RBG (2018)

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song   Time for a personal anecdote, kids!  You know how people always ask you when you're small what you want to be when you grow up?  For many years, my standard answer was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  According to my mother, the lure of a lifetime appointment of being the final legal arbiter for an entire country was too attractive for me to resist.

So as you can imagine, Ruth Bader Ginsberg ranks pretty high up there for me.  In recent years, the Notorious R.B.G. has become a creature of myth and legend on the Internet and this documentary does strike a hagiographic tone at times.  It is strongest when it allows its subject to speak for herself either through current interviews or historical records and hopefully, those are the parts people will carry with them when they finish watching.

Ginsberg has been practicing law for over 60 years.  She made a name for herself taking on cases of sex discrimination, building always towards the inexorable goal of achieving equality through the law for men and women.  Soft-spoken and petite, she has nonetheless proven indomitable through the decades, challenging institutions and mindsets with calm, reason, and empathy.

This documentary isn't necessarily ground-breaking and I don't know that it has the kind of panache needed to win but it is a sweetly engaging overview of a modern day icon.  It even has it's own fight song, the Jennifer Hudson-led, Diane Warren-penned ballad "I'll Fight."  Too bad it's going to get creamed by "Shallow."

Roma (2018)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Production Design    This is certainly a marker to show just how much of a juggernaut streaming services have become.  If you had said even five years ago that a Netflix original film would be nominated for 10 Academy awards, no one would have believed you.

Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) is a young woman working as a maid for a rich family in Mexico City in the early 1970s.  She gets knocked up only to find that her baby daddy (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) wants nothing to do with her, while Mrs. Sofi (Marina de Tavira), the lady of the house, is also facing some difficulties because her husband (Fernando Grediaga) has decided to have a midlife crisis and leave her with three kids and no explanations during a time of civil unrest.

This felt like watching two separate stories intertwine, which is in no respect a dig.  Both of these characters, Cleo and Sofi, deal with problems, adapt, and react to the world around them in ways that feel organic and realistic.  Alfonso Cuarón has made it very clear in interviews that this is very autobiographical for him and has faithfully and lovingly brought his childhood to life.  He has managed to create representations of two different but equally strong women and it is beautiful to behold.

It's an incredible film from top to bottom.  Every detail is period-specific, the cinematography is absurdly crisp with the most incredible play of light I have seen since Mad Max: Fury Road.  If it wins for nothing else, it should get cinematography.  Everyone else can just go home (she said, having only seen two of the nominees in the category.)  This is the only movie that I wished I had thought to live-tweet.  There were so many moments I wanted to share.

Like, did he really put in a scene just to make fun of his own previous Oscar winner, Gravity?  How many other Easter eggs are in there?  Is there a Harry Potter wand floating around that I missed?  Conveniently, it is on Netflix so when you check it out, look for these things and then come tell me.

A Star is Born (2018)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Song, and Best Sound Mixing  It's a little hard to judge this film since I haven't seen the three other versions on which it was based so I don't know how much new was added and how much was just lifted wholesale.

Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) is a rock star grappling with increased hearing loss and rampant alcoholism.  Searching for his next drink, Jack wanders into a drag bar and sees Ally (Lady Gaga) perform with the kind of fresh-faced enthusiasm he has been missing.  He sweeps her into his orbit, promoting her onstage to sing with him, encouraging her songwriting talent, and being a good mentor, but as her star begins to eclipse him, he fears losing everything that made her special.

Did you notice how that whole synopsis was about him?  That's because it's how the film is structured.  Ally might be the eponymous star but this is Jackson Maine's story.  At best, she is a supporting character even if she gets almost as much screen time.  There's no effort made on her internal life, no real background for her, and no sense of who she is without Jackson.  In that sense, I don't believe Gaga should get the statuette.  Not for this.  I do look forward to seeing her in other more dramatic work.

Bradley Cooper clearly did some work on camera.  He imbues Jackson with a clumsy sweetness buried under the booze and depression.  I will say that the gravelly rasp he affects is distracting.  There's a moment in the film where Jackson confronts his brother, Bobby (Sam Elliott), over some long-overdue family drama, and Bobby accuses Jackson of stealing his voice.  The audience in the theater laughed because they thought it was supposed to be a comment about Bradley Cooper trying to sound like Sam Elliott instead of Jackson Maine taking Bobby's promising career for himself.  I don't know if Cooper deserves to win.  Christian Bale is, frankly, a much better actor than Bradley Cooper and Rami Malek has a lot of buzz for his role as Freddie Mercury.  I think those are the two to beat and I don't know that Cooper manages it.

