The self appointed Oscar prognosticators are out and about. They’re making their lists, checking them twice, even if they haven’t seen all the movies. It’s only October 9th.

But the Hamptons and New York Film Festivals have given me an opportunity to catch up with films I haven’t seen yet, and you will soon.

This is what we got:

“The Hate U Give” is already out, playing in select theaters. It’s an excellent film. The actor who jumps off the screen is Russell Hornsby as the father of the very fine Amandla Stenberg. It’s a performance that compares to Mahershala Ali‘s breakout in “Moonlight.” Hornsby must be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He may even win. He’s dynamite.

Ironically, Mahershala Ali is back in Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book,” at the top of his game and gunning for another take at Best Supporting Actor. Ali plays jazz pianist Don Shirley, who in real life in 1961 needed a driver to take him through the South for a tour. The man who took the job was Tony Lip, the Bronx bouncer at the Copa who needed extra work. Viggo Mortensen is sensational as Tony, and will be nominated. He may win. I’m actually thinking he should, as the culmination of a career that includes “Eastern Promises,” “Captain Fantastic,” “A History of Violence,” the “Lord of the Rings” Movies, and so on. Viggo and Mahershala make one of the great all time teams. “Green Book” seems like a two hander because of them. Peter Farrelly has exceeded himself. No one will not love this movie. And it’s no “Bucket List”– no shmaltz.

Yesterday I wrote about Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant in “Can You Ever Forgive Me? This duo also makes it all look easy. Lovely work. The same can be said of Viola Davis, for Steve McQueen‘s “Widows.” Talk about ‘how to get away with murder’! Davis leads a stunning ensemble including Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Rodriguez, Liam Neeson, and Elizabeth Debicki (not to forget Daniel Kaluuya and Colin Farrell). This is “Oceans 8.1.”

For weeks, the word “Roma” has been on everyone’s lips. Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron has made a film about his childhood in Mexico City, recalling his nanny’s failed love affair, his father’s exit from the family, Mexican politics during his teen years. “Roma” is in Spanish, and black and white. It’s a masterpiece, on the same scale as Nadine Labiki‘s “Capernaum” and Florian von Donnersmarck‘s “Never Look Away.” Throw in “Cold War” (Poland) and “Border” (Sweden) and this is a landmark year for foreign films. These directors are working on a higher plane. It’s a very exciting year.

Paula Schwartz wrote a wonderful story about the “Roma” premiere. I will add that Cuaron throws in a meta moment in “Roma.” I’ll write about it tomorrow.

And yes, very importantly, there’s also “First Man” (Claire Foy, Claire Foy) and “A Star is Born,” the top players in the awards season this time around. They will each get multiple nominations, and are at the top of many lists for good reasons.

“Roma” is the name of the neighborhood in Mexico City where Oscar winning director Alfonso Cuarón “Gravity,” among others) grew up. Now Cuaron’s luscious black-and-white Spanish-language film of that name is on the Oscar track, appearing last Friday as the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival. The film received the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival and lives up to its hype.

Before the film’s Friday evening screening, Cuarón brought on the stage of Alice Tully Hall a tiny 80something woman, who he introduced as Libo, “She’s the woman who raised me and the inspiration for the film,” he said. (A tribute to her also appears in the end credits of film.)

“Roma” is Cuarón’s intimate and personal memory piece about growing up in a middle-class district of Mexico called Roma in 1970 and 71, as seen through the daily life of the family servant and housekeeper Cleo, played by first-time actress Yalitza Aparicio, an elementary school teacher in real life. Through the relationship of Cleo and Sofia, her employer (veteran access Marina De Tavira), the film is also a feminist ode and celebrates the solidarity and strength of women and the way in which they support and nurture one another, especially when men inevitably let them down.

On the red carpet Cuarón was overheard telling a reporter that he had no political agenda in making the film. “I think that what is clear is the human experience is the same wherever you are.” As for the artificial artifice of borders, real or metaphorical, Cuaron said, “Borders should be a celebration of the different colors humanity’s made off, it should not be about divisions.”

Earlier in the day, at the press conference, Cuarón said while making the film he wanted to “surrender to memory” while at the same time providing “a meaningful experience for the audience”so they can “participate in the experience of their own memory.”

The director said he also wanted “to honor time” and its flow. That’s why we see Cleo washing the floor in real time, especially the cobble stones at the beginning of the film. And why when Cleo goes to the bathroom the camera waits for her outside the door to emphasize and honor the flow of time and its rhythm as filtered through the director’s childhood memories.

