Latest news with #Serpico
Pink Villa
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
The RIP: Netflix Sets 2026 Release Date for Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's Crime Thriller – Cast, Plot, and Everything We Know
At the Tudum event, Netflix officially announced the premiere date for its upcoming crime thriller The RIP. The film, starring longtime collaborators Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, is set to release globally on January 16, 2026. Directed and written by Joe Carnahan, it also features Teyana Taylor, Sasha Calle, Steven Yeun, and Kyle Chandler in key roles. Netflix shared a sneak peek of The RIP during the event, though the preview was only shown to those in the room. The film is produced by Artists Equity, the production company launched by Damon and Affleck in 2022. What is The RIP About? The RIP follows a group of Miami police officers whose bond begins to fall apart after they discover millions of dollars hidden in a rundown stash house. As word spreads about the massive cash seizure, the team begins to question their loyalty to each other and who they can really trust. Joe Carnahan said that the film's story is inspired by a personal experience from his friend who worked in narcotics for the Miami-Dade Police Department. 'The Rip came out of a deeply personal experience that my friend went through, both as a father and as head of tactical narcotics,' Carnahan said. 'It's inspired in part by his life and by my love for those classic '70s cop thrillers like Serpico and Heat.' In addition to Damon and Affleck, the cast includes: Steven Yeun (Beef, The Walking Dead) Teyana Taylor (A Thousand and One) Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) Sasha Calle (The Flash) Néstor Carbonell (Shōgun) Lina Esco (S.W.A.T.) Scott Adkins (John Wick 4) Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) The title is derived from Miami police slang. 'The title for The Rip is simply Miami cop parlance for 'taking the bad guy's stuff,' which is known as 'ripping' it,' Carnahan shared. 'In the event of a seizure of cash or drugs or weapons, the confiscation itself is known as the 'rip.'' The RIP is the latest project from Artists Equity, the artist-driven studio founded by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in November 2022. Their debut film Air released in spring of 2023 to strong reviews and solid box office numbers. Since then, they've worked on Amazon's The Greatest Love Story Never Told, Small Things Like These (which opened the Berlin Film Festival), and The Instigators on Apple.
The Herald Scotland
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Eight Wes Anderson films you need to see (and his American Express ad)
None of which should mean we write off a filmography that is teeming with beauty and emotion and humour and elan. Here are eight entries in the Wes Anderson CV that are always worth your time. Rushmore, 1998 Rushmore (Image: free) After making his debut with Bottle Rocket in 1996, Anderson began to get noticed with Rushmore, a high school movie that saw Brian Cox and Olivia Williams briefly become part of Anderson's rep company alongside Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman. (Cox would be back for The Fantastic Mr Fox). Schwartzman plays student Max Fisher -'one of the worst students we've got,' according to Dr Guggenheim, aka Cox - who becomes obsessed with his teacher Miss Cross, played by Williams. But Murray's character, Max Blume, a self-made millionaire, is also drawn to her. There are some who prefer Rushmore to anything that came later; it's the film in which Anderson's approach was more direct and less gilded with his own whimsy. The artifice is there - most notably in Fisher's elaborate stage shows based on Serpico and, possibly, Apocalypse Now - but it's reined in. For others, it might not be Wes Anderson enough. The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums (Image: free) Watching this again in 2025 what hits hardest is seeing Gene Hackman here, still vital and alive bringing all the vinegar and spite required to play the title character, an absent father trying to ingratiate himself with his estranged family. Otherwise, this feels like the moment Anderson comes into focus as a film-maker in the way he creates symmetrical shots, centres his characters in the frame and uses negative space to tell us who his characters are and explains their relationship to the world. The story - like the setting - almost feels like a live-action New Yorker cartoon (Gwyneth Paltrow's Margot could have been drawn by Charles Addams). But in the midst of this arch family drama there is some real feeling. If anything, that emotion feels stronger now than it did when it first came out. American Express Advert, 2006 Shall we talk commerce for a moment? Directors make adverts. It happens. They've all done it, from Martin Scorsese to Taika Watiti. Even Ken Loach has shot a McDonald's ad in his time. Bills have to be paid. What's striking about Anderson's ads is how obviously Andersonian they are. The way the camera moves through space in his H&M Christmas ad is not that different from how it moves through