Director Report Card: Adam Wingard (2011) - Part 1

4. Autoerotic

Adam Wingard would have two movies play film festivals in 2011. The first of which is “What Fun We Were Having.” That is a collection of four stories all based around date rape, which is even stated in its blunt subtitle. Unsurprisingly, a movie with such an uncomfortable subject matter did not find much of an audience. “What Fun We Were Having” has never found its way out of “searching for distribution” limbo and remains seen only by festival attendees to this day. The other Wingard joint from 2011 is “Autoerotic.” Another collaboration with Joe Swanberg – who has co-director status this time – it was also an omnibus feature with a touchy premise: Sex, masturbation, and kinkiness. This proved slightly more commercial and would be picked up by IFC Midnight shortly after it debuted.

“Autoerotic” revolves around four unnamed couples. The first is a man who fears his penis is too small to please his girlfriend, who doesn't seem to mind. Desperate for results, he chugs penis enlargement pills. The resulting growth spurt does not have the intended effect. The second couple is a man with a spandex fetish and a woman who can't stop masturbating. Her constant horniness leads her to experiment with autoerotic asphyxiation. The third couple are expecting a child but the woman finds sex with her husband unsatisfying since she got pregnant. She seeks out a lesbian encounter to satisfy herself, her husband secretly watching to take notes. The last story follows a man who masturbates exclusively to the dirty videos he made with his ex-girlfriend. When she returns to ask him to delete those videos, he thinks up a mildly disturbing compromise.   

Adam Wingard and Joe Swanberg's first team-up, “A Horrible Way to Die,” flirted with the conventions of the mumblecore movement without actually falling within it. “Autoerotic,” on the other hand, fits right in with genre expectations. Like all mumblecore movies, this is a movie about a group of pasty white twenty-somethings navigating sex and relationships. It's also partially unscripted with largely improvised dialogue and performances. If you consider mumblecore an inherently self-indulgent style, Swanberg making a movie about jerking it might seem a bit on-the-nose. It's not too surprising that this is the point when some critics decided the movement had jumped the shark. (Or flogged the dolphin, as it were.)

Of course, one has to ask how much of “Autoerotic” is Swanberg's work and how much of it is Wingard. Unlike Wingard's later “V/H/S” anthologies, where a different director is credited with each segment, we don't know who did what on this one. There's little background info on “Autoerotic,” so I can only assume both directors are equally responsible for all four segments. The connecting fiber of the stories, of listless young people navigating sex and relationship, certainly feels more like a Joe Swanberg thing than an Adam Wingard thing. If you told me that Joe and Adam simply switched the actor/director statuses they held on “A Horrible Way to Die,” I would probably believe you.

Yet there are certainly elements of “Autoerotic” that do mark it as an Adam Wingard project. Much like his Alabama-based two features, the director is clearly as interested in his setting as his characters. “Autoerotic” takes several pauses to focus on the Chicago cityscape around its cast members. Moreover, one particular moment summons up a certain type of horror movie dread. That would the moment directly after the autoerotic asphyxiation sequence, where a pregnant moment of suspense leaves you wondering how dark this movie is going to go. That moment, which teeters between dark uncertainty and sick humor, very much feels like something the director of “Home Sick” would do.

The best way to handle omnibus features like this is to just look at each segment on its own. The first sequence is maybe the film's most interesting. It's the story of a man so focused on his self-perceived inadequacies, that he pushes every single woman out of his life. This could be a worthy commentary on how men obsess over their dick size, comparing themselves to porn stars and other guys, even though size really doesn't matter to most women. How it's ultimately about ego and macho self-serving. The final image of the segment – the man kissing his monstrous penis – makes that point especially clear. Yet the story is ultimately too thin and too farcical – one perspective lover flees the room after seeing his member – to make too much of a statement.

The second and third segments of “Autoerotic” are even thinner than the first. The second story seems especially empty. It simply follows the chronic masturbator from scene to scene, as she flicks her bean in different locations and fashions. That's really all it is. The sudden interest in autoerotic asphyxiation arises out of a random friend mentioning it. The scene directly before that involves the girl mentioning all the different things that turned her on recently, in a dry and list-like manner. The denouncement – where boy and girl come to an understanding – is similarly detached. Save for that burst of suspense mentioned above, it's a very flat segment. It seems the filmmakers wanted to approach the topic of out-of-control passion in as passionless a manner as possible.

The third episode has a similarly distant approach to its characters. No further depth is provided concerning the pregnant woman and her husband – one of the few characters in the movie with an actual name, Frank – and their sex life. Was it satisfying before she got pregnant? Is he a selfish lover or is her body just doing weird things right now? We don't know. Similarly, the movie never passes judgment on whether it was okay that Frank spied on his wife having sex and beat off to it. Yet at least some sort of point arises by the end. The man learns to go down on his wife, suggesting their dysfunctional was more about a lack of communication than anything else. That maybe the couple just needed to see what the other person wanted to actually know what to do it. Some couples are like that. 

In its last segment, “Autoerotic” graduates from a film with no certain tone at all to a grotesque sex comedy. The main character – played by Wingard himself – is a sweaty pervert who only cares about his own pleasure. That he can only get off to images of himself having sex suggests something about his ego. As does his disregard for his ex-girlfriend's comfort and independence. When she comes by to pick up her stuff, he attempts to seduce her in the most awkward way possible. Obviously, uncomfortable laughs are the goal here. The only time the segment achieves these is when the girlfriend flatly tells Adam to never contact her again after she fulfils the embarrassing agreement. The movie's final scene is its most gross and over-the-top image yet, a clear attempt to make the audience laugh through shock value. It's shocking but not funny.

The movie's at-times detached approach to its steamy subject matter must have been part of the point, as the film's visual design reflects this. Many of the film's scenes are captured in distant, stationary shots. The camera holds back and watches the characters go about their sexual adventures, almost like a scientist watching protozoa under a microscope. Is that the idea? That the movie is a scientific capturing of human sexual foibles? If so, no deeper commentary is attached to this method. This is matched with equally weird musical choices, as the rare instances of music in the film are unusually ominous. 

Considering the material is so intentionally vague, it must've been hard to act in “Autoerotic.” Swanberg and Wingard cast the film largely with people they've worked with before. “Pop Skull's” Lane Hughes plays the short dick man while “A Horrible Way to Die's” Amy Seimetz is the girlfriend. Hughes brings a degree of dead-eyed self-loathing to the role while Seimetz is totally unable to get a bead on the material. With the second segment being the film's most vague, that leaves Kate Lyn Sheil almost nothing to work with. She gives a wide-eyed and rhythmless performance. Swanberg himself plays the boyfriend and he similarly has nothing to give in his scenes.  

Swanberg's real wife, Kris Swanberg, plays the pregnant woman in the third story. She was really pregnant at the time and shows a certain amount of bravery revealing it all the way she does. She also has a light-hearted delivery that provides a little energy to the largely humorless segment. Frank V. Ross is a complete enigma as the husband. Megan Mercier also has a degree of comedic timing, that is decently utilized as the put-upon ex in the last segment. As for Adam Wingard himself, he gives a very sweaty and aggressive performance. Considering how off-putting the character is, I suppose that's fitting. I also saw way more of the director's naked body here than I ever wanted to. 

