My Reaction to the Oscar Nominees

The Oscars are always one of my favorite events of year. Even when I don’t agree with some of the nominees and winners, it’s still a fun show and I love having a celebration of the year in film. Well, the nominees for the 87th Academy Awards were announced a few days ago, and I’ve finally gotten all my thoughts on them straight.

DISCLAIMER: All film is subjective, so just like my reviews this list will be completely opinion-based.

BEST PICTURE

American Sniper: This should definitely not be on here. Great lead performance, bad movie.

Birdman: Terrific. This belongs here, and is probably gonna be the winner.

Boyhood: This is my pick for most overrated movie of the year. It wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t enthralled by it like most people.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Sure, why not?

The Imitation Game: My favorite movie on this list, but it doesn’t have a strong chance of winning.

Selma: CONTROVERSY: It was just okay. Not worth a nomination in my opinion.

The Theory of Everything: Very nice to see this nominated.

Whiplash: Even nicer to see this nominated. One of the best movies of the year, and it gets better every time I see it. If I haven’t seen it I won’t comment.

Will win: Either Birdman or Boyhood

Should win: The Imitation Game

BEST ACTOR

Steve Carrell, Foxcatcher

Bradley Cooper, American Sniper: In a weaker year, I would’ve put him on here. But this was a stacked year, and I would rather have seen David Oyelowo or Jake Gyllenhaal in his spot.

Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game: He belongs here for sure.

Michael Keaton, Birdman: So does he. One of Keaton’s best performances.

Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything: Yet another extremely strong contender. This is Redmayne’s best performance to date.

Will and should win: Michael Keaton, Birdman

BEST ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night

Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything: I loved her performance. She belongs her for sure.

Julianne Moore, Still Alice

Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl: YES YES YES!! I would’ve freaked out if she wasn’t nominated.

Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Will win: Julianne Moore, Still Alice

Should win: Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Robert Duvall, The Judge: He’s got no chance, but he was the best part of that movie and deserves a nomination.

Ethan Hawke, Boyhood: He should be on here. The parents in Boyhood were much more compelling than Mason.

Edward Norton, Birdman: Another great performance in a movie filled with them.

Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher

J.K. Simmons, Whiplash: This is a very strong category, but I don’t see how he doesn’t win.

Will and should win: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette, Boyhood: She and Ethan Hawke made the movie watchable for me. That enough is worth win.

Laura Dern, Wild

Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game: Knightley has come a long way in the last few years, and this is a vindication of all her efforts.

Emma Stone, Birdman: She was terrific.

Meryl Streep, Into the Woods: I didn’t like the movie. It was about an hour too long. But Streep was great, same as always.

Will and should win: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: I don’t like this category. It exists only to give the Academy an excuse not to nominate animated films for Best Picture. BUT HOW THE HELL DOES THE LEGO MOVIE NOT GET NOMINATED? I don’t use the term snub lightly, but this is a snub.

Big Hero 6: I loved it. Lots of fun, and yet another credit to Disney.

The Boxtrolls: I enjoyed it, and it’s nice to see it get nominated.

How to Train Your Dragon 2: Without The Lego Movie in competition, this is my clear favorite.

Song of the Sea

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Will and should win: How to Train Your Dragon 2

BEST DIRECTOR

Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman: This is the first time that I can honestly say he did a great job directing. He did a truly amazing job.

Richard Linklater, Boyhood: I wouldn’t put him on here. I don’t think he did a very good job creating a compelling story. But I appreciate his ambition.

Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher

Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel: A good one for Anderson to get nominated for.

Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game: It wasn’t very showy direction, but Tyldum told this story very well and pulled good performances out of everyone.

Will and should win: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Jason Hall, American Sniper: No thanks.

Graham Moore, The Imitation Game: I’m surprised this is Moore’s first screenplay. He did a fantastic job.

Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice: I love PTA, but this screenplay was not a strong one.

