Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 95 - Oscar Wrap Up and Wakanda Forever

On this episode, Barry and I do a quick recap of the Oscars and then catch a flight to Wakanda to discuss all things Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Topics discussed include the sorry state of movie stardom, the sorry state of cinema and the even sorrier state of Marvel.

Looking California and Felling Minnesota: Episode 95 - Oscar Wrap Up and Wakanda Forever

Thanks for listening!

©2023

95th Academy Awards: 2023 Oscar Predictions Post

It’s that time of year again!! The Oscars are here and I think I speak for everyone on the planet when I say…nobody gives a fuck!

It is a testament to how far the film industry and art of cinema has fallen in recent years that I find myself neither excited nor angered over this year’s Oscar nominations. No, my overwhelming sentiment regarding movies in general and the Oscars in particular is numbing indifference. I just don’t care anymore.

You see, my cinephile spirit has simply been broken under the weight of our cultures repeated cinematic failures. I’m one of those foolish people who demands excellence from cinema and refuses to soften my standards in order to indulge a commitment to mediocrity. This has resulted in my being a rather brutal cinematic curmudgeon for the past three years, which have been the worst three years of my movie-watching lifetime.  

Other critics have been all too eager to conform to the current times and adjust (lower) their standards. This is how we get fawning reviews of inconceivably atrocious shit like The Fabelmans and Top Gun: Maverick. Those movies are true embarrassments and it speaks to our decadent age – which is indicative of an empire in steep decay and decline, that they are held up as wondrous cinematic achievements.

To be clear, this past year was better than the previous year, but that’s sort of like being proud that you’re the tallest midget in the freak show.

What is so unnerving about the recent decline in cinema is that it was just four short years ago, in 2019, when cinema seemed to be in tremendous shape. That year we had a truly phenomenal film, Parasite, win Best Picture, beating out an array of interesting and well-made movies for the honor. Among them The Irishman, Joker, Ford v Ferrari, 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Any one of those film would be the run-away Best Picture winner this year.

But since the heights of 2019 we’ve been inundated with garbage. The low point being when Coda, an absolutely ridiculous, Hall Mark Channel level movie, won Best Picture last year.

The problem is not that bad movies win Oscars, that’s been going on time immemorial. No, the problem is that there’s no movies to get angry over for not having been recognized or honored. When Coda won last year, I just shrugged because I had no dog in the fight.

P.T. Anderson had a film, Licorice Pizza, competing against Coda, and he is one of my all-time favorite filmmakers so it would’ve been nice if he won but truthfully, Licorice Pizza wasn’t any good and I wasn’t going to pretend it was…so I didn’t care.

The same is true this year. There’s no movie that I think stands out that it would be a crime if it was overlooked.

Yes, I liked All Quiet on the Western Front and The Banshees of Inisherin, but I just liked them, not loved them. They are flawed but “enjoyable” movies, so I’m not going into Oscar night yearning for their recognition.

The ugly truth is that I am so indifferent to the Oscars this year, and have become so disenchanted with cinema, that I’m not even going to watch the ceremony, which will be a first for me in my adulthood. The reality is that I have much better things to do, sleep definitely among them, than watch a delusional industry give shitty movies awards for excellence.

That said, I will still fill out my Oscar picks and compete in my Oscar pool, which I have won for a record 34 years in a row. Will I continue my astonishing streak? Probably, but not because I have any clue who will win the awards but more because my competitors care even less than me so they have no clue.

Ok…so there’s my sad tale of disillusionment and disenchantment. Now let’s get on to my Oscar picks and put this terrible year in movies behind once and for all.

BEST PICTURE

Tar – A very flawed but fascinating character study that features the best scene of the year but also the worst third act.

The Fabelmans – An utter embarrassment of a movie. Is the cinematic equivalent of Spielberg soiling himself in public.

Everything Everywhere All at Once – A mildly interesting, pretty trite popcorn movie that has no business being nominated, nevermind the odds-on favorite.

All Quiet on the Western Front – A visually stirring anti-war epic when we need an anti-war epic most. Is the best made movie of the bunch.

Women Talking – This is a bad movie.

