- The 2022 Academy Award nominations are out.

Today's guest says they celebrate a remarkable array of films, exploring topics as diverse as toxic masculinity and environmental catastrophe.

He's film critic Pete Hammond, this week on "Story in the Public Square."

(upbeat music) Hello, and welcome to "Story in the Public Square," where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, with the Providence Journal.

- The Academy Award nominations are out, and we're here today to talk about them with Pete Hammond, the awards columnist and chief film critic for Deadline.

He joins us today from his home in California.

Pete, thanks so much for being with us.

- Absolutely.

Good to see you again.

- You know, you were with us a year ago to talk about the Academy Awards, and we should say that this year's are set for Sunday, March 27th, at eight p.m. Eastern and five p.m. Pacific.

Before we get into some of the films that are nominated, we're at the end of the second full year of the pandemic.

What's the state of Hollywood and the film industry in general after this incredible two years?

- I think it's hopefully coming back ever so slowly.

Right now, there's enthusiasm that, you know, we're getting rid of a lot of mask mandates and different things in Hollywood, and hopefully, for the Academy Awards is what that means too because we're hoping that it looks like the Academy Awards and not like last year's debacle of a show that was necessitated by the pandemic but was very low-key and just kinda weird for the Oscars, which is a big glamor, red carpet, you know, full audience event, and that's what they're going for again here as sort of a back to normalcy idea.

Get the stars out again, and celebrate what I think has been a pretty good year for movies, and the industry has kept making them during the pandemic, which is amazing, and turned out if you look at all these movies that have been released in this year, most of them have COVID advisors on the end credits, so they did it during a pandemic.

- So when we talked a year ago, the industry was celebrating a remarkably diverse group of Oscar nominees.

Is representation still an issue this year for the Academy?

- I haven't heard that.

They've had other problems this year, but Oscars so white isn't one of them.

They've had a number of nominees in the acting categories again.

Of course, Denzel Washington and Will Smith.

Ariana DeBose, which who is an Afro Latina here, you know, and getting diversity in many other categories here, females in the cinematography category now, which is only the second one ever.

Ari Wegner for "Power of the Dog" nominated there.

They seem to be very conscious of this, and diversity has not come up in any controversial way this year.

You know, of course, we always want more.

Everybody, you know, says, "Well, this one didn't get nominated," or, "That one didn't," but the fact is, it's a pretty good lineup and fairly diverse, and that, I think, is due to the Academy changing its membership and expanding.

Now, there's over 10,000 members, and they've really gone global, so there's a big international footprint now in the Academy as well.

- Pete, let's turn to the films that are nominated for Best Picture this year.

We'll get into the specifics, but from the broadest perspective, what's your overall assessment of this year's crop of Best Picture nominees?

- Well, I think they represent what we've been going through in the pandemic: a need for connection, a need for family.

You see in the Best Picture lineup an extraordinary kind of group of films that deal with that idea.

"Belfast," which is about a family trying to survive the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969.

"King Richard," which is a family in the tennis world there, but very much a family unit, as portrayed in that movie.

"CODA," which is dealing with the Deaf community and a family unit there, where there's a hearing person, and the brother and the parents are Deaf, and it's dealing with that.

A lot of that kind of movie, I call 'em, and we are calling them in Hollywood right now, the heart movies that have come out here, and I don't think it's an accident.

I think Academy voters and in other groups too, have connected with that, and so you have that.

Now, on the other hand, you have the frontrunner with 12 nominations, "The Power of the Dog," which was anything but a warmhearted kind of family movie.

So there's that aspect too, but I do think there's more on the other end of it, so it makes for an interesting kind of race just on that level, and then of course, you have, you know, you have a lot of diversity in the kinds of movies.

We have "West Side Story."

Steven Spielberg, who has remade a movie.

You know, 60 years ago, it became the most honored movie and still is, "West Side Story," in Academy history, honored movie musical, winning 10, and now we have it, you know, happening again here, and so I think that's really interesting to see how that will do here.

No remake has ever won Best Picture, and no remake actually has ever been nominated in this way either, so you know, it's kind of interesting in that way.

