This is a relatively fallow week for new films (with one exception, see below), a not unexpected turn when the Superb Owl™ makes its annual migratory appearance. That makes it the perfect opportunity to bone up on the candidates for those now-largely-mythical “office Oscar pools.” Or, barring that, to at least see what all the fuss is about. More than ever, the Oscar nominees are available through one streaming option or another, but that’s not true of what has emerged (I think?) as the overall front-runner, or a few other of 2024’s Academy-approved titles. And every Best Picture nominee will be screening theatrically in the weeks leading up to the big to-do. Here’s a rundown of where to catch the anointed flicks, starting with the Best Picture slate:

• Anora: Returning to theaters for limited engagements starting Feb. 22; available to buy/rent on demand
• The Brutalist: Playing at Hollywood Theatre, Cinema 21, Regal Fox Tower and other locations; not available for home viewing
• A Complete Unknown: Playing at Cinema 21 and other locations; not available for home viewing
• Conclave: Returning to theaters for limited engagements starting Feb. 23; available to buy/rent on demand and to stream via Peacock
• Dune: Part Two: Returning to theaters for limited engagements starting Feb. 23; available to buy/rent on demand and to stream via Netflix and Max
• Emilia Pérez: Returning to theaters for limited engagements starting Feb. 21 (including on 35mm at the Hollywood Theatre); available to buy/rent on demand and to stream via Netflix
• I’m Still Here: Playing at Cinema 21 and other locations; not available for home viewing
• Nickel Boys: Playing currently at Salem Cinema and in limited engagements elsewhere starting Feb. 22; not available for home viewing
• The Substance: Playing currently through Feb. 10 at the Hollywood Theatre, on Feb. 8, 12, and 13 at Cinemagic, and in limited engagements elsewhere starting Feb. 21; available to buy/rent on demand and to stream via Mubi
• Wicked: Playing at various locations; available to buy/rent on demand

And as for the rest of the field, all are available to buy or rent on demand (except those marked with a *), and to stream on the following services:

• Alien: Romulus [Best Visual Effects]: Hulu
• The Apprentice [Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor]: none
• Better Man [Best Visual Effects]*: none
• Black Box Diaries [Best Documentary Feature]: Fubo, Paramount+
• A Different Man [Best Makeup and Hair]: Max
• Elton John: Never Too Late [Best Original Song]: Disney+
• Flow [Best Animated Feature, Best International Feature]: Max (beginning Feb. 14), but screening at Regal Fox Tower, Hollywood Theatre, Cinemagic, and Kiggins Theatre in limited engagements
• The Girl with the Needle [Best International Feature]: Mubi
• Gladiator II [Best Costume Design]: Fubo, Paramount+, MGM+
• Inside Out 2 [Best Animated Feature]: Disney+
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes [Best Visual Effects]: Hulu
• Maria [Best Cinematography]*: Netflix
• Memoir of a Snail [Best Animated Feature]: AMC+, Sundance Now
• No Other Land [Best Documentary Feature]*: none, but opening at Cinema 21 on Feb. 28
• Nosferatu [Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design]:
• Porcelain War [Best Documentary Feature]*: none, but playing at Kiggins Theatre Feb. 14 through 17
• A Real Pain [Best Supporting Actor]: Hulu
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig [Best International Feature]*: none, but playing at Regal Fox Tower, Clackamas Town Center, and Salem Cinema through Feb. 10
• September 5 [Best Original Screenplay]: none
• Sing Sing [Best Actor, Best Original Song, Best Adapted Screenplay]: none
• The Six Triple Eight [Best Original Song]*: Netflix
• Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat [Best Documentary Feature]: Kino Film Collection
• Sugarcane [Best Documentary Feature]*: Disney+, Hulu
• Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl [Best Animated Feature]*: Netflix
• The Wild Robot [Best Animated Feature, Best Score, Best Sound]: Peacock

And for the true completists, the short film nominees (live-action, animated, and documentary) will be hitting theater screens beginning on Feb. 14, so check back here next week for more on them.

Speaking of Oscars, one durable tradition is that winners, especially in the acting categories, often follow up their triumphs with certifiable duds. Performers who haven’t had much critical or commercial success in the past understandably leap at the increased opportunities for high-profile and high-paying gigs, but the results can be a trial for audiences. Think Halle Berry after Monster’s Ball, F. Murray Abraham after Amadeus, or Cuba Gooding, Jr. after Jerry Maguire. (Or go all the way back to Luise Rainer after 1937’s The Good Earth if you want.) The mercifully brief action-comedy Love Hurts (which contains very little of either) double-dips in this department, starring 2022 Best Supporting Actor Ke Huy Quan and 2021 Best Supporting Actress Ariana DeBose in a concoction that’s not going to do either of them any good in the long run.

The whole film is basically an unimaginative riff on Quan’s performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once as an unassuming milquetoast who unexpectedly displays martial skills that would be the envy of Jackie Chan. Here he’s Marvin Gable, a chipper realtor whose past as an enforcer for his gang-boss brother comes back to haunt him in the form of Rose (DeBose, who should have gotten this Oscar curse out of her system with Kraven the Hunter), a mysterious woman from his past. Alternating between pedestrian fight scenes and insipid jokes, director Jonathan Eusebio (a stunt coordinator helming his first, and hopefully last, feature) drags likable folks such as Sean Astin (squee! Goonies reunion, if that’s your thing), Rhys Darby (Our Flag Means Death), and Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch (yes, that’s how he’s billed). I dig Marshawn’s post-football thespian efforts, but it says something when a former Seattle Seahawk gives the most layered performance in your movie.

