Whenever Tom Hanks makes a movie, he is in the conversation for that year’s major acting awards. 2022 was no exception thanks to A Man Called Otto, the Hollywood remake of the 2015 Swedish film (A Man Called Ove) that was nominated for 2 Oscars following its 2016 release in the U.S.

This time around, however, the only major acting award Hanks was nominated for was the AARP Films for Grown-ups Award for Best Actor which he lost to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser in The Whale.

There were several things going against the venerable actor this year. One was the stiff competition for Best Actor that also included Fraser’s fellow Oscar nominees, Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin, Austin Butler in Elvis, Paul Mescal in Aftersun, and Bill Nighy in Living. Nighy got the old geezer spot that Hanks might otherwise have taken.

The biggest thing going against the six-time Oscar nominee and back-to-back winner for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump this year, was the fact that he gave one of the year’s worst performances as Elvis Presley’s manager, Col. Parker, in Elvis. That performance was so bad it won him two Razzies, one for his dreadful performance and the other for worst duo, him, and his ludicrous makeup. Oscar voters have a tradition of snubbing actors who give good and bad performances in the same year.

Seen in its own light, A Man Called Otto is a very good film about a grumpy old man redeemed by his late-in-life friendships with his younger neighbors. It’s something we’ve see a lot of lately with the likes of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino and Cry Macho, Bill Murray in St. Vincent, Brian Dennehy in Driveways, and of course, Rolf Lassgard in A Man Called Ove.

Hanks fits comfortably in the groove of the recently retired old man who has nothing to live for after the death of his wife. His plans of committing suicide are thwarted three times, in the first instance by the faulty hangman’s noose he installed in his living room, in the second by his neighbors, and in the third, by good Samaritans who rescue him after he singlehandedly rescued someone else from being run over by a train. Slowly, the old grump becomes a new man thanks to his friendships with the South American family that moved in next door, the trans newspaper boy who was a pupil of his late wife, and the social media girl who gets his story out.

Filmed mostly in and around Pittsburgh, Pa. and Toledo, Ohio, Hanks is given strong support by Mariana Treviño and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as his new neighbors, trans actor Mack Bayda as the newspaper boy, Cameron Britton, Juanita Jennings, and Peter Lawson Jones as older neighbors, Rachel Keller in flashbacks as his late wife, and his son, Truman Hanks, as the younger version of him.

Directed by Marc Foster (Finding Neverland), the film is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD from Sony.

Newly available on Blu-ray and standard DVD from Lionsgate is the film that won this year’s Best Actor Oscar for Brendan Fraser.

Directed by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), the A24 film is a tough one to sit through as we watch Fraser as a morbidly obese online college professor eat himself to death while trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter, played by Sadie Sink. Samantha Morton is good as usual in her limited on-screen time as Fraser’s ex-wife, and Hong Chao, Oscar nominated for her portrayal of Fraser’s caregiver, is touching throughout. More Chao and less Sink would have been ideal, but it is what it is.

There’s a subplot about a runaway would-be evangelical preacher played by Ty Simpkins that seems to belong in another movie.

Despite the film’s drawbacks, it’s worth seeing for the splendid work of Fraser and Chao. If you could sit through Nicolas Cage drinking himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas for which he won his Oscar, you can certainly sit through this.

Warner Archive has released another three films restored for their Blu-ray debut.

Anatole Litvak’s 1939 film Confessions of a Nazi Spy was a brave film to make in its day. The first Hollywood film to use the word Nazi, it resulted in death threats from Hitler against all those connected with it, as well as the families of those who had relatives still living in Germany. Several theatre managers who showed the film in Poland were hung in the lobbies of their theatres.

The film itself, though, doesn’t really hold up. Told in documentary style, star Edward G. Robinson as an FBI agent doesn’t enter until forty minutes into the film. However, the performances of Francis Lederer in the title role, and Paul Lukas and George Sanders as unrepentant Nazis still command attention.

The National Board of Review named it the Best Picture of the Year over Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, Ninotchka, The Women, and others released in what is generally referred to as the greatest movie year of all time.

Also getting Blu-ray upgrades from Warner Archive are two 1949 films.

Michael Curtiz’s Flamingo Road reunited Joan Crawford with her Mildred Pierce director and co-star, Zachary Scott, along with Sydney Greenstreet, David Brian, and Gladys George in a less interesting tale in which Crawford rises from the gutter to the top and almost back down again. Re-watch Mildred Pierce instead.

Edward Buzzell’s Neptune’s Daughter is a silly mistaken identity musical with Esther Williams, Ricardo Montalban, Red Skelton, and Betty Garrett wasted in the leads. The film’s only saving grace is Frank Loesser’s Oscar-winning song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which all four stars get the chance to participate in. Watch Williams in 1952’s Million Dollar Mermaid instead.

Happy viewing.