Author: Amy Diaz

Where to see the 2021 nominees

We finally have the Oscar nominees for 2020 films.

Announced March 15, it’s a pretty solid list for such a weird year (films from first two months of 2021 were also eligible; the Oscar ceremony is scheduled for April 25). Most of the early-2020 hopefuls (Elisabeth Moss for The Invisible Man, anything for First Cow or Never Rarely Sometimes Always or The Forty-Year-Old Version) didn’t make an appearance on the list but late-season favorites like Minari, Promising Young Woman, Judas and the Black Messiah and Nomadland have heavy award presence.

And now the fun really starts: seeing all the nominees. Many of this year’s big nominees had their “opening weekends” on streaming services so most are relatively easy to find. Here’s how to see the films in the big feature film categories:

Best picture

• The Father — This movie is in theaters (as close as the AMC Methuen, according to Fandango) now and will be available via video on demand on Friday, March 26. The movie also received nominations for lead actor (Anthony Hopkins), supporting actress (Olivia Coleman), film editing and production design.

• Judas and the Black Messiah — This Fred Hampton biopic was on HBO Max for a month when it was first released and is now in theaters. It also received two supporting actor nominations (for Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield) and nominations for cinematography, original song and original screenplay.

• Mank — This Citizen-Kane-behind-the-scenes tale of old Hollywood is available on Netflix and also received nominations for lead actor (Gary Oldman), supporting actress (Amanda Seyfried), cinematography, costume design, directing (by David Fincher), makeup and hairstyling, original score, production design and sound.

• Minari — This beautiful story of a Korean American family is in theaters (in the Boston area) and available for rent via VOD. It also received nominations for lead actor (Stephen Yeun), supporting actress (Yuh-Jung Youn), directing (Lee Isaac Chung), original score and original screenplay.

• Nomadland— This tale of a woman dealing with her losses while living as a nomad (she travels from job to job living in her van) is in theaters (including in Keene Cinemas) and on Hulu. It also received nominations for lead actress (Frances McDormand), cinematography, directing (Chloé Zhao), film editing and adapted screenplay.

• Promising Young Woman — This searing (but at times bleakly humorous) tale of grief and vengeance is in theaters (in the Boston area) and available for rent via VOD. It also received nominations for lead actress (Carey Mulligan), directing (Emerald Fennell — and yes you read that right, two female director nods this year!), film editing and original screenplay.

• Sound of Metal — This movie about a musician who loses his hearing is available via Amazon Prime and was also nominated for lead actor (Riz Ahmed), film editing, sound and original screenplay.

• The Trial of the Chicago 7 — Aaron Sorkin’s very Sorkin-y movie about the 1968 Democratic Convention protests is available on Netflix and is also nominated for supporting actor (Sacha Baron Cohen), cinematography, film editing, original song and original screenplay.

Other movies with acting nominations

• Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — This Netflix release based on an August Wilson play garnered nominations for lead actress (Viola Davis) and is the last chance to honor Chadwick Boseman, who was nominated for lead actor. The movie also received a nomination for costume design and production design.

• One Night in Miami… — This Amazon Prime movie based on a Kemp Powers play got Leslie Odom Jr. a supporting actor nominatinon as well as an original song nomination and an adapted screenplay nomination.

• The United States vs. Billie Holiday — This biopic of Holiday is a bit of a mess but Andra Day’s performance as the singer makes it worth watching; it’s available now on Hulu.

• Pieces of a Woman — Vanessa Kirby is excellent in this Netflix release about grief (at least she is in the hour and 40-ish minutes of the movie I watched; I guess now I need to make myself watch the harrowing first 30 minutes of the movie).

• Borat Subsequent Moviefilm — I think, years from now, this movie, available on Amazon Prime, is going to be a time capsule of weirdness, with all the Trump and Covid and political conspiracy stuff crammed into this “hidden” camera comedy. Maria Bakalova, who plays Borat’s “teenage” daughter, is nominated for supporting actress, and the movie also received a nomination for adapted screenplay.

• Hillbilly Elegy — Glenn Close gets her eight Oscar nomination (no wins yet) for her role in this mess of wigs and accents and arm’s-length storytelling. I think we all agree she deserves an award for a movie. See Hillbilly Elegy if you want, I guess, like if you’re an Oscar completist, on Netflix.

Animated feature films

• Onward — This movie opened right before Everything but quickly made its way to Disney+ early in the pandemic, which is probably why I had completely forgotten about this Pixar movie about suburban-y magical creatures (elves, centaurs, cyclopses, etc.) and two teens brothers on a quest to have their late father back for one day.

• Over the Moon — It’s another movie about a kid dealing with the loss of a parent. For reasons I can’t remember, I only made it about halfway through this movie during my one attempt to watch it (though I do remember some very pretty visuals). The movie is available on Netflix.

• A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon — This might be my favorite of the category. This G-rated movie is beautiful to look at, fun for adults (sci-fi pop culture jokes) and kids (burps!) and manages to be extremely clever and sweet while also not really having any dialogue. The mischievous but kind Shaun the Sheep meets a lost alien in this Netflix release that felt pretty all-ages friendly (a rarity even among kid fare).

• Soul — This late-2020 Pixar release, available on Disney+, looks and sounds absolutely beautiful and while it’s probably OK for most kids, scary-stuff-wise (there are some creatures that might freak out some of the youngest movie viewers) my middle-elementary-school-aged kid did get bored with some of the parts where the main character agonizes about his career and what constitutes a life’s purpose.

