"Anora"

A new Oscar frontrunner has emerged because, well, the Academy can't just announce, "Sorry, there were no worthy movies in 2024. We'll try again next year."

Anora is a sex comedy (although that’s stretching the term “comedy:” Anora elicits more chuckles than laughs) about a New York stripper/whore who marries her richest client, a Russian oligarch’s childish heir, on their trip to Las Vegas. But then the kid’s formidable parents in Moscow hear about it and sic their Armenian fixers (along with their Russian flathead goon-with-a-heart-of-gold) on her to try to threaten and cajole her into agreeing to annul the marriage.

Last weekend, Anora emerged as the frontrunner to win the Oscar for Best Picture because, as Quentin Tarantino recently noted, “2019 was the last ******* year for movies,” but they can’t just call off the Oscar ceremony for lack of deserving recipients.

So, something’s gotta win.

Emilia Perez, which was gifted as many Oscar nominations, 13, as From Here to Eternity and The Fellowship of the Ring, had been expected to sweep the Academy Awards, with some Spanish dude who announced in his 40s that his wife and child supported him in his decision to become who he truly is, a lady, slated to win Best Actress award as a stunning and brave rebuke to Trump and Vance. But then it turned out from the ex-man’s tweets that, like so many ex-men (as I’ve been pointing out for years), he’s a deplorable right-winger, with an inappropriately irreverent attitude toward St. George Floyd.

Next in line with 10 nominations are Wicked, which I reviewed here, and The Brutalist.

Wicked is the kind of thing you like if you like that kind of thing.

The Brutalist is just plain bad.

It now looks like the movie Establishment has gotten itself off the hook of its absurd initial enthusiasm for The Brutalist by ginning up a scandal about how AI was used to make Adrien Brody’s Hungarian dialogue sound more Hungarian.

Hence, why not Anora as Best Picture? After all, it got six Oscar nods, including in the prestigious categories of Best Picture (Sean Baker), Best Directing (Sean Baker), Best Original Screenplay (Sean Baker), Best Editing (Sean Baker), and Best Actress (Sean Baker Mikey Madison).

And I really liked its Best Supporting Actor nominee Yura Borisov, the first Russian Best Supporting Actor nod since Mikhail Baryshnikov in the 1970s.

So, why not Anora?

Paywall here.