So it’s 2024, three years since the hopeless time I introduced the Marco Awards to lighten the collective mood. Here, I nominate and reward the best entertainment that’s been streamed directly into my home for free. And since most people have completely run the gamut dry, compounded by subsequent writers’ and actors’ strikes, I still get numerous requests concerning what to watch next. So once again I have organize everything I’ve watched and recommend into this year’s 2024 awards, in the fun, offbeat, and brutally honest format Mark On The Arts has become known for.
After four years of adjusting our viewing habits, honoring the anniversary of the day Covid shut the world down and all the major awards circuit making progressively bigger fools of themselves, I’m beginning to feel the Marcos are more relevant than any of the EGOT primaries. I guarantee you no one is getting bitch-slapped over a Marco. At least no one that doesn’t deserve it. Plus with the state of what we’ve been through in reality for the last four years, we as a society seem progressively less interested when rich people give other rich people awards, let alone acting fools while doing so.
So, again, here is is a list of my best movie recommendations from the past year, formatted into an awards show that makes sense. The rules have changed slightly because the Oscars screwed me over by moving their awards to the weekend before I name the Marco Award Winners for movies, and it looks like the timing is here to stay, so I shifted everything back a week to breathe. I am still the nominating committee and the voting body. So if a movie appeared on its first in-home streaming run for free (because that is in the spirit of Covid year entertainment, when we as viewers mattered) between March 13th, 2022 and January 31st, 2023, and I saw it, it is eligible. And the 31st is a purely arbitrary date set by the nominating committee (me) giving the voting body (me) enough time to catch up and tabulate the results for release sometime around the anniversary of Covid shutdowns (now). Used to be the last year’s Academy/Emmy/Tony Award winners were not eligible, only so my awards are never just a regurgitation of another awards ceremony. I lifted this stipulation for this year’s Marco Movie Awards because the Oscars shifted their date from spring to 2 days before my Awards were traditionally published on the 14th, the anniversary of the day the world shut down for Covid. That gave me a mere 3 days to change votes, plus two cycles of Oscars to contend with as far as eligibility. Also, keeping it a little fresher, each season’s nominees will be a little of this year’s Oscar contenders with last years that didn’t premiere in streaming form in time to qualify, leading to some interesting new pairings. So there will be some repeats between the Hollywood ceremony a week ago and my more comprehensive list of winners here.
Since Best Song has traditionally not been a Marco category, lets start off this years awards with an opening number. The best performance the Oscars have seen since the days where Barbra Streisand celebrated “Evergreen”, Donna Summer rocked “Last Dance”, or the cast of South Park sang “Blame Canada”. Here is Oscar casualty Ryan Gosling performing the elaborate production number “I’m Just Ken” from Best Picture Nominee Barbie.
So, with that, Welcome to the 4th annual Marco Awards for Excellence in Motion Pictures that appeared in your living room. Grab a drink. Slap yourself silly if you want. I’m your host, Mark Briner, and may the best pictures (finally) win. The nominees are:
The 4th Annual MARCO AWARDS 2023: the MOVIES
BEST MOVIE
Barbie—Whoever thought the movie about the much-maligned doll with the too perfect looks and the too perfect figure and the too perfect wardrobe, job, boyfriend, and literal dreamhouse would turn out to be a clever and thought-provoking feminist manifesto with much to say about all sorts of sexual politics. Clever writing, sumptuous pink on pink cinematography, and winning performances by Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and America Fererra add up to an award-worthy social comedy.
The Holdovers—Paul Giamatti is a socially stunted teacher saddled with supervising a handful of lads whose parents couldn’t see to get them home for Christmas holidays in a picaresque New England boys’ boarding school circa 1970. It has all the innate charm of those academic staples of yore, from The Paper Chase to Dead Poets’ Society, as well as all the proverbial lessons the hardcore teacher and the defiant student can learn from each other when they are released from the academic constraints.
