This week we continue looking at the 10 films nominated for Oscar in the Best Picture Category. This week we look at two vastly different films on the same theme In a category we call “Revenge of the Robot Women.” It’s going to be tight, but I plan to get out three more episodes before March 10 when the Oscars are awarded. Wish me luck.

Hi, this is Chris Young, and welcome to episode 56 of Contemplating Life – Oscar edition.

This week we continue looking at the 10 films nominated for Oscar in the Best Picture Category. This week we look at two vastly different films on the same theme In a category we call “Revenge of the Robot Women.” Consider this plot line…

A beautiful young woman is not naturally born but is an artificial creation. She is confined in a world created for her by her maker. She lives a happy yet mundane life. She slowly becomes aware that she is more than what her maker envisioned. Her natural curiosity and a desire to contemplate what life has to offer sends her on a quest into another world. It is a strange bizarre environment that is alien to her but she explores it with vigor and discovers that there is more to her and to life than she believed was possible. In the end, she becomes an independent, self-actualized woven who is in control of her life. At first, she exacts revenge on the men who tried to possess and control her but ultimately finds a way to peacefully coexist with the males of the species.

Pop quiz: is this a description of the film “Barbie” or “Poor Things”?

Answer: Both.

There was so much hype this year about the popularity of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” that we shipped their names together and came up with “Barbieheimer” to describe the phenomenon of people who went to both films on the same day. It was only a coincidence that the films were released about the same time and unexpectedly found overlapping audiences which led to the Barbieheimer phenomenon.

There should have been media hype about “Barbie’s” connection not to “OppenheimerInclude but to “Poor Things”. While “Barbie” and “Poor ThingsEnclosed are vastly different in approach and style, the outline in my opening paragraph is a reasonably accurate summation of both films. The filmmakers used vastly different approaches to tell the same story of a woman discovering her potential.

“Barbie” is set in the fantasy world known as Barbieland and is occupied by the namesake toy. She journeys into the “real world” and although we are familiar with it, it is an alien landscape to her. Her fantasy world is all she has ever known.

In contrast, Bella Baxter is the creation of a mad scientist. He discovered the body of a pregnant woman who had lept to her death off a bridge into a river. He salvaged the brain of her unborn child and implanted it in her 30-year-old body. He then re-animates her in a scene typical of any Frankenstein movie you ever saw. Her literally infant mind develops quickly and approaches life with an insatiable curiosity which eventually leads her to discover the pleasures of sex. First, by herself, then with a lover, and finally as a French prostitute. All of which is depicted in explicit detail.

So, while there was an unlikely crossover of audience between “OppenheimerEnclosed and “Barbie”, “Poor Things” is extremely R-rated and not appropriate for the typical Barbie viewer.

It’s more likely you are familiar with “Barbie” given its popularity so let’s talk about “Poor Things” first.

Willem Dafoe plays Dr. Godwin Baxter, a brilliant surgeon who bears horrible scars and disfigurement on his face. This is the result of his father performing multiple medical experiments on him when he was a child. These experiments included genital torture. To say that his physical scars are only part of his problem is an understatement.

Rather than be called by his given name Godwin, he prefers to be referred to as God and makes that request unapologetically. He is a deeply twisted individual.

Emma Stone plays his creation Bella Baxter whose origin we described earlier.

Ramy Youssef plays Max McCandle, an ambitious medical student who is recruited as God’s Igor-like assistant (without the hunchback). Max’s job is to observe Bella and record in notebooks everything that she does as she rapidly progresses in mental and emotional capability.

As the film opens she has the mind of a very young child. She is awkward both physically and emotionally. Yet she begins progressing rapidly. Even her hair grows at an astonishing rate of an inch every few days. No explanation is ever given why.

God keeps the girl isolated in his mansion/laboratory to keep the experiment of development pure and untainted. But God himself also avoids appearing in public because of his disfigurement. Bella isn’t his only experiment. The courtyard of his villa is occupied by strange hybrid creatures such as a goat with a dog’s head or a dog with a duck’s head, I forget what weird combinations he has running around his courtyard.

When Bella reaches a mental age of what appears to be maybe 8-10 years old she discovers on her own the joys of masturbating her adult body and asks, “Why don’t people do this all the time?”

God notices her sexual awakening as well as Max’s attraction to her. So, God concludes that the next phase of the experiment should be that Bella and Max are wed. He employs attorney Duncan Wedderburn played by Mark Ruffalo to draw up a marriage contract that includes the provision that Bella must remain sequestered in God’s house.

Intrigued by this strange request, Duncan sneaks off into the mansion to meet Bella for himself and discovers this childlike creature in the body of a beautiful woman. He decides that he, not Max, should be the one to introduce her to adult life. He is quite a cad and a sleazy person and plans to exploit her for his own pleasures. Together he and Bella plot her escape and they go off on a romantic tryst to Lisbon Portugal where they engage in frequent sex and debauchery.

The setting for the film is a bit of a steam-punk Victorian setting. All of the interiors look relatively normal for such a setting but the moment that Bella goes anywhere outside, everything takes on a surreal dreamlike quality which by comparison would make a Wes Anderson film seem boringly normal and realistic.