On the red carpet, I spoke to Marina De Taviro, who plays the addled and stressed wife and mother Sofia, who comes to lean on Cleo during a family crisis and who comes to discover her own personal strength as a result of that relationship and support.

Earlier at the press conference it was mentioned the actors did not see a script. On the red carpet I asked the actress, who was wearing beautiful and large emerald and diamond earrings, what it was like working without a screenplay?

“They had the script perfectly written but we didn’t have (it). Nobody had it on the set, only Alfonso… I think this was an incredible gift that he gave us because he made our characters discover what was going to happen to them as the way we as human beings discover life… It surprises us and we shot chronologically, so it was as if we were living life as it is.”

During shooting the film how autobiographical did she feel it was for the director?

“I sensed that (it was). He said that this came from his memoirs but also from the memories of Libo — Cleo who she is based upon — I could sense that it was really personal from the way that he was talking to me, from the way he was talking about Sofia. He didn’t say she’s my mother but I could sense it because he spoke of her (the character) with so much knowledge of her life and of what she was going through … and I had to put that out of my mind because if I was thinking every day this was Alfonso’s mother I would just get really nervous, so I knew it and then I just put it away.”

You’re a very experienced actor working a lot of non-actors who had never been in front of the camera, especially co-star Yalitza Aparicio. What challenging was that?

“Alfonso told me this is really going to be difficult for you because you have these technique, and I’m basically a theater actress. He told me, you’re going to have to forget all that you know so you can just deal with the way that they work because they work in a different way, they don’t analyze, they don’t tend to interpret the theme, they just flow as if it was life. The first days were really difficult, but then we  started just to understand each other and I think it was amazing. It really transformed me as an actress and the way that I think about acting.”

Historically did you learn anything about Mexico from your own childhood memories? Also what lessons or meaning do you think the movie will hold for audiences?

“I was a child in the 80’s, not the 70’s, and this really brought back my memory about the way my childhood was. And I really hope we change the way we see family, break the traditionally way of looking at family, mom, dad and kids and that if that breaks we’re not a family… Who makes the difference? Maybe it’s the other women who help us (and create our family?”

How did you see your character evolving?

“She goes through a process… Her relationship with Cleo initially is as employer and employee and it’s also family; Cleo’s raising her children and loving them and I think she realizes that at the end that she knows that Cleo’s going to be the one she can count on even though she come from different worlds; Cleo comes form indigenous Mexican world and she works for her, but she’s going to be the most importance accomplice of her life.”

Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 11-9” is enlightening, elucidating, and enlivening.

But the much anticipated documentary is a dud at the box office. Without a smoking gun, a big reveal, or a scoop, “11-9” has scored less than $6 million in 17 days of release.

The film is now eyeing a theatrical finish around $6 million when it winds down next Friday.

It’s a disappointment for the audience, for Moore, and for the new Briarcliff distribution company. The only good news is that “11-9” finishes $2 million higher than Moore’s last release, “Where to Invade Next.”

But of course the numbers are way off from the original film, “Fahrenheit 9-11,” which soared to the amazing heights of $177 million.

The problem is that Donald Trump is involved in ten scandals a day, all of them provable. But he exhausts the public. And his base of nitwits don’t seem to care if he’s broken 10 laws, offended 10 countries, or tried to undermine the basic values of the United States. There’s no ‘a hah’ moment when the whole day is BREAKING NEWS.

Melissa McCarthy is mostly known for comedy. Her breakthrough film was “Bridesmaids” and she starred for six seasons in CBS’s “Mike and Molly.”

But McCarthy’s turn in “St. Vincent” with Bill Murray showed that she had the drama chops,too.

Now she throws her hat in the ring for Best Actress in the dramedy “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” She plays Lee Israel, a real life New York writer who couldn’t make ends meet after one best seller. So she forged letters from famous writers like Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward, and sold them to Manhattan dealers for hundreds and thousands of dollars.

For a while in 1991 Israel pulled off the scam, and involved a pal named Jack Hawk, who helped her pull off the deception. Richard E. Grant plays Hawk and is just sensational.

Marielle Heller directed from a screenplay by the great Nicole Hofcener with playwright Jeff Whitty. Among the executive producers is actor Bob Balaban and producer Anne Carey (“20th Century Women”).

“Can You Ever Forgive Me?” premiered Sunday night at the Hamptons Film Festival, which has been a marathon of viewing potential Oscar movies and performances. McCarthy should be a slam dunk in Best Actress, joining Lady Gaga, Glenn Close, maybe Emma Stone (“The Favourite”), and some names yet to be viewed in their films including Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie and so on.

Grant is a no brainer in the best supporting actor category.