- Well, so let's run through some of these in specific detail, so you mentioned "Belfast," which is just, I think, personally, my favorite of the 10 that were nominated this year.

This was just a beautiful film from Kenneth Branagh.

- Oh, God, I love "Belfast."

I happen to have seen it.

I'm in this kind of secret little group, where they just basically put us in front of the screen, (interference obscuring speech) and hey, and I didn't even know Ken Branagh had made the movie until the end credits rolled, so I saw it cold, and I was just blown away by it.

It's a very nice memoir.

It's his story essentially, growing up in Northern Ireland on that street, and beautifully cast, wonderful cast, largely Irish actors: Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, Ciaran Hinds.

'Course, it has Judi Dench in it, and the little kid is great, but it's in beautiful black and white, all that Van Morrison music on the soundtrack.

Van Morrison's nominated in the Best Song category.

It's one that we connect with.

Again, that's what I was saying before.

It's about family, and it's about family going through hard times, and what could be more appropriate right now, because there's a lotta families going through hard times, and there is still that connection that comes through, and very importantly, I think, that Academy members will like is a love for movies, a love for the past too, the movies of the past, as this kid is a movie nut, and he's always going to movies, so you see all those film clips from Raquel Welch in "One Million Years B.C."

to "Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," just a wonderful kinda thing that emphasizes the theatrical experience, sitting in a movie theater, something that we hadn't been able to do for a while, and this movie just reinforces that.

- So we'll go in alphabetical order here.

Let's have you talk about CODA, and I would note it's from Apple Original Films.

- Yeah, it is, and it wasn't an Apple film when it started its life at the Sundance Film Festival, not this year, but a year ago, and it won every conceivable award.

It broke all records at Sundance, winning four awards: the audience awards, the jury awards, anything you could win, and I think it just touched the heart, and it definitely did, but it also is a very smart movie.

It's a remake of a 2014 French film that starred hearing actors playing Deaf characters.

This, they would not make.

They got Marlee Matlin involved, probably, obviously the best known and Oscar-winning Deaf actress, and she refused to do it unless they made this family authentic, and so they hired a Deaf actor, Troy Kotsur.

The brother is played by a Deaf actor, and it's very authentic in that way, and it just shows that this family's problems are very universal, you know.

It's not limited to, you know, just the Deaf community, and I think that's why it's really struck a chord as well, and to last all the way from Sundance, get picked up for $25 million outta the Sundance Film Festival by Apple and then streaming on Apple, and it's gone all the way now to get three Oscar nominations and a Best Picture nomination there included in that.

- This was, emotionally, one of the most affecting films for me.

The story of the family and just the resolution of it, I just found beautiful.

For lack of a better word, it was just a beautifully told story.

- Yeah, it is, and it's also very funny.

The relationship (Jim laughing) between the two parents is hilarious.

I mean, they're horny as hell, (Jim laughing) you know.

(Jim and Pete laughing) It's just like, you know, it has all these elements in it that people really loved.

- Well, so speaking of funny, the end of the world, so "Don't Look Up" (Pete and G. Wayne laughing) from Adam McKay and Kevin Messick and Netflix is satire, and I think it might be the funniest movie about the end of the world that I've ever seen.

- [Pete] Yeah, next to "Dr. Strangelove," - Yeah.

(laughs) - (laughs) to which it's been compared.

It's a terrific movie.

I really liked it.

It's an all-star cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer, on and on, Meryl Streep, you know, Jonah Hill.

It's really, really fun.

Adam McKay is that rare breed right now in movies.

He's like a Billy Wilder.

He's a satirist, and he takes things.

I was talking to him actually three years ago, when he had another movie out, "V," or "Vice," actually, and I said, "What are you gonna do next?"

And he says "I don't know.

I wanna do something about climate change."

That's literally what he said, and this is what he came up with, which is not on its surface about climate change, but is the perfect satirical vehicle, you know, a comet coming to Earth, and the world we live in, 24-hour news cycle, and all these people who are so unconcerned, seemingly, with this, and just these two characters, played by Leo and Jennifer, that are trying to warn people there's a comet that's gonna destroy the planet.

