Author: Amy Diaz

Anthony Hopkins is heartbreaking and Olivia Colman is heartbroken in The Father, a sad but excellent movie that is nominated for six Oscars.

Anthony (Hopkins) is a retired man living in London and Anne (Colman) is his daughter — this much feels certain. But, after a fight with yet another caregiver, has Anthony gone to live with Anne or has she come to live with him? And is it just her sharing the apartment with the increasingly agitated Anthony, who feels certain she’s trying to wrest his flat from him, or is her husband (maybe Mark Gatiss or maybe Rufus Sewell) there as well? Anthony and the patient if increasingly despondent Anne frequently butt heads, leading Anthony to tell whomever’s around how much better he gets along with his other daughter Lucy — but Anne’s silence whenever Lucy is mentioned suggests that there’s more to her absence than just a busy schedule.

That Anthony is constantly losing his watch may sometimes feel a little too nail on the head for his lost grip on time — he relives moments over again and forgets who people are or how long it’s been since he’s seen them last. He is a man grasping at sand and still sinking. The movie (and Hopkins’ strong performance) lets us feel his confusion, frustration and sense of complete disorientation. The story has the build of a psychological mystery thriller and works even though we understand what the mystery is that Anthony seems unable to unwravel.

Likewise, Colman puts us inside of Anne’s grief. Her love for her father, their relationship difficulties, her frustration with his limitations, her conflicted thoughts about what is truly best for him (and for her) — we can see all of this, often just from a look on Colman’s face or the way her eyebrows raise during a smile. The very last time she’s on screen, she gives this little nod that does the work of a whole speech.

The Father is not a fun movie but it is exceptionally well-made and so well-performed that it is an engrossing watch even when it is achingly sad. A

Rated PG-13 for some strong language and thematic material, according to the MPA at filmratings.com. Directed by Florian Zeller with a screenplay by Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller (from the play of the same name by Zeller), The Father is an hour and 37 minutes long and is distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. It is screening in theaters (including via Red River Theatres’ virtual cinema) and available for rent.

Especially special effects

The Oscar’s visual effects nominees offer some good examples of films that were able to transcend the “TV-ness” of 2020.

Because the nominees provide great answers to “what should we watch tonight?” I’m spending the pre-awards ceremony (on April 25) weeks running through this year’s nominees. I previously discussed two of the visual effects nominees — Tenet (available for purchase and coming to HBO Max on May 1) and Mulan (available on Disney+ and for purchase). Both wowed with their visuals, Mulan perhaps more for costuming (for which it’s also nominated) and set design. Tenet’s coolest element is its use of characters traveling in opposite directions through time in the same scene (and if that makes no sense, buckle up for the “time travel and stuff”-ness of this movie), which would probably make it my pick in this category.

Other visual effects nominees:

• Love and Monsters It’s so cool this sweet, sorta silly creature movie/love story got a nomination. A 20-something guy hikes through some 80 miles of a monster-infested California to see the girl he’s loved since high school in this fun, sort of optimistic movie with an “end of the world” premise. The monsters are pretty well-rendered too. The fun movie night movie is available for rent or purchase.

• The Midnight Sky I can see why this total bummer of a George Clooney movie received a nomination: It features bleakly beautiful shots of the Arctic (where Clooney’s scientist is the final remaining human — maybe) as well as a storyline that takes place on a spaceship with occasional scenes of weightlessness and space-walks. But I have a hard time recommending this downbeat end-of-the-world movie (available on Netflix, if you’re in just too good a mood).

• The One and Only Ivan This Disney+ family live action film (or, you know, “live action” since the photo-realistic animals are CGI creations, according to a New York Times story) is based on the true story of a gorilla named Ivan who made art. The Ivan here (voiced by Sam Rockwell) is the star attraction in a fading mall circus run by human Mack (Bryan Cranston) and filled with other animals (voiced by the likes of Helen Mirren, Phillipa Soo, Chaka Khan, Ron Funches and Danny DeVito). This older elementary family movie is probably adequately entertaining for family movie night (despite some moments of sadness with sick moms and poachers and the like).

I discussed where to find best picture and best animated feature nominees and the films that received acting nominations in the March 18 issue and last week (March 25) tackled most of the other “mainstream movie” categories. (Find them all at hippopress.com.) Programming updates: Red River Theatres in Concord now has multi-category nominee The Father available via its virtual cinema as well as fellow nominees Minari and Collective. Nominated short films may be available as well starting April 2.

Featured photo: The Father

So many nominees, so many streaming platforms

Every Oscar season is a little bit weird.

Some years, it feels like every nominee came out in the final month of the year. Some years, it feels like the winners have been known for so long there’s no real contest. Some years — my least favorite kind of years — a significant number of nominations aren’t available at all for the movie-going public until months after the award ceremony, when you’ve completely forgotten about the movies.