Triangle of Sadness – An ambitious and audacious social satire that is actually smarter than it appears at first glance.

Avatar the Way of Water – a big, blue billion-dollar behemoth that is almost instantly forgettable.

Top Gun Maverick – People’s love for this pile of poop astonishes me. It’s like people know it’s awful yet love it for its awfulness.

Elvis – An absurd piece of junk.

Banshees of Inisherin – A flawed but fascinating study of Irish masculinity.

This seems pretty set in stone…but I guess there’s a miniscule chance of an upset, which if it occurs would be All Quiet winning or maybe, maybe Tar.

Should Win: All Quiet on the Western Front/Banshees of Inisherin

Will Win: Everything Everywhere All At Once

BEST ACTOR

Austin Butler – Elvis – The kid is good as Elvis, really good. But it feels more like a lived-in imitation than a piece of acting.

Brendan Fraser – The Whale – The dirty little secret is that Fraser isn’t acting particularly well under that fat suit.

Colin Farrell – Banshees of Inisherin – Farrell has matured into a terrific actor and his work here is intricate and detailed.

Paul Mescal – Aftersun – I don’t get the hype over this kid.

Bill Nighy – Living – Nighy is great in general but I’ve not seen this movie.

This is one of the more up in the air awards of the night. A lot of people have Fraser winning but I just think there’s a ground swell for Austin Butler.

Should Win: Colin Farrell

Will Win: Austin Butler

BEST ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett – Tar – Blanchett is the best actress of her generation and absolutely crushes it in this movie.

Michelle Yeoh – EEAAO – She’s…fine.

Ana de Armas – Blonde – Starring in torture porn is tough work, but the reality is that Ana de Armas shouldn’t have been playing Marylin.

Andrea Riseborough – To Leslie – I like Andrea Riseborough but like the rest of the human race I’ve not seen this movie.

Michelle Williams – The Fabelmans – Williams is an at times pleasant actress but she is truly atrocious in The Fabelmans. This is bad. Really bad.

It seems the tide has turned against Blanchett and in favor of Yeoh. What can you do?

Should Win: Cate Blanchett

Will Win: Michelle Yeoh

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Brendan Gleeson – Banshees of Inisherin – Gleeson is an outstanding actor and he is terrific in this.

Barry Keoghan – Banshees – Keoghan is a little uneven in this role but he does bring it all together in the second best scene in the year in cinema.

Brian Tyree Henry – Causeway – This is a joke. This movie stunk and Henry wasn’t very good in it.

Judd Hirsch – The Fabelmans – A bloated cameo of dubious quality.

Ke Huy Quan – EEAAO – I never thought Quan could be as good as he is in this movie. A really remarkable performance.

Should Win: Gleeson, Keoghan, Quan

Will Win: Quan

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Angela Bassett – Wakanda Forever – I don’t get it. This movie stinks and she is not good in it.

Hong Chau – The Whale – Another head-shaker…Chau was much better in The Menu than in this.

Kerry Condon – Banshees of Inisherin – A terrific and layered performance that perfectly captures the hell of Irish womanhood.

Jamie Lee Curtis – EEAAO – I actually really liked Curtis in this role.

Stephanie Hsu – EEAAO – I thought Hsu was ok.

It seemed like Angela Bassett was going to run away with it but the tide has turned in Jamie Lee’s favor.

Should Win: Kerry Condon

Will Win: Jamie Lee Curtis

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Banshees of Insherin – Terrific screenplay.

EEAAO – The film’s underlying philosophy is trite but it’s a sprawling story that eventually works.

The Fabelmans – This is junk. A dreadful script makes a dreadful movie.

Tar – A great forst two acts are scuttled by a rushed and unearned third act.

Triangle of Sadness – This script is fantastic.

This is sort of interesting as The Fabelmans may win because the Academy wants to reward Spielberg for his truly shitty autobiography. That said, I still think that EEAAO wins.

Should Win: Banshees of Inisherin

Will Win: Everything Everywhere All At Once

 ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

All Quiet on the Western Front – Not perfect but overall well executed.

