By the time you read this, the 2025 Academy Award nominations will have been announced. They were originally scheduled for last Friday, January 17, but have been postponed twice due to the horrific wildfires in the Los Angeles area. That delay has thrown a wrinkle or two into the release plans for at least a couple of movies that are depending on the added momentum that an Oscar nod might provide. With the revelations on Thursday morning, theaters won’t have any lead time to arrange their schedules and bookings for the coming weekend in response. And that goes double (at least) for independent cinemas which have already committed their relatively small number of screens to other films.

All of this, I assume, helps to explain why these two films, Nickel Boys and September 5, are opening this week at, largely, an unexpected roster of suburban multiplexes rather than at the downtown or arthouse venues one might expect. (The only exception is that September 5 will be playing at Fox Tower and the Salem Cinema.) While all this might be a little inside baseball, it does provide an interesting peek into both the influence of Oscar nominations on a movie’s fate and the difficult balancing act that theater programmers sometimes face. Regardless of location (and those locations may well increase in the coming weeks), each of these titles deserves to be seen theatrically and widely.

September 5 depicts, in nearly real time, the experiences of the ABC Sports television crew covering the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, when Palestinian terrorists took the Israeli wrestling team hostage and a live-broadcast standoff ensued, creating a global media sensation that culminated in tragedy. Sorry if that’s a spoiler alert—read a book sometime. Or check out the Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September, which gives a more conventional (if just as riveting) account of the whole horrific mess.

Seen through the eyes of the occupants of ABC’s control room, however, it’s a claustrophobic, surreal experience they’re forced into dealing with in real time. The movie, a paean to professionalism, centers on three anonymous Hawksian protagonists: the lead producer (John Magaro, Poor Cow), an English-German translator (Leonie Benesch, The Teacher’s Lounge, Babylon Berlin), and a French engineer (Zinedine Soualem). They all report to ABC Sports President Roone Arledge, a legendary figure in television journalism played here by Peter Sarsgaard. When the predawn stillness is interrupted by gunfire on the morning of that fateful 5th, they’re among the first to realize what’s going down.

From then on, it’s a race against time and technology to cover and transmit the story of the year, the likes of which very few of them have previous experience with. One who does is Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker), the former head of ABC’s Middle East bureau, who finds himself in a more unexpected field of combat while covering the Games. This all in an era when the networks could only make satellite transmissions during preallotted times, resulting in a tense negotiation with a rival just to be able to go live during the crisis. The limitations of analog data are evident throughout the movie, including the difficulty of smuggling reels of film in and out of the Olympic Village: no flash drives here.

Throughout, director Tim Fehlbaum, whose only previous feature was the forgettable 2021 sci-fi flick The Colony, keeps things kinetic, chaotic, and compelling. The Swiss Fehlbaum co-wrote the screenplay with German Moritz Binder, and there’s an effective European emphasis on community over character. After the first few minutes, there’s no slowing down to explain who everybody is or what’s actually going on outside that control room. But things never get confusing, and understanding the broader context and the way the story must end creates an unforced melancholy in the viewer that the film’s characters are, perhaps, fortunate to avoid. (Opens Friday, Jan. 24; Regal Fox Tower, Salem Cinema, Clackamas Town Center, Cedar Hills, Vancouver Mall)

Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel, Nickel Boys doesn’t have any right to work as well as it does. Radically reimagining Whitehad’s story about the close friendship between two Black boys at a brutal Florida reform school in the 1960s into a lyrical piece of first-person cinema, director and co-writer (with Joslyn Barnes) RaMell Ross commits an astonishing act of cinematic alchemy.

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For nearly 100% of the film’s running time, the camera is completely subjective, allowing us to see the world through the eyes of its protagonists. First we meet Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp), an intellectual gifted kid who lives with his doting but poor grandmother. An opportunity to attend a free advanced study program at a nearby college creates hope, hope which is swiftly dashed when Elwood is picked up while hitchhiking to school by the driver of a stolen car. Convicted by a racist justice system of participating in the theft, he’s sentenced to the Nickel Academy.