Truthfully, I don't know what the hell to make of “Autoerotic.” If it's trying to be a comedy, it mostly fails by providing little in the way of actual funny moments. If it's trying to make a profound statement about sex, there's simply not enough depth for the audience to really latch onto. The weird tonal uncertainty throughout leaves the audience perpetually uncertain about how to react. One Letterboxd review describes it as “the “Movie 43” of mumblecore,” characterizing it as a tossed-off act of shock humor, a goofy and horny lark by a pair of filmmakers more talented than this. I would largely agree with this statement. If the directors are in-on-the-joke, making a metaphorical masturbatory act about very literal masturbatory acts, “Autoerotic” barely reflects that. [Grade: C-]

Director Report Card: Adam Wingard (2010)

3. A Horrible Way to Die

After the breakthrough of “Pop Skull,” Adam Wingard would begin two important collaborations with his next film. Writer Simon Barrett largely worked in the realm of low budget schlock, with “FrankenFish” being his most prominent credit. The two would team together for the first time with “A Horrible Way to Die,” an on-going partnership that currently numbers eight different projects. The second collaboration that begins here is with Joe Swanberg, who would also team up with Wingard several times in the future. The mumblecore filmmaker had already directed seven feature films by 2010 and I imagine his independent methods and style was an inspiration to Wingard. Together, the trio would make “A Horrible Way to Die” the director's most high-profile release up to this point.

Sarah is a recovering alcoholic who is doing her best to stay sober. She has a good reason to drink though. Her ex-boyfriend is notorious serial killer Garrick Turrell. The whole time they were dating, the seemingly stable Garrick was hunting women down and chopping them up behind Sarah's back. She's trying to move on with her life. Somewhat spontaneously, she begins a relationship with Kevin, a guy from her A.A. group. Around that time is when Garrick escapes from prison. Garrick leaves a trail of dead bodies as he slowly closes in on Sarah's new location. 

For most of its run time, “A Horrible Way to Die” is a movie following two seemingly separate story lines. In one half, Sarah attempts to live her normal, day-to-day life. She struggles with sobriety and the lingering trauma that still hangs over her head. In the other half, Garrick kills his way across the country, drawing ever closer to Sarah. He nearly gets caught, when having tense encounters with a paranoid old man. He kidnaps a girl to ferry him across state lines, who begs for her life and stays quiet as a cop tensely checks on them. Inevitably, these two story lines are going to collide. That's how “A Horrible Way to Die” creates a constant sense of tension floating throughout its whole run time. 

In its most mundane moments, “A Horrible Way to Die” becomes a quietly effecting drama about the every day struggles of addiction. Sarah gets up in the morning, she goes to work, and haunting memories drift in and out of her mind. Those would be the exact memories and feelings she drinks to repress. She buys a bottle of booze but pours it down the toilet before she's tempted to drink it. At a restaurant with Kevin, the waitress asks if they want a drink with their food. They comment on the walls decorated with wine bottles. Sobriety is an every day struggle, Sarah constantly being reminded of her desire to drink, a desire she is perpetually struggling against.

In some ways, Garrick's journey is similarly mundane. He sits in a bar and eats. He visits a truck stop to try and get a shower. The biggest difference is that, at night, he's compelled to killed. He chops up a dead girl in a bathtub and gets into brutal fights in parking lots, stabbing victims through the jaw. The similarities in shooting these two halves seem to suggest a parallel between Sarah's addiction and Garrick's actions. Is his tendency to murder something he can't control either? Is the thrill of taking a life an addiction for him too? If nothing else, this provides a greater depth to the film's villain.

The quiet, introspective approach to this pulpy material shows Wingard's growing influences. Joe Swanberg showing up in the movie isn't a coincidence. In many ways, “A Horrible Way to Die” recalls the kind of mumblecore relationship dramas that Swanberg specializes in. Sarah and Kevin attempt, somewhat haphazardly, to form a romance between each other. They go on low-key dates that are characterized by whispered conversation and a general awkwardness in the air. When they eventually wind up in bed together, the encounter is shown in a similarly stumbling fashion. The two struggle out of their clothes and Kevin finishes prematurely. It's raw and realistic and, in its own way, very compelling. 

Even though it's a gritty horror movie about a rampaging serial killer, “A Horrible Way to Die” has more than just these connection to the mumblecore genre. That genre is characterized by stories of twenty-somethings and their relationships. Wingard's film, in its own way, fits into this genre exactly. “A Horrible Way to Die” uses the serial killer boyfriend premise as a metaphor for a bad relationship. In Sarah's flashbacks, we see that Garrick sneaks out after dark. He lies about where he goes during the day. Though things seem happy between them, there's obviously something disrupting their happiness. In real life, this would just mean he was cheating or a liar. In this movie, it's an even more disturbing betrayal. Garrick is sneaking out to see other women... That he then kills. It is a novel way to increase the stakes of a story of a relationship shambling apart This blows up the emotions of a cheating boyfriend in a more extreme way.

Wingard also mirrors the visual style of many mumblecore movies. Which is to say that “A Horrible Way to Die” is largely shot with handheld cameras. This style has its merits and distractions. In its best moments, this loose, shaky shooting brings an immediate, documentary-like atmosphere to the film. This certainly adds to the day-in-the-life feeling Wingard was obviously striving for. At other times, the handheld camerawork gets so shaky that it becomes irritating. At one point, during a conversation between Sarah and Kevin, the cameras quivers out of control. Obviously, the director was hoping to visually convey the panicking mindset of the characters but it's mostly just annoying.

One big way “A Horrible Way to Die” does not resemble a traditional mumblecore film is its writing. Swanberg's movies are usually lightly scripted, with largely improvisational dialogue and structures. “A Horrible Way to Die” is obviously tightly scripted. Throughout the film, there's references to Garrick having a die-hard fan following. That he's received several marriage request while in prison, that there's a number of websites devoted to him online. (Wingard's film was made two years before the rise of “Holmies” or other obsessive fanbases for murderers, making it somewhat prescient.) At first, I felt this interesting element of the film was unexplored but it's actually setting up a major plot twist in the last act. 

And what of that plot twist? Spoiler alert for an eleven year old movie: Kevin is one of Garrick's fanboys. The entire time, he's been plotting to capture Sarah and wait for Garrick, so they can kill her together. On one hand, it's a hell of a startling twist that I didn't see coming at all. Once the shock wears off, however, it starts to feel a little disappointing. Sarah doesn't confront her serial killer ex-boyfriend. He actually saves her life from his would-be fanboys. It's a weird ending, that takes Sarah's power away. It makes her murderous ex seem like not such a bad guy.

On one hand, I get where the film is coming from. If “A Horrible Way to Die” is a metaphor for the trauma of a failed relationship, this ending represents Sarah coming to grip with what happened. If he was just a cheating boyfriend, this would be where she forgives him and moves away from that lingering pain. But Garrick is a serial killer who ruthlessly killed countless people, mostly women. So it's weird for him to be painted in a semi-heroic light at the last minute. Not to mention this defuses the potential confrontation between the two the film was seemingly building up to.

