AARON BILGRAD MOVIE AWARDS 2025

BEST MOVIE THAT LISAN AL-GAIB MAHDI MAUD’DIB KWISATZ HADERACH USUL GOM JABBAR SARDAUKAR SHAI HULUD NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL:  DUNE PART 2

Before I start, I should mention that I did, in fact, read Frank Herbert’s famous, original DUNE book (although I couldn’t imagine reading the sequels like Children of Dune, Messiah of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Dune & Associates, Dune N’ Friends, etc). I liked the book quite a bit (the first half more than the second), and I greatly looked forward to a proper movie version.

While I will admit that Dune is a cinematic CGI masterclass, and I had an overall sense of the narrative, I will also humbly confess that there were many scenes where I had no idea what was happening and was like… “Sure”. In essence, if a character became super earnest, stared straight forward, and the camera went super tight on a pair of beaming blue-eyes while the Hans Zimmer “Ahhhh-Yahhh-Yahhh” score swelled — the more confused I knew I would be. Bonus confusion if there was a scene featuring a fetus.

Let me interject by saying that I am not a fun person to watch movies with. I believe in complete silence to truly take in the totality of the vibe and energy of the film. NO TALKING — as disruptions take me out of the empathetic experience I am having with the characters. With that said, I made an extreme exception in this case. I watched the movie at home with two people — one of the them understandably vocalized many questions about what was going on and what everything meant. Usually I would rudely ‘shush’ the talking, but in this instance I was silently grateful for it because I had the same questions. The other person was a super fan of the original Dune book and adroitly and meticulously explained all the nuances of the film (the Freman terminology, the cryptic meanings of the hallucinations, the powers and effects of the Spice, the history behind the war between the houses, basically anything we wanted to know). There were so many of these opportunities for explanation that we could have renamed the movie “PAUSE”.

Oddly enough, despite us having the good fortune of being clued-in at the exact moment of perplexity, very little of what the super fan explained was actually stated or made clear by the actual characters in the film. There were certainly plenty of moments in the film that were so intentionally expositional that the characters may as well have flipped open the literal Dune novel on screen and read it directly to the camera, but… much of the nuances of the Dune universe remained unsaid and left for the audience to decode on their own.

I’ve always fashioned myself a “film snob”, priding myself on watching and understanding the subtle, esoteric 3.5 hour overly artistic foreign films. But the fact that Dune, with its complicated mythology and language was so beloved by many and still made nearly a billion dollars at the box office makes me think that, perhaps… I’m the one who needs some intellectual maintenance.

BEST MOVIE THAT IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF PRETENTIOUS AND ALSO HAD TOO MANY DAMN SCENES OF HUGGING KIDS:  I’M STILL HERE

I know, I know — you haven’t seen this movie. Good, keep it that way, but stay with me a minute. I’m Still Here is a Brazilian film (and I love Brazilian films) generating terrific reviews, a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and zillions of accolades for its lead actress, Fernanda Torres (the favorite to win the Best Actress Oscar). This is the very reason why I decided that I MUST pay to go to see I’m Still Here in the theater (it’s not streaming) at the only screening I could make time for (late-ass at night). But I had such a strong dislike of this movie. Ohhhhh, it made me mad, and here comes an admittedly very immature review of this film. Even if you didn’t see it (and I’m sure you didn’t) hang with me, because I still believe I can get you to empathize with my grievance.

In short, the movie centers around Brazil’s military dictatorship in the early 1970s and how they were forcibly trying to eradicate those that spoke out against this government. The focus is on the Paiva family, with the father Rubens Paiva being kidnapped and eventually murdered for his actions against the dictatorship. A fascinating and devastating story in real life, but we’re talking about movies here. The movie centers on Rubens’ wife, Eunice Paiva, who while also ruthlessly abused by the corrupt army, spends the rest of the movie worriedly hugging her kids… A LOT. And she had 5 kids of relatively similar ages. That’s 5 kids times about 10 hugs each — equating to about 50 on-screen hugs, potentially a cinematic record. I have never seen so much hugging in a movie (and this includes The Sound of Music — which had 7 Von Trapp children hugging Julie Andrews quite a bit).

