Oscar 2024: Predictions and Preference, Spoilers and Snubs

The 96^th Academy Awards are upon us, and that means it’s time for everyone to pull out their Magic 8-Balls to make their annual Oscar predictions. And with the number of guild awards that occur prior to the Oscars, it is getting so much easier to predict the winners than ever before. The Academy’s switch to ranked choice voting can sometimes create an upset or a surprise on Oscar night, but in most years there’s an air of inevitability about the proceedings.

Of course, every year there are countless masterpieces that are overlooked by the Academy for any one of a number of reasons, and every year there are films that win awards that call into question the whole process of the awards apparatus, but even with all of its faults and flaws, I still love the Oscars and enjoy the journey through cinema it sends me on each and every year.

As studios and theater push for a return to normal after the pandemic closures, due to my own health limitations and disabilities, I wasn’t able to see quite as many of the nominated films this year as usual. Four films were inaccessible to me: Io Capitano, The Boy and the Heron, Robot Dreams, and Godzilla Minus One. But all things considered, this year’s Oscar run was fairly successful.

So, I’ll try to present a brief overview of each category, my thoughts on who will win, any possible spoilers, my preference, and any film that I think should have been nominated and made the final cut.

And now, without further ado…

Best Picture

Much to my chagrin, this year is undoubtedly Oppenheimer’s year to take home the Oscar – it’s one of the safest bets you can make. I’m lukewarm about the film and don’t believe it’s Nolan’s strongest work, presenting the illusion of moral complexity while serving up a crowd-pleasing finale that absolves its protagonist of the guilt the film purports to wrestle with. And the stylistic flourishes and editing juxtapositions, when they work are lovely, but when they don’t work, serve as distractions meant to dress up what is otherwise a standard biopic.

Among the nominees, I much prefer Killers of the Flower Moon – it’s an exceptionally crafted film that is propulsive and heartbreaking at the same time. Three and a half hours fly by because of how expertly the film is structured, shot, scored, and especially performed. And it’s a film that reminds white audiences of our complicity in the horrors which have been done to Native Peoples in this country.

Complicity is also a word I’d use when reflecting on another film I’d be happy to see win, The Zone of Interest. I’m impressed that the Academy nominated a film with such a formalist approach. It’s a challenging film, mainly because the horrifying sound designed that’s juxtaposed opposite scenes of almost serene family life. It’s a film that forces us to examine our own complicity in the horrors of the world that we knowingly turn a blind eye to each and every day.

While I have a clear favorite, I would be very happy if Anatomy of a Fall wins. It’s such a precise and exacting legal thriller that explores the ways any relationship can look strange or suspect when held under a microscope – and the ways any woman who acts in a way that isn’t socially proscribed is automatically labeled as deviant or dangerous.

I do like many of the other films up for Best Picture, and I wouldn’t be heartbroken to see these come through in an upset on Oscar night. Past Lives is a tender and delicate romantic drama about choices made and lives unlived. Barbie is a wonderful comic satire exploring what it means to be a woman under the pressures of patriarchy and coming to find who your truly are. The Holdovers is a charming and deeply moving coming-of-age comedy about three souls who are stuck – emotionally as well as physically stuck together over the holidays. American Fiction is a compelling dramedy exploring race, family, and the expectations placed on Black creatives.

As for the final nominees… I normally love the films or Yorgos Lanthimos, but Poor Things is my least favorite film he’s directed. I like much about the film (its exploration of the ways men attempt to control women and their sexual agency, the performances, the design), but so many of the film’s conflicts are resolved with very little effort and it doesn’t seem to take seriously the real danger that these men actually pose to women. It’s so much of a fantasy that it loses the bite and edge that I’ve come to expect from Lanthimos’s best work.

Maestro is the film that I don’t believe should be on this list of nominees. It’s a film that doesn’t know what kind of story it wants to tell about its subject, it elides important moments in his life, and it falls into the trap of telling us key things have happened without showing us how the characters arrived there. It’s poorly constructed, poorly written, and inconsistent in its stylistic techniques.

There are films that I wish would have made the cut instead of Maestro and Oppenheimer. Origin is an outstanding look at the development of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste, and does much of what Oppenheimerattempts to do (visualize the life of the mind, of developing theories and coming to conclusions, joining the past and the present and memories together), but does so seamlessly. I would have also loved to a film like All of Us Strangers make the final list of nominees. It’s such a heartbreaking and tender film with a supernatural tint probably turned off Oscar voters.

Prediction: Oppenheimer
Spoiler: None (though there is the possibility that The Zone of Interest or Anatomy of a Fall could make it through due to the Oscar’s international voters, and Barbie has a slight chance because of people hoping to correct the Greta Gerwig snub)
Preference: Killers of the Flower Moon (though I’ll be happy with The Zone of Interest or Anatomy of a Fall)
Snubs: Swap out Oppenheimer and Maestro for Origin and All of Us Strangers, and this would be an outstanding Best Picture lineup.

Best Director

Once again, Christopher Nolan is practically a shoo-in for Oppenheimer – though I don’t believe this is his strongest work, but instead gives in to his worst tendencies as a filmmaker (needlessly convoluted story and editing structure, the desire to undercut even more intimate moments by going bigger and louder). My preference is still for Martin Scorsese and Killers of the Flower Moon – late-period Scorsese is filled with incredible meditations on the consequences of our violence against others, and here he has such a firm hand on the tone and pacing to make sure that a film this long never drags or even slows down. Jonathan Glazer also has a firm and steady hand with The Zone of Interest, using a surveillance style of filming to keep us at a remove from the performers, just as they keep themselves at a remove from the victims of their atrocities. It’s easy to underestimate the skill it takes to craft a legal thriller as skillfully as Justine Triet does with Anatomy of a Fall, but her work in building the precise rhythms of a nerve-racking trial, while never losing sight of the personal toll is takes on those involved, is incredible. While Yorgos Lanthimos certainly creates a unique and heightened fantasy world in Poor Things, it’s a film that feels far removed from his signature style and plays things far safer any of his previous work.

Of course, one of the big snubs in this category is Greta Gerwig’s direction of Barbie. Her script is incredible, but her directorial choices really bring the film to vibrant life. And Celine Song’s direction in Past Lives is exquisite, taking a very simple, quite story and telling it with such eloquence, grace, and patience. Finally, Ava DuVernay’s work in Origin is some of the best direction of the year – fluidly moving between past and present, memory and fantasy – and it really should have been recognized this year.

Prediction: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Spoiler: None (though the international voters could get Justine Triet and Anatomy of a Fall to make an upset)
Preference: Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon (though I’ll be happy in the unlikely event that The Zone of Interest or Anatomy of a Fall win)
Snubs: I’d love to see them take Nolan and Lanthimos off of this list and replace them with Gerwig for Barbieand DuVernay for Origin.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

We’re three for three with Oppenheimer here, as I’m certain that Cillian Murphy will win for his performance in the titular role. He’s very good and it will be a fine win, but at the end of the day it feels like a safe biopic performance. Paul Giamatti is playing is usual curmudgeonly character in The Holdovers, but there are so many layers and shades to his performance that I truly hope he wins. I’d be equally happy if Jeffrey Wright wins for his more restrained performance in American Fiction, a truly compelling turn playing an author in the midst of an artistic and family crisis. I’m always impressed by Coleman Domingo, and his work as a pioneering Civil Rights leader was excellent in Rustin. I’m less impressed by Bradley Cooper’s performance in Maestro, a performance that relies heavily on makeup for the act of physical transformation, and one that is often mimicry rather than inhabiting the character.