If nothing else, the intimate fashion of shooting in “A Horrible Way to Die” draws intuitive, emotional performances out of its cast. Amy Seimetz is fantastic as Sarah, a woman who has so much on her mind that you can hardly believe she's existing in the present. Seimetz' face suggests the inner turmoil but she never overdoes it in any other way. A.J. Bowen plays Garrick in a similar fashion, someone equally creditable as a man of great violence who still seems completely normal most of the time. Joe Swanberg comes off as a perfectly charming fellow, a guy who is quiet and laidback most of the time. (Which leaves the audience even more unprepared for his betrayal.)

Ultimately, I have some issues with “A Horrible Way to Die.” But it works really well for the most part. The film would receive solid reviews on the indie circuit. It would catch the attention of a certain breed of horror fan. I am just now getting around to seeing it for an important reason: I kept confusing it with “A Lonely Place to Die,” a horror/thriller with a similar title that was coming out around the same time. You'll have to excuse me, the titles are pretty similar and there's roughly a hundred buzz-worthy horror movies that come out every year. Anyway, “A Horrible Way to Die” shows Wingard's growing style while functioning well as both a duel character study and a cruel thriller. [Grade: B]

Director Report Card: Adam Wingard (2008)

2. Pop Skull

By the time Adam Wingard's directorial debut, “Home Sick,” finally emerged from looking-for-a-distributor limbo, he was already hard at work on his second movie. Clearly, the long-winded post-production of “Home Sick” did not discourage the filmmaker any. His follow-up, “Pop Skull” would be filmed for very little money. Some reports say the budget was as low as two thousand dollars. Despite its micro-budget, “Pop Skull” would not remain unreleased for quite so long. The film would garner positive reviews on the festival circuit and arrive on home video shortly afterwards. It is generally regarded as Wingard's first breakthrough.

Daniel is having a hard time. His girlfriend, Natalie, recently dumped him for another guy. Heart-broken, he's fallen into a deep depression. Not even frequent visit from best friend Jeff can perk him up. He's begun to self-medicate with various pills in hopes of killing the pain he feels every day. That's when Daniel begins to see things. He's increasingly haunted by visions, possible ghosts of the violent killers and the brutalized victims of the people who used to live in his home. As he continues to fixate on Natalie and her new lover, these spirits seem to be driving Daniel towards drastic measures.

It seems Adam Wingard was very aware of what did and didn't work about “Home Sick.” “Pop Skull” capitalizes on the best elements of its filmmaker's debut. The film takes place entirely within the brain of a small-town burn-out. Daniel always has heavy bags under his eyes, his face looking sickly and pale. His few friends are similarly seen frequently drinking. There's nothing much to do in this small Alabama town, boredom and depression colliding frequently. “Pop Skull” goes even further, taking place entirely in the mind of its drug-addled protagonist. The film takes place in a town and a mental space where dreams are dead, with less and less effective highs being the only respite. 

“Pop Skull” works very hard to replicate the drug-influenced mind of its protagonist. From early on, the film employs a number of extreme visual techniques to create this specific mood. Heavy color correction is utilized, creating a gloomy and overcast feeling, a sea-sick and hung-over feeling, or the sun-bathed heat of the Alabama summer. A mind out of control is replicated by the random flashes and strange distortions that appear on-screen. Fractured memories shift on-screen without much warning. It's clear that this is what Daniel, consumed by his depression and addiction, is experiencing. Wingard also utilizes an intimate style of shooting, focused on the actor's faces in the cramped locations, further taking us inside this character's head.

In some ways, these kind of intrusive visual quirks are not dissimilar to what Wingard did on “Home Sick.” The same can be said of the sound design, where screeching noise will occasionally irrupt. The difference is intent. “Home Sick” just wanted to be as in-your-face and abrasive as possible. “Pop Skull” is attempting to replicate the mind of a sick, pill abusing young man. The viewer never knows when the constant undercurrent of nervous sound will explode into sudden noise. Much the same way that Daniel knows not to trust his own mind. It creates a constant sense of unease, Daniel's perpetual dark cloud spreading over the viewer's head too. 

Despite his addiction, Daniel is likable. When his best friend's girlfriend hits on him, he rebuffs her. In the flashbacks we get of his relationship with Natalie, they seem happy. When he revisits her, to retrieve some past possessions, they have an easy-going energy that seems natural and relaxed. The loss of that relationship, of that love, is causing him to fall apart. This is most beautifully depicted in a scene where he breaks down into tears, blubbering about what a hard time he's had recently. Anyone who has grappled with depression knows that feeling, of never being at peace with your own thoughts. Of feeling perpetually overwhelmed by boiling-over feelings of sadness and frustration you can't begin to contain. 

Anyone who has suffered through a bad break-up, who has seen their dreams and hopes for the future come crashing down, can also relate to Daniel's feelings. In his despair, less savory impulses start to take over. He obsesses over Natalie's new boyfriend, a pretty boy actor who has starred in a few movies. He wonders what this guy has that he doesn't, why she would choose him. It's not healthy and kind of gross too... But it's also totally understandable. The unsatisfying longing and resentment you feel in the fall-out of a dead relationship is conveyed, in all its ugliness, here. The fallout of a dead relationship haunts him every waking minute of his day. 

Of course, that is not the only thing haunting Daniel. Early on, he begins to feel an otherworldly presence in his home. Soon, freaky shit that can't quite be explained by his drug use starts to happen. Compared to the extreme breed of horror seen in “Home Sick,” “Pop Skull” goes about revealing its haunting in a very subtle fashion. We catch a ghostly glimpse in the background. Strange sounds mount as a barely visible figure appears to Daniel. The loudest scare occurs when a white sheet leaps to life, which is a very effective shock. Even in these scenes, the ghosts are more suggested than shown. Considering his state of mind, “Pop Skull” flirts with the idea that anything supernatural is entirely in Daniel's head. Regardless of the reality of the ghost, the disquieting sense that something unusual is happening is palatable throughout the film.

Yet, from its opening minutes, there's little doubt that “Pop Skull's” haunting is genuinely supernatural. In the very first scene, Daniel talks about how a gruesome act of violence happened in his home before his family moved in. The aftereffect of this murderous act lingers in the air all throughout “Pop Skull.” We see brief flashes of the bloody past, of a bound girl in danger. The true loss of this senseless killing is truly felt. During a scene, which we're dropped into without explanation, Daniel is seen talking with the spirit of the dead girl as she discusses the mundane details of her life. Smartly, Wingard never reveals too much. Is Daniel being possessed by the spirits of these killers? Or is his susceptible mind simply being influenced by their depraved actions? 

Daniel is likable and that's important. As he increasingly succumbs to his own addictions and the malevolent influence, the viewer is left wondering how far into madness he'll slip. Wingard slowly turns the screws on us. Daniel's behavior slowly escalates. He'll stalk out his girlfriend's home, snooping around outside. He has an emotional breakdown in front of a friend's girlfriend. This is behavior that straddles the line between pathetic and criminal but it's not truly dangerous. As it becomes increasingly clear how unhinged the protagonist will become, a sense of tragedy starts to creep into “Pop Skull.” We will soon reach a point where there will be no turning back.

