The 93rd Academy Awards
OSCARS 2021: A Charming little Event held at Los Angeles’ Union Station (LAUS)
On 26th April 2021, I woke up early to catch the Oscars LIVE on this side of the Ocean. It started at 4am here, but I got up close to an hour late, so when I switched on STAR WORLD, Daniel Kaluuya was being interviewed, and next came the man in the 24 karat gold suit (i.e. Leslie Odom Jr.), who then sang in a white trouser suit. Enjoyable show, I specifically found the event with the red carpet interviews, along with the décor at Los Angeles’ Union Station, really charming and a throwback to the heydays of Hollywood. Yet the stars sure did glam up in some WOW attire!
The Award Ceremony, inside the 1930’s built train station, itself had a classic Roaring 20’s & 30’s feel, fitting perfectly well into the nouveau Roaring 20’s of today. The 2020’s playing tribute to the 1920’s! The show went well, but I felt the BEST PICTURE category was announced a tad to soon; whereas traditionally it’s the final & biggest announcement of the day, right at the end. Towards the finalé the show got a bit dull, but I was generally happy with all the winners this year. No Actual Disappointments!
So from Sunday, 11th April 2021 to Sunday 25th April 2021, I’ve been checking out as many Oscar nominees as I could, nominated in various different categories, online (on F.Movies & YouTube). Altogether I got to see 11 Feature Films and 5 short films (3 Live-action & 2 animated). Below is a list of all 16 films I saw, along with my rating for each along with the date I got to watch each one of them. Wished I could have seen a few more. The List is in Order of My Favourite to my Least Favourite!
FEATURE FILMS:-
- NOMADLAND (2020) – 10/10! 25th April 2021 (Last Oscar Nominee for this year I’ve seen, so far)
- THE FATHER (2020) – 10/10! 22nd April 2021
- SOUND OF METAL (2019) – 10/10! 24th April 2021
- DRUK (2020) English Title: ANOTHER ROUND – 10/10! 22nd April 2021
- JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (2021) – 10/10! 18th & 19th of April 2021
- PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (2020) – 10/10! 11th April 2021 (1st Oscar Nominee for this year I saw)
- THE TRAIL OF CHICAGO 7 (2020) -10/10! 15th April 2021
- LA VITA DAVANTI A SÉ (2020) English Title: THE LIFE AHEAD – 10/10! 23rd April 2021
- MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM (2020) – 9/10! 11th April 2021
- THE WHITE TIGER (2021) – 9/10! 16th & 17th of April 2021
- THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY (2021) – 5/10! 21st April 2021
SHORT FILMS:-
Saw the 3 Live action shorts on 12th April 2021 and the 2 Animated ones 20th April 2021
- Live Action Shorts:
- FEELING THROUGH (2020) – 10/10!
- THE LETTER ROOM (2020) – 10/10!
- AL HADIYA (2020) English Title: THE PRESENT – 9/10!
- Animated Shorts:
- GENIUS LOCI (2020) – 10/10!
- OPERA (2020) – 10/10!
The Winners:-
Nomadland deservedly bagged the BEST PICTURE award; which I was hoping it would win, my favourite among the films I’ve seen so far! I felt The Father came a close second. Am glad Nomadland won. Altogether it took home three Oscars, including a BEST DIRECTOR statuette for Chloé Zhao (making her the 2nd Female Director and 1st Woman of Colour to win this prestigious award), and Frances McDormand took home the BEST ACTRESS Oscar (she was my second choice after Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman). Felt Nomadland might win for Cinematography as well, but lost out to Mank (2020), a movie I haven’t watched yet (haven’t even seen Citizen Kane;1941, yet; but saw RKO 281;1999, some years ago). A special shout out to Andra Day for her amazing portrayal of legendary Billie Holiday in The United States vs. Billie Holiday; the only good thing about that movie. If not for her amazing performance that movie would have sunk badly. Day managed to salvage it to an average fare flick.