May December—“Based on” the aftermath of the Mary Kay Latourneau scandal (it’s them, they just changed the names), Natalie Portman is an actress portraying Julianne Moore’s character (the Latourneau stand-in) in a movie who wants to interview the couple today 24 years after she’s out of prison and they’ve been married and raising a family to get an alternative, insider perspective. Academy Award winners Portman and Moore are their usual engaging self, but Charles Melton (Riverdale) is the breakout performance as the former student with many insights and issues that arise within him years later.
Oppenheimer—Christopher Nolan heads up a topnotch thriller about the development of the atomic bomb. A stellar who’s who cast makes science nerdery into a three and a half hour thrilling edge of your seat experience with amazing effects.
Saltburn—The most talked about movie of the year with all of the shocking scenes you heard about whether you saw it or not, writer/director Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) creates another taut character thriller, this time about classist inequality and the disturbing behaviors it encourages. Oscar Nominee Barry Keoghan leads the tight ensemble with the most talked about performance of the year.
Society of the Snow—Another retelling of the infamous 70s Chilean soccer team whose plane went down in the Andes and had to make the impossible decision to live off their dead until they could be saved (remade from Survive based on the smash book Alive in 50 years ago), the story loses none of its impact to time in this Spanish film retelling.
Sound of Freedom—The disturbing movie that Hollywood left on the shelf for five years amidst all the Epstein aftermath. About one man’s attempt to single-handedly rescue dozens of abducted children out of South American sex slavery, it was the movie that Hollywood didn’t seem to want is to see? Why? The US-heavy slave trafficking statistics alone are devastating and don’t land well in a culture where we see Epstein and his hundreds of clients protected at every corner.
WINNER: Oppenheimer. I can make cases for Saltburn because director/writer Emerald Fennell turns in another smart, quirky movie with a wild 11:00 ending like her impressive debut in Promising Young Woman, and for Barbie for Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie just making such an improbably film not only work but succeed. But Christopher Nolan makes the 3 ½ hour story about science, which should have been a nap waiting to happen, effortless, interesting, gripping, and well-paced. Throw in superior performances by Murphy, Blunt, Downey, and the rest of Hollywood in well-placed cameos and it’s just good solid storytelling with great visuals and special effects to boot.
BEST ACTOR
Jim Caviezel (Sound of Freedom)—Caviezel shoulders this quiet underrated thriller about an FBI agent who quits his assignment and goes rogue into the wilds of cartel country South America to rescue the forgotten children of a mega sex trafficking ring. He’s everything a good movie hero should be.
Bradley Cooper (Maestro)—Cooper once again shows he can do everything—produce, write, direct, star and promote a film—but of the five hats, his performance is the superior one. The movie falls a little flat but Cooper is, as always, stellar.
Sean Patrick Flannery (Nefarious)—Flannery flies far below the awards circult wires, but is mesmerizing in a scary performance as a convicted serial killer who gets one last chance at reprieve if he can convince his new psychiatrist that he is possessed by a demon who committed the heinous crimes. New because his former psychiatrist just inexplicably and casually jumped from his toney office building. In a movie where most of the scenes are face to face in a holding cell, Flannery channels evil and fear for an engrossing performance.
Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)—Giamatti plays on his usual odd-man-out humor as a teacher at a prestigious New England boys’ boarding school with no social life who is saddled with monitoring the handful of lads who’s family for one reason or another can’t take them home for Christmas holiday, 1970. When all but one get a reprieve, his remaining interactions with the lone holdover are funny, touching, and tragic. Giamatti, one of most reliable character actors around, handles it all with his usual grace.
Barry Keoghan (Saltburn)—Keoghan’s star continues to rise after stellar turns in The Killing of a Sacred Dear and last season’s award nominated turn stealing The Banshees of Inisherin out from under Collin Farrell. Keoghan gives a committed, all-out performance as a working class Oxford student taken under the wing of an aristocratic classmate, who takes him home to his messed-up family for the summer. Keoghan smolders in this slow-burn , extra dark comic thriller. And those scenes you’ve all heard about….yeah. He pulls them all off.
Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)—Murphy is charismatic as the title character in this fact-based story of what could have been the end of the world. He makes a 3 ½ hour account of science work in his best performance to date.
Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers)—As the last, lone holdover, Sessa tests and butts heads with Giamatti daily until the two come to a respectful truce. Sessa is a worthy adversary for Giamatti who bring out the best—and worst—of each other in their scenes.
WINNER: Cillian Murphy. Giamatti is better than he’s ever been and I had actually crowned Keoghan as the winner the entire season until I began editing the final draft this week. I did a reverse when revisiting how critical Murphy is as the lead of the best picture. And although Keoghan absolutely passes the Briner test (who I can absolutely not envision anyone else in the role except that actor) with flying colors, I realized that Murphy also passes it. Keoghan makes Saltburn worth the watch, but Murphy makes Oppenheimer watchable period.
BEST ACTRESS
Julianne Moore (May December)—As the Mary Kay Latourneau stand-in, Moore, with the distance and the history in her favor, provides a degree of humanity and insight into the tale we all know too well and have strong opinions about. She brings her usual dignity and sensitivity to the role.
Carrie Mulligan (Maestro)—As Cooper’s wife, the movie is actually more about Mrs. Bernstein dealing with her husband’s dalliances with boys than his story as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. But Mulligan excels with the opportunity and gives a riveting performance of a woman making the best of a compromised life.
Natalie Portman (May December)—As a Hollywood type allowed into the private home world of a school teacher, ripped from the tabloid headlines, who went to prison for an inappropriate relationship with a teenaged student, yet went on to marry him and raise a family with him upon her release, Portman is all the Hollywood self-centered stereotype as she inserts herself into the story she’s studying and makes it about her.
Margot Robbie (Barbie)—This most improbably movie hinges as much on Robbie’s expected committed performance as Greta Gerwig’s witty social commentary script. Robbie is one actress who can pretty much save any picture—except the Birds of Prey sequel to Suicide Squad, which is just how bad that ill-conceived disaster just was. Even though she is graced with the looks and proportions of a human sized Barbie, this movie could have been drivel in any other hands and Robbie, as always, transcends and elevates every film she’s in with her innate talent, beauty, style, and grace.
Julia Roberts (Leave the World Behind)—Roberts continues to build on her landmark Marco nominated performance in last season’s Gaslit as Martha Mitchell, the fist non-Julia Roberts role of her career, gives another compelling portrayal of a woman dealing with the implications of a conspiracy which may result in the apocalypse. A privileged, spoiled urban elite, seeking a week’s refuge on Long Island, she is forced to confront her own innate prejudices and trust in strangers to come out the other side.
Emma Stone (Poor Things)—Having been primed to see a film that paid tribute to The Bride of Frankenstein, no one prepared me for the insane and bold performance Stone gives, like Keoghan throwing all caution and sense to the wind and delving into the character of a reanimated woman who has go through all the milestones again of learning how to command her body, walk, talk, process, and mature. Warning: when she gets to her psychosexual development, the body is ahead of the growing mind, so pay attention to that “Strong Sexual Content” disclaimer that HBO and Showtime have numbed us to.
WINNER: Margot Robbie. I’m sorry, but I’m going against all the awards circuit with a controversial ruling here because there was not one performance in this category, strong as they all were, that totally blew me away, mostly because it shouldn’t have. Robbie, however, is the key figure the whole movie depends on to succeed. Gosling was a perfect Ken, and Michael Cera was a funny Allan, but everything about this movie hinged on Robbie and she delivered in the strong, dependable, unforgettable way she always does. It’s not rocket science (or the atom bomb), but Robbie should have had an award somewhere before for her key performances in movies like the wife pushed to her limits in The Wolf of Wall Street and the pivotal role of Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Here’s her recognition she’s eluded from Hollywood for a superior career so far, simply by making it look too easy.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali (Leave the World Behind)—Ali has the key role of the rich owner of the Air BnB house being rented who returns home with his daughter after witnessing some distressing, triggering events in the city. Ali cultivates the air of mystery surrounding the doomsday possibilities that keeps the suspense intact till he reveals them at the too-close-to-home end of the film.