As with his debut, Wingard casts “Pop Skull” largely with first-timers and amateurs. Unlike in “Home Sick,” where the cast intentionally played exaggerated characters, naturalism is the goal here. Lane Hughes, in his feature debut, stars as Daniel. Hughes walks a fine line. He accurately depicts Daniel as someone falling apart, at the mercy of his drug habit and his own shaky grasp on sanity. You believe he can be dangerous, when that time comes. At the same time, he's also deeply sympathetic. His sad-sack face and soulful eyes help convey the idea of a basically decent man who has fallen on some especially hard times. 

Brandon Carroll re-appears from “Home Sick,” here as Daniel's best friend Jeff. Carroll gives a much better performance here. Jeff is a slightly ridiculous character, very much a classical redneck who drinks too much, but he still seems like a likable guy anyone could be friends with. Maggie Henry plays Natalie, also giving a naturalistic and laid-back performance. There's a certain charm to her, to help you understand why a guy could get so hung-up on her. Hannah Hughes is also really charismatic as Jeff's not-entirely loyal girlfriend. I don't know if I'd behave myself as well as Daniel does in that moment, given the circumstances. 

“Home Sick” grabbed a small cult following among gore hounds and weirdo horror fans but didn't earn too many positive notices. “Pop Skull” would be much better reviewed, showing film fans that Adam Wingard could do more than just throw gnarly gore at the screen. Especially considering the limited budget, it's an impressive project. It remains one of those films that truly deserve the title of hidden gem, seen by not too many people by widely liked by those who have. If you have a taste for personal micro-budget indies that create a spooky atmosphere, absolutely give it a look. [Grade: B+]

Director Report Card: Adam Wingard (2007)

Last decade, a trend emerged out of the indie horror world. A group of low-budget filmmakers, heavily influenced by the horror classics of the eighties and nineties, started to create critically acclaimed films. These movies were more dependent on atmosphere or clever writing than full throttle scares and gore. Because some of the filmmakers hung out with Joe Swanburg, this mini-movement was dubbed “mumblegore.” (Even though it had little to do with the partially-improvised mumblecore movies Swanberg specializes in.) I'm talking about filmmakers like Ti West, Patrick Brice, E.L. Katz, Ben Wheatley... And Adam Wingard, who has gone on to become the most commercially successful of the gang. Enough time has passed for Wingard to become established and for “mumblegore” to be passé, so it should be interesting to watch this director develop and observe some of the changes the genre has undergone in the last ten-or-so years.  

1. Home Sick

Long before he started helming 200 million dollar studio tent pole releases, Adam Wingard was just an edgy horror nerd with a dream. While studying film at Full Sail University, he would meet E.L. Katz, another aspiring filmmaker with complimenting taste. Together, the two would begin to conceive a motion picture entitled “Home Sick.” Filming would begin before the two graduated, when Wingard was only 19. “Home Sick” would play festivals for six years, in various states of completion. There, it would required a reputation as an especially gory and explicit genre exercise. When the movie was finally picked up for a DVD release by Synapse Films in 2007, “Home Sick” was already a cult classic in-the-making. 

Robert and his new girlfriend Candice have recently returned from a trip to the west coast. To commiserate their return, and to celebrate the Christmas holiday, they gather at the house of their friend Tim. A number of other people are in attendance as well, even though nobody seems to like each other much. This is when a mysterious man carrying a suitcase enters the building. He reveals the suitcase is full of razor blades and demands that the party-goers all name someone they hate. After each name is mentioned, the man cuts himself. Tim names everyone in the room as someone he hates, after which the mysterious intruder sees himself out. Afterwards, the people named begin to be violently killed off, one-by-one. The survivors band together before this mysterious killer comes for them.

I first read about “Home Sick” in Fangoria, where I imagine a lot of people first encountered it. I was a subscriber to the magazine at the time, when its pages were awash in reviews and advertisements for low budget, shot-on-video, straight-to-DVD productions. Most of these movies were terrible. They were made by amateur crews and awash in watery fake blood, rubbery gore, and questionable acting. I'm talking about flicks like “Scarecrow” or “Skinned Deep.” “Home Sick” does not exactly meet these parameters – it was shot on film, for one thing – but does seriously remind me of this particular time in the genre. And, God help me, I must be going soft in my old age. Because watching “Home Sick,” left me somewhat nostalgic for this very specific and largely misbegotten time and place. 

This is not an era in horror history that anyone should feel especially sentimental about. Most of these movies are dreadful. The majority of them were made by people who had never made movies before. This is definitely true of “Home Sick.” Multiple times, the inexperience of the crew becomes apparent. The camera work is frequently rough, with shaky handheld shooting or awkwardly framed pans around rooms. There are a handful of shitty looking zooms. A couple of scenes are on the overly dark side, obviously being filmed without much in the way of proper lighting. When you read that “Home Sick” was made by literal teenagers and college students, you start to become slightly forgiving of some of this roughness.

But only some of it. Several times throughout “Home Sick,” the filmmakers greatly overestimate their own ability by including several stylistic touches. Such as dialogue being reversed for no particular reason in one moment. Or frequent inserts of gory special effects. The latter of which is usually accompanied by flashing white lights and a piercing noise on the soundtrack. The effect is obnoxious, offending the viewer's eyes and ears on simply a threshold level. By the way, “Home Sick” pulls this exact trick several times in its very first scene. 

There's a reason why the movie deploys such an off-putting visual technique so early on. The movie wants the audience to immediately understand how edgy, extreme, and in-your-face this movie is going to be. ““Home Sick” is made for hardcore horror fans!” is the message that is being sent. This instinct is most obvious in the movie's fixation on graphic gore. “Home Sick” has a bathtub full of blood, a crushed skull, a ripped-off head, someone axed in half, fingernail torn from the hand, and more entrails than you can shake a severed arm at. Two characters vomit on-screen, one atop a previously desecrated corpse. Of course, none of it looks remotely real. The blood is watery, the body parts are rubbery. It's not executed with much grace or skill. The then-juvenile filmmakers behind “Home Sick” just wanted to show off how hardcore they were, how fucked-up their imaginations could get.

This instinct, to prove how extreme they were, is obvious in many of Wingard and Katz' other choices. “Home Sick's” dialogue is often vulgar, full of colorful profanity. The dialogue often goes around in circles, in a way that I think is meant to be funny. Its characters usually mistreat each other, berating one another with abuse and insults. That is when they aren't all acting in aggressively eccentric ways. There's also a fair bit of nudity, the movie even beginning with a (entirely gratuitous) lesbian sex scene. In “Home Sick,” everyone is ugly, dumb, weird, or all three. It creates a nihilistic tone, that these are horrible people who deserve horrible things. Which is exactly the kind of approach you'd expect from an edgy teenager who watches a lot of horror movies.