I was rooting for Anthony Hopkins to take home the BEST ACTOR trophy, and was so happy when he won for The Father. Such a touching take on ageing and dementia. The last sequence with Hopkins was so brilliantly heartbreaking and realistic. This was Hopkins 2nd Oscar (the 1st being for The Silence of the Lambs;1991), and aged 83, this makes him the Oldest BEST ACTOR winner to date. Riz Ahmed’s amazing role in Sound of Metal was the next best performance. If Hopkins didn’t, I felt Ahmed definitely ought to. Wish there were subtitles for all the sign language shown, but it was mostly just casual talk not that significant to the plot, so it wasn’t an issue. We see Ahmed’s character losing his hearing, getting involved with a deaf & dumb community (some are deaf & dumb when they are deaf from birth; as is a cousin of mine), a special school for deaf & dumb children; then he gets a chip implanted but it’s unhelpful as he’s introduced to a high pitched sound that’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable. He’s neither here nor there, and the finalé with the ultimate Sound of SILENCE! Brilliant! Ironically, as I expected, Sound of Metal won for BEST SOUND (presented by Ahmed himself) and BEST FILM EDITING. Many were disappointed that Chadwick Boseman wasn’t posthumously awarded for his performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, yet as good as he was (initially I assumed he was nominated in the Supporting Actor category), both Hopkins and Ahmed deserved a win way more. It would have been an insult to Boseman’s legacy if he were awarded just because he was sadly no more, or worse, because he was a black actor. The best of that year should win, and Oscars has had a few misses in the past, but not here and not in this category. May Boseman be remembered for his performances and not for an award he lost out on. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom deservedly won for Hair & Makeup and BEST COSTUME DESIGN (haven’t seen the other films nominated in those categories though). The Father also won for BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY; awarded to Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller (Zeller, whose French play Le Père, this movie is based on). I was hoping The Father might also win for BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN; with those two very similar stylish flats adding to the “Father'”s confusion and it’s similarities to the nursing home. From his Bedroom(s) to the corridor and beyond. Chic interior design. Pity it lost out to Mank, as well; which most probably deserved it more. Really ought to check it out. BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY went to Emerald Fennell for her amazingly relevant tale in this #MeToo era; Promising Young Woman. South Korean actress, Youn Yuh-jung won BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS for Minari (2020); yet another movie I really ought to check out. Thomas Vinterberg’s Danish film, Another Round, won for BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM, as I had hoped it would. Brilliant movie about getting drunk, with a killer soundtrack.
Am least interested when it comes to the Visual Effects category, for most of the time, that’s the only good thing about those movies (there are exceptions of course). From this years lot, The Midnight Sky (2020) might be the only one I might check out. Tenet (2020) of course won. I wasn’t really surprised. Wasn’t that interested in watching it, still am not, but might in the far far far future; as Christopher Nolan is a good director and love some of his past creations. This is a movie of his that least interested me. Among the Short Films, I was keen on seeing, Feeling Through for Live Action, and Genuis Loci for Animated, win. Feeling Through has beautiful storyline set in one night, with an actual deaf & blind actor, Robert Tarango. The first time in film history to have a blind actor in a lead role. Genuis Loci has some amazing watercolour animation. You end up wondering what just happened? Was it all imagined, or did she wander out and only imagine herself as a dog? Loved it! Of course two short films I haven’t seen won. BEST ANIMATION (feature film) went to Soul (2020), no surprise, there was so much hype surrounding it. I haven’t seen any of feature length Animated Films. It also won for BEST ORIGINAL SCORE, while BEST ORIGINAL SONG went to Judas and the Black Messiah. Out of the two actors in Judas and the Black Messiah nominated for BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR; I felt Lakeith Stanfield performance was more nuanced, playing an FBI informant pretending to be a loyal member of the Black Panther Party, at the same time fighting his own conscience. A difficult role. Yet Daniel Kaluuya was just as brilliant as Fred Hampton, thus deserved the win.
I haven’t seen a single documentary; short or feature length. Among the Short Films, Colette (2020) is the one I was most keen on watching, and it won. Among the feature length documentaries, My Octopus Teacher (2020) about the bonding between a man and a octopus, was the one I was most interested in seeing (and I really ought to). As they showed the clip from this movie, seeing how innocent and trusting all living creatures are unlike humans, an octopus affectionately curling it’s tentacle around a man’s finger, I felt this should win! And it did!
With that I shall end my Blog post for today, my 1st for YEAR 2021! Congratulations to all the winners!
Good Night!
Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense
Today, Day 11th, the 69th Cannes Film Festival, comes to an end. They’ll be showing the French film, Elle (2016), by Dutch director, Paul Verhoeven; along with the Iranian movie, titled, Forushande (2016), a.k.a. The Salesman (English title), by Asghar Farhadi. The Queer Palm takes place today as well. Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways (2012), won the Queer Palm, back in 2012. Laurence Anyways was an excellent film, to come out of Canada. And tomorrow, the winners shall be announced; and I can’t wait to find out who shall take home the prestigious Palm d’Or this year. The Year of the Sweets!!
