Recap of the 91st Oscars (2019)

There was a lot of weirdness with the Oscars this year, but it's okay if you don't remember how much weirdness because 2018 was 4000 years long.  Anyway, back in August, the Academy was like "how about a Popular Movie category?" and the world said No in no uncertain terms.  So they walked that back.  Then there was the whole round-the-mulberry-bush with a host or no host or a surprise host or maybe just let the Avengers do it.  Then there was the Nick Vallelonga Twitter thing, the Peter-Farrelly-shows-his-dick-to-unwitting-people thing, and the Bryan Singer thing.  Then the Academy said "We're going to cut some categories because nobody cares about cinematography or animated short films" and the world said No, once again, and they had to walk that back.

So yeah.  Lots of weirdness.

Honestly, I barely noticed them not having a host.  They had a monologue from Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph and if someone had told me later that those three ladies were credited as hosts I would have believed it.  Otherwise, it was the same 400 people presenting awards and no filler bullshit in the form of audience participation or lame skits.

In that spirit, here are the winners of the night.

Best Supporting Actress went to Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk.  Her speech wasn't as good as the one from the Golden Globes but she looked phenomenal.

Best Documentary Feature went to Free Solo.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling went to Vice.

Best Costumes went to Ruth E. Carter for Black Panther.  She is the first black woman to win in this category.

Best Cinematography went to Alfonso Cuarón for Roma as it should have.

Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing went to Bohemian Rhapsody which I have serious disagreements with and were my first upsets for the night.

Best Foreign Language Film went to Roma.

Best Film Editing went to Bohemian Rhapsody, which is slightly more justifiable than the sound editing/mixing but not by much.

Best Supporting Actor went to Mahershala Ali for Green Book, which I could have argued but I think he was the only person in that movie who deserved recognition.

Best Animated Feature went deservedly to Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse.

Best Animated Short went to Bao.  Pixar remains unchallenged.

Best Documentary Short went to Period.  End of Sentence.

Best Visual Effects went to First Man.  Not a consolation prize, but it really should have won for Sound Editing and Mixing.

Best Live Action Short went to Skin.

Best Original Screenplay went to Green Book, the second big WTF moment of the night.

Best Adapted Screenplay went to BlacKkKlansman.  The difference between Samuel L. Jackson's reaction while presenting these two awards was very marked.

Best Original Score went to Black Panther.

Best Original Song went to A Star is Born, to the surprise of no one.

Best Actor went to Rami Malek for Bohemian Rhapsody.  Again, this wasn't so much a surprise as it was just kind of unwelcome for people.  I did think it was funny that absolutely no one said the words "Bryan Singer" all night.  They just accepted their awards, thanked Queen, and basically pretended it never had a director at all.

Best Actress went to Olivia Coleman for The Favourite, which was a shock to her even if it wasn't to anyone else.  Her speech was rambling, hilarious, and filled with sound effects.

Best Director went to Alfonso Cuarón for Roma.

And then Green Book won Best Picture and the Oscars lost a little more relevancy.

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

The Oscars are tonight!  Are you excited?  I didn't get to see as many of the nominees as I wanted but I gave it my best shot.  There's always next year.  Now we can focus on this year's movie offerings, which includes Alita:  Battle Angel.    So this is adapted from a very long-running and beloved Japanese manga.  James Cameron initiated the project like fifteen years ago but could never get it off the ground so he handed it off to Robert Rodriguez.  I don't think this significantly improved the film but I also don't think it would have been better off with Cameron.  I'm not sure who could have made this a movie worth seeing.

Alita (Rosa Salazar) is a cyborg found by Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) on a scrap heap.  Since her brain was intact, Ido took her home and implanted her in the mechanical body he had made for his deceased teenage daughter.  We'll discuss how creepy that is in a minute.  Alita is thrilled with her new life but soon chafes at the rules Ido imposes.  She meets Hugo (Keean Johnson), cramming every "bad boy with a heart of gold" trope that can fit under a leather jacket, and instantly falls in love.  Hugo's dream in life is to one day go to the floating city of Zalem to be among the elites.  To that end, he works odd jobs for Vector (Mahershala Ali), a wealthy gangster and patron to the big cyborg sport of Motorball.  Vector is a pawn of Nova (Edward Norton), one of Zalem's chief architects, and is soon instructed to kill Alita by any means necessary.  During her first fight, she begins to recover some of her memories and begins piecing together her previous life.

