Jeremy's 2021 Best Picture Rankings!

Well, it's late April, and you know what that means! Oscar season. For the first time ever, late April is Oscar season because Coronavirus. Also, because Coronavirus, all of the movies nominated for Best Picture were to be watched at home. Not my favorite movie watching format, but I blacked out the windows during the day, and knocked out all eight of these nominated movies over the last six days. It's an interesting set of movies, I wouldn't say that there is a ton of space between most of them, but I've made an order and now let's run through it.

8) Nomadland

This was the last movie that I watched, in fact I watched it like twenty minutes ago, and it is for sure the one that moved me the least. While the film was definitely beautiful, the general message of the movie was just not something I was in for. But for real, it was a beauty to look at. I think maybe after watching a set of films where people are constantly confronting their fears or their issues or whatever, a movie about hitting the road so that you don't have to settle down and be around the people that love you was something of a culture shock. Definitely my least favorite of the nominees, but the scuttlebutt is that for some reason it is going to win Best Picture, so I guess I must be in the minority with my opinion. My favorite parts of this movie were when no one was talking.

7) Sound of Metal

Sound of Metal is the first of the two "Sensory Deprivation" films nominated for Best Picture this year. It centers on the drummer of a metal duo, the other member being his girlfriend, and they are on tour. Suddenly his hearing stops working, and he's somewhere around 22% as far as what he can hear. And at that point, there are large swaths of time where the audience hears what he's hearing. This sounds like a movie that might be extremely sad, or possibly filled with outbreaks of violent frustration, but most of the film is actually very calm and pensive. Ruben spends most of the film at a shelter for deaf recovering addicts, and we learn to embrace the calm of being deaf with him. The performances by Riz Amhed and Olivia Cooke are both really great, also the Supporting Actor nod for Paul Raci is well deserved, but that's a stacked category.

6) Promising Young Woman

This movie was a fucking rollercoaster. Were there some crazy revenge porn situations (as in porn material for fans of revenge, not revenge porn like releasing someone's nudes on Facebook)? Yes. Tons. But there was also a very interestingly directed and well shot movie here as well. Was there also Piz from the last season of Veronica Mars? Sigh, yes. This movie was good, Carrie Mulligan and Bo Burnham were both really good, the ending was really fucking insane and kind of a weird morose joke? Weird stuff at the end for sure. But snappy dialogue, tons of good performers, McLovin doing coke and being a skeez? Yeah, good enough for sixth in the rankings.

5) The Trial of the Chicago 7

Speaking of snappy dialogue, tons of good performers, and McLovin doing coke, all those things besides McLovin can be found in this film as well. While I was watching this movie, I had a really good time. Lots of laughs, lots of historical information. Ten minutes of research after the movie was over informed me that the timelines and accuracy of the events in this film were definitely fudged with, heavy style to make a better movie, and that kind of took the wind out of my sails a little. Also, what the eff was Eddie Redmayne doing in this movie? He's hunched over like there's a freaking rain storm he's trying to protect his lantern from, his accent is like a mish mash of marbles in his mouth. Just, ugh. What a mess. But everyone else was pretty good, besides Joseph Gordan Levitt. Sacha Baron Cohen gives a lovely performance as big hippie Abbie Hoffman, and I'm happy he got nominated for Supporting Actor. Let's just say, there was a better movie made about this period of time and some of the darker skinned historical figures we see here. But we'll get back to that.

4) The Father

I'm almost 34, I've seen quite a lot of movies, and (not to toot my own horn but) I'm a fairly smart person when it comes to movies and television plot lines and twists and so on. I say all this simply to bring up the fact that what I generally find most entertaining at this point in my media consumption timeline, are things that subvert my expectations. The Father subverted my expectations and did things that I have never seen done before in a movie. More specifically, this film is a representation of what it feels like to get dementia. Anthony Hopkins's character has dementia, and the film moves in a cyclical fashion that really helps the audience understand what he is seeing and feeling. This is the second of the two "Sensory Deprivation" films. This movie made me sit on the edge of my seat, it made me question what was going on, the end made me cry like a little effing baby (full on tears running down the cheeks, cat jumping in lap to console me). Before I watched the movie, I thought "Oh of course, Anthony Hopkins gets nominated for any movie he's in," and then I saw it, and woof, I get it. What a powerhouse of vulnerability. Also, Olivia Colman was lights out as his daughter, trying to navigate the perilous waters alone. I would give Best Actor to Hopkins for sure, and then Supporting Actress, I would consider Colman one of the three deserving of winning, more on that later. See this movie one time.