I am sad to see that Leonard DiCaprio wasn’t recognized for his excellent work in Killers of the Flower Moonplaying a ruthless and opportunist redneck who nonetheless loves his Indigenous wife – the contradictions he plays in each scene are really fantastic. And Andrew Scott is phenomenal in All of Us Strangers, playing a writer who has the opportunity to meet with his dead parents and come out to them.

Prediction: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Spoiler: Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers (though it’s highly unlikely at this point)
Preference: Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers (though I’m find with anyone winning except for Bradley Cooper)
Snubs: Replace Bradley Cooper with Leonardo DiCaprio or Andrew Scott (I’d even be okay with omitting Cillian Murphy from this list, he’s done so much better work in other films)

This is one category where my predictions and preferences line up – at this point, it looks like Lily Gladstone will win for her subtle and heartbreaking work in Killers of the Flower Moon. It’s an outstanding performance that plumbs a powerful depth and range of emotions, and without her performance, the film doesn’t have the weight needed to show us the emotional consequences of the murderers’ actions. Sandra Hüller is also outstanding in Anatomy of a Fall, walking a very fine line in portraying a character with a strong set of ethics and values, whose rigid inflexibility could very well be her undoing. Before watching Nyad, I was skeptical of Annette Bening’s inclusion among the nominees, but her performance as a prickly and insufferable athlete attempting the impossible is truly fantastic. I expected to love Emma Stone’s performance in Poor Things, and while I think she’s fine, I also think this is a case where bigger and showier acting isn’t necessarily better acting – though I do think she has the biggest chance to win over Gladstone, based on previous award wins. Carey Mulligan is the best part of Maestro, but the fragmented nature of the film’s structure means she isn’t given enough of a character arc to do more than have a few big acting moments.

I’m most upset that Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor didn’t get nominated for her extraordinary work in Origin. She effortlessly shows us the interior life of a woman working to put the pieces together of an important intellectual discovery, and she navigates joy and pain and hope and heartbreak.

Prediction: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Spoiler: Emma Stone, Poor Things
Prediction: Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon (though Sandra Hüller is also fantastic)
Snubs: Take out Carey Mulligan and replace her with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and I would be very happy.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

The Best Supporting Actor category is one of the best set of nominees this year. There are so many ways I’d love to see this end up, but this will most likely be another win for Oppenheimer. Robert Downey, Jr. turned in a solid performance and showed that he could break out of the Marvel bubble, so it’s looking like he’ll be rewarded for this transitional role. I may not have loved Poor Things, but Mark Ruffalo’s performance is so delightfully unhinged that I hope he wins for absolute insanity he brings to the screen. I would also be very happy to see Robert De Niro win for the quite menace he brings to Killers of the Flower Moon, a brilliant late career performance that has his character insinuating himself within the Osage community while manipulating others to commit terrible atrocities. Ryan Gosling provides the comic center of Barbie and is such a wonderful counterpoint to Margot Robbie, giving a lovely insecurity and vulnerability to character who becomes infected by toxic masculinity. And Sterling K. Brown is a nice foil in American Fiction, providing a comic and humane warmth to counterpose Jeffrey Wright’s prickly antagonism.

I was so sad that Charles Melton was left off the list of nominees this year – his performance in May December grounds the film in an emotional reality that is shattering and heartbreaking.

Prediction: Robert Downey, Jr., Oppenheimer
Spoiler: Ryan Gosling, Barbie (though it’s still a longshot)
Preference: Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things (though I’d be happy with most of the nominees winning in this category)
Snubs: I’d be very happy to swap out Robert Downey, Jr. and replace him with Charles Melton.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

One of the other sure-fire winners this year, also my preference, is Da’Vine Joy Randolph for her incredible work in The Holdovers. Her transformation as a grieving mother – the vocal cadence and dialect, the way she physically moves, and the way she inhabits grief – is what holds the film together. It’s beautiful work. Danielle Brooks is also extraordinary in The Color Purple, reprising her performance from the Broadway production and truly standing out amongst an incredible cast of performers. Jodie Foster helps to ground Nyad with a subtle and no-frills performance that nonetheless is anchored to caring for her friend and trying to help her achieve her dream while protecting her life. America Ferrera is lovely in Barbie, giving the film’s key monologue and making it believable and anchored in real, lived experience. The real outlier here is Emily Blunt’s nomination for Oppenheimer – like most women in Christopher Nolan films, she isn’t given much to do except get drunk and show how sad and resolved she can be.

I do wish that Julianne Moore had been nominated in this category for May December – it’s a brilliant performance that shows how someone can use fragility and weakness as a form of power.

Prediction: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Spoiler: None
Preference: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Snubs: Let’s replace Emily Blunt with Julianne Moore, and that would, again, be a great lineup.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The momentum in the Adapted Screenplay race has certainly been heading in American Fiction’s favor, but after finishing the novel, I can see the ways in which the film sands down the book’s prickliness and more incisive humor and delicate handling of themes to produce a crowd-pleasing dramedy that will appeal white liberals without forcing us to truly examine our own complicity in racist power structures. My favorite script in this category is Barbie, a stunning achievement that on the surface shouldn’t work, but manages be a feminist primer poking fun of Barbie while embracing all that Barbie can represent. The adaptation for The Zone of Interest is quite removed from the plot specifics of its source material, but it does have strong thematic ties with the book in exploring the ways individuals choose to ignore atrocity and concern themselves instead with their petty and selfish dramas. Poor Things captures the novel’s broad strokes, but while I was watching it I could feel the narrative elisions keeping the film from fully cohering – in reading the novel, I’m seeing where the cuts occurred and kept the narrative and character arcs from being as fully developed as they should have been. The adaptation of Oppenheimer was a monumental task, one that I still have reservations with as the film does more to lionize and purge Oppenheimer of his guilt than truly have us wrestle with his acts.

Missing from this list is the brilliant adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon, one that shifts the focus of the film from the nascent FBI and the author of the book to the marriage of Ernest and Mollie Burkhart and the victims of the Osage murders.

