Author: Amy Diaz

Amy Diaz is the executive editor and writes about movies and compiles the Kiddie Pool column. Reach her at adiaz@hippopress.com.

Morbius (PG-13)

Morbius (PG-13)

A genius scientist who is slowly dying from a genetic disorder accidentally turns himself into a vampire in the Marvel-comics-based Morbius, which feels like “what if Venom but thoroughly charmless.”

This is the Sony wing of the Marvel universe, not the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but, as end-credit scenes remind us, those universes are now in conversation with each other. Which is my way of saying stay for the end-credit scenes, I guess, if you’re into this enough to see it in a theater.

Renowned scientist Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) creates a serum from vampire bat DNA to combat a genetic disease that has left him and his lifelong best friend Lucien (Matt Smith), whom he affectionately calls Milo, weak, in constant pain and in daily need of blood transfusions. Using himself as a human trial, Michael does see physical improvements to his disease — suddenly becoming ripped seems to play a big part in gaining superpowers — but only after he has a little flip-out session where he drains the blood from all the crewmembers on the boat where he had been running his experiments. The only survivor from the boat is Michael’s longtime friend and professional partner Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona).

Yes, she is a love interest; no, the characters don’t have any real chemistry. But then nobody really has any chemistry with anybody in this movie, so this isn’t just a case of another comic book movie not knowing how to do romance.

As the movie reassures us a couple of times, the guys on the boat were all jerky mercenary types, who cares about them. But then Good People start being exsanguinated and investigators, Agents Stroud (Tyrese Gibson) and Rodriguez (Al Madrigal), are on the hunt for Morbius, who is himself desperate to find out how to either reverse or control the more kill-y parts of his “cure.”

For Lucien, however, becoming a bloodthirsty vampire is a fair trade for getting abs and being able to walk without crutches. Since he has bankrolled Morbius’ experiments, he feels he’s owed some vampire juice and injects himself in spite of Morbius’ warnings because of course he does. Though Morbius doesn’t totally hate his new powers, he tends to think of his new state mostly as a curse that he is willing to die to lift. But he also realizes he is the only person who can control his old friend who plans to have way more “fun” with his superstrength and vampire qualities.

The movie also drags Jared Harris into this mess as an older mentor to both men, but kind of forgets to do anything useful with him. I feel like that approach to this one character sort of typifies the movie overall; this movie has the basics of its form (genius with a sad backstory, long simmer not-quite-romance, new Great Powers he has to learn to use with Great Responsibility, opponent who uses the same powers for the Wrong Reasons, etc.) but Morbius has absolutely no novelty or liveliness to it. This movie is filled with so much bat imagery and booming bass score you think you’re in some kind of knock-off Batman. But it isn’t actually dark, tonally, for as darkly lit as it is and how dark and moody it thinks it is. It also isn’t the bouncy MCU or the Deadpool-ish, er, Deadpool movies or the goofy but watchable mess that is Venom. It just flaps about, so much gasping cartoon fish on a dock — so, like, without even the pathos that would be involved if we believed it was a real live fish.

Leto in Emo Jesus cosplay is just not a compelling character, not as a villain, not as a hero/dark hero/anti-hero whatever he’s supposed to be. Matt Smith is never not distractingly goofy. Arjona’s Martine doesn’t really get more personality depth than “girl character.”

Much like with Venom, Morbius and its canon are beyond the fringes of my Marvel knowledge and so I went in with zero expectations. But somehow it was still a letdown. C- I guess, but I could probably be convinced into D territory….

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, some frightening images and brief strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Daniel Espinosa with a screenplay by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless, Morbius is an hour and 44 minutes long and distributed by Columbia.

Featured photo: Morbius.

