The Florida Project (2017) Review

 Title: The Florida Project
Year: 2017
Director: Sean Baker
Country: US
Language: English

After Sean Baker's Anora won 5 Oscars at the 97th Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Original Screenplay) I decided to check out Baker's other works. On Best Pick Podcast, one of the co-hosts said that The Florida Project, was his better film, so I viewed that next. Baker's interest in exploring marginalized communities is very well highlighted in The Florida Project. I was very impressed by it - this film should have been very big during the 2017 Oscars. 

In this, a single mother (Bria Vinaite) and the manager (Willem Dafoe) of a roadside motel do their utmost to maintain the innocence of a six-year-old girl's (Brooklynn Prince) life.

The Florida Project depicts the "hidden homeless" of society - people who do not live in the streets, but lack stable housing. These cheap long-term motels, which do actually exist in the United States, are a constant source of stress for those who live in them due to the stress of housing insecurity. The social stratification in society - where economic and social resources are unevenly distributed - is very apparent in the setting of this film as the "hidden homeless" live on the outskirts of Disney World. There is clearly a divide between the poor locals & wealthy tourists, a conflict which comes up numerous times throughout its run-time. 

The title of the film has a double meaning. Walt Disney initially called Disneyworld "The Florida Project" as it was being built & "projects" typically refers to housing in low-income urban neighborhoods. Baker has these ideas clash & what we end up seeing is a remarkable film about childhood poverty & the failures of institutions. Baker also suggests that social policies may hinder those in marginalized communities and that the stigma of being poor may keep those in the lower class from progressing in society. 

The Florida Project is a really smart, well crafted, film that had me deep in introspection long after the film ended. I think, considering the current political climate - where billionaires who don't pay taxes are saying that the poor are "parasites"- we should cherish a work like this & frequently re-watch it to humble ourselves. 

Anora (2024) Review

 Title: Anora
Year: 2024
Director: Sean Baker
Country: US
Language: English

At the 97th Academy Awards, Sean Baker's Anora won five Oscars. These were Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. It was a very well liked film prior to the Oscars, having won Palm D'or at Cannes, but it wasn't really considered a front-runner until a few weeks prior to the show. I'm pretty happy that such a low budget movie won such a prestigious award. Made for $6 million, Baker proves that great storytelling can surpass big budget spectacles. 

In Anora, a young escort from Brooklyn (Mikey Madison) meets and impulsively marries the son (Mark Eydelshteyn) of a Russian oligarch Once the news reaches Russia, her fairy tale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.

Written, Directed, and Co-Produced by Sean Baker, Anora is a film with relentless energy. Despite it being 2hr 30min, it feels like a film with half that run-time as we go from Cinderella fairytale to Slapstick comedy to meaningful reflection on capitalism & class division. Baker really pulls us into Anora's world - giving us an empathetic glimpse of a life of a sex worker on the fringes of society. We relate to her because we are the same working class trying to not be exploited by the careless 1%.

We also empathize with the hired goons, Igor (Yura Borisov) and Nick (Paul Weissmann), who are men also exploited by capitalism & have to disrupt Anora's marriage as part of their job. They are fairly non-violent, which adds to the escalating tension & funny-as-hell slapstick that permeates the middle of the film. They have to restrain Anora, while getting beaten up by her. This results in a broken nose, falls through the table. It feels very much like a Three Stooges routine. 

I was very impressed by Anora. it had me interested in Sean Baker's other works like The Florida Project (2017). Baker does a great job at highlighting marginalized people & bringing awareness to people who are lower class. After watching the film, I had a lot of thoughts regarding class, gender and how we can improve society for people like Anora. Baker has made an important film that, hopefully, will be regarded as a classic in the future. 