Willem DaFoe (Poor Things)—As the Dr. Frankenstein stand-in in this morality spin-off tale, DaFoe is paternal and loving—yet damaged, both physically and emotionally—as he heals his own wounds through his scientific successes despite their ethical failures.
Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer)—As Oppenheimer’s military adversary, Downey provides the tension to the story and gives a strong government villain to root against. Downey pulls out the most strength and authority in his career so far.
Jacob Elordi (Saltburn)—As the rich kid with a heart who kicks the story in gear by taking Keoghan’s outcast under his wing, Elordi is captivating with his genial presence and sensual aura, the quintessential guy everyone wants, sometimes maybe too much.
Ryan Gosling (Barbie)—After Robbie and Gerwig’s vision, Gosling is the third crown of the trifecta that just makes Barbie work. The “typical man” who is jubilant when he finds his place in the patriarchic real world where he, merely as a man, is valued and elevated in status, instead of “nothing without Barbie” where they come from. He makes all the sexual political statements make sense, but it’s Ryan Gosling, so you still can’t help loving him.
Archie Madekwe (Saltburn)—Madekwe as Elordi’s snotty, nouveau riche cousin who bristles to Keoghan’s threat to his position as second family shines as the villain of the piece, intent on ruining Keoghan’s ascent just because he has the power and connections to do so.
Charles Melton (May December)—Melton, most famous so far for portraying replacement Reggie Mantle in the CW megahit Riverdale universe, shows he’s more than a pretty face and a rocking bod (which he temporarily trades in for a dad bod here) as the grown up student who is now successfully married to the teacher who groomed him.
WINNER: Charles Melton. Melton was a revelation and the key to the movie not living in a creepy, exploitative zone. He raises the hard questions of “if we’re still together 24 years later, was it wrong?” as well as “was I mature enough to make that decision when I did or did you make it for me?”. He excels in a few sweet scenes where we see that his stunted emotional growth has left him actually lass mature than his teenage children, which he plays beautifully. Hopefully this is the beginning of a great life after playing second fiddle on Riverdale, where he managed to still get Veronica but not even his regular place in The Archies band. Yes it kills me to not give this to Gosling, but Melton dis the breakout of the year.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)—Blunt brings life to the otherwise stagnant role of the devoted wife who’s husband is in love with his job more than her. And she brings her strength beyond what is written on the page.
America Ferarra (Barbie)—The former Ugly Betty star digs into some of that “lesser than” angst in a touching role as a normal woman who upsets the Barbie-verse when she begins to fantasize about a Barbie that reflects her lifestyle instead of trying to live up to Barbie’s unrealistic fantasy standards as girls of her generation were raised.
Kate McKinnon (Barbie)—In a clever featured role as Weird Barbie, the one the problem child girls abuse. Hair mutilated with an atrocious scissor cut, body and face scribbled on with markers, and left in a perpetual split, McKinnon brings her usual offbeat sense of humor to give a little sympathy to those poor lost Barbies we see end up in GoodWill, or with your little sister who never learned to appreciate her toys like you did.
Myha’la (Leave the World Behind)—The young actress bristles with the rich, white Julia Roberts who has taken over her house when she and her father return from a scary night in the city. Whereas Ali is the older generation’s reserved gentleman who wants to make everything alright, Myha’la represents the new millennial black woman who is tired of taking crap from the white Karens she encounters every day.
