Tag: Licorice Pizza

An off-year for the Oscars and me

see The Queen Of Basketball and The Long Goodbye

Historically, 1) I would see lots of movies in the theater throughout the year, and 2) I’d try to see whatever movies I’d missed after the Oscars were announced. This year, though, is an off-year for the Oscars and me.

For one thing, I saw far fewer movies in an actual cinema, always my preferred venue. For another, I’d make dates with my wife to watch some films on a streaming service, but the plans would fall through. I DID see a few online by myself, but I just didn’t have the mojo for doing that too often.

What DID I see that were nominated? I linked to my reviews in the BEST PICTURE category, or elsewhere if not nominated there.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
JAVIER BARDEM in Being the Ricardos, which I watched a day ago and requires a full review
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
CIARÁN HINDS in Belfast
TROY KOTSUR in CODA. Based on all of the other awards, I’d think Kotsur is a near lock, which is fine by me.
J.K. SIMMONS in Being the Ricardos

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
PENÉLOPE CRUZ in Parallel Mothers
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
ARIANA DEBOSE in West Side Story                                                                            JUDI DENCH in Belfast. I was pulling for Caitríona Balfe, who played the mom in Belfast, but she wasn’t nominated

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
FLEE – Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie

CINEMATOGRAPHY
WEST SIDE STORY – Janusz Kaminski
COSTUME DESIGN
WEST SIDE STORY – Paul Tazewell

Auteur

DIRECTING
BELFAST – Kenneth Branagh
DRIVE MY CAR – Ryusuke Hamaguchi
LICORICE PIZZA -Paul Thomas Anderson
WEST SIDE STORY – Steven Spielberg
I saw all except Jane Campion for THE POWER OF THE DOG. Of the four, I’d pick Branagh.

DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)
ATTICA – Stanley Nelson and Traci A. Curry. Just saw this. Very thorough but greatly unsettling.
FLEE – Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie. Has there been an animated film nominated as a doc feature? Powerful. More soon.
SUMMER OF SOUL (…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED) – Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent, and David Dinerstein, which was splendid

DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)
THE QUEEN OF BASKETBALL – Ben Proudfoot. You can watch it at this link. I didn’t write about this because I expected to see the others in this category. The IMDB description: “an electrifying portrait of Lucy Harris, who scored the first basket in women’s Olympic history and was the first and only woman officially drafted into the N.B.A. Harris has remained largely unknown – until now.” I found it quite informative and touching. Also sad, since Lucy recently died.

FILM EDITING – NONE

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
DRIVE MY CAR (Japan)
THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (Norway) – just saw this; worthwhile. More in days to come.

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING – NONE

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
PARALLEL MOTHERS -Alberto Iglesias
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
DOWN TO JOY from Belfast; Music and Lyric by Van Morrison.
I’m rooting for DOS ORUGUITAS from Encanto; Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda

The big category

BEST PICTURE
BELFAST – Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas, Producers
CODA – Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi, and Patrick Wachsberger, Producers
DRIVE MY CAR – Teruhisa Yamamoto, Producer
LICORICE PIZZA – Sara Murphy, Adam Somner and Paul Thomas Anderson, Producers
WEST SIDE STORY – Steven Spielberg and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers
Not having seen DON’T LOOK UP, DUNE, KING RICHARD, NIGHTMARE ALLEY, or THE POWER OF THE DOG, I’d pick CODA, though BELFAST would be a fine choice.

PRODUCTION DESIGN
WEST SIDE STORY – Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Rena DeAngelo

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) – NONE
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
THE LONG GOODBYE – Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed A powerful film that you can watch here or here

SOUND
BELFAST -Denise Yarde, Simon Chase, James Mather, and Niv Adiri
WEST SIDE STORY – Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson, and Shawn Murphy

VISUAL EFFECTS
SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME – Kelly Port, Chris Waegner, Scott Edelstein and Dan Sudick

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
CODA -Screenplay by Siân Heder
DRIVE MY CAR – Screenplay by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
BELFAST -Written by Kenneth Branagh
LICORICE PIZZA – Written by Paul Thomas Anderson
THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD – Written by Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier. My favorite of the three.

It’s likely that I’ll get a short-term subscription to Netflix and see tick, tick…BOOM!, THE POWER OF THE DOG, and THE LOST DAUGHTER. Maybe catch some other films somehow.

The Hollywood Reporter: Who Will Win, Who Should Win

Movie review: Licorice Pizza

Paul Thomas Anderson

licorice pizzaDuring my wife’s vacation week, we went to the Spectrum 8 Theatre to see the movie Licorice Pizza. The description: “The story of Alana Kane and Gary Valentine growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.”

In the first half of the movie, I suppose it would have helped if I’d grown up in SoCal. I was apparently not catching a lot of the cultural references, even though I was the right age. The character of Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) is based on Gary Goetzman, a friend of the movie’s director/writer/co-producer Paul Thomas Anderson. Goetzman is the co-founder of Tom Hanks’s production company, Playtone.

However, I DID recognize the reference to the movie Your, Mine, and Ours with Lucille Ball, which I saw when it came out in 1968; it featured Goetzman. Here it’s called Under One Roof. In this film, child actor Gary needs a chaperone. So he gets Alana (Alana Haim from the band of sister Haim) to leave her dead-end job to chaperone him cross-country.

The whole Gary-Alana relationship is both endearing and somewhat creepy. Or as one critic noted, a device “for men who fantasized about dating their babysitters when they were teens.” The story meanders to various vignettes including selling waterbeds, which Goetzman actually did.

Alana’s family was played by Alana Haim’s real family. Her father Moti in particular was very authentic in a small role.

The name stars

The movie actually developed more plot threads when Sean Penn shows as the daredevil Jack Holden. Also, Bradley Cooper plays the schmuck moviemaker/boyfriend of Barbra Streisand, Jon Peters. The latter section featured some of the best driving backward I’ve seen on film.

Eventually, Alana ends up volunteering for the campaign of idealistic local candidate Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie). Wachs was actually an actual candidate back in the day. And the plot twist, while a bit obvious, was touching.

In the end, it seems that the couple’s fate is worth its circuitous route. But though I wanted to, I just didn’t love this film. As I suggested, if you grew up in Los Angeles ara and were born in the 1950s, you might like it more than I do. Most of the music, in fact, I really did enjoy. And the leads are pretty good in their first major roles.

In some circles, the Japanese wife scenes have been characterized as having racist content. It seemed to me that Jerry Frick (John Michael Higgins), the “real-life owner of Mikado, the first Japanese restaurant in the San Fernando Valley,” was the real butt of the joke. On the other hand, it wasn’t funny.

The film never explains why it is called Licorice Pizza. I later discovered that “Though you won’t find either of those foods in the film, it’s an homage… the Southern California record-store chain that existed in the ’70s and ’80s.”

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