I listened to a podcast about Chloe Zhao’s (Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider) Nomadland and how this might feel like a top ten movie in a typical year but maybe closer to the back five range rather than a front-runner for best film of the year. I agreed with that sentiment and wished I had said that myself. Like so much else associated with the year 2020, with a few exceptions, this year of films will quickly be forgotten. The fact that Nomadland is the clubhouse leader to win Best Picture at the time of this March 1st post seems incredible to me. I thought 2019 was a bad year, but it still produced memorable movies such as 1917, Ad Astra, and Parasite that will be remembered for years. While there are still a few movies I have yet to see that I think I’ll enjoy (most notably Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The Trial of the Chicago 7), I have seen the other movies that likely will earn a nomination for Best Picture. It’s the weakest list I’ve seen in a long time, coming off a year in which I had said the same thing.
Minari (2020)
Suffering from similar fates as other 2020 films such as News of the World, Land, and Nomadland is Lee Isaac Chung’s breakthrough Minari. This movie tells a familiar story in a way that is unique but ultimately ineffective. I say that tongue-in-cheek because my favorite film of the year (at the time of this post) is News of the World, which fails to escape many of the traps these other three movies fall into. And that’s not even to say that News of the World is a great film. It’s a very good film that earned quite an affinity in a reasonably drab 2020.
Sound of Metal (2020)
The most original movie of the year is also one of its best. Darius Marder’s (Loot) subtle, subdued Sound of Metal features a breakout, Oscar-worthy performance from British actor and rapper Riz Ahmed (Mogul Mowgli, The Sisters Brothers). Ahmed stars as Ruben, a drummer for a two-person heavy metal rock band, Blackgammon. Along with singer/guitarist/girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke – Ready Player One, Life Itself), he lives in an RV. He travels throughout middle America as the duo goes from one venue to the next. If that sounds like such a simple premise, I assure you that this movie is far more poignant than you could ever expect.
Pieces of a Woman (2020)
Pieces of a Woman, Kornél Mundruczó’s (Jupiter’s Moon, White God) venture co-starring Vanessa Kirby (Mission Impossible: Fallout, The World to Come) and Shia LaBeouf (The Peanut Butter Falcon, Honey Boy), has the most excruciating half-hour of a film you’ll see this year. Expertly pieced together by the film’s editing crew is a single, continuous 23-minute scene meant to represent, likely, at least a few hours of a childbirth process. It’s intense, gutwrenching, fascinating, and heartbreaking all at once. As someone who didn’t know a thing about this film going in other than the first twenty seconds of its trailer that cemented my interest level, I thought for the entire 23-minute sequence that this would be the whole movie, likely sprinkled with flashbacks to a happier time.