The Lost Bus - 1 Nomination

 

• Best Achievement in Visual Effects: Charlie Noble, David Zaretti, Russell Bowen, Brandon K. McLaughlin

The fires in Paradise, CA were devastating on so many levels but there is at least one story that I didn’t know prior to this film, and that follows a school bus driver and a teacher who escorted a group of children away from and through the fires. I don’t know the extent to which the film is accurate, but the portrayal in the film shows obstacle after obstacle getting in the way of this one bus with terrified children and two adults who were prepared to do all they could to rescue them. It is an edge of your seat movie which America Ferrera and Matthew McConaghey ably lead, but as the Oscar nomination indicates, the star of the film is indeed what is accomplished through the visual effects. They make the impact that movies like Towering Inferno made in the 70s, and it is just the slightest of exaggeration to say that you can almost feel the heat on the bus. Without the extraordinary effects, this film is really nothing and there is a scene so powerful toward the end of the film that even knowing the outcome of the reality the movie is based on does nothing to mitigate the tension and the fear drummed up by the screenplay.

This movie is hardly a “do not miss under any circumstances,” but it was very good and worth a Saturday night if you’re looking for something to watch.

The Perfect Neighbor - 1 nomination

 

• Best Documentary Feature: Geeta Gandbhir, Alisa Payne, Nikon Kwantu, Sam Bisbee

If you’re a big fan of true crime, you’ll love this one. A woman lives in a communal area where children run around the yard and play and laugh and live life. She doesn’t love the neighbor kids and she constantly yells at them, throws things at them, and generally harasses them. But over time, she ratchets up the abuse, takes an ipad, and over and over again, their parents come to ask her to stop overstepping. These are, after all, children playing in the yard - not at 2 a.m. but whenever they were outside. And at some point, one of the moms goes over to talk, and she pulls a gun and kills her. This being a “stand your ground” state, she figures she can claim that she was afraid and get away with wielding a deadly weapon and murdering a neighbor without consequence.

This excellent documentary asks us to think about what justice means, how communities come together and support one another, and the difficult conversation about race and what people assume they will and won’t get away with. Even if you doubt any disparity in the justice system for different people, you have to ask the question, why might I be nervous that a murderer won’t be held accountable in a situation like this?

Mr. Nobody Against Putin - 1 Nomination

 

• Best Documentary Feature: Helle Faber, Alzbeta Karaskova, Pavel Talankin, David Borenstein

Victor Abakumov is a beloved teacher in a small town in Russia. The kids hang out in his office. The “weirdos” find their place and their voice with him. He is one of those teachers who goes the extra mile because he genuinely loves what he does and the children under his care. But he is not a fan of Putin’s and proudly hangs the flag of resistance in his office. When his job is slowly taken over by near constant filming of teachers and uploading them so that the state can make sure that teachers are teaching a pro-Russian curriculum (obviously full of insane revisionist history), he becomes more and more disillusioned and in more and more personal danger. He volunteers to discreetly smuggle all of his footage of the propagandizing out to journalists in England, and that is primarily how this footage becomes a documentary film. Along the way, he sets up personal testimonies about loving Russia but hating the war, hating the administration and Putin, and dearly hoping that someone will come along to intervene, and hoping that the children he cared so much about will stop being recruited to fight and die in the Ukranian war. (In America, I guess some people would call that, “love it or leave it” though so far in this country, we are rarely jailed and murdered by the state for having opposing views.)

We can see this teacher’s heart breaking as he gets deeper and deeper and clearer and clearer that his only path forward is out. It is an edge of your seat movie, but also so emotional and raw, and frankly, just a bit on the scary side as we see what happens at the endpoint of authoritarianism. Instructive on multiple levels if the brain can accept any form of nuance, and perhaps a must see for a lesson in how those who dabble as authoritarians ultimately become when they succeed.

Cutting Through Rocks - 1 Nomination

 

• Best Documentary Feature: Sara Khaki,Mohammadreza Eyni

This film was completely unexpected. Sara Shahverdi is a different kind of woman living in a small town in Iran with a big family and an incredible work ethic. She runs for city council and not only does she win (the only woman in the entire list of 200 council members across all of Iran), she gets the highest number of votes, which also entitles her to the community’s stamp. She spends her days helping people, stamping legal documents, managing construction, riding her motorcycle and busting gender roles. This is not always welcome in her community, but her strong will and her ability to win people over are incredibly inspiring. Her personal crusade is not only to make people’s lives better, but specifically to help girls be safe, be educated, and to do more with their lives than they ever thought they could (and certainly more than getting married at age 10, 12, 15). What a warrior. But not everyone is on board with her ideas, and suddenly the state accuses her of having too much masculine energy and puts her under review, whose final outcome could be forced gender reassignment surgery. But don’t worry, Sara would never go down without a fight.

