The Early Best Picture Shortlist: And why four films with semicolons in the title are front runners for Best Picture

Is anyone up for a Friday night screening of Triangle of Sadness? Perhaps Bones and All, a little meet-cute cannibal love story starring Timothée Chalamet? Tar? Avatar? Anyone?

If Oscar season films haven't captured your interest, you're not alone. It's been a pretty bummer movie at the cinema and with most fall prestige films falling flat, it looks like the Oscar Best Picture nomination list could seriously include sequels to Top Gun, Black Panther, Knives Out and Avatar — I'm not kidding.

Usually, by Thanksgiving weekend I'd have a good list for you to guide you through the films to choose from. It's a little tougher this year, but here's a roundup of the films in discussion for the most unusual prestige-film season that I can recall:

THE WAY-TOO-EARLY BEST PICTURE SHORTLIST

These top five:

The Banshees of Inisherin 

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Fabelmans

Top Gun: Maverick 

Women Talking 

Plus five of these:
A Man Called Otto

Avatar: The Way of Water

Babylon

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 

Elvis 
Emancipation

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery 
She Said 

Tár 

Till 

Triangle of Sadness 

The Woman King 

Films about Hollywood
The Fablemans, loosely based on Steven Speilberg's life is a front-runner for Best Picture and multiple nominations. It opens on Thanksgiving weekend. Damien Chazelle's (Whiplash, La La Land) Babylon plants Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie in 1920s Hollywood and opens Christmas weekend. Babylon has mixed early reviews but everyone seems to agree on Robbie's standout performance.

#METOO
Women Talking, directed by Sarah Polley, centers on women in a religious colony and stars Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Ben Whishaw, and Frances McDormand. Not sure this is timed smartly, but it opens Christmas weekend. She Said, tells a recent story, abuse allegations against powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and the dawn of the #MeToo movement. She Said opened in theaters this week. In The Woman King, Viola Davis leads a group of all-female warriors to protect the African kingdom of Dahomey.

Musicians
Tár follows the story of fictional composer and conductor Lydia Tár, portrayed by Cate Blanchett. It is available on VOD. And from last summer and playing on HBOMax, Elvis starring Austin Butler is still shaking up the Best Picture race.

The Blockbuster: Sequels
ABC TV Network, home to the Oscars show, is probably the happiest with this news, but with a light turnout of prestige fare, Top Gun: Maverick, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and Avatar: The Way of Water. That's a lot of semicolons.

Let's Get Serious
Apple's slavery film, Emancipation, starring Will Smith, and Sony's A Man Called Otto remake with Tom Hanks as the grumpy old man will be released in December with potential for nominations. Same for Till, the story of Mamie Till-Mobley's relentless pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, who was brutally lynched. None of them have the unfortunate title of Triangle of Sadness, however. It's in the running for a nomination as well.

The Standouts
Fingers crossed that a documentary, Good Night Oppy, could replace a sequel.

The Banshees of Inisherin, a dark comedy set in Ireland and staring Colin Farrell, and Everything Everywhere All at Once, a sci-fi starring Michelle Yeohwere were standouts in the year and more traditionally what you'd expect to see in a Best Picture list— and are both Ten Buck-worthy.

Tár

In my home city, Tár was in the theater for just one week despite being on most lists for a nomination for Best Picture of the Year and a front-runner to win another Best Actress Oscar for Cate Blanchett.

As of this writing, you can now stream Tár at home. I prefer my quality films on a large screen with no distractions, but with a running time of 2 hours and 38-minutes, it's perhaps the ideal way to view this intimate film, if not solely for the opportunity to google "Is Tár a true story?" followed by "is Lydia Tár, a real person?"

I'll save you the trouble; she is not real although this performance is so tight you'll probably still check Wiki while watching from your couch.

Cate Blanchett stars as a world-famous conducto in a film directed by Todd Field (In The Bedroom, Little Children). For the first hour, we peel away at the protective cold exterior of the complicated title character hoping for a glimpse of who she is. One thing is for sure, there is a sense of dread that clicks like a piano meter—something is not going to end well.