3) Mank

This one is not going to be for everyone. If you don't like slow movies from the forties and fifties that have the burn out when they transition scenes, you might want to sit this one out. This movie is about Herman J. Mankiewicz, the man who wrote Citizen Kane. The frame of the story is Mank isolated in the desert, writing the script with two housemaids taking care of him (he has a broken leg), but the meat of the story are the flashbacks, showing how Mank ended up in William Randolph Hearst's inner social circle, his friendship with Marion Davies, and his uncovering (sort of) of shady propaganda dealings by Hearst allowing for the defeat of Upton Sinclair for California governor. These actions lead to Mank writing his script, which is a thinly veiled, not flattering portrayal of Hearst. The story is interesting, and if it was simply in black and white, I think it would still be a really strong film, but Fincher shoots and edits the film as if it is of the time in which takes place, and it's really fun. I've been watching more old films than usual over the last year, and I wondered how long it would take for someone to use today's tools to make something that looked like old films, and here it is, and it's a delight. Also strong shout out to Amanda Seyfried, she is also one of the three I would like to see Supporting Actress. I would also give Best Director to either Fincher for this movie or Emereld Fennell for Promising Young Woman. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's score for this movie is as old fashioned as it comes, you'd have no idea the dude from Nine Inch Nails was behind it, sort of like Johnny Greenwood's Phantom Thread score.

2) Judas and the Black Messiah

As for movies that were not so much fun, Judas and the Black Messiah gave us a much different view of Fred Hampton then the one Aaron Sorkin gave us in Chicago 7. The events of this film are not so great but the creation and execution of this film, especially as a tight thriller when you know what the eventual end result is going to be, are top notch. I imagine Daniel Kaluuya will win Best Supporting Actor because he does give a tender and moving performance, but as a Chicagoan, I can vouch for the fact that Kaluuya's Chicago accent is simply atrocious. Just a mish mash, Eddie Redmayne style, of weird African accented syllables and it's all over the place. I don't know if non-Chicagoans would be able to tell the difference just from the film, but right before the credits, we see a small snippet of Fred Hampton speaking for real and anyone will be able to tell the difference. Lakeith Stanfield doesn't even make an attempt at a Chicago accent, which is super weird for a film that takes place entirely in Chicago. Anyway, I digress, the actual message of the movie and the story being told, are extremely moving and extremely fucked up. Just straight up assassinations by the FBI and by the CPD. Fifty odd years later, and I'm guessing there are less FBI assassinations and more CPD ones. Learn about Fred Hampton, y'all. Learn about everyone in this movie.

1) Minari

Hands down my favorite of the nominees. I don't know if the Academy has it in them to award two (mostly) Korean speaking films in a row, but I'd love to see it. Minari is the simple story of a family of Korean immigrants who move to Arkansas to try to start a farm. All five of the actors in the family are perfect, Steven Yeung was nominated for Best Actor, but I think the more deserving performances were by Han Ye-ri as his wife, Monica, and Youn Yuh-jung as her mother, who comes to live with the family when they move to Arkansas. Also both of the child actors are adorable and hilarious. Youn Yuh-jung was nominated for Supporting Actress, and finishes out the triad of winners I'd be cool with, but I really feel like for the second year in a row, we should have a Korean Best Actress and for the second year in a row, that actress wasn't even nominated. The film really revolves around the performances of Ye-ri as Monica and Alan Kim as the younger child of the family, David, who has a heart murmur. There's no massive scandal in this film, even the most dramatic thing that happens doesn't end up tearing the family apart, most of the film is just a fun tale of a family making it work in the middle of the rural south. It's a heartwarming story, and I hope that it is rewarded with a Best Picture win.

It was fun dipping back into the real world with these movies, maybe next year I can regale you with stories about how I've gone to movie theaters and seen real humans.