American Fiction, Maestro & Best Picture Deep Dives

Despite being the most prepared I’ve ever been going into Academy Award nominations, I’m somehow still not done watching the Best Picture nominees. I have three movies to go (Poor Things, The Zone of Interest and Killers of the Flower Moon) and less than two weeks, but I’ll get there. In the meantime, my brother, William, and I are back to dive a little deeper into each of the nominees that we have seen! Sam joins us for some of her insightful commentary as well. Here’s part one of this year’s Best Picture Deep Dives.

Note: Each section is spoiler free, except for one portion of Maestro, which is marked for where the spoilers start and end!

AMERICAN FICTION

American Fiction, a movie adapted from the novel Erasure, tells the story of author Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, whose last several books have failed to make a splash. While struggling to understand the current state of the book industry and where Black authors fit in, he pitches a satirical novel to his publishers filled with stereotypes. They love it, and Monk has to navigate what comes next.

William: Kick it off.

Annie: [Redacted] at the beginning of this movie.

William: Don’t say that! That’s a spoiler.

Annie: I wish I had known!

William: It doesn’t mean other people do!

Annie: I liked American Fiction! It was funny and moving and covered a lot of ground. Sterling K. Brown was my favorite performance, so I was really excited to see him get a Supporting Actor nomination. The tone of the movie shifted a lot, which sometimes was the point, but also left you feeling a little jerked around. They tried to pack a lot of stories in, which is very admirable, but they jumped from one thing to the other and I would have liked to dig into the main character, Monk’s arc, a bit more, which was sometimes sacrificed for B and C plots.

William: Do we like that his name is Monk?

Annie: No, that was distracting.

William: It was short for Monkey, because his mom called him that.

Annie: It was?

William: But everyone else called him that too! I feel like his agent called him that!

Sam: And the officer at the beach called him Monk! This doesn’t need to be in the newsletter.

William: Let’s take out everything Annie said and start with this name conversation. I liked American Fiction. I thought it did a good job of accomplishing its goal. I can’t decide how I feel about Jeffrey Wright’s performance. I thought Sterling K. Brown was very, very good.

Annie: Jeffrey Wright faded to the background a little bit, as the straight man with all of the chaos going on around him.

William: I liked the score, which was also nominated! Was this movie one of my favorites of the year? No, but I liked it. It’s been getting a lot of recognition for its screenplay, including a win at the BAFTAs, so the industry has supported the movie as well.

Annie: That was exciting. It’s Cord Jefferson’s first feature screenplay and his directorial debut.

William: Our theater wasn’t that into it. I like a vocal theater, especially during a comedy.

Annie: It started out weird because that man took our seats and we had to move.

William: And that’s American Fiction! I’m going to do a tagline at the end of all of these… American Fiction, more like American Non-Fiction, am I right?

American Fiction is available to rent or buy and is nominated for Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role (Jeffrey Wright), Actor in a Supporting Role (Sterling K. Brown), Adapted Screenplay and Original Score.

THE HOLDOVERS

Set during 1970 Christmas break at a boarding school in New England, The Holdovers follows three misfits, Paul Hunham, a lonely professor at the school, Angus Tully, a student whose mother abandoned him to go on vacation over the holidays, and Mary Lamb, a cafeteria manager whose son died in the Vietnam War.

Annie: Loved.

William: The bowl of soup of the Best Picture race. Because it’s cozy. I don’t even like soup.

Sam: My friend said when she watched the movie she felt like she had a blanket over her head because it made her feel cold.

Annie: I loved that it felt cold, because we saw it in December –

William: On December 26.

Annie: And I was wishing we had snow. So it was perfect. I’ve listened to the soundtrack so much on cozy winter mornings.

William: I loved it too. The whole cast was great, Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph. It’s really for anyone, anyone could get something out of it. I’m glad it was recognized, it felt like it could have gotten missed.

Annie: I was also briefly worried it was going to go the other way and be over-recognized, but I think we’re recognizing it just the right amount, with big wins for Da’Vine Joy Randolph and some other key nominations in Actor and Screenplay.

