Tag: Hamnet

The 2026 Oscars

I saw no more tthan 3 out of 5; 5 out of 10 films

My viewing of the 2026 Oscar-nominated movies has been rather pathetic. On Washington’s Birthday weekend in 1998, I saw five films, four of which were nominated for Academy Awards (Afterglow, The Apostle, LA Confidential, Mrs. Brown). But in all of February 2026, other than some shorts, I’ve seen exactly one, and it was at home on the 27th.

Part of it was the busyness, but also, many of the films I really wanted to view in the cinema were gone by the time my wife and I had time to see them. A couple are currently on Netflix, which I don’t have, and a few others are on other platforms. I may join Netflix for a month if I can figure out how to expand time.

Moreover, we haven’t watched much television of late. We STILL have Ken Burns’ American Revolution, a half-dozen Great Performances, and about a dozen Henry Louis Gates programs on the DVR. 

The * means I saw it. 

Best picture

Bugonia – I stalled at the chance to see this collaboration of director Yorgos Lanthimos and actor Emma Stone after the mediocre reviews of the 2024 film, Kinds of Kindness 
F1 – this one I saw, and I liked it better than I expected to
Frankenstein – missed it
Hamnet – I saw it and wished I could understand the dialogue better; For Your Consideration 
Marty Supreme  – I saw it, admired what it was trying to do, but didn’t particularly  like it
One Battle After Another – I missed it. My baby sister saw it and liked it a lot. 
The Secret Agent – missed it
Sentimental Value – ditto
Sinners – my favorite movie of the year; a record 16 nominations 
Train Dreams – I was looking forward to seeing this

A brief word about the movie Blue Moon

I’m mildly obsessed with the composers Rodgers and Hart. I know (and I bet you do too) many of their songs, although not necessarily the shows they came from. The Supremes Sing Rodgers and Hart is still in my record collection. And the Mamas and the Papas had three of the duo’s songs on their albums. 

So I needed to see the movie Blue Moon and the relatively tall Ethan Hawke’s transformation into the diminutive Lorenz Hart. Hawke was excellent as the talented, wordy, and alcoholically deludedlyricist on the night of the opening of Oklahoma! after Richard Rodgers had partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II.

In some ways, it was very much a play, with one set, the bar. Hart interacts with the bartender (Bobby Carnavale), writer E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy), the pianist, and eventually Rodgers (Andrew Scott), as well as the young woman of his dreams, the 20-year-old college student (Margaret Qualley).

ACTING

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon (+)
*Michael B. Jordan, Sinners – playing TWO characters must be challenging
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
*Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue – the last full-length movie I saw in a cinema was on January 19
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value
Amy Madigan, Weapons
*Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another

Best animated feature film

Arco
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
* Zootopia 2 – here’s the script

The rest of the categories

Achievement in visual effects

Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1 – I felt as though I was in the races
Jurassic World Rebirth
The Lost Bus – we saw this at home in the fall, which may have been to the film’s disadvantage. Still, we felt as though we were in the fire, especially in that antepenultimate scene.  
*Sinners – impressive throughout

Achievement in casting (a new and long-overdue category)

Hamnet, Nina Gold
Marty Supreme, Jennifer Venditti – the use of the non-actors was quite creative
One Battle after Another, Cassandra Kulukundis
The Secret Agent, Gabriel Domingues
*Sinners, Francine Maisler – my favorite, especially picking newcomer Miles Caton as Sammie Moore

I’m inclined to root for Sinners for most categories, including cinematography, costume design, directing (Ryan Coogler), original song (I Lied To You), and original screenplay. Its film editing was great, though F1 worked very well. I think the F1 sound effects were grand. 

I’m hoping to get a post out about the shorts I saw on February 28 before the Oscars on March 15. If I see One Battle After Another and/or Bugonia soon – they are both streaming – I’ll mention them as well.

Movie review: Hamnet

director Chloé Zhao.

My wife and I looked forward to seeing the new movie Hamnet. So in mid-December, we went to the Spectrum 8 in Albany.

This is what I liked: the mysterious nature of Agnes (Jessie Buckley), who is a healer and a bit of a mystic. Unsurprisingly, Will (Paul Mescal) is captivated by her. There’s definitely serious chemistry there. After she becomes pregnant, and despite resistance from both their families, they marry.

Wait. Do you know what this sounds like? The actual courtship of Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare, who got married in 1582. The story is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet. Due to the non-standardization of  English in 16th and 17th-century England, Anne/Agnes, and for that matter Hamnet/Hamlet, are essentially the same.  

This is something we unfortunately did not like: the dialogue was often hard to follow. Sometimes, it was volume, sometimes the words, occasionally both. And it wasn’t just us; I could hear other people in the theater whisper, “What did they say?”

Language barrier

I have a working theory about this. From the Times of London: “Chloé Zhao…, said she understood only a third of the language and depended on [Mescal] to guide her on set.” She said: “When I was on set of Hamnet, when Paul was delivering his speech, I only understand a third of it, technically, because I don’t understand what those words mean.”

Further,  she noted, ” Paul said to me, ‘Listen, if Shakespeare is performed right, you don’t have to understand what they’re saying. You feel it in the body, the language is written like that.’”

I think there is an element of truth in that. Still, I’m more aligned with Adrian Chiles in the Guardian. “You know what that is, don’t you? That’s balls, that’s what that is. Of course, you need to understand what’s being said and what’s going on. At least I do. I’ve often been told not to trouble myself with such trifling details. Just let the artistry wash over you, I’m told, and consider how it makes me feel. Well, I’ll tell you how it makes me feel. It makes me feel confused, rather inadequate, frustrated, even angry, ultimately disengaged, and therefore bored. Just plain bored.”

I was confused and frustrated, for sure. Yet there was enough in the two crucial moments to sustain me. One is mentioned in the IMDb description and on Anne Hathaway’s Wikipedia page. (Yet there were people in the theater who were audibly confused.)

The other critical moment is the play’s production, which, interestingly, was MUCH easier to hear. 

It was good enough that I might watch it again at home. Young Jacobi Jupe as the title character was quite good. But I would turn on the captions. Critics were 86% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, with audiences at 93% thumbs-up.  

Ramblin' with Roger
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