Kiddie Pool 22/04/07

Family fun for the weekend

Easter events

• The Educational Farm at Joppa Hill (174 Joppa Hill Road in Bedford; theeducationalfarm.org) is holding an Easter egg hunt on Saturday, April 9, with open slots at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m., as of April 4. For $20 per child, each child can collect 20 eggs, visit farm animals and meet the Easter Bunny, according to the website, where you reserve a time slot.

• The Easter Bunny will drop 1,500 chocolate eggs from a helicopter in the field just outside the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire (27 Navigator Road in Londonderry; nhahs.org) on Saturday, April 9, at 11 a.m., according to a press release. After the candy is dropped and the helicopter clears the area, kids ages 12 and under will be able to pick up some treats, the release said. The Easter Bunny will then hang out at the museum until 1 p.m. to meet kids and pose for photos, the release said.

Participating families should arrive by 10:30 a.m. and children participating in the candy drop will be put in three groups: age 6 and under, ages 7 to 9 and ages 10 to 12, the release said.

The museum is open Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and admission costs $10 for adults, $5 for children ages 6 to 12 and for seniors and military; children ages 5 and under get in free.

• Or go hunting for Easter eggs at the YMCA of Londonderry (206 Rockingham Road in Londonderry) on Saturday, April 9. The YMCA and Beacon Church co-host the event featuring eggs hidden across the YMCA property with hunts slotted for 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m., noon and 12:30 p.m., according to a YMCA social media post. The event is first come, first served for each time slot and will offer off-site parking at Londonderry Park and Ride off Exit 5 with shuttle service to the event, the post said. The day will also feature a petting zoo, snacks, a craft and more. There will be a separate toddler zone for egg hunts at each time slot, according to beaconnh.com. Next weekend, Saturday, April 16, the Londonderry Y will hold a Kid’s Night when kids can be dropped off from 5 to 8 p.m. The cost is $25 per child (ages 4 to 12; $15 for additional siblings) and includes a pizza dinner. See https://bit.ly/ygl-kids-nights; register by April 13.

• Charmingfare Farm (774 High St. in Candia; visitthefarm.com, 483-5623) will host its Egg-Citing Egg Hunt this Saturday, April 9, and Sunday, April 10, as well as next Saturday, April 16. Sign up for a time between 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. for a hunt for a dozen chocolate-filled eggs, a horse-drawn or tractor ride, a visit to the barn decorated specially for Easter, a visit with the animals (including spring baby animals) and a visit with the Easter Bunny, according to the website. Tickets cost $22 per person.

On stage

The Southern New Hampshire Youth Ballet presents Cinderellaat the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org, 668-5588) on Sunday, April 10, 1 to 4 p.m. The show is appropriate for all ages and runs about 75 minutes long (with a 10-minute intermission), according to the website. Tickets cost $25 for adults and $20 ages 12 and under.

Save the date: for more eggs

On Saturday, April 16, Our Promise to Nicholas Foundation will hold an indoor maze to an egg hunt and the Easter Bunny at the NH Sportsplex (68 Technology Dr. in Bedford; ourpromisetonicholas.com) from 8:30 a.m. to noon. Hop along a bunny trail to play games, do a bunny craft and more and then head to the egg hunt field at a specific “egg hunt time” and take photos with the Easter Bunny (as well as other mascots and characters), according to the website. Tickets cost $8 per person; family tickets are also available through Friday, April 15, at 6 p.m. Tickets at the door cost $10 per person.

New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival Edition

The New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival kicks off Thursday, March 31, and runs through Sunday, April 10, with 16 films in all — 11 features, five shorts and four in-person screenings. Most of the movies also will be available virtually, either during the festival itself or during a bonus week, April 11 through April 24.

Tickets start at $12 for individual screenings or you can buy packages for screenings of all movies, virtual only ($118) or in-person and virtual ($130 for one person, $180 for two). See nhjewishfilmfestival.com for details and check out Meghan Siegler’s story on page 10 of the March 24 (last week’s) issue of the Hippo (which you can find at hippopress.com).