Outside of all the hugging and worrying, and worrying followed by hugging, nothing else really happens in this movie. It’s filmed in a very naturalistic style to give the audience the empathetic feeling of being in this family during these heinous acts in 1971 Rio De Janeiro. But that naturalism is really just a lot of kids just sitting in their room together, feeling worried, then going to hug their mom. And there are too many kids (5), disallowing the audience to grow an emotional connection to any one of them.

I wish the director knew that it was ok, for narrative purposes, to remove some of the kids from the script. Case in point: last year’s excellent The Iron Claw, about the tragic suicides and deaths of the Von Erich wrestling family. In real life, the Von Erich family had six sons, many who died by suicide. But in the movie, even the filmmaker knew to cut the quantity of children to five, because six is just one too many suicides for anybody to watch. However, in I’m Still Here, where the kids seemed largely happy and, despite the heavy government oppression, had no interest in committing suicide, they kept each one in there to confuse me as to which kid I was watching give a hug to their mother.

Again, the story of the Paivas is utterly devastating and tragic in real life, BUT… in the film, outside of the sweet Paiva family dog, (named Pimpao) sadly being intentionally run over by “the government bad guys”, there are no emotional moments or any depth to this film.

However, and this is where you’re going to think I’m truly nuts and utterly heartless, I felt that the “cute dog getting run over by a car” scene felt forced and was just an attempt to infuse emotion into a film that didn’t have much of it. So I sleuthed online, and it turns out that, in real life, the Paiva family didn’t even have a dog or any pet for that matter. The whole dog dying thing was completely made up for dramatic effect. THERE NEVER WAS A DOGGY NAMED PIMPAO!!!! (Want proof — here ya go:  https://tinyurl.com/bdbvsync) So if, script wise, you can invent dogs, why not also oust kids, reduce hugging, and actually shape a movie around a good story that legitimately does have emotional resonance; focusing your artistic efforts on properly illustrating the theme of the film: That this type of oppressive government truly can happen anywhere and its up to a country’s citizens to stand up to it.

BEST MOVIE THAT MADE ME REALIZE THAT THE LINE BETWEEN “MOVIES” AND “CONTENT” IS GETTING VERY BLURRY: BEVERLY HILLS COP 4 AXEL F.

I love Eddie Murphy. He’s a comedy hero to me, and there was a period in my life where I watched everything he put out. There were certainly some down years in the early 90s (the Vampire in Brooklyn era)  but he had a major, hilarious comeback with The Nutty Professor. I was back on board — if Eddie put out a movie, I bought a ticket. Then, if you exclude his voice-acting roles (Mulan and the Shrek movies), he went on a massive artistic cold streak (Metro, Dr. Doolittle, Holy Man, Life — Bowfinger was good — Dr. Doolittle 2, Showtime, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, I Spy, Daddy Day Care, Haunted Mansion, Norbit).

It seemed Eddie had sacrificed his “funny” reputation and replaced it with that of a businessman — someone who cared more about what would sell rather than what would be good/funny. I think in some languages they call this a “sellout” (or in Dune’s Freman language, a Lisan-Al-Maud-D’Sellout).

I vividly recall when he was nominated for an Oscar for his role in 2006′s Dreamgirls, a pre-show interviewer said, “Eddie, this role is a major comeback for you”. Eddie was taken aback and responded with a pretty funny line: “Comeback? I just came from the bank”. That’s the Eddie we all know and love — a guy who’s naturally funny and charmed moviegoers for decades.