I thought it was a very funny idea, but it has something to say, and I thought that was really cool.

- It was one of my favorites, for sure, and you know, you make a good point.

It's hard to do brilliant satire, and I think "Don't Look Up" clearly fits that description.

It's just a marvelous film.

It's a long film, but it's worth every minute of watching.

So talk about "Drive My Car."

Again, we're going in alphabetical order here.

What's the story about "Drive My Car"?

- Well, if you had told me when I saw "Drive My Car" before the Cannes Film Festival happened.

This year, it was in July, and it was sent to me by the publicist.

They said, "This is the competition," and I didn't even go to Cannes this year, but I was reviewing films as I could here, and I said, "Great, I'll sit here and watch it."

It's three hours.

It's 40 minutes before the opening credits happen.

(G. Wayne and Jim laughing) And so you really have to invest your time.

It is a Japanese film.

It's a very, you know, insular kind of story about this man who's going through tragedy in his own personal life and also is a stage director, and he's going to direct a production of "Uncle Vanya" in Hiroshima, and so he gets a driver.

So there is that, and it's a lot of talk, and it goes on, and it's a lotta Chekhov, and it's a lot of things familiar to Japanese audiences, but again has a universal kind of theme, I think, too that connects, you know, a lotta people are going through a lot of introspection, and what does life mean, essentially?

"Drive My Car" hit a nerve there.

I was surprised, though, that it has gone all the way to get a Best Picture nomination, director and screenplay.

I thought maybe that's, but the critics' groups awarded this Best Picture by several of the top ones: LA, New York, National Society, and I think that really helped, got some Academy members to actually look at the film and see what was going on with it.

(alarm beeping) - [Jim] What about "Dune?"

(Pete laughing) That's from- - What about "Dune?"

(Pete and Jim laughing) - [Jim] Well, tell us about "Dune," and it's from Warner Brothers.

- That's a great segue.

(all laughing) - [Jim] It was totally unintentional, trust me.

(Jim and Pete laughing) - You could not find something more opposite of "Drive My Car" in terms of what it is.

"Dune" is a return to big, giant, epic filmmaking, but one with a really intelligent screenplay, and Denis Villeneuve, who directed it and cowrote the screenplay and all of that really was a fan of the book, and so he went back to what made the book so amazing.

It's lasted for so many years, and so many generations keep picking it up.

Instead of the David Lynch version of "Dune," which was a bit of a disaster, he took this and got to the heart of what Frank Herbert's book was about and also gave it this production value.

That's why it has 10 nominations and probably will win most of them, you know, in terms of production design and its look, its visual effects and cinematography and the music score by Hans Zimmer.

It's just beautifully made, and I only wish it had opened exclusively in theaters rather than having to share it on HBO Max because of what Warner Brothers was doing last year because of the pandemic, but it is one that must be seen on the big screen.

- Just for the visuals alone, I would think.

It's a Warner Brothers film.

Another Warner Brothers film, though, is "King Richard."

- Yeah, it's a great movie.

I really liked it.

My father was a tennis pro.

I've always been into tennis, so you don't need to be into tennis to like that 'cause again, as I mentioned before, this is one of those movies, it's a true family story and a very true story too.

Obviously Serena and Venus Williams, and they're sisters, and so it's this family that grew up in this family unit, and kind of run by a very, not necessarily always likable, man here, but one very determined.

I mean, he literally, before he had the two daughters, Venus and Serena, had a plan to turn them into tennis superstars before they were born.

It's remarkable, and he, you know, is kind of, you know, bull-headed in a lotta ways and thought he knew best, but you know, in the end, this movie shows that and has a spectacular performance by Will Smith, which will probably win him an Oscar, and Aunjanue Ellis as his wife is wonderful in it too.

The girls are believable as tennis players, which is tough for actors.

They had to learn that, but it's a movie about the family unit.

You like it because you love this family working together, and you love the interactions between them, and it's also, we talked about diversity.

It's wonderful to see this black family growing up in Compton, California, which gets a bad rap a lotta the times, but it shows that wonderful kind of family life on that basis that we don't always get to see portrayed on the screen.

