I've seen I'm Still Here/ Ainda Estou Aqui in the cinema, now after the Oscar win. A well deserved award ! Have forgoten all about Walter Salles (his last film was in 2012, On the Road, saw that in Cannes then), and I got that this was a very personal project for him.
Ainda Estou Aqui was nominated for best picture and Fernanda Torres for best actress (she got the Golden Globe tho). "I'm Still Here" (not to be confused with the Joaquin Phoenix/Cassey Affleck mockumentary with the same name ;) won also best screenplay in last year's Venice Film Festival. It's a powerful film, about family and predestination, and surviving against all odds in adverse situation. It's also a true story that in Brazil it's well known and publicized, now up to be seen and heard by the whole world. These events that happened in all the other dictatorrships, being right or left wing, it's told through the eyes of Eunice Paiva (Torres), the wife of Rubens Paiva, arrested and vanished during the Brazilian dictatorship of 1970's. Mother of 4, later on a strong advocate for Human rights.
A bit overlong (2h17!-could've been at least 15 mins. shorter), but act 3 redeems the film and uppers its value. On imdb it went straight to "Top rated movie #133"! Ola for Brasil !
Stay for the end credits !
music by Warren Ellis (!), great soundtrack with Brazilian artists, Tom Ze, Caetano Veloso, etc.
It starts with Somewhere over the Rainbow, it goes into the Wicked
songs with the freakish Cynthia and Grande.
Conan O'Brian (hosting for the 1st time), is actually very good, natural with a good sense of
pacing. With a little help of Adam Sandler and John Lithgow. Then
surprise, he sings s a song, “I won't waste time”, featuring
dancers,
the sandworm from "Dune" on piano doing “chopsticks” and
Deadpool.
Robert Downey jr. presents supporting actor and the least
deserving guy gets it, Kieran, who is the same in life as in A Real
Pain, as in Succession, kinda same part. Nice speech tho, talking to
his wife.
He also looks like a young Kirk Douglas. Glowing eyes.
(commercial break #1)
Wow ! For Animation FLOW wins. Wonderful, Touching ! Lithuania
enters the Oscars. Great film, now in Romanian cinemas, go and see it
!!! Absolutely sensational, it beats Disney, Pixar and The Giant
Robot.
The short animated category I didn't follow. “In the Shadow of the Cypress” won. The two Iranian
directors are great ! They just landed in L.A. Three hours ago, they said.
(commercial break #2)
Costume design, no surprises there, Wicked, the first black person to win for costume design.
Another commercial break, # 3
Original script. Sean Baker wins his 1st Oscar for writing Anora. Adapted, Conclave. No surprises here.
Surely The Brutalist and The Substance and September 5 were better choices but I'm happy for Baker.
Commercial
break, # 4, man, there's more breaks than show...
June
Squibb and Scarlett Johansson present the makeup and hairstyling
award to The obvious The Substance.
Then
we get Halle Berry to let us know the Governer Ball's Awards (November 2024), from
Quincy Jones (posthumous) to the Bond producers of EON, Barbara Broccoli and
Michael G. Wilson (who gave a way bond to the sharks from Amazon :() -Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
and
then we get a 007 tribute clip followed by a dance extravaganza with
a superb Margaret Qualley (as I said before, on her way in becoming
a A-lister, after OUATiH, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, The Substance, Drive-Away Dolls), in a red dress, then we get renditions of Live
and Let Die with Lisa , Diamonds are Forever with Doja Cat, Skyfall
with Raye, all in good taste, channeling the originals.
Commercial break, # 5
Nice
joke of Cinemastreams, Conan featuring Marty Scorsese.
And a
anniversary of Kill Bill puts Daryl Hannah on stage. She looks great,
presents the award for best Editing. Again, Sean Baker rocks (2nd
award !), Anora for editing ! Deservingly.
Divine takes the stage for the supporting actress award presentation. Zoe Saldana wins. Emilia Perez was here, will she win for International film too ?
Commercial break, # 6
Ben Stiller on stage with a joke stolen from SNL Vincent Price skit (& Peter Sellers & more), present the Production Design Award. Wicked". May the Biggest budget film win. And a film about architecture, nem...
Then on the sound of Sympathy for the...who ?, Sir Mick Jagger shows up. Best Song award. Making Bob jokes. El Mal from Emilia Perez win. Sorry, I couldn't care less. The nominations this year for song were awful.
Commercial break, # 7
Conan does the second Dune Sandworm joke, playing harp ! Sam Jackson (L.) and Selena Gomez (M.) present short documentary film. The Only Girl in the Orchestra wins. Feature: No Other Land. Political moment speech.
