Kevin's Movie Blog

The telecast starts at 6 PST. I have now seen 16 of the nominated films (51%) including all eight best picture nominees, accounting for 71% of the nominations (not counting short films, documentaries, or foreign films unless they are nominated in other categories, as four of them are). Here are my thoughts:

Best Picture
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice

This is a hard field to grapple with. I will be happy if the winner comes from one of these three: ROMA, BLACK PANTHER, or THE FAVOURITE. ( Read more...Collapse )

This is a list of films nominated for Oscar by number of nominations. When I make these lists, I omit films nominated in the categories of Live Action Short, Animated Short Film, Best Documentary Feature, Documentary Short, and Foreign Language Film unless the films are also nominated in a another (non-omitted) category. Of which there are three this year! Cold War is nominated for Foreign Language Film and also for Directing and Cinematography. Never Look Away is nominated for Foreign Language Film and also for Cinematography. Roma is nominated for Foreign Language Film and also in nine other categories, including Best Picture(!). RBG is nominated for Best Documentary Feature, and also for Original Song.

The eight most-nominated films are also the eight Best Picture nominees. Of these 31 films, I have seen 14 (45%), accounting for 58 of the 100 nominations (58%). I can raise the nomination percentage significantly by just seeing Roma with its 10 nominations.

Ten Nominations
Roma
The Favourite ( Read more...Collapse )

Here are the nominations for the Oscars tomorrow. So far, I've seen 14 films, including 7 of 8 of the Best Picture nominees.

Best Picture
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice ( Read more...Collapse )

I just saw GREEN BOOK, which was a lot more entertaining than I expected. Hell of an entertaining picture. I'm very impressed by Viggo Mortensen (especially, since it's a star turn for him, but also Mahershala Ali). But... it's also a parable about how white racists are not so bad, they're also cuddly and misunderstood and capable of learning (at least if they're from the North), and maybe also saviors at the same time. There is a place for this kind of story. I like To Kill a Mockingbird. But--is this the time for it? What if the film had invested equally in Mahershala's character? I feel like this is a film for centrist to center-left white people that is more directed at making them laugh and feel good about themselves than about confronting overt and implicit racism, although it does confront both of these, and has the potential to do good by doing so. Maybe cuddly Viggo the brawler (and eater!) is the sugar pill that will help some white folks take their medicine and get more woke. I'm just personally tired of media that is captured by the white gaze.

I am getting on the ball for my annual push to see as many films nominated for Academy Awards as possible before the broadcast. The nominations were announced over two weeks ago on Tuesday, January 23. The ceremony is in four weeks on Sunday, March 4. Jimmy Kimmel hosts.

Many have commented on the diversity of this years' nominations: 4 out of 20 acting nominees and 2 of 5 directing nominees are people of color. One directing nominee and one cinematography nominee are female; that sounds pretty bad, but Rachel Morrison (MUDBOUND) is the first woman ever nominated in the cinematography category, so that counts as progress. Nominated films with visibly diverse casts include GET OUT (4 noms), MUDBOUND (4 noms), COCO (2 noms.), VICTORIA & ABDUL (2 noms.), and ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ. (1 nom.). THE SHAPE OF WATER may be metaphorically about race, but the core relationship is between a white woman who is mute and a manfish.

On casual perusal, the biggest winning threat looks like THE SHAPE OF WATER, which not only has the most nominations at 13, but is strong across both technical and performance categories, with 3 nominations for acting and nominations for writing, directing, and cinematography as well as best picture.

Female driven productions are notably scarce on the list. Usually there are several propping up the lead and supporting actress categories, even if they don't get much love in other categories. LADY BIRD and I, TONYA may be the only films primarily about women. Frances McDormand has a powerful lead performance in THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, but the movie is otherwise full of men, which is probably also true of Meryl Streep's part in THE POST and Judi Dench's in VICTORIA & ABDUL (although I haven't seen them). Of the rest, at least STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI has good gender balance. It's hard not to look at this list and think that Hollywood is still a man's business. #timesup

Focusing on feature-length films outside the documentary and foreign language categories, I'm surprised how many nominations were garnered by films shut out of the 9-film Best Picture category. BLADE RUNNER 2047 has 5, MUDBOUND and STAR WARS have 4, and both BABY DRIVER and I, TONYA have three. It's not a writer's year: 4 of the 10 films nominated for best screenplays (original or adapted) have no other nominations: THE BIG SICK, MOLLY'S GAME, THE DISASTER ARTIST, and LOGAN (of all films). The following best picture nominees are not nominated for their screenplays: DARKEST HOUR, DUNKIRK, PHANTOM THREAD, and THE POST.