If you loved both Whiplash (I did) and Black Swan (I didn't), this is your film. Since it's an at-home watch, you have the luxury of watching this as a two-episode event. Sorry, the running time is too long.

The Ten Buck Review: I respected it a bit more than I enjoyed it, but there are not a lot of quality options out there in 2023, bumping this to the top of any must-see list.

Award Potential: Expect a nomination for Best Picture and Cate's tour de force will give her front-runner status all season. With two Cate wins already for Actress (Blue Jasmine) and Supporting Actress (Aviator), I think voters will want to get one in the hands of Michelle Yeoh this year. But if anyone deserved to tie Meryl Streep in our lifetime, it would be Blanchett for this role of a lifetime.

Where to watch: Available to rent or buy on VOD (Apple, Amazon, and more.)

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.

Meet Me in the Bathroom

As a music documentary, this film is rubbish. However, given the chance to go behind the scenes to the early aught New York City rock scene, it was a riotously fun two hours.

Full disclosure, I've been obsessed with the Strokes since I first saw them in a small club. They are such a part of twenty-years-ago-me that I could not bear to see them play the large ballpark in my home city when they toured this year. Watching their early years on the big screen was the concert I needed this year. The majority of moments in this film is lavished on them, and that was just fine by me.

As a bonus, there is live footage, backstage scenes and interviews with the full indie, post-punk, pop-rock scene of that time which includes Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol and LCD Soundsystem.

Based on the book, Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011, the doc attempts to deliver on that title but has a frustrating, disruptive pacing throughout — from a lingering section on 9/11 intended to showcase its effect on rock culture but becomes a different film entirely, and a montage of bands with a purposely-contrasted Sinatra tune that dulls any rock vibes generated.

While the film's most interesting subjects, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, are not exactly dynamos in interviews, watching their rise through their music makes this a time capsule worth two hours after all.

In a nutshell: Is this it? Not a good documentary; but fans will completely enjoy the footage nevertheless.

Where to watch it: You must find a big screen for this. If not, it's on Showtime.

Award potential: None.

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.

See How They Run

A backstage murder in London's West End threatens to close down the production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. The film is set in 1953 and that play is still running today so we know this story is, well, a farce.

If a movie where a character who's referred to by their last name, Choo, is followed by "bless you," whenever mentioned is your cup of tea, this one's for you.

Stylish, silly, and self-aware, See How They Run never lives up to its potential, but its winning cast makes it of the best streaming choices for a Friday night this month.

Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell), Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) and Leo Köpernick (Adrian Brody) are clearly having fun and it's contagious.

In a nutshell: At one and a half hours, it's the perfect choice when you're not up for a 3-hour action movie, heavy drama or contrived rom-com.

Where to find it: Streaming on HBO Max

Award potential: Despite its cast, no serious award potential except for comedy categories in the Golden Globes.

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.

The Banshees of Inisherin

 

Colin Farrell, the actor who stars in a lot of movies you expect to be good, but aren’t (Alexander, Miami Vice, The New World, The Batman, Fantastic Beasts, American Outlaws, Dumbo and the second season of True Detective), is finally in a good film. 

It’s feckin’ good.

Banshees reunites In Bruge actors Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as frenemies living on the made-up Irish island of Inisherin in the 1920s. The island may not be real but from its thatched roofs, thick accents, local characters and dark brew pubs, this gorgeous film sure makes it seem so.

Writer and Director Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Illinois) has assembled a dark comedy about two men and a friendship severed while giving a finger to predictive storytelling.

Within the story, the film makes many thoughtful observations on age, loneliness, masculinity and niceness. It's clearly the director's most humane (although grotesque) film.

In a nutshell: A slow-paced story set on an isolated island, but it’s anything but feckin’ boring. One of 2022's best.

Award potential: Similar to last year’s Power of the Dog, it’s likely to be a divisive film that scores multiple Oscar nominations from Best Picture down but may struggle to win any. I expect Farrell as Actor and certainly Gleeson as Supporting Actor to be in most award conversations. Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk) who plays the local “idjit” could make all the lists as well.

Where to find it: In theaters starting November 4, 2022

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.