Okay.  So the cringe factor is pretty high on this one.  First, there's the weirdness with Ido finding a cyborg head in the garbage and putting it on his dead kid's body, calling her by the dead kid's name, and forbidding her from going out at night.  Then there's Alita's immediate assumption that her adopted father is a serial killer, based on nothing more than hearing there's a serial killer in the city and seeing him come in wounded from a night out.  That seems like a pretty huge logical leap and also some shitty writing.  Ick factor number three is the romantic subplot with Hugo, a storyline which made zero sense and was annoying.  He's literally the first boy she lays eyes on in her new prepubescent body and she falls head over heels, immediately.  Have we not progressed past the lazy "Romeo and Juliet" meet cute?  Did Frozen teach these people nothing?  All of Alita's decision-making in the last half of the movie is heavily reliant on Hugo's action and while it's kind of nice to see a dude get fridged for once, it makes her character weaker unnecessarily.

This is clearly set up to be the first in a trilogy but I don't know if it's going to make enough money to justify that course.  I certainly wouldn't see a second one despite the top-notch visuals.  Life is too short to waste on a film that feels so dated.

Minding the Gap (2018)

Nominated for Best Documentary    Nominally, this is a documentary about a guy reconnecting with the kids he grew up skateboarding with but really, it's about seeing the cycles of poverty and abuse through generations.

Bing Liu grew up in Rockport, Illinois, a former manufacturing town.  He took up skateboarding as a way to cope with his abusive step-father and got the hell out as soon as he could.  Ten years later, he returns to check in with his two friends, Keire and Zack, one trying to break free of the cycle of anger and helplessness, and the other trapped unknowingly within it.

This is one of those documentaries that makes you sad for having watched it because you feel like part of the story.  By the time this was over, I was really hoping for the best for Keire.  I wanted him to get out, do well in his new job, go to college, get some therapy, and have a shot at a happier life with people who would value and support him.  Same thing for Nina, Zack's on-off girlfriend.  I want her to stay with her aunt and uncle and realize that she can do so much better for herself and her son.  Zack, however, is beyond saving and needs to just go away to like a monastery where he isn't allowed contact with the outside world.

Bing Liu has been working his way up within the industry mostly in Chicago since 2009, according to his IMDb page.  This is his first documentary.  He has a lot of potential, although I think he struggled a bit with the neutrality required of documentarians.  A less personal subject would most likely make that easier.  I don't know that this is going to win because I haven't seen most of the category and I think Free Solo is the current favorite, but I hope the exposure boosts his profile tremendously.

Christopher Robin (2018)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects    This movie was so boring I straight up almost forgot to write about it.

After a series of tragedies during boarding school, Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) grows up to be a boring, strait-laced manager at a luggage company who neglects his wife (Hayley Atwell) and daughter (Bronte Carmichael) until his childhood imaginary friends show up at his home and teach him the true meaning of blah blah blah.

You know this story.  You know every beat of it because you've seen Mary Poppins, Hook, Drop Dead Fred, and probably a dozen more that I can't think of off the top of my head.  The special effects are great but the story lets them down.  I would have liked to have seen more correlation between the Hundred-Acre Wood characters and Christopher Robin's employees, which seemed to be parallels but were in the movie so briefly it was impossible to tell.  Unless your kid is just obsessed with Winnie the Pooh, skip this one.  Not even Agent Carter could save it.

End Game (2018)

Nominated for Best Documentary Short    Have I mentioned how much I love that stuff is just streaming now?  It's still hard to find the shorts but at least a couple of them are on HBO and Netflix now.

This 40-min documentary follows patients and family at UCSF medical facilities entering palliative or end of life care and the choices they have to make when it's time to let go.