his films. In some ways his advertising work is a chance to pay tribute to his cinematic heroes. His Prada Candy ads with Lea Seydoux speak to the films of Francois Truffaut and the French Nouvelle Vague, whilst his ad for SoftBank seems to offer us Brad Pitt cosplaying Jacques Tati. This Amex ad owes something to Truffaut's Day For Night, but it also plays with our idea of Anderson himself; the detail-obsessed cineaste getting everything just right on set, all played out in a single-take pan and tracking shot. Looks like he has his own black Amex card, by the way. Castello Cavalcanti, 2013 Castello Cavalcanti (Image: unknown) Talking of tribute movies … This short, funded by the fashion label Prada, stars Anderon regular Jason Schwarztman as a racing car driver who crashes in the town of the title, which just happens to be where his ancestors came from. The ghost of Italian director Federico Fellini is being conjured up here. It's a one-set short - though a very elaborate set of an Italian town square - that candy-colours post-war Italy. But it is typical Anderson in its energy and delight in the look of things, as captured by director of photography Darius Khondji. Hotel Chevalier, 2007 Another short. This 13-minute film - you can watch it on YouTube - is a prologue to Anderson's long-form film Darjeeling Limited, but it works on its own and actually works better than the film it is an adjunct to. There's not much to it, but its brevity is a strength. Jason Schwartzman is staying in the hotel in question when he is visited by an old girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman - looking like a gamine Jean Seberg tribute act with her short hair and Marc Jacobs' designer wardrobe. In short, it's a film about desire and love and the distance between them, all played out to the sound of Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go to My Lovely. There is a credit for Louis Vuitton luggage, naturellement. The Fantastic Mr Fox, 2009 The Fantastic Mr Fox (Image: unknown) Anderson was made for animation. His love of intricate doll's house sets, precise camera movement and antic detail works well in the hermetic universe required in animated movies. This adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's novel is funny, sharper and more brutal than you might expect. Anderson's default blue-light melancholy is here juiced up by Dahl's misanthropy. The stop-motion animation is distinctive and the voice work - from the likes of George Clooney (perfect casting for the title character), Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, Michael Gambon and Willem Dafoe - is immaculate. In 2023 Anderson revisited Dahl with four short films based on the author's short stories for Netflix, in what one critic describes as 'dramatised audiobooks', with the characters delivering the narration into the camera. The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel (Image: unknown) A high point and maybe an end point. Anderson's mitteleuropean film - inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig - has a snow globe shimmer to it; a film that at first glance seems to be all icing and no cake. Or maybe there's too much cake? But while the result is an expression of what we might call 'high Andersonian style' - the style that would subsequently take over his films - it also has a weight to it that subsequent films don't. Because amidst its shaggy dog story about an inherited painting and a murderous family in pursuit of it, we see the rise of fascism slowly seeping in at the edge of the frame. What some might see as stylistic excess is, in fact, a political statement. As the New Yorker critic Richard Brody points out, it's a film 'in which high style emerges as a crucial tool in resisting Nazi oppressors.' Anderson's usual repertory report for duty but it is Ralph Fiennes - in one of his most beautifully orchestrated performances (which is saying something) - who stands out here. Someone who both fits into the artifice and yet compels with his honesty. Possibly Anderson's greatest movie. Moonrise Kingdom, 2012 But not my favourite. That would be this coming-of-age movie. Set on a New England island in 1965, it's the story of two bits of kids who run away from home. A movie about maps and cats and scouts, it's full of wide-eyed childhood appetite and middle-aged ennui. From one angle - that of Bruce Willis's sad-eyed policeman, perhaps - it may be the saddest story Anderson has ever told.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Drop Dead City' Review: A Gripping Look at How New York City Almost Went Bankrupt in 1975, Foreshadowing the Current Moment