Anthony McCarten, The Theory of Everything: A great screenplay. He deserves the nomination.

Damien Chazelle, Whiplash: Yet another great screenplay.

Will win: Too close to call.

Should win: Graham Moore, The Imitation Game

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo, Birdman: With a movie this good, how can the screenplay not be nominated?

Richard Linklater, Boyhood: I wouldn’t give it to him, but I understand why he’s nominated. I was an ambitious effort.

E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, Foxcatcher

Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness (story), The Grand Budapest Hotel: I’m kind of surprised to see this get so many nominations, but I can’t complain.

Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler: A better movie than any of these, and yet this is its only nomination. Glad to see it get something.

Will win: All those unpronounceable names, Birdman

Should win: Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler

So, there’s all the big ones. I might not agree with all the Academy’s decisions, but that doesn’t matter. Like all art forms, film is subjective, and it’s nice to see that people have varying opinions. I’m sure this year’s show will be a lot of fun, especially with all of the surprises. The Lego Movie not getting nominated is insane, though.

Updates on Annabelle, The Judge, Fury

Due to my lack of activity over the past few weeks, I’ve decided to give updates on what I’ve seen.

First was Annabelle:

Didn’t know what to make of Annabelle. On one hand, it was a spinoff of The Conjuring, probably my favorite horror movie since the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In (but not at that level). On the other hand, there was the fact that it’s about a doll, and dolls don’t scare me in the least.

-Let me start with the bad things. The first fifteen to twenty minutes were just atrocious, acting wasn’t very good, some of the dialogue was really bad, and it completely fell apart toward the end.

-Fortunately, it did what it needed to do just enough that I had some fun with it. It’s pretty creepy, with some good subtle atmospheric tension mixed in with the cheaper (but still fun) jump scares. When it comes to horror, all that really matters to me is that it’s scary, and Annabelle did a decent job at that. If you want something of substance you’ll be very disappointed, but I would just barely give this my recommendation.

–Score: 6/10

Then came The Judge:

I had very high hopes for The Judge. Two great leads in Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall were enough to sign me up from the get-go. The trailers also made it look very good. Unfortunately, I was a bit let down by it. Here’s my brief thoughts:

-As expected, Downey and Duvall are fabulous, especially Duvall.

-It’s not really the courtroom drama the trailers make it out to be, but a movie about the bond between a father and son, it’s a very emotionally honest film.

-The tone is very unbalanced.

-There is both too much plot and no direction in the storytelling.

-The Judge could’ve and should’ve been an Oscar contender, but instead I got something pretty mediocre. Not terrible, but not something I would recommend to anyone outside hardcore RDJ fans.

–Score: 5.5/10

And last, but definitely not least, was Fury:

I’m a sucker for war films. There’s something so interesting about the brutality of war, and any war film (especially WWII films) immediately grabs my attention. Fury looked like it was one of my most anticipated films of year, both because of the subject matter and the sublime cast (yes, even Logan Lerman and Shia LaBeouf). So, did it live up to my sky-high expectations? Not quite, but that didn’t stop it from being quite a good movie.

-The performances were, from top to bottom, absolutely wonderful. Of course, Brad Pitt has nothing left to prove, but you know you’ve got a wonderful cast when everybody can hold their own with him. Seriously, every single interaction between these five characters is absolute gold. Logan Lerman plays the dramatic straight man to everyone else’s grizzled veteran, and all of these guys is pretty far gone into the war mindset. They’re not here to be heroes, they’re here to end the war, and they’ll kill as many German troops as they need to. Still, they all want to be good men, and respect Logan Lerman’s character because he represents the principles that they are trying so hard to keep alive.

–Fury also does a great job at showing the horror of war. After about five minutes, you really get the sense that the life of a soldier really sucks. But it also shows that there’s room for (anti)heroes in war, whether the troops think so or not. It’s also horrific without being gratuitous, never feeling the need to sensationalize the already gruesome details of history’s most terrible conflict.