Thanks to the organizers, I got advance screenings to a few of the films.

The festival kicks off with an in-person screening of The Automat at the Rex Theatre (23 Amherst St. in Manchester) on Thursday, March 31, at 7 p.m. with a post-film discussion with director Lisa Hurwitz and collector/restorer Steve Stollman. If you can’t make it to that screening, you can also watch the movie during the virtual screening bonus week.

Either way, this movie, like the coffee it so lovingly describes, is well worth the price. This is an absolute charmer of a documentary about the Horn & Hardart chain of automats, which dominated the New York and Philadelphia restaurant scene in the early and mid 20th century. Put a nickel in a slot and open the compartment to reveal the pie or sandwich or creamed spinach you’d been craving, and another nickel gets you coffee so good that Mel Brooks sings a song about it over the documentary’s closing credits. Brooks appears throughout the documentary along with Carl Reiner and Elliott Gould explaining the place of this democratizing but also stylish eatery in their youth and young adulthood. (Descriptions of the restaurants’ gleaming floors, brass fixtures and high ceilings reminded me of discussions of similar era movie palaces and suggest a real luxury-for-all approach to design in public spaces — in case anybody is looking for a senior thesis.) Also appearing here are Wilson Goode, former mayor of Philadelphia, as well as Colin Powell and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, discussing both the food (there’s a lot of pie talk, be prepared to get hungry) and the social vibe created by a space where a business exec, a member of New York’s booming (in the 1920s) female workforce and a blue-collar worker would share a table and where recent immigrants to New York could feel welcome.

You also get the business side of the restaurant — how it rose and the forces that led to its fall. It’s a delightful story told with great fondness and humor.

I had the great good fortune of watching Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen at the start of Oscar weekend and it was a perfect way to kick off a weekend of thinking about the art and craft of movies. This documentary (which will be available during the bonus week) offers a great examination of all parts of the movie-making process as it looks at how the successful Broadway musical was translated into the 1971 movie. The songs and the way director Norman Jewison wanted to block a scene influenced the production design, just as the casting of the actresses and finding their comfortable key influenced the way John Williams brought the music of the stage musical to the screen. How do you recreate the look of a turn-of-the-20th-century shtetl in Ukraine some 60-plus years later, after wars and during the Cold War? Jewison discusses finding an Anatevka-like village in the former Yugoslavia.

Jeff Goldblum narrates this documentary, which features interviews with the three actresses who played the older daughters, Topol (the actor who played Tevye), and members of the film crew as well as people, like critic Kenneth Turan, talking about the story and the movie from a cultural-relevance perspective.

The shorts program features five films and you can purchase 48-hour access to the five-film block at any time from March 31 to April 10. The films are Ganef, Beefies, The Shabbos Goy, Mazel Tov Cocktail and The Tattooed Torah and they are a diverse mix in terms of style, tone and theme.

The Tattooed Torah presents as an animated storybook, with the screen panning across pictures but with people popped out from the background to give depth and blinking eyes and other small animated details that add a liveliness to the scenes. Ed Asner narrates the story of a boy and a beloved Torah in Czechoslovakia before and during World War II. The story is based on a book of the same name written by Marvell Ginsburg and illustrated by Martin Lemelman.

As with that movie, Masel Tov Cocktail slips bits of history into its tale about a teenager named Dima (Alexander Wertmann), a post-Cold War Jewish-Russian immigrant to Germany. He wrestles with his frustration, all teenage righteousness and humor, over the way Germans — the prejudiced and the well-meaning — pull him into their views of World War II and what their ancestors did (or, as some claim, definitely weren’t a part of). The short is the fourth directing credit (all shorts) for directors Arkadij Khaet and Mickey Paatzsch, according to IMDb, and it has that entertaining, scrappy indie film energy.