Glass Onion – identical twins? Oh please. This script is dogshit.

Living – Haven’t seen it.

Top Gun Maverick – This is a joke.

Women Talking – Brutal.

The academy want to reward a woman and Sarah Polley fits the bill with her egregiously awful Woman Talking script.

Should Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

Will Win: Women Talking

BEST DIRECTOR

Martin McDonagh – Banshees of Inisherin – Nice to see McDonagh bounce back from the shit that was Three Billboards.

The Daniels – EEAAO – Not great but they somewhat pulled off an ambitious idea.

Steven Spielberg – The Fabelmans – This movie stinks so bad it shocked me that Spielberg released it.

Todd Field – Tar – Well directed but loses its grip in the third act.

Ruben Ostland – Triangle of Sadness – Shockingly well directed movie that in lesser hands would’ve been an absolute mess.

Should Win: Martin McDonagh

Will Win: The Daniels

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

All Quiet on the Western Front

Argentina, 1985

Close

EO

The Quiet Girl

Should Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

Will Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Puss in Boots

The Sea Beast

Seeing Red

Should Win: Pinocchio

Will Win: Pinocchio – This is a terrific movie, one of the best of the year.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

All That Breathes

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Fire of Love

A House Made of Splinters

Navalny

Will Win: Navalny – Just feels like the academy will want to signal its virtue by thumbing their nose at the supposed Hitler du jour Vladimir Putin. How brave.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

The Elephant Whisperers

Haulout

How Do You Measure a Year

The Martha Mitchell Effect

Stranger at the Gate

Will Win: Elephant Whisperers

LIVE ACTION SHORT

An irish Goodbye

Ivalu

Le pupille

Night Ride

The Red Suitcase

WILL WIN: Le pupille

ANIMATED SHORT

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

The Flying Sailor

Ice Merchants

My Year of Dicks

An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It

Will Win: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

ORIGINAL SCORE

All Quiet on the Western Front

Babylon

The Banshees of Inisherin

EEAAO

The Fabelmans

Will Win: All Quiet on the Western Front – The score of this film is crucial in setting the ominous and unsettling mood.

ORIGINAL SONG

Applause – Tell it Like a Woman

Hold My Hand - Top Gun Maverick

Lift Me Up - Wakanda Forever

Naatu Naatu - RRR

This is Life - EEAAO

Will Win: Naatu Naatu

PRODUCTION DESIGN

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar The Way of Water

Babylon

Elvis

The Fabelmans

Should Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

Will Win: Elvis – This is the type of movie that the Oscars reward.

BEST SOUND

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar the Way of Water

The Batman

Elvis

Top Gun Maverick

Will Win: Top Gun Maverick – This feels like the Academy throwing this fan favorite a bone.

 CINEMATOGRAPHY

All Quiet on the Western Front

Bardo

Elvis

Empire of Light

Tar

Will Win: All Quiet on the Western Front – Easily the best cinematography of the year.

COSTUME DESIGN

Babylon

Wakanda Forever

Elvis

EEAAO

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris

Will Win: Elvis – There’s a chance that Wakanda Forever or Babylon win, but it seems like Elvis will do well in these types of categories.

MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLE

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Batman

Wakanda Forever

Elvis

The Whale

Will Win: Elvis – Wakanda Forever is a real possibility but again, Elvis is adored for stuff like this.

FILM EDITING

Banshees of Inisherin

Elvis

EEAAO

Tar

Top Gun Maverick

Will Win: EEAAO – I actually thought the editing (or lack thereof) was one of the worst parts of EEAAO, but what the hell do I know?

VISUAL EFFECTS

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar The Way of Water

The Batman

Wakanda Forever

Top Gun Maverick

Will Win: Avatar the Way of Water – This is a bone thrown to big Jim Cameron for his money printing machine.

And thus concludes my Oscar picks. God willing every Oscar winner gets slapped on stage this year. If that happens then I promise I’ll actually watch the show next year. A man can dream.

