How would you rank the best picture nominees?
The morning after Thursday's Oscar nominations announcement, a reader sent me a screenshot of a cartoon depicting a couple lounging on a living room sofa, the woman sprawled under a blanket.
'We need to make it through at least one movie so we have something to root for at the Oscars,' read the caption.
I'm Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope's Monday newsletter.
Have you made it through at least one of this year's best picture nominees?
Times film critic Amy Nicholson, not surprisingly, has seen all 10 nominated movies. It is, after all, her job. Amy sat down after Thursday's Oscar announcement and put the best picture nominees in order from worst to first. Her No. 1 choice might surprise you. Or perhaps not, if you've read her enthusiasm for the film.
Do I sound like a softie if I tell you that I liked all 10 movies nominated this year? I've seen a pair of them twice, coincidentally, the two with the longest running times, 'The Brutalist' and 'Wicked.' I'll probably enjoy a repeat showing of another one or two before the Oscars on March 2.
Reading Amy's rankings, it seems like she found something to like in all of them too. (And I agree. 'Wicked,' her No. 10 movie, could stand to lose a few minutes in its final act.)
My clear No. 1, by the way, is 'Anora,' which I've written about quite a bit the past few months.
What would top your list?
And they hit the ground ... well, hopefully not running, because it's snowing and the ground is slippery right now. Our Sundance studio is already welcoming guests ('Hey, Questlove!'), even as the question hangs in the air about where all this is going to take place a couple of years from now. ('Please make it Hawaii,' a friend pleaded, weary of feeling either freezing or roasting. The theaters are known to crank up the heat.)
One movie, The Times' Matt Brennan notes, is already making waves — HBO Documentary Films' 'Pee-wee as Himself,' a two-part deep dive into Paul Reubens' rise to fame and subsequent fall from grace.
In particular, Matt writes, 'Pee-wee as Himself' reconsiders Reubens' 1991 arrest for indecent exposure at an adult theater in Sarasota, Fla., to which he pleaded no contest, and his 2002 arrest for possession of child pornography — charges that were later dropped.
The documentary suggests that both arrests, and the tabloid coverage they inspired, stemmed from prejudice against Reubens' homosexuality.
And, apparently, on the day before his 2023 death, Reubens revealed his reasons for participating in the film.
'More than anything, the reason I wanted to make a documentary was to let people see who I really am and how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn't,' Reubens said. 'The moment I heard someone label me as — I'm just going to say it — a pedophile, I knew it was going to change everything moving forward and backwards.'
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