Here are the nominees in these categories sorted by number of nominations, with a * to indicate a best picture nomination, and a + if I've seen it: ( Read more...Collapse )

What am I most looking forward to seeing? ALL OF THEM.

It's time to make picks! I love writing this post every year, as fast as I can (I'm usually running out of time because I watched one of the movies in the morning, like 12 YEARS A SLAVE which turned all my choices upside down in 2014). This time I've seen only 15 of the 38 films nominated outside the short, foreign, and documentary film categories, which is about nine films under par. I have, however, seen all nine Best Picture nominees. The films I've seen account for 68% of the nominations (67 of 98).

Best Picture
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Oh yeah, let's get right to it. ( Read more...Collapse )

This review contains SPOILERS.

I was led to believe that LA LA LAND would be frothy, happy, self-indulgent, and life-affirming--a celebration of classic musicals, "the industry," falling in love, and being young and creative in Los Angeles.

I guess it's a few of these things? But that wasn't my experience. Of all the musicals which writer/director Damien Chazelle wants to celebrate in this opus, this flawed masterpiece, the one it keeps calling to mind is Martin Scorsese's NEW YORK, NEW YORK (1977). If you haven't seen it, this dour story of a downtrodden aspiring jazz musician and his relationship with a pop signer who dreams of stardom, filmed with mostly improvised dialogue, features Robert De Niro, Liza Minelli, and Scorsese's musical tribute to creative frustration, alcoholism, domestic violence, and darkness. It's no picnic to sit through. It's one of Scorsese's only three films to not receive a single Oscar nomination--not even for Original Song.[*] Yes, that song. ( Read more...Collapse )

The Oscars are on February 26, and the nominations were announced January 24. Here I am just getting organized to see all the films! Busy work season, etc. The nominations were spread around quite thinly this year. The nine Best Picture nominees are also the nine most-nominated films, ranging from 14 nominations (LA LA LAND) to three (HIDDEN FIGURES). Only one other film has three nominations (JACKIE), and only eight films have two. Disregarding the short subject, documentary, and foreign film categories, as like a Philistine I do, there are 38 films nominated, the most in the five years I have been tracking nominations by spreadsheet. In 2013 the nominations were more concentrated, with only 29 films receiving at least one nomination. As of this writing, I have seen 9 of the 38, including 3 of 9 Best Picture nominees (ARRIVAL, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, FENCES). My early advice? Don't miss MANCHESTER BY THE SEA. I also endorse DOCTOR STRANGE.

I made this observation on Facebook on January 24th: ( Read more...Collapse )

OMG this is a lovely, lovely film.

This and THE DANISH GIRL are the two Oscar-nominated films I have seen from 2015 that struck me as stunning works of art.

Gotta record my picks! Thanks to Forbes.com for the conveniently pastable list of nominees, in presentation order. I'm skipping the foreign, documentary, and short film categories. These are the films I would choose, not the ones I expect the Academy to select.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

( Read more...Collapse )

I'm sure I saw some 2015 movies that aren't nominated for Oscar--ANT MAN? AGE OF ULTRON? SISTERS? But they aren't on my mind today; it's the Oscar nominiees. As of today, I have seen 20 of the 32 films nominated for at least one Oscar outside the foreign, documentary, and short film categories. These account for 63% of the films nominated in these categories, and 82% of the nominations (I keep a spreadsheet). The only film nominated for more than one Oscar that I haven't gotten to yet is CAROL. Sorry CAROL! You release to DVD on March 15. It's been a busy couple of weeks.

And it's a good crop of films. Of the 20, I can say that I didn't like two: SICARIO and JOY. Even JOY had good parts, although the film as a whole is not successful. There are a few that I would not rush to see again, like ROOM, YOUTH, and, I fear, THE REVENANT--but that's not the same as saying that they are bad films.