©2023

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Marvel Misses Again

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A bloated and bland mess of a movie that is firmly in the bottom tier of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the sequel to the billion-dollar blockbuster Marvel movie Black Panther (2018), premiered in theatres back on November 11th, and is now available on Disney Plus, and I just watched it and have some thoughts.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been in steep decline since the glory days of late last decade when Infinity War (2018) and Endgame (2019) both made over two billion dollars in back-to-back years.

Since that creative and financial high point Marvel has stumbled and bumbled by churning out a plethora of abysmal movies, like Black Widow, Eternals and Shang-Chi, that featured second and third-rate characters, all of which underperformed at the box office.

Even the most financially successful movie of this era (I’m not counting the Spider-Man movies which are Sony/Marvel movies and not Disney/Marvel movies), Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which made over $900 million at the box office, was a pretty awful affair.

In reading the tea leaves it seemed to me that the key film in judging the overall creative and financial health of the MCU going forward would be Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder which hit theatres this past Summer. Thor: Love and Thunder was the sequel to Waititi’s glorious Thor: Ragnarok, one of the very best Marvel movies ever made. If any movie was going to stop the bleeding at Marvel it would be Love and Thunder. And then I saw Love and Thunder.

Love and Thunder did not stop the bleeding. It was just as awful as the rest of the post-Endgame Disney/Marvel movies, and it massively underperformed at the box office, bringing in just $761 million on a bloated $250 million budget. Not good.

After Love and Thunder failed, the next big Marvel bellwether, if not its backstop, was the highly anticipated Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Unfortunately for Marvel, I can report that Wakanda Forever didn’t stop the bleeding either.

Wakanda Forever, directed and co-written by the same man who made the original, Ryan Coogler, did do better than Love and Thunder, but it didn’t do much better as it made $842 million on a $250 million budget. Compared to the original Black Panther, which made $1.38 billion and garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, Wakanda Forever massively under-performed financially, to the tune of nearly half a billion less than the original.

An easy explanation for that precipitous box office drop-off is that Black Panther starred Chadwick Boseman – who tragically died of cancer in 2020. The great hurdle for Wakanda Forever to overcome was the loss of Boseman who was slated to star in the film. After his death Ryan Coogler and Disney shifted gears and, instead of recasting another actor as Black Panther, came up with a story not just in Boseman’s absence but which is centered around his absence.

Chadwick Boseman certainly seemed like a very nice guy but I never found him to be very charismatic or compelling on-screen, even in the original Black Panther, my review of which I think stands up quite well five years later. While Black Panther with Boseman felt charisma-challenged to me, Wakanda Forever without Boseman is like a black hole of anti-charisma that sucks all light and life into its darkness leaving behind a dull, dismal and distinctly lifeless-void.

The convoluted plot of Wakanda Forever revolves around the death of King T’Challa (Boseman) and how it effects his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), his mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett), and the people of Wakanda.

On top of King T’Challa’s death, Wakanda and its royal family are confronted by the superhero/supervillain Namor, a flying Aquaman type guy who is king of the Talokan people, who live deep in the sea as a result of European colonialism in Latin America. Sigh.

Through an incoherent course of events Namor looks to ally with Wakanda to create an alliance of anti-oppressors, but in turn he demands that a brilliant, young, African-American girl from Chicago who is studying at MIT, Riri Williams, be killed first because she developed a special machine, the only one of its kind, that can detect vibranium – the stuff that makes Wakanda superior and which was just discovered deep in the ocean near Talokan. Shuri and Queen Ramonda balk at Namor’s Riri killing proposal and try to protect her, which puts Wakanda at war with Talokan.

The result of all of this is foolishness is that Wakanda Forever is a bloated, bland and boring two-hours and forty minutes long. It’s action and fight sequences are uncomfortably amateurish. It’s CGI is second, if not third-rate. Its cinematography is stilted and flat. And its script and narrative are embarrassing and incorrigibly trite. Besides that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

In keeping with the tedious and relentless Disney/Marvel agenda, race and gender swapping is rampant in Wakanda Forever. Namor in the Marvel comics is a white/Atlantean/Asian guy, but in the movie, he has been remade – or race-swapped, into an indigenous Central American god who loathes the European colonizers who killed his culture and family. Yawn.