Every Best Picture Ranked (Best to Worst)

 Title: Every "Best Picture" Ranked (Best to Worst)

The 97th Academy Awards have come and gone. We have a new "Best Picture" in Sean Baker's Anora. I thought Conclave would win, but I'm happy to be wrong. Anora was a great film, that was equal parts comedy and tearjerker. In 2024 I made it a goal to watch EVERY Best Picture Winner. Sometimes this goal was easy, like watching Hitchock's Rebecca (1940), and sometimes it was a brutal slog, like having to watch Cimarron (1931). At the time I didn't do a Best Picture ranking, but with Anora's win I feel like finally writing one. So here it is: 

1. All About Eve (1950)
2. Casablanca (1942)
3. Schindler's List (1993)
4. Moonlight (2016)
5. West Side Story (1961)
6. How Green Was My Valley (1941)
7. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
8. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
9. The Apartment (1960)
10. The Godfather (1972)
11. The Godfather Part II (1974)
12. Mrs. Miniver (1942)
13. On the Waterfront (1954)
14. No Country for Old Men (2007)
15. Gone With the Wind (1939)
16. Parasite (2019)
17. Rebecca (1940)
18. Oliver! (1968)
    
19. Silence of the Lambs (1991)
20. My Fair Lady (1964)
21. Amadeus (1984)
22. An American in Paris (1951)
    
    
    
    
23. Hamlet (1948)
24. Tom Jones (1963)
25. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
26. The Departed (2006)
27. The Sound of Music (1965)
28. It Happened One Night (1934)
29. From Here to Eternity (1953)
30. Titanic (1997)
    
31. The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
    
32. Return of the King (2003)
33. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
    
34. Anora (2024)
35. Unforgiven (1992)
36. Ordinary People (1980)
37. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
38. Annie Hall (1977)
39. Terms of Endearment (1983)
40. Marty (1955)
41. Rocky (1976)
42. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
43. Chariots of Fire (1981)
44. Chicago (2003)
    
    
    
    
45. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
46. The Deer Hunter (1978)
    
47. Braveheart (1995)
48. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
49. Oppenheimer (2023)
50. The Great Zeigfeld (1936)
51. Grand Hotel (1932)
52. 12 Years a Slave (2014)
53. Gladiator (2000)
54. The Lost Weekend (1945)
55. Nomadland (2020)
56. You Can't Take it With You (1938)
57. Gigi (1958)
    
    
    
    
58. The Sting (1973)
59. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
60. Spotlight (2015)
61. The French Connection (1971)
62. Wings (1927) 
63. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
64. Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
65. Forrest Gump (1994)
    
66. The Last Emperor (1987)
    
67. The Artist (2011)
68. American Beauty (1999)
69. Shakespeare in Love (1998)
70. The English Patient (1996)
71. Going My Way (1944)
    
    
    
    
72. Coda (2021)
73. The Broadway Melody (1929)
74. Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
75. The Shape of Water (2017)
76. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
    
77. Ben Hur (1959)
78. The Hurt Locker (2009)
79. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
80. Birdman (2014)
81. Argo (2012)
82. Rain Man (1988)
83. The King's Speech (2010)
84. Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
85. A Beautiful Mind (2001)
86. Platoon (1988)
87. Patton (1970)
88. Gandhi (1982)
89. All the King's Men (1949)
90. Out of Africa (1985)
91. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) 
92. Dances with Wolves (1990)
93. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
94. Green Book (2018)
95. Crash (2005) 
96. Cavalcade (1933)
97. Cimarron (1931)

Junior (1994) Review

Title: Junior
Year: 1994
Director: Ivan Reitman
Country: US
Language: English

I watched Junior (1994) when I was far too young. This movie was recurring nightmare fuel for an impressionable 6 year old boy, who thought the plot was real. "Boys can get pregnant!?". My anxiety went through the roof as I struggled to understand basic anatomy & was convinced I could get myself pregnant at any moment. "How do babies even get made!?" After a few weeks of trying to protect myself from whatever made boys pregnant, "Does eating apples cause it!?" I went to my parents who informed me of some pretty basic common knowledge.