I feel like we saw this exact same documentary last year.  (Okay, it was two years ago and it was called Extremis.)  It really is almost the exact same thing, though, down to the one family refusing to let go because they're waiting on a miracle.  I guess it's the kind of thing that bears repeating.  Have a plan in place for what is going to happen to you if you are incapacitated.  Talk to your family about that plan.  Make sure that your wishes are going to be respected.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing    So now we come to the second nominee absolutely mired in controversy.  Much debate has been sparked about separating art from artists and how much culpability actors and crew have for working with known or suspected criminals and how or if people should support work that bears the name of an alleged rapist.

So for people who don't know, Bryan Singer was fired from the production of Bohemian Rhapsody because he was repeatedly late to set or sometimes just didn't show up at all for weeks and put production way behind.  Due to some Director's Guild bylaws, he still received full credit as director. Then, a couple of months ago, allegations resurfaced that Singer had abused and raped teenaged boys during parties at his house.  Singer's predilections had been an open secret in Hollywood for many years but this is the first time multiple victims have stepped forward and gone on record.  Singer has denied the allegations and referred to the article as a homophobic attack against him for personal reasons by the author.

What does any of that have to do with the movie?  Well, it raises concerns about praising a work by an alleged pedophile, and the wider reaches of the #MeToo movement.  People like Roman Polanski (who was convicted of statutory rape in absentia and now lives in exile) and Woody Allen (not convicted but who has had allegations made his entire career) are lauded by critics for their genius and have received millions of dollars which enable them to avoid justice.  Wealth and regard create a bubble of protection for men like this and the victims are ignored or dismissed as opportunistic gold-diggers which makes it even harder for fresh victims to come forward.

Given how rewarded this film has already been, it's a perfect lightning rod for these kinds of discussions but we're here to discuss the film itself, since I don't feel qualified to offer any kind of opinion beyond that Bryan Singer sounds like an asshole even if he is never convicted of being a rapist.

College musicians Bryan May (Gwilym Lee) and Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) are bummed to lose their lead singer (Jack Roth) to another band when a funny big-mouthed Persian man auditions in an alleyway and the biggest rock-and-roll group in the world is born.  Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) has a huge personality to go with his huge range and the band takes off, coining hit after hit until fame, fortune, and selfish impulses drive a wedge between them.

Honestly, this is a pretty by-the-numbers biopic.  1.  Humble beginnings.  2.  Rise to fame.  3.  Heights of fortune.  4.  Tension as money comes between them.  5.  Tragic fall.  6.  Rise from ashes.

The only true thing that sets it apart is Malek's portrayal.  He does everything he can short of using a Ouija board to channel Freddie Mercury.  Is it enough to win Best Actor?  Almost definitely.  Is it deserved?  That's a question for history to answer.

The Wife (2018)

Nominated for Best Actress   This speaks to a very particular experience and it's not one that will resonate with everyone.  It's definitely a film geared towards women, but specifically older women and somehow feels timely and yet also mired in the past.

Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) is a bestselling novelist with a long career when he is notified that he will receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm, Sweden.  His wife, Joan (Glenn Close), is proud but also bittersweet as she reflects on all the moments that led them to that point.  The ceremony is further complicated by their son David's (Max Irons) inferiority complex and a sly reporter (Christian Slater) stirring up drama.

This is set in the 90s and that's probably the most recent time period it could have been set to depict the circumstances.  That's both encouraging and depressing.  (I'm trying to not spoil the big reveal of the movie, even though it's pretty obvious once you think about it, so if this seems a little vague that's why.)  Encouraging because girls and women who are going to college and looking at jobs are much more aware of their own value and depressing because it has taken this long to get to that point.

Glenn Close is excellent in this role but I do feel like I need to highlight Annie Starke who played Joan in the flashbacks.  She only has five credits on IMDb and three of those have been alongside Glenn Close so her mimicry has got to be on point at this stage.  I think she's an up-and-comer, especially after this exposure.  