This film makes use of varied cinematic styles and techniques to set the mood. While sequestered in God’s house, the film is in black-and-white. But like Dorothy escaping Kansas to Oz, once she leaves the house and goes on her adventure with Duncan, everything is in bright oversaturated color. Most of the color sequences were shot using Kodak Ektachrome which gives that bright oversaturated look. Those that were shot on other types of color film were color-adjusted to match. Ektachrome is a slow film that requires significant lighting the filmmaker had to use other films when more light was not available. The cinematographer also makes use of a variety of strange lenses including highly distorted fisheye lenses and some scenes filmed with a 4 mm lens look as though we are looking through a peephole. I never did figure out exactly what these varied points of view were designed to evoke.

Bella has absolutely no inhibitions and no filter so she says exactly what she is thinking at any moment. At one point while they are out to dinner, a baby is crying nearby and she announces, “I must go punch that baby.” Duncan has to restrain her as she rises to actually do it.

Bella leaves Duncan to explore the city on her own and fearful that he will lose her, he drugs her, stuffs her in a trunk, and takes her on a cruise ship where she will be unable to escape him. Aboard the ship, she befriends other passengers. By this time she has begun reading and has gained advanced intelligence. She debates philosophy with her new friends as she reads volumes of books to expand her mind.

Meanwhile, Duncan gambles at the ship’s casino and wins a small fortune. When the ship docks at its next port, Bella notices that there are poor people in the world with sick and dying children. She takes all of Duncan’s money and tells the ship’s porter to give it to all of those poor unfortunate people. She didn’t notice how broadly the porter smiled as he took the money obviously for himself.

Now penniless, they are forced off the ship in France and Bella happily turns to a life of prostitution because it gets the money she needs and involves her favorite pastime sex.

Duncan goes insane having lost complete control of her. We later see him as a shell of his former self in an insane asylum. Bella is now a highly intelligent self-actualized person who is not going to be exploited by anyone.

Although the film is highly bizarre and the surreal setting and weird cinematography can make it difficult to watch, overall I found it quite funny, strangely enjoyable, and worthy of the accolades it has received.

Emma Stone is nominated for an Oscar for Lead Actress. She has already won the Golden Globe for Lead Actress Comedy and the BAFTA Lead Actress.

Even though this is a bizarre character who is played over the top, it is a fantastic bit of acting. She transforms from the childlike creature we see at the beginning of the film through the sex-crazed uninhibited adolescent into a sex-crazed young woman and eventually a highly intelligent philosopher. It is an amazing acting feat. With those wins already chalked up she is the odds-on favorite for the Oscar but might face stiff competition from Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon. If Gladstone wins it would make her the first Native American to win in that category.

I will rank it as my 7th favorite film of the 10 Best Picture Nominees but don’t take that as a slight. I very much enjoyed it.

I cannot recommend it to everyone. You have to have a bizarre sense of humor and can deal with the explicit sex scenes and the overall surreal nature of the film. I liked it. But I’m weird. It’s a strange new take on the Frankenstein legend.

The film has earned 11 Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Director for Yorgos Lanthimos who is also nominated by the Directors Guild, Lead Actress Emma Stone, Supporting Actor Mark Ruffalo, Adapted Screenplay by Tony McNamara based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hairstyling all of which are richly deserved. It is also Oscar-nominated for Original Music Score and Film Editing for which I have no opinion.

Mark Ruffalo gives a memorable performance as the sleazy lawyer who tries to exploit Bella. And what’s not to like about Willem Dafoe as a mad scientist? I wish that Dafoe had gotten more nominations. Ruffalo probably won’t win for Supporting Actor but he is definitely worthy of the nomination.

It has 11 BAFTA nominations including Best Picture and Best British Film of the Year. Its 7 Golden Globe nominations also included Supporting Actor Willem Defoe. Emma Stone won the Globe for Lead Actress in a Comedy and the film won Best Comedy.

Stone and Dafoe have also received SAG nominations for lead and supporting roles respectively.

IMDb lists 395 nominations and 90 wins at the time of this writing. It has earned over $32 million in the US and Canada since its December premiere and over $93 million worldwide. It is available for rent or purchase on Amazon or YouTube.

* * *

For our purposes, I’m going to assume you have not yet seen “Barbie” but given its popularity that is probably not true. Anyway, “Barbie” is set in the fantasy world of Barbieland. It is occupied by dozens of women all named Barbie and a bunch of men all named Ken. Our lead character played by Margo Robbie is known in the film as “Stereotypical Barbie” She is the swimsuit-wearing, dream house-residing, pink convertible-driving Barbie that you normally think of when someone says “Barbie”. Other Barbies include an African-American president, astronauts, doctors, lawyers, the entire Supreme Court, Nobel laureates, and every other occupation ever imagined for Barbie.

The main Ken is played by Ryan Gosling. He is the stereotypical Ken who is blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and who hangs out at the beach. He is accompanied by a variety of other Kens of various ethnicities. None of them have an occupation except beaching. He’s not a lifeguard by the way. He just hangs out at the beach and spends his days pining for the attention of Barbie.