Prediction: American Fiction
Spoiler: Barbie (this is a little bit of a longshot, but hope springs eternal!)
Preference: Barbie (though I’d be very happy with The Zone of Interest winning)
Snubs: Replace Oppenheimer with Killers of the Flower Moon

Best Original Screenplay

This is another stacked category – if you were to remove Maestro from the list. At this point, it looks like Anatomy of a Fall is the frontrunner, and it’s really the best of a really stellar bunch of scripts – it’s a tightly constructed thriller that doles out information at just the right time, is filled with meaty roles… it’s an outstanding screenplay. May December hits all the right notes in its exploration of the ways the media exploits and sensationalizes tragedy. Past Lives expertly navigates the sorrows of what could have been, placing them alongside the joys of what is. The Holdovers uses familiar tropes and recontextualizes them, crafting a story that could have been told during the New American Cinema movement of the ‘70s. In a field of exceptional nominees, Maestro is the outlier – a script that deliberately elides narrative beats to present snapshots with big acting moments.

I know Wes Anderson has fallen out of favor with the Academy, but it seems impossible that his script for Asteroid City wasn’t nominated, a heartbreaking an incredibly funny film about grief, loss, and the meaning of life.

Prediction: Anatomy of a Fall
Spoiler: The Holdovers
Preference: Anatomy of a Fall (though I’d be okay with any of the scripts winning – except Maestro)
Snubs: Replace Maestro with Asteroid City

Best Cinematography

We’re back to Oppenheimer with the Oscar for Best Cinematography, and while I appreciate the Southwest vistas, the black-and-white senate hearings, and the muted East Coast tones – I find the cinematography here uninteresting, if technically strong. The cinematography for Killers of the Flower Moon is rich and vibrant, the thick darkness swallowing our antagonists, the brilliant colors capturing the life of the Osage people contrasting with the muted palate of the white interlopers – every shot helps tell the story. El Conde’s lush, black-and-white cinematography makes the film feel like a classic horror film, even as the pitch-black humor and mordant political satire places it firmly in the here and now. The cinematography for Poor Things is compelling and off-kilter, though the use of fish-eye lens is applied inconsistently throughout the film – as intriguing as the effect may be. I appreciate the textures and compositions in Maestro’s cinematography, but here’s another case where stylistic approaches to the visual language of the film are applied inconsistently across the film.

Even though the film contains a tremendous amount of artifice, the cinematography in Asteroid City is incredible, with each layer of the film’s intricate framing devices containing its own unique visual look and style.

Prediction: Oppenheimer
Spoiler: Killers of the Flower Moon
Preference: Killers of the Flower Moon (though I’d be very happy to see El Conde win)
Snubs: Swap out Maestro with Asteroid City

Best Editing

As is often the case with Oscar categories, voters tend to confuse most editing with best editing. And we’re most like to see Oppenheimer take home the award because of all the minute edits and cuts between time periods and memories within each scene – regardless of whether the juxtapositions make thematic sense or resonate with each other. I personally think that the editing in Killers of the Flower Moon is exceptional, keeping the pace and tone of the film propulsive and knowing how to manage the rhythm of a film that needs to move quickly, but then slow down and mourn the dead. Anatomy of a Fall’s editing is also guided by an expert’s hand, especially in the ways the courtroom scenes are assembled – moving from defendant to prosecutor to witness to the defendant’s child – it’s masterful. The Holdovers is a solidly assembled comedy, the edit emphasizing comic bits, meaningful reaction shots – going for the laugh or the pathos. Poor Thingshas some wonderfully edited sequences, montages that are hilarious and punctuated with a delightful gag, but it also has sequences that needed stronger shaping.

I’ll return again to the brilliance of Origin and the ways it weaves together past and present, memory and history, as a film that I believe should have been nominated for Best Editing.

Prediction: Oppenheimer
Spoiler: Anatomy of a Fall
Preference: Killers of the Flower Moon (though I’ll be very happy if Anatomy of a Fall wins)
Snubs: Replace Poor Things with Origin

Best Costume Design

The race for Best Costume Design is most likely a race between the toy-inspired accoutrements of Barbie and slightly off-kilter period trappings of Poor Things, but I do think that this is one of the categories that will go in Barbie’s favor. I definitely think it would be a wonderful winner – the contrasts between Barbieland and the real world are perfectly realized in the costuming. My choice is still Killers of the Flower Moon due to the ways they worked with the Osage people in developing period and culturally appropriate costumes, setting them in relief against (and sometimes melding them with) the costuming for the white antagonists, showing the deadly clash of cultures in the way characters dress. Poor Things has strong, memorable costumes that create a unique world and tell us that the story we’re watching is a work of fantasy, unmooring us from reality. Napoleon’s costuming may be more period specific, but the detail work for the film’s extensive cast is truly extraordinary. Oppenheimer also has incredibly detailed period costume designs, and I’m sure a close reading of the film focused on the costumes would reveal more nuances about the costume choices.

Prediction: Barbie
Spoiler: Poor Things (Oppenheimer if the film sweeps everything)
Preference: Killers of the Flower Moon (though I’ll be fine with most of the film’s winning in this category, especially Barbie)
Snubs: I didn’t see anything egregious this year.

Best Production Design

I believe the Award will once again go to Barbie – a film whose production design is so beautifully realized that it’s almost impossible to resist the joy and delight upon entering Barbieland – or the hilarious symmetry of the Mattel offices. In my preferences, I continue to lean toward Killers of the Flower Moon – the period details are vivid and striking, and the film’s production design captures class and racial disparities through the signs of distress on buildings and signifiers of wealth within white and Indigenous homes. The production design in Poor Things adds to the film’s disorienting sensibility, keeping the narrative in its own hermetically sealed world where this parable of gender dynamics can play out. Napoleon uses sets of incredible scope and scale as a way to contrast the petty impotence of the film’s central figure. With Oppenheimer’s production design, it’s easy to overlook the meticulous recreation of the Trinity testing site, Los Alamos, the congressional confirmation hearing – it’s all very solid, work.

I do find it disappointing that Asteroid City and its incredible production design wasn’t nominated – from the delightfully artificial science camp to the crater and the observatory – every meticulously designed element in the film ties together perfectly in a way that allows the characters to have their emotional revelations.

Prediction: Barbie
Spoiler: Poor Things (or, once again, Oppenheimer if there’s a sweep)
Preference: Killers of the Flower Moon
Snubs: Swap out Oppenheimer for Asteroid City

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

From the moment that the first trailer arrived, we knew that Maestro would be winning the award for best makeup – from Bradley Cooper’s nose to the old age makeup, it was a given. Even if there are times when the makeup is less convincing than others. I’d really like to see this award go to Society of the Snow, a film I didn’t love, but one that featured exception makeup and hairstyling work to show how the survivors of a plane crash were weathered and emaciated after weeks in the mountains. Oppenheimer’s makeup and hairstyling are impressively subtle – the old age work is barely perceptible, but combined with the actors’ performances, assists the film beautifully. The makeup and hairstyling in Poor Things is delightful and very fun to watch, contributing to overall tone of the film. Golda’s makeup and hairstyling are transformational, making Helen Mirren look almost exactly like Golda Meir, but it’s the type of makeup transformation that I tend find myself annoyed with in films – I don’t need total accuracy, I just need a good performance.

I don’t think there are any egregious snubs here, but I’d be happy to see Golda off the list and replaced by something with more sci-fi roots like Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.

