The Revenant (2015)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Hair and Makeup, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Production Design    Good lord, this thing is nominated for fucking everything.  I have now completed the Best Film Editing category, which I'm definitely not qualified to judge but I was most impressed by the cuts in The Big Short.  The Revenant is also the last one in the Best Hair and Makeup category but I didn't find it very impressive.  As much as the Academy loves old age make-up, I think this one will go to Mad Max:  Fury Road.  Best Sound Mixing should go to Star Wars:  The Force Awakens and Best Sound Editing to Mad Max.  Best Visual Effects goes to The Martian, hands down.

I wasn't terribly impressed with this movie.  It's not that I didn't think DiCaprio didn't do a good job but more that I couldn't connect with his character at all.  I was watching someone suffer to survive but I didn't care if he made it or not.  If the Best Actor race truly is between DiCaprio and Matt Damon, Damon has it sewn up shut for me.  I was on the edge of my seat throughout The Martian and there was a point near the end where I seriously considered pausing the movie and looking up what happened online because I didn't think I could take it if Mark Watney died.  That's how real he was to me.  I felt nothing like that during The Revenant.

Except cold.  Jesus, God in Heaven, this movie was so cold.

Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a scout for a bunch of fur traders.  After an attack by angry Native Americans, Glass sets their course over very rough terrain, forcing them to abandon all their furs.  This doesn't sit well with Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), a permanently disgruntled man harboring a grudge against all Indians for nearly scalping him.  He particularly dislikes Glass's half-Pawnee son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) and takes every opportunity to needle the boy.  Glass does his best to stay under the radar, but after he is mauled by a mother grizzly, the crew has to decide who will stay behind and care for him until he dies of his injuries.  Fitzgerald volunteers but has no intention to actually care for the wounded.  Interrupted in the process of smothering Glass, Fitzgerald murders Hawk to keep the boy from raising the alarm and then drags Glass into a shallow grave.  Glass survives, pushing himself to follow Fitzgerald's trail through freezing cold, infection, and starvation to get justice for his murdered son.

This was officially the worst camping trip ever.  It reminded me a lot of Jack London's novels, for the bleak man-vs-pitiless-nature theme.  Tom Hardy was amazingly evil here.  Not mustache-twirling evil, but real, honest, sell-you-out-to-make-a-buck evil.  I have not seen the last nominee for Best Supporting Actor but he is definitely out in front for me.  Sylvester Stallone would have to be pretty fucking impressive to top this performance.