1. Bernstein Conducts at The Ely Cathedral Conducting Scene, Maestro: Like most biopics, one of the selling points of Maestro is how much Bradley Cooper put his heart and soul into the role. It’s hard to tell if the anecdote about how he wanted to be a conductor as a kid is true, but he certainly mastered this esoteric art for the film. In a scene shot in Ely Cathedral with the London Symphony Orchestra, Cooper (the director) makes the brilliant decision to shoot Bernstein’s highly animated conducting largely with the camera’s focus on the director as the camera zooms in and then outward of its principal subject.
2. The Climactic Negotiation, Tetris: Who would
have thought a film about intellectual rights could be so thrilling. The film
follows a Dutch entrepreneur (Taron Eggerton) who mortgages his house and
future in his quest behind the Iron Curtain to secure the rights to the titular
game. The film’s climactic scene features a cross-cutting between our
protagonist, the an amoral father-son (Anthony Boyle and Roger Allam)
conglomerate who screwed him over, and a befuddled middle-man (Tobey Jones) as
they try to make their case in darkened rooms with the KGB breathing down their
necks. Although fictional, the negotiation is topped off with a chase out of
the country a la Argo.
3. Diana Makes it to Land, Nyad: The docudrama chronicling Diana Nyad’s historic 2013 swim from Cuba to Key West has an ending that’s pre-ordained. The challenge, therefore, is to sell the audience on the strength of the two key relationships in the film: One between two best friends (Jodie Foster as trainer Bonnie Stoil) and another with a foil tempering her unound optimism (the boat’s captain played by Rhys Ifans). This all comes to fruition at the sight of Diana Nyad making it onto land after 50-straight hours of swimming. She’s so dazed that she can’t make the final steps without Bonnie coaching her step by step, until the two fall into an embrace (shortly joined by her captain). A litmus test of emotion-driven films is how well one interprets the power of their ending. This one hits.
4. The Cowboy Dances with the School Teacher, Asteroid City: Like all of Wes Anderson’s big ensemble films, Asteroid City has a few characters providing the central story and a lot of characters who are sprinkled in to provide different dashes of color. The marmish school teacher (Maya Hawke) and the rugged cowboy (Rupert Fiend) exhibit the kind of sexual chemistry that seems destined by the Western tropes that encoded these caricatures in the first place. Then again, they exist in a Wes Anderson movie which often keeps the characters in a rigid state of introspection. Fortunately, spontaneity wins out and the pair share a very spirited dance with virtually no segue beforehand.
5. Latte’s “Wipe Out” Dance, Fool’s Paradise: Charlie Day’s Fool’s Paradise combines the physical comedy of the silent clowns, with the comedies about idiot savants who fail upwards like Being There and Broadway Danny Rose. In this pivotal scene at a Hollywood party, the song “Wipe Out” plays and our previously catatonic hero suddenly awakens like a wind-up toy. He loses all inhibitions as his limbs flail widely through a crowded party and dances on a the ledge of a skyscraper, before falling into a pool. In a possible homage to The Graduate, Latte sinks to the bottom with a sense of childlike wonder.
6. Elizabeth Reveals Her Voyeurism in a Talk on Method Acting, May
December- Iconoclast director Todd Haynes’s latest film challenges us
to think about how we classify people as pariahs in our society. The film
centers around a doppelganger of 90s scandal Mary Kay Letourneau (Julianne
Moore) who prayed on a middle school student and is still married to her victim
(Chris Melton) 25 years later. Natalie Portman plays a method actor who travels
to her home to study her for the role. But she’s not so innocent herself. In a
speech given to the local high school, a version of Elizabeth creeped in that
showed herself to be devious and her motives for capturing a subject to be less
than pure.