Green Book (2018)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing  

This has turned into a very controversial film and I think a lot of that could have been avoided if the movie was marketed correctly.  It wouldn't make it a better film but I think it could have at least been viewed for what it is (a mediocre buddy road trip) and not what was portrayed as in the title and promos (an intimate look at the harsh realities of life faced by African Americans in the Jim Crow era). 

Tony "Lip" Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) is a bouncer at a nightclub.  He's doing okay but when the club shuts down for renovations, he branches out in order to make ends meet.  He receives a job offer from jazz pianist Dr. Donald Shirley (Mahershala Ali) to drive Dr. Shirley on his concert tour through the Midwest and South.  Along the way, Tony is forced to confront some of his prejudices as well as outward oppression directed at Dr. Shirley.

Honestly, this isn't the worst movie I've ever seen.  It's very much Tony Vallelonga's story, and while there is of course a place for his voice, it seems disingenuous to have marketed the film as being about Dr. Shirley or the eponymous Green Book, a literal life-saving publication.  In the wake of groundbreaking films like Moonlight, a historical film about a successful, queer, African American musician would have been wonderful.  Instead, comparisons are being made to Driving Miss Daisy, and it's not a good look in this the year of our collective embarrassment 2019.

Also, and this is purely me, I kind of don't get the fuss over Linda Cardellini in this film.  Viggo Mortensen and Peter Farrelly both have heaped praise on her and sure?  She's a good actress but there was nothing particularly compelling about her portrayal of Tony's wife.

Mahershala Ali was phenomenal, however, and definitely deserves that second Oscar.

What Dreams May Come (1998)

  Okay, technically this isn't an Oscar nominee from this year but it was nominated for two Oscars and won one for Best Visual Effects so I'm totally counting it.

Chris Neilson (Robin Williams) is lucky enough to meet the love of his life, Annie (Annabella Sciorra).  They marry, have two children, and thriving careers.  Even tragedy isn't enough to separate them.  Then Chris dies in a car accident.  At first, he's ecstatic over being able to create his own reality in the afterlife, then devastated to learn that Annie, unable to bear the loss, has committed suicide and is trapped forever in an endless loop of misery.  Despite warnings from his various guardians, Chris journeys into Hell to reunite with Annie.

Okay, I ugly-cried pretty much the whole way through this movie.  Part of it was sadness over seeing Robin Williams act again and part was because this movie is really, really sad.  I mean, damn.  You got dead kids, suicide, Hell, grief, and depression all running around through Renaissance paintings.  If it wasn't so beautiful, it would be unbearable.  For being from the late 90s, the special effects hold up remarkably well.  Production design was stellar.

I do have to say that I am vehemently opposed to the concept of soulmates but I was still able to enjoy this film.  It's a beautiful Orphean saga through some Bosch-ian imagery and Williams and Sciorra act their faces off.  I was less impressed with the child actors but fortunately they're not the focus of the movie.

First Reformed (2018)

Nominated for Best Adapted ScreenplayI was reading online that people consider Ethan Hawke not getting a nomination for Best Actor to be a snub from the Academy.  I'm not sure where I stand on that yet.  I can agree that he did a good job with his role but I don't know if it deserved to replace any of the other actors.

Father Toller (Ethan Hawke) is the leader of First Reformed, the oldest church in Albany county, New York.  He struggles with issues of relevance, on a macro scale as his church is managed and cared for by the local megachurch, and on a micro as his health is failing, his drinking is getting worse, and depression threatens to drown him.  He alleviates some of his dread by helping a young married couple.  The husband (Philip Ettinger), an environmental activist, is about two steps from being fully radicalized over the state of the world and the utter indifference of most people and the wife (Amanda Seyfried) is pregnant and worried that her husband will harm himself.  Things get worse when she shows Toller the suicide vest she found in her husband's garage.  As events spiral further and further out of control, Toller desperately searches for a lifeline.

This has a total whiplash of an ending.  It's one of those films where I seriously considered looking up what happens just so I wouldn't have a nasty surprise.  There's a pervasive sense of dread on top of the suspense that makes it almost unbearable to watch because whatever happens, you know it's not going to be pleasant.