Rosamunde Pike (Saltburn)—Pike has a field day with the role of the lady of Saltburn, Elordi’s rich, out-of-touch mother who Fennell gives the best lines and scenes to, delivering them all with a flawless alcohol-induced, prozac-enhanced, “let them eat cake” nonchalance that makes her stand out of the film with enough other stand-out moments
Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)—Randolph plays the congenial cafeteria lady staying back with Giamatti and the boys who is alternately comical as a maternal figure nourishing the boys who’s mothers have abandoned them over the holidays, while she is grieving her own son, a war hero who never got to live the future the entitled white boys at this school take for granted.
WINNER: Rosamunde Pike. Close call between Pike and Randolph, with the edge going to Pike nailed the dark comedy. Delivering bon mots and insults like a young Maggie Smith. Pike should give writer/director Emerald Fennell an assist for shaping an award-winning performance. This the category I could honestly give an award to the most memorable movie of the season.
BEST DIRECTOR
Bradley Cooper (Maestro)—He does it all, and is incredible at everything, but his direction is the best chance of taking a win home for his movie.
Emerald Fennell (Saltburn)—The most talked about movie of the year with all of the shocking scenes you heard about whether you saw it or not, writer/director Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) creates another taut character thriller, this time about classist inequality and the disturbing behaviors it encourages. Oscar Nominee Barry Keoghan leads the tight ensemble with the most talked about performance of the year.
Greta Gerwig (Barbie)—Writer/Director Gerwig did the improbable and made a modern day movie about Barbie as an effective modern era feminist statement. Credit Gerwig, Robbie, Gosling, and a very game cast for making it actually work.
Todd Haynes (May December)—Haynes is responsible for taking a highly-charged and volatile subject from the tabloid headlines and exploring it with a calm head. It could have been an Enquirer TV movie of the week in lesser hands
Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)—Whatever the feelings on the movie, Lanthimos’ artist view and direction gives the movie the feel and atmosphere of the fantasy Victorean Europe in which he set it. Yes, it’s out there in may ways, but the look, feel, and nature of the film is a unique entry in any season that bears his vision.
Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)—Christopher Nolan heads up a topnotch thriller about the development of the nuclear bomb which could have very well have been the end of the world. A stellar who’s who cast makes science nerdery into a three and a half hour thrilling edge of your seat experience with amazing effects.
Alexander Payne (The Holdovers)—Giamatti , Sesso, and Randolph all give great performances, but it’s Payne’s guidance that gives it that quaint old-fashioned school movie feel that holds everything together.
WINNER: Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer). I can make cases for Saltburn because director/writer Emerald Fennell turns in another smart, quirky movie with a wild 11:00 ending like her impressive debut in Promising Young Woman, and for Barbie for Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie just making such an improbably film not only work but succeed. Even for Lanthimos for creating and controlling a detailed and otherworldly Victorian Europe. But Christopher Nolan makes the 3 ½ hour story about science, which should have been a nap waiting to happen, effortless, interesting, gripping, and well-paced. Throw in shaping superior performances by Murphy, Blunt, Downey, and the rest of Hollywood in well-placed cameos and it’s just good solid storytelling with great visuals and special effects to boot. Plus, Hollywood owes him a huge one for The Dark Knight. And I could make a case for recognition all the way back to his superior 2003 thriller in reverse, Memento.
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Audible—An incredibly moving and informative tale of the high school championship football team at the Maryland School for the Deaf and the hardships and triumphs that goes into being at such a disadvantage that it may be an advantage. A personal touch with a story of a classmate whose family I know.
Filthy Rich 2: Ghislaine Maxwell—For heaven’s sake we know all of this. Someone explain why this woman was arrested 4 years ago after being on the run for years, yet nothing has happened. What are they waiting for? Her to “commit suicide”?
The Greatest Night in Pop—A Behind the Music tribute to the greatest collaboration in pop history, when Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie invited the biggest names of the MTV era were invited to participate in USA for Africa’s fundraising event recording “We Are The World”. A great throwback to pop music when it was great, but also a good lesson on what a good studio producer can do, because all the videoed recordings amounted to a surprising lot of screaming (Springsteen, Lauper, Kim Carnes, Huey Lewis, not to mention whatever babbling an insecure Bob Dylan was warbling), but in the final product, it’s magic.