It is a perfect world in which all of the Barbies are happy. They believe that they have saved the women of the real world because they have proven that Barbie can be anything and so can you. Although Barbie’s daily routine is monotonous and repetitive, one day she starts feeling some existential dread. She starts thinking about death. She also has other bizarre feelings that are foreign to her. Among the transformative changes she experiences is that suddenly her feet are no longer fixed in the typical high-heel-wearing position that Barbies are known for. Her heels actually begin touching the ground.

She is directed to seek help from “Weird Barbie” who is brilliantly played by Kate McKinnon. Weird Barbie has bizarre makeup drawn on her face in crayon. She is always in an awkward pose usually very severe splits. Her hair is a mess. She is what happens to Barbies who are played with two hard and left in a box in the basement for too long.

Weird Barbie advises stereotypical Barbie that something is wrong with the girl who is playing with her. The girl is unhappy and her negative emotions are bleeding over into stereotypical Barbie. This has opened a portal between Barbieland and the Real World. Her only remedy is to travel to the Real World, find the girl who plays with her, and figure out what is troubling her.

Barbie sets out on this quest and is accompanied by Ken who stows away in the back of her dream car.

Barbie finds the Real World to be completely unlike what she expected. She believed that because she was a role model who proved that women could do anything, she expected the real world to be dominated by powerful independent women. Obviously, it is not. On the other hand, Ken is pleasantly surprised that men are respected and not just unimportant companions for the Barbies. He does some research and discovers that the world is a patriarchy in which men rule. While our Barbie seeks out her owner, Ken returns to Barbieland and begins taking over as he teaches the other Kens the principles of patriarchy.

Initially, Barbie believes that her owner is a young tween girl named Sasha but soon discovers that Sasha and her friends hate Barbies.

Sasha: We haven’t played with Barbie since we were like five years old.

Girl 1: Yeah, I hated dolls with hair.

Girl 2: Me, I played with Barbie but it was like the last resort.

Girl 3: I loved Barbie. [Sasha gives her a nasty look]

Sasha: You’ve been making women feel bad about themselves since you were invented… You represent everything that is wrong with our culture. Sexualized capitalism. Unrealistic physical ideas…

Barbie: no, no, no. I am technically Stereotypical Barbie but…

Sasha: You set the women’s movement back 50 years. You destroy girls’ innate sense of worth and you are killing the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism.

Barbie: No. I’m supposed to help you and make you happy and powerful…

Sasha: Oh, I am powerful. And until you showed up here and declared yourself “Barbie” I hadn’t thought about you in years you fascist!

Eventually, Barbie discovers that the source of her angst is actually Sasha’s mother Gloria played by America Ferrera. Gloria is a secretary at Mattel. In her spare time, she begins designing new Barbies based on her own inner fears and turmoil. She found her old Barbie and began playing with it as an adult and that is the source of our main character’s transformation.

The FBI alerts the executives at Mattel that their creations have infiltrated the real world. In a panic, the Mattel executives led by their CEO Will Farrell eventually round up Barbie and attempt to put her in a box to be transported back to Barbieland. This will close the portal and set things right. Barbie escapes Mattel headquarters with the help of Gloria and Sasha.

Then Barbie takes Gloria, and Sasha with her when they return to Barbieland where they discover that the Kens have taken over. They brainwashed all of the other Barbies including the president, the Supreme Court, doctors, lawyers, etc. into being airhead women who are obsessed with serving the needs of the Kens.

In a pivotal scene, Gloria delivers a monologue about how difficult it is to be a woman in the modern world.

Gloria: [to Barbie] You are so beautiful. So smart. And it kills me you don’t think you’re good enough. Like we always have to be extraordinary. But somehow we are always doing it wrong. You have to be thin but not too thin and you can never say that you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy. But also you have to be thin. You have to have money but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. Sigh… You have to be a boss but you can’t be mean. You have to lead but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You are supposed to love being a mother but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people…

This causes the brainwashed Barbies to snap out of it.

Can they regain control of Barbieland? What will the Kens do if they succeed? And now that stereotypical Barbie has been to the real world and had her eyes opened to the imperfection of reality, what will her life be like? Can Gloria and her daughter Sasha heal their broken relationship?

Writer/director Greta Gerwig has created a phenomenal work in this film. It is a hilariously funny yet deeply poignant and touching exploration of the roles of men and women. Even though I’m male and never played with Barbies, it nearly brought me to tears of nostalgia over my love of my favorite toys.

I can’t discuss this film without mentioning the opening scene which is a parody of a classic film. I don’t want to spoil it for you so I will describe it in detail in a spoiler section at the end of this podcast that you can skip. For now, let me just say that I have not laughed harder at a film in decades than I did in that opening scene. As it unfolded, I realized what was happening. I realized very early what film it was spoofing. At one point I said to myself, “If that girl playing with dolls starts to do what I think she’s going to do, I’m going to lose it.”

She did.

I must’ve laughed out loud for 10 minutes. I had to pause the movie. Wiped my eyes. Details in the spoiler section.