As far as Sam Elliott's chances, if he wins it will be because the Academy realized what an oversight it has been that he didn't get an Oscar earlier in his career.  The man's been working for over 50 years.  He deserved one for Tombstone but we don't live in a just world and that year, hell, that film had too many good actors in it and no way to single them all out.

The cinematography is good; there were some very interesting angles and shots, but nothing that really took my breath away.  I don't think it's a strong contender in this field.

Best Original Song is pretty much a lock, though.  I worried when I was watching that I would be burned out by having heard it so many times but there really is a magic in the way it's handled.  When Ally opens up for the first time to the crowd and really throws herself into the performance, it's electrifying.

Sound Mixing I don't have the first clue about.  I assume it's used in this instance to create the tinnitus sound that Jackson suffers from but that's just me guessing.

That's all the categories out of the way.  I would also like to point out the random cameos from Dave Chappelle and Eddie Griffin, and say that I hope to see them come back.  Also, I didn't even fucking recognize Andrew Dice Clay as Ally's dad.  Holy shit.  I never liked him as a comedian but I am starting to like him as an actor.

All About Eve (1950)

  This is not one of this year's nominees but it is a Best Picture winner.

Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is the darling of the theater.  Every play she stars in becomes a hit and she has cultivated a team that consistently churns out star vehicles for her.  If that makes her a little bit of a diva, it's worth it.  Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) is Margo's biggest fan, waiting around night after night at the stage door just hoping to be noticed.  Margo and her clique make a pet of Eve after hearing her sad backstory, but Margo grows increasingly paranoid that Eve is trying to supplant her, to take over her very life.

I am shocked and amazed that this is one sacred cow that hasn't yet been slaughtered on the remake altar.  It was years ahead of its time and remains an incredibly sharp look at the nature of fame, celebrity and the obsession of youth and beauty within the industry.  The only part that shows its age is the bit near the end when Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) slaps Eve for laughing at him.  That's not okay.  Other than that, this is a movie that could have been made this year.

This got nominated for a whopping 14 Oscars and won six.  Bette Davis was great but Anne Baxter got fucking robbed by the Academy.  Her performance as Eve is crazy good.  Thelma Ritter didn't get a lot of screen time but she's always a solid performer.  Celeste Holm absolutely nails the big doe-eyed, hand-wringing look but it wouldn't have been enough to get her Best Supporting Actress.  But Joseph L. Mankiewicz very deservedly won for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

This is a classic for a reason.  If you haven't seen it, take the time.  It is absolutely worth it.

We Own the Night (2007)

  Another day, another bad period drama.  This one is set in the 1980s and tries to cover a weak plot with violence.  Sometimes that's okay but here it just doesn't work.

Bobby Green (Joachim Phoenix) is living the high life in Brooklyn.  He manages one of the hottest clubs in the borough, has a smoking hot girlfriend (Eva Mendes, who hopefully fired her agent after this), and is being groomed to take over management of an even bigger club in Manhattan.  He doesn't really speak to his family much but does show up for a reception honoring his brother (Mark Wahlberg), Joseph Grusinsky, getting a promotion to police captain.  Joe and their dad, Police Commissioner Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall), pull Bobby aside to warn him that his club is a notorious hangout for Russian gangster Vadim Nezhinsky (Alex Veadov) and also they are very disappointed in him for being such a fuck up and also using his mother's maiden name like he's ashamed of them.  Sure enough, the club gets raided and Bobby has Serious Conversations with his dad and brother again.  Joe gets his face shot off in retaliation which scares Bobby enough that he volunteers to go undercover to take down Nezhinsky. 

Look, I get it.  You show the disconnect between Bobby and his family then do the 180 when his brother is hurt because Blood is Thicker Than Water.  But it feels so laaaaaaazzzzzzyyyy.  There's no nuance, no redemption arc.  Bobby has one argument with his brother that feels like it was cribbed from better gangster movies and then decides to be an undercover cop.  There's no internal conflict.  The movie spends some time showing how welcomed Bobby is in the mob family and he drops them like they meant nothing.  He beats the shit out of his best friend (who is admittedly annoying AF) in an interrogation at the drop of a hat.  Nothing feels organic.  Part of that is Phoenix's robotic delivery but most of it is a bad script.

And let's not even get started on the waste of Mendes as an actress here.  Her character could have had some purpose but instead is a sad knockoff of Sharon Stone in Casino. 