I was really surprised at how many themes Paul Schrader managed to stuff into this movie that never feel like they're stepping on each other.  The secular environmentalism, anti-corporatism, and radicalism marry beautifully with the religious.  I think it's an incredibly well-written movie but I just think the ending is out of place.

The Favourite (2018)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress x2, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costumes, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing 
  So this is one of the big ones.  It's been sweeping up the awards and is heavily favored to win a bunch more on the 24th.  I will say it's probably the most accessible of Lanthimos' films and boasts truly impressive performances from Colman, Weisz, and Stone.

Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) is nominally the ruler of Great Britain but most of the day-to-day work is done by her best friend and lover Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz).  Sarah keeps the queen in check through a combination of tough love and genuine affection while blithely implementing the policies most favorable to her parliamentary party.  However, when Sarah's impoverished cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) comes to work at the palace and catches the queen's eye, Sarah soon finds herself fighting a battle on two fronts.  Abigail is pretty, clever, and ambitious, with an eye towards securing a better future for herself.  Towards that end, she is ruthless in manipulating everyone around her.

Near the end of the film, during Sarah and Abigail's final confrontation, Sarah remarks that they have both been playing to win but at two completely different games.  It's a great moment, probably my favorite in the film because it really highlights the differences between the two women.  Sarah manipulates the queen to implement her own national policy based on her personal political beliefs.  She is coming from a place of enormous privilege, wielding this power like she was born to it because she was.  She was noble from birth, married up, and has been friends from childhood with the monarch.  Abigail, who has known privilege and had it taken away through the actions of men, thinks of nothing further than autonomy.  She doesn't care about national interests or Tories or Whigs.  She is out for herself.  Both women are looking to have independence of action in a world that keeps them constrained to subservience and both of them achieve it only through the subsuming of another woman, Anne.  It's a fascinating dynamic that I don't think I've ever seen explored as thoroughly as here.

Yorgos Lanthimos is definitely an auteur.  The deliberately awkward dance sequence is a hallmark of his, but unfortunately, so is animal abuse.  Every film I've seen of his features at least one scene where an animal meets a violent end:  the cat from Dogtooth, the dog from The Lobster.  Actually, I think a bunch of animals die in The Lobster.  I'm not suggesting he actually kills animals on screen, but it's disturbing and weirdly specific.  In The Favourite, Sarah and Abigail bond over shooting gamebirds and Abigail smugly pins a rabbit under her shoe until it squeaks.  I include this at the risk of mild spoilers because some people may need the warning before deciding whether or not to see this film.

The cinematography is marked by a conspicuous use of fisheye camera lenses which definitely add a surreal flair to what would otherwise be rather prosaic hallway shots.  The editing is likewise dramatic, abruptly cutting to title cards breaking the film into chapters.  Production design is stellar since they're filming in what amounts to the actual palaces and grounds of Queen Anne.  The costumes are similarly striking, especially since they are limited to only black and white.

This is an extremely stylish film with compelling performances and a wicked sense of humor.  It's not going to be for everyone but it's definitely a conversation starter.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Nominated for Best Original Song, Best Costume Design, and Best Adapted Screenplay   I was extremely surprised to see this get nominated despite being a Coen Brothers joint.  Then I remembered that the Academy absolutely loves Westerns and there haven't been any high-profile ones this year.

It's an anthology, which is also weird.  Like most anthologies, quality is inconsistent over the six stories.  If you're only really interested in the Oscar-nominated bits, you can just watch the first segment, which is the eponymous one starring Tim Blake Nelson as the cheerfully murderous singing cowboy.  That gives you a pretty good snapshot for all three categories.

Personally, I thought "Meal Ticket" was the most darkly funny.  "The Gal Who Got Rattled" was my least favorite and that's saying something since "Near Algodoches" stars James Franco, whom I hate. It at least has the delightful Stephen Root to make up for it.

The framing devices of the book of tales was absolutely gorgeous and I wouldn't mind if that turned out to be a real book made up of the screenplay.  That would make a nice gift.

The only category this has any chance in is Adapted Screenplay and even then, it's not good odds.  Still, it's not a horrible film and the first section is quite good.

