'Tis the (awards) season
A Complete Unknown, A Real Pain and a new year's resolution.
The Academy Award nominations were announced this week.
Emilia Pérez received 13 nominations (pretty amazing that this is a film you can watch at home on Netflix), and Wicked and The Brutalist received 10 nominations each. The awards ceremony will be hosted by Conan O’Brien, a safe bet by the Academy to go with another late-night host following the success of Jimmy Kimmel.
As usual, I will make it my mission to see all the Best Picture nominees before the ceremony in March to tell you which ones are worth your time. However, with The Brutalist clocking in at 3 hours and 35 minutes (!!) and Dune: Part Two at 2 hours and 47 minutes, I may need to quit my day job to get this done.
🎬 A Complete Unknown
In cinemas now.
There are scenes in A Complete Unknown where Bob Dylan (played by Timothée Chalamet) sings on stage that are so enjoyable I wished I could have watched the entire concert.
A Complete Unknown focuses on Bob Dylan’s life in the early 1960s, as he gains notoriety in the New York City scene. It is a perfect movie for those who are familiar with Bob Dylan’s music but the rest of his story is, well, unknown. The film has received eight Academy Award nominations (including Chalamet for Best Actor) and for good reason.
Director James Mangold (Walk the Line, Ford v Ferrari) has delivered a beautiful film and done an excellent job of depicting a complicated character who, as the movie went on, became more and more unlikeable to me. The singing is all performed live by the actors and Chalamet has the Dylan twang perfected. Monica Barbaro is stunning as Joan Baez, Dylan’s contemporary and love interest, but Elle Fanning is not given much to work with as Dylan’s girlfriend.
While I found the first half of the film much more enjoyable than the second half, I’ve thought a lot about A Complete Unknown since seeing it and have been humming Bob Dylan songs all week. How will it fare at the Academy Awards though? The answer, my friend, is…well you know the rest.
🎬 A Real Pain
In cinemas now.
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, Fleishman Is In Trouble) wrote and directed this comedy drama about two cousins embarking on a group tour of Poland to honour their recently deceased Holocaust-survivor grandmother. Kieran Culkin (Succession) plays cousin Benji who is a lost soul wanting to reconnect with his uptight cousin, but ultimately is A Real Pain.
Eisenberg does well to navigate issues around generational trauma and guilt for the Jewish-American cousins with well-crafted comedy writing. (Eisenberg ‘has said in interviews that the initial inspiration for the film was an incongruous advert promising a “Holocaust tour, with lunch”’). The interactions between Benji and the rest of the tour group and guide (played by Will Sharpe from The White Lotus) are highly entertaining.
The film has some moving moments (I also tip my hat to a 90-minute runtime in 2025), but ultimately, I hoped for more. I wouldn’t rush out to see this one.
Currently…
🏆 On a mission: My new year’s resolution for 2025 is to watch the past 30 years of Best Picture winners. Here is a list if you want to join me. The first cab off the (non-chronological) rank was 2018’s winner, Green Book. I truly think this is the perfect film and highly recommend a re-watch (currently available on Netflix).
🏝 Looking forward to: The White Lotus season 3 coming out on 16 February. The trailer is here and it looks like we’re in for a treat.
📺 Watching: Avicii - I’m Tim, a documentary about Swedish DJ, Avicii. Avicii’s music was the soundtrack to the early 2010s, but most people knew little about the man behind the moniker, Tim Bergling, who truly was a genius.
📚 Reading: Vanity Fair’s cover story on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Big Business Ambitions, 5 Years After Their Royal Exit.
💔 Watching: The Split: Barcelona. Our favourite Defoe family are back for a two-episode special, which unfortunately did not live up to the original series for me.
🎧 Listening to: The Rest Is Politics: US has released a four-part series about the insurrection, which is both informative and harrowing. Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci are doing great work over on this pod for those trying to wade through the noise of a second Trump presidency.