This last one is a little weird so bear with me.  The opening credits show still photos of police performing arrests on what I assume are drug users/dealers and are no doubt meant to evoke the real-life events of the times.  However, all the arrestees seem to be people of color (they went by fairly quickly and I only watched the one time so don't quote me) and the actual film itself features no POC except for Mendes' very fetishized character.  There just seemed like a huge dichotomy between the street-level violence in the opening credits (hanging the racist optics out for another day) and the more high-level machinations occurring in the actual film. 

Don't watch this movie.  Watch Manhattan Melodrama instead.

Oscar Nominations 2019

It's Nominations day!  Nothing makes the first day of a shortened work week go by faster than reading over endless articles of who should and shouldn't have been nominated!

Best Picture

Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star is Born
Vice

Hoo boy, this category is going to be fraught with controversy.   

Best Director

Spike Lee - BlacKkKlansman
Pawel Pawlikowski - Cold War
Yorgos Lathimos - The Favourite
Alfonso Cuaron - Roma
Adam McKay - Vice

Pretty sure Cuaron is a shoe-in and a little surprised Bradley Cooper didn't make the cut.

Best Actor

Christian Bale - Vice
Bradley Cooper - A Star is Born
Willem Dafoe - At Eternity's Gate
Rami Malek - Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen  - Green Book

Those are some heavy-hitting names.  This will be a tough category.

Best Actress

Yalitza Aparicio - Roma
Glenn Close - The Wife
Olivia Colman - The Favourite
Lady Gaga - A Star is Born
Melissa McCarthy - Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Nice to see the lead from Roma getting a nod as well as Melissa McCarthy.  Her movie was on a lot of critics' best of list for the year but I've not heard her name bandied about this awards season.  It's a little odd to see Nicole Kidman get snubbed.

Best Supporting Actor

Mahershala Ali - Green Book
Adam Driver - BlacKkKlansman
Sam Elliott - A Star is Born
Richard E. Grant - Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Sam Rockwell - Vice

This will probably go to Ali, like the Golden Globe, but you can't rule out Rockwell coming back for a repeat.  Also, can you believe this is Sam Elliott's first ever Oscar nomination?!  Shit's crazy, yo.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams - Vice
Marina De Tavira - Roma
Regina King - If Beale Street Could Talk
Emma Stone - The Favourite
Rachel Weisz - The Favourite

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
BlacKkKlansman
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star is Born

Totally shocked that the Coen Brothers managed to sneak in a nomination.  From what I've heard, Buster Scruggs is a mixed bag but we shall see.

Best Original Screenplay

The Favourite
First Reformed
Green Book
Roma
Vice

Best Animated Feature

Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse

Best Animated Short

Animal Behavior
Bao
Late Afternoon
One Small Step
Weekends

I'm so excited because I've actually managed to see all of the shorts in this category thanks to an article on /Film. 

Best Live Action Short

Detainment
Fauve
Marguerite
Mother
Skin

Best Cinematography

Cold War
The Favourite
Never Look Away
Roma
A Star is Born

Interesting that three of the five are foreign films.

Best Sound Editing

Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
A Quiet Place
Roma

Now I hated A Quiet Place but if it had to be nominated for anything, it was going to be this.

Best Sound Mixing

Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
Roma
A Star is Born

Damian Chazelle went from being the Academy's darling to shoved down into the more technical awards nominations.  Ouch.

Best Score

Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
If Beale Street Could Talk
Isle of Dogs
Mary Poppins Returns

Best Editing

BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Vice

Best Documentary Feature

Free Solo
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Minding the Gap
Of Fathers and Sons
RBG

Best Documentary Short

Black Sheep
End Game
Lifeboat
A Night at the Garden
Period.  End of Sentence.

Best Foreign Language Film

Capernaum
Cold War
Never Look Away
Roma
Shoplifters

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Border
Mary Queen of Scots
Vice

Mary Queen of Scots I was expecting to have had more of a push for Margot Robbie or Saoirse Ronan but I guess they didn't want to muddy the waters with The Favourite being so big.

Best Visual Effects

Avengers:  Infinity War
Christopher Robin
First Man
Ready Player One
Solo:  A Star Wars Story

Also known as the category of films that actually made money but weren't cultural milestones.

Best Costume Design

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Black Panther
The Favourite
Mary Poppins Returns
Mary Queen of Scots

Best Production Design

Black Panther
The Favourite
First Man
Mary Poppins Returns
Roma

Best Original Song

"All the Stars"  - Black Panther
"I'll Fight" - RBG
"The Place Where Lost Things Go" - Mary Poppins Returns
"Shallow" - A Star is Born
"When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

I have to say, the Ballad of Buster Scruggs being nominated for three Oscars with zero campaigning has completely thrown me.  I am all for streaming services being represented.  It makes it so much easier to find and watch these films.  But I am really surprised at the films that didn't make the cut.  Eighth Grade, Beautiful Boy, Crazy Rich Asians, and Destroyer got no love whatsoever.  It'll be interesting to read the hot takes coming out after this.