As a hero of mine, when I heard Eddie was considering making a return to stand-up comedy, I wasn’t only invigorated, but proud. Then he said that ‘Covid hit and his idea for a tour just fell apart’. Who knows why he didn’t resume the idea after Covid, but my guess is he became very enraptured by the gigantic checks that the tech streaming services were offering. He was definitely handsomely paid for Amazon’s needless Coming To America sequel “Coming 2 America” – something that was barely even a movie at all; merely a rehashing of scenes from the original. To illustrate the sloppiness of this movie, I recall a very weird scene with Eddie Murphy & Arsenio Hall talking to an aging James Earl Jones in bed in which the literal sight lines of the actors felt strange and awkward. It turns out that James Earl Jones was so ill he could barely film anything. But this didn’t stop Amazon and Eddie Murphy, they just filmed an ailing James Earl Jones elsewhere and used bizarre CGI editing to make it appear that they were in the same room. Amazon simply needed the “content”.

So when the big announcement came that Netflix was green lighting ANOTHER Beverly Hills Cop movie — fans rejoiced. Alright, more Axel Foley! But is this really the character Axel Foley? Or is it just an aging Eddie Murphy in a Detroit Lions jacket doing an imitation of the character we want to see? Adn does anybody really want a story centered around Axel Foley’s daughter? Also, per the narrative of the film, Axel Foley was pretty much an absentee father to her. Would the banana-in-the-tailpipe Axel Foley character really abandon his daughter? That’s kind of a strange bummer for Beverly Hills Cop fans. It’s akin to making a Forrest Gump sequel and finding out he became a womanizer — it would be jarring to the soul.

Admittedly, I watched about 45 minutes of Beverly Hills Cop 4 and couldn’t even finish it. It’s not just that it was bad, but it didn’t seem real — didn’t even feel like a movie. At the end of the day, I understand that all movies are ‘products-with-intent-to-earn’, but there is a difference between a movie as a product to be sold to an audience and a movie being used as “content” to attract or retain subscribers.

Netflix knew another Beverly Hills Cop could attract more subscribers and it could also simultaneously kill 2 hours of a subscriber’s time before their next month’s payment was due. I’m wondering if they could have released the new Beverly Hills Cop as just Eddie Murphy sitting in a lawn chair reading the first Beverly Hills Cop screenplay aloud directly into camera — or even just Eddie in his Detroit Lions jacket jogging down Rodeo Drive while barking, Eddie-Murphy-style, “BEVERLY HILLS COP FOUR!”. Sure, these ideas may disappoint or even insult people’s intelligence, but Netflix could save about $50MM on the film’s budget and the odds are that nobody would cancel their Netflix subscription.

AND HERE ARE THE BEST MOVIES I SAW THIS YEAR IN DESCENDING ORDER
(#1 Being The Best)

 14) THE APPRENTICE
A film about the rise of Donald Trump in the 70s/80s (played by the Oscar nominated Sebastian Stan) under the tutelage of shrewd attorney Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong — fellow Oscar nominee). This movie barely got distribution because of all the lawsuits threatened by Trump’s team, which is ironic, because, for most of the movie, Trump is painted as a relatively likable guy in an underdog situation (e.g. can’t get into the big meetings, dealing with an oppressive father, alcoholic brother, etc.). When have we seen Trump portrayed like that in the media the past 10 years? It’s almost flattering. Stan also plays a middle-aged Trump far more subtle than the blowhard imitations on SNL and elsewhere. Of course that flips when the Trump character starts getting his way — then he turns full megalomaniac. But the movie is sharply written with that gritty 70s/80s New York aesthetic and is a pleasure to watch. All the performances are worthy of the Oscar nominations they received (Amazon Prime Rental)

13) THE SUBSTANCE
A visually stunning sci-fi movie from director Coralie Fargeat about the perils of vanity. (Fargeat also made an awesome, must-watch 2017 revenge film, aptly titled Revenge). Demi Moore plays an aging actress given the chance to effectively live as a beautiful girl in her early 20s every other week — allowing her to still feel the attention and glow that comes with youth, beauty, and fame. Of course, there are Gremlins-esque rules and conditions to inhabiting the youthful body, and, well, things go wrong. This movie has some of the best visuals and bizarre make-up effects, but the writing leaves something to be desired. However, I don’t desire any more of the writing because the exhausting runtime definitely hampered my enjoyment of the film — primarily because we understand the thematic point of the film rather quickly and don’t need to spend all that extra time with it. (Note: It seemed every movie this year was over 2.5 hours. That makes it difficult to watch a lot of movies. I’m usually fine if the filmmaker needs the time or is savoring every minute, but, in this movie, many of the scenes were more fluff than substance, pun intended.) (Amazon Prime Rental)

12) THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP
What a great idea for a behind-the-scenes documentary. Everyone remembers the famous the 1985 “We Are The World” song to benefit African famine relief. So I was in awe seeing all the necessary logistics to not only bring 46 music industry megastars to record ONE song in ONE night, but also the monumental challenge of getting all of these enormous egos to creatively work together to get the song done in the few hours before dawn. Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, and Michael Jackson wrote the song, but getting all those personalities to fall in line with their vision was no easy task. And anybody who has ever tried to organize a project requiring the cooperation of other people knows that the path to the finish line can be a real pain in the ass. So imagine trying to get Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Kenny Rogers, and many other egomaniacs to do as they’re told. The most jaw-dropping scene from this movie centered around some late night artistic confusion. Stevie Wonder used this time to dream up an absolutely horrible idea to inject African-language lyrics into the song. In an effort likely to kowtow to Stevie the Legend, Michael Jackson started riffing on Stevie’s idea giving it credence. Fortunately for the starving people of Africa, Lionel Richie detected just how patently horrible this sounded and nipped the idea in the bud, thus leading to 20 million records sold and over $60 million for African aid. (Netflix)

11) JUROR #2
As Clint Eastwood enters his mid 90s, and becomes even less interested in working too diligently on a film, he seems to be selecting scripts to make that are much more compelling to carry the bulk of the load in terms of audience interest. This way he can do utilize his ‘only-one-take’ method and wrap production up rather quickly. I went into this movie not reading its plot description, and that’s the best way to enjoy this movie. It’s clearly a legal drama, but the premise is one I have not seen before and it certainly captured my imagination. I won’t spoil it for you… on the condition that you too do not go looking up “what it’s about” beforehand, because the interesting premise is in the very nature of what made it a fun movie. Admittedly, the movie gets a little too neat towards the end, but it still sits with me as a very satisfying story. (Max)

10) A REAL PAIN
A simple story about two cousins who take a trip to Poland to visit their grandmother’s childhood home and the concentration camp she was forced into. Kieran Culkin, from Succession, plays a character with severe bipolar disorder causing him to have social outbursts throughout the film that come across as both awkward and also refreshingly honest. Jesse Eisenberg, who wrote and directed the film, plays his more straightedge, rule-following cousin and, through several spats, the two form a tighter bond (as we would have expected). But the reason this movie is good is primarily because of Kieran Culkin’s performance. The ending leaves the viewer with a mature and particularly interesting mystery, which I am still thinking about a month after I saw the film. (Hulu).

9) WICKED
I watched this movie with the intent to dislike it, but that got messed up because I liked it. A friend of mine had the best review of this film — he said, “Wicked is pretty good if you turn your brain off”. I thought that was rather poignant and a perfect reflection of how I felt. Wicked succeeds at what it sets out to do: provide a joyous, sugary visual spectacle with some great music as they tell the origin story of the misunderstood and empathetic Wicked Witch of The West. Cynthia Erivo and Arianna Grande-Butera give very charming and likable performances, and the movie is perfectly unpretentious. I didn’t need my brain for one minute when watching this movie, and I appreciated the break from all the analytical brain energy I wasted on Dune 2. But I absolutely must mention that the last 15 minutes of this movie are absolutely fantastic — a tour de force of filmmaking, cinematography, CGI, acting and of course music featuring the signature song from Wicked. I will definitely be sitting front row when the sequel comes out this Thanksgiving, because I absolutely have to find out why the seemingly very kind Wicked Witch of The West, who spends nearly the entire duration of the film literally worried about the rights and well-being of animals, eventually winds up getting so pissed off about Dorothy and Toto.