Something else young horror filmmakers liked to do at the time, to prove their fidelity to the genre, was include shout-outs to the people and movies that influenced them. Admittedly, “Home Sick” is not as blatant with this as many other projects were. No directors are name-dropped and there are few cutesy homages on the surface. But they are present, if you know where to look. A flash of color across someone's eyes is an obviously callback to Italian giallo. “Evil Dead Trap” plays on the television in one scene. A swirling camera zoom was probably inspired by Sam Raimi. The most blatant call-back is an electronic score from a band calling itself Zombi. This was back before every low-budget horror movie had a retro, synth score. So that's something about “Home Sick” that might've actually seemed kind of refreshing back in 2006.

This kind of intensity-heavy horror film making, focused on trying to prove something, frequently values attitude over narrative coherence. This is especially true of “Home Sick,” as the plot makes very little sense. Who is the man with the suitcase full of razor blades? Where does he come from, what does he want? How does the ritual he performs summon the masked murderer? Why was this particular group of people targeted? Why does a scaly-faced demon – admittedly the film's best special effect – emerge in the last act? These are not questions you'll get answers for. “Home Sick” blows through any sense of logic on the way to its next gory set-pieces or wacky character interaction. “Making sense” is not something the film is too concerned about.

Like many movies influenced by the “splat-stick” classics of Raimi, Peter Jackson, and Lloyd Kaufman, “Home Sick” also fancies itself a horror/comedy. In this regard, it functions a little better. Some of the dialogue choices – a cashier assuring someone this Christmas will be the worst ever, a random shout-out to Planet Hollywood – are fittingly random enough to make me chuckle. In the last third, “Home Sick” goes on a digression into white trash country. A minor character delivers a rambling monologue about chili and Texas. Some folks dance around with guns and Confederate flags. It actually made me laugh, which is more of a response than any of the movie's attempts at horror elicited.

If there's anything “Home Sick” really succeeds at, at all, it's putting the viewer in the mindset of these characters. “Home Sick” is set in Alabama, where Wingard was living at the time. And it doesn't take place in one of the state's more glamorous locations either. Returning home pushes Robert and Claire into depression. (Which is, best as I can figure, what the title means.) Living in such a dead-end town is equal parts harrowing and boring. Which is why the characters are constantly doing drugs, sniffing coke and drinking beers. Anything to alleviate the tedium of being stuck in this place. I've lived in towns like this. I know people like this. I recognize the perpetual bags under their eyes, the unending sense of exhaustion wafting off them at all times. Leaning into this Southern depression more would've made “Home Sick” a more interesting film over all.

As you'd wholly expect from such a low budget production, “Home Sick's” cast is largely made up of amateurs and first-timers. Many of the performers never appeared in another movie. Most of them are quite bad. Matt Lero, as Tim, glares and sweats in an uncomfortably hammy fashion. Will Akers, as Robert, is never able to make his character anything but a massive asshole. The only names in the cast are familiar horror icons. Bill Moseley plays the man with the suitcase and brings his typical level of unhinged, manic energy to the role. Tom Towles appears as Uncle Johnny and gets to deliver that monologue about chili. Towles' towering intensity and off-beat delivery is a big reason why that scene is memorable. Both only have one or two scenes. Tiffany Shepis, who has appeared in literally a hundred movies just like this, has a bigger role. As always, Shepis is game, puking on a dead body, stripping her clothes off, and leaping around an empty kitchen. If only her character was actually given any hint of a personality.

”Home Sick” is pretty typical of the “underground” horror movies of the time. That would be films made by life-long genre fans – bolstered by the newfound availability of filming equipment in the new millennia – that rejected everything about the slick post-”Scream” studio horror movies of the time. Almost all these movies were crude, in content and form, and they all fucking ended with a growly death metal song over the end credits. The extreme content of these movies would eventually work their way to multiplexes, in the form of the torture horror trend that took over later in the decade. (Thanks to people like Rob Zombie, whose films “Home Sick” somewhat resembles.) The underground directors rarely got much further than the pages of Fangoria, which makes Adam Wingard and E.L. Katz something of a special case. “Home Sick” is fairly lousy, in a way common of its time and place, but it is interesting as the embryo stage of filmmakers who would go on to bigger and better things. [Grade: C-]

RECENT WATCHES: Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)

When “The Blair Witch Project” became the sleeper hit of 1999, a sequel probably became inevitable. Despite being adsorbed widely through pop culture via parodies and rip-offs, sequelizing “The Blair Witch Project” was a tricky proposition. Found footage sequels are common today but the style was still rare at the turn of the millennium. More importantly, the original film was self-contained and didn’t leave much opportunity for a follow-up. Commerce would not be denied. Ignoring all of these problems, “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2” was quickly thrown together and released a year after the original.

The film starts with an interesting hook. Instead of directly following the original’s conclusive ending, “Blair Witch 2” takes the meta approach. The film is set in “our” world, were “The Blair Witch Project” wasn’t a true story but only a wildly successful movie. Thus the film dismisses the found footage angle entirely, progressing as a typical, third-person movie. The story at first focuses on how the real town of Burkittsville was affected by the sudden rush of attention following the movie. During this time, a number of businesses pop, taking curious tourists on tours through the Burkittsville woods. Among these groups is Jeff Patterson, who makes decent money selling stick-men and genuine Burkittsville dirt over the internet to Blair Witch devotees. His freshman tour group, composed of himself, goth girl Kim, would-be wiccan Erica, and married couple Stephen and Tristen, quickly begin to experience strange things in the woods and in the broom factory Jeff calls home.

Though the premise isn’t without promise, “Book of Shadows” squanders any interest the set-up could deliver. First off, this movie stinks of the year 2000. From the obnoxious nu-metal soundtrack, to the fashion and style, this movie reeks of the turn-of-the-century. Compared to the striped-down, stark style of the original, “Book of Shadows” is a glossy studio product, as crass a cash-in that has ever existed.

The movie is also exceptionally stupid. The film indulges in so many late-nineties horror clichés that it almost feels like a parody. The story is inconsistently told in flashback, cutting haphazardly between the past and the future. All this does is drain away any suspense, since it tells us which characters survive. Upon entering the woods and coming to the ruins of an old building, the tour group immediately indulges in drugs. They drink, smoke pot, and even whip a crack pipe out. Despite one of them being a pregnant woman. As divergent as the characters’ backgrounds are, they all get wasted. They wake up in the morning, hung over, their camp set wrecked. Most of the rest of the film is devoted to them snipping at each other in the broom factory, nightmare sequences that may or may not be real, and occasionally the characters trying to solve a mystery. Not the mystery of whether real black magic is happening here. The mystery of what happened to their video cameras.

There’s a lot wrong with “Blair Witch 2” but the biggest problem is its shotgun editing. Throughout the film, scenes will cut away to incoherent footage of people being stabbed and killed. The characters are haunted by incoherent visions. Stephen and Tristen dream about having sex, which turns into them slashing each other with their nails. Everyone sees visions of a backwards walking ghost girl. At one point, Kim sees Jeff in an electric chair, his body sparking and twitching. There are visions of ghost kids, barking dogs, bloody murder. These fantasy scenes are cut into the film in a spastic manner. So much so that they are frequently funny, like when one of the characters starts chewing on a dead owl. What level of realty this takes place on isn’t elaborated on. Which is confusing, especially once a falling bridge comes into the picture. 