Sam: It was like a play!

Annie: Very talky, I loved that. It was very loving towards its characters. One of my favorite scenes is at the Christmas party, when Da’Vine Joy Randolph is crying in the kitchen. It was heartbreaking. And another great scene, when Dominic Sessa goes “What the f**k was that?!”

William: And when Paul Giamatti goes, “ANGUS!”

Annie: Some iconic line readings.

William: My soup comment works as the tagline. The bowl of soup of the year.

The Holdovers is available to watch on Peacock and is nominated for Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role (Paul Giamatti), Actress in a Supporting Role (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), Original Screenplay and Film Editing.

MAESTRO

Not a biopic about Leonard Bernstein… but instead a rumination on Bernstein’s life and relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.

Annie: As time has passed, so has my enjoyment for this movie.

William: Same.

Annie: I did like it when I left the theater. But the more I think about it, the script was bad. It should not have gotten a nomination. The way they told the entire story was weak and hurt the movie overall, which has some great performances.

William: A lot of times it felt like… what is this movie about?

Annie: Yes.

William: It almost felt like the movie was about his secrets and whether things were agreed upon or not. You felt like you left the movie and didn’t know much about him! And they messed up all of Carey Mulligan’s stuff.

Annie: She was great, but all she does is react to Bradley Cooper. And I thought it was cheap to have the last shot of the movie as her face and give her first billing, but to call the movie Maestro and barely focus on her life.

Sam: It wasn’t her point of view!

Annie: No! And the movie starts with him. The main character is usually the person you see first in the movie and we see him first.

William: Yeah, this is a tough one.

Annie: I thought it was beautifully directed.

William: It was one of the movies going into the year that I thought would be one of my favorites and it wasn’t. But two scenes in this movie were some of my favorite scenes of the year.

Annie: Tell us about them.

[SPOILERS FOR MAESTRO BELOW]

William: The first one was a scene with Maya Hawke, where she’s heard rumors about him being gay and he tells her they’re not true because he’s being forced to lie. And she says, “What a relief.” And the look on his face. Which we have since found out that Bradley Cooper was thinking in the moment that this scene needs to happen differently, but he keeps going with it.

Annie: Really? I didn’t know that!

William: He feels like when you watch it, you don’t see Leonard Bernstein, you see him.

Sam: Then why did he keep it in? He’s the director.

William: Sometimes you can be convinced to keep it in by the editors.

Annie: I loved that scene and his expression!

William: Me too. My heart broke! But he said he was thinking about how to re-write the scene. My second favorite scene was when they found out about the cancer. And the look on his face and the questions he asked.

[SPOILERS ARE OVER]

Annie: Yes. Really, really good.

William: Those might be my two favorite scenes of the year.

Annie: It’s sad that moments like that are overshadowed by the movie being a mess.

William: Bradley Cooper’s whole thing is how this isn’t a biopic and I think it would have been better if it was.

Annie: I feel bad that everyone tears down Bradley Cooper. The man just loves movies! He gets so excited to make his movies and talk about them.

William: He’s an actor’s studio kid, they’re all little freaks. No, I like Bradley Cooper.

Annie: So do I! Six years learning conducting is a bit much, but if that’s how he wants to spend his time, so be it.

William: At least he cares! Do you know how many actors don’t care?

Annie: And I like how involved he was with Leonard Bernstein’s kids throughout the whole process.

William: Maestro? More like The Secret Life of Leonard Bernstein. 

Maestro is available to watch on Netflix and is nominated for Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role (Bradley Cooper), Actress in a Leading Role (Carey Mulligan), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound and Makeup and Hairstyling.

PAST LIVES

Past Lives explores the lives of childhood classmates Na Young and Hae Sung across 24 years.

William: Past Lives, my favorite movie of the year. That’s the tagline.

Annie: Past Lives is a perfect movie.