Ganefwill be familiar to viewers of the 2021 Manhattan Short Film Festival. It’s a tight drama about the residual effects of trauma that features Sophie McShera (best known as Daisy from Downton Abbey) playing Lynn, the housekeeper to the Hirth family, who live in an upper-class house in England. Mrs. Hirth (Lydia Wilson) tells her young daughter Ruthie (Izabella Dzeiwanska) that people can’t take what they don’t know you have — a lesson she learned as a child in Frankfurt, Germany. It’s a smartly told story that clocks in at about 14 minutes.

Beefies is a charming tale about Josh (Adam Lebowitz-Lockard), a man trying to figure out the recipe to his late mother’s “beefies” dish. (Lebowitz-Lockard wrote and directed Beefies; on the website he describes the dish as his own mother’s “sort of beef stew/stroganoff dish of meat and veggies” which he hasn’t been able to reverse engineer since she died.). In Beefies, Josh finds clues in his mother’s papers but realizes that to get answers he’ll have to call Mark (Goran Ivanovski), the brother he’s been estranged from. The movie is a sweet family tale that gets bonus points for the rare good use of pandemic as story point.

The Shabbos Goy is my favorite of the pack. This movie stars Milana Vayntrub, perhaps still best known as the lady from the AT&T commercials. As the movie poster explains, the titular person is a non-Jewish person who performs certain tasks that religious law prohibits a Jewish person from doing on the Sabbath or, more succinctly, “a human loophole.” During a gathering with her family and her future in-laws, Hannah (Vayntrub) is desperate to keep her engagement on track but won’t break the Sabbath by turning off her, er, personal device when it is accidentally activated. She runs out to find a non-Jewish person to help her, leading her to Davian (Devere Rogers), who first tries to ignore her when she crazily tries to wave him down. The movie is written and directed by Talia Osteen, who has a director credit on the Hulu movie Sex Appeal (also a fun trailer) and it is executive produced by Paul Feig.

Oscar wrap-up

If there’s one thing you’ll remember from last Sunday’s Oscars, it’s that you need to watch CODA.

OK, one other thing.

Truly, though, if you have “meh-ed” at Oscar nominees — which isn’t an unfair response in 2021 when the movies never fully felt back — hopefully CODA’s wins will entice you to check it out. It won for best picture, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actor for Troy Kotsur, who co-starred with Marlee Matlin as the deaf parents of a hearing teen (Emilia Jones) in this truly heartwarming movie. It’s on Apple TV+.

Another winner worth seeking out is Summer of Soul (… Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), the documentary that won Questlove an Oscar (which you may have missed while Googling “Chris Rock Will Smith was it a bit?”). That excellent documentary about the multi-concertHarlem Cultural Festival is on Hulu and Disney+ and is available for rent or purchase (and you can also purchase the very excellent soundtrack).

Another winner that might have gotten lost in the evening’s proceedings for a different reason (it was one of the awards cut from the broadcast and then deep-faked back in, as writer Chris V. Feil described in a tweet) was The Queen of Basketball, the winning documentary short, which is available on nytimes.com. It’s a charming profile of Lucy Harris, a star college (and Olympic) basketball player in the 1970s who was drafted by, but never played for, the New Orleans Jazz.

Then feel free to shut the book on the whole messy 2021 in the Oscar-verse, with its category strife, its lack of real surprises among the winners (though my swing-for-the-fences guesses led to my still only correctly predicting a little more than half the winners) and all-over-the-place ceremony even before the infamous slap. Or, at least, shut the book after one more watch of the beautifully staged Beyonce opener and the uneven but lively at least “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” remix.

The Lost City (PG-13)

The Lost City (PG-13)

Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum are accidental explorers seeking ancient treasure and running from a petulant Daniel Radcliffe in The Lost City, a movie that should have kept its original title, The Lost City of D.