The film has earned 8 Oscar nominations yet many critics claim that the lack of a nomination for director Greta Gerwig and lead actress Margo Robbie were a serious snub. I have to disagree. Keep in mind that there are 10 films nominated for Best Picture but only 5 nominations for Best Director and 5 nominations for Lead Actress.

Let’s look briefly at the competition for director. Justine Triet did an amazing job in “Anatomy of a Fall” and happens to be a woman so we can’t say it was sexist that Gerwig did not get nominated. Just because Martin Scorsese has been nominated as Best Director 10 times, that’s more than any other living director, it does not mean he should not be nominated for his amazing work in “Killers of the Flower Moon”. Christopher Nolan very much deserves his nomination for “Oppenheimer” and is likely to win. Yorgos Lanthimos showed amazing creativity and vision in bringing to life the bizarre world of Bella Baxter in “Poor Things.” Finally, a film we have not yet discussed “The Zone of Interest” also is a stellar achievement by director Jonathan Glaser. He has found a new and innovative way to explore the horrors of the Holocaust without showing us any of those horrors. We simply hear them. I would bump no one from this list to make room for Gerwig. She did get a nomination from the Directors Guild.

Along with Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig is Oscar#nominated for Adapted Screenplay. I believe this is where her creativity and contribution to this film truly are Oscar-worthy. It is a brilliant screenplay.

That nomination is not without controversy. The Academy considers it an Adapted Screenplay because she did not create the characters Barbie, Ken, and others. This is a ridiculous distinction. There is nothing in the lore of Barbie remotely related to the story she has created. This is not an adaptation of an existing Barbie-themed book, cartoon, or any other work. The children who play with Barbie create their own stories. Barbie as created by Mattel is simply an image. Not a character. This isn’t like Transformers or G.I. Joe or other toys with movie, TV, or comic book tie-ins.

Typically when a work is listed as an Adapted Screenplay such as “American Fiction” the credits list the author of the book upon which it is based. This was also true with “The Zone of Interest”, and ”Poor Things”. Christopher Nolan has made it clear that “Oppenheimer” is the result of research from many sources including written biographies of the real man.

While I cannot defend the criticism that she was snubbed by the lack of a Director nomination, the criticism of this screenplay being listed as “adapted” is very much an appropriate complaint. This is a highly original screenplay.

The Writers Guild of America nominated it as an Original Screenplay as they should have.

Let’s look at Margo Robbie’s competition. We’ve not yet talked about the film “Nyad” in which Annette Benning plays long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad. It is an amazing performance. A very memorable character. Lily Gladstone’s performance in “Killers of the Flower Moon” while not my favorite among the five nominees is certainly Oscar-worthy. Carey Mulligan’s performance as actress Felicia Montealegre the wife of composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro” was a quality performance. German actress, Sandra Hüller was previously unknown to me. She delivers one of my favorite performances of the year in “Anatomy of a Fall”. She is also quite chilling in “The Zone of Interest” as Hedwig Höss the wife of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss but was not nominated for that role. Had these films premiered in different calendar years she might have been nominated for both performances. And finally Emma Stone will likely win for “Poor Things”. Who would you bump? I wouldn’t bump any of them.

The question we should be asking is how did Ryan Gosling get nominated for Supporting Actor as Ken? He did a good job. It was a funny character. But I don’t think there is anything that special or memorable about his performance. In fact, I went back and watched the entire film a second time just to focus on his contribution. I saw nothing after two viewings that impressed me that much.

In contrast, I will long remember Willem Defoe in “Poor Things” although I can understand why he would not be nominated in the same film in the same category as Mark Ruffalo. Nominating 2 Supporting Actors in the same film usually means neither of them will win. I would’ve liked to see a nomination for Rhys Ifans who played in “Nyad” as navigator John Bartlett who helped Nyad make her way from Cuba to Florida. I will long remember that performance after I’ve forgotten Gosling. Although I hated the musical remake of “The Color Purple” I could’ve given a Supporting Actor nomination to Coleman Domingo for his role in tha Christina film. Fortunately, he is nominated as Lead Actor for “Rustin”.

America Ferrera has a Supporting Actress nomination which is very much deserved. Her monologue that I discussed previously was brilliantly delivered and other aspects of her performance are quite memorable.

Although “Barbie” ranks only as my 8th favorite of the 10 nominated films, I very much enjoyed it. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it.

The film has 8 Oscar nominations. Best Picture, Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling, Supporting Actress for America Ferrera, Production Design (much-deserved), and Costume Design (also much-deserved). They have gone to meticulous detail to re-create Barbieland based on actual products sold such as houses, cars, and especially clothes.

There are about 6 or 7 big musical production numbers and songs. Two of the songs are nominated for Oscars. “I’m Just Ken” by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt wasn’t a bad song.

[Excerpt from “I’m Just Ken” plays]

But the odds-on favorite for the whole category is “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish O’Connell and Finneas O’Connell.