As part of a fertility research project, a male scientist (Arnold Schwarzenegger) agrees to carry a pregnancy in his own body

Even in 2024, I'm quite baffled by that a film - where Arnold Schwarzenegger gets pregnant - was greenlit and financed at all. How did so many people think this would work!? In the 90's he was at the height of his popularity as an action star; Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) was a critical and commercial hit. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to say "how about in the next film I get pregnant?" The most shocking part is that it works as a concept & proves to be a fairly entertaining - albeit sometimes terrifying- film. 

In Roger Ebert's review, he says that actors should be envious of Schwarzenegger's range, and I certainly agree with that sentiment. Arnold can be vicious (Terminator), funny (Kindergarden Cop) and somehow sweet (Junior) without losing his aura of being a marketable action star. Junior will have you on a different emotional journey depending on when in your life you watch it. Over the decades I've found it sweet, disgusting, creepy, absurd, funny and just about every emotion you can think of. I don't know if I hate the film or am fond of it. 

Sometimes I find the "acting like a pregnant woman" humor sexist and off-putting, while other times I think it's hilarious because of the way Schwarzenegger expresses himself. It's juvenile humour that, (sort of?) rises, above by making a statement about how hard it is to grow a kid inside you. I don't know where this would land with audiences in the 2020's. For now I'll say, watch it with reservation. 

Cheaper by the Dozen (2003) Review

Title: Cheaper by the Dozen
Year: 2003
Director: Shawn Levy
Country: US
Language: English

Cheaper by the Dozen was a 1940's bestseller, written by two of the twelve children of a real man named Frank Gilbreth. He applied his job as an assembly line improver at home, breaking down the family home into simple elements and then assigning specific tasks to his children. For many, he proved that raising 12 children was as easy as raising two. That may have worked for the "father knows best". Leave it to Beaver era of family, but would it still be as easy in the 21st Century? Steve Martin would find out!

With his wife (Bonnie Hunt) on a book tour, Tom Baker (Steve Martin) finds his life turned upside down when he agrees to care for his twelve children while simultaneously also coaching his new football team.

Over 50 years later, the 1940s father figure is viewed as an outdated, chauvinistic relic of the past. A faithful portrayal of Gilbreth would have felt out of place for audiences in 2003. Instead, early 2000s Hollywood took a different approach—depicting the Cheaper by the Dozen father not as an authoritative patriarch, but as an incompetent, hapless fool. However, even this version of fatherhood has not aged well. In 2025, this trope is equally outdated, reinforcing sexist ideas that a household inevitably falls into chaos without a mother’s presence.

Cheaper by the Dozen is a manic, chaotic film with various Home Alone-esque shenanigans. It tries very hard to be funny, but much of the humor doesn't land & it can feel like a tedious watch at times. You'd think the pacing would be relentless - and sometimes it is- but some of the film is also painfully slow. This stop & go momentum can be quite annoying. 

Although each character feels like their own distinct person, they do not add a lot of depth to the story & ultimately, except for Steve Martin & Hilary Duff, there is very little character development. I feel like Cheaper by the Dozen might have worked for 2003, Roger Ebert liked it at the time, but would be despised if made today. Steve Martin's best work was well behind him by that time. 

10 Best Films of 2024

Title: 10 Best Films of 2024

Admittedly, I didn't watch a lot of films that came out in 2024. I almost didn't have enough films to make a top 10 list for. I'm missing The Brutalist, Nosferatu, A Complete Unknown etc. but I hope to watch them in time for the Oscars. I'm not sure if this year will be fondly remembered in film history considering all the flops (Kraven, Madame Web, Venom 3, Joker 2) that came out this year.  

The was one definite standout film for me in 2024 and that was Wicked. I'm not a huge fan of Wizard of Oz, despite my love for Judy Garland, so I was hesitant to check it out, but when I did I was absolutely floored by its brilliance. It left me in a mess of tears and popped corn. Since then, I've been constantly singing Defying Gravity and looking up Ariana Grande Tik-Toks. Here is my top ten of 2024. 

1. Wicked

2. Dune: Part Two

3. One Hundred Years of Solitude

4. Anora

5. Hundreds of Beavers

6. Conclave

7. The Beast

8. Challengers

9.  The Iron Claw

10. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World