Prediction: Maestro
Spoiler: Poor Things
Preference: Society of the Snow
Snubs: Again, nothing major, but I really disliked Golda and would have loved to see it replaced by something like Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.

Best International Feature Film

This is one of the few categories in which I haven’t been able to view all of the nominees, so my preference will come from the films I’ve seen. The International Feature Film category is stacked with incredible films – all of the ones I’ve seen are either solid or incredibly strong. I do believe that, with multiple other nominations this year, the winner will be The Zone of Interest, a well-deserved win for an incredible film. I was also quite taken with The Teachers’ Lounge, a gripping workplace thriller about an idealistic teacher trying look out for the well-being of her student while larger systemic issues (and her own naivete) create chaos on campus. Perfect Daysis a beautiful, deceptively simple film about an older man who lives a life of routine, taking pride in his work, and the individuals who interrupt that routine in beautiful and unexpected ways. Society of the Snow tells the story of a Uruguayan ruby team that crashes in the Andres and must survive in a harsh and unforgiving environment – there are wonderfully poetic touches throughout the film, but with such a large cast, the filmmaker don’t do enough to differentiate the individuals and make the losses and meaningful as they should be. I’m really looking forward to Io Capitano, I’ve appreciated the director’s previous films, and this fairy tale the explores Europe’s immigration crisis looks incredible.

I wish we’d have more representation from across the globe in this category – a film like the gorgeous Mami Wata would have been a great substitution for Society of the Snow.

Prediction: The Zone of Interest
Spoiler: Perfect Days
Preference: The Zone of Interest
Snubs: Swap out Society of the Snow with Mami Wata

Best Animated Film

Here’s another category where a few of the titles have been inaccessible to me. I do believe that regardless, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be the winning film in animation – it’s won most of the awards it’s been up for and it’s a solid sequel, even if the narrative is little more convoluted and messier than its predecessor. Out of the films I’ve seen, I’d prefer to see Nimona win the award – it was such a surprising and delightful film with lovely animation and a wonderful message about moving away from fear and toward acceptance and understanding. I appreciated the exploration of immigrant families in Elemental, but it’s all wrapped up in a standard Pixar story with predictable story beats. I’m really looking forward to both The Boy and the Heron and Robot Dreams, two animated films that are not part of the American animation system and look to be much richer and more thematically resonant than some of the American offerings – especially the Miyazaki film.

Prediction: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Spoiler: The Boy and the Heron
Preference: Nimona
Snubs: I know there are a few animated films that folks were hoping to see on this list, but I haven’t been able to see them yet, so I’ll reserve judgment until then.

Best Documentary – Feature Film

This is a pretty stacked category, and it’s nice to see a category filled with international documentary titles rather than the safe (and frankly boring) American titles that were expected to make it into the category this year. The presumptive winner is 20 Days in Mariupol, a harrowing look at the war in Ukraine – the footage is incredible and difficult to watch, but I’m not as sold on the voice-over narration and some of the early framing, which I think undercuts the dramatic power of the footage that’s been captured. My preference would be Four Daughters, a brilliantly constructed documentary about a woman who lost two daughters to radical Islam, using actors and recreation to uncover her own culpability and the ways she was part of the system that led them to their decisions – it’s an incredibly moving, heartbreaking film. I was also deeply moved by The Eternal Memory, a lovely reflection on aging and Alzheimer’s, following a prominent Chilean couple intimately as they grapple with the changes in their life circumstances. To Kill a Tiger is a riveting and devastating film that follows a father in a small Indian village seeking justice after his daughter was raped – while everyone else in the village wants him to move past the crime. Finally, there’s much that I appreciate in Bobi Wine: The People’s President – it’s a compelling political documentary – but because the filmmakers are so embedded with Bobi and his campaign, there’s much of the story that is missing, and it feels more like a piece of propaganda than a documentary.

I am very sad that one of my favorite documentaries, and one of my favorite films, of the year, The Mother of All Lies, was missing from this lineup. A young filmmaker brings together her family and former neighbors to use models and puppets in order to recreate their past and shed a light on the abuses of their government and her grandmother. It’s an outstanding film.

Prediction: 20 Days in Mariupol
Spoiler: Four Daughters
Preference: Four Daughters
Snubs: Replace Bobi Wine with The Mother of All Lies

Best Documentary – Short Subject

I’ve already written extensively about all of the nominees here, but I believe that, due to the Academy’s focus on issues rather than the quality of the filmmaking when it comes to documentaries, they will most likely go for The ABCs of Book Banning.

Best Music – Original Score

After listening to the nominees for Best Original Score, I really do think that the winner should be clear, but I’m pretty certain this will be another win for Oppenheimer, even though the score is essentially just Hans Zimmer-lite (who himself is often just Philip Glass-lite). There are a few nice touches – creating the sound of the atom smashing in music is one – and I appreciate that it isn’t slavish when it comes to period specificity, but this isn’t a particularly memorable score. I do think that Robbie Robertson’s score for Killers of the Flower Moon is exceptional – it’s propulsive and, along with the editing, helps move the film forward. The blending and contrast between traditional Native American music and instrumentation and white Americana and folk music shows the competing forces at work within the community. The score for American Fiction is surprisingly complex – weaving together soft and melodic jazz and moves into dissonance as the film’s protagonist comes to crisis points in the film. Poor Things uses traditional instrumentation from the period to create something strange and uncanny – almost fractured – in keeping with the sideways and fractured world onscreen. The worst score of the list is John Williams’s score for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, a score which recycles material from Williams’s other (better) scores and fundamentally misunderstands leading characters in the film.

Prediction: Oppenheimer
Spoiler: Killers of the Flower Moon
Preference: Killers of the Flower Moon
Snubs: I’m sure there were some better scores out there to replace Indiana Jones and Oppenheimer, but I’d need to watch some of this year’s films with the score in mind.

Best Music – Original Song

It’s pretty much a given that one of the songs from Barbie will end up winning the race for Best Song, but my money’s on “What Was I Made For?” It’s a song that speaks to the heart of the film, that is heartfelt and deeply moving, and will be a wonderful and well-deserved win for the film. I’d love to see “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from Killers of the Flower Moon win the award – it’s a song from the Osage people about connecting to the past and about remaining and resilience in the face of adversity. As much as the other song from Barbieis its heart and soul, “I’m Just Ken” is an absolute delight, and while it’s a simple song without much substance, it will be fun to watch Ryan Gosling perform it at the awards. “It Never Went Away” from American Symphony is a lovely song that speaks to the resilience of love in the face of adversity, one of the film’s core themes. And finally, we have the obligatory Diane Warren song, “The Fire Inside,” a forgettable pop song from the forgettable Flamin’ Hot.

I’m very sad that “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)” from Asteroid City was cut from this list in favor of the obligatory Diane Warren nomination. It’s a much better song that is beautifully incorporated into the film and speaks to its existential anxiety.