I have to be honest--my favorites of this group are not among the eight films nominated for Best Picture. There are some gems in that bunch, to be sure (other than ROOM and THE REVENANT). THE BIG SHORT and SPOTLIGHT are both wonderful, don't-miss movies. I hope THE BIG SHORT wins the category (it probably won't). MAD MAX: FURY ROAD is a visual trip, although my pulse doesn't race for cars or heavy metal, and I could take or leave the story. BROOKLYN, BRIDGE OF SPIES, and especially THE MARTIAN are good, solid movies you would be proud to have picked either for a date or an outing with your parents.

They aren't my favorite films of 2015. ( Read more...Collapse )

Tags: best of 2015

It has been a busy 2016, and I did not put up my traditional post to reflect on the Academy Award nominations when they were announced on January 14th. No fear, I have still kept up my annual attempt to see all the nominated films I can, despite it being the busy season at work. In this case, I have seen all films this year with multiple nominations except two, one of which, ROOM, I will rent digitally on Amazon and watch this morning/afternoon. Here is a list of nominated films outside the foreign language, documentary, and short film categories (because life is too short), by number of nominations:

( Read more...Collapse )

I just got off a plane from LA this morning with girljim and we're back just in time for the red carpet for the Oscars. I want to record some thoughts and predictions before the awards get handed out, so I've got to move fast.

I did O.K. in my annual frenzied catch up (during the most busy season of the year at work). Every year I make a list of all the nominations, excepting documentary, foreign, and short film categories (because life is too short; although if I get a chance to catch the short films, I always enjoy them). In the remaining 21 categories, I have seen 20 of the 36, or 56%, of the films with at least one nomination, including all eight films nominated for Best Picture. These films account for 73, or 75%, of the 97 nominations.

What were my favorites? ( Read more...Collapse )

The big story in the press coming out of Thursday's nominations is the lack of diversity in the nominations. All 20 acting nominations went to white people for the first time since 1998. None of the eight best picture nominees is a film with a female protagonist, while only one, SELMA, has a nonwhite protagonist (although extra points may be assigned, since the protagonist is the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.). All of the directing nominees are male.

It seems to me that placing blame on the Academy is shortsighted. First, one should take a larger view that just one year's crop of nominations, and look at a sample of five to ten years before drawing conclusions. In that sample, persons of color are indeed represented among the nominees and winners of acting awards. Much less so among the cinematographers, executive producers, composers, editors, and directors. Who, exactly, should the Academy voters have nominated, but for their presumed bigotry? Most people point to the lead actor and director of SELMA.

The problem isn't that the same Academy voters who awarded the 2013 best picture award to 12 YEARS A SLAVE didn't swoon for SELMA (only nominating it for best picture, which it may yet win, and best original song). It's that the power in the film industry itself, which produces the options for nomination, skews hard towards male and white. And it's because the marketplace seemingly to reward this preoccupation, tending to relegate woman- and minority-centered pictures to niche films (although there may be a chicken or egg dilemma here).

I don't think the Academy is horrible: overall I think it is a group of sincere, working artists who are passionate about film, and eager to reward small movies and overlooked performances. If you don't like what you see in this year's slate of nominations, don't blame the Academy. It may be a good time, however, to reflect on society as a whole.

I have a barrel full of mixed feelings about THE IMITATION GAME. Bottom line: it's a very solid film, with a really interesting story, and a cast of very strong actors who I personally like, led by Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightly, and Mark Strong. Ben and Keira are both nominated for best actor/actress, and the film's eight Oscar nominations also include best picture, best director, and best adapted screenplay.

The trouble is not with all the obvious talent that was poured into the production. The problem is that all of these elements have been channeled and compressed into a screenplay that follows formulaic, familiar, manipulative patterns. The writers turn the story of Turing's efforts to break the Nazi's enigma codes during World War II (inventing the modern computer in the process) into an accessible heroes and villains story, where Turing's greatest achievement is not beating the code, but besting the sneering Commander Denniston. How serious is your movie when your hero's main opponent is basically playing the same role as the mayor from GHOSTBUSTERS (1984)? I even thought that it was the same actor (William Atherton), although it turns out that it's Charles Dance, a familiar character actor best known today for playing Tywin Lannister in GAME OF THRONES (2011-). He's terrific, by the way. ( Read more...Collapse )

This post is late, I know--it's the busiest time of year at work. Oscar nominations came out Thursday morning, and it's an interesting crop. As an aside, I should probably rename this LJ the Oscar Blog, since that seems to be the only time I post about movies anymore.