By my count, I have 37 films to watch before the ceremony on Feb 24th.  Time to go comb through my streaming services and figure out what's still in theaters.

Allied (2016)

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!  Here's a movie made three years ago that still inexplicably only has white people in it!    This was a failed piece of Oscar bait.  It got a nomination for costume design but that was it.

Max (Brad Pitt) is a Canadian espionage agent on assignment in Casablanca in 1942.  His contact and partner is Marianne (Marion Cotillard).  After completing their assignment, Max has Marianne transferred to London and they marry for real.  A year later, however, Max is told that evidence is mounting that Marianne is actually a double agent for the Germans and the real French Resistance agent had died back in 1941.  With an execution order hanging over her, Max desperately searches for ways to prove her innocence.

This was a depressing slog but I really think it was sunk by two major factors.

1.  Both leads were too old for this role.  Pitt was 53 when this was filmed and that is about 25 years too old for his character.  Ideally, this would have gone to someone in their mid- to late 20s for any sense of realism.  Cotillard was 41 but she could have been a little older than the male lead and still have maintained suspension of disbelief.

2.  The CGI is godawful.  All the backgrounds look too bright and fake.  The very first scene of the movie is Pitt parachuting into the desert and it looks like he just lands in marshmallow.  Robert Zemeckis loves CGI and motion-capture but I think he gets so caught up in the technical marvel of it that he over-relies on its abilities.  He's still a great director but this is not going to be ranked with his successes.

The Strangers (2008)

  This was a bit disappointing because I think it was mis-rated.  It's an R that really should have been PG-13.

Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) are not having a good night.  First, Kristen turns down James' proposal and then three masked strangers terrorize them at their home.

That's it.  That's the premise.  Two people in a house, three people outside the house keeping them from leaving.  There's almost no actual violence.  All the menace comes from the anticipation of violence and the deep-seated fear of one's home no longer being safe.  It's effective enough but it really didn't need the R-rating.  It just comes off as a little bit simple because there's no real backstory.  This couple didn't wrong anyone, or participate in any kind of nefarious deal that blew back on them, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I'm sure that kind of random targeting is frightening to people (even though statistically you are much more likely to be killed by someone you know) but it made the film seem very one-note.  Also, there were some plot holes that just seemed a bit sloppy.

Overall, I think this film had a lot of potential that was just kind of wasted.

We Bought a Zoo (2011)

  Don't be fooled by the cute picture of the adorable little girl and smiling actors, this movie is gross.  It's based on a memoir and I would like to point out that I am not basing this review on the book (which I haven't read) or making any disparagement towards the author himself (whom I've never met or even heard of outside of this film) and how he processes his grief.  This is purely a review of the movie adaptation.

With that disclaimer, let's move on.  This movie is so gross.

Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) is still reeling from the death of his wife/soulmate (Stephanie Szostak) and can barely function, let alone take care of his two kids.  So he decides to quit his job as an "adventure" reporter and buy a rundown private zoo, against the advice of pretty much everyone but mostly his brother (Thomas Haden Church).  The zoo comes with a motley crew of workers, led by Kelly (Scarlett Johansson), who are very unsure of this new owner with zero experience.  Benjamin throws himself into the restoration of the zoo, pouring money like a never-ending stream, so he can distract himself from ever facing his emotional wounds or those of his 14-year-old son (Colin Ford).  Of course everything comes to a head when Kelly confronts him over the end of life preparations for the zoo's 17-year-old tiger.

This is billed as a cute family film and maybe you'd find it so but I was disgusted by pretty much everything in it.  From the blatant neglect of the children to the bald metaphor of putting down an animal as an analogue to losing a human to disease to the sheer vastness of the privilege on display, every "lesson" the movie tried to impart I violently reject.

AGAIN, I would like to point out that I am only talking about the on-screen portrayal, not the ACTUAL Benjamin Mee.  Movie Benjamin can only see his own grief, not his children's.  Even when his son acts out enough to get expelled from school, Movie Benjamin never recognizes it as a cry for help, only another thing he has to deal with.  He clearly prioritizes his seven-year-old daughter (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) because she is still innocent and not as obviously traumatized as the older one, again focusing on how it makes HIM feel instead of putting their needs first.

