We also reviewed this film a few years ago when it came out. We suggest that you also look at that review ( What Happened, Miss Simone? )which also has a link to one her outstanding performances.

****
What Happened, Miss Simone? (Netflix)

This 2015 documentary film was directed by Liz Garbus and is nominated for best documentary film at the 88th Academy Awards. Nina Simone is a little girl who appeared to be destined to become a child prodigy classical pianist. Her natural talents as a pianist as well as a singer diverted her into performing as a jazz artist. Being a young black woman, she used her musical talent to be an important voice in the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s. She would often be singing in a musical manner what the black leaders were saying in so many ways, especially as she came forth and performed her classic song, Mississippi Goddamn! Ms. Simone’s personal life was complicated as the man whom she married and became her manager also physically abused her.

The editing of this film was magnificent as there were clips of her performing and talking as well as segments of observation by people who knew her including her husband and most important, her daughter. These were all blended together with wonderful clips of performances by this great artist.

Sadly, it turns out that Ms. Simone appeared to have had an underlying depression, which dominated her later years. She died at the age of 70, but her music will never be forgotten.

***

Still Alice- rm We were moved to see film because of all the pre Academy Award hype about the performance of Julianne Moore. After seeing this film we agree that she did a tremendous job playing a college professor who has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease and probably deserves an Oscar. The overall movie disappointed us. Alice Howland ( Ms. Moore) is happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who is forgetting words and having memory lapses. She receives a diagnosis of this relatively rare disease which inevitably has a fairly rapid downhill course. Ms. Moore’s performance is nuanced and her struggle is very painful and easy to empathize with. Her facial expressions convey what we imagine are her internal feelings. Her eyes portray her fear and then the diminished attention and intellectual ability. It is a remarkable performance. It is helped by her gradual change in makeup and hair appearance. The screenplay which was written by director Richard Glatzer is based on novel by Lisa Genova, was focused almost completely on Alice despite having an excellent cast and potential story lines that could have made this in our opinion a much better movie. We learn in this film that this is an inherited disease and once you have the gene you will inevitably get the disease. It is possible to do genetic testing and that is offered to her three children played by Kristin Stewart, Shane McRae and Hunter Parrish. One daughter declined to be tested, one son tested negative and a third daughter who was trying to become pregnant tested positive. We are not shown anything about their struggle and their decision process, which is one of the major areas of ethical discussions in the world of modern genetics. Her husband is played by Alec Baldwin, who in our opinion turns in an uncharacteristically bland performance. Perhaps again it is the choice of the screenwriter/director to keep the main focus on Ms. Moore. This may be why we don’t see the internal struggle of the husband and his remarkable decision in what would seem to be the final phase of his wife’s illness, to decide to take a job out of town. It could have been a tour de force if we could more fully appreciate what this family was going through as well as the devastation conveyed so well by Ms. Moore. (2015)

*****

Wild Tales sp  – Damiean Szifron is a young Argentinian director and playwright who had a drawer full of short screenplays all of which have an element of revenge that more or less spins out of control. He put six of them together for an anthology that ended being the Argentina entry in the Academy Awards for the best foreign films. Out of the 82 entries from all over the world, this became one of the six nominated in this category for an Oscar. By taking each storyline to a point of seeing the main character or characters losing control, Szifron also has created at times a hilarious comedy. The acting is great as apparently some of the best actors in Argentina were drawn to this project. It starts off with a airline flight where the passengers realize that everyone is in some way connected to the same guy from their past who they learn has taken over the cockpit of their plane.. The movie concludes with a wedding scene that you will never forget and may even have some elements in it with which you will identify. Although they are not all very pretty, they will have you laughing. Each of the sections of this movie, while different in content, do flow together. The editing is crisp, the camera views are thoughtful, the music appropriately carries the mood and the subtitles are very readable if you don’t understand Spanish. It is a most creative, brilliantly executed film that is well worth seeing! (2015)

Like everyone else we have our favorite for the Oscar choices .We did not yet see three of the 10 nominees True Grit , Inception or Winters Bone but we still would like to weigh in on our choices. We also have some differences of opinion as to the best of the best. Here are our picks for the major categories

Best Picture & Director of 2010 (we both feel these should be lumped together and they usually go together)

MB: It is interesting that the two favorites The Kings Speech and Social Network as well as The Fighter and 127 Hours are based on true stories. At least part of their appeal is that the movie recreates and provides insight into actual events. It turns out that Kings Speech while correct in the overall theme did take a fair amount of poetic license in laying out the time sequences and the actual timing of his dramatic speech. (He apparently had been seeing the speech therapist for many years at the time of the famous speech and it was not a dramatic moment as depicted.)  For me, no matter how well done the movie may be, that does take away from the value of the film. I also find myself asking the question about Social Network – if it were not a valid depiction would I think the movie was that good and would I care about the characters? As far as I know, it was close to the truth but I find that  the main value of the film is that it satisfies my curiosity about how this world changing phenomena  came about. That by itself for me is not enough for the first place award and aside from that, I believe we are left with a very good movie but not the best. 127 Hours was gripping but it didn’t have enough depth to win the prize. Similarly The Fighter was done well but it is not another Rocky even though based on a true story.  Incidentally, as far as true stories that were made into great films this year, I am sorry that Conviction was not nominated, but as good as I think it was, it wouldn’t win my first prize. The Kids Are All Right was top notch and  a game changer  in many ways. It may even deserve to win as the best screen play but as much as I liked it and also enjoyed Toy Story 3 – they weren’t in the league of my first choice as best film .  This leaves Black Swan as my choice for the best picture of the year. This film combines a fascinating story, a horror film, beautiful dancing, fantasy, psychological intrigue and great acting. In my opinion Director Darren Aronofsky combined them all with wonderful effects and camera work to come out on top for this year’s best picture and director

SB: I thought Social Network takes the prize this year. It had the combination of a fascinating subject, great writing and acting which made it a mesmerizing movie. I really cared about the characters and could understand their point of view . The movie made me feel that I was actually present at the birth of a very important event in our lifetime.

We both were in agreement on the following four categories

Best Actress:

Natalie Portman captured the mystery, agony, fear, horror with the love and beauty of ballet all in this stunning performance of Black Swan.  The other nominees whom we saw were excellent especially Nicole Kidman as the grieving mother in Rabbit Hole but Portman excelled in each of the genres which her film touched.

Best Actor:

While Colin Furth with his poignant portrayal of the stammering King is probably the one to beat, we think Javier Bardem in Biutiful turned in just about a perfect performance of a man living on the edge, strong, sensitive, facing death with a tender caring for others. Bardem deserves his second Oscar

Best Supporting Actor:

Christian Bale earned the Oscar here. Not only did his portrayal of  the character of the older self centered brother who was almost was the champion grab the attention of  The Fighter but in a clip at the end of the film  of the real brother  showed how Bale also nailed his speech and mannerisms . Veteran actor Geoffrey Rush who has been nominated for an Oscar four times and won in 1997 for Shine was wonderful as the eccentric speech therapist but we don’t think he will knock out Bale.

Best Supporting Actress:

Melissa Leo as the mother of the two brothers in The Fighter in our opinion was a run away for this category. She exuded the persona of this character and her misguided view of her two sons and her own entitlement.

The results of the Academy of Motion Pictures will be known in a few days but we will always welcome your comments below.