The New Classics: Oslo, August 31

Michael Cusumano here for the 30th episode of The New Classics.

It was hard. Absolutely.

Scene: The Bucket List 
Halfway through Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31 we get an extended scene of the protagonist, Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), sitting in a cafe and simply listening to the other patrons talk. He appears perfectly ordinary sitting there. Just a guy in a cafe. What we in the audience know, which everyone who meets him on this fateful day does not, is that Anders started the day by filling his pockets with rocks and wading into a lake, attempting suicide a la Virginia Woolf. He couldn't go through with it and spends the rest of the film teetering quietly on the brink...

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Almost There: Idris Elba in "Beasts of No Nation"

by Cláudio Alves

Spike Lee's latest joint, Da 5 Bloods, was released on Netflix last week and people are already talking about the possibility of Oscar glory. Delroy Lindo, in particular, is getting plenty of attention for what many call the best performance of his career. He's an early contender for the Academy Award. To observe such a reaction is to see how far Netflix has come in the past few years, effectively carving a place for itself in the Oscar race. It wasn't always like this and we need only look back at 2015 to find proof of it. Then, rewarding the cinematic excellence of films produced by streaming companies was still a relative taboo, a bridge too far for many awards bodies. 

If it weren't for the early resistance of AMPAS towards Netflix, Idris Elba would probably already be an Oscar-nominated actor…

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Oscars Delayed Until April 2021

Note: This article was written on a very crappy personal day and readers have complained that it is too petulant and that we have larger fish to fry right now (which is very much true). But this is a film/Oscars site so we couldn't not to discuss it. Nevertheless, we will try to keep a wider perspective next time we're upset with AMPAS. That chance will surely come again since to know the Oscars is a perpetual rollercoaster of elation and disappointment. -Nathaniel R

Swift on the heels of great Academy news, we get terrible news. The Oscars will not take place in February 28th as previously announced but will be pushed back two months to April 25th, 2021. (The nominations will be announced on March 15th, 2021 which means our April Foolish predictions now have an excuse for how long they're taking to finish) This also means they're pushing back the opening of the Academy Museum again. Now that will open in late April 2021 to coincide with the presumed Oscar afterglow...

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What did you see this week? (and the current "schedule" for movie theaters)

It has recently come to our attention that y'all miss the part of the weekend box office reports that were essentially a "what did you see this week?" comment party. So let's revive that because who knows when the hell we'll be back in movie theaters. The release dates keep shifting back by a couple of weeks or a couple of months here and there. There are rumors that even West Side Story is vacating the Christmas slot even though filming wrapped up long before the shutdown. Currently here is the wide release schedule...

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Review: Da 5 Bloods

by Lynn Lee

Perfectly timed.  The right voice for this precise moment.  Spike Lee’s never been more necessary than he is now. 

If you’ve read one variation of the “timeliness” reaction to Spike Lee’s latest joint by way of Netflix, Da 5 Bloods, you’ve read them all.  It’s a truth so self-evident it practically amounts to a truism.  Except the fact is that Spike Lee never went anywhere – he’s been here the last 30 plus years, educating us on the ugly persistence of systemic racism in the U.S.  His movies have always been timely; it’s our fault if we’ve failed to heed their underlying admonitions or give them the sustained attention they deserve.  It makes little sense, then, to accord his newest release any extra expectations that it will “speak to the moment.”  Still, given that it's Spike Lee, it does speak to the moment, if less directly – or less crisply – than some of his previous films...

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