It's the pictures that got small


This is, admittedly, profoundly dumb, but I would've been at least a little interested to hear him continue with a stream-of-consciousness list of movies that should've instead won Best Picture (putting aside the obvious problem that movies from 1939 or 1950 can't be named the Best Picture of 2019): Gone with the Wind...Sunset Boulevard: the former might be demographic pandering, but the latter is an interesting off-the-top-of-his-head pick; what comes next, I wonder? We already know he loves Citizen Kane.

My guesses for what else would've qualified for the Trump Hollywood Classics Canon had he continued naming movies: High Noon, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Lawrence of Arabia and/or Dr. Zhivago, The Alamo and/or The Green Berets, The Great Escape, It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Ten Commandments, North by Northwest (I feel like this would be his favourite Hitchcock, or at least the first one that would come to mind***), and, if anything since 1980, Unforgiven, A Christmas Story, The Passion of the Christ (demo pandering pick), The Shawshank Redemption, Saving Private Ryan.


***Edit/reconsideration: His actual favourite Hitchcock movie is probably Vertigo (though he might still reflexively claim the safer NbNw), as it seems like there's a very high-percentage chance that he finds it intensely relatable in the same way he apparently does Kane. BUT does he relate more to the Jimmy Stewart protagonist or to the rich guy who hires him to spy on his wife? Inquiring minds want to know!
Picks


PICTURE
will win: 1917
should win: The Irishman
should have been nominated: A Hidden Life

DIRECTOR
will win: Bong Joon-ho, Parasite
should win: Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
should have been nominated: Terrence Malick, A Hidden Life

ACTRESS
will win: Renee Zellweger, Judy
should win: Charlize Theron, Bombshell
should have been nominated: Rooney Mara, Mary Magdalene

ACTOR
will win: Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
should win: Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes
should have been nominated: Joaquin Phoenix, Mary Magdalene and Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
will win: Laura Dern, Marriage Story
should win: Florence Pugh, Little Women
should have been nominated: Juliette Binoche, High Life

SUPPORTING ACTOR
will win: Brad Pitt, Once upon a Time in Hollywood
should win: Joe Pesci, The Irishman or Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
should have been nominated: Willem Dafoe, The Lighthouse

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
will win: Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit
should win: Steven Zaillian, The Irishman
should have been nominated: Arnaud Desplechin and Léa Mysius, Oh Mercy!

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
will win: Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won, Parasite
should win: Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won, Parasite
should have been nominated: Céline Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

CINEMATOGRAPHY
will win: Roger Deakins, 1917
should win: Roger Deakins, 1917
should have been nominated: Jörg Widmer, A Hidden Life

Novum Testamentum


Paolo Sorrentino is some kind of genius.

Without missing a beat, The New Pope continues the sui generis brilliance of The Young People, and yet it's somehow--if possible!--even more blissfully bizarre, sporadically profound, perversely hilarious, and full of weirdly perfect off-handed moments (we already have this season's equivalent to the Greenland Prime Minister closing credits dance).

It's a cliché at this point to observe that the best TV shows feel "cinematic." Sorrentino's ravishing, surprising compositions are undoubtedly that, but both Popes also rely heavily on the gradual, episodic structure of their medium, allowing for digressive interludes with minor characters and highly idiosyncratic sub-plots that few movies would have time to make work. And, in Sorrentino's baroque vision of the world, it all signifies--the high and the low, the sacred and the profane, the huge and the miniscule. This is Sopranos- or Twin Peaks-level Great Television, projected up onto the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.