Oscar Animated Shorts 2019

I'm just going to put all five in one post because they're mostly very short and you can watch them all here as well as the rest of the films on the shortlist.

Animal Behavior A dog therapist tries to help his patients push through some of their ingrained behaviors to achieve clarity and more control over their lives.  This one is definitely the funniest of the nominees but it did drag on a bit.  The animation felt rougher, more like an old show from Comedy Central or HBO back in the 90s.

Bao  This is the Pixar one about a depressed mom that makes a dumpling baby that premiered before Incredibles 2.  I still think this is super weird.

Late Afternoon   A woman with Alzheimer's drifts through her memories and rediscovers something important.  This is very pretty and dreamlike but also very melancholy due to the subject matter.

One Small Step   A little girl dreams of being an astronaut with the support of her cobbler father.  This legit made me cry.  The animation is beautifully done but the story just killed me.

Weekends   A little boy spends alternating weekends with each of his divorced parents.  This was the only one I didn't feel any kind of connection with at all.  Maybe because I just couldn't relate, maybe because it didn't really seem to have a recognizable plot, but I just came away with a resounding "meh."

I am super happy I got to see all the nominees in at least one category and I wish this was the usual.  It's incredibly hard to find short films.  There's only one theater in my area that plans to show them and only the Saturday before the Oscars.  Still, I keep trying.

First Man (2018)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing    This is a really good film, better than I thought it was going to be.  Ryan Gosling gives a really restrained performance, which I liked, and I can see why Claire Foy was talked about for the Best Actress race.

Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) was the first man to walk on the moon.  But the path that led him to that end point was not a straight one.  The early NASA programs were experimental and dangerous, wracking up a high cost in labor, materials, and human lives.  The astronauts and their families faced incredible uncertainty balanced against the belief that what they were doing was necessary and important for the furthering of human knowledge.

More than any other film, I hope this wins for Sound Editing and Mixing.  You seriously feel like you are in a tin can being shot into space.  The walls rattle, metal groans, unidentified parts shriek and clatter, the engines roar, and then all is utter silence in the vastness of space.  It's astonishing.  I've never been so transported by sound effects alone.  Which is in no way a slight to the visuals.  The moon looks just as alien and forbidding as it must have looked to the first explorers.

It's a pity the human elements seem so lackluster.  Part of it is that Armstrong was a reticent man not prone to outbursts so he's kind of boring to watch and part of it is that we've seen variations on this theme in pretty much every space movie ever made.  Cory Stoll makes up for it as Buzz Aldrin, though.  This is absolutely worth watching and would make a great double feature with Apollo 13.

Isle of Dogs (2018)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score    I'm going to say this right from the jump, this is not a kids movie.  It's PG-13 so you can let your kids watch it but I would suggest you not just throw it on for your small children and wander off secure in the knowledge that they won't be traumatized by a stop-motion film about adorable dogs.

The Kobayashi clan, preferring the superior qualities of cats, has tried for many years to eradicate dogs from the confines of Megasaki City.  The current mayor (Kunichi Nomura) has implemented a policy where all dogs must be removed to Trash Island because of rampant disease, a claim disputed by the opposition leader, Dr. Watanabe (Akira Ito).  Mayor Kobayashi proceeds and the very first deportation is that of security dog to the mayoral household, Spots (Liev Schrieber).  Soon all of the city follows suit and Trash Island becomes home to feral, abandoned, and sick dogs banding together to fight for scraps of garbage.  One such band of dogs are first on hand when a young boy, Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin), the mayor's distant nephew, crash-lands on the island in search of his lost dog, Spots.  The dogs decide to help Atari in his search, except for Chief (Bryan Cranston), a stray, who is consistently outvoted. 

If you're familiar with Wes Anderson's other foray into stop motion, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, you probably didn't need the warning at the beginning.  Thematically, this is pretty dark with themes of genocide, animal testing, political corruption, assassination, and grief.  That is balanced out by the whimsy of the animation, managing to strike a fairly decent balance on the whole.  The voice cast is Anderson's usual stable of talent with Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, and Edward Norton providing most of the comedy.  Anderson usually has at least one major quirk within his films and this time it was that the dogs' speech was in English while the human speech was in Japanese with no subtitles, translations being provided sporadically by diegetic means.  It's not as jarring as it sounds. 

