Steamy Streaming: Oscar Night

BY: PROVOKR Editors

The Oscars are finally here! If you ignore the fact that awards don’t matter since they’re arbitrary trinkets handed out by old squares who are more interested in patting themselves on the back than celebrating the art of moviemaking, it’s a fun night full of gorgeous dresses, jolly vibes, and – of course – a fun monologue from the host, usually an edgy comic who is willing to take Hollywood to task for its own oblivious self-importance.

Okay, so maybe this year’s Oscars ceremony will be a bit different, a bit joyless, a bit lame, but that’s not a mark against the tremendous films nominated for awards. There are a ton of great films not nominated for any Oscars this year (Beautiful Boy, Ben is Back, Creed II, Destroyer), but this year’s crop of contenders is still a veritable feast for cinephiles of every flavor.

For this week’s Steamy Streaming, let’s take a look at the nominees for Best Director and pick one of their earlier films on which to shine a spotlight.

Alfonso Cuarón: Y Tu Mamá También

Cuarón is nominated for Roma, his semi-autobiographical black and white drama about a Mexican house cleaner trying to make ends meet in the 1970s. The director first broke out on the scene with 2001’s Y Tu Mamá También, a sexually-charged road trip movie set across the beautiful Mexican landscape. It’s not for everyone, and its explicit sexual content might be a little too much for some viewers, but it’s still not to be missed.

Paweł Pawlikowski: The Woman in the Fifth

Mainstream audiences might not know who Paweł Pawlikowski is, but he’s nominated for Best Director thanks to his work on Cold War, another black and white film, this time about troubled lovers in post-war Poland. Back in 2011, Pawlikowski made waves with The Woman in the Fifth, based on the Douglas Kennedy novel. A noir-tinged romantic drama starring Ethan Hawke and Kristen Scott Thomas, the film deftly navigates its mind-twisting subject matter and elevated Pawlikowski to the front of his field.

Yorgos Lanthimos: The Lobster

While he’s nominated for The Favourite, we have a feeling that Yorgos Lanthimos will always be remembered for his work on The Lobster, one of 2015’s most celebrated movies. Equally bizarre and sincere, The Lobster stars Colin Farrell as a man desperate to find love; desperate because if he doesn’t, he will be transformed into an animal for the rest of his life. At least they get to choose the animal they become; his brother became a dog, and he is doomed to become a lobster because he loves the ocean. All that being said, he’d much rather remain human, all things considered.

Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee has been making movies for decades, but it may be surprising to learn that his first Best Director nomination is for BlacKkKlansman. He’s been nominated before as a screenwriter, for his 1989 breakthrough hit, Do the Right Thing. Nigh-universally regarded as one of the greatest films of the 1980s, and – indeed – of all time, this movie, no matter what Lee does with the rest of his career (and he’s made some truly incredible movies since then) will always be seen as his magnum opus.

Adam McKay: The Big Short

While Adam McKay’s kinda/sorta biopic of Dick Cheney, Dick, is making waves for its Wolf of Wall Street approach to one of modern history’s most notorious and infamous figures, it’s important to remember that it’s all by design. McKay is keenly politically aware, and Dick isn’t his first journey into the realm of unfettered selfishness and cruelty disguised as capitalism; 2015’s The Big Short turned the 2008 financial crisis into an easily digestible dramatic comedy. Self-aware in its sensibilities and as eager to inform as it is to entertain, The Big Short won McKay his first Oscar, for Best Adapted Screenplay, and was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor, for Christian Bale, with whom McKay reteamed for Dick.