There are eight Best Picture nominees this year--and they're quirky! It feels like a sea change that the two most-nominated films (tied at 9 nominations apiece) are THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL by Wed Anderson and BIRDMAN by Alexandro Iñárritu. The reputed favorite in the category is BOYHOOD by Richard Linklater, of all people! I love these directors' work, but these are not the kind of films that the Academy usually nominates at this level. In fact, it's the first Best Picture or Best Director nomination for Linklater and Anderson, who directed their first features in 1991 and 1996, respectively.

My first reaction to reading the slate of Best Actor nominees (Michael Keaton, Steve Carrell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bradley Cooper, and Eddie Redmayne) was, "What year is this?" Keaton and Carrell are both comedians, and Cumberbatch and Cooper, at least, have great comic chops, so scratch that--my reaction should be "What dimension is this?" Cumberbatch and Cooper's nominations are not for their 2014 roles as Smaug the Dragon and Rocket Racoon, but for their portrayals of Alan Turing and sniper Chris Kyle.

As usual, I'm behind on my movie watching, but I will try to catch up before the Oscar ceremony on February 22. Neil Patrick Harris is hosting. Of the films on the nomination list, here are the ones I have seen:

The Grand Budapest Hotel - Fun, but I liked Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012) better.
The Imitation Game - A solidly made piece of entertainment, about fascinating historical circumstances.
Gone Girl - Very powerful thriller! I was surprised to see it receive only one nomination; failure to recognize the screenplay seems like a particularly egregious oversight. Recommended, although it's a tough film.
Interstellar - Decent. I am surprised, but not overly disappointed, to see this film overlooked in the top categories. It still received five nominations.
Guardians of the Galaxy - Basically Looney Tunes on steroids in space, NTTAWWT.
The Lego Movie - Full of cleverness, but instantly forgettable.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 - This is a great franchise. The sequel doesn't equal the original, but doesn't disappoint either.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - Snubbed with only a single nomination for sound editing, this was my most-watched film of 2014.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - This film didn't thrill me. I just wasn't drawn in by the characters or the story.

The films on the list I am most excited about seeing are Wild, Selma, Boyhood, Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler, Inherent Vice, The Boxtrolls, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

This complete list of nominees was filched from EW, and the nomination tallies below that from Vox:

( Full list of nominees, and nomination talliesCollapse )

The Robinson family blasts off for Alpha Prime, only to fall victim to the barely explicable efforts of saboteurs, and the machinations the inexplicably evil Doctor Smith. Disaster leaves them lost in space, having adventures with diabolical alien spider killing machines and time distortion bubbles.

Despite the great cast (Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, Matt LeBlanc) it’s easy to say what’s wrong with this movie: tedious clichés, inert dialogue, absent chemistry, wooden acting. Only the male characters drive the plot, while the women play the roles of wife, reticent girlfriend, and useless brat. The special effects are good for 1998, but who cares if the filmmakers don’t take the world seriously.

What’s good? Gary Oldman, the voice of the robot, and the darkness of the time travel plot, which this film can’t quite bring itself to fully embrace. Sorry about choosing this one--I should have known better. Life is short; let’s choose films more carefully.

This review was originally posted on Friday Flix, a classic sci fi film community which I moderate on Google+. It was written to be a conversation starter, so join in!

I keep thinking I should cross post the reviews I've written for film discussion threads on Friday Flix here. Get ready for a long series on classic sci fi.

Capt. J.J. Adams leads an expedition through hyperspace in the 23rd century to the planet Altair IV. His orders are to conduct a rescue mission to search for survivors from the spaceship Bellerophon, not heard from for 20 years. On the surface of the planet, the crew finds only Dr. Morbius, his virginal daughter Alta, and Robby the Robot, his mechanical servant. Morbius does not want to be found, however, and warns them that their deaths will soon follow if they linger there. Meanwhile, he reveals to the Captain his hidden knowledge of the untold wonders left under the surface by the lost civilization of the Krell. ( Read more...Collapse )

I've got to run and gun here:

Best motion picture of the year
Out of the 9 films nominated, there are a lot of films I love in this category. The top two for me are 12 YEARS A SLAVE and HER. The former must have been far more expensive and labor intensive to shoot. Both feature amazing performances from the cast. 12 YEARS may be the better film--who knows?--but HER wins my heart.