8) IN A VIOLENT NATURE
Listen, I am not recommending you watch this extremely violent horror movie, which grabbed headlines due its overly gory kill scenes, BUT… it is quite a creative achievement and certainly one of my favorite movies of the year. The movie is an original subversion of the Jason Voorhies/Michael Myers type of slasher film, and its premise is very simple: Some campers take a necklace off a post that was meant to keep a psychotic demon killer underground. The killer comes back to life and attempts to reclaim the necklace that was given to him by his mother. Except what makes this movie cool is that it is all from the vantage point of the psychotic killer — with the film sometimes following him for a full 2-3 minutes as he strolls through fields in search of his victims before he finishes them off in particularly gruesome fashion. But my favorite component of this movie is actually in the writing. In some scenes, since we are in the vantage point of the killer, we can only overhear characters talking strategy about how they are going to evade the killer (which we would normally see from the campers’ vantage point in a standard slasher film), until, well… they don’t. In another subversion of the genre, a police officer character confronts the killer with a long monologue along the lines of “We Meet Again”, and it feels like the film is like Part 6 of a franchise — as if we are supposed to be familiar with this police officer from a previous installment in the series. But since we are watching from the psychotic monster killer’s point of view, the intention of the director is to make this police officer’s monologue sound kind of stupid — until the killer wrests away the police officer’s shotgun, breaks his spine, and then slowly saws off his head. Anyway, I liked this movie just a little more than Wicked. (Amazon Prime Rental)

7) THE BRUTALIST
Alright, let’s talk about The Brutalist, a movie that might win Best Picture even though there is no way that anybody, with any form of obligations, could find 3 hours and 35 minutes to see it in the theater. The Brutalist was so long, it even has an old fashioned intermission. I might even wager that some Academy members that voted The Brutalist to win best picture, even though they get “screeners” to watch at home, also may not have took the time to watch it (or watched it while scrolling through Tik Tok) and just took the all of the critics’ word that it was good. But don’t worry, I watched it for you, and here is my short review on The Brutalist so you don’t have to feel guilty about getting around to see it: It’s a beautiful film where the director had masterful control over it’s aesthetic and visual style — a wholly unique and handsome cinematic experience that was shot in VistaVision (a film stock that I can’t explain and just pointed out to sound smart). However, despite the film’s elegance, and a terrific performance from Guy Pearce as antagonist Harrison Van Buren, an eloquently spoken capitalist magnate, I never felt the movie had control over its narrative. While all of the acting was strong, I felt that the characters were taking narrative journeys that didn’t align with honest motivations — more the writer steering or forcing them to a place that resembled a character arc, but just felt… off. Late in the film, and this is debatable, but Guy Pearce’s character takes a major action that feels out of character. It was a creative choice by the screenwriter, but it felt like the writer needed a big action to give the film a resolve, and it took me out of the world a bit. Additionally, Felicity Jones’ character, despite her being the object of affection of the main character (Adrian Brody) when they were separated in concentration camps, feels out of place in the 2nd half of the film — with an entire narrative, and a ton of screen time, devoted to her handicap. This characterization and all of her suffering distracted me from the more intriguing main storyline watching Guy Pearce frustrate the hell out of Adrian Brody. However, my main thought while watching The Brutalist was that this would have been a super interesting movie if we instead experienced the story from the vantage point of Guy Pearce’s Harrison Van Buren as the main character. He was the most interesting character and a heavy portion of the movie is just Adrian Brody getting pissed off by everything Pearce does. Adrian Brody’s story is, more of less, the post World War 2 sympathetic immigrant story we have seen many times before. The writer gives him “character traits”, like an inexplicable addiction to heroin, making Adrian Brody, a remarkably skilled architect, the highest functioning heroin addict in the history of film and television — but Pearce’s maniacally anxious and poetically articulate character felt fresh, as he simultaneously befriends and abuses Adrian Brody. I would love to see the world from Pearce’s point of view. If The Brutalist writer/director wants to make THAT version of the film, called, like, “I Said Shut Up, Adrian!“, I would happily watch it even if he made it 7 hours and 10 minutes long. (Amazon Prime Rental)