This year, most of the movies are fairly accessible, and not just in the “if you’re willing to drive to Boston” sense but accessible even if you aren’t completely comfortable leaving your house just to fill out your Oscar ballot (nominees were announced March 15 and the awards will be handed out April 25). In last week’s issue of the Hippo, I laid out how to find the feature films in many of the major categories. As of this Friday, March 26, when The Father will hit VOD, the only nominee in the best picture, animated feature or acting categories that you can only see in theaters is Judas and the Black Messiah (which was on HBO Max for a month). Find my full listing of those films on page 33 of last week’s paper. One update: Minari, nominee for best picture and in five other categories, is also available via Red River Theatres’ virtual cinema; see redrivertheatres.org for information.

Here are some of the “odds and ends” releases — some more of the feature films outside the best picture and acting categories that managed to snag a nomination or two.

• News of the World This Tom Hanks downbeat Western is, you know, fine. Hanks plays a Hanks character carrying a bunch of grief through post-Civil War Texas as he tries to bring an orphaned girl to her family. The movie received nominations for cinematography, original score, production design and sound and is available to purchase. It’s not the best movie night you’ll ever have but it’s also not the worst.

• GreyhoundI feel like this is a good place to mention the other Tom Hanks 2020 release that is both respectable and sorta forgettable. Hanks plays a World Ward II Navy captain who is leading a convoy of ships through the Nazi-sub-filled Atlantic Ocean. This movie, which is nominated for sound, is basically a chase movie and the only character who really matters is “Captain Tom Hanks.” It is absolutely fine while you watch it — which you can on Apple TV+— and will vanish from your mind almost as soon as it’s done.

• EmmaAnya Taylor-Joy is the titular Jane Austen heroine in this very fun adaptation that was one of my favorite pre-pandemic 2020 releases. It has a specific look to costumes and set design and it’s no surprise that it received nominations for costume design and makeup and hairstyling. It is currently available on HBO and it is available for purchase.

• Mulan Disney’s live-action Mulan is probably going to be remembered more for how the movie was released (on Disney+ for an extra fee, the first of Disney’s films to be released that way) than the movie itself, which wowed me with its visuals and underwhelmed me with its story. I totally support its nominations for costume design (the costumes are “press pause and gaze” beautiful) and visual effects.

• Pinocchio Roberto Benigni stars as Geppetto in this live-action Pinocchio adaptation (which I haven’t yet seen) that scored two nominations: one for costume design and one for makeup and hairstyling. It is available for rent or purchase and appears to have both an original Italian audio/English subtitles track and an English-dubbed audio track.

• Da 5 Bloods One of the disappointments of this year’s nominations was that this Spike Lee movie didn’t earn any acting nods (in particular for Delroy Lindo). It did get one nomination, original score for Terence Blanchard. The movie is worth seeing, even if it probably needs a big screen to capture all of what Lee was doing; it’s available on Netflix.

• Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga This (and Emma) might be my favorite of the one- or two-off nominations; this sweetly goofy Will Ferrell movie has grown on me since I first saw it, especially the mid-movie song-mash-up featuring assorted Eurovision stars. The song “Husavik,” the big climactic number sung by Elizabeth Banks’ character, Sigrit, is nominated for original song, which hopefully means someone will perform it at the Oscar ceremony. The movie is available on Netflix.

• The Life Ahead Sophia Loren stars in this Italian movie that is still on my “Oscar nominees to watch” list. It’s available on Netflix and has a song, “Lo Sí (Seen),” nominated in the original song category.

• Tenet Christopher Nolan’s timey wimey movie did have some impressive elements, most notably the fight scenes. It makes sense that this movie would garner a visual effects nomination and, sure, production design, why not, for all those sleek locales. It is currently available for rent or purchase and will be on HBO Max May 1.

• The White Tiger This year’s screenplay nods were basically all of the best picture nominees (minus Mank) plus One Night in Miami (which should have been a best picture nominee), Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (I mean, what can you say; 2020 was a year) and this movie, based on the 2008 novel by Aravind Adiga that won the Man Booker Prize. Available on Netflix, The White Tiger features a strong performance by Adarsh Gourav as a man in India attempting to break free of crushing poverty and the demands of his village. It’s an occasionally tough but definitely worthwhile watch with moments of humor.

Featured photo: Emma

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (R)

Warner Brothers asks for a do-over of their 2017 DC supergroup movie and thus presents Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a movie that will make you say, “Oh, now I get it.”

You probably know the widely reported story here: Director Joss Whedon finished the 2017 Justice League after original director Zack Snyder stepped away due to the death of his daughter Autumn (to whom this movie is dedicated). Reshoots led to (1) a terrible moosh-face on Henry Cavill because they had to get rid of his Mission Impossible mustache digitally, (2) what seemed like (still seems like? who knows) the end of the whole Batfleck phase of Batman, and (3) a bunch of Wonder Woman fans (including me) being annoyed at how that movie subjected the mighty warrior to some real shady male-gaze shots.

This “Snyder cut,” as the internet’s been calling it for years, is a re-editing of the film that uses Snyder’s original footage (plus some new scenes shot in 2020, according to various media reports) and sends the Whedon-y stuff (including that distracting “no mustache” face) to the Phantom Zone with Joss himself (who has bigger problems now). The new movie is four hours long (which is twice as long as the original) and has a different Big Bad and a different group dynamic among all the superheroes it brings together. It is also, surprisingly, better and has a more interesting story.