Why “of D”? The movie has an “ancient tribe of D-yada yada” answer but mostly it’s exactly why you think it’s “D” and for that reason the movie also should have gone for an R rating. This is a “ladies meeting up for a movie” kind of movie and it should have gone to town with its female-friendly bawdy comedy goofiness. As it is, it’s more like the movie went to the end of the driveway, maybe a bit down the block, but then decided, eh, maybe not all the way to town this time.

Loretta (Bullock) is a successful author of a series of romance novels about Angel Lovemore and Dash, two adventurers who find themselves in situations like being menaced by a villain in a temple full of snakes while professing their love, all heaving chests and throbbing other things. But real-life Loretta isn’t feeling the love for her characters; still mourning the loss of her husband, she’s having a hard time writing her latest book and when she finally finishes it it’s not well-received by the public.

To try to gin up sales, publisher Beth (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) sends Loretta to a romance convention and pairs her with Allen (Tatum), the cover model who has posed as Dash all these years. Loretta doesn’t have much patience for conventions, Q&As or Allen and suffers through it until her car arrives to take her home.

Or, at least, she thinks it’s her car. It turns out to be what she describes as a low-key Taken scenario, more of a whisking-away, really, by Abigail Fairfax (Radcliffe), the very rich, very indignant son of a media family. His younger brother has just been given the family business and Abigail is looking to one-up him by discovering a priceless ancient treasure. Since she worked some real-world archaeology into her books, Loretta is the perfect person to help him on his quest, Fairfax thinks, whether she wants to or not.

Allen, who wants Loretta’s respect and maybe more, sees her being taken-ed and decides to rescue her. Or at least he decides to participate in her rescuing: He calls in his trainer, named, naturally, Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt), to help him free Loretta.

Some 15 or so years ago, I think The Lost City would have really annoyed me, with its dumb plot and its sharp-as-a-butter-knife-or-maybe-a-spoon humor. But now, saying a movie is “a goofy premise filled with dumb jokes” feels like more of a recommendation and Bullock and Tatum know exactly what they’re doing here and exactly how to do it. Bullock presents a variation on the smart-but-prickly characters she’s been playing over the last decade in comedies and Tatum knows how to mix the “beefcake with a meathead but a sweet heart” cocktail and serve up a character who — OK, every way I could think of to finish that metaphor sounds dirty. Basically, Tatum knows what he looks like and knows how to make that guy funny. Even though The Lost City isn’t as smart as it could be, isn’t as big-dumb-laugh as it could be, it is pretty dumb and it is pretty fun. It uses Radcliffe and Randolph well, even if both could probably have done more. And it’s a good time, if not right now in theaters definitely in the near future in your living room. B

Rated PG-13 for violence and some bloody images, suggestive material (though not nearly suggestive enough), partial nudity (ditto) and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Aaron Nee and Adam Nee with a screenplay by Oren Uziel and Dana Fox and Adam Nee & Aaron Nee, The Lost City is an hour and 52 minutes long and is distributed by Paramount Pictures in theaters.

Infinite Storm (R)

Naomi Watts plays Pam Bales, a former Granite Stater who rescued a man from a particularly stormy Mount Washington, in Infinite Storm.

Pam heads out for a hike on Mount Washington on a day that, based on a conversation with ex-husband Dave (Denis O’Hare), is already heavy with some kind of grief for her. As she hikes, the weather gets colder, clouds roll in and a storm starts. She finds the hike harder, she falls and has to climb out of the snow and then she comes upon a man just sitting on the mountain. John (Billy Howle) is what she calls him when he declines to give his name or say anything about why he’s sitting in a blizzard in what appears to be shorts and sneakers. She tells him they’re leaving, going down the mountain, and they begin the slow, painful trek down, with John often giving up and Pam essentially ignoring that and keeping him going, even when it’s clear she’s putting her own life at risk.

