Two years ago, documentarian Maite Alberdi saw her nursing home expose The Mole Agent nominated for Documentary Feature at the Oscars. Agent was originally unveiled at Sundance and her latest project The Eternal Memory has followed suit. It too deals with aging issues as it’s centered on a Chilean couple and a husband diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
MTV’s documentary film branch quickly snatched up the distribution rights. Based on early reviews, it stands at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Some critics are hailing it as a powerful experience. At the last Academy Awards, MTV received their first nod in the competition with Ascension. With a boisterous campaign (which is to be expected), Memory could be a player. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Sundance premiered Theater Camp, the feature-length version of a 2020 short film of the same name. The comedy comes from directors Molly Gordon (who can be seen as Jonah Hill’s sibling in this weekend’s You People on Netflix) and Nick Lieberman. They cowrote the screenplay with Ben Platt (originator of the title role of Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway) and Noah Galvin (who would later play Hansen onstage). Gordon, Platt, and Galvin are included in the cast along with Jimmy Tatro, Patti Harrison, Ayo Edebiri, Amy Sedaris, and Alan Kim.
Set at an upstate New York camp for aspiring musically inclined stage stars, critics are mostly saying Theater has limited but charming appeal. The Rotten Tomatoes meter is at a decent 80%. Searchlight believes the breakout potential is enough that they bought it for $8 million and plan a theatrical distribution later this year.
Perhaps some Academy voters went to the kind of camp that’s both celebrated and lampooned here. I don’t believe the reviews are there for it to make any sort of Oscar push. Perhaps the Golden Globes will take a gander for Motion Picture – Musical/Comedy, but even that could be a reach. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
My Case Of posts where I serve as the defense for and prosecution against the Best Picture, Director, and four acting competition hopefuls arrives at our second contender in the biggest race of all. That’s Avatar: The Way of Water, James Cameron’s long-in-development sequel to 2009’s 3D game changer.
The Case for Avatar: The Way of Water:
If the Academy wants to honor the highest grossing worldwide pic of the bunch, this is your movie. Cameron’s follow-up just surpassed $2 billion at the global box office and has ruled the domestic box office for seven weeks running.
The Case Against Avatar: The Way of Water:
If the Academy wants to honor the highest grossing domestic pic of the bunch, Top Gun: Maverick is their movie. It’s the sequel that had the best nominations haul on Oscar noms morning. Water‘s four overall mentions are less than half of the nine achieved by the original 13 years ago. It won three – Art Direction (now Production Design), Cinematography, and Visual Effects. This one seems destined for a sole victory. Cameron couldn’t make the final five for his direction (he did get a Globes nod) and editing is another significant omission.
Other Nominations:
Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects
The Verdict:
That likely win is in Visual Effects. With the aforementioned whiffs in direction and editing and the less than impressive haul (compared to part 1), Water was pretty fortunate to make the cut at all.
My Case Of posts will continue with The Banshees of Inisherin!
If you missed my posts covering the other BP contenders, click here:
John Carney is known for his features blending music, drama, and comedy. The latest is Flora and Son. It was unveiled at Sundance. Apple TV quickly snatched up distribution rights for a reported $20 million. Eve Hewson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Orén Kinlan, Sophie Vavasseur, and Jack Reynor lead the cast.
Reviews are calling it another charmer from the Once maker. The Rotten Tomatoes meter is at 93%. An Apple campaign may center on its melodic themes. Carney and Gary Clark are responsible for original songs and the streamer is likely to choose one as their awards pick. The filmmaker is no stranger to Oscar and Globes attention.
“Falling Slowly” from 2007’s Once won the Academy Award for Best Song. “Lost Stars” from Begin Again (2013) was a nominee in the same category. 2016’s Sing Street was up for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes. Those races at both ceremonies are in the mix with Flora.
Hewson is receiving praise for her performance in the title role. The Academy five could be a reach. I wouldn’t count her out as a possibility for a Golden Globe nod in the Musical or Comedy Actress competition. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
CODA lead Emilia Jones has had a busy Sundance 2023 with Cat Person and Fairyland. The latter finds her being raised by her gay father (Scoot McNairy) in 1980s San Francisco. Costars include Geena Davis, Cody Fern, Adam Lambert, and Maria Bakalova (2020 Supporting Actress contender for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm). It marks the directorial debut of Andrew Durham.
The consistent theme from the fest’s reviews are that it’s good, but not great (it does sit at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes). McNairy, a character actor who’s popped up in everything from Killing Them Softly to 12 Years a Slave and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is getting plenty of praise.
I’m not confident the notices are strong enough to warrant an awards campaign, but a savvy distributor could manage to get this into the conversation. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
As is tradition every Oscar season on the blog, it’s time to dig a bit deeper into the nominees for Best Picture, Director, and the four acting derbies. These are my Case Of posts where I lay out the merits for and against the 35 contenders in the aforementioned competitions. Yes, that’s 35 individual posts and we start with the 10 hopefuls in BP.
This will occur alphabetically so All Quiet on the Western Front is on deck!
The Case for All Quiet on the Western Front:
Edward Berger’s antiwar epic is the only title that’s won Best Picture before. The 1929-30 ceremony (the 3rd ever Oscars) bestowed best in show to the 1930 version of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel. If we believe BAFTA is a reliable precursor to Academy glory, Front is loaded with a leading 14 nominations. Tied with The Banshees of Inisherin with 9 nods, the pair is second only to Everything Everywhere All at Once‘s 11. This is Netflix’s one and only contender so the streamer has and will be campaigning hard.