Achievement in directing
Alfonso Cuarón, for making us believe we are in outer space? Scorsese for being Scorsese? Or Steve McQueen? Having watched 12 YEARS A SLAVE this morning, I am full of desire to see every other film Steve McQueen has ever made, so it's McQueen.( Read more...Collapse )

Have to get this posted before our Oscar party guests start arriving! If you read a lot of film criticism, it's commonplace to see people commenting what a great crop of movies there was this year. I agree with this. When you find very good films like NEBRASKA and PHILOMENA definitely ranking below average, that's a good year.

This year there are two hard science fiction movies nominated for best picture! GRAVITY is one of the most commercially successful hard sf films of all time (depending on how you classify films like AVATAR and ALIEN), and it was delightful--but imho, the scrappy, relatively inexpensive HER was a better film.

I make a spreadsheet every year ( Read more...Collapse )

This essay is fantastic. Probably even for non-lawyers.

Humor, Locked and Loaded
‘American Hustle’ and ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ as Brutal Comedies

There are some especially fine Oscar nominees this year--AMERICAN HUSTLE and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET are two of them. I think I like HER better than both. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS is also pretty great. But what are these movies? How do you even describe them? They're savage comedies--exactly. Flamboyantly savage, in the case of AMERICAN HUSTLE and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. Exactly.

I've been making good progress on my annual quest to see as many Oscar nominees as possible, but I haven't had time to post about it. Last Friday, I caught up at work for the first time since early December, so I hope to put up something more about Oscar season soon.

These comments about THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (2013) were originally posted on Google plus.

I keep reading reviews like this ("It is no longer Tolkien's Middle-earth") about THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (2013), and they bug me. This is a good one to pick on, because it's a well-written review by Emil Johansson from The LOTR Project, a totally fabulous Tolkien nerd whom I respect greatly.

The thing is, all the criticism along the lines of "it it no longer Tolkien's Middle-earth," "it was not an adaptation of the Hobbit... just something very loosely based on the Hobbit" and "it no longer feels like Tolkien's Middle-earth" could equally well have been said about The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), as a sequel to The Hobbit (1937). A very poor adaptation indeed, which messes wildly with the premises of the tale and doesn't honor the original tone of the story at all.

The biggest actual change Peter Jackson has made so far ( Read more...Collapse )

Yes, there is an Academy Award nomination for JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA (2013).

Oscar nomination day feels a little like Christmas to me, even though I'm mired right now at work in the 4th day of our state's legislative session, and besides that trying to adhere to a ambitious watch/review schedule for classic science fiction movies and original Star Trek episodes in the communities I moderate over on Google plus. Still--looks like a great crop of films which I am greatly excited to watch, even though according to tradition I am starting out significantly behind. In the main categories I've only seen GRAVITY and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (both excellent) and in all the other categories, only THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, BEFORE MIDNIGHT, THE GREAT GATSBY, IRON MAN 3, SAVING MR. BANKS, and STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (excellent, excellent, good, okay, meh, and black garbage).

Quick hits: Hayao Miyazaki beat out Pixar when THE WIND RISES was nominated for Best Animated Film but MONSTERS UNIVERSITY (which I have seen--it's at least as good as IRON MAN 3) was passed over. I've been dying to see AMERICAN HUSTLE, but I did not expect to see it tied for the leading number of nominations, 10, with GRAVITY. Is it a serious Best Picture contender? Go David O. Russell! If you don't want to pony up the dough for movie tickets, consider renting his seriously wacky philsophical drama/thriller I HEART HUCKABEES (2004) instead.

Passing over THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG in the Art Direction category is a travesty. Congratulations to Oscar winner Jonah Hill for his second nomination for THE WOLF OF WALL STREET--it's deserved. I'm not sure I understand why BEFORE MIDNIGHT qualifies as an adapted screenplay--are all sequels adapted screenplays? Because they use characters developed in previous works? Even when they present original stories?

I keep reading what a great crop of films there was this year, and the list seems to bear this out. Besides AMERICAN HUSTLE, I'm most excited about seeing HER, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, BLUE JASMINE, and THE WIND RISES. Also Sarah Polly's THE STORIES WE TELL, which was unexpectedly passed over in the Best Documentary Category. Besides those, I suspect I will have