It’s a very touching and emotional song. It has already won two Grammys: Song of the Year, and “Best Song Written for Visual Medium”. The song won a Golden Globe. Here is a brief excerpt from the music video by Billy Eilish. Check out the link to the full video in the description. It’s a very touching video itself.

[Excerpt from “What Was I Made For?” plays]

“Barbie” received 5 BAFTA nominations. There were 9 Golden Globe Nominations and it won the Globe for “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement” whatever that means. Robbie, Gosling, the ensemble cast, and stunt ensembles have received SAG nominations.

Overall IMDb lists 417 nominations and 167 wins to date.

With an estimated budget of $100 million, released in July it has earned over $600 million in the US and Canada and $1.445 billion worldwide. [Note: This makes Gerwig the first female director to break the $1 billion glass ceiling.]

It is still showing in theaters and is available for streaming on Max and available for purchase or rental on Amazon and YouTube.

Note that on Max streaming there is a special version that includes an American Sign Language interpreter superimposed in the lower right corner of the screen in addition to the usual closed captions. If you watch it on Max, I recommend you view that version to inflate those viewing numbers and encourage Max and other streaming services to provide such versions. I did not find the interpreter distracting.

In previous episodes, I said I was only able to see 9 of the 10 Best Picture Nominated films. Good news… “The Zone of Interest” is now available for digital download rental or purchase so I have now seen all 10 films plus four other films that were nominated for acting or screenplay awards but were not listed for Best Picture. I’m going to try to get three more episodes before the Oscars are awarded on March 10. I’ve not been able to get them out on time on Monday but we are going to go full speed ahead. I will try to get these episodes out between now and the Oscars.

Stay tuned after my typical closing for a spoiler-filled description of the opening scene of Barbie which made me laugh so hard I cried.

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I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe everyone.

Okay, I want to talk about the opening scene but I didn’t want to spoil it in the main section of the review. However, I just discovered that the opening scene I’m about to talk about was spoiled in a teaser trailer that was released before the film. If you’ve not seen that trailer only continue if you’ve seen “Barbie” or don’t care if it’s spoiled.

The film opens with Helen Mirren doing a voiceover narration…

Narrator: Since the beginning of time… since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls.

But they were always baby dolls thus putting the girls in the role of mother. The scene shows about half a dozen girls aged 4 or 5 years old sitting on a rocky terrain outdoors playing with baby dolls, strollers, teacups, and plastic dishes.

That stark scenery along with the phrase “since the beginning of time” immediately told me this was a reference to the opening “Dawn of Man” sequence of the classic Stanley Kubrick film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In case you are unfamiliar with that sequence, it shows a bunch of prehuman apelike creatures struggling to survive in a harsh rocky desert environment. Suddenly a giant dark gray monolith appears in their midst. One of them cautiously approaches the slab and touches it. It emits a strange sound. Suddenly the creatures have gained great intelligence. They discover how to use tools. Specifically, one of them picks up a long bone from a carcass and begins swinging it as a club. He discovers it makes him powerful and he begins violently smashing a pile of bones sending bone shards flying in every direction. He then tosses the bone into the air triumphantly and we get a crossfade to the year 2001 and a shot of an orbiting satellite. Mankind has transformed from primitive tools like a bone club to the sophisticated technology of space travel.

Back to “Barbie”… The narrator says that this baby doll and mother will play continues until…” Then we get the iconic music “Also Sprach Zarathustra” from “2001”. We cut to a 10-foot-tall Barbie doll that suddenly appears on the landscape in the same way that the monolith appeared in “2001”. Or rather Margo Robbie as Barbie.

The girls cautiously approach Barbie as the music continues. When they touch her, a strange buzz sound emanates.

Then we get a close-up of one of the girls holding her baby doll with two hands by the doll’s feet.

It was at that instant that I said to myself, “Oh my God… If she starts bashing that doll on the rocks and busting up the plastic dishes I’m going to lose it.”

Just as I expected… The little girl begins swinging in a baby doll and violently smashing it into the ground crushing her plastic dishes and the skulls of the other porcelain dolls sending debris flying everywhere. She then flings the doll into the air and we get a crossfade to the Barbie logo.

I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I had to pause the movie and dry my eyes before I could continue. I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard at a film.

If you’re not a mega fan of “2001: A Space Odyssey” then you probably did not laugh as hard as I did. But I hope you did watch the movie before you read this and I hope you enjoyed it at least half as much as I did.

As I explained, I found out much later that this 2001 spoof appeared in a teaser trailer way before the movie opened. Several people on YouTube have created side-by-side views of the “Barbie” trailer and the opening scenes of 2001. However, these mashups are based on the trailer which is a shorter sequence than appears in the actual film. The sequence in the film is and the girls smashing the baby dolls are much more violent. I would try to make my own side-by-side comparison based on the film but I would probably get a copyright violation for it. Perhaps someone else will dare to do so.

I’ve provided a link to the “Barbie” trailer as well as one of the better side-by-side comparisons between it and “2001”. You really need to see the full beginning of the movie to really appreciate it. [Late update: I found a YouTube clip of the full opening. See the links.]

Tune in next week for more movie reviews as we continue Contemplating Life. Fly safe everyone.