- So "Licorice Pizza" from MGM United Artists.

- Loved it.

- Give us the story on that.

- You loved it.

- It's so good.

Paul Thomas Anderson, you know, the Academy loves Paul Thomas Anderson.

Before this, he had had eight Oscar nominations.

Now, he has 11 because he got three for this: picture, screenplay, director.

He always comes up with something different.

This is a return to his roots, actually, the lightest kind of film, I think, the one he's having the most fun with, set again in his beloved San Fernando Valley, and really a quirky kind of story, a coming of age story, not about the 15-year-old kid at its center.

That kid has already come of age.

You know he's going to, you know, rule the world, but the 25-year-old girl that he gets involved with, and its really kind of her coming of age story, so it's different, and wonderful actors that you know, like Bradley Cooper doing a kind of fun impression of Jon Peters, the producer, and Sean Penn, who's playing a thinly disguised William Holden.

I mean, wow kinda roles there, but also, it's two leads.

Cooper Hoffman, who is Philip Seymour Hoffman's son, and Alana Haim, who Anderson actually wrote this for her.

She's part of the musical group The Haims Sisters, and he produced some of their music videos, so that's how he knew her.

She'd never acted before.

I just thought it was a wonderful movie.

You know, it works on so many levels.

Anderson's just a great writer, and you know, for me, "Licorice Pizza" also is a wonderful piece of nostalgia, too, growing up in southern California, as I have.

- Pete, you mentioned Bradley Cooper.

He is the leading man in "Nightmare Alley" from Guillermo del Toro.

This is a really interesting atmospheric film noir.

- Yeah, have you seen the original film?

- [Jim] No, I didn't know there was an original.

- Yes, from 1946 or '47, starred Tyrone Power, and it's very much, if you see that film and you see this film, you will definitely know it's from the same source, and it is a remake of that but a very different kind of remake.

Guillermo del Toro, who's just a genius, has shot it in color.

That film was in black and white, a real film noir.

This is a color film noir.

Ironically, he also shot it in black and white, and they've since released a black and white version of this, which is interesting to see side by side, but it doesn't have the same kind of trajectory with the Bradley Cooper character that Tyrone Power did.

In those days, you could see the studio interfering, saying, "We can't end it like this."

This movie has a very tough ending and a very interesting character to see where Cooper gets.

I think the Academy missed the boat in not nominating Bradley Cooper for this film.

- [Jim] It was a remarkable performance.

- It's a great performance.

It may just be too tough and whatever.

It did get a Best Picture nomination and some technical ones, as it well deserved, but- - You know, the old English student in me, though, was mesmerized by the presence of precipitation, both frozen and liquid, throughout the film, (Pete laughing) and I haven't, I haven't still figured out what that's about, but there seems to be, has to be some sorta significance to that.

- That's interesting, yeah, and you know, I mean, del Toro is a student of everything, so that would be an interesting take, what's in his head in creating this, but you're absolutely right when you think about it.

There's a lot of that in this film here.

(laughs) - A lot, there's a lot, so.

Movies that have endings that sorta leave you, we have to talk about "The Power of the Dog," but we won't talk about the ending because we don't wanna give anything away, but this is just an incredible film.

- Yes, well, Jane Campion, who's a beloved filmmaker from Australia, has not made a feature film in 12 years, and she had done "Top of the Lake" for a television miniseries and things like that, but she decided when she finally got a hold of this book by Thomas Savage, which was written in 1967, it was actually first optioned by Paul Newman, who wanted to play the Benedict Cumberbatch role, and when I saw the movie, I actually said, the first time I interviewed her, I said.

You know, no, I interviewed Benedict Cumberbatch, and I said, "This woulda been, this movie reminded me of 'Hud,' the movie that Paul Newman did in '63," and he said, "That's really funny 'cause Paul Newman wanted to play this character," and I said, "See, I knew it!"

You know, it was of that time, and it took all those years, but it is that, I wouldn't even call him an antihero 'cause he's not a likable character.

He's a very tough character, but it attracted a great character actor/movie star like Newman, and you could see that all these years later.