Lover Stalker Killer—A documentary about the rare case of a sociopathic psycho-stalker bitch where the police actually did everything they should have—but the stalker didn’t…..Crazy unbelievable story.
WINNER: The Greatest Night in Pop. It might just be that I’m the target audience, a music fan who came of age during “the 80s”We Are The World” and reveled in the glory of seeing so many faded or lost talents in their prime. And learning that our idols are just as human as we are onstage—Prince is shy? Bob Dylan lacks confidence? But for Lionel Ritchie’s story alone about writing with Michael Jackson—and his snake. No apologies for the nostalgia that landed exactly where they intended—and regret for what talent and music used to mean when we took it for granted.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Elementals—Disney’s Romeo & Juliet played out in families of fire and water (actually probably more West Side Story, as the fires are even immigrants from some alternate language land)
Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse–The follow-up to the groundbreaking and incredibly original Academy Award Winning Into the Spider-Verse, this one has all the contemporary flair, but is a little more self-consciously glib and aware of its hipness. Great movie, but more of the same with less of the heart.
Turning Red—Disney’s coming of age story about a young Chinese-American girl who at the age of 13 discovers she bears a family curse where all the women struggle with an alter identity of a giant red panda. Sounds weird but is great fun and a commentary on second generation immigrants who just want to be a normal American kid versus parents who want to preserve the culture. A big thanks to Stanley Evans for pointing me to this charming movie that had slipped off my radar.
WINNER: Turning Red—Disney gives us their best effort since the superior Coco. Another family driven comedy with a heart and a great pop soundtrack.
BEST SONG
Screw it. I just added the category because Oscar effed it up. Ryan Gosling’s
“I’m Just Ken” (from Barbie) is the only nominee because what else do we need to hear, and, therefore….
WINNER: “I’m Not Ken”. Did you not see my boy in the clip above? Ryan Gosling, you’re not just Ken, you’re everything.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT RECOGNITIONS
There wasn’t a lot of time for old movie catchup but the highlights were some old favorites and another classic I needed to catch up on. The opportunity to share the much maligned Lucille Ball in the splashy musical Mame always gives me great pleasure. I am so tired of all the hate about Lucy’s singing and how Angela Lansbury got robbed. The studios were never going to hire Lansbury, and it’s not like her singing is all that amazing. Lucy brings her maternal warmth that she brought into our living rooms for three decades, is a master comedienne, and if all else fails the opportunity to preserve the magnificent Bea Arthur in the role of her life as deluded actress Vera Charles is priceless, The cherry on top is Lucy and Bea bumping and grinding to the finale of “Bosom Buddies”. If only Madeline Kahn had not been dismissed (Lucy gets blamed for not wanting Kahn to steal her comic thunder; the truth is more that Kahn deliberately underperformed because she wanted to jump ship for Blazing Saddles.)
Speaking of Kahn, the hundred and twentieth viewing of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein never gets old, and Kahn is at her most comic as the frivolous fiancée who becomes the Bride of Frankenstein.
I also revisited my favorite musical biopic of all time, Coal Miner’s Daughter. I remember that year’s Oscars, when Mary Tyler Moore, American TV’s sweetheart broke out in a role that made you detest her and somehow lost. When I finally saw Sissy Spacek’s lovable, charming take on the unexpected life of Queen of Country Music Loretta Lynn, it made sense. Spacek makes the audience fall in love with her. Add young Tommy Lee Jones as husband Doolittle Lynn and Beverly D’Angelo as Patsy Cline all doing what turns out to have been the best work of their careers, and all their own flawless singing. Spacek is an exact replica of younger Lynn and D’Angelo does the near-impossible by even approaching Cline. This movie is still my personal benchmark for any biopic, musical or not.