Commercial break, # 8
Conan
& the L.A. Firemen Dpt. Firemen jokes.
Miles
Teller & Miley Cyrus (in Europe Kilometer & Kilometry).
Sound. Dune 2.
Gal
Gadot, herself a special FX, in a red dress present the Visual
Effects Award. Dune part 2 it is.
VO/announcer (in my heydays it was Peter Coyote ;) -Nick Offerman, who's voice is kinda off (booze?).
Commercial break, # 9
Ana de Armas and Sterling K. Brown present the last short award.
Morgan Freeman presents an homage to Gene Hackman. He played together in Unforgiven and Under Suspicion. That introduces the In Memoriam montage I had no clue Fred Roos and Adam Somner. died ..).
Commercial break, # 10
An actor presenter from each film nominated for Cinematography: Joe Alwyn for the Brutalist. Alba Rohrwacher salutes a Ed Lachman in a wheelchair for Maria. Willem Dafoe for Nosferatu, Zoe Saldana for Emilia Perez, Dave Bautista for Dune part 2. Lol Crawley wins for The Brutalist. Fair enuff.
Penelope Cruz presents for Best International Film. I'm Still Here/ Ainda Estou Aqui wins (Walter Salles, Brazil). Another big loss for EP, due to bad PR mostly.
Commercial break, # 10
Conan makes another Russian Joke via Anora. Mark Hamill (!!!) presents the award for best Original SCORE. Daniel Blumberg for The Brutalist. Well deserved for a Grand, epic score !
Whoopy and Oprah introduce a Quincy Jones musical tribute. Queen Latifah sings a song from The Wiz.
Commercial break, # 11
Conan: "If you still enjoying this show you have what it's called Stockholm Syndrome".
Cillian Murphy takes the stage for best actor award. He won last year for Oppenheimer. And...Adrian Brody wins his 2nd Oscar (22 years after 2003's The Pianist) for the part of architect László Tóth in The Brutalist !!! The most touching moment of the evening. Brody is entering a cool restricted club. Egészségedre !
Enter QT, Quentin iz in ze house ! Best director -ta-dam, Sean Baker for Anora ! His 3d Oscar, suddenly a small struggling indie director becomes a Monster Superstar in the biz. Phones will be ringing, snakes will be crawling, emails will be flowing, agents will be waltzing around & mirages will be presented to him but I have the feeling he won't sell out. Kudos !
Commercial break, # 12
Emma Stone (who won last year for Poor Things) presents Best Actress award. Aaaand surprise, Mikey Madison (Sadie in OUaTiH) wins !!! Anora's fourth Oscar ! Mikey is 25 !
Meg Ryan & Billy Crystal present Best Film. And Anora wins !!! Five Oscars out of Six ! Sean Baker is also co-producer so he gets his fifth award. Bravo !
And they even finished earlier this year ! Sorry for Demi, that was this edition surprise for me. 62 vs. 25. Baby Jane or All About Eve ? Again the SAG proof that no one guesses is perfect. The acting awards were again different from those of the guild. All in all it was a calm and cool edition with the most indie films in an Oscar race, two foreign directors, and wins for Anora 5, Brutalist 3.
David Johanson from The New York Dolls to his alter ego Buster Pointdexter is gone. He was 75 (born Jan. 9th 1950). No more "Personality Crisis"... Amazingly he lived to be 75 while his bandmates (Johnny Thunders, Sylvain Sylvain, Arthur Kane, Jerry Nolan, Bill Murcia) and the other tough & rough dudes of the era are long gone and buried. The Dolls reunion album (only Johanson and Sylvain) in 2006 was entitled prophetically, "One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This"., (which incidentally I found & bought at the time on CD in Romania !).
In film, he was the Ghost of the Christmas Past in Scrooged (1988), Bill Murray being a friend of his.
*
Martin Scorsese (with David Tedeschi) directed a rockumentary, more like a concert film, Personality Crisis: For one Night Only for Showtime, in 2023.
it's a one night allshow with Johanson singing, crosscut with archival footage, interviews- talking funny about his life, a sort of comedic one, as his sense of humor was absolutely great !
He is one of the BIG ONES, of the stature of Iggy and the last of its time, only Patti Smith is still here....unfortunately the world today (hah..what world ?) has forgotten those wild dayz and wild people. Cos it seems they only cahanged t for a while, changed themselves and some of us, and the rest still conformed and zombified. Can't put Your Arms Around a Memory, oh yes, you can !!!