It still has that in Benedict Cumberbatch, but it's such a three-dimensional character.

You really see his conflict with his own sexuality and everything.

It's a very unusual story.

I can see why Hollywood might've shied away from it.

It's not an easy story to pigeonhole or to shoot, and all credit to Jane Campion for finding a way into that book and making this movie finally, and a wonderful task beyond Benedict Cumberbatch as well.

- So the last one on our list, this is a movie that's gotten a lotta buzz.

It got buzz before it was shot.

It got buzz when it was released, and it's still getting buzz: "West Side Story," and of course, that's from Disney and from Steven Spielberg.

Talk about that.

- Yeah, it's actually from 20th Century Fox, which Disney swallowed up, and so they inherited it that way, and Fox gave the go-ahead when they were a standalone studio, to remake this.

I think it was a, first of all, when I heard they were remaking, I go, "Why?

Would would you," you know, "Remake Howard the Duck or something we want to, (Pete and G. Wayne laughing) but don't remake "West Side Story."

- That's hilarious.

(Pete laughing) He's shivering by now.

(Pete and G. Wayne laughing) - I mean, why would you remake this kind of iconic movie that already has won all these awards and things, but what they did, keeping it in the time period that it was set, it was very true to that.

You know, Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins, the original, all set in the '50s, but now, when you see these gangs, and you see the gentrification going on, Adam Stockhausen's amazing production design there in New York, and you see the hopelessness for these groups here, it really does resonate today.

I really could see the Jets almost as a version of the Proud Boys right now in their own way, and the Sharks also having their neighborhood rolled over by what later was to become Lincoln Center, you know, and pushed out the immigrant experience, and I think Tony Kushner's adaptation, it's very viable, and I think that's what attracted Spielberg to the idea of making it, other than the fact too that he always loved "West Side Story" growing up, so.

- Pete, you know, we breezed through these 10 episodes.

We have a 27-minute show here, 10 movies to talk about, and you do such a wonderful job sort of encapsulating what we're gonna be talking about around the awards themselves.

I asked you this question last year.

I'm gonna ask you again.

Are there any films that you saw this year that you thought should have been nominated for Best Picture?

- I was really happy this year with the lineup that they came up with, but I loved "Being the Ricardos."

I thought Aaron Sorkin did a great job in telling the love story/marriage/divorce of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and compressing it into one week in the making of "I Love Lucy," but it's not about "I Love Lucy."

It's about them, and I thought the acting was great, but I thought it was so brilliantly written, a very challenging script.

He didn't even get nominated for Original Screenplay.

I think they're just jealous of Aaron Sorkin now 'cause he's a freaking genius, but.

(all laughing) - [Jim] I think you're right, 'cause he is a genius.

There's no question.

- And I really liked that film, and I would've liked to have seen that make the 10, but you know, they, for now, they're back to a solid 10 nominees for the first time in several years.

The whole idea there was to get "Spiderman" and "James Bond" and maybe those nominated, and I would say also, both those, huge hit movies, are worthy of Best Picture nominations.

They're both culminations of their own stories.

"Spiderman" I thought was a spectacular piece of filmmaking on that level, and also, I really liked "No Time to Die," the James Bond film.

I thought that took great risk.

I thought Daniel Craig was great.

I would've liked to have seen them in there.

Academy, baby, lose your snobbery over movies that make money.

I know you wanna work in the business and make all the money that these movies make, but when it comes time to vote, you just, like, go the other way.

I think these are art in their own ways as well.

So I would've liked to have seen those, one of them at least, get into this top 10.

- Well, the Academy Awards are set for Sunday Night, March 27th, at 8 p.m. Eastern and 5 p.m. Pacific.

Pete Hammond, thank you so much for going over the Best Picture nominees this year with us.

- Absolutely, happy to be here.

Thank you.

- He's Pete Hammond, with Deadline.

That's all the time we have this week, but if you wanna know more about "Story in the Public Square," you can find us on Facebook and Twitter, or visit PellCenter.org, where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

For G. Wayne Miller, I'm Jim Ludes, asking you to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square."

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