2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Train Dreams

• IMDB link: Train Dreams
• Tagline: "Based on Denis Johnson's beloved novella, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century."
• My Best Picture Project

    This movie reminds me a lot of A River Runs Through It, but slower-paced. Lovely places, interesting people, and more ... dreamy, and given the title, that makes sense.  It is also more tragic, but I don't want to spoil the movie.  I haven't read the novella, so I can't speak to how well the movie adapted the source material.

    The movie is about an orphan who becomes a logger, and eventually marries, has a child, and he encounters a lot of strange people and strange events.  He witnesses the anti-Chinese racism of the early 1900s and encounters loggers of all ages.  At the start of the movie, he is young and notices the old loggers; later, he becomes an old logger and is taught to use early chainsaws by the young loggers.

    There was also a hint of Rip Van Winkle in the story - he occasionally comes out of the woods to see how the world is changing.  He sees TVs for the first time on one of those jaunts and finds out men have gone to outer space.  Another time, he rides in an airplane, and he ponders how everything is connected.

    I don't exactly identify with the main character - he's a logger, and I'm not. But he likes his cabin in the woods, and given the chaotic political events happening right now, I totally get that.   He's also a genuinely good man, and such people are rarely depicted on screen, perhaps because they aren't especially interesting. The movie makes up for that by making everything around him weird.

    

    The acting is excellent. William H. Macy played an old demolition expert in a standout, funny, and sad performance.  Cinematography is also great - the woods of the Pacific Northwest are almost a character in their own right.  

    It's a good movie, and I do recommend it, but expect the strange and tragic odyssey.

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern Gothic Vampires Sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 2)
3. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris 3)

• Bugonia (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Frankenstein (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Marty Supreme (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• One Battle After Another (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• The Secret Agent (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Sentimental Value (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Train Dreams (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.