The movie’s terrible construction isn’t helped but it’s awful characters. Jeffrey Donovan would, years later, find fame on TV series “Burn Notice.” I bet he doesn’t put this movie on his resume. His character is obnoxious and the performance is pitched at an embarrassingly ham-fisted level. Erica Leerhsen is far too earnest as the wiccan. She’s the kind of girl you’d meet in college who wouldn’t stop harping on one or two topics, even if no one else is interested. You hate people like that. Stephen Barker Turner is hassled with a deeply unlikable character while Tristine Skyler, as his wife, spends most of the movie lying sick in bed. Kim Director comes the closest to likable as the goth girl but even she is forced to do incredibly stupid things by the senseless screenplay. An exchange in a local grocery store is especially embarrassing.

The direction is awful, the characters are annoying, but the script is probably the film’s biggest problem. The supernatural events that happen are never connected in any meaningful way. A bunch of weird stuff goes on for seemingly no reason. Plot points are raised and dropped. Jeff’s time in a mental hospital, Kim’s supposed psychic powers, or Tristen’s miscarriage come up a lot but have no meaningful affect on the story. An especially ridiculous plot turn involves playing a tape backwards. The film reaches for a level of ambiguity it in no way earns. Few answers are provided for the sake of “preserving the mystery.” Is the Blair Witch real? Is she responsible for what happens? How does this connect to the in-universe fictional first film? All this really means is that, upon any scrutiny, the film stops making sense completely. For a clue of the film’s intense inanity, looking no further then its meaningless sub-title. No books containing shadows are seen during the thankfully short 87 minute runtime.

The movie was so bad that even a public with Blair Witch fever roundly rejected it. It more then doubled its tiny 15 million budget but the response was so negative that no further sequels were attempted at the time. “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2” was rightfully dismissed as the crass commercial cash-in it was. [3/10]

RECENT WATCHES: The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Upon release in 1999, “The Blair Witch Project” was immediately declared a horror classic. The film was a huge sleeper hit and remains one of the highest grossing independent films to this day. Much of the film’s box office success can be contributed to its brilliant marketing campaign. Through a then innovative website (which, charmingly, remains up and mostly unchanged to this day), the studio convinced countless people that the film was genuine. That the footage of three college students entering the woods, attempting to make a documentary about a local legend, and mysteriously disappearing, was the real deal. I wasn’t fooled at the time, recognizing it as the clever marketing ploy it was. Many of my middle school classmates were. After the hype wore off, a backlash quickly kicked in, many derisively describing “The Blair Witch Project” as eighty minutes of jerks wandering around the woods. Twenty-two years later, after hundreds of found footage films have followed in its wake, how does the film hold up?

That the film managed to fool so many is a testament to the believable mythology it builds up over its brief run time. The legend of the Blair Witch is surprisingly detailed. The metafictional device is furthered by setting the story in a real town, Burkittsville, Maryland. Though completely invented, the Blair Witch seems like a perfectly plausible urban legend. Numerous missing children over the years are connected to the story. In the forties, a serial killer blamed his murders on the witch. The three filmmakers visit a local nut, Mary Brown, who claims to have encountered the witch. In the early scenes, local people from the town are interviewed, each giving their own opinion and stories on the legend. We are shown Coffin Rock and its gory story is related to us. In practice, the Blair Witch isn’t any different then the Bell Witch, Mothman, the Bunnyman or any other real life urban legends. 

The success of “The Blair Witch Project” is built mostly on the unsettling atmosphere it generates. The film begins with white-on-black title card, letting us know that the three kids don’t make it out of the woods. This information lends many of the early scenes a quiet unease. Even when Heather, Josh, and Mike are goofing off, we know dark times lay ahead for them. The movie takes the woods setting a long way. Though frequently parodied in the years since, the scenes of the three kids running blind through the dark woods, listening for strange noises, still have the power to chill. These scenes are low-tech, relying on nothing but the real fears of the viewers and the actor’s terrified performances.

What engineered horror elements “The Blair Witch Project” does have are equally subtle. Throughout the film, the campers make strange discoveries. First, they find strange piles of rocks outside their tents. Infamously, they come upon bizarre stick figures hanging in the trees. One of the highlights of the movie is, after Josh’s disappearance, Heather discovers a bundle of sticks filled with bloody bits of flesh. Donahue’s panicked performance really sells that moment. 

The common complaint of “jerks lost in the woods” certainly does hold some water. Long scenes in the middle section are composed of the characters wandering around, yelling at each other. It certainly adds to the film’s tone of desperation and a few moments, such as a revelation concerning some downed logs, prove effective. However, this part of the movie goes on for far too long. As short as it is, “The Blair Witch Project” is truthfully a little long and probably would have been best served as an hour long short.

The ending makes up for a lot though. The survivors stumble into a strange house in the middle of the forest. The ending is notorious and well known. It’s also incredibly stark. The viewer is left with no answers, the mystery maintained. First time viewers might not even catch why Josh is facing the wall in the basement, a reference to the earlier legend. The effect is intensely creepy, the found footage illusion maintained until the end credits roll. 

“Blair Witch” was a true pop culture phenomenon and that’s honestly sort of surprising. I’d never expect a film as low-key or divisive to resonate with so many people. Maybe the internet campaign really caught everyone’s attention, even those who knew the movie was fiction. The movie spawned a television special, several books, comics, collectable figures, a much-contested sequel, even a series of computer games. Yet its biggest influence was on the horror genre. It took about another decade for found footage to really catch on, hundreds of copy cats following in the wake of the wildly successful “Paranormal Activity” series. Every notable title in the sub-genre to come, from “Cloverfield” to the “Marble Hornets” web series, owes something to “The Blair Witch Project.” [7/10]

OSCARS 2021: Nominations and Predictions

2021's Oscar season was always going to be weird. The ways the pandemic shook up the film industry are innumerable. As the end-of-the-year award season started to ramp up, it was clear that we still had quite a while to go before we're out of this. Obviously, the traditional release path for an Oscar contender - dropped into a few theaters in the big cities before a slow roll-out a few weeks later - wasn't going to work this year. The Academy was well aware of this and made the shocking decision to extend the deadline and delay the entire ritual by a whole month.

It's now March 15. Normally, we'd be about a week out from the ceremony itself. In 2021, I'm just now getting my Oscar Watchlist together. The whole situation has me so fucked up that I wasn't even sure what day the nominations were going to be announced on.

There's another reason why 2021's Oscar season is weird, for me personally. I don't really pay attention to streaming. It's not that I consider straight-to-streaming a less legitimate release strategy than playing in theaters. It's just that there's always so much coming out on streaming services, that it's hard for me to keep track of it all. Since the pandemic started, we've especially had a glut of content shoveled at us all the time. This means I feel barely aware of many of the nominated films this year. 

Nevertheless, I'm excited for Oscar. I'm excited to start my race to watch all the nominated reviews. I'm extremely excited to review many of these pictures. Let's kick off Film Thoughts 2021 Oscar coverage with my traditional list of wildly inaccurate predictions. 