Prediction: “What Was I Made For?”
Spoiler: “I’m Just Ken”
Preference: “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)”
Snubs: Cut “The Fire Inside” and add in “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)”

Best Sound

While Best Sound often goes to the loudest or biggest sound, I do think that the sound this year will go to The Zone of Interest, whose intricate and horrifying sound design was essential in conveying the horrors of the Holocaust and juxtaposing it with the scenes of idyllic family life. The sound in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning is impressive work, melding the action, dialogue, and score into a pulse-pounding adventure mix. I’m not as fond of Maestro’s mix – yes, the orchestra mixing is important, but it doesn’t set it apart from the other nominees. The Creator does serviceable mixing and sound effects work for a subpar sci-fi film, but there’s nothing that really remarkable about what it does. Oppenheimer does have some remarkable sound design, but like all Christopher Nolan films, the ham-fisted dialogue is buried by the punishing sound mix.

Prediction: The Zone of Interest
Spoiler: Oppenheimer
Preference: The Zone of Interest
Snubs: There are plenty of solid films with good sound design that could have made the cut, but The Zone of Interest is heads and tails above them all.

Best Visual Effects

This is the final category in which I’ve missed a nominee – and I’m pretty certain that it’s the film that will win for Best Visual Effects. The story is compelling (they accomplished great effects on a tiny budget, it’s a first nomination, etc.) and it really seems like a well-deserved and timely win for Godzilla Minus One. Out of the films I’ve seen, I keep going back-and-forth on a couple of the nominees, but I’ll finally land on Napoleon. The visual effects are seamless and so well integrated with the production design and costumes that it helps to provide the film’s sense of scale (and Napoleon’s violent rage). I’m also impressed by the mix of practical and digital effects used in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning to convey the breathtaking stunts and death-defying action sequences. And I fully enjoyed the effects used in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 – while they were mostly CGI, they were some of the most effective I’ve seen in a blockbuster in years. The Creator does have some effective, low-budget effect, though the film wasn’t very good and that may have biased me against its nominations.

It would have been nice to see Poor Things get a nomination in this category – the effects work is really a tremendous part of the entire world-building effect.

Prediction: Godzilla Minus One
Spoiler: The Creator
Preference: Napoleon
Snubs: Swap out The Creator with Poor Things

Best Animated Short Film

I’ve already written extensively about the animated short films. I think War Is Over will be the winner – mainly due to the involvement of John and Yoko’s son and the pedigree of the creators behind the film.

Best Live Action Short Film

As before, you can see my thoughts about the live action shorts in my previous post. But here, I believe that Wes Anderson’s establishment as a director will work against him, and I believe that that award will, unfortunately, go to The After.

Oscars 2024: The Oscar Nominated Short Films

Every year when the Oscar nominations roll around, my favorite categories to check are the short film nominees – Best Documentary Short Subject, Best Short Film (Animated), and Best Short Film (Live Action). While these are all titles that made the Academy Awards’ Shortlist earlier in the season, these tend to be some of the most unpredictable nominees of the ceremony. They are also notoriously difficult to predict. I don’t care who is telling they have the answer, with the short films, there are almost always surprises.

This year’s nominees are a mixed bag – there are a few incredibly strong standouts in each category, and even one or two masterpieces among them, but there are a fair number of dreadful choices this year as well.

Best Documentary Short Subject

I really wanted Sheila Nevins’s The ABCs of Book Banning to be a much better than it was. I agree with everything the filmmakers are trying to convey, but the methods they use aren’t effective. By showing the books that have been banned, challenged, or restricted without context for why those challenges have been issued, the filmmakers have done a grave disservice to the viewers. We’re left to interpret the reasons a particular book has been challenged, based on what we know of the content and the author’s identity. But there are times these bans are for reasons that are not immediately obvious. So, while I enjoyed hearing from the students who were touched and moved by these banned books, the structure and omission of essential facts makes the film come across as misleading propaganda – propaganda from a side I happen to agree with, but propaganda, nonetheless.

John Hoffman and Christine Turner’s The Barber of Little Rock is a hopeful and inspiring portrait of one man’s attempt to make changes within his community through education and making the systems of finance more accessible within the Black community. It’s beautifully shot, filled with compelling interviews, and lays out intriguing methods for change within historically oppressed and marginalized communities. As part of Turner’s overall project of documenting Black lives making an impact within their community – through art or activism, through care or compassion – this is a really lovely addition to an already impressive body of short documentaries.

Leo Chiang’s Island in Between is an intriguing short documentary about the Taiwanese islands of Kinmen just two miles off the coast of mainland China, and the tensions residents face in navigating a fraught political situation. Chiang gracefully explores the complexities of Taiwanese feelings about China – from the hopes for reunification to the defiance of any perceived Chinese aggression, any everything in between. The film could have benefited from a slightly tighter structure grounding the disparate threads, but even so, it’s still a compelling work of short nonfiction.

Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers’s The Last Repair Shop is a profoundly moving short documentary. It’s especially effective in the ways it moves between student and instrument repair person, looking at the kids who need the repair services, while really digging deep into the histories of those whose labor is often invisible to us. The individual narratives within the film are varied and move from the poignant to the hilarious, and the overall impact is incredibly powerful. The filmmakers’ choices around identifying some musicians and leaving others anonymous in the final recording session is mystifying, blunting the emotional impact of what should be a stirring finale. That’s a minor complaint, but it stands out in a short that is otherwise magnificent.

Sean Wang’s Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó is such a charming and enjoyable little doc. While the subject may not cover wide-ranging, major social issues, it is a poignant look at aging and what it takes for elderly folks to be able to live independently. There’s a liveliness and vivacious energy to the two grandmothers in this film that is a joy to watch, and the editing and camera work match their wry sense of humor. At the same time, the film never loses sight of their sense of mortality and the painful losses they’ve felt. This is a wonderful short documentary.

Prediction: The ABCs of Book Banning
Spoiler: The Last Repair Shop
Preference: The Last Repair Shop (though I’d be happy if The Barber of Little Rock or Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó won as well)

Best Short Film (Animated)

Tal Kantor’s Letter to a Pig is an absolutely stunning animated short. The animation is gorgeous and haunting, a reflection on a what a Holocaust survivor went through o escape the Nazi’s. But the story quickly turns into something darker and more menacing as the film reflects on the ways the oppressed can become oppressors, the ways that the traumas of the past can make us hardened and cruel, passed down through the generations – all told through beautiful and surreal animation.

The use of fabric textures as part of the animation is stunning in Yegane Moghaddam’s Our Uniform. It helps tell the story of enforced clothing restrictions growing up as a girl in Iran. The narrative may be slight, but the exploration of clothing as an extension of identity is beautifully rendered – as are the ways that more patriarchal and restrictive communities and cultures use clothing to restrict and tamp down women and girl’s identities and individuality. This is a very compelling piece of short animation.

Stéphanie Clément’s Pachyderm is a stunning memory film that follows a young woman reflecting on childhood vacations spent with her grandparents. The animation is truly wondrous, and the narrative continues to grow and evolve until we understand the scope of the story and the hidden truths behind the narrator’s childhood fears. It’s an incredibly beautiful and absolutely haunting film.

Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess’s Ninety-Five Senses is a solid animated short that uses multiple animators employing different styles for each segment exploring the body’s senses. The film carries us along its spare narrative by slowly opening itself and revealing more and more about the narrator with each subsequent lesson about the senses. The film makes a significant misstep in attempting to force the audience to have more sympathy for a man who has committed terrible violence on others than those he inflicted that violence upon. It keeps what could have been a truly heartbreaking film about consequences and the mistakes of our past from fully landing.

Dave Mullins’s WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko is a wretched work of nepotism. The trench warfare, the pigeon passing chess moves between enemy lines, the battle… While it’s competently constructed, it all smacks of cheap sentimentality. And when the John and Yoko song comes on – a song that doesn’t fit with anything we’ve just seen – it’s saccharine and emotionally manipulative. None of these elements work together – the World War I setting, the comic beat, the carnage and brutality, especially the song… And yet, because it appeals to Boomer nostalgia and viewer sentimentality, it receives award nominations.

Prediction: War Is Over
Spoiler: None
Preference: Letter to a Pig (though I’d be very happy is Pachyderm or Our Uniform won)

Misan Harriman’s The After is an abysmal short film. Opening with a horrific act of violence is one thing but staging it in such a clumsy and insensitive way shows a profound lack of awareness and understanding of trauma on the part of the filmmaker – an understanding that this film is purportedly attempting to foster. The middle section of the film is where it’s the strongest, dipping in and out of passengers’ lives, all of whom are unaware of the pain that their driver is carrying (though every scene in which he is alone is shot like music video or the “before” scene in a car commercial). But the ending is the real clincher – it once again shows a profound lack of understanding about how people process and move through trauma and grief. This is a wretched film.

Vincent René-Lortie’s Invincible is a solid enough short film, even if the narrative bookends don’t completely work – foreshadowing the ending the way it does may create a sense of doom, but it also undercuts all subsequent sequences in which the protagonist makes any real progress. It also leaves us questioning many of the assumptions the narrative makes – that the protagonist is the one and only kid in this reform program who shows real potential for change, the one with a natural talent for poetry… There’s no real exploration of why he leaves the program, what behavior got him sent to the reform program in the first place – just that he’s a brilliant but troubled kid who wants to leave. It’s beautifully shot and well-performed, but it merely skims the surface.

Lasse Lyskjær Noer’s Knight of Fortune is an incredibly charming short exploring grief and loss, what it means to let go someone you love. The performances in here are all wonderful, and the narrative twist at the film’s midpoint is delightful. This is the type of short that could have easily become too saccharine or mawkish. But it consistently uses droll humor to undercut cheap sentimentality and come to a genuinely moving ending about the need to let go. This is a really wonderful little film.

Politically, I agree with everything that Nazrin Choudhury’s Red, White and Blue is trying to say – and the film is even very well-acted and decently shot and constructed. But this is a film that is so clearly constructed as a piece of propaganda that, when the “shocking” twist happens toward the end of the film, it left such a sour taste in my mouth. This is blatant emotional manipulation, a commercial for abortion rights in a time when all rights are being stripped away, using the crassest possible tools to shock people into supporting the cause. And as others have said, we need to be telling the stories of ordinary women who are being denied abortions, not just sensationalizing the issue by highlighting the most extreme cases. This is an exploitive film that does nothing to truly further the cause.

Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is a masterful and inventive adaptation of literature, incorporating prose into the performers’ dialogue and performances, utilizing the trapping of the proscenium stage with set pieces that roll into place, emphasizing the artifice of the production, the tools and tricks of filmmaking and theatrical staging. And the artifice only heightens the emotional power of the central narrative, a redemption story told through multiple narrative digressions buried within narrative digressions. It all moves so fast that by the time we realize what Anderson is doing, it’s too late and we find ourselves caught off-guard by the emotional power and resonance of the story. This is a beautiful, wondrous little film.

Prediction: The After
Spoiler: I’d love to see The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar win, but I don’t think the Academy voters will give Wes Anderson an award for a category they feel is for beginning filmmakers, so I think, unfortunately, the spoiler will be something like Red, White and Blue.
Preference: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

While you can find some of the films on various streaming platforms right now, all of the short films are available as part of the 19th Annual Oscar Nominated Short Film releases, presented by ShortsTV. You can find a theater playing the programs near you at http://www.shorts.tv/theoscarshorts.

The animated shorts program also include two highly commended shorts, Wild Summon and I’m Hip.

Karni Arieli and Saul Freed’s Wild Summon is an incredibly inventive and truly harrowing animated short. Personifying the life cycle of wild salmon by transforming them into human figures swimming through creeks and streams, making their way to the ocean and back to their spawning grounds, underscores how difficult their lives are and how horrific human treatment of animals can truly be. The blend of live-action and animation is stunning and leaves us reflecting on questions of intelligence and suffering within the animal kingdom.

John Musker’s I’m Hip is a perfectly pleasant music/comedic short taking aim at those who wear their sense of being cool and hip on their sleeve – the insufferable pretentiousness that can be found in college dorms, coffee shops, or anywhere men are eager to over-explain things to anyone eager to listen. It’s all pretty surface-level satire, and the joke begins to wear thin after first minute and a half. But it’s fun for the most part.

2024 Online Sundance Film Festival: Day Two

I began my second day of the online edition of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival by finishing out the animated short film package I had started on the first day and continuing on with four more feature films touching on themes of grief and connection, technology and authenticity. After getting a little waylaid my first day with a broken projector and household errands, day two allowed me to finally feel like the festival was finally under way.

Starting off with the four feature films…

Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain is a far richer and much more moving film than I first expected. It understands the ways in which mental health, grief, and generational trauma can intersect and manifest within people in vastly different ways – sometimes in ways that can cause jealousy or bitterness to creep into relationships. Revisiting the past to begin healing the present (or at least to begin making things better for the next generation) is a beautiful, subtle thread that runs throughout. Connection and reconnection are shown to be the way to find your way through your pain, no matter how raw or how unremarkable it may seem. And the ways that the film captures real places, letting us sit with a past that has been erased or papered over, is incredibly powerful. All this, and it still manages to be an incredibly funny film with great performances from the entire cast.

Thea Hvistendahl’s Handling the Undead is a masterfully constructed, slow-burn of a horror film. I love the way it uses the narrative trappings of the zombie genre to explore grief, loss, and what it means to let go of (or try to hold onto) those you love. Told in three intersecting stories, all three narrative strands are exceptionally compelling, each dealing with different periods in the loss of a loved one. There’s a subtlety to all the performances that keeps the film emotionally grounded – especially helpful when the dead are literally coming back to life onscreen. The score is equally subtle, creating a quiet eeriness that works hand-in-hand with the unsettling visuals – low light and obstructed views keep us wary and afraid that something in lurking in the hidden spaces on screen. And yet, in the midst of the film’s disturbing beauty is a hope that keeps it from ever tipping into absolute despair.