This week we continue with our look at the 10 films nominated for Oscar in the Best Picture Category. On the menu, this week is a pair of films I called “Alien Relationships”. Okay… That is clickbait. They are not about little green men. We have a pair of foreign language films which technically makes them alien to us in the US.

Hi, this is Chris Young, and welcome to episode 55 of Contemplating Life– Oscar Edition

This week we continue with our look at the 10 films nominated for Oscar in the Best Picture Category. On the menu, this week is a pair of films I called “Alien Relationships”. Okay… That is clickbait. They are not about little green men. We have a pair of foreign language films which technically makes them alien to us in the US.

One of these films I greatly enjoyed. The other one wasn’t bad but I’m not excited about it.

Let’s start with the so-so film and then finish strong.

“Past Lives” is a Korean film about a girl named Na Young and her childhood friend Hae Sung. The story begins in South Korea when the pair are about 11 or 12 years old. Their friendship is about to grow into a budding romance when Na Young’s family decides to immigrate to Canada. Na Young takes the English name Nora. Hae Sung is deeply disappointed to lose his friend. We see brief scenes of Nora arriving in Canada and struggling to fit in at school in this strange new country.

We then fast forward 12 years Nora is now in New York City studying to be a playwright. She comes from a creative family. Her father was a filmmaker and her mother an artist. One day, she decides to start looking up old friends from Korea as she is reminiscing with her mother. She asks, “What was the name of that boy I had a crush on? We went on one date.” Her mother reminds her it was Hae Sung. A quick search reveals that the boy had posted a message on a Facebook page about her father’s films saying that he was looking for the filmmaker’s daughter Na Young.

Hae Sung is now serving in the South Korean army because they have mandatory military service for young men. Nora decides to contact him and they begin a long-distance online relationship which grows rapidly into something quite significant.

Nora is tied up in rehearsals for her play. When Hae Sung completes his military service he enters college to study engineering. Given the time difference between New York and Seoul, their online meetings are often at the wee hours of the night. Eventually, Nora decides they need to take a break from their online video chats. She said she can’t concentrate on her work because she’s constantly thinking about looking up flight schedules to Korea. His studies are suffering as well but it is her decision to pause the relationship.

Once again, Hae Sung feels abandoned by the woman he loves. He accepts her decision only reluctantly.

Shortly thereafter, she attends an artist’s residency program in a rural location where she meets a young American writer named Arthur.

The movie again jumps 12 years and Nora is married to Arthur. We learn little about their life together until late in the movie.

The last half of the movie shows us when Hae Sung travels to New York to visit his now-married old girlfriend. As Nora and her husband are anticipating the visit from her old friend she explains a bit of Korean philosophy to Arthur. She says, “There is a word in Korean. In-Yun. It means “providence” or “fate”. But it’s specifically about relationships between people. I think it comes from Buddhism and reincarnation. It’s an In-Yun if two strangers even walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush. Because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives. If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of In-Yun over 8,000 lifetimes.”

The question the film poses is, “With which of the men in her life does she have the strongest In-Yun?” Is she destined to be with Arthur or with Hae Sung? How much In-Yun did she have with either of these men in a past life or is this just the first of many lives she will live with one or the other of them?

When Hae Sung arrives, he and Nora wander around New York City sightseeing and reminiscing for a couple of days. She then comes home and talks about the experience with her husband and we begin to learn more about their relationship. Arthur notes that this would make a great story in which he was the evil white husband who kept her from her destiny with her childhood sweetheart. She laughs it off but we doubt the strength of her relationship with her husband as we learn more about their history.

I enjoyed the movie but I am not sure it is Oscar-caliber. I found the pace to be extremely slow.

Greta Lee plays the adult Nora. Previously, I very much enjoyed her work as TV executive Stella Bak in the Apple TV+ series “The Morning Show”. Hae Sung is played by Teo Yoo who I have not seen before and his IMDb credits don’t include anything you probably ever saw.

Interestingly enough although both are of Korean descent, Lee was born in the US, and Teo Yoo was born in Germany. He studied at the Lee Strasburg Institute in New York and then moved to Seoul in 2009.

The performances were adequate but nothing extraordinary. I thought that the 40-year-old Greta Lee’s portrayal of the 20-something-year-old version of Nora showed some great acting skills but compared to Lee’s outstanding work in “The Morning Show” overall her performance in this film did not impress me. In interviews both Lee and Teo Yoo have raved about the opportunity to play such characters but it just didn’t do much for me. I suppose if there is any nomination with which I could agree it might be for the screenplay but that is a weak endorsement.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a nice little story of unrequited love and a marginally interesting exploration of the idea of fate when it comes to relationships.

Those of you who are familiar with my autobiographical episodes of this podcast know about my relationship of unrequited love with my childhood sweetheart Rosie. That includes a reunion with her many years after we parted ways after high school. At that reunion, I got to meet her husband. So there are many parallels between this story and my own life. Yet, I did not feel it triggered any emotions in me. Perhaps I never grew to care much about the characters. I didn’t have the feeling that they were telling “my story” despite the parallels.

