A solid crop of books this year! I definitely recommend the Fable app to anyone who loves reading (transferring your data from Goodreads is easy!)

Reading through the NYtimes Top 100 has encouraged me to put more thought into this (although I stand by the original)

Any list of “Best Movies” is fraught, but these are ones that have stuck with me.

But of course Best Picture is really CHALLENGERS! The score, the performance, the script, the score, the cinematography, the score; it’s all pitch-perfect and thrilling and funny and exhilarating. What a fun time at the movies.

1: The Brutalist

I was lucky enough to see a 70mm screening of this and it is a gorgeous film. Brody is captivating, but Pearce is essential as his shallow, insecure antagonist. It’s an instant-classic immigrant story about the tension between art and capitalism, and it’s my favorite of these

2: Dune: Part Two

Dune is marvelous. It’s an all-star cast playing out a grand, epic story, and it doesn’t shies away from the darkness of the source material. Villeneuve’s direction is one of the biggest awards snubs of the year; this is his baby and he deserves his flowers.

3: I’m Still Here

I don’t have a clear favorite among my top 3. Torres gives a deeply affecting performance. Her anger and grief and powerlessness are keenly felt without needing a Big Awards Monologue. It hits even harder in the current political climate. It literally moved me to tears twice.

4: The Substance

Moore and Qualley are fantastic, and director Coralie Fargeat is fully in control of the movie’s throwback visual style. And it does deliver thoughtful and relevant social commentary. I wish the ending was a little more clever and a little less drawn out.

5: Wicked

Wicked is infectiously fun and wonderfully cast. The soundtrack has stayed in my rotation since I saw the movie. Where it’s lacking is mostly in the visuals; it’s oddly gloomy and visually bland throughout and the colors rarely pop. It also suffers a from being a first-parter.

6: Conclave

It’s still somewhat amusing to me that Conclave is a serious Best Picture contender. Not because it isn’t good, it is, but because it is at its core a cheeky silly film. It’s a drama about scandal and tea and mess with an overdramatic score. That is to say: I liked it a lot.

7: Nickel Boys

Nickel Boys employs a unique first-person point-of-view throughout. Some people found that to be an effective way to place the audience in the characters’ shoes. I found it oddly isolating and distancing because I could never grasp what the POV character was feeling.

8: A Complete Unknown

I really enjoyed the performances, but the film lacks a raison d’etre: why make a movie about Bob Dylan if you seem to lack a thesis about who he was or what made him tick? The tension between Dylan and the folk music community is something, but it’s not interrogated enough.

9: Anora

I just couldn’t click with it. Sean Baker makes movies that aren’t for me. The first third of the movie is grating, with both lead characters infuriatingly unlikable. It improves as it relaxes into a screwball comedy, but never becomes all that good.

10: Emilia Pérez

It’s as bad as you’ve heard. A tonal mess with a retrograde perspective on transgenderism denounced by GLAAD and a disrespectful take on cartel violence denounced by the Mexican public. Zoe Saldana does her best.