McCarthy is full of surprises in “Can You Ever Forgive Me.” She abandons all her comedy tics (which are hilarious– see her Emmy for playing Sean Spicer on “SNL”). She’s the real thing as Lee Israel, an engaging but difficult woman (she died in 2014) who was an repentant alcoholic and iconoclast. McCarthy’ performance is a tour de force, and not to be missed.

PS McCarthy might ask US if we can forgive her for “Happytime Murders.” After seeing this new movie, the answer is yes. All is forgiven. Please don’t do that again.

Robert Pattinson stars as an astronaut who swears to celibacy in acclaimed French director Claire Denis’ perverse and wacky sci-fi saga, “High Life,” which had its U.S. premiere Tuesday evening at the New York Film Festival.

On a spaceship that looks like a cross between a cargo box and a hospital, a bunch of exceptionally good-looking young death row convicts are on a black-hole journey to hell, forever. At the same time they’re participating — some reluctantly — in a reproduction experiment orchestrated by a sex obsessed doctor, played by Juliette Binoche.

This Nurse Ratched-like doctor (she murdered her family), wears an exotic black braid down to her waist, and is obsessed with collecting sperm samples to impregnate the women. She tricks Monte (Pattinson) into some weird, half asleep sex play so he releases semen and ends up becoming a father. (Binoche herself has a sex scene you have to see to believe, where she writhes around naked on a large steel dildo in a space called a “fuckbox.”)

Earlier in the day at the film’s press conference, when asked about how Pattinson became attached to the film, the actor said he caught Denis’ 2009 film “White Material,” on TV by chance and tried to set up a meeting.

Meanwhile Denis did not have Pattinson on her radar for “High Life.” She envisioned Monte as an “older man, tired of his life, at the end wishing nothing but to die.” Denis said, “Robert brought something unexpected to the part. I was a little bit afraid, to be honest. I’m wasn’t afraid, not of his youth, I was afraid maybe he was too good-looking or too precious… I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I have to be aware of that and not be afraid of that, you know, not to be afraid by his charisma.”

“Don’t be afraid,” whispered Pattinson.

The actor was asked at the press conference about his choice of eclectic roles, including “The Lost City of Z,” “Cosmopolis,” “Damsel” and now High Life.”

“In general it’s pretty simple. I’ll see a director’s work (I admire) and “basically I approach people whose work I really love.”

Of Denis he said, “It seems like all of her actors have total un-self consciousness and they really seem to inhabit their physicality. As a person who doesn’t totally inhabit my body,” he said, “I hoped if it happened to other people maybe it will happen to me.”

On the red carpet that evening at Alice Tully Hall, Pattinson inhabited his body in a dark close-fitting jacket and wide-legged shorts that would seem impossible for anyone else to pull off without looking silly.

I asked Denis on the red carpet how she dreamed up such a kinky script. “I don’t know. I am like that. I am kinky maybe,” she said. “I thought it was the way to do it, that was my plan.”

I asked her what she meant earlier in the day about her reservations Pattinson might be too charismatic to play Monte. That’s not what she meant she told me. “I said there was at the moment I was shy, I didn’t say he was too charismatic. I said, I was afraid that I was not going to understand how charismatic he was in a film you know? No, I was not afraid by that, it’s only that I was shy, that’s all. And he is mysterious and shy too you know?”

In “High Life,” Pattinson plays a role he’s never done: space dad. There are wonderful scenes in the beginning of the film with him and a baby and they have a terrific rapport.

At the public Q&A Tuesday evening, Pattinson was asked what it was like working with the baby and where did they find her?

“She came in for an audition,” cracked the actor.

Denis interjected, “Robert knew the baby,” she said. “This dear friend of his from school had the baby.” The first round of babies did not pan out. “We were not so happy with the baby caster,” Denis said. “This baby was terrific to work with, so cute, so open to people, so interested in sharing.”

“From the first day she was like that,” said Pattinson. “She’s my best friend’s kid. She also took her first steps on set and called me ‘dada dada.’”

The director was then asked why she decided to make “High Life” in English?

“In space people speak only English or Russian,” said Denis.

The final question was to the 72 year-old director about masturbation and “the fuckbox.”

Said Denis, “The fuckbox is more than (a place to) masturbate. They do masturbate alone in their box” but “this box is a way to be alone and it was important that there was such a place.”

Pattinson, who had changed from his red carpet shorts suit to jeans and a baseball hat turned backward, nodded along “yes.”

Pattinson sings over the closing credits of the movie to a ballad called “Willow” by Stuart A Staples of English alternative Rock band Tindersticks.

A24 purchased “High Life” with no release date yet set.

photo c 2018 Showbiz411 by Paula Schwartz