My fellow film lovers, what can I say? You are a savvy bunch, so you noticed how conspicuously absent “Anora” was from my column last week. Not that I have anything against director Sean Baker or his cast and crew; I do not.
Still, “Anora” gave me a migraine with all its highly expressed emotion and profanity. I felt it was basically “Pretty Woman” for the Putin era—and I am not alone. Although Latvian screenwriter Michael Idov felt differently than I did, he also wrote a guest essay for The New York Times titled “I Loved ‘Anora,’ but I Still Hope It Loses at the Oscars.” So there you have it.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a mini-democracy, as far as I know. Thus, I respect the body’s strong endorsement of something I did not particularly care for. Plus, I have no energy or desire to lead a coup against Hollywood by ransacking its studios, assaulting producers, or setting up a center-stage gallows. That would be crazy, right?
Sure, I would still burn the boy king’s star into the ground on the Walk of Fame, as I implied last week. You know, the fake leader who thinks he holds all the cards but pretends not to know elections don’t occur under martial law? Don’t be fooled.
When your least favorite movie wins best picture, you get up, get dressed, and go see another movie. This week, I suggest you make plans to be awed by Fernanda Torres in “I’m Still Here,” an ironic yet powerful title for a story about how Brazil’s military dictatorship “disappeared” political dissidents in the early 1970s.
How certain countries decide the exact means of getting rid of opponents has always fascinated me. I mean, Russia has a historic penchant for defenestration, while Putin himself seems to favor nerve agents in broad daylight. But Argentina and Brazil definitely had a thing for forcibly abducting and then killing many of their own citizens. This was state-sponsored terrorism, full stop.
Every single thing happening today in the United States of America is chilling. How long before the boy king wakes up and declares another geographic renaming: the United States of Russia? This is disgusting because the boy king is a truly terrible, deplorably real freak show.
So my advice is simple: See “I’m Still Here,” which is playing now at The Moviehouse in Millerton and opening at The Triplex on Friday. To balance things out and maintain your sanity, I also highly recommend “Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story,” which I was able to see last summer at The Provincetown Film Festival. Felt like spending the afternoon with an old friend: perfection.