6) A DIFFERENT MAN
I thought about this movie for days after I saw it. A psychological thriller in which Sebastian Stan (who is evolving into one of the best character actors in modern cinema) plays a man with an extremely disfigured face. His deformity causes him extreme pain, depression and hopelessness until a new experimental drug gives him the possibility of having a “normal” face. He sheds his disfigured skin and sees that he actually has a very “traditionally” handsome face underneath which instantly grants him “traditional” success — acting jobs, a new girlfriend, a successful real estate career. The first half of the movie is… “fine”, what you would expect — scenes of Stan being depressed, but the second half of the movie is pure gleeful magic, when Stan meets another man, Oswald, who has the exact same facial deformity, except Oswald LOVES LIVING LIFE and is an optimist in absolutely every single way. No depression whatsoever. Oswald becomes a rival and unintentional antagonist to Stan, and it’s just so hilarious (likely intentionally so) watching scene after scene where Oswald’s beaming positive attitude nets him reward after reward driving an envious Stan completely bonkers! I could watch the second half of this movie 10 times in a row. (Max)

5) HIT MAN
Any time writer/director and indie film pioneer Richard Linklater makes anything, it’s important to pay attention. This movie cleverly attests that the very idea of a “Hit Man” is actually a mythological character that only exists in the public’s imagination.  A straightedge, somewhat nerdy college professor, played by Glen Powell, takes part time work as a “Hit Man” disguising himself as different personas to fit what each specific client perceives what a Hit Man should look and sound like. He then captures their trust and utilizes it to effectively talk people out of killing whomever they want dead, and also turns them into the police. Eventually he finds himself pretending to be a complete 180 alter-ego of himself — an ultra cool and suave badass in order to help a beautiful woman he has a crush on. The film is definitely zany in parts, and there is a well thought out plot and love story to keep it moving, but the underlying point of the film is what captured my attention. By way of this Hit Man premise, Linklater directly and adroitly asks the thematic question — if you pretend to be someone else for long enough, can you actually truly become that person? It asks us to question if we are who we really think we are, complete with all our weaknesses, or, by assuming and inhabiting a different personality that we aspire to, can we actually become this new, improved version of ourselves. (Netflix)

4) I SAW THE TV GLOW
I give massive credit to any movie that creates not only a premise but also a vibe that utterly pulls me in from beginning to end. Significant kudos to writer/filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun for making a wholly original movie unlike I have ever seen before. It all centers around two misanthropic High School kids in the 90s bonding over their obsession over a late night, monster-fighting young-adult TV show in the vain of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. But there is an overhanging, ethereal sci-fi vibe questioning if the TV Show is just a TV show… or something much more sinister. I wouldn’t want to spoil anything, and the less you know about this movie the better. The third act definitely gets quite strange and polarizing,  but upon reading about the movie after I saw it, the filmmaker revealed that the whole movie was an allegory for a certain type of teenage experience (hint: it was an issue that was inexplicably at the heart of the 2024 presidential election). Looking at the movie through this lens, I found the film even more brilliant. A must watch if you’re craving something truly different that keep you captivated throughout. (Max)