Director Roger Vadim’s Le Vice et La Vertu, is mostly a chic sexploitation of his then life partner, Catherine Deneuve. Roger Vadim was a very aesthetically stylish director of his time, yet somewhat lacking in great story telling; who was notorious for the way he directed his two bewitchingly beautiful wives, Brigitte Bardot (in the 50’s) and Jane Fonda (mid-60’s to early 70’s), as well as his equally beautiful life partner, Catherine Deneuve (the early 60’s). All superb acting talent, but Vadim, preferred to turn them into sex-symbols of the 50’s & 60’s. Not that he was necessarily pervert, but he admired their beauty, femininity, elegance and grace; and he liked to flaunt their sexuality on screen. Yet, post-Vadim, all three femmes, went on to become some of the greatest acting talent, that existed/is still existing, in the international platform of cinematic geniuses. Especially when it comes to Deneuve and Fonda.
Summer in February is one of the most disappointing Heritage Films, I’ve seen till date. Based on a true story, this British film revolves around four famous Impressionist Artists (the Lamorna group), from the Edwardian era; especially the real life tragic love triangle involving two artists (Alfred Munnings, and his unhappy wife, Florence Carter-Wood) and a young military officer, Major Gilbert Evans.
One the least impressive Biblical adaptations on screen.
Headed by Sonam Kapoor in the lead, this is a comedy about a little group of swindlers, who rob the rich and vulgar, through Dolly (Kapoor), their star con-woman. She marries into these, Mama’s and Papa’s, boy’s, who haven’t much of backbone, and robs them blind on her wedding night. Meanwhile a cop, who seems to have a personal vendetta, against Dolly, is on the lookout for her.
Famous artists of this movement include, Paolo Uccello, Piero Della Francesca, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi (the first woman to dare to become an artist, in that era, and thus condemned for it), Giovanni Bellini, Jan Van Eyck, Joos van Cleve, and many many others.
The great Cubists include, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, Marcel Duchamp, Juan Gris and Albert Gleizes, to name some. Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Jackson Pollack, Amedeo Modigliani, Piet Mondrian, Sidney Nolan and M.F. Hussain, happen to be some other famous artists known for artworks involving distortion & abstract.
Year 1999, there was an ‘Ingmar Bergman film festival’ going on in South Delhi, New Delhi, India. I had completed my (Bachelors) final year at DU (University of Delhi), and was still residing in North Campus, Kingsway Camp, North Delhi. We students went all the way to South Delhi after a quick lunch at ISH (International Students Hostel), at 1p.m, and reached the gates of the Festival Hall by around 3p.m, and queued outside for the movie, Bergman’s Scener ur Ett Äktenskap (1973) a.k.a. Scenes from a Marriage, which was to start at around 6:30pm. The movie was free, first-cum-first basis. The queue was full of youngsters, both from DU and JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University). Luckily we were right in the front of the queue.
The following day or so, they were showing Höstsonaten (1978) a.k.a. Autumn Sonata, starring Hollywood actress, of Swedish roots, Ingrid Bergman (no relation of Ingmar Bergman), alongside with Liv Ullmann. Unfortunately I could not make it for a movie I was really keen on, especially as am a fan of actress Ingrid Bergman. Some of my fellow Indian University students managed to catch it though. And they had fun taunting me at missing out on such a fine film, cause I was late at our rendezvous point at the Bus Stop. This was long before students could afford mobile phones. My loss, and am yet to watch this 70’s Ingmar Bergman gem.
One of Bergman’s greatest works, Through a Glass Darkly, is an exploration of the psychological whirlpool into the world of schizophrenia. The film takes place within the span of 24 hours, in a remote island (filmed entirely in the island of Fårö, the largest island in Sweden). Karin (Harriet Andersson), has just been released from an asylum where she had been treated for schizophrenia. Karin’s family; which include her husband, Martin (Max von Sydow), her father, David (Gunnar Björnstrand), and her brother, Minus (Lars Passgård); take a vacation to this remote island. The film is a three-act ‘chamber film’, an allusion to both; the chamber plays of Swedish playwright/novelist/poet/essayist/painter, Johan August Strindberg; and to chamber music in general, in which four family members act as mirrors for each other. A chamber play, was a popular type of play, from the early 20th century, which consisted of three acts, performed with a small cast, with hardly any sets or costumes, in a small space. It was adapted to German cinema in the roaring 20’s, and later on by Ingmar Bergman to Swedish films.
In 2007, while doing my MA in Painting (2006-2007), at the College of Fine Arts (COFA), University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia, I got to watch Saraband (2003), when it was shown on a television channel down there. Saraband takes place about thirty years or so after the couple, played by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann, divorce in Scenes from a Marriage (1973). This is an excellent sequel. It’s very rare that sequels are anywhere near as great as the first, but Bergman manages to be triumphant in bringing out a touching story, of the old couple’s latest meeting. Beautiful !!! what more can I say.
No Nonsense with Nuwan Sen 