'Drop Dead City' falls into a category of documentary I think of as wonkish but gripping. Produced and directed by Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn, the film is about the financial cataclysm that hit New York City in 1975, when the powers that be figured out that the city was $6 billion in debt. There was no money to pay anyone: firefighters, cops, teachers, sanitation workers. The city walked right up to the edge of bankruptcy. (That's not an overstatement.) Had New York City been anything but New York City — had it been a business, a family, or even another city — it likely would have declared bankruptcy. But after a prolonged logistical-ideological war about what to do, the city was deemed too big to fail (even though it had failed, and to a shocking degree). The film's title refers to the infamous New York Daily News headline that ran on Oct. 30, 1975 ('Ford to City: Drop Dead'). President Gerald R. Ford never actually said those words, but the headline appeared after representatives of New York went to Washington to meet with the Ford administration. They asked for a federal bailout and were given the cold shoulder. There were complicated reasons for that (Ford's chief advisers, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, were two of the reasons). But it was that headline, 50 years ago, that stamped New York's financial crisis with the imprimatur of legend. The reason I call 'Drop Dead City' wonkish is that the film isn't a seamy urban-cultural biography; it really is about the money. And the more that the movie follows the money, the more that it tells a story larger than New York — a story with direct application to today. In the mid-to-late '70s, when New York was sunk into the torpor of potential economic ruin, the city was fabled in another way. This was the period of CBGB and Summer of Sam, when New York was famously squalid and dangerous, when whole sections of it had a bombed-out vibe of neglect. Yet in all that crumbling concrete, there were stray weeds and flowers — the artists and thrill-seekers who grooved on the funk and the fear. It became part of the mythology of the '70s that New York City was a wreck, but a fabulous wreck, an exposed nerve of a city, a sordid nexus of desperation and creativity where to exist there was to plug into the life force. Yet for too many people who weren't middle-class bohemians, the city had become hell. It was hell and it was a life force. (Just listen to Lou Reed's 'Dirty Boulevard.') 'Drop Dead City' shows us bits and pieces of that story, but it's really about the economic engine that was so rusted it had come to a standstill. And you can feel the malaise in the fluorescent bureaucratic tone of the film's archival footage, which is dominated by politicians and bankers and city officials. Seen now, this is a saga of bad ties, bad shirts, bad haircuts, bad sideburns, and bad lighting: the New York caught by the Sidney Lumet of 'Serpico' and 'Dog Day Afternoon.' And the real thing is even uglier. Yet that's part of the drama — the sight of all these government squares putting their earnest, bean-counting heads together to pull the city out of the abyss. So why did New York nearly become a disaster area? There was a level of fiscal irresponsibility that had gone for too many years: records stuffed into a thousand different drawers, and as for the bookkeeping…well, there was none. There were no books. Yet financial chaos needn't equal Armageddon. The real problem, and it's one that 'Drop Dead City' places front and center yet never totally deals with the implications of, is that New York City was a generous, overflowing bastion of the liberal dream. The unions had extraordinary power, and the city's workers were notably well-paid, with job security and pensions. More than that, the city offered a wealth of services to the poor and the middle class. New York was the Ur melting pot, a city of immigrants that incarnated a densely packed East Coast version of the American Dream. New York was so liberal that even a Republican mayor, like John V. Lindsay, was, in spirit, a Democrat. The city didn't believe in less government. It believed in however much government it took to help its citizens succeed. That's what had gone on for years, to the tune of the city spending much more money than it took in. And it all came to a head when Abe Beame was elected mayor. He was a tough, dry nut who spoke like a bulldog and stood at 5'2', but he knew, from his time as comptroller, what a wretched state the city's finances were in, and he wanted to clean them up. After recruiting the new comptroller, Harrison J. Goldin, to do an audit (Goldin is interviewed extensively in the film), the bad news came out: The city was up to the tips of its skyscrapers in debt. What ensued was an orgy of finger-pointing and budget slashing. It was Beame's fault! No, it was the fault of the unions! The first thing Beame did was to cut construction projects (Battery Park City, the 2nd Ave. subway line), leaving construction workers high and dry. (This would have turned Archie Bunker into a Trumper.) And when the city began to lay off vast swaths of its workers (2,000 sanitation workers, 2,300 firefighters, 15,000 teachers), up to and including police officers (5,000 of them), who had never before been laid off in the history of the city, those workers reacted with a collective disbelief and outrage. How could they do this? The garbage piled up. The crime statistics spiked. But there was no money to pay anyone. 'Drop Dead City' charts how those pivotal months of 1975, from the spring through November, when a deal was ultimately struck, unfolded like a thriller. Would New York fall off a cliff? The city had already borrowed its way into oblivion. The answer couldn't simply be…more borrowing. Beame formed a task force, the Municipal Assistance Corporation, known as Big MAC, which would try to refinance the city's debt. Big MAC was headed by the investment banker Felix G. Rohatyn, who according to the documentary proved a master politician. That one of the film's co-directors is Rohatyn's son, Michael Rohatyn, might throw that conclusion into doubt. Yet I don't think it's wrong. Felix Rohatyn was deft at bringing the different sides together, and at recognizing what was needed: a financial solution in which everyone — the unions, the state, the federal government — had skin in the game. 'Drop Dead City' captures how there was a staggering contradiction at the heart of New York City in the middle of the 20th century. It was going to help its workers and residents, even if it couldn't afford to do so. That sounds noble but raises the issue: How is that sustainable? And there's a way that the documentary very much doesn't want to go there. Gerald Ford never said 'drop dead,' but he did give New York the brush-off — until he didn't. The federal government came around. So did the teachers union, led by the tough nut Al Shankman, who went down to the wire refusing to offer the teachers' pension fund as a way to cover the city's bond payments — until he changed his mind. In a sense, what went on was a high-stakes game of chicken. Yet there was an ideological war burbling underneath, all revolving around the question of what government exists to do. 'Drop Dead City' suggests that Gerald Ford lost the presidential election of 1976 because he was on the wrong side of that equation. New York's electoral votes put Jimmy Carter over the top; the film says that Ford's reprimand of New York cost him the presidency. In hindsight, though, Jimmy Carter's presidency looks more and more like an anomaly. Ronald Reagan was elected four years later, on the promise of less government, and you don't have to be a higher mathematician to draw the line from Reagan's slashing of government to Elon Musk's chainsaw. (Reagan romantics like David Brooks of the New York Times will tell you that those are two different things; but that's part of the 'Never Trump!' conservative delusion.) 'Drop Dead City' captures how New York fell into a hole of its own devising, then made an essential correction. But it's not like this was simply a matter of bad bookkeeping. What New York's fiscal crisis revealed, for maybe the first time, was a crack in the liberal dream. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Drop Dead City' Review: A Gripping Look at How New York City Almost Went Bankrupt in 1975, Foreshadowing the Current Moment
'Drop Dead City' falls into a category of documentary I think of as wonkish but gripping. Produced and directed by Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn, the film is about the financial cataclysm that hit New York City in 1975, when the powers that be figured out that the city was $6 billion in debt. There was no money to pay anyone: firefighters, cops, teachers, sanitation workers. The city walked right up to the edge of bankruptcy. (That's not an overstatement.) Had New York City been anything but New York City — had it been a business, a family, or even another city — it likely would have declared bankruptcy. But after a prolonged logistical-ideological war about what to do, the city was deemed too big to fail (even though it had failed, and to a shocking degree). The film's title refers to the infamous New York Daily News headline that ran on Oct. 30, 1975 ('Ford to City: Drop Dead'). President Gerald R. Ford never actually said those words, but the headline appeared after representatives of New York went to Washington to meet with the Ford administration. They asked for a federal bailout and were given the cold shoulder. There were complicated reasons for that (Ford's chief advisers, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, were two of the reasons). But it was that headline, 50 years ago, that stamped New York's financial crisis with the imprimatur of legend. The reason I call 'Drop Dead City' wonkish is that the film isn't a seamy urban-cultural biography; it really is about the money. And the more that the movie follows the money, the more that it tells a story larger than New York — a story with direct application to today. In the mid-to-late '70s, when New York was sunk into the torpor of potential economic ruin, the city was fabled in another way. This was the period of CBGB and Summer of Sam, when New York was famously squalid and dangerous, when whole sections of it had a bombed-out vibe of neglect. Yet in all that crumbling concrete, there were stray weeds and flowers — the artists and thrill-seekers who grooved on the funk and the fear. It became part of the mythology of the '70s that New York City was a wreck, but a fabulous wreck, an exposed nerve of a city, a sordid nexus of desperation and creativity where to exist there was to plug into the life force. Yet for too many people who weren't middle-class bohemians, the city had become hell. It was hell and it was a life force. (Just listen to Lou Reed's 'Dirty Boulevard.') 'Drop Dead City' shows us bits and pieces of that story, but it's really about the economic engine that was so rusted it had come to a standstill. And you can feel the malaise in the fluorescent bureaucratic tone of the film's archival footage, which is dominated by politicians and bankers and city officials. Seen now, this is a saga of bad ties, bad shirts, bad haircuts, bad sideburns, and bad lighting: the New York caught by the Sidney Lumet of 'Serpico' and 'Dog Day Afternoon.' And the real thing is even uglier. Yet that's part of the drama — the sight of all these government squares putting their earnest, bean-counting heads together to pull the city out of the abyss. So why did New York nearly become a disaster area? There was a level of fiscal irresponsibility that had gone for too many years: records stuffed into a thousand different drawers, and as for the bookkeeping…well, there was none. There were no books. Yet financial chaos needn't equal Armageddon. The real problem, and it's one that 'Drop Dead City' places front and center yet never totally deals with the implications of, is that New York City was a generous, overflowing bastion of the liberal dream. The unions had extraordinary power, and the city's workers were notably well-paid, with job security and pensions. More than that, the city offered a wealth of services to the poor and the middle class. New York was the Ur melting pot, a city of immigrants that incarnated a densely packed East Coast version of the American Dream. New York was so liberal that even a Republican mayor, like John V. Lindsay, was, in spirit, a Democrat. The city didn't believe in less government. It believed in however much government it took to help its citizens succeed. That's what had gone on for years, to the tune of the city spending much more money than it took in. And it all came to a head when Abe Beame was elected mayor. He was a tough, dry nut who spoke like a bulldog and stood at 5'2', but he knew, from his time as comptroller, what a wretched state the city's finances were in, and he wanted to clean them up. After recruiting the new comptroller, Harrison J. Goldin, to do an audit (Goldin is interviewed extensively in the film), the bad news came out: The city was up to the tips of its skyscrapers in debt. What ensued was an orgy of finger-pointing and budget slashing. It was Beame's fault! No, it was the fault of the unions! The first thing Beame did was to cut construction projects (Battery Park City, the 2nd Ave. subway line), leaving construction workers high and dry. (This would have turned Archie Bunker into a Trumper.) And when the city began to lay off vast swaths of its workers (2,000 sanitation workers, 2,300 firefighters, 15,000 teachers), up to and including police officers (5,000 of them), who had never before been laid off in the history of the city, those workers reacted with a collective disbelief and outrage. How could they do this? The garbage piled up. The crime statistics spiked. But there was no money to pay anyone. 'Drop Dead City' charts how those pivotal months of 1975, from the spring through November, when a deal was ultimately struck, unfolded like a thriller. Would New York fall off a cliff? The city had already borrowed its way into oblivion. The answer couldn't simply be…more borrowing. Beame formed a task force, the Municipal Assistance Corporation, known as Big MAC, which would try to refinance the city's debt. Big MAC was headed by the investment banker Felix G. Rohatyn, who according to the documentary proved a master politician. That one of the film's co-directors is Rohatyn's son, Michael Rohatyn, might throw that conclusion into doubt. Yet I don't think it's wrong. Felix Rohatyn was deft at bringing the different sides together, and at recognizing what was needed: a financial solution in which everyone — the unions, the state, the federal government — had skin in the game. 'Drop Dead City' captures how there was a staggering contradiction at the heart of New York City in the middle of the 20th century. It was going to help its workers and residents, even if it couldn't afford to do so. That sounds noble but raises the issue: How is that sustainable? And there's a way that the documentary very much doesn't want to go there. Gerald Ford never said 'drop dead,' but he did give New York the brush-off — until he didn't. The federal government came around. So did the teachers union, led by the tough nut Al Shankman, who went down to the wire refusing to offer the teachers' pension fund as a way to cover the city's bond payments — until he changed his mind. In a sense, what went on was a high-stakes game of chicken. Yet there was an ideological war burbling underneath, all revolving around the question of what government exists to do. 'Drop Dead City' suggests that Gerald Ford lost the presidential election of 1976 because he was on the wrong side of that equation. New York's electoral votes put Jimmy Carter over the top; the film says that Ford's reprimand of New York cost him the presidency. In hindsight, though, Jimmy Carter's presidency looks more and more like an anomaly. Ronald Reagan was elected four years later, on the promise of less government, and you don't have to be a higher mathematician to draw the line from Reagan's slashing of government to Elon Musk's chainsaw. (Reagan romantics like David Brooks of the New York Times will tell you that those are two different things; but that's part of the 'Never Trump!' conservative delusion.) 'Drop Dead City' captures how New York fell into a hole of its own devising, then made an essential correction. But it's not like this was simply a matter of bad bookkeeping. What New York's fiscal crisis revealed, for maybe the first time, was a crack in the liberal dream. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Los Angeles Times
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘Due' for an Oscar? Take a number
Does the best performance ever win the Oscar? Sometimes. Let's not be too cynical. But even the most detached fan knows that getting to the podium requires a narrative, a story behind the story. So-and-so Worked So Hard. It was a Total Transformation. This was a Life that Needed to Be Told. And then, one of the oldest narratives: They Were Due. After so many nominations and brilliant performances, how could they not have won yet? But does that logic hold water? Columnist Glenn Whipp and film editor Joshua Rothkopf sat down to discuss the substance of 'dueness.' Does it work? Is it fair? And how is it playing out this year? Joshua Rothkopf: I must admit that, for me, the concept of 'due' took hold early, during the mid-to-late '80s and early '90s, when it was a good time to be a revered performer who had never quite gone all the way: Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Al Pacino — the latter, especially. His momentum grew inexorably, inevitably, even as that 'hoo-ah' became a joke almost immediately after 'Scent of a Woman' was released. But how could the star of the 'Godfather' movies, 'Serpico' and 'Dog Day Afternoon' remain unrewarded? I think I prefer every other actor he was nominated against: Denzel Washington for 'Malcolm X,' Stephen Rea for 'The Crying Game,' Robert Downey Jr. for 'Chaplin' and Clint Eastwood, doing a majestic inversion of his own iconography in 'Unforgiven.' At root, I think there's something unfair about an actor winning for being due. It turns the achievement into more of a career nod and there are honorary awards for that. It steals focus from the confident work of preternaturally talented younger nominees who suddenly have to 'wait their turn.' (As if there's any justice in that? Ask Glenn Close.) And it implies that an Oscar is something that an actor of a certain status inevitably should have, which I think is simply wrong. Glenn, has there ever been a case, historically speaking, in which you can justify an actor being due? Or is this just part of how the game is played? Glenn Whipp: Forget it, Josh — it's the Oscars. Ideally, actors would win for their signature roles: Pacino for Michael Corleone, Jeff Bridges for the Dude (or el Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing) or Elizabeth Taylor for Maggie in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.' But Oscar voters are rarely prescient enough to see what's in front of their faces, or they're distracted by another performance from an actor who's 'due' or has a sentimental narrative, such as when Art Carney won for the sweet 'Harry and Tonto,' beating both Pacino ('The Godfather Part II') and Jack Nicholson ('Chinatown'). Occasionally the stars align and an actor perceived as due also wins for giving the year's best performance — or at least one that's in the ballpark. There's half a dozen Leonardo DiCaprio movies I'd watch before 'The Revenant,' but his primal, immersive turn as a frontiersman in that movie deserved the Oscar, even if much of the narrative surrounding his work revolved around him eating raw bison liver and almost freezing to death. And, yes, Washington should have won for 'Malcolm X,' but that first lead actor Oscar for 'Training Day' still looks pretty good. I voted for him. What I'd ask you, Josh, is: Do you really want to live in a world where Pacino doesn't have an Oscar? Say the academy gave that 'Scent of a Woman' prize to another actor. You'd be OK with an untelevised career achievement for him? A pat on the back because two wrongs don't make a right? Rothkopf: Ah, see? You clearly come from the 'Don't ever take sides against the family' school, whereas I come from the 'It's not personal, it's strictly business' one. We should always stick to the movie in question. Meanwhile, what kind of a cosmic wrong was created when, every time we think about 'Scent of a Woman,' we groan? The irony is that Pacino did several worthier turns after his Oscar win: 'The Insider,' 'Donnie Brasco,' even 'Glengarry Glen Ross' from the same year, 1992, is better: the definitive Ricky Roma. Does it bother me that Saoirse Ronan doesn't have an Oscar? Yes. But I'm not her agent. I know she'll always get work. She should have won for 'Brooklyn,' 'Lady Bird,' 'Little Women,' all three of them, epochal. But I worry more that she'll win for something less astounding. And Ronan continues to do amazing work, as proven in this year's 'The Outrun.' Also, ridiculously, she's only 30. That's another thing: The 'due' argument is ageist in reverse. When Pacino won for 'Scent,' he was a tad over 50. The prime of life! Isn't that premature for a pat on the back? This really gets at the heart of what we're talking about, as of last weekend's SAGs and the surging Timothée Chalamet. He's been dogged by the notion that he's somehow too young for the big enchilada. Never mind that he's carried two 'Dune' films, adding unusual depth to a messiah role that could have been a disaster. Add in 'Call Me by Your Name' and his shattering turn in 'Beautiful Boy' and I say Chalamet is due, in a weird way. He's that good. What did you think of his speech at the SAGs, calling out to the 'greats,' hoping to earn a spot with them? I think that's what the Oscars should be: electric. Whipp: Electric? Like the standing ovation that grew like a wave when Pacino took the stage for winning his Oscar? 'You broke my streak,' he joked, before ending his speech with a beautiful note of gratitude. Maybe it feels like I'm being a contrarian because, as a critic, when I'm voting on awards, I adhere to the 'strictly business' stance that you champion, Josh. But these are the Oscars, possessing a near-100-year tradition of 'cosmic wrongs,' from Mary Pickford winning, in just the show's second year, for her connections (definitely not her over-the-top work in 'Coquette') to Brendan Fraser prevailing for the shameful, exploitative 'The Whale.' I love Chalamet, but can't fully get behind him winning because 'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' ruined me for music biopics. He should have won the Oscar for 'Call Me by Your Name,' but lost to the great Gary Oldman, who had the advantages of playing Churchill and being, yes, 'due.' Chalamet could win this year or the Oscar could go to previous winner Adrien Brody ('The Pianist'), not due in any sense for 'The Brutalist.' What's curious about the category is how little traction Ralph Fiennes received. He's sensational in 'Conclave,' conveying both spiritual doubt and turmoil and, on lighter notes, leaning into the movie's campy fun. This is only his third nomination, marking Fiennes as criminally overlooked. But Fiennes needed a platform to make his case, which is what Demi Moore did when she won the Golden Globe for 'The Substance.' In her speech, Moore recalled a producer telling her that she was a 'popcorn actress' and how she bought into that idea, narrowing her belief in what she could do. Then she got 'The Substance,' and, as she put it, 'the universe told me that 'you're not done.' ' No one is making the case that Moore is due — except for that voter who told me she should have won for 'Ghost' — but her narrative of perseverance has resonated with many in this town. That and a career-best performance that was raw, honest and vulnerable could win her an Oscar. Rothkopf: One day, Fiennes will unleash another dazzling 'The Grand Budapest Hotel,' another 'A Bigger Splash,' and I hope AMPAS, in all its questionable wisdom, will honor him for his Sturges-worthy speed and humor, which are unparalleled. And yes, all the attention Moore is getting this season for 'The Substance' is deserved — her performance is of a caliber she's never had the chance to build until now. When she wins, people can and should applaud her for being a survivor, but mainly, I hope, for creating an avatar of Hollywood self-destruction that's right up there with 'Sunset Boulevard' and Gloria Swanson (who never won an Oscar). It's worth noting, perversely, that Moore's Elisabeth Sparkle is supposed to be an Oscar winner. ('What, for 'King Kong?' ' snipes Dennis Quaid as her backstabbing producer.) We never do learn what kind of movie it was and maybe that's the point: You can win for something great or something awful, but ultimately, as we learn at the end of 'Barry Lyndon,' they are all equal now. All rationales of 'dueness' are destined to be forgotten in time. And when it comes to some of my favorite performances — Faye Dunaway's unhinged TV producer in 'Network,' say, or Daniel Day-Lewis in 'There Will Be Blood' — the skill level is so high that their Oscars are almost incidental. It's just self-evident. Whipp: Oh, this is the Oscars, Josh. We never forget. Though you're right: Once you win the trophy, it doesn't matter if it was deserved. The words 'Oscar winner' will be placed before your name in every story written about you all the way to your obituary and beyond. It's the lure that entices most actors to spend several months chatting up voters at receptions and film festivals, enduring endless, repetitive Q&As ('So, what attracted you to the role?') and pushing aside plates of overcooked chicken at awards shows. They want to be an 'Oscar-winning' actor. And as tired as the 'due' narrative can be, it also seems to be a reason some people watch the show. For them, here's a teaser: Glenn Close has a choice part in the next 'Knives Out' movie. She's already called it 'truly one of the best experiences of my life.' Who knows? Maybe she'll finally win that 'overdue' Oscar next year. It feels like she has already started her campaign.