• Wolfwalkers — This Apple TV+ movie is definitely not for the littlest kids — the wolves can be scary, the British officials ruling Ireland are scarier. But for middle-elementary and up this movie with picture-book-like illustrations and feisty girl central characters (one is an English girl who has come to Ireland with her wolf-hunting father; one is an Irish girl who can also turn into a wolf) is beautiful and thoroughly engrossing.

Featured photo: Minari

Yes Day (PG)

Jennifer Garner stars in Yes Day, a delightful family comedy about wacky hijinks on a day when kids pick the fun.

Or put another way, Jennifer Garner plays a mom in a waking nightmare of a horror story about a lady going through some stuff personally and professionally who is bullied by her family into participating in some internet nonsense to prove she can still loosen up and have fun — you know what would be fun how about someone else do the laundry for a change, dishes don’t wash themselves, don’t want to see Mom erupt in a rage volcano when she steps on a Lego how about you PICK UP THE LEGOS.

It is possible this movie touched a nerve.

When the Torres children — young teen Katie (Jenna Ortega), tween Nando (Julian Lerner) and young Ellie (Everly Carganilla) — complain that their mom, Allison (Garner), always says “no” to everything they want to do, she makes a deal with them. If they approach their kid duties (chores, homework) with more gusto, they will earn a Yes Day, a 24-hour period where the parents won’t say no to any of their plans or desires, within legal, geographical and financial limits. (Their “mom says no” complaints are documented both in a haiku Katie writes for school and a movie Nando makes calling his mom a dictator for, among other things, losing her cool when she steps on Legos.) And even though that sounds exhausting, Allison approaches the day with excitement because it means spending non-nagging time with her family, most significantly with independence-seeking Katie and with work-absorbed husband Carlos (Edgar Ramírez). Allison, a former sky-dive and backpack-the-world type, is also under some stress outside the home as her attempts to reenter the workforce have not been successful.

A lot of cute giant ice cream sundae-eating and paintball-ish game-playing ensues. The actors here have good family chemistry, with Ortega believably walking that teen line between having fun with siblings and parents while still wanting to do mature things with her friends, and the other kids turning in cute but not cloying performances. Ramírez turns in a completely fine “likeable dad” performance, even if his character gets the least to do of the bunch. Perhaps because of movies like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and her Capital One ads, I’ve come to think of Garner more as a mom character than as her Alias action hero but here she reminds you can she can pull off physical comedy and action-y moments as well as more sitcom-y moments of humor.

Even with a side plot involving Katie and her plans to go to a music festival with some friend’s cousin and some older-dude friends, the movie is basically focused on wholesome goofiness. Wholesome goofiness and carpet-destroying foam — but I don’t think everybody who watches this is going to spend quite as much time thinking “how are they going to get that out of the car upholstery” and “does homeowners insurance cover that” as I did. But then maybe that’s a sign that I need a Yes Day. (No.) B

Rated PG for some rude and suggestive material, and brief language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Miguel Arteta with a screenplay by Justin Malen (based on the book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld), Yes Day is an hour and 26 minutes long and is available on Netflix.

Cherry (R)

Tom Holland plays a young man who falls into addiction in Cherry, a movie directed by Russo brothers Anthony and Joe of Marvel movies fame.

Specifically, they directed the Captain Americas Winter Soldier and Civil War and two Avengers — Infinity War and Endgame.I mention this because it’s hard not to watch this movie as “Anthony and Joe Russo show they can do something not Marvel” or maybe as “Anthony Russo and Joe Russo bring popcorn movie flash to a downbeat story.”

We first see Holland, whose character isn’t called by name in the movie, as he prepares to rob a bank, explaining his actions to us in narration that is weaved through the movie. The bank robbery serves as bookends to his short (in years) life story, starting when he is aimlessly attending college and meets Emily (Ciara Bravo), the girlfriend who quickly becomes his wife, through a stint in the Army and into his post-Army years of PTSD, heroin addiction and crime.

The bare bones of Cherry are a thoroughly depressing story that the movie manages to add humor (dark humor) to and that is warmed up by Holland, who I think does an above average job as a kid who seems a little bit like he’s blown by the wind through his life.

Bravo, whose Emily feels more like Holland’s character’s projection of her than she does like a fully formed person, feels sort of sleepy throughout. Their relationship is one of the cores of this movie but her wispiness prevents us from ever really understanding why she stays with Holland or why the relationship is so important to him.

I wasn’t bothered by the movie’s general storytelling showiness, all strange comic/tragic asides, stylized shots and fourth-wall-breaking narration. Perhaps at a runtime shorter (significantly shorter) than two hours and 22 minutes the style of the movie and the general solid-ness of Holland’s performance would be enough to keep things moving and to make the movie’s points (assuming the elements about the military, the war, careless opioid prescription and the socioeconomics of a gray-looking Cleveland are points the movie’s trying to make and not just, like, story-telling accessories). But you feel this movie’s lengthy runtime and it doesn’t always provide you with a good reason why you are lingering in this or that moment. As a result, a lot of the more stylish elements end up feeling like padding.

Cherry isn’t a bad movie but the result of all this moviemaking style put on a relatively thin story is that you feel like you’re getting about four inches of elaborate frosting on one inch of cake. C+

Rated R for graphic drug abuse, disturbing and violent images, pervasive language and sexual content, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo with a screenplay by Angela Russo-Otstot and Jessica Goldberg (from the novel Cherry by Nico Walker), Cherry is two hours and 22 minutes long and is available on Apple TV+.

Featured photo: Yes Day