The Oscars will presented Sunday night, and I expect deserving Oscars for Nomadland (Best Picture), Chloe Zhao (Director), Chadwick Boseman (Actor), Another Round (International Feature) and Sound of Metal (Sound). I’ll generally be happy with any wins by Nomadland, Sound of Metal and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Blues.
Zhao is also nominated for Original Screenplay and Editing. I’m annoyed that IMDb and some other sources describe Chloé Zhao as a “Chinese director”. Although she was born in Beijing, I consider Zhao a Chinese-born American filmmaker. As a child, she left China for a London boarding school and finished high school in LA; she graduated from college and film school in the US, and has made all of her movies in America. Besides, what other filmmaker has set her last three movies in South Dakota, for chrissakes?
This Oscar week, I’ve also highlighted what I think is the Most Overlooked Movie of 2020: Driveways.
And here’s my remembrance of cult director Monte Hellman.
ON VIDEO
See the Oscar-nominated films (IN THIS ORDER).
- Nomadland: refusing to be defeated. THE YEAR’S BEST MOVIE. Hulu.
- Sound of Metal: Seeking anything but stillness. Amazon (included with Prime).
- Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: searing, with an electric performance. Netflix
- Another Round: Humanity buzzed. BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE. Amazon.
- The Father: as reality shifts. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play.
- Mank: biting the hand. Netflix.
- The Trial of the Chicago 7: an earlier bizarre moment n our political history. Netflix.
- One Night in Miami: four icons share one pivotal moment. Amazon.
- Minari: who gets to decide on a family’s dream? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play.
ON TV
Compare and contrast. On April 26, Turner Classic Movies is showing the 1937, 1954 and 1976 versions of A Star Is Born. In all three, the story is about an entertainment superstar self destructing from narcissism and addiction, with a sinking career eclipsed by that of a lover-protege. Each version features with A-list talent, but some are much better than others.
The 1937 original stars Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, with the screenplay adapted by Dorothy Parker and others from a story co-written by director William Wyler. The 1954 screenplay was adapted by Moss Hart, and the movie, starring Judy Garland and James Mason, was directed by George Cukor. The 1976 re-remake stars Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristoffersson (at his hunkiest) with a script by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne.
The 1976 film launched the producing career of Jon Peters, Streisand’s hairdresser boyfriend. Despite a terrible personal reputation, he went on to produce 52 more films before his career was extinguished by a #MeToo scandal.
My favorites are the 1937 original and the 2018 version (which TCM is not airing) with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Cooper also co-adapted the screenplay and directed; Lady Gaga shared the Oscar for Best Original Song for Shallow. The Streisand-Kristoffersson version is not good.
The real life basis of the story is said to be Barbara Stanwyck and her contemptible and obnoxious first husband Frank Fay. 16 years younger than Fay, Stanwyck married him when she was 21 and transitioning from chorus girl to movie ingenue. Within seven years, she had become a major movie star and had had enough of the fading vaudevillian Fay. By all accounts, Fay was a drunken, anti-Semitic, pro-fascist, wife-beater with a massive ego: Fred Allen said of Fay, “The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover’s Lane, holding his own hand.“