I was however moved by the final scene of the film but I can’t tell you how or why without spoiling the ending. At the very end of this episode, I will put a brief epilogue explaining my reaction to the final scene. It will include a huge spoiler warning in front of it in case you want to skip it.

In addition to the Best Picture nomination, Korean-born writer-director Celine Song is nominated for Best Original Screenplay Oscar. She has also been nominated by the Directors Guild for Outstanding Achievement in Directing a First Time Feature Film. Her only other credit on IMDb is as a staff writer for the fantasy series “The Wheel of Time.”

IMDb lists 197 nominations and 68 wins including three BAFTA nominations for Best Film Not in the English Language, Screenplay, and Lead Actor for Teo Yoo.

Also, five Golden Globe nominations for, Best Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Non-English Film, and Greta Lee for Lead Actress in a Drama.

The film opened in June 2023 and has earned nearly $11 million in the US and Canada and over $23 million worldwide.

Is currently available for streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime and available for rent or purchase on Amazon and YouTube.

* * *

Our second film this week is the French film “Anatomy of a Fall”. German actress Sandra Hüller plays a successful novelist named Sandra Voyter. She is married to an unsuccessful writer named Samuel Theis played by Samuel Maleski. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence that the actors share the first names of their characters or if the part was written for them or what. They have an 11-year-old son Daniel who is visually impaired.

Early in the film, Daniel finds his father has fallen from a third-story attic window to his death. The question is, did he fall accidentally? Was this a suicide in which he jumped? Or did Sandra push him out the window?

After some meetings with her lawyer and interviews by the police, the film jumps one year later to a trial in which she is charged with the murder of her husband. The majority of the film is a courtroom drama in which we try to form our own opinion as to what really happened.

The visually impaired boy is the only witness to events and his recollection has varied between interviews with investigators.

Through the testimony in the courtroom, we gradually come to understand the deeply troubled marriage. Sandra is German but had agreed to live in France even though she is not happy there. Samuel is frustrated by his own lack of success and jealous of his wife’s success. One of her most successful books is based on an undeveloped idea that Samuel had. She testified that he agreed to let her develop the story but when it was a big success, it only furthered his sense of failure.

Samuel blames himself for their son’s visual impairment. It was caused by an accident a few years ago. He was supposed to pick up his son after school but forgot. Samuel sent the babysitter to pick up the boy late and as the boy ran to meet her, he was struck by a car. There is tension because Samuel blames himself for the accident. Sandra blamed him but claims to have gotten over it. It is unclear how much the boy blames his father for his condition.

In Samuel’s unsuccessful attempts to come up with a winning story idea, he decided to begin making audio recordings of his everyday life hoping to find inspiration. Sandra was aware of some of these recordings but not aware of a very key recording that was made a few days before his death. Samuel recorded a bitter argument between the two of them unbeknownst to her. The recording was played in open court.

As the audio recording was being played in court, the film shows us the scene as it actually occurred right up until the point when the argument became physical. It then switches back to the courtroom where you can only hear what happened but not actually see the truth. You can hear items crashing and the sound of a physical struggle. We only have Sandra’s testimony as to what was going on during the crashing sounds.

I thought that the scene depicted during the playing of the audio recording was one of the most realistic and believable portrayals I had ever seen of a domestic argument. It was not the usual over-the-top melodramatic shouting match that you typically see depicted in film or TV. It was a pointed conversation between people in a deeply troubled marriage trying to understand each other’s position.

That scene was so well-written that it is the major reason why this film is my favorite screenplay of the year. The rest of the story is quite compelling and well-written as well.

The dialogue is a combination of English and French with English subtitles. In the home, she and her husband spoke English because her French was poor and his German was poor. In the courtroom, the proceedings take place in French however Sandra eventually insists on speaking English and using an interpreter.

I was fascinated by the significantly different courtroom procedures used in France. It is vastly different from what we are accustomed to in American and British courtroom dramas. When a witness is on the stand, the prosecutor and the defense have the opportunity to turn to the defendant and begin questioning them about what the witness just said. The defendant can immediately rebut testimony.

Both the prosecution and defense are given great leeway to expound their theory of the case while questioning a witness. To the extent that American dramas reflect American courtrooms, normally such exposition would be met with an objection, “Is there a question in that statement?” Only once during the proceedings did the judge admonish the defense attorney to “Save it for your closing arguments.” American court proceedings seem to be totally limited to a question-and-answer format except for the opening and closing statements yet in this courtroom, the attorneys had much leeway to argue their case.

I have no idea how accurate was this depiction of French courtroom procedure. Nor do I know how accurate American TV and film dramas depict our actual courtroom procedures. My only experience of real courtroom proceedings was the hours I wasted watching the O.J. Simpson trial which could hardly be construed as an ordinary proceeding.

Throughout the film, as my opinion wavered back and forth as to Sandra’s guilt or innocence, I was worried that the film would end with us not knowing what really happened. For now, I will say I was initially satisfied with the ending but upon further review, I had some doubts. I won’t explain that because it would spoil too much. See the spoilers section at the end of this episode only if you have seen the film.