William: It should have been nominated for everything. Greta Lee should have been nominated. Go see it. The end. That’s all we have to say. I love it. It’s kind of a small movie, so I’m glad it got recognized. Sometimes smaller, more subtle, movies can be overlooked at the Oscars.

Sam: It was a really poignant review of what it is to be human. And where they are feels like just as much of a character in the movie. I like how it was just her life. The fact that people can take something that happened in their life and make it look like this is insane to me.

Annie: I love how beautifully each character’s perspective is portrayed. The way they handle all three of the characters and their complicated emotions is so thoughtful and well done and made the movie so strong. A lesser movie would have butchered that approach, especially when it comes to the husband’s point of view. The last scenes of this movie are my favorite of the year, from the Uber to the walk away at the end. It was stunning. A gut punch.

Sam: And the bar.

Annie: And the bar!

Sam: You see it in the trailer and in the beginning of the movie, so you would think there’s not much more to that scene. And there’s so much more!

Annie: I want to rewatch it but I don’t feel emotionally ready. I’m really hoping it wins screenplay. It should be noted that this is Celine Song’s directorial debut!

Past Lives is available to watch on Showtime and is nominated for Best Picture and Original Screenplay.

OPPENHEIMER

A biopic about scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer from childhood through the development and aftermath of the atomic bomb.

Sam: I loved this when we saw it, but now I almost hate it. I almost just said “boo.”

William: Explain this. Are you sick of it winning everything?

Sam: I think so. And as a movie, it did a disservice to its subject matter by not covering the depth of the people greatly affected by this. They cover how they moved into this empty area in New Mexico. But that’s not true. They displaced people who are still being affected by the nuclear radiation from those tests. And that would have been easy to put in. You could have seen that through Oppenheimer. To show his fervor for getting this done, you could have shown that he was ignoring things like that.

William: A critique of Oppenheimer could be, should this movie have shown more about the real effects of the nuclear bomb by the people impacted in New Mexico and Hiroshima? The larger question is this. And I don’t have answers! This is opinion. Does art have a responsibility to educate or should it even be taken as education at all? It’s not a history textbook. It’s a movie. Do movies have a responsibility to cover every single aspect of every single thing? To me, this movie picked a perspective and stuck to it. They don’t have to do it the right way, they just have to pick a way. In the movie’s perspective, for example, does Oppenheimer regret what he does but not see himself as a villain? At the end of the day, it’s a movie, not a historical account.

Annie: The movie is called Oppenheimer, not The Nuclear Bomb. The intent is clear.

Sam: The movie is also very clearly from his point of view. We don’t start to see the breadth of the impact until it happened, because to Oppenheimer, he wasn’t thinking about it until it happened either.

Annie: I’ve been surprised to see some people say the opposite, but I thought the movie was incredibly critical of Oppenheimer. Did you agree?

William: Yes.  

Annie: I was really blown away by the whole movie. I didn’t realize Christopher Nolan hasn’t gotten an Oscar yet.

William: I liked Oppenheimer. I regret not seeing it in IMAX, but it was very hard to get tickets. This movie is a great cinematic achievement, as obnoxious as it sounds. It felt like a movie.

Annie: Okay, Harry Styles.

William: To make something that felt larger than life but was such a talky movie is so hard to achieve. The performances were really good.

Annie: What a cast. Does Josh Peck have a SAG Award now?

William: Also shoutout to Einstein and all of his entrances.

Annie: Especially when he popped out behind that taxi.

William: That was the one time we laughed during the movie.

Annie: Do we think Robert Downey Jr. should be sweeping all of these awards shows? I thought he was good, but…

William: The tagline is… Dr. Oppenheimer or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Hate the Bomb. Do you get it?

Annie and Sam: No.

William: It’s a joke on the movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Oppenheimer is available to watch on Peacock and is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Actor in a Leading Role (Cillian Murphy), Actor in a Supporting Role (Robert Downey Jr.), Actress in a Supporting Role (Emily Blunt) Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume Design, Sound, Original Score, Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design and Film Editing.