BEST PICTURE:

If you had asked me a year ago, what the frontrunner for Best Picture would be, I would've said David Fincher's "Mank." It's the latest release from a critically acclaimed filmmaker, who has been repeatedly nominated without winning. Moreover, it's another self-congratulatory celebration of Hollywood itself, detailing the behind-the-scenes drama of what's considered one of the greatest movies of all time. Should've been a shoe-in?

Alas, the trauma of living through the Trump administration has left us all - Academy voters included - far more aware of pressing social issues. Themes like race, gender, and class inequality characterized almost all the top candidates for Best Picture this year. "Mank" still scored nominations in most of the major categories but it's not going to win.

Instead, a scrappy indie by the name of "NomadLand" has fought its way to the top of the heap. Chloe Zhao's tale of poverty and on-the-road living has earned the best reviews of the year. After sweeping through various other award shows, it now seems primed to win Best Picture.

Or does it? There are a few likely titles snapping at "NomadLand's" heels. "Judas and the Black Messiah" seems to have won quite a lot of praise and is the fan favorite in a number of cinephile circles. In the time before a flick like "Parasite" proved the Academy was changing, Aaron Sorkin's "Trial of the Chicago 7" would also seem like a sure-shot Best Picture favorite. These are important movies about important historical events, which still resonate in our modern world. AMPAS loves that kind of shit, right? Of course, they do. (Even if Sorkin remains a divisive talent.)

Still, this years slate of BP nominations include several kinds of movies that might've been locked out in past years. "Minari" is a low-key drama largely in Korean, with no major stars. "Promising Young Woman" is a thriller that was once slotted into a March release date, destined to be forgotten come Oscar time. Instead, both have their shot at Tinseltown's top honor. 2021 truly is a strange time to be alive.

This year's Best Picture nods are rounded out with more typical Oscar fair. "The Father" is a prestidge-y drama about aging, mental illness, and familial bonds. It stars two previous Oscar winners and is largely built around their performances. If "Sound of Metal" wasn't about rock music, it too would fit the typical Oscar image. After all, it's a drama about an artist overcoming a physical disadvantage. Neither seem likely to take home the top prize but it's good to know that, even as the layout of the Academy has changed, some themes always resonate. 

Official Prediction:

"NomadLand"

BEST ACTOR:

When Chadwick Boseman died unexpectedly last year, it shocked many people. As a Marvel superhero, he was already an icon. The news that he had secretly been fighting cancer while building himself an A-List career made him a posthumous hero. There's no doubt that the echoing memory of Boseman's shocking death is having an effect on Awards Season this year. His final performance in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" has won several high-profile awards this year and seems like the likely choice for Best Actor. Even someone as cynical as me, prone to thoughts like "he's only going to win because he died," isn't in the mood to argue about it.

If it wasn't for that tragedy, several other candidates would rise to the top. The Academy loves it when a living legend like Anthony Hopkins, who has long-since slid into low-stakes paycheck roles, comes back and proves they still got it. That's obviously what "The Father" is and, in any other year, he'd be a likely winner. The same can be said for Riz Ahmed in "Sound of Metal." (See the aforementioned note about the Academy loving the "artist with disabilities" genre.) 

If Gary Oldman hadn't just won a few years back, his take on Hollywood legend Herman Mankiewicz would probably have more buzz behind it. Steven Yuen, a potential star-in-the-making, rounds out the category but I don't think this is his year. 

Official Prediction:

Chadwick Boseman in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

BEST ACTRESS:

Best Actress is one of the more interesting categories this year. There's no clear-cut winner. Viola Davis and Frances McDormand are legends who have all won in recent memory, making repeat wins here seem unlikely. (Even with the considerable buzz behind "Ma Rainey" and "NomadLand.") Vanessa Kirby, meanwhile, was kind of a surprise nomination. "Pieces of a Woman" has gotten somewhat mixed reviews and little buzz, compared to the other competing films.

That really narrows it down to two possibilities. Andra Day was a surprise winner at the Golden Globe recently, for "The United Stares Vs. Billie Holiday." That seems to be the classical dilemma of a strong performance in an otherwise mediocre movie, about a pop culture icon. Normally, that's the kind of thing that wins Oscar. Yet, in the post "#MeToo" Hollywood, a movie like "Promising Young Woman" has been catching a lot of attention. Carey Mulligan has proven herself to be an Academy favorite in the past and her performance here has a mountain of hype behind it. It comes down to these two but I think Mulligan is currently nudging into the lead.

Official Prediction:

Carey Mulligan in "Promising Young Woman."

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

It's always a little weird when a movie gets multiple nominations in the same category. The case of Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield competing against each other for "Judas and the Black Messiah" strikes me as odd. By most accounts, LaKeith is the film's lead and shouldn't even be in this category anyway. Kaluuya seems to be the favorite to win anyway but I feel like a double nomination may split voters,

If that does turn out to be true, there's the chance of someone else going home with this little gold man. Even with the diversification of the Academy voting body, people still love it when an actor known for comedy pulls off a strong dramatic performance. That's the kind of narrative that could favor Sacha Baron Cohen in "Trial of the Chicago 7."

The rest of mostly surprise choices. "One Night in Miami" seemed like a movie that was primed to be more of an awards contender but didn't quite break through, leaving Leslie Odom Jr. the sole nominee. Paul Raci, meanwhile, is a character actor who has mostly done work in television and now suddenly finds himself thrusts into the limelight for "Sound of Metal." (A movie the Academy liked way more than I expected.) Honestly, I'm kind of rooting for him, even if I know little about the guy. 

Official Prediction:

Daniel Kaluuya for "Judas and the Black Messiah."

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Every Oscar year has its Villain Movie and this year it's "Hillbilly Elegy." The reviews have been toxic. Film Twitter hates it. The guy who wrote the original book has proven himself to be a piece of shit. We, as a culture, have largely evolved past the need for movies about how charming poverty is. And yet, the A-list talent of Amy Addams, Glenn Close, and Ron Howard has gotten the film some award season attention. Luckily, the AMPAS mostly didn't take the bait. Close is the film's one of only two nominees for the film. 

There's also no Sure Thing in the Best Supporting Actress category. Amanda Seyfried seems to be the most beloved thing about "Mank" and has scooped up some awards. Olivia Colman's growing reputation as one of the greats of our time seems to be building towards her winning another Oscar for "The Father." Youn Yuh-Jung, from "Minari," has pretty much no chance of winning but people sure to like her. 

Colman will probably get it but there is a Dark Horse candidate. Maria Bakalova genuinely gave one of my favorite performances last year, "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm." Who would've thought that a "Borat" sequel would've been home to a weirdly charming father/daughter story? I've been delighted to see Bakalova pick up some wins over the last few weeks. An Oscar win still seems a bit far-fetch. Rowdy, ribald R-rated comedies don't usually win Oscars. At the same time, a win for Bakalova doesn't seem inconceivable either and that makes me happy.

Official Prediction:

Probably Olivia Colman for "The Father" but I'm rooting for Maria Bakalova.