There he meets Turner (Brandon Wilson), a reserved fellow inmate who tries to convince Elwood to accept his fate in the cruel institution and the white supremacist society that spawned it. The barbarities pile up, inspiring Elwood toward rebellion, or at least an effort to inform the outside world about the conditions at Nickel. The movie flashes forward at times to an adult Elwood (Daveed Diggs), who now lives in New York City, as he learns about the dozens of unmarked graves that have been discovered on the grounds of the former Nickel Academy. (Whitehead based his story on that of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida, which operated from 1900 to 2011. Yes, 2011.)

The first-person perspective that Ross and cinematographer Jomo Fray (All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt) employ makes the saga of Elwood and Turner wrenching even as it abstains from directly capturing the most brutal of the violence that served as their daily diet. The most famous example of this technique is usually considered Robert Montgomery’s 1946 film of Raymond Chandler’s Lady in the Lake, which puts the audience in the shoes of Philip Marlowe as he searches for a missing woman. It’s remembered as a clumsy curiosity, ambitious but bound by the technology of the time. Today, able to move a camera at will, and to use digital tweaking when necessary, there are no such limits, as the avalanche of “found footage” horror films attests.

But to conjure the almost limbic identification between subject and object that Nickel Boys achieves in its most effective moments requires a deftness of touch and an emotional intelligence that are as rare as films, like this one, that expose historical inhumanity with such raw poetry. To reiterate, it’s the kind of experience that simply can’t be replicated at home, so wherever you have the opportunity, check it out. (Opens Friday, Jan. 24; Clackamas Town Center, Cinema 99, Movies on TV)

Speaking of award season, the Portland Critics Association, of which I am a proud member, released its list of 2024 winners last week, highlighted by ten prizes for The Brutalist, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Lead Performance (Male). Other multiple winners included The Substance, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and Dune: Part Two. For the full list of winners and nominees, visit the PCA website. And if you’re so inclined, follow us on Instagram.

Finally, the film world lost one of its titans last week when David Lynch transcended this corporeal plane. Portland-area theaters have already announced plans for tribute screenings. They include Mulholland Dr. this week at the Living Room Theaters and the following week at Cinemagic (alongside two other titles), plus Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (previously announced) and Blue Velvet next month at the Hollywood. Until then, if you’re grieving, definitely check out my colleague Brian Libby’s fascinating and touching remembrance of a 2001 encounter with the director.

ALSO OPENING

The Colors Within: In this gentle, pastel anime feature, Totsuko, a student at a Catholic high school, has the ability to see the colorful auras of those around her. When she’s attracted by the color of one classmate, Kimi, and Kimi suddenly leaves school, Totsuko arranges to meet her at the bookstore where she works. And when Kimi gets the idea that Totsuko can play piano, she invites her to join the band she has formed with a boy name Rui who plays the theremin. The band becomes a refuge for all three from the anxieties of home and school, and they keep their music-making to themselves as long as possible. Naoko Yamada, the most acclaimed of the relatively small number of anime directors, specializes in modest but endearing tales such as 2016’s A Silent Voice. The Colors Within isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s a sensitively told coming-of-age tale that benefits from its sense of restraint and grace. (Opens Friday, Jan. 24; Regal Fox Tower and other area theaters)

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Eternal You: The most terrifying thing in this week’s column is this documentary about the emerging business of creating AI avatars of dead people that their loved ones can interact with posthumously. Directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck take a neutral tone as they profile several techbro entrepreneurs looking to profit off the grief and gullibility of survivors. Like the recent look at New York City mediums and their clients, Look into My Eyes, Eternal You refrains from judging the desperate souls who pay to interact with algorithms patterned after dead girlfriends, parents, and (most disturbingly) children. Unlike that film, which at least acknowledges the human connection between psychic and seeker, this one lets the geniuses who came up with this racket yammer away about their revolutionary product until you want to unplug them. The typical rationales, mostly consisting of “it’s not my job to tell people how to use the technology I’ve created” bullshit, rings utterly hollow as we watch a widow text message her dead husband, who tells her that he’s in Hell. If these sorts of amoral would-be moguls have their way, “he” will be the lucky one. (Streaming on Film Movement Plus)

ALSO THIS WEEK

The Palestine Exception: Portland documentarian and activist Jan Haaken turns her camera and her attention to the pro-Palestinian protests that gripped many American college campuses, including Portland State University’s in the 2023-2024 academic year, following Israel’s invasion of Gaza in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on October 7, 2023. The title refers to the idea that there is an exception to the norm of free speech and debate when it comes to criticism of the state of Israel and/or support for Palestinian statehood or humanity. Between clips of the protests themselves and the notorious testimony by certain college presidents in front of a Congressional committee in early 2024, Haaken and co-director Jenifer Ruth (a PSU film professor) interview academics including PSU’s Theodore Khoury and Columbia University’s Judith Butler. They also make space for the students themselves, including representatives from PSU and New York’s Hunter College, who articulate their frustrations with what they see as a new McCarthyism and the willful blindness that conflates any critique of the Israeli government with the most vicious anti-Semitism. An even handed, Frontline-style piece of journalism this is not, but it is an effective piece of advocacy that’s no less relevant for the fact of the recent case-fire agreement. (Sunday, Jan. 26; Cinema 21)

No One Asked You: The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead leads the group Abortion Access Front, and this documentary follows its and her efforts to educate, inspire, and provoke around the issue of bodily autonomy. Filmed over six years, including the fall of Roe v. Wade, it chronicles those efforts, in large part through humor and optimistic spirit. I hope they can keep it up. (Sunday, Jan. 26; Clinton St. Theater)

ALSO OPENING

Flight Risk: “A pilot (Mark Wahlberg) transports an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.” Directed by Mel Gibson, in case that influences your decision whether or not to buy a ticket. (Opens Friday, Jan. 24; wide)

Presence: “A family becomes convinced they are not alone after moving into their new home in the suburbs.” Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp (Jurassic Park) but not screened for local critics. (Opens Friday, Jan. 24; wide)

Inheritance: “When Maya (Phoebe Dynevor) learns her father Sam (Rhys Ifans) was once a spy, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an international conspiracy.” (Opens Friday, Jan. 24; Regal Fox Tower and other area theaters)

REPERTORY TITLES

FRIDAY

• Contact [1997] (Academy; through Thursday)
• Flow [2024] (Cinemagic; through Monday, also Thursday)
• The Great Silence [1968] (Academy; through Thursday)
• The Iron Giant [1999] (Academy; through Thursday)
• Let the Right One In [2008] (Cinema 21; also Saturday)
• Living in Oblivion [1995] (5th Avenue Cinema; through Sunday)
• Mulholland Dr. [2000] (Living Room Theaters; through Thursday)

SATURDAY

• Anora [2024] (Cinemagic; also Sunday, Tuesday & Wednesday)
• North by Northwest [1959] (Cinema 21)
• Phantom of the Paradise [1974] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Stop Making Sense [1984] (Hollywood)
• The Substance [2024] (Cinemagic; also Monday & Thursday)

SUNDAY

• Face/Off [1997] (Hollywood, in 35mm)
• A Real Pain [2024] (Cinemagic; also Tuesday & Wednesday)
• RRR [2022] (Hollywood)

TUESDAY

• Shogun Assassin [1980] (Hollywood, in 35mm)

WEDNESDAY

• Arcana [1972] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Salad Days [2015] (Hollywood)

THURSDAY

• Fantasia [1940] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Pacific Rim [2013] (Hollywood)