Sam and Andy Suchero’s Love Me, the story of a weather buoy and a satellite falling in love, ended up being one of the most divisive films at this year’s Sundance, and I can totally understand why this wouldn’t work for everyone. But I was completely onboard from the film’s opening few seconds as the filmmakers show us the history of the Earth (the Big Bang through humanity obliterating ourselves) in hilarious Timelapse stop motion. The mix of techniques – computer animation, internet clips, live actors – creates a truly unique viewing experience as the film interrogates personal authenticity in an age where everything is posed and edited for public presentation. And by overlaying our own anxieties onto the technology we create, the film asks intriguing questions about the ethical responsibilities we have toward artificial intelligence and the information we send out into the world that will outlive us all.

Jazmin Jones’s Seeking Mavis Beacon is an exceptional documentary exploring the ways tech companies exploit the images and likenesses of Black bodies for profit without fairly compensating individuals, while at the same time acknowledging that these products end up providing much-needed representation for Black children. The film takes on the form of a detective story as Jones and her creative partner attempt to track down the model for the Mavis Beacon typing software, but their investigation has them exploring the nature of privacy, the gendered and racialized development of voice assistants, and what it means to ease yourself digitally. The filmmakers practice incredible transparency throughout the filmmaking process, and the use of archival material is outstanding. This is a film with so much on its mind that it can feel a bit muddled by the end, but anchoring the narrative in the participants and their personal journey keeps this more experimental documentary grounded.

Finally, some quick takes on the animated shorts…

- - Daniel Zvereff’s Drago is comprised of gorgeous, hand drawn animation that conveys such a depth of emotion with each brushstroke we see, each shudder of the frame. It’s a simple, but deeply moving story of refugees relocating and building a new life for themselves – even if it isn’t the life they had planned.
  - I can appreciate the craft and the surreal imagery at play in Kerstin Zemp and Bianca Caderas’s Matta and Matto. I can even appreciate the central idea that we long for human connection so much that we’re willing to sacrifice just about anything to make those connections. But the film is a thinly veiled COVID/anti-mask/anti-precaution metaphor. As someone who is medically vulnerable, who continues to be as high risk, who cannot just go out drop all my precautions because I face the very real possibility of death or further disability, I find this kind of patronizing filmmaking and propaganda to be incredibly frustrating and deeply offensive – no matter the skill or craft on display.
  - Maks Rzontkowski’s Martyr’s Guidebook has a playful and cheeky tone throughout as it examines the ways we’re encouraged to sacrifice and martyr ourselves, to help others at the expense of our own needs so we can be a “good” person. The animation has a low-res, computer-generated quality mixed with the color saturation and image softness of 1960s Eastern European animation – making this work of magical realism feel like a fable from another time.
  - Catapreta’s Dona Beatriz Ñsîmba Vita makes fascinating use of surrealism to retell a historical narrative, looking at the ways revolutionary leaders sacrifice themselves for their people. I appreciated the ghostly imagery used to depict the white oppressors and the solidity given to Dona Beatriz and her copies. I do think the film is missing some of the connective tissue that would help it hit on a deeper level.
  - I love the mix of stop-motion and painted animation in Alisi Telengut’s Baigal Nuur – Lake Baikal, retelling of the formation of Lake Baikal. And pairing the gorgeous imagery with words from an endangered Mongolian dialect adds to the film’s beauty and poignancy.
  - I normally have problems with animated shorts that are tests of animation software – seeing how far you can push it until it breaks down. Takeshi Murata and Christopher Rutledge’s Larry worked a bit better for me than most because of the extreme anxiety these animation loops create – we want to see Larry be able to waddle down the hall without breaking down or getting held back by an infinite number of his doubles. But he’s forever stuck.
  - Flóra Anna Buda’s 27 is an outstanding short exploring the feelings of malaise for young adults living in a capitalist economy in which there are few economic prospects. The film captures the rich inner life of a young woman – her fears and anxieties, her fantasies and insecurities. And the animation is stunning.

2024 Online Sundance Film Festival: Day One

This is my third year attending the Sundance Film Festival online. The first year they made their offerings available virtually I was beginning to address the health issues that would later necessitate that I attend Sundance, or indeed, any festival or film screening, remotely for the foreseeable future. But I started attending religiously during its second online year, and even in these past two years with slightly limited remote viewing options, it’s still the best virtual festival around for those of us with medical vulnerabilities and disabilities that keep us from other festivals. As most festivals across the country are closing or limiting their virtual offerings, Sundance still offers virtual screenings for all of their competition titles, short films, and a handful of other titles that the either the filmmakers or the distributors want to ensure receive the widest exposure possible.

Despite some technical difficulties on this first day of the online festival – of course my projector bulb would explode at the start of Sundance! – I was able to get my viewing schedule back on track with offerings from the NEXT section, the World Dramatic Competition, a Premiere, and the start of my look at short films at the festival. NEXT has often been one of the most intriguing sections at Sundance, narratively daring work that pushes the boundaries of what cinema is capable. I discover some of my favorite films each year in the World Dramatic section, so the titles here are always ones that I look forward to seeing. And premieres are often the buzzier films of the festival – big name directors or stars launching or attempting to sell their films for the first time.

Jack Begert’s Little Death (from the NEXT section) has an incredibly fascinating structure. The film is a narrative diptych exploring addiction, the pursuit of authenticity, and interpersonal relationships through two tonally disparate sections. In the first story, a screenwriter’s inability to face his own role in his growing unhappiness (not to mention his misogyny and his constant grievances) keep him locked away from any possibility of change. In the second story, two young adults caught up in unexpected violence discover the possibility for second chances through empathy and connection. One story uses surreal touches (including computer and AI-generated animation) to place us inside the character’s neurotic headspace. The other story is far more grounded and naturalistic, albeit with touches of comedy and absurdism. The two pieces may not fully fit together, but it’s certainly an intriguing experience.

Daniel Hoesl and Juliane Niemann’s Veni Vidi Vici (from the World Competition) is a ruthlessly dark comedy about the ways in which the wealthy are able to prey upon society. The film is filled with absolutely striking visual compositions – brilliant and eye-catching color (or the absence of it), the use of static frames and precise staging to suggest the film’s varying levels of power and hierarchy. Because the narrative is so firmly situated from the point of view of the rich family, we’re never given the victim’s perspective, and the film is missing some of the pointed class critique that it seems to be attempting. When it comes to examining systems that enable the wealthy to maintain their power, it’s just scratching the surface. Still, there are some pointed jabs at the ways the wealthy attempt to shape society and pass their own warped and twisted family values (mainly their entitlement) on to their children. It’s a very enjoyable, if deeply flawed satire.

Josh Margolin’s Thelma is an absolutely charming action/comedy about a 93-year-old woman determined to retrieve the $10,000 scammers stole from her. From the pitch-perfect score and the brilliant editing rhythms to the delightful ways action movie tropes are reimagined for the nonagenarian set, the film is such a lovely viewing experience. June Squibb is magnificent in the titular role, exuding a fierce, prickly independence that is contrasted by the warmth and kindness she can show her grandson (and strangers on the street she is certain she’s met before). The film also manages to provide a thoughtful meditation on aging (and the limitations that come with it) without ever getting maudlin. What a wonderful film.