The stop-motion is very good but I don't see this winning the category.  Alexandre Desplat is a perennial favorite with the Academy so it might have a shot in Original Score. 

Ready Player One (2018)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects    Yikes.  This movie was a trainwreck.  Tyler didn't even like it and it was basically tailor made for him.

In the future of 2045, Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) is one of millions of people obsessed with discovering the legendary three keys of James Halliday (Mark Rylance), the designer of a virtual reality world called the Oasis.  Halliday has promised that the first person to discover the locations of all three keys will gain control of the entire world.  Wade, in his online persona Parzifal, has been searching for the keys for years without success until a chance meeting with Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), another online persona, gives him the clue he needs.  But evil corporation IOI is also looking and its CEO (Ben Mendelsohn) will stop at nothing to have control of Oasis. 

The only reason this movie exists is to absolutely pack as many pop culture references it possibly can into each and every frame.  You could spend ages trying to catalogue every character or property that shows up and probably have a better time doing that than actually watching the film.  I can only hope that the book is miles better because the movie is a total garbage fire.  It manages to shoehorn in every single shitty trope from the 80s but not with any intention of subverting them or even providing justification other than "this is how movies and games were when we were kids."  Okay, sure, but then we realized that they sucked and made them better.

On top of all that, the effects aren't even that good!  We have reached a stage where CGI is almost completely integrated with live-action in movies (like Black Panther) and games and this still looks like a rip-off from ten years ago.  Just so, so bad. 

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Nominated for Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Costumes, and Best Production Design
  Yet another unnecessary sequel from Disney.  Fortunately, this one doesn't completely suck.

Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) is all grown up with three children of his own and real, grown up problems.  He took a loan out on his childhood home to cover expenses after the death of his wife and it is about a week away from being repossessed.  His children, Anabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathaniel Saleh), and Georgie (Joel Dawson), are mostly forced to look after themselves as well as their grief-stricken and distracted father, until the magical Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) arrives from the sky to look after the family once more.

Here's my main issue with this movie, even more than the deus ex machina ending:  Lin-Manuel Miranda has no place being in it.  He's perfectly charming as Jack the lamplighter but I seriously question why Disney couldn't have hired an actual British person for the role.  His accent is atrocious and really, that role could have gone to anyone.  I get that Disney is so happy they own him now after Moana, but I don't think they needed his name recognition to sell this.

Speaking of people Disney owns, they couldn't get Julie Andrews to cameo?  I thought maybe Andrews didn't want to risk singing, but according to this article in the Washington Post, she flat turned them down when they asked because she didn't want to overshadow Emily Blunt.  Which, okay?  I guess?  But I'm pretty sure they just asked her to do a cameo at the end where she basically would have handed the reins of the franchise over.  Instead, they got Angela Lansbury and it feels super weird. 

The musical numbers are fun, for the most part.  There are a couple of real downers in there, like when Michael sings to his dead wife, and the kids are sad about their dead mom, but the rest of them are fun and upbeat.  The nominated song is one of the ballads, "Where the Lost Things Go," but my favorite was "A Cover is Not the Book."  I can't really talk about the score but I did notice some callbacks to the original. 

Costumes are really where the film excels.  They are bright, cheerful, and sharp but I felt like they overused the color green.  It probably had some symbolic reasoning, like they only have green when they're part of the "real" world because they don't use their imaginations but I think it could have been more subtle. 

If the film is guilty of anything, it's trying too hard to look like the original.  There's a dance sequence with lamplighters instead of chimneysweeps, a transition to animation complete with a duet, an upside down/ceiling number, and a joyous ending in the park.  It's like the director had a checklist of moments from the first one that had one minor change made to them just so he couldn't be accused of plagiarism.

Is it still worth your money?  Yes.  Your kids will be entertained and you won't have your memories of the original tarnished irrevocably which is pretty much the best case scenario here.