The Case Against All Quiet on the Western Front:
The nine mentions are impressive and more than anticipated. However, a couple of misses are key. Not many films end up winning BP that are omitted in Editing and that applies here. Most importantly, Berger did not make the quintet in Director. While there have been recent examples of the directors of BP recipients not making that cut (Ben Affleck for Argo, Peter Farrelly for Green Book, Sian Heder last year with CODA), this seems like the type of project where the filmmaker needed in to have much hope of taking the biggest prize. That’s not the only chink in the armor. Quiet was widely expected to take the Golden Globe statue for foreign feature and lost in an upset to Argentina, 1985. Netflix hasn’t won a BP yet.
Other Nominations:
Adapted Screenplay, International Feature Film, Cinematography, Makeup & Hairstyling, Original Score, Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects
The Verdict:
Quiet appears close to a lock to make noise in International Feature Film (I wouldn’t bet on an Argentina upset on Oscar night). While its haul of nine is laudable, its chances in BP are low-key.
My Case Of posts will continue with Avatar: The Way of Water!
For the other BP Case Of posts, you can find them here:
You People begins with podcaster Ezra (Jonah Hill) and his cohost Mo (Sam Jay) having a chat about the former’s relationship status. They compare it to the various albums of Drake as far as his moods (looking for love Drake vs. party boy Drake). It sounds like the idea of a conversation you’d have in a movie screenplay before the scribes try for authenticity. Hill and cowriter/director Kenya Barris (creator of sitcom black-ish) rarely get to the authenticity part as this race and family relations concoction feels overly workshopped. There are glimpses in the third act, but what a waste of talent for so much of it.
Ezra’s heart is taken by Amira (Lauren London) after mistaking her for his Uber driver. The couple’s meet cute quickly elevates to an engagement and the meet the parents business complicates the bliss. His are Julia-Louis Dreyfus’s doting Jewish mom Shelley and hubby Arnold (David Duchovny), whose lines are 90% describing 90s rapper Xzibit. Hers are devout Muslim Akbar (Eddie Murphy) and wife Fatima (Nia Long). Ezra’s streaming show is about cultural interactions. Those of the in-laws could fill a season’s worth of content.
The problem is it’s not profound and feels rather tame. A lunch table talk about the ebony and ivory aspects of Forrest Gump is shrimpy in its impact. Same goes for when Ezra is stuck in the car with his future father-in-law as a Jay-Z/Kanye track using a forbidden word comes up. These are sitcom level situations with the humor stuck in bland-ish gear.
A cast filled with familiar faces do add some welcome laughs. Small contributions from Mike Epps as Akbar’s degenerate brother and Molly Gordon as Ezra’s exasperated sister help. Barris and Hill manage to inject a little emotion in the waning moments that could satisfy ardent rom com devotees.
For the most part, You People is listless. The biggest surprise is the term applies to Murphy’s performance. The legend is usually the spark plug even in his mediocre pics. This recalls his lethargic work in Beverly Hills Cop III more than anything else. When that’s the comparison I’m making with his filmography, the heat is off when it comes to his normal firepower.
Brandon Cronenberg has clearly inherited his dad David’s penchant for bizarro blends of sci-fi and horror (see Antiviral and Possessor). His latest is Infinity Pool, which debuts this weekend after a start at Sundance. It’s drawing reviews on the fresh side (87% on Rotten Tomatoes) even though many critics admit audiences may not want to wade into its NC-17 violence. Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth (fresh off X and Pearl), and Cleopatra Coleman star.
Papa Cronenberg’s latest Crimes of the Future made it to the Makeup and Hairstyling shortlist but didn’t end up making the top 5 this week. I don’t really see anywhere where Pool would make waves with awards voters. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Between Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, Sally Field, Tom Brady, and Guy Fieri – we have 12 Oscar nominations, 54 Emmy mentions, 38 Golden Globe nods, six Super Bowl championships, and hundreds of trips to Flavortown. All of them appear in 80 for Brady on February 3rd. Kyle Marvin directs the comedy which finds the aforementioned female quartet on a trek to watch the famed QB in the Super Bowl. Other costars include (in addition to Brady and Fieri as themselves) include Billy Porter, Harry Hamlin, Rob Corddry, Alex Moffat, Bob Balaban, and Glynn Turman. Some of Brady’s old teammates, such as Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, and Danny Amendola also turn up.
The Paramount release looks to bring in an older female demographic and sports fans during the weekend between the NFL’s Conference Championships and the game where our leads travel to. Tomlin, Fonda, Moreno, and Field having been hitting the circuit hard in recent weeks to promote. I do believe there’s an opportunity for this to exceed expectations. Low to mid teens is where this likely touches down. That’s in line with what Book Club (also featuring Fonda) accomplished in 2018.
80 for Brady opening weekend prediction: $15.5 million
Universal Pictures is counting on audiences to take a Knock at the Cabin when it debuts February 3rd. The latest film from M. Night Shyamalan, it’s based on the 2018 novel by Paul G. Tremblay. A thriller blending horror elements, Dave Bautista is a believer in the imminent apocalypse holding a family hostage. Costars include Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn, and Rupert Grint.
This looks to be the picture to knock Avatar: The Way of Water off its lengthy perch at #1 and should do so with room to spare. Shyamalan, after a career resurgence that kicked into high gear with Split, is one of the few filmmakers whose name can sell tickets (especially in this genre). This is his first R rated title since 2008’s The Happening. His predecessor Old (2021) opened in the summer of 2021 with just under $17 million.
Cabin, with less competition than Old had, should exceed that starting gross. A take of over $20 million is doable.
Knock at the Cabin opening weekend prediction: $23.6 million
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