From the shorter side of things, today I caught Phoebe Jane Hart’s Bug Diner, a clever and funny, crude and yet tender work of short animation. The animation is wonderful, the pacing and quick cuts are fantastic. However, once the main joke of the film is revealed, the short quickly overstays its welcome, but it’s still thoroughly entertaining.

Kokomo City (2023) | Directed by D. Smith

D. Smith’s Kokomo City, a documentary about Black transgender sex workers, opens with a story from Liyah, one of the film’s participants, about a client who came to see her, only for her to discover that he was carrying a gun. She wrestles the gun from him and forces him to leave her home before learning that he’s a well-known rapper in the Atlanta area carrying the weapon for protection. She immediately texts him back and asks him if he wants to come back over. And Liyah’s entire retelling is punctuated with quick cuts to recreations of the story – a choice that energizes the storytelling and enhances Liyah’s inherent humor.

This brilliant opening sets the tone of Kokomo City right at the start. This is a film that is playful and funny, frank and heartfelt. The four trans women who open their lives up for the film are refreshingly honest about their lives as trans sex workers. There’s no romanticization, but at no time does the film dip into trauma tourism either. Smith shows the mundane sides of these women’s lives, from putting on makeup and getting dressed to simply spending time with friends. But there is also so much joy captured by Smith’s stunning black-and-white cinematography. We see the film’s participants celebrating their communities, their romantic relationships, and the comfort they feel with themselves as they move through the world.

The film also explores transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny within the Black community through a series of interviews with Black men about their relationships with trans women. This provides Kokomo City with an important perspective, finding deep insecurity beneath layers of hatred and abuse. Daniella, one of the films participants, explains that the men she sleeps with are there to exploit trans women, to fetishize them. And the film never shies away from this exploitation and fetishization, the abuse or the danger that these women find themselves in through the course of their work. Some of the stories that the participants tell are harrowing, heartbreaking – but Smith is careful to never allow us to believe that the trauma and the pain is all there is to these women.

In the end, Kokomo City is vibrant, joyous, and fully alive – much like the women who participated in its making. Between the conversations with Black trans sex workers, the recreations of stories from the women, and the interviews with those on the periphery of the sex work, we’re left with an honest and frank portrait of the life these women lead – their struggles, but especially their hopes, dreams, and joys.

Where to Watch

Four Daughters (2023) | Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania

Nearly an hour into Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, one of the actors hired to perform in the film’s reenactment with Olfa Hamrouni and her two youngest daughters, Eya and Tayssir Chikhaoui, calls for the cameras to stop rolling and asks for a private conversation with Hania about the scene. Eya expresses her frustration to the camera. Why should he be worried about the scene and how it will affect her when she’s already processed these moments with mental health professionals? She has even engaged in this type of role play as part of her therapy.

This brief scene gets to the heart of the unique cinematic experience that is Hania’s Four Daughters. Much like the documentaries of Robert Greene, Hania uses interview, conversation, recreation, and interactions between the actors and the participants as a form of cinematic therapy for Olfa and her two daughters as they explore the disappearance of the family’s oldest two daughters/sisters, Ghofrane and Rahma. Actors are brought to fill in for the missing daughters, to play the roles of various men enforcing the rigid patriarchal systems of oppression these women and girls faced, and to play Olfa herself when the scenes’ emotions become too intense to bear. The playfulness of acting exercises (there are wonderfully warm and tender sequences between Eya, Tayssir, and the two actresses portraying their sisters) and the technical craft of rehearsal creates an open space for tremendous emotional release and revelation.

Even amid verité shots of rehearsal and conversation, off-the-cuff conversations and interviews, Hania and her cinematographer, Farouk Laaridh, capture stunning images, wrapped in the lush blue-green color palette of the film’s interiors. The use of mirrors throughout provides strong thematic resonances, especially in an early sequence showing Hend Sabry, the actress portraying Olfa, looking into a mirror and rehearsing her “character’s” mannerisms. The film holds a mirror up to Olfa, exploring her relationship with all her children, and in coming to understand and portray her during this series of reenactments, Hend becomes the individual most able to provide that reflection.

In fact, this reflection is part of what makes Four Daughters so compelling. The relationship between Olfa and her children is marked by patterns of generational abuse under patriarchal systems and the ways survivors seek escape from their torment. By portraying Olfa in the reenactments, Hend is able to gently challenge the mother when the film explores how Olfa’s own religious fundamentalism has disastrous consequences in her daughters’ lives. And when the standard teenage methods of rebellion didn’t work, the daughters chose an even more extreme form of fundamentalism to gain power within their family system, leading to tragedy.

Four Daughters may be a difficult and heartbreaking watch, but this journey into healing and understanding is so beautiful and deeply moving.

Where to Watch

Criterion Channel Surfing, Episode 60: Ishirō Honda’s Kaiju Cinema – Part Three

Critic and YouTube creator Celeste de la Cabra joins Josh for a journey into the Criterion Channel’s permanent, streaming-only library, and conclude their conversation about the films of Japanese filmmaker and the master of kaiju cinema, Ishirō Honda.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode Links

Where to Find Us Online

- - Celeste de la Cabra: Patreon | YouTube | Letterboxd | Instagram
  - Josh Hornbeck: Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd
  - Criterion Channel Surfing: Facebook | Twitter
  - Logo by Doug McCambridge: DPM Designs | Good Times, Great Movies | Schitt’s and Giggles | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd

Support the Show

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Criterion Channel Surfing, Episode 59: The Films of Carlos Saura – Part 3

Friend-of-the-show Michael Hutchins returns for a deep dive into the Criterion Channel’s permanent, streaming-only library, and a conversation about three films from Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura – Cousin Angelica, Elisa, Vida Mía, and Los Ojos Vendados.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode Links

Where to Find Us Online

- - Michael Hutchins: Letterboxd
  - Josh Hornbeck: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd
  - Criterion Channel Surfing: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
  - Logo by Doug McCambridge: DPM Designs | Good Times, Great Movies | Schitt’s and Giggles | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd

Support the Show

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Criterion Channel Surfing, Episode 58: Ishirō Honda’s Kaiju Cinema – Part Two

Critic and YouTube creator Celeste de la Cabra joins Josh for a journey into the Criterion Channel’s permanent, streaming-only library, and a conversation about three films from Japanese filmmaker and the master of kaiju cinema, Ishirō Honda.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode Links

Where to Find Us Online

- - Celeste de la Cabra: YouTube | Letterboxd | Instagram
  - Josh Hornbeck: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd
  - Criterion Channel Surfing: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
  - Logo by Doug McCambridge: DPM Designs | Good Times, Great Movies | Schitt’s and Giggles | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd

Support the Show

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Criterion Channel Surfing, Episode 57: The Films of Carlos Saura – Part 2

Friend-of-the-show Michael Hutchins returns for a deep dive into the Criterion Channel’s permanent, streaming-only library, and a conversation about the next three films from Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura.