All Oscar Best Picture Nominees Reviewed by Someone Who’s Only Seen One
By: Johannes Schnauber, Contributor
American Fiction: This movie, I am told, is about a black author who is frustrated by the demand for “black fiction”
and writes an over-the-top parody of it only for it to become a major hit. I assume it is a hilarious and poignant satire
of whatever stereotypical “Black books” are like and pseudo-benevolent racism among liberal elites, which I do
know about in more general terms. I know that that was also dealt with by Get Out, a movie I also have not seen, and
that the premise of trying to make something fail only for it to be a hit was done in The Producers, which I haven’t
seen either. Rating: 4/5
Anatomy of a Fall: This French movie is apparently about a writer who is trying to prove she didn’t kill her husband.
I also think I remember hearing she’s bisexual. Other than that, I have no clue what this is. I do think that it’s a
shame people kill their spouses so often; the spouse becomes a prime suspect in a mysterious death. Imagine
grieving your spouse only to also be arrested for killing them when you didn’t do it. The legal system sure is fucked
up. And I heard French prisons are pretty shitty. So is their treatment of autistic people apparently. We need to take
steps to abolish the disciplinary society which administers every aspect of our lives. I’m getting mad thinking about
the state locking people up. Where was I? Oh, yeah, the movie. It’s probably good. Also, there’s a dog, my editor
tells me. Rating: 3.5/5
Barbie: In Barbie, Barbie apparently has an existential crisis and travels to the real world where she’s a toy? Also,
Ken goes with her and tries to bring the patriarchy to Barbieland? And there’s a guy named Alan? I have been
exposed to lots of political discourse about this movie I haven’t seen. The conservative consensus seems to be that
it's woke and therefore bad and evil and a serious threat to our apparently incredibly fragile civilization and doomed
to fail even though it was a huge box office success. The liberal consensus seems to be it’s a funny and progressive
feminist movie. I’ve also heard leftists say that it’s an overrated piece of corporate liberal feminism and/or a
self-hating toy commercial. I tend to agree with leftist cultural critique, so I guess that’s what I could go with but I
don’t want to turn this into a political debate, so I’ll just give it a rating beyond the scale of real numbers. Rating: i/5
The Holdovers: This apparently takes place at a boarding school and is about students who have to stay at school
over some break and their teacher. Also, I think it takes place in the 1970s? I’ve seen other boarding school movies. I
liked Dead Poets Society in high school, though I can’t remember what the plot actually was. I hope it’s not like that
godawful movie my Latin teacher showed us with the grandpa from Gilmore Girls. I’ll be honest, I’m probably not
going to watch this. I don’t like being reminded of being a teen. Rating: 3.5/5
Killers of the Flower Moon: I’ve heard Martin Scorsese is a great director, so this is probably good. I know he’s
mostly known for gangster films but makes other stuff too. I haven’t seen anything by him though. This movie is
about a true event where the Osage Nation fought for the rights to oil on their reservation which a white businessman
or something was trying to get through murder. Capitalists will of course happily infringe on the property rights
capitalism supposedly holds sacred if it is to their advantage, especially if it is the property rights of a group society
considers less-than. I think natural resources like oil should be nationalized but only if the country’s wealth is
equitably distributed to ensure no community is left behind, as reservations so often are. Though I also think we
should switch to renewable energy. Rating: 4.5/5
Maestro: A biopic about famous (classical?) musician Leonard Bernstein and his wife or lover. I don’t know Leonard
Bernstein’s music. I do know there was controversy when Bradley Cooper was wearing a prosthetic nose to play the
Jewish main character. I also remember thinking this was about Leonard Cohen, another Jewish musician named
Leonard whose music I do know. I have a habit of mixing people up who have the same or similar first or last names.
I once mixed up Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise, James Earl Jones and James Earl Ray, and many more examples that I
don’t remember right now. I have absolutely no idea what the quality or even the reception of this movie is. Rating:
?/5
Oppenheimer: Another biopic - this one about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project which
invented the nuclear bomb. I don’t know much about Oppenheimer. I actually remember thinking the Manhattan
Project was called that because it was led by a guy named Charles Manhattan. I know Albert Einstein is in it. I’m a
fan of Albert Einstein. I played him in a 4th grade wax museum. I know there’s a sex scene where Oppenheimer
quotes his famous “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds” quote from the Bhagavad Gita. I know
Christopher Nolan directed it. The only Nolan film I’ve seen is Inception, which was rather lackluster. But I’ve heard
he’s made good movies too. My brother really loves Interstellar. Rating: 3.5/5
Past Lives: So, apparently this doesn’t have anything to do with reincarnation, unless it does, because I haven’t seen
it. It’s a childhood friends to lovers romantic drama directed by and starring Korean people. Must be special for a
romance to be nominated for an Oscar. Rating: 4/5
The Zone of Interest: I’ve heard good things about this one too. It’s about a concentration camp guard and his family
who live in the vicinity of Auschwitz and ignore the horrors going on just beyond their house. I have heard it is a
brilliant take on living next to horror and simply living normal lives. Don’t we all do that to some extent? Live our
happy lives, while consuming products made by slaves, eating meat from horrific factory farms, embraced in a brutal
system where life feeds on life, as it has been for billions of years, but turned to strange new means by our avoidant
consciences and idiosyncratic value systems? Truly, one cannot live without participating in or benefitting from
cruelty. The very soil we walk on is nourished by a billion generations of suffering and horror. Whatever world we
may seek to build will only be built on blood and death, dependent on the whole interconnected network of existence
and every horror contained within. Rating: 4/5
Poor Things: This is the one movie I actually saw - I saw it at an independent bar/movie theater in Berlin this
January. It’s a Frankenstein-coming-of-age steampunk dark comedy about a woman who was created from the
corpse of a pregnant woman where the brain of the fetus was transplanted into the body of the woman. It's a brilliant
and beautiful film that’s sharply biting about the horrors of our social systems and does not shy away from life’s
ugliness but still manages to be beautifully life-affirming. With vivid, fantastical, and appropriately weird
cinematography to boot, I would call it one of the best films of the decade so far (of the few that I have actually
seen). I did hear the book might be better, but haven’t read the book. Rating: 4.5/5