At points, this movie reminded me a bit of 127 Hours, with Watts’ Pam frequently either talking to herself or talking to John, who doesn’t really answer her. Watts’ performance is a solid one that the whole movie is basically hung on. It’s a strong enough performance that the movie probably doesn’t need the flashbacks to Pam and her young daughters or the movie’s final 15 or so minutes that do a lot of unnecessary telling after Watts has spent a good deal of the movie showing us Pam’s inner turmoil and her determined personality. Infinite Storm is ultimately a thin but interesting watch about this slice of recent New Hampshire history. B-

Rated R for some language and brief nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Malgorzata Szumowska with a screenplay by Joshua Rollins, Infinite Storm is an hour and 37 minutes long and is distributed by Bleecker Street.

Featured photo: The Lost City.

Kiddie Pool 22/03/31

Family fun for the weekend

Thursday night live

Cowabunga’s Indoor Playground (725 Huse Road in Manchester; cowabungas.com, 935-9659) will hold a “Dinner & a Dance Party” on Thursday, March 31, from 5 to 7 p.m. For $25 per kid, children get a meal, two hours of play time and a meet and greet with a special character. Similar events are scheduled through April — the guest for Thursday, April 14, is scheduled to be the Easter Bunny.

See a show

• The Epping Middle High School Drama Club will presentBeauty and the Beast Jr. on Friday, April 1, and Saturday, April 2, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, April 3, at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $10 at the door in cash or check. The show, a youth adaptation of the 1994 Broadway play and 1991 animated film, will feature kids in grades 6 through 12, according to a press release. The show will take place at the Epping Playhouse (38 Ladd’s Lane in Epping). See eppingtheater.org.

• The Methuen Ballet Ensemble will present an all-ages-friendly ballet of Cinderella on Saturday, April 2, at 2:30 p.m. at the Derry Opera House (29 West Broadway in Derry). Tickets cost $25. See derryoperahouse.org.

• The Palace Youth Theatre will present The Descendants The Musical on Monday, March 4, and Tuesday, March 5, at 7 p.m. at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org). Tickets cost $12 to $15. The show features student actors in grades 2 through 12.

The spring sky

• “The Stars and the Planets of Spring” is the focus of the virtual Super Stellar Friday Online program on Friday, April 1, at 7 p.m. via the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (2 Institute Drive in Concord; starhop.com, 271-7827). Register for the free discussion to find out what planets can be seen in the spring sky without a telescope.

The center itself is open to the public Fridays through Sundays with sessions from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 1:30 to 4 p.m. There will be four planetarium shows daily, according to the website, which recommends purchasing timed tickets in advance. Admission costs $11.50 for adults, $10.50 for students and seniors and $8.50 for kids ages 3 to 12 (admission is free for children 2 and under; masks required for visitors over the age of 2). Planetarium show tickets cost $5 per person (free for children 2 and under); see the website for the schedule of planetarium shows.

Spring storytime

• The storytime and craft at the Bookery Manchester (844 Elm St. in downtown Manchester; bookerymht.com) on Saturday, April 2, will celebrate spring. The book will be First Notes of Spring by Jessica Kulekjian, illustrated by Jennifer Bower. The craft will be making spring wands, according to the website.

A little more syrup

Ben’s Sugar Shack, with locations in Temple and Newbury, has its final scheduled weekend tours of maple season this weekend, Saturday, April 2, and Sunday, April 3, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. See the syrup process from tree to finished product and enjoy some maple samples, according to bensmaplesyrup.com.

Save the date: For PJ Masks

To celebrate National Superhero Day, local theaters will present PJ Masks We Can All Be Heroes, an event featuring a four-part PJ Masks adventure, music videos and other PJ Masks clips. The presentation will screen Saturday, April 23, at 2 p.m. at AMC Londonderry (16 Orchard View Drive in Londonderry) and Cinemark Rockingham Park (15 Mall Road in Salem) and at 10 a.m. at the O’neil Cinemas Brickyard Square (24 Calef Highway in Epping). Ticket prices vary at the different theaters; see fathomevents.com.

