Joaquin Phoenix @ 50: An Alternative Oscar History

by Cláudio Alves

Joaquin Phoenix's last great performance was in C'MON C'MON.

Do you have your own dream Oscar ballots lying around? I've been doing them for ages, probably since first finding The Film Experience and becoming entranced by Nathaniel's Film Bitch Awards. In recent years, the mountains of notebooks finally came to be formally digitized, starting with the long process of creating Letterboxd lists out of every Oscar eligibility rulebook, going back to 1927. This way, I was able to make a massive Excel spreadsheet with ballots for every year, following AMPAS guidelines. Oh well, much ado about nothing. The only reason I'm bringing this up is to contextualize the bizarre birthday post in store for today, when Joaquin Phoenix celebrates his mid-century mark. 

As the Todd Haynes fiasco and the disappointing Joker diptych have made Joaquin Phoenix something of a sore subject, let's go back to happier times and better movies. Indeed, let me present an alternative Oscar history. The thespian remains a winner but under very different circumstances…

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Through Her Lens: 2018 (The 91st Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano 
Previously: Episode 1 - 2020-21 / Episode 2 - 2019 

Eyes were on the Best Director category at the 91st Academy Awards after Greta Gerwig became only the fifth woman to be nominated in the said category the previous year. Contemporaneous articles expressed disappointment with this fact, but this Oscar year was also plagued with other issues: no ceremony host, plans to give out awards during commercial break, and divisive films like Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Vice being major factors, too.

In a way, these other controversies clouded what could have been a more extensive discussion regarding representation in the Best Director category. Out of the 347 films included in the Reminder List of Eligible Films in 2018 (91st Academy Awards), 62 of them (or 17.9%) were directed/co-directed by women.

OSCAR-NOMINATED FEMALE-DIRECTED FILMS (in alphabetical order): Animal Behaviour*, Bao*, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Capernaum, Free Solo, Late Afternoon*, Marguerite*, Mary Queen of Scots,  Period. End of Sentence.*, and RBG. (*not in the eligibility list for Best Picture)

OUR ALTERNATIVE SET OF FIVE...

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The Film Bitch Awards begin: Score, Song, and Sound

Illustration © Tom Ralston. See more of his work here.Yes, we're finally starting! Since Oscar nominations are next week, we have to get through the parallel categories quickly, before we can dive into the crazier stuff (which we always have fun doing). First up the five sound categories. A reminder that we have two score categories since there are so many movies each year that rely as much on their soundtracks as their instrumental scores, or use a great deal of pre-existing material within their score. 

On the sound pages you'll find honors for You Were Never Really Here, Annihilation, Mary Poppins Returns, First Man, Roma, A Star is Born and more so have a look, won't you? 

Review: Joaquin Phoenix in "You Were Never Really Here"

by Seán McGovern

As the credits begin to roll on Lynne Ramsey's visceral and intense film, I felt an odd feeling of relief that Joaquin Phoenix did not win an Oscar for playing Johnny Cash. In the years since, Phoenix has eschewed the mainstream and become a full-blown movie-star weirdo. His raw performance in You Were Never Really Here isn't just told his line-readings but also his back muscles, feet, scars and posture. A role for the classical leading man, this is not.

Ramsey's first film since 2011 is a singular assault. It's quite possible that you hated We Need to Talk About Kevin, which took the parental horrors of Lionel Shriver's novel and intellectualised them at a remove. But Ramsey has a knack for distance, creating a particular style of alienation that works perfectly for the story of a traumatized hired-gun...

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"You Were Never Really Here" First Look!

Chris here. Can you believe the wait for the next Lynne Ramsay film is almost over? We've only had to wait a mere six years this time after the the nine year gap between Morvern Callar and We Need to Talk About Kevin, so maybe we shouldn't complain. But this film is a promising return: Ramsay worked on You Were Never Really Here until the last minute before its Cannes debut, landing both a Best Actor trophy for Joaquin Pheonix and a tie for Best Screenplay (shared with The Killing of a Sacred Deer). And don't expect any dampened intensity from the auteur - Pheonix stars as a vigilante hitman tasked to rescue a young girl from a human trafficking circle.

The film is absent from the fall festival circuit and Amazon has yet to announce a release date, which likely spells out a slightly further wait and spring stateside release. No worry for our European readers as the film will open in a few countries this fall, and we've got a new trailer to go with it. Phoenix is pretty thrilling even in just this brief glimpse, but the trailer also hints at a pulsing score from Jonny Greenwood and gorgeous visuals from director of photography Thomas Townend. Take a look at the bloody and brutal NSFW trailer (fair warning - those who've seen the film say the trailer uses a lot of footage from the climax of the film) and rejoice Ramsay's return!