After his major confrontation where he completely rejects putting down the tiger because it reminds him too much of his wife's last days, he takes off "to think" and leaves his kids with no supervision (on a zoo with access to dozens of animals that could seriously hurt them) and no food for hours.  If Kelly had not taken charge, those kids would not have eaten.  In the movie, it's played as though Kelly is just being nurturing and kind (setting her up as the surrogate mother figure) and ignoring the fact that she is an employee of Benjamin Mee.  It is not her job to run his house but she knows that if he leaves, the zoo will be closed and all the animals will be transferred away from her.  This is the kind of emotional blackmail women deal with that men don't see.

Also, the number of times this man fails upward is astonishing.  How is he even able to afford a zoo when he just quit his job and had a spouse die of some lingering disease (which costs a fucking fortune)?  Oh, because he starts out rich.  The brother mentions that Benjamin is using the inheritance he got from their father to prop up this zoo and then **minor spoiler but don't see this movie anyway** he finds a secret fund set up by his wife while she was dying that magically contains just enough to money to bail him out after he recklessly blows through his original money.

This is a man who has never learned to put other people's needs before his own because he has never had to in his life.  He has been surrounded by women who took care of him and everything else so that he'd never have to spend even a minute thinking about it.  It's gross.  There are other examples in the film (like how the son just waits every day for Elle Fanning's character to bring him a sandwich) but I've already written way more words about this stupid movie than it deserves.  Do NOT watch this movie.

Game Change (2012)

  This was nominated for five Golden Globes and won three of them.  I didn't think it was that good but what do I know?

John McCain (Ed Harris) has a problem.  He has secured the Republican nomination for President but has yet to select a running mate.  All his go-to picks would bring him down in the polls, so his staff cast their net farther afield, all the way to Wasilla, Alaska.  Sarah Palin (Julianne Moore) seems like the perfect candidate but as the weeks wear on, campaign manager Steve Schmidt (Woody Harrelson) finds Palin more and more difficult to control.

Hey, remember when Sarah Palin was the butt of every joke but it was okay because we knew she was just a sideshow and responsible adults were going to be running things?  Good times.

Honestly, this film feels pretty toothless considering our current shitshow and it seems a little mean-spirited to hone in on a failed VP candidate that, as far as I know, has faded into obscurity once again minus a maybe-filmed interview with Sacha Baron Cohen.  Julianne Moore does nail her portrayal and I think it was cute how the film used actual interview and TV clips for verisimilitude but it's nothing we haven't seen before.  Maybe if I had seen it when it first came out I wouldn't be so cynical but that's not the world we live in now.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)

  This is the first Christy pick of 2019!  Yay!  Last year I had to miss several months in an effort to catch up from school but I'm hoping this counts as a fresh start.

There was a lot of discussion online about this film, seeing as Disney had already done a very expensive "live-action" (90% CGI) version a couple of years previously.  If I remember correctly, both films were in production around the same time but Disney's got out of the gate first.  There was also some noise about it being released to Netflix instead of theatrically but I think those are just the dying gasps of the old crowd.

Mowgli (Rohan Chand) was raised by wolves after being orphaned but has struggled against feeling different his whole life.  His main protectors and teachers, Bagheera (Christian Bale) the panther and Baloo (Andy Serkis) the bear, disagree with each other over the best way to keep him safe from the wrath of Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch), who killed Mowgli's family.  Bagheera feels that the only way for Mowgli to survive is to be returned to the world of men but the boy soon discovers that he doesn't truly belong there either.

It's difficult to talk about this film on its own merits without comparing it to films that have come before.  Obviously, it's wildly different from the 1967 animated version and it is different enough from the 2016 Disney version that it's totally possible to have a favorite.  In its favor, it completely drops the Monkey King as a character and subplot, and adds a great deal more darkness thematically, going for an ambiguous, morally gray aspect.  Newcomer Rohan Chand does a lot to maintain sympathy for his character, and Andy Serkis has assembled a totally stellar voice cast for the animated roles.

I absolutely hated the CGI, however.  The animals never seemed realistic and every time I looked at them, I was filled with revulsion.  It's insane because Andy Serkis is like the king of motion-capture but it was like the animals' heads didn't match their bodies.  I could practically see the actors' head superimposed on the rest of the animated scene.  It was so bad that when a particular character was shown decapitated prior to being stuffed, I still expected the head to talk.  I don't know why it was decided that Kaa (Cate Blanchett) was to be some sort of prophet but it was too many shades of Galadriel for me.  The subplot with the village and the tiger hunter (Matthew Rhys) felt tacked on and underbaked.  I get why it was added, but I think it could have been handled better.