The other two classics that merited viewing were inspired by TV viewing. Watching FX’s Feud 2: Capote vs the Swans, I realize I’ve seen In Cold Blood but never had seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Audrey Hepburn is delightful and Geaorge Peppard makes a dashing comic romantic lead, but what in the Tokyo Rose hell was Blake Edwards thinking with Mickey Rooney’s outrageous Oriental buffoonery as the Japanese guy upstairs? And yes I know that “Oriental” is an offensive term, that just made it more appropriate to use because that’s how offensive the depiction is.
Capote also took me back to another viewing of 1975 detective movie spoof Murder By Death, the granddaddy of Clue, when they recreated the infamous dinner scene on the series, with a drunken Capote to liquored up to deliver his lines. I maintain it’s Neil Simon’s best script that held up over time (without all the old 60s rimshot set-up jokes), and somehow Peter Sellers as Charlie Chan doesn’t bother me. Probably because A), he’s genuinely a comic genius, and B) I saw Rooney first, who set a new benchmark for cultural embarrassment.
The last classic came from stumbling across a picture that was always was always run on the afternoon movies during my childhood that I haven’t come across in years, the Hammer Horror classic, Tallulah Bankhead’s Die, Die, My Darling. Bankhead plays a good Christian woman who invites her late son’s fiancée to her countryside farm home for condolences. Once she’s there, she reveals her intention to kill her so the lovers can be reunited in heaven, tearing down the scenery in that old school way as only a Hollywood legend can. The significance of this film stems back about 15 years ago when I took Justin to see a hilarious Broadway comedy, Looped, starring the brilliant Valerie Harper in her final performance as Bankhead on the day she had to come in post-production to redub one line that had sound interference on the film. As legend has it, she showed up, six hours late, drunk and popping pills and cannot get the one line out. The play was filled with Bankhead bon mots and quotes and gossip about the celebrities and the industry of the day—and plenty of blue stories about Bankhead’s celebrated checkered past. Harper, given three months to live with brain cancer, outlived the predictions, taking Looped through trials and to Broadway then on tour and even squeezing in a stint on Dancing with the Stars. Sadly, a few weeks before the show was supposed to play Baltimore, it caught up with her and she passed. Quickly replaced with Stephanie Powers, I passed on the opportunity because I just wanted to see Harper’s brilliance one more time. If one can only imagine how upset I was watching the movie when I saw that Powers was her costar portraying the fiancée in the movie—her take on Tallulah when she was there was the best stunt casting one could ask for. The movie, B+ schlock horror, the memories of Harper during the viewing (and envisioning how equally brilliant Powers could have been), A+
That’s it for the first installment of the 2023 Marco Awards. Come back next week for the 4th Annual Marco Awards for Excellence in TV.
PAST WINNERS
Best Movie
2021 The Trial of the Chicago 6
2022 Promising Young Woman
2023 Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Best Actor
2021 Taron Egerton (Rocketman)
2022 LaKeith Stanfield (Judas & the Black Messiah)
2023 Austin Butler (Elvis)
Best Actress
2021 Meryl Streep (The Prom)
2022 Carrie Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)
2023 Michelle Yeoh (Everything, Everywhere, All at Once)
Best Supporting Actor
2021 Sasha Baron-Cohen (The Trial of the Chicago 6)
2022 J.K. Simmons(Being the Ricardos)
2023 Ke Huy Quan (Everything, Everywhere, All at Once)
Best Supporting Actress
2021 Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
2022 Nina Ariande (Being the Ricardos)
2023 Jamie Leigh Curtis (Everything, Everywhere, All at Once)
Best Director
2022 Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)
2023 Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinart (Everything, Everywhere, All at Once)
Best Documentary
2021 Family Band
2022 JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass
2023 Lucy & Desi
Best Animated Film
2021 My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising
2022 Raya & the Last Dragon
2023 Pinocchio