The bones are sort of the same as the 2017 version: Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) — and eventually Superman (Cavill) —come together to fight a scary guy. That guy, Steppenwolf (voice of Ciaran Hinds), comes to Earth searching for three “Mother boxes” that, when put together, create the Unity, which is a glowy thing that looks like some kind of expensive STEM toy and that when activated will burn Earth to a cinder.

The Snyder Cut adds the wrinkle that Steppenwolf’s plans aren’t just scorching for his own gain. He’s attempting to deliver a hellishly terraformed Earth to Darkseid (voice of Ray Porter), an even bigger badder galactic conqueror who is particularly interested in Earth, the one place he was defeated millennia ago. Humans, gods (of the Zeus variety), Amazonians, Atlanteans and at least one Green Lantern worked together to defeat Darkseid and keep him from obtaining a thing hidden on Earth (a magic formula that’s sort of crop-circled into the rock layer of the planet) that would allow him to control everyone and everything in the universe.

Here, we also learn a lot more about each of our heroes. The Flash and Cyborg get mini-origin movies folded in to this tale and we get to know more about Aquaman. Wonder Woman is the character we’d recognize from her standalone films. We learn more about everybody’s individual environments, which means more Themyscira, more Atlantis, more Barry Allen (The Flash) being the peppy fun ray of sunshine that this movie needs. We also see more about their motivations for joining Bruce Wayne’s frantic quest to create a band of Earth protectors, and the “death” of Superman in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice becomes more meaningful both emotionally and for this movie’s plot. And while the movie jettisons the quippiness that was so at odds with the bleakness in the 2017 movie, it manages some surprising lightness and even moments of optimism.

I’m not sure how this was all ever going to fit in one movie. (Maybe by regular-speed-ing the slow motion? There is a lot of slow-mo here.) I can see exactly how it would fit into two movies, like Justice League and Justice League: Darkseid or something, one a little over two hours and one a little under two hours. The movie is also divided into parts — six parts and an epilogue, so if four hours feels like too much you could watch it a few “episodes” at a time. While I (surprisingly) enjoyed watching the movie in one sitting, I don’t think it’s necessary to consume it that way. There are a lot of little moments, a lot of Easter eggs that set up interesting possibilities even if you don’t know every bit of comic book lore.

There are several articles out there on the internet (including a pretty fascinating one on vanityfair.com) that explain how this movie was meant to be the middle of this particular series of DC movies and how this story set up two films that were to have come after. The most miraculous accomplishment of Zack Snyder’s Justice League is that it left me more than a little interested in seeing those two movies. B

Rated R (though I can’t figure out by whom it is rated or specifically why, I suspect for language; though ultimately rather hopeful for a Snyder movie, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is at least as dark as The Dark Knight). Directed by Zack Snyder with a screenplay by Chris Terrio, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is four hours and two minutes long and is available on HBO Max.

Sound of Metal (R)

A drummer suddenly loses his hearing in Sound of Metal, a superbly well-crafted movie that has been nominated for six Oscars.

Ruben (Riz Ahmed) is a drummer in a duo with his girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) who goes from experiencing some fleeting auditory weirdness to sudden loss of almost all his hearing. It’s during a gig that he’s forced to finally tell Lou that he’s lost about 75 percent of his hearing and likely to lose more. Ruben and Lou’s life seems built around their music — they live and tour in an Airstream and the concerts appear to be their main (and only, probably) form of income.

Thus faced with the loss of what Ruben feels is his whole life, Ruben is understandably panicked and Lou is afraid that this will affect his sobriety (we learn he is four years in recovery from heroin use). Ruben’s sponsor helps get him into a recovery program for people who are deaf. Though he initially resists, Ruben decides to stay — meaning that Lou must leave him — and spends weeks learning, as the program’s leader Joe (Paul Raci) puts it, how to be deaf. We see him learn sign language and teach kids drumming. But his urge to get back to his life — music, touring, Lou — never subsides.

Ahmed, who along with Raci received one of this movie’s two acting nominations, is absolutely excellent here. (This is a particularly strong leading actor year; Ahmed, Chadwick Boseman and Stephen Yeun are three standout Oscar nominees.) He does an excellent job conveying the panic and fear that come with discovering something has suddenly changed, dramatically, with your body and its ability to do something you took for granted. He also makes us feel Ruben’s mix of emotions as he learns how to navigate his life with greatly reduced hearing but also still yearns to get back to his life as he knew it.

Also nominated for film editing, original screenplay and best picture, Sound of Metal feels like a sure-thing win in the sound category (this year, sound mixing and sound editing have been combined into one category). The movie masterfully weaves the world as Ruben hears it into the story, putting us in his head and letting us experience his frustrations and his moments of joy. A

Rated R for language throughout and brief nude images, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Darius Marder with a screenplay by Darius Marder & Abraham Marder, Sound of Metal is two hours long and distributed by Amazon (where it is available via Prime Video).

Featured photo: Zack Snyder’s Justice League