7. Keith Shares a Drink with his Viewers, Dumb Money-Judging by how often the pandemic has been dealt with in real films, it appears that the public might have been too traumatized by it to enjoy seeing it presented on screen. But the pandemic gave way to moments of unique social celebration that are worth celebrating. The scheme of a bunch of have-nots to short-circuit the stock on Reddit is the kind of social media ingenuity that is hard to believe wasn’t strengthened by the pandemic. The emotional touch of ring leader Keith toasting his viewers on line and revealing to a group of (by some definitions) strangers that his sister just died: That’s something.
8. Richard Calls the CEO of the Company, Flaming Hot-This
rather typical story little-engine-that-could docudrama tells of a janitor at
the Frito-Lays company, Richard Montanez (Jesse Garcia), who invents a spicy
new brand of snack food. The movie’s fairly by-the-book, but one stand-out
scene distinguishes the film. After hitting the predictable red tape of a
factory janitor who wants to revolutionize the company, Richard takes a gamble
and calls headquarters from the janitor’s closet. He gets through to Tony
Shalhoub’s CEO who responds with the kind of tempered curiosity one would
expect. It’s a very effectively written scene. It also channels that
frustration we all have in this age, where getting through to someone on the
phone is a relic of the past.
9. The Score Powers Through the First Look at the Mushroom Kingdom, Super Mario Brothers-There’s very little chance this film will go down as a classic. That’s not to say that the score didn’t deliver the nostalgic feels for a 90s kid like myself, and that it didn’t have striking visuals to match. This is especially apparent when Mario gets his first site of Princess Peach’s castle and the full vista of the Mushroom Kingdom after being led there by Toad.
10. Ernest Meets His Fate in Tom White, Killers of the Flower Moon-At the 2005 Oscars, Chris Rock got flack for one of the least controversial comments ever made at an Awards ceremony: That actor Jude Law acts a lot. Aww, quaint times. When Killers of the Flower Moon gets nominated for an Oscar (a near certainty), Jessie Plemons will have the distinction of having been in an Oscar nominated film seven of the past nine years: In other words, a new Jude Law. Is this a good or bad thing? There’s a such thing as overexposure, but Plemons’ ability to say a lot with silences can certainly have a chilling effect when utilized correctly. In Killers of the Flower Moon, Plemons instantly establishes himself as the adult in the room when he visits Leonardo DiCaprio’s wreckless manchild and tells him in few words that there will now be consequences for his actions.
Ten Runners-Up in Slightly Less Detail
11. Next Goal Wins- Oscar Knightley revealing himself as a
cameraman who moonlights as a federation soccer executive, kicking off a
running gag of everyone taking on multiple jobs in the impoverished Samoan
economy.
12. Oppenheim-The very real explosion. Conducted with no CGI.
Certainly worth the hype that the first half of the movie was building towards.
13. Holdovers-That electric kiss between Angus and Miss Crain’s
niece. The niece was a bit childish and immature (she did finger paints, after
all), but it had a great sense of youthgul playfulness
14. Asteroid City-Jason Schwartzman’s Augie photographing
ScarJo’s Midge like an avant-garde French movie.
15. Maestro- Maya Hawke initiating a dance to the Clap Song and
everyone joining in; the family’s culminating in an emotionally messy hug.
16. Saltburn-Ollie’s cryptic seduction of Venetia. It’s the first
time that Ollie’s undertones of deviousness are shown and it comes out of
nowhere.
17. Holdovers-Mary gifting Paul an open book. Mary also made a
mark for being gracious in accepting the same gift that Paul gave to Angus, but
subtly pointing out how it’s not a particularly thoughtful gift.
18. Migraton-Carol Kane’s heron alternating between extremely
threatening and highly accommodating to the protagonist duck family. Sometimes
cartoon characters can endear me to them lightning-fast simply by being drawn
in a certain way. This was one of those cases
19. Dumb Money- Pete Davidson putting the breaks on being a
douche for a second to bond with his brother over their dead sister, running,
and their shared goals.
20. Quiz Lady-Awkwafina’s winning the audition round on a gnarly
acid trip.
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