Neil Diamond and Tonal Whiplash Oscars
Some soundtracks wag their movies, some just sit there
NEIL DIAMOND'S CATALOG renders schlock into serendipity. Tony Tribe and then Ken Boothe revealed "Red Red Wine" as secret reggae bauble in 1970 while Diamond still toured; when UB40 did the same number 12 years later, it assumed the status of a modern classic, prompting Diamond's own reggae facsimile. Singing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway Park with a chorus of thousands has its diversionary sizzle, but a lot of Neil Diamond's friendly, good-guy pop has lingered for long overdue ridicule. I had thought of writing up Song Sung Blue, linking it to Andy Samberg's banger Hellmann's mayonnaise ad with Sentimental Value nominee Elle Fanning, but couldn't make it past our protagonist's second AA meeting.
Samberg's delirious kicker would have made a great focus-pull: "Incredibly lonely!" Sure, our Almost Famous devotee, Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), who grew up to be a long-suffering single mom, deserves both a duet partner man and an Oscar, but nothing deflates the spirit quicker than hack uplift. This material plays like Japanese remake bait, where the dubbed foreign-language swells with more implications than the "original." It's a classic Hollywood recipe: surface treatment of surface material. Jackman (Samberg's "two sides!" icon) feels oddly miscast. When The Last Waltz premiered in the '70s, people guffawed at Diamond on stage with Joni Mitchell, Mavis Staples, and Neil Young; some even booed ("Come Dry Your Eyes"). In other words, on a stage lousy with hipsters, Diamond appeared as the token square for the contrast effect. Finally, his songs anchor a jukebox musical about a struggling Ice Capades skater repenting his loser hair-piece. (Admitting my own self-contradictory tastes, I'll confess a soft spot for 1967's "Shiloh," which at least suggests sensuality.)
For the Oscars, it's another year where music gets ghettoized into playing off windbags and the odd wild pitch—and the bar remains 2005's "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" by Three 6 Mafia for Hustle & Flow. As Hollywood's biggest afterthought, even with melodic subjects, it's unnerving how often a mediocre movie features a terrific score that never busts through like it should, and too many high-profile epics that sag under the weight of so much serioso hoo-hah. I like Jonny Greenwood (especially his work on The Master), but his quasi-ominous One Battle After Another music turned misdirection into an emotional flex. It got me thinking about tracks that unwittingly wag their movies, like the way Bugonia pumps its brakes into everybody's favorite folk-mass icon, Marlene Dietrich, with "Where Have all the Flowers Gone?" It invents its own category: tonal whiplash.
Forgive the twisted reference, but in this twisted reality, Skarsgård should win using that Honorary Foreigner logic—the same that favored Marion Cotillard, and should have embraced Brendan Gleeson’s smeary Donald Trump in The Comey Rule.
Brazil's The Secret Agent, starring Wagner Moura, should win headlines if Hollywood really wants to stick it to The Man. The competition proves fierce: Paul Thomas Anderson's Battle has the insider edge but a dozen more nominations to wiggle with; both movies place the viewer in bizarre-persuasive frames of how it feels to live an uncannily familiar secret life in a police state. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s screenplay opens near 1977's Carnaval with a rotting corpse that manifests the jinx on Moura’s face.
Moura played alongside Kirsten Dunst in Alex Garland's Civil War (2024), which packed more prophecy into a doomsday scenario than any picture since. He was also strong, and persuasively dim, alongside Brian Tyree Henry in 2015's Dope Thief. Marin Ireland gulps hard as the DEA agent who survives a shootout to bring these clowns down, and in my imaginary soundtrack, they finish off in a freeze-frame to the sound of Neil Diamond's "I Believe in Happy Endings."
Alongside Sentimental Value, these international films surpass their domestic competition in several ways. Count on outsiders to have the more seasoned view of our America's dystopian adolescence, and wider perspective on video war games. Stellan Skarsgård is long overdue for the nod, and in roles like the mordant smile he brings "I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance)" by Tina Charles, 1976 (in TV's River, 2015, with Nicola Walker). His lifetime's work courts beloved status. (Forgive the twisted reference, but in this twisted reality, Skarsgård should win using that Honorary Foreigner logic—the same that favored Marion Cotillard, and should have embraced Brendan Gleeson's smeary Donald Trump in The Comey Rule.) Even if Sentimental Value pats itself on the back with its post-modern finale, the performances carry even that telegraphed moment.
One Battle After Another has uneasy merit, and lately marginalized castes have commented on its white swagger. I really wish Anderson hadn't written Teyana Taylor's Perfidia as such a Jezebel (that's a real white author's tell right there), but DiCaprio's performance has a second-hand bathrobe charm, and his rival as a stupid true believer, the un-nominated Jesse Plemons in Bugonia, only reinforces how much skill it takes to play enchantingly dumb. See also: Elle Fanning's savvy portrayal of a weak actor in Sentimental Value (consider the conundrum: only a very good thespian can persuade you they’re a limited talent with great instincts). At least Ryan Coogler's Sinners leads with 16 nominations, and it should win for Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson music alone (Imagine: if Göransson wins alongside Skarsgård, the night could go Swedish). With momentum on its side (Michael B. Jordan's Actor's Award [formerly SAG]), but too many noms could also work against it. Given recent history, there's a compelling surge for the Oscars to Go Black this year. That might be too much to ask.
Finally, there's a great short that belies these horrid generalizations: Sam Davis's The Singers (Netflix), adapting Ivan Turgenev with white-knuckle grace. Wearing an oxygen tube, Chris Smither sucks on his cigarette as if it's the last thread of sanity.
Elsewhere: The only thing worse than Timothée Chalamet winning for Marty Supreme? His acceptance speech.
ODDS'N'ENDS: Easter egg in the new Elvis Presley EPiC live track "Suspicious Minds" from 1973: "Shove it up your nose" (at 0:51)… Continuing the slow fade to black, Springsteen tickets went on sale and the family text circle went berserk. 10k floor seats for manager Jon Landau's second yacht... Hip-deep in This is Happiness, by Niall Williams, an Irish novelist whose exploding stock earns its hype, a lot because Stephen Colbert chose it for his book club last fall... Dwight Garner reviewed Klosterman's Football by quoting H. L. Mencken, that snarky anti-Semite: "College football would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played..."
FINALLY: Sir Paul never gets any press anymore, and we’re all just sick about it.
noises off
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