Now, none of that is to say that you shouldn't watch this if you feel like watching it.  Maybe the mo-cap won't bother you as much as it did me.

Vice (2018)

  Christian Bale is probably an enormous pain in the ass to work with but damn if he doesn't make it look worth it.  He disappears into his roles, no matter what they are.

The film chronicles the rise to power of Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) from a washed up drunk in Wyoming to Vice President of the United States.  Beside him and constantly pushing him onwards is his wife, Lynne (Amy Adams), a woman frustrated by her own ambitions and sublimating them into her husband's desires.  Cheney cuts his teeth in the Nixon administration under Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carrell) and becomes one of the top political insiders in Washington, D.C. before transitioning to CEO of a huge international oil company.  He is initially reluctant to become George W. Bush's (Sam Rockwell) running mate but soon realizes that the inherent fuzziness of the position of VP is an invaluable asset in consolidating power.

In parts hilarious and equal measure horrifying, Vice is another exploration of corruption from Adam McKay, the director of The Big Short.  Like his previous film, Vice relies on voiceover, fourth-wall breaks, and absurdity (apparently a huge musical number was cut for time but will be available on the DVD/Blu-ray release) to present a more light-hearted look at some decidedly dark material.  I don't know that it necessarily intends to sway opinion on Cheney himself or the younger Bush presidency but it does do more than I would have expected to point out that Cheney really loves his family and actively chose not to throw his daughter Mary (Allison Pill) under the bus for political expediency (he leaves that for her sister, Liz (Lily Rabe), to do when she runs for Congress.)

Amy Adams is probably not going to win Best Actress for this (nominations come out in less than two weeks!) but she is phenomenal in this film, make no mistake.  Bale might finally get an Oscar for Best Lead Actor but it will depend on who he's up against.  Rockwell did not impress me as much as Carrell, so if only one of them gets nominated, I hope it's the latter. 

Oh, and there is a mid-credits sequence that isn't totally necessary but is funny.

A Quiet Place (2018)

  Unpopular opinion time:  This movie is nowhere near as good as people have made it out to be.  It damn sure shouldn't be in the running for best horror film of the year.

A small family has learned to live in total silence to avoid attracting the attention of monsters that prey by sound.  A series of mishaps and internal tensions threaten their security, putting everything they have gained at risk.

The story is stupidly simple with only about three jump scares to provide the horror.  In a year that gave us incredible imaginative monsters like Annihilation, the film getting the most buzz has ones that look like the demons from Constantine mixed with fish.  It's derivative at best and a rip-off at worst.

And the ending!  Oh God.  Don't even get me started.

To give the film some praise, Emily Blunt is amazing and the cast really commits to using sign language.  If this (God forbid) gets nominated for anything this year, it might as well be for score because Marco Beltrami is probably the only reason why the jump scares work at all.

A lot of people really loved this movie and a sequel has already been greenlit but I honestly wish I had never watched it, much less paid money for it.

2019 Golden Globes Recap

This was supposed to go up yesterday but I was so tired I went immediately to sleep after work so you get a bonus/make-up post today!

The 76th Golden Globes ceremony was on Sunday night and was hosted by Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh.  I've never been a fan of Samberg nor have I seen Oh in many things so both hosts were relatively new to me.  I thought they had really good energy even when some of the jokes didn't land.  The ones that did were funny and I think they outnumbered the flops so we're going to call it a success.

Best Actor in a TV series, Musical or Comedy went to Michael Douglas in The Kominsky Method as the first award of the night.  Loved how he mentioned his 102-year-old father as if we wouldn't recognize his name outside of being a Hollywood legacy.  It was presented by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, two of the big frontrunners for awards themselves, who looked, respectively, like a waiter and the Fairy Godmother from Shrek 2.  I love Gaga but the matching hair with the giant poofy dress was a no for me.

First (and most welcome) surprise winner of the night was Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse winning Best Animated Feature.  Here's hoping it can continue that momentum all the way to upsetting the Pixar stranglehold on the Academy Awards.

Best Actor in a TV series, Drama went to Richard Madden for Bodyguard.  I haven't seen it but Tyler said it was pretty good.

Best TV series, Drama went to The Americans.  Apparently it's a big deal because they had been snubbed in previous years and this was their final season.  Don't know but Keri Russell was looking FIERCE in that silver dress.

Best Supporting Actor in a TV series, limited series, or TV movie was Ben Whishaw, who gave an adorable speech, for A Very English Scandal.

Best Actress in a TV series, limited series, or TV movie was Patricia Arquette for Escape at Dannemora.  She really, really liked working with Ben Stiller.  That's all I got from her speech.