BEST DIRECTOR:

After Greta Gerwig's much publicized snub last year in the Best Director category, the Academy wants us to know that they like women filmmakers. Emerald Fennel - is that not the most British name you've heard in your life? - and Chloe Zhao both received nominations. In fact, Zhao - the first Asian woman to ever be nominated in this category - seems like the sure-shot winner. A further win for diversity was Lee Isaac Chung for "Minari." 

In fact, the only quote-unquote "normal" Oscar pick in this category is David Fincher for "Mank." Fincher is a beloved figure and I'm sure he'll get his Best Director Oscar some day but he seems outclassed this year. Lastly, Thomas Vinterburg getting nominated for "Another Round" is kind of a surprise. The movie was well received and was an easy lock for Best International Film. Yet Vinterburg - who I still associate most with "It's All About Love" and the Dogme movement - is a pleasant surprise. But he won't win. This is Zhao's year.

Official Prediction:

Chloe Zhao for "NomadLand."

BEST WRITING:

I never fucking know who's going to win in these categories, to the point where I don't even know why I bother guessing. There's very few surprises in the Best Original Screenplay category, which is entirely made up of Best Picture nominees. Aaron Sorkin, nominated for "The Trial of the Chicago 7," is the most writerly writer in the group, suggesting he might win it. At the same time, a smaller category like this may be "Minari's" chance to walk away with an Oscar. (Assuming "Judas and the Black Messiah" or "Promising Young Woman" don't become juggernaut or something.)

The Adapted Screenplay category is much of the same, though "The White Tiger" - a movie I have genuinely never heard of before today - is a big surprise. "NomadLand's" Best Picture win seems fairly certain and that hype is likely to carry over to this category. At the same time, something like "The Father" or "Borat" down here. I really have no idea.

Official Prediction:

No fucking clue but my gut says "Trial of the Chicago 7" and "NomadLand."

BEST MUSIC:

I plead to the Academy: Please just give Diane Warren a fucking Oscar already. The Susan Lucci of songwriting received her twelfth nomination this year, for “Io Si” from “The Life Ahead.” (Only composer Thomas Newman – 15 – and sound design Greg P. Russell – 17 – have more nominations without winning.) The song is pretty, with vocals from Laura Pausini that don't overdo it too much and instrumentation just on the right side of overwrought. I would be fine if this won.

I haven't seen “EuroVision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” yet but my understanding is that it's a farce... So I was pretty surprised that “Husavik (My Home Town)” seems to be a totally straight example of an Oscar bait ballad. I've got to give Molly Sanden points for hitting that high note at the end but otherwise this is aggressively not my kind of thing. I agree that “Jaja Ding Dong” is a better song. 

R&B dominates the rest of the Original Song category. “Hear My Voice” from “The Trial of the Chicago 7” is a soulsy ballad with surprisingly upbeat melodies and singer Celeste is fine, I guess. “Fight for You” has funky music but I find the vocals and lyrics kind of repetitive and aimless. “Speak Now” from “One Night in Miami” does seem to build anywhere for the longest time and, when it finally hits that moment, it immediately goes for overwrought. Leslie Odom's voice is nice, I guess. 

The only truly unexpected snub this year was a near total lockout for “Da 5 Bloods,” otherwise one of the best reviewed movies of last year. A single showing in the Best Score category is its sole nomination. Terence Blanchard's score is at its best when hitting the classical sweeping adventure themes and militaristic drums the most. 

I can't tell how I feel about Emilie Mosseri's “Minari” score. Several of its sections sound really nice but the focus on meandering piano melodies and warbling vocal effects put me off slightly. James Newton Howards's score for “News of the World” is excellent and immediately captivating, with mourning western themes, driving emotion, and a strong role for acoustic guitar. 

If you went back in time and told nineties industrial kids that Trent Reznor was going to be a multi-Oscar nominee for his music in the same year, I doubt they'd believe you. Moreover, they probably wouldn't recognize “Mank's” jazzy and  1940s style score as his. (Though it undeniably has that atmosphere of unease I associate with Reznor.) Probably even more mind-blowing to this hypothetical time traveler is that the guy who sang “I wanna fuck you like an animal” did the music for a Disney movie.. And that it's really fucking good. “Soul's” win for Best Score seems all but assured, considering its a movie about music and perfectly summons all the right emotions. 

OTHER FILM CATEGORIES:

The motherfuckers did it again. Last year, "Honeyland" quietly broke history by being the first Best Documentary nominee to be also be nominated in the International Feature category. 2021 shows this may become a trend as "Collective" -- an upbeat Romanian picture about corruption in the public healthcare system -- pulled off the same feat this year. The film faces heavy competition in both categories. "Another Round" leads the International category while a number of buzzy titles, like "Crip Camp" and the much memed-on "My Octopus Teacher," seem to be dominating the Documentary.

I have to commend the Academy for choosing to ignore Dreamworks this year, in the Best Animated Feature category. I'm sure the new "Croods" movie is an inoffensive picture but I'm glad it was passed over, allowing for a more diverse selection. Granted, Pixar is still hogging two slots, with "Soul" definitely winning and "Onward" probably not deserving a nod at all. But I'm glad Oscar made room for the stunning "Wolfwalkers" - my fave in this category - and whatever the hell "Over the Moon" is.

MISC.:

Sick of spending so much time trying to explain the difference between Sound Editing and Sound Design, the Academy made the surprise decision to condense both categories into simply Best Sound. Considering the same sort of movies tend to dominate both categories, that was probably an overdue decision. I imagine a music-centric pic like "Soul" or "Sound of Metal" will win here.

The Best Editing and Make-Up categories continue to be overwhelmingly boring. Editing is made up entirely of Best Picture nominees. While I'm sure they are all well-edited, character dramas are not what I think of when I think of top-notch editing. As for Make-Up, it's all stuffy dramas and period pieces again. (This is where "Hillbilly Elegy's" second nomination resides.) Did you know they made a new version of "Pinocchio" last year? I didn't. Hollywood really needs to bring back monster movies so some bad-ass creature effects can start dominating this category again. 

I guess being stuck inside all year really influenced the Academy in general, as character studies dominate most of the technical categories this year. "News of the World," that western with Tom Hanks, and "Tenet" are the only sweeping epics that got noticed in the Cinematographer and Production Design categories. The crop of Visual Effect nominees is also really weird this year. Aside from "Tenet" and "Mulan," it's a really oddball batch. Congrats to the "Love and Monsters" team and that post-apocalyptic movie George Clooney made that I totally forgot about. I guess movie studios sitting on most of their big budget releases until things get closer to normal was a contributing factor here.

I'll be starting my marathon of reviewing the nominees at the start of April, as I plan on squeezing two more Director Report Card this month. (Though one is related to the topic at hand.) After that, I'll be knee-deep in awards contenders.

What form the ceremony will take this year is a bit of a question mark. Will people be accepting their Oscars over Zoom calls or is the AMPAS pulling together a socially distance awards show? I guess we'll find out on April 25th. Naturally, I will be doing my annual live-blog of the show because I am a slave to tradition. Anyway, I'm hyped and I hope you are too!