Oscar night excitement — really!

Close the book on 2021 at the movies with Sunday’s awards show

Get excited about the Oscars!

Yes, I’m talking to you, person interested in movies enough to be lingering in the film section. But I’m also talking to me, an official Oscars Fan who proclaimed her love for the Oscars last year and yet can’t quite seem to get as jazzed about this year’s ceremony the way I did about 2018 (Ladybird! Get Out!) or 2019 (Black Panther! The Favourite! A Star Is Born and everything to do with Lady Gaga!) or even last year’s weird train station Oscars (Minari! Regina King! The song “Husavik” from Eurovision Song Contest!).

But even if, like me, you haven’t seen all of the Best Picture nominees (I’ll get to the three-hour Drive My Car, I promise) there is still a lot to get even casual movie fans enthused about this year — in terms of the movies, the ceremony and Oscar season. Pop your popcorn, open the prosecco you’re going to pretend is Champagne and don that vintage Old Navy and let’s get excited about Oscar Sunday (March 27 at 8 p.m., on ABC) together. Time to get excited about…

• The Best Picture nominees: Kenneth Branagh’s Northern Ireland-set Belfast has six nominations (available for rent or purchase). CODA, about the hearing teen daughter of deaf parents, has three nominations (Apple TV+). Adam McKay’s apocalypse, I don’t know, comedy I guess, Don’t Look Up (Netflix) has four nominations. The Japanese drama Drive My Car (HBO Max and rent or purchase) has four nominations including best international feature film. Beautiful, slow-moving Dune(HBO Max or for purchase) has 10 nominations and while I didn’t love the movie I feel like it’s a strong and worthy competitor for the sound and visual categories. The Will Smith-starring biopic of Serena and Venus Williams’ dad, King Richard, has six nominees (in theaters and returning to HBO Max on March 24, and available for rent or purchase). Paul Thomas Anderson’s nostalgia trip to 1970s L.A., Licorice Pizza (available for rent or purchase), has three nominations. The Guillermo del Toro-directed beautiful-looking but meh Nightmare Alley (HBO Max and for purchase) has four nominations. Jane Campion’s menace-filled Western The Power of the Dog (Netflix) has 11 nominations including Campion for director. Steven Spielberg’s surprisingly joyful (I mean, bleak if you think about it but joyful to watch) West Side Story (HBO Max, Disney+ and for rent or purchase) has seven nominations including what I would consider maybe the surest-thing nomination of Ariana DeBose for Anita.

• The ceremony: This year’s Oscar ceremony has the potential to be an entertaining grab bag of winners with Thoughts About This Moment We’re In globally, Academy members angry about the move of some categories off the broadcast proper and a whole bunch of people low-level freaked out about the state of their industry. For the first time in a while, domestic U.S. politics is probably, like, fourth or fifth on the list of issues that will be part of the mood of the night. I feel like last year’s Oscars missed an opportunity to get people revved up for either the nominated films specifically or the theatrical experience in general (Google “Marvel Studios Celebrates the Movies” for a look at how to do that). With movie-going still not fully Back, it would be great if the ceremony helped sell us on the concept again and helped to actually introduce people to some of the lesser-known films on the nominees list.

And crazy stuff will likely happen because crazy stuff always happens and I hope that includes, as was speculated by the folks at Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast, some actor winner pulling up the Makeup and Hairstyling winner or a Directing winner shouting out Production Design or Editing winner. Those are some of the eight categories that, as has been widely reported, have been pushed to a pre-broadcast first hour largely at the behest of ABC to make the broadcast ceremony shorter, which will somehow translate into more viewers. What will be part of the broadcast, though, is some kind of recognition of the “fan favorite film” of the year that was voted on largely via Twitter, so you know that will be weird. Anyway, tune in at 8 p.m. for the ceremony; a preshow starts at 6:30 p.m., according to Indiewire.