None of the cast were familiar to me. Their credits are all French and German films Sandra Hüller gives an outstanding performance which has earned her lead actress nominations for both Oscar and Golden Globes. Note that she also stars in the nominated film “The Zone of Interest” but that is the one film that I’ve not yet been able to see. I’m really looking forward to her performance there even though it did not receive any acting nominations. I’m a bit surprised she did not receive a SAG nomination.

In addition to the Best Picture nomination, writer-director Justine Triet is nominated as Best Director and along with co-author Arthur Harari is nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The film has earned 7 BAFTA nominations. The film was awarded the prestigious Palme d’Or which is the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The boy’s service dog was also awarded the Palme Dog at Cannes – seriously that sounds like a joke I made up but there really is such an award. Who knew? It also has an Oscar nomination for Film Editing for which I have no opinion. IMDb lists 191 total nominations and 66 wins.

It opened in August in France and October in the US. On an estimated budget of $6.6 million, it has earned $4.5 million in the US and Canada and nearly $28 million worldwide.

This was my second favorite nominated film this year and tied with “American Fiction” for my favorite screenplay. I highly recommend it. It is still being shown in theaters and is available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and YouTube.

Next week, I will review the hit film Barbie and another film closely related to it. Guess what… I’m not talking about Oppenheimer! Tune in next week to find out. Stay tuned after my typical acknowledgments and closing remarks for some spoiler-filled comments about this week’s films.

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You can check out any of my back episodes which are all available where you found this episode. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you find this podcast. Tell me what you liked or did not like about these films.

I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe everyone.

Okay, here we go with the spoilers. Do not proceed unless you’ve seen the movie or don’t care if the endings are spoiled.

I said that “Past Lives” should have resonated with me more because I was much like Hae Sung who had an ongoing crush on his junior high school sweetheart Rosie. Like Hae Sung, many years after Rosie and I parted ways I had the opportunity to see her again and to meet her new husband. There was only one part of that parallel to my life that touched me emotionally. At the end of the film, Nora bids farewell to her visiting childhood friend, walks back to her apartment, hugs her husband, and begins sobbing uncontrollably.

If you’ve heard my Episode 22 in which I read my award-winning story “The Reunion” you will know that after bidding farewell to Rosie, her husband, and the school where we spent our teen years, I cried all the way home. But I never thought about what Rosie’s reaction might have been. I wondered if she went home, hugged her husband, and cried as well.

Let’s talk about the ending of “Anatomy of a Fall.” The boy Daniel returns to the witness stand after hearing of all the turmoil between his parents which was played out in open court. Among the things he discovered was that Sandra claimed that at one point, she had found Samuel unconscious and he had vomited up a large amount of aspirin which she claimed was a failed suicide attempt. This bolstered her claim that the fall from the third-story window was a successful suicide attempt and she did not murder her husband.

The boy recalled that his dog got sick at about that time and had to be taken to the vet. He concluded that the dog had eaten some of his father’s vomit before Sandra discovered him unconscious. The boy deliberately gave his dog an overdose of aspirin to see if it reacted the same way. It did. This led him to conclude that his father really had attempted suicide. There was still the possibility however that Sandra had given Samuel the overdose.

The boy then relates a story about a conversation he had with his father on the way to the vet with the dog. The father was explaining that the dog had been loyal and served him well but he needed to prepare for the fact that someday the dog would no longer be with him. It was obvious to us the audience and to Daniel that Samuel was really talking about the day when his father would no longer be there. Daniel concluded that his father was preparing him for the day when he might be successful in his suicide attempt.

Based on Daniel’s testimony, the jury believed it and acquitted Sandra.

I was pleasantly surprised that the ending was unambiguous. At least I felt that way for a time.

Shortly after seeing the film, I read a review by Adam-Troy Castro who is a famous science fiction and horror author. He publishes a brief movie review on his free Patreon page every day. His review of the film convinced me to rethink the ending and now I’m not so sure my initial assessment was correct.

When Daniel and his mother are reunited after the trial, it is an awkward reunion. One might have expected that Sandra would thank her son for “telling the truth”. But that did not happen. It leaves you wondering. Did Daniel make up the story about his father trying to prepare him for the day when he would be gone? Did he lie to save his mother? If he did lie, was it simply to avoid the loss of both parents? Was he sympathetic to her that she suffered an unhappy marriage? Did Daniel blame his father for his blindness?

That kind of ambiguity which can at one moment make you believe one version of events and then again make you doubt them indicates a very cleverly crafted piece of writing.

It would’ve been disappointing if the film simply left you hanging without an opinion one way or the other of what really happened. But this clever bit of storytelling gave you a simple explanation but hinted that there might be a different conclusion. So I was not at all disappointed by the ambiguity. Rather, I was intrigued by it.

Okay. that’s it for our spoiler cast. See you next week as we continue Contemplating Life. Fly safe everyone.

This week we conclude a two-part special that traces my entire history as a movie fan. In this episode, we focus on my obsession with 3D, IMAX, and the evolution of special effects. I recommend you watch the YouTube version because I’ve included lots of movie clips.