Oscar Rundown
Anora (2024)
Released October 18 by Neon, now streaming
“Thank you for making my trip to America so fun.
🤩🤩🤩🤩
A Cinderella love story for Gen Alpha
Not since Pretty Woman have we seen something so sweet. But this movie should clearly be rated at least NC-17. One could argue that Pretty Woman would be canceled today, and yet here lands Anora. Its predecessor replayed in essence with referential scenes, including the infamous, “You can’t afford me” to “I would have paid double” exchange. This time the setting brings us twenty-something recent immigrants in Coney Island who “Google this” and “Insta that” along an Uncut Gems-type search party through the boardwalk instead of Rodeo Drive.
“I am always happy,” says the young heir who glided around his manse in Gucci sweats.
The soundtrack includes arousing anthems with such lyrics as, “Pussy drip da drip pop pa pop pa pop gonna sippy sip sip it.” Can’t imagine The Academy getting behind this love story. Fresh-faced and convincing newcomers Mikey Madison and Mark Edelstein (both Oscar contenders in their own right) alternate between sex and video games as fast as they alternate between Brighton Beach English and Russian. Supporting actor and Eminem look-alike Yori Borisov kills it as the oligarch’s naive henchman with a heart of gold (and a confiscated 4-carat ring) who falls for the girl as well.
The fashions are on point , especially if you are Charlie XCX, The Dare or just wanna be Brat. Her in Tartan booty skirt with leather harness panties. Him in porn star yellow tinted U2 glasses and oversized tan blazer sans shirt and both mixed with a silver dish of cocaine. And yes, just take that Russian sable. It’s yours.
Although the script may be referential all the way back to Lady and the Tramp (with a pasta dinner replaced by licorice rope in a Coney Island Candy store), it never fails to captivate as simultaneously a cat-and-mouse thriller and a rom-com.
Leave it to TaTu to summarize the end: All The Things She Said. As he said: “I love you. Good bye America.”
The Brutalist (2024)
Released December 20
⭐️⭐️⭐️
I admit, when I read about Brady Corbet and realized he was the star of the tween thriller Thirteen (2003), I was skeptical and intrigued to see if The Brutalist was Silver Lion worthy—especially clocking in at over 3 hours with intermission. Yes, intermission. Not since Gone with the Wind. I know we’re making America great again, but intermission??
Starting with the 10-minute prologue followed by the opening credits, every classic film school trick abounds all in one movie in slick succession.
Though the entering tour de force is truly captivating showcasing dueling perspectives of Brody’s protagonist navigating through the teeming bowels while his wife and niece meet their Soviet exile as they all attempt to escape WWII Budapest; he emerges to the theatrical release poster shot of none other than our Lady Liberty brutally turned on her head as is his life. So bauhaus even in the credit type-face.
I can bet you I know all of Brady Corbett’s favorite movies based on his cinematically compelling movie shot references:
- Citizen Kane
- Goodfellas
- 1917
- Raising Arizona
- Easy rider
- Lost highway
- Requiem For A Dream
And the script? You would think it’s a remake of an Rand’s The Fountainhead only with Adrien Brody as a striving immigrant until it veers off into Baby Reindeer territory.
When Brody’s first would-be American client turns toward the audience, the millennials behind me laugh. The big reveal is none other than Joe Alwyn. Now pudgy and sans-British accent in his post Taylor days, never fear and gird your loins for his final muddy scene as pedantic heir.
After intermission, I order Nitehawk’s signature cocktail for the evening—“Out of the Cellar and into the sky”? More like outta the closet, with Guy Pierce’s villain as more than a capitalist vampire: I should have opted to see Nosferatu.
The soundtrack is mentionably distracting and scene-setting throughout, including a voiceover from the radio during that same period about the evils of heroin as Brody’s character stumbles along the cobblestones in the early morning light from the underground drug den—just hit us over the head with the message, will ‘ya.
Same for the denouement: ‘Lady of the Night’ plays in the background as the script gives another cinema trope: is everyone a secret gay?
Then Felicity Jones does a stellar acting job and brings us all home. She brings up a timely debate, (one could say like Tucker Carlson is just asking questions)as she states in the climax:”This country is evil.” But let’s not get cancelled or tried for treason.
Epilogue
And so we decamp abroad. Wouldn’t we all?? Venice is a welcome respite (now in epic hour three), though with continued cheesy underground club music as VistaVision cinematic shots of St. Mark’s Square and rich gondolas glide us along the famed canals of the Bienale. “No matter what the others try to say to you, it is about the destination, not the journey.”
Brutal. And A Real Pain.