• The other award-granting organizations: Between this year’s Oscar season being a month longer than the pre-pandemic awards season schedule and the collapse of the Golden Globes (which were announced via Twitter a million years ago back in early January), I feel like some of the precursor awards got less attention, particularly if you’re not someone who goes seeking that info. So let’s go seeking, shall we? As with the Oscars, other awards nominee lists offer a great place to turn when you’re trying to figure out what to watch tonight.

Even though We Don’t Talk About the Golden Globes (no no no…), it is a place where the list of nominees includes Mahershala Ali in Swan Song(Apple TV+), Marion Cotillard in the musical Annette (Amazon Prime), Ruth Negga in the lovely-looking melodrama Passing (Netflix) and the score for Wes Andreson’s latest, The French Dispatch (currently on HBO Max).

The Indie Spirit Awards, which usually happen the Saturday evening before the Oscars, took place in early March this year. On that list, non-Oscar nominees include the sweet family dramedy C’mon C’mon (available for rent or purchase), the excellent Nicholas Cage drama Pig (Hulu) and the claustrophobically funny Shiva Baby (HBO Max).

The Critics Choice Awards, handed out a few weeks ago, included nominations for the delightful Western, starring Regina King and Idris Elba, The Harder They Fall (Netflix) as well as, thanks to its comedy category my favorite movie of last year, Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Hulu, rent or purchase).

• The night of capital F Fashion: After two years of stretchy pants, I’m not necessarily in a hurry to dress fancy myself but I do enjoy watching others do it.

• The nominees I’m rooting for: Of the nine Best Picture nominees I’ve seen, my favorite is CODA, probably followed by West Side Story and a tie between Belfast and Licorice Pizza. In other categories, I’d pick Denzel Washington to win for his titular role in The Tragedy of Macbeth (Apple TV+).

I’d be happy with any of the nominees for best actress taking the win: Jessica Chastain, who went the extra mile in The Eyes of Tammy Faye (HBO Max, rent or purchase); Penélope Cruz in Pedro Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers (available for rent), also nominated for score; Olivia Coleman, always great, in the Maggie Gyllenhaal-directed The Lost Daughter (Netflix), also nominated in supporting actress for Jessie Buckley and for adapted screenplay; Kristen Stewart, who is maybe the frontrunner for playing Princess Diana in Spencer, and depending on the day I might even agree to Nicole Kidman, a decent Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos (Amazon Prime).

The other “I’d be happy with any win” category is animated feature film: Find Encanto (the favorite to win, I think?), Luca and Raya and the Last Dragon, all beautiful and solid films, on Disney+; Flee, which is also nominated in the documentary and international categories and is a compelling tale of one man’s flight from Afghanistan, is available on Hulu and for rent or purchase, and The Mitchells vs. the Machines, a fun tale of family and technology, is on Netflix. While I agree that there are like two or even three better songs in Encanto, I am also rooting for it to win the original song category for “Dos Oruguitas.”

In what could be called the “movies people actually saw” category (visual effects), Spider-Man: No Way Home (available for purchase), the No. 1 2021 movie at the box office, faces off against the No. 2 movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Disney+, rent or purchase); the last Daniel Craig James Bond and the year’s No. 7 movie, No Time to Die (rent or purchase), and the 10th biggest box office of 2021, the Ryan Reynolds-starring Free Guy (HBO Max, Disney+, rent or purchase), as well as Dune. It’s a solid list — and my vote might actually go to Dune.

• Saying a final goodbye to 2021: And as at any good New Year’s Eve party, enjoy a glass of bubbly and some time to reflect (House of Gucci — that was really something, wasn’t it?) and make your resolutions: more in-theater movies, more searching for the cool weird stuff on streaming, more embracing what we get instead of wishing everything was John Wick. And, of course, a whole new year of award contenders.

Hey, look at that, I’m excited!

Featured photo: West Side Story.

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