3) WOMAN OF THE HOUR
For some reason, this picture got lost in the fold this year. This movie is a dramatization of a true story about a serial killer, Rodney Alcala, who somehow got on the hit 1970s TV show The Dating Game as one of the eligible bachelors. Anna Kendrick, who both stars in and impressively directs this movie, plays the contestant who eventually selects the killer as the winner and wins a date with him as we wonder what fate will befall her. I expected this movie to be just be something fun to watch while I ate dinner, and was blown away by how much I was enraptured by it. The true star of the film is Daniel Zovatto, who plays Rodney the serial killer. He should have been nominated for every acting award this year. The movie is interspersed, a la Zodiac, with his various kills of young women over the years leading up to his appearance on The Dating Game. Zovatto simultaneously plays super charming and devil-possessed-evil with precision. Additionally, this movie has some incredibly directed scenes full of heart pounding tension, namely when Anna Kendrick and Rodney The Killer go on a date. Ultimately, this is both a creepy and terrifically engaging movie that didn’t have one dull moment. Additionally, Woman Of The Hour, via The Dating Game premise, also makes some unique thematic points about women’s feelings toward the abundance of flawed men that they have to choose from. (Netflix)

2) EMILIA PEREZ
Originality is not a requirement for a movie to be deemed great, but Emilia Perez truly does succeed in creating a visceral film experience that is totally original across the board. The very concept creates intrigue: a musical about a drug kingpin that wants to transition from a man to a woman and enlists the help of a lawyer to secretly take care of it. The premise alone is unique, but the fact that longtime director Jacques Audiard weaves this into a musical is nothing short of extraordinary. To add to the originality, its a musical unlike I’ve ever seen. If Wicked is your standard “big cast breaks out into song” musical, then this is one in which much of the singing is done in a more softly spoken manner. It’s not about belting out the big number, but more subtle music in which a character sings a song, for example, to the steady beat of a loud helicopter blade cutting through the sky. However, this doesn’t stop the music from being extremely catchy, namely any song aggressively sung by Zoe Saldana, who gives her best performance ever. (Yes, sorry nerds — even better than all her goofy Avatar stuff). My only criticisms of this movie (keeping this movie at my #2 of the year) is that the third act felt a bit rushed (Note: Emilia Perez is actually the movie that needed 3 hours and 35 minutes to tell the complex story, not The Brutalist), the Edgar Ramirez character was under developed, Emilia’s love story with Epifania felt a bit jammed in there, and Selena Gomez can get a little annoying — but I’m willing to dismiss my own criticisms as just petty observations. Admittedly, I can see how Emilia Perez could be polarizing, and may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m on the side that Emilia Perez is a breathtaking vision and film experience that more artists should aspire to make. (Netflix)

1) ANORA
This movie had all the hype this year winning the Palm D’Or at Cannes Film Festival, as well as many other major awards. Thus, I was highly skeptical, and the movie would need to be even more impressive than normal to win me over. When I watch a movie, more than anything, I want to have an emotional experience. I’m hoping to get interesting characters with strong performances that enable me to empathize with them — all leading to an emotional narrative payoff of some kind that creates an invigorating human feeling. This is actually a concept that I feel that movies and TV shows can do better than books given the subtle expressions from the actors that can imply a wide range of feelings. Anora was positioned to the public as a “love story”, which is technically true — just not in the way you expect. Admittedly, the middle section of this movie, while still good, takes a tonal change, but the first 45 minutes and last 45 minutes of the movie are perfect. The performances are also remarkable. Mikey Madison should win best actress (even though Fernanda Torres from I’m Still Here and all of her hugging are the favorite to win the Oscar — maybe she can also hug the Oscar) and Yura Borisov should win best supporting actor, as he gives one of the all-time best subtle and impactful performances. Every time he is on screen, you can’t look away and he can do more with a ‘look’ than just about any modern day actor. Writer/Director Sean Baker, an inspiration to indie filmmakers everywhere for his ability to make such captivating films on micro budgets, does something sneaky with his storytelling, both in writing and in how he crafts a single shot to have a thunderous amount of emotional resonance; all of this leading to an extremely affecting final scene that stayed with me for days after I watched it. When it ended, I actually wanted to watch the movie again immediately just to experience it again. Ultimately, if films like Beverly Hills Cop 4 are meant to be “content” that streaming services need, Anora is meant to be art that the world deserves. (Amazon Prime Rental)

To read Aaron Bilgrad Movie Awards from past years, click HERE