Then there’s Riri Williams, who is basically a black girl Iron Man with her own Iron Man suit to boot. And to no one’s surprise, the new Black Panther is a black woman too, as Shuri dons the new Black Panther outfit. You go girls!!

The recent spate of Marvel films and tv shows have all centered women and women of color, and all the white male characters have been replaced with either women, minorities or women minorities…and frankly, they have all suffered for it.

Thankfully there is a white guy in Wakanda Forever, he’s the flaccid, cuckold CIA agent (Martin Freeman) who gets duped by his much smarter and more powerful ex-wife (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss). Down with the patriarchy!!

All of this agenda driven nonsense wouldn’t concern me in the least, it really wouldn’t, if the movie was at least well-made and/or mildly entertaining. It is neither. It is, at best, a middling, lower-level Marvel movie. It’s better than Eternals, but that’s not exactly a high bar.

As for the performances, they are for the most part underwhelming.

Angela Bassett has been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her work as grief-stricken mother Queen Ramonda. Bassett is…fine. She’s always a very compelling screen presence and I’m sure she’ll win the Oscar and I’ll be happy for her because she seems like a good person, but I’m not so sure she deserves it for this role.

Letitia Wright as Shuri on the other hand is an absolute mystery to me. I thought she was terrible in Black Panther and I find her equally terrible in this. First off, she’s playing a teenager/young woman and yet she looks like she’s in her mid-fifties. Secondly, she is so devoid of magnetism she might as well be invisible.

Dominique Thorne is another mystery. Her work as Riri Williams is so shallow and predictable as to be caricature. Her acting is of the tired style that has become so common nowadays – where preening and posing passes for artistry. Hopefully Thorne will grow out of pretending and mugging for the camera and actually start acting.

Tenoch Huerta Mejia plays Namor and is completely lifeless. For a guy fueled by revenge he’s got nothing going on behind his eyes. It would also be a good idea if you’re going to play a superhero/villain to maybe hit the gym for a bit, especially if you’re going to be shirtless for the entirety of the movie. Tough to suspend disbelief when some doughy son of a bitch is trying to pass himself off as some super strong being. Hell, if doughy dudes could be superheroes…I’d be the fucking Hulk, Wolverine and Thor combined. Meija is so doughy they would’ve been better off casting the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man in the role of Namor, but that would never have been allowed because that fat sack of shit is too white.

On the bright side in regards to Wakanda Forever, I thought showing only Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther in the Marvel Title Sequence – which usually features all the superheroes, was a classy tribute. On the other hand, the film’s use of Boseman’s death to promote itself and generate ticket sales feels exploitative to me. I understand that it’s a tough tightrope to walk…I’m just uncomfortable with that type of thing.  

Another issue that Wakanda Forever brings up for me is in regards to writer/director Ryan Coogler. It seems pretty obvious at this point that Coogler, despite his promising start with Fruitvale Station, is simply not a good filmmaker. I’ll be interested to see what he does now and if he moves away from these franchise films – something he’d be wise to do. But I wonder if the protective bubble of franchise films is protecting him and deflecting criticism of his ability. Regardless, he’s not done anything good since Fruitvale Station.

The bottom line regarding Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is that it is just another in the long line of recent Marvel movies to be utterly and entirely forgettable. There really is no need whatsoever for you waste your time and see this movie, even for “free” on Disney Plus.

At this point, after the failures of Love and Thunder and Wakanda Forever, the Marvel Cinematic Universe feels mortally wounded and I’m having a difficult time imaging a scenario where it rebounds from the dual plagues of audience Marvel fatigue and Disney/Marvel’s creative bankruptcy.

In terms of the future, Marvel seems to be going all in on the woke agenda stuff, which, love it or loathe it, has proven over and over again to be toxic to large swaths of the viewing public, most notably the most rabid and die-hard of Marvel fans.

The biggest problem though is that regardless of any political and cultural messages ingrained into Marvel movies, if the movies themselves and the characters they feature are not high quality and compelling, then they will quickly become entirely irrelevant in the blink of an eye. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is stark proof of that.

 Follow me on Twitter @MPMActingCo

©2023