Festivities were interrupted slightly for one of the major awards, the inaugural Carol Burnett Award for Excellence in Comedy, being presented to Carol Burnett.  Steve Carrell gave a very nice speech but I really loved the clip show highlighting her work.  I loved watching her show.  The episodes always felt fresh even when they were reruns.  Her speech pointed out how insanely expensive it would be to do a variety show in this day and age and highlighted just how incredible it was to not only have a hit show run for 11 years but to be a female showrunner in an era still trying to get any sort of representation in front of or behind the camera.

Best Original Score went to Justin Hurwitz for First Man, the only award that film would win all night.

Best Original Song went to "Shallow" from A Star is Born.  This was the expected winner and it won.

Best Supporting Actress in a Movie went to Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk.  She went way over her allotted time but I don't think anybody was mad about it.  From what I can tell, her win was well-deserved, and any promises to provide 50% gender parity on subsequent projects are welcome.

Best Actress in a TV series, Drama, went to host Sandra Oh for Killing Eve, making her the first Asian-American woman to ever win that category.  Her mom still didn't look super impressed.

Best Supporting Actor in a Movie went to Mahershala Ali for Green Book, a movie that has been hugely divisive.  I haven't seen the film (but probably will because it's definitely getting nominated for an Oscar) but what I've read paints it as a rather tone-deaf story of race relations filtered exclusively through the experience of the film's white character.  The fact that Ali is only considered a supporting actor seems to bear that through. 

Green Book also picked up the award for Best Screenplay and was accepted by the real-life son of Viggo Mortensen's character.

Best Supporting Actress in a TV series, limited series, or TV movie was Patricia Clarkson for Sharp Objects, making her the second Patricia to win big that night.

Best Actor in a Movie, Comedy or Musical went to Christian Bale for Vice.  He thanked Satan for the inspiration to play Dick Cheney.  The Church of Satan actually issued a tweet thanking him for his kind words and that's the funniest thing I've ever heard.

Best Foreign Language Film went to Roma to the shock of no one.

Best Actor in a TV series, limited series, or TV movie went to Darren Criss for The Assassination of Gianni Versace:  An American Crime Story.  I had no idea he was Filipino.

Chris Pine presented Jeff Bridges with the Cecil B. DeMille Award and it was clear that Pine thinks Bridges is the funniest dude in the world.  The video package highlighted exactly how few of his films I've ever seen, especially from his early career, and left out probably as many as it showed.  Jeff Bridges has worked a long-ass time.  Also, his speech was the most rambling, incoherent, hilarious one of the night.  At this point, the champagne had been flowing freely for about two hours just of broadcast time so probably at least two or three hours before that as well (because they get dinner at the Globes and then fast at the Oscars) and everyone was pretty sloshed.

Alfonso Cuaron also picked up Best Director for Roma.

Best Actress in a TV show, Musical or Comedy went to Rachel Brosnahan for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, I think for the second time.  And today I learned that show is also controversial because Brosnahan is not Jewish which raises concerns of anti-Semitism and now makes Samberg's joke about it make sense.

Best TV series, Musical or Comedy went to The Kominsky Method, which was somewhat of a shock because of how new it is but it is about old white dudes not aging gracefully and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association loves that.

Best Limited Series or TV movie went to American Crime Story.
     
Best Actress in a Movie, Musical or Comedy went to Olivia Coleman for The Favourite which pretty much guarantees her a nomination for Best Actress in a couple of weeks.  Also, she looked fabulous.

Best Picture, Musical or Comedy went to Green Book in its third win of the night.  This I thought was some bullshit on the part of the HFPA because nowhere did I see this movie being billed as a comedy.  Even the clip they played when they introduced it wasn't funny.

In the second biggest surprise of the night, Glenn Close beat Lady Gaga for Best Actress in a Movie, Drama, for The Wife.  Honestly, I think the person most surprised was Glenn Close but she's so good of an actress I could be wrong.  She also gave a really nice speech.

Best Actor in a Movie, Drama, went to Rami Malek for Bohemian Rhapsody.  I have actually not heard a lot of praise for the movie itself, but what I did hear was for Malek particularly.  This is another film embroiled in controversy for its treatment of Freddie Mercury's life, sexual orientation, AIDS diagnosis, and its direction by Bryan Singer, accused of sexual assault over several decades by multiple people.

In the Time's Up era, many are questioning the HFPA's endorsement of Singer, even tacitly, and especially in awarding the biggest prize of the night, Best Picture, Drama, to Bohemian Rhapsody.

I haven't seen the film (really, I have seen almost none of the films) but I am very conflicted about it.  I'm also a little irritated that it and A Star is Born were even in the Drama category when I would definitely classify them both as musicals.  I think if they were classified correctly it would have alleviated a lot of the ire.  Green Book should have been a drama and then, placed in consideration with BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther, and If Beale Street Could Talk, judged on its relative merits.  But I'm not in charge.

Anyway, Oscar nominations drop in a couple of weeks and then I will have until Feb 24th to watch all the nominees.  Stay tuned!

Waterworld (1995)

  This was technically the first movie I watched in the new year.  I'm sure I've seen it before but maybe not all the way through.  I remember it being a hugely expensive movie and I believe it's considered a flop, at least domestically.  It's pretty prescient in its premise of global flooding from the ice caps melting but the rest of it doesn't really hold up well.

There are two kinds of survivors in this post-apocalyptic world covered by the sea:  colonists who build little floating island communities with handfuls of dirt, and drifters who sail endlessly and survive by trading bits of flotsam for supplies.  The Mariner (Kevin Costner) is one of the latter, further set apart by having mutated to fit his environment with gills and webbed feet.  He just happens to be present the day a rival group of thugs led by Deacon (Dennis Hopper) attack the settlement and ends up taking on a woman (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and child (Tina Majorino) trying to escape the destruction.  To the surprise of no-one, the child turns out to be the reason Deacon was attacking.  She is an orphan with a tattoo on her back that supposedly translates to a map of the last piece of dry land in the world.  The Mariner doesn't believe in dry land and doesn't need it anyway but over the course of God knows how many days at sea with no-one else for company, he comes to like this frazzled woman and her adopted daughter and decides to protect them from the evil Deacon.

This isn't as bad a movie as people have made it out to be.  What would improve it immensely, however, is changes to the characters' ages and a restructuring of the love story angle.  I get that it was 1995 and Kevin Costner was a huge box office star but it makes no sense for a man of his age to be the Mariner.  Evolution takes ages and for someone to be that old and that far removed from Homo sapiens, a lot more people should look like that.  So make him about 17.

Conversely, the girl needs to be older.  She's supposed to be abducted/found/something from dry land as a child and have no memory of how to get back but also have a brand fucking new tattoo on her back at the age of 7.  That's objectively stupid.  Kids grow so fast that any tattoo would shift and be unrecognizable.  (Obviously, I know there are other reasons why you don't tattoo children but they are not germane in this instance.)  So make her about 17 as well.  She got the tattoo from something she barely remembers when she was a child.  It was a paper map that she memorized when she was kidnapped/lost/whatever and had tattooed when she got older because the paper fell apart.

You can keep the older female figure as a chaperone/comic relief but she needs to be mid-30s, not a young, hot Jeanne Tripplehorn.  The villains can mostly stay the same.  Hey, maybe even get Kevin Costner to replace Dennis Hopper (RIP) as a fun throwback.  He would be way more intense and sarcastic instead of unhinged, which could play well with the new dynamic.  Voila.  Paramount, I will be waiting on your call.

Loving Vincent (2017)

  This is an interesting film on many levels but it never quite gripped me emotionally.  I kept hoping it would but there was just something ineffable that I was missing.

A year after Vincent van Gogh (Robert Gulaczyk) dies from a gunshot to the abdomen, a young man named Armand (Douglas Booth) is tasked with delivering Van Gogh's final letter to his brother, Theo (Cezary Lukaszewicz).  Unfortunately, Theo has also died and Armand doesn't know to whom else to deliver the letter, wandering from Van Gogh's Parisian agent (John Sessions) to the home of the doctor (Jerome Flynn) who declared the painter mentally sound.  Along the way, Armand grows interested in Van Gogh's final days, suspecting that what befell was a tragic and entirely preventable accident rather than a suicide.

This is an intensely melancholy movie structured like a mystery that somehow just doesn't have any mystique.  Maybe because there's no point to Armand's investigation.  He's not bringing Van Gogh back from the dead or righting some cosmic wrong with his revelations.  In many ways, Armand's fact-finding only makes Van Gogh's story more tragic.  Which is a total downer.

The animation is unique because every frame was hand-painted in Van Gogh's signature style by over 100 artists.  That's an incredible undertaking if you sit down and think about it.  Unfortunately, that impressionistic style makes some of the action a little harder to make out but that also might be because I was watching it on a tablet at my parents' house rather than on a real screen.  Tyler didn't seem to have any problems so maybe it was just me.

This does deserve more love and more views, if for nothing else than the stunning achievement of animation.  It's streaming on Hulu right now if you're interested.