While I have never assumed that things in Iran were great for women, this film gives a deep dive into what communal attitudes are, and what it’s like when women have essentially no say in their own lives. Hardly shocking but certainly tragic, and one wonders how much farther that society would advance if they didn’t disempower literally half of their brain trust. What a fantastic documentary well worthy of your time.

Come See Me in the Good Light - 1 Nomination

 

• Best Documentary Feature: Ryan White, Jessica Hargrave, Tig Notaro, Stef Willen

If you know me really well, you know the true delight I feel being able to congratulate genius comedian Tig Notaro on an Oscar nomination. So that alone was enough for me to be excited about this film, but then to meet and really learn about poet Andrea Gibson was the win of watching this film. Facing a difficult cancer, following her through the ups and downs of tumors shrinking then growing, seeing her manage her own grief but also experience that of her wife, and what it is to finish out one’s life while still having goals and joys and experiences - this film captures what sucks about dying and what is magnificent about living.

When you google Gibson’s poetry, you see beauty and laughter and insight and WOW, what a special human taken far too soon from the world. What I loved the most about this documentary is that it altered the “nearing death” genre and choosing to end the narrative before Andrea died, allowing us and those who knew her to remember her only as the very alive spirit that she was, and shielding us from the aftermath. This was the true brilliance of the documentary - it didn’t make death look easy, it didn’t make Andrea look angelic, but it absolutely made the point of the film to be the impact of life rather than the finality of death.

This was one of my favorite movies of this Oscars season, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It is available on Apple Plus.

The Alabama Solution - 1 Nomination

 

• Best Documentary Feature: Andrew Jarecki, Charlotte Kaufman

It’s one of the deadliest prison systems in the country, an inauspicious description to be sure, where violence, abuse, neglect, and death is ubiquitous. The film captures a number of stories of the worst kind of incidents, and while anyone would argue that prison is not meant to be summer camp, it is also not meant to be a death camp either. While we can’t know the full account, there are former prison guards who have corroborated some of the accusations, and in at least one case, a family’s pursuit of justice for their son is recounted. But the other fascinating part of this film is the sort of Norma Rae level organizing done from inside this prison where prisoner workers went on strike which spread throughout Alabama and beyond, where incarcerated people demanded better living conditions and better treatment.

Naturally, the Governor refused to accommodate any of the requests and moreover, also failed to investigate any of the accusations - despite the fact that illegal cell phones captured and smuggled out video evidence of the abysmal treatment.

Now here’s the challenge that lays before us, friends.

• It’s hard to find empathy for those who have committed evil acts, and yet should the state on behalf of the people of the state commit evil acts upon those who have committed evil acts to teach them not to commit evil acts?

• The law is the law, breaking the law is bad. Smuggling cell phones into prisons is illegal. Taking video evidence without consent is illegal in some states. What happens when illegal cell phones taking illegal video captures illegal behavior from the people who represent the law and not those breaking the law? Is it possible to keep from having one’s head explode with the conundrum of championing the breaking of the law against people who are jailed for breaking the law? (If that’s not an Ouroboros of a problem, I don’t know what is!)

The bottom line here is that this is an excellent documentary that you should watch. I don’t assume that documentaries always represent the full story nor the full truth, but this documentary does what the best of them do… it inspires us to at least want to learn more and to ask ourselves some hard questions that by any moral person would at least be thought provoking if not outright troubling. If you can live in a simple and happy land where this movie makes you shrug and say, “whatever, they broke the law, they deserved it,” then I hope no one in your orbit ever lands in an Alabama prison. (or any prison, for that matter.)

Weapons - 1 Nomination

 

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Amy Madigan

Weapons is the perfect example of a movie that I would never have watched if there hadn’t been an Oscars nomination involved. I’m not a big fan of horror/psychological thriller, and I’m definitely out on jump scare movies. But the return of the brilliant Amy Madigan to the big screen was ample reward for braving the film, and what beautiful symbiosis to be nominated 40 years on the nose after her first nomination for a movie that I barely remember, and 37 years after Field of Dreams for which she deserved to be but wasn’t nominated at all (“It’s just like the 60’s!”)

The film begins with the disappearance of all but one of an entire class of children in a small town, and their teacher (Julie Garner) who becomes obsessed with finding them. When she visits the remaining child’s parents, it is clear that something is not quite right with them and she meets the mother’s aunt (Amy Madigan) who appears unwell but recovering and apparently there to take care of the child. As the teacher and the father (Josh Brolin) of one of the missing children get closer and closer to solving the mystery, this bizarre and particularly creepy aunt becomes more and more suspicious.

I have to admit that for all my protestations about having to watch the movie, I really enjoyed it. The cast was superb, the story was tight, and the scares were… well… not terribly scary (though more than sufficiently for my taste). It was more psychological thriller than horror film (thank goodness) and I was surprised and delighted at how good it was. It’s hardly a “don’t miss” but if you have a little time and HBO Max, I vote to see it. While Amy Madigan is not currently favored to win the category, her performance was strong and could grab an unexpected upset.