-Even though I thought Fury was a very good movie, I must admit the story felt pretty directionless until the third act. I can appreciate a movie that slows down to build the relationships between characters, but writer-director David Ayer could’ve done a better job at crafting an engaging story. The trailers also misrepresent the film a bit, with what looks like the premise in the trailers not coming until the third act.

-Whoever doesn’t predict the ending has never seen a World War II movie.

Even with a lackluster story, Fury succeeds because of the strength of the characters. Now that David Ayer’s attached to DC’s Suicide Squad, I have no doubt he can work his character-building there.

–Score: 7.5/10

George Lucas Retrospective: THX 1138 Review

Ah, George Lucas, the man who made and then proceeded to break millions of childhoods. The image of him that survives today is that of a man who had a promising career and threw it all away with all the changes to his masterpiece and its disappointing prequels (at least in eyes of hardcore fans, because he is richer than anyone’s wildest dreams). Today he’s the butt of every joke and a walking cautionary tale of what happens you don’t have anyone around to say no.

It can be easy to forget that it wasn’t always this away. In 1973, a young Lucas released American Graffiti. It was a huge financial and critical success and gave the opportunity to do whatever he wanted. What followed was momentous; the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies defined a generation, are still monumentally popular today, and catapulted Lucas into the pantheon of the greatest and most influential directors of all time.

But before all of that, there was something else. George Lucas’ feature debut was actually an expansion of a short film he made in college. It was a cerebral science fiction thriller that was apparently too clinical for its own good. It failed to clicked with early 70s audiences, but has picked up more acclaim after the massive success of the rest of Lucas’ work. Yes, folks. It’s time I revisited THX 1138.

Starring Robert Duvall (what stereotypical 70s film doesn’t?), Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie, and Ian Wolfe. Written by George Lucas and Walter Murch. Directed by George Lucas. Rated R for some sexuality/nudity (originally rated GP, a precursor to PG). 86/88 minutes (depending on which version you’re watching).

Premise: It’s the future, and most definitely not a rose-tinted Star Trek: The Original Series version. Sex is prohibited and people are given drugs to cool their passions. However, THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) and LUH 3417 cut down on their drug intake and start to develop feelings for each other. The two lovers are soon forced to struggle to survive in a domineering system.

Pros: The visuals are gorgeous. It’s to be expected from George Lucas, but THX 1138 is especially striking given its low budget and lack of bombast. There’s not in the way of flashy special effects abundant in Lucas’ later work. Just stark, gritty, haunting imagery that’s very much influenced by Kubrick’s 2001. The cinematography has a lot to do with it; there’s a lot of brilliant lighting and framing techniques that probably indirectly influenced a lot of today’s indie sci-fi scene, and definitely gave audiences a preview of what was to come in 1977.

I don’t usual touch on sound design, but here it deserves special mention. Everything on the audio side of THX 1138 helps to add to the sense of alienation and oppression that the film strives for, and you often get the sense that each sound is beckoning to you, asking you to listen in on a new audio gem that Lucas and crew have put put together. A nice surprise in an art form that I frequently ignore.

Cons: The story is filled with more dystopian cliches than a post-Hunger Games young adult novel. I mean, seriously Lucas and Murch! People had already seen all of your themes before! You’ve got societal oppression right out of Orwell’s worst nightmare, sexual repression, and even monolithic AI. It’s not as egregious as some other examples, but as far as use of well-worn tropes goes, I’d pick Star Wars any day.

If THX 1138 does a good job at capturing the visual style of 2001, it also shares its arthritic pacing. Again, its pacing is not as bad as a lot of other films, I’ve got a say I was bored at several points. Good thing the visuals were so great.

Verdict: THX 1138 is an interesting movie with amazing but understated visuals that suffers from a cliched storyline and some poor pacing. If you’re not a hardcore Lucas fan, don’t bother. But if you are it’s a decent start to an incredible career.

Score: 6/10