Although the movie’s 83-minute running time is a blessing, one almost wishes there were more to it, since the barrage of subplots, minor characters, and voiceover exposition hits your consciousness like strand after strand of wet spaghetti. I haven’t even mentioned the unlikely romance between Marvin’s sullen, Gen-Z employee and the knife-wielding assassin sent to kill her boss. On top of its inane script, which apparently took three writers to copy-and-paste together, Love Hurts indulges in some distasteful, cartoonish nihilism, including the creatively gory deaths of endearing characters simply for yuks. Also, the movie is set in Milwaukee, but for no apparent reason—there aren’t any Midwest-specific jokes or settings, and it was filmed in Manitoba, but Eusebio feels the need to zoom in on Wisconsin license plates in every possible shot. The only glimmers of substance come in the brief flashbacks to Marvin’s earlier life, where Quan gets to adopt a persona that’s diametrically opposed to his usual puppy-dog people-pleasing. Here’s hoping he finds future projects that let him, you know, act. I heard he won a prize for it once. (Opens Friday, Feb. 7, far too wide)

From the Shameless Plug Department: Ever since the demise of the Portland International Film Festival and the NW Filmmakers Fest, Rose City cinephiles have been hankering for an annual event that celebrates movies and the people that make them. Such an event, one that combines both of its predecessors and adds a dash or two of its own special sauce, may very well be Portland Panorama. This ten-day festival, coming April 10-20, will take place at Cinema 21, the Hollywood Theatre, and points between, and the full program is scheduled to release at the end of this month. In the meantime, Panorama (on the board of which, in full disclosure, I serve) will be hosting its inaugural event on Monday, Feb. 10. The 2017 Portland-shot I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, which won a jury prize at Sundance and stars Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood, will screen at Cinema 21, and Panorama staff members will be on hand to announce details about what to expect in April. Come check it out and get in on the ground floor of what could be Portland’s next cultural touchstone. (Monday, Feb. 10, Cinema 21)

Sponsor

The title of Bring Them Down refers to the act of retrieving sheep from their open pasture and returning them to a corral, a desperate measure not taken lightly by the tradition-minded farmers at the center of this tale. It could just as easily refer to the movie’s impact on audiences, since it spotlights a pair of rival families who, in fine Irish form, labor under the burden of misfortune, unexpressed emotion, and generational trauma. The film’s cast is sterling. Christopher Abbott wipes all (or at least most) of the recent Wolf Man off his shoes as Mikey, the son of paraplegic, misanthropic Ray (Colm Meaney, also great). Their neighbors and competitors in the lamb-and-wool trade are Caroline (Susan Lynch), Mikey’s old girlfriend who bears a facial scar from a car accident he caused, her husband Gary (Paul Ready), and their son Jack (Barry Keoghan).

When a pair of Mikey and Ray’s precious rams go missing, it instigates a series of recriminations and retributions that eventually spiral into violence that would make the Hatfields and/or McCoys proud. That violence isn’t limited to humans—beware to those who can’t abide ovine gore. Two things make director Christopher Andrews’s first feature stand out, besides the powerful acting—the movie takes full advantage of the latent malevolence in Keoghan’s fluid, sullen physicality. One is the contrast between the bucolic landscape and the misery that its inhabitants endure. Another is the decision to, Rashomon-like, rewind the film at the halfway point and relate the same events from the perspective of the other side of the fence.

ALSO OPENING

Becoming Led Zeppelin: “The film traces the journeys of the four members of the Stairway To Heaven rockers through the music scene of the 1960s and their meeting in the summer of 1968, culminating in 1970.” (IMAX screenings at Lloyd Center, Cascade, and Bridgeport Village)

Dark Nuns: “A young boy, Hee-Joon, is possessed by an evil spirit. Nun Yunia tries to save him, assisted by Nun Mikaela. Priest Paul attempts medical treatment, while Priest Andrew performs an exorcism to rid Hee-Joon of the spirit.” (Eastport Plaza)

Heart Eyes: “For the past several years, the “Heart Eyes Killer” has wreaked havoc on Valentine’s Day by stalking and murdering romantic couples. This Valentine’s Day, no couple is safe.” (wide)

REPERTORY

Friday 2/7

• Absolute Beginners [1986] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Downtown ’81 [2000] (5th Avenue Cinema; through 2/9)
• Happy Together [1997] (Academy Theater, through 2/13)
• Keanu [2016] (Clinton St. Theater)
• My Bloody Valentine [1981] (Academy Theater, through 2/13)
• Paddington 2 [2017] (Salem Cinema)
• Parasite [2020] (Lloyd Center, in IMAX)
• Phantom of the Paradise [1974] (Cinema 21, with Paul Williams in attendance)
• Pulp Fiction [1994] (Academy Theater, through 2/13)
• The Thing (from Another World) [1951] (Hollywood Theatre)

Saturday 2/8

• Carmen Jones [1954] (Hollywood Theatre, also 2/9)
• The Love Witch [2016] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Mulholland Dr. [2000] (Cinema 21, also 2/12)
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire [2019] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Rebel without a Cause [1955] (Cinema 21)
• Sherlock, Jr. [1924] (Clinton St. Theater, accompanied by R.E.M. albums)
• Support the Girls [2018] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Tokyo Gore Police [2008] (Hollywood Theatre)

Sunday 2/9

• Blade [1998] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Blade II [2002] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Fire of Love [2022] (Tomorrow Theater)
• The Painter and the Thief [2020] (Tomorrow Theater)

Monday 2/10

• Candyman [1992] (Cinemagic)
• The Lady from Shanghai [1948] (Kiggins Theater)
• Maurice [1987] (Hollywood Theatre)

Tuesday 2/11

• The Fists of the White Lotus [1980] (Hollywood Theatre)
• The Last Black Man in San Francisco [2019] (Clinton St. Theater)

Wednesday 2/12

• Blow Job [1980] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Street Trash [2024] (Hollywood Theatre)