FILM
HOLLYWOOD GATECRASHERS
often misconstrued when class and race are involved. Systemic genocide, humanitarian crisis, survival at 15,000 feet and anxietyInternational movies shine inducing social conflict — no wonder with 2024 Oscars nominations I’m so high on the small epiphanies and everyday appreciations that make Perfect Days so, well, perfect. BY MICHAEL J. CASEY Over in the documentary category, things aren’t much rosier. Uganda’s Bobi Wine: The People’s President, Trade papers and studio PR love to hey play together and laugh, eat streaming on Disney+, follows a pop call the Oscars “Hollywood’s biggest meals, discuss school and tend star turned presidential challenger in a night!” So it’ll go on March 10 when to the garden. They’re just like system that reports to be peaceful and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts other families, except for one crucial democratic and proves to be anything and Sciences takes over the Dolby detail: When it’s time to go to work, but. Iran’s Four Daughters, playing at Theater with Martin Scorsese, dear old Dad puts on his S.S. uniform the Dairy Arts Center Feb. 7-11, reconChristopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig and and heads off to Auschwitz next door. structs the relationship between a a whole lot more vying for statues of Based on Martin Amis’ 2014 novel mother and her daughters, two of little golden men. of the same name, The Zone of whom chose a troubling path. But for all the interest in Killers of the Interest takes the banality of evil and Chile’s The Eternal Memory, streamFlower Moon, Oppenheimer and pushes it to the brink. The father ing on Paramount+, is a (Christian Friedel) is nothcharge never to forget, even ing more than a pencil as one of the main subjects pusher tasked with succumbs to Alzheimer’s increasing efficacy. His disease. India’s To Kill a wife (Sandra Hüller) Tiger, not currently available enjoys the life her husfor viewing in Colorado, folband’s position brings, lows a father as he fights for including fine furs and a justice for his sexually chance to hobnob with the abused daughter. And then Reich’s higher-ups. there’s Ukraine’s 20 Days in Neither is ignorant to the Mariupol, available on VOD, unholy hell next door — a gripping and illuminating she plans to grow privacy first-hand account of the vines to block out the creRussian invasion. matoriums — but they Of the four docs I’ve can’t begin to imagine seen, 20 Days in Mariupol how history will view them. stands tallest. It’s a stunWriter-director Jonathan ning piece of work that will Glazer has no interest in most likely hoist the Oscar eliciting empathy for this on March 10. Zone of family. He doesn’t even try Interest will probably do the to understand what makes Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest is among the international films honored during the 96th Annual Academy same in the International a seemingly ordinary Awards. Courtesy: A24 Feature category, and that nuclear family enthusiastimight not be the only award it nabs. A Equally harrowing is Society of the Barbie, this year’s Oscars has a decidcally participate in one of the 20th cenlot can happen after a month on the Snow, which recounts the story of the edly international feel thanks to The tury’s greatest horrors. Instead, Glazer Oscars campaign trail. Could Zone of 1972 plane crash in the Andes Zone of Interest and France’s Anatomy is interested in interrogating what we Interest play dark horse and run the Mountains, where 16 survivors had to of a Fall grabbing two of the 10 nomiview as horrific and when that perspectable the way Parasite did four years endure extreme hardships for 72 days tive takes shape. Does it take 10 years, nations for Best Picture. ago? When it comes to the Oscars, — the plane crash sequence alone is Couple those with the five nomina80 years, before we understand the anything is possible. not for the faint of heart. There’s signifitions for Best Documentary Feature — error of our ways? If that’s true, when all coming from beyond U.S. borders — cantly less death in The Teachers’ will we look back at this moment and Lounge, but this taut and anxious shudder at what we did and did not do? and the five nominated for Best drama builds to a fever pitch after one International Feature, and there’s a And for that, The Zone of Interest — ON SCREEN: The 96th teacher accuses another of theft. chance that Hollywood’s biggest night now playing in theaters — garnered Annual Academy Awards. Things get out of hand quickly, and the ends with a few global gatecrashers. five nominations for the 96th Academy 5 p.m. Sunday, March 10, young idealistic teacher (Leonie Alongside Zone in the International Awards, most notably in the Best broadcasting live on ABC. Benesch) learns that best intentions are Feature category are Italy’s Io Picture category.
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BOULDER WEEKLY
Capitano, out in theaters this month; Japan’s Perfect Days, playing the International Film Series March 16; Spain’s Society of the Snow, streaming on Netflix; and Germany’s The Teachers’ Lounge, playing at the Dairy Arts Center Feb. 14-18. It’s a stacked category, with each nominee as accomplished as the next. Io Capitano follows two Senegalese cousins as they migrate from Dakar to Italy in search of a better life. But the journey over land and sea is so harrowing you’ll probably wonder why anyone would undertake such an endeavor. Yet, so many across the globe do, which is why director Matteo Garrone ends Capitano with a beautiful close-up that begs the audience for compassion when we see these unfamiliar faces looking for help on street corners.
FEBRUARY 8, 2024
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