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A hit-and-miss affair from Spike Lee–nowhere as polished as BlackKklansman, but provocative in its looks at race, Vietnam, friendship, greed–remarkable in its aspirations if not its execution. First off, I should say that Delroy Lindo should be a lock for an Oscar nomination, at least, for his performance. Next best was having a range of six Black characters fill the screen; so you didn’t see them as “Black,” you saw them for their distinct personalities. The plot (which I assume was borrowed from Treasure of the Sierra Madre), was serviceable, but that was about all. It was mainly an armature allowing us to get to know, understand and empathize with the Bloods. At the same time, the French woman (white) was great.

Seeing Da 5 Bloods shortly after watching When the Levees Broke about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina made clear how relevant and important Spike Lee is to the moment of national consciousness-raising we are going through.

Robbie Robertson may be a great musician, but as a documentary narrator he is ponderous. As in Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, the story of a five-man band suffers from being told solely from one member’s perspective. Performance clips breathe some life into the film, but with only one great song to The Band’s credit, they’re not enough. The final clip, of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released,” made me wish I’d spent the time watching The Last Waltz instead.

The Show: Steve Martin and Chris Rock’s opening monologue deserved an A and was matched later on by Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph. If they could host, it would make it a more cohesive show. Ditto for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. As it was, the segment intros were hit-or-mostly miss. Someone named Ramos I’d never heard of introduced Lin-Manuel Miranda and someone named Utkarsh Ambudkar rapped a half-time recap. This is a night for celebrities, not wannabes. Without a host or subtitles, I had no idea what or why Eminem was performing, nor did I know who it was, although much of the audience sang along. For a show that always exceeds its time slot, there is an awful lot that could be excised without complaint.
The Acceptances: Brad Pitt and Laura Dern were perfect, a pleasure to watch. Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweger not so much, although they took diametrically opposed approaches to their overlong moments: Renee thanked a litany of names that meant nothing to us; Joaquin mounted a soapbox and made you cringe for his causes. A few of the lesser winners handled themselves well, especially Roger Deakins, who must have been ready after having been nominated 15 times. Why we have to listen to a make-up artist announce how much she loves her husband and children is beyond me. So is why we have to listen to her at all. I would start the trimming, however, with the short features. Couldn’t they be honored with the technical awards and just announced on the big night, with a substantial clip from the winning film?
The Awards: Parasite is the elephant in this room. Whatever one thought of the movie – most people I know weren’t wild about it (I gave it a 5.5) – it’s fair to say that four Oscars was a bit much. Of course, two of them – Best Picture and Best Foreign-Language Film – are for the same thing: if one is eligible for both and wins the former, the latter is automatic. There were such other worthy nominees, that it felt a shame not to spread the love a bit – e.g., give Tarantino the award for screenplay and Scorsese for Director. It also got monotonous watching Bong Joon Ho ascend the stage time and again, although he was charming and his speech for Best Director was one of the night’s highlights. Other than Parasite, the awards were pretty much a foregone conclusion, which seems to be happening fairly regularly now. I’m glad Ford v. Ferrari and Little Women were at least recognized, and glad that 1917 was somewhat limited in its haul.
The Music: There were nine musical numbers, so I’m giving music its own rubric. I’ve already cited the two raps – one was a waste of time, the other rather out of place and mysterious. The opening number, sung by Janelle Monae, was what passes for modern music – tuneless with lots of noise and rhythm – the kind of music that, blessedly, had nothing to do with the movies being honored. Billie Eilish’s rendition of Yesterday was affecting – credit there. That leaves the five nominated Best Songs. All of the songwriters involved have had much better days. Undoubtedly the most insipid of the bunch was Elton John’s winner; it was hard to even make out the song as he sang it. I suspect his victory was a kind of reputation, or lifetime achievement acknowledgement. I was getting drinks when Cynthia Erivo sang her song, which was the best reviewed of the weak bunch; but it brought up one of my Oscar peeves. It was not performed during the movie – it was tacked on during the credits. Why is it, then, part of the movie? The Academy bolstered my complaint with a montage of musical numbers that helped define and were inseparable from their movies – all of which, unless I’m mistaken, were part of the movie soundtrack. I don’t know if this practice of movie add-on started with Bruce Springsteen’s Philadelphia, but it has blossomed ever since. If most moviegoers don’t even stick around to hear it, why give it an Oscar?
Best Picture: The critics are proud of Hollywood for choosing a “worthy” film, like 12 Years A Slave and Moonlight. The contrast they inevitably make is with Green Book and Crash, which are deemed punch lines not even worth explaining or discussing. Both, however, were favorites of mine, and Green Book (labeled a “middlebrow nothing” this week by Manohla Dargis) was one of the most universally loved films among theatergoers of my acquaintance. What’s wrong with us?
#OscarsNotTooWhite: Four Oscars to a South Korean film should take care of complaints about lack of Asian representation at the ceremony for a short while, but we all know that the OscarsTooWhite campaign is really about Blacks. Penelope Cruz and Selma Hayek are doing quite well on their own, and Mexico has recently had a lock on the Directing category. The Academy compensated for the lack of Black nominees by overloading the roster of presenters and backup dancers with people of color. But really, who has grounds to complain about the nominations on diversity grounds? Dolemite Is My Name was unwatchable and Eddie Murphy played an unfunny vulgar comedian. Jennifer Lopez, I thought, was inept in an equally bad movie. If there’s a complaint, it’s that there aren’t enough good movies being made about Blacks or Latinos or Asians, not that such individuals were denied nominations. And as for women directors, there were three or four worthy ones this year, led by Greta Gerwig, but whose place were they supposed to take? Scorsese? Tarantino? Mendes? I hope that the Academy gets over its fixation, its self-flagellation on this topic and just lets the best man win.

More important as a sociological statement than a movie Queen & Slim was ripped from the headlines of white police abusing blacks, and the odds stacked against blacks in that situation. Daniel Kaluuya was as wonderful as he was in Get Out, and his relationship with Jodie Turner-Smith was original and charming. Their encounter with the policeman echoed the story of Sandra Bland I had just read about in Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book; and the fusillade that killed me recalled Bruce Springsteen’s song, “43 Shots.” In between, however, there were slow spots, as their picaresque flight from an unlikely “nation-wide manhunt” moved from one set scene to another. I felt as though the director was stretching to come up with subplots, or secondary messages, and none struck me as terribly successful. Still, the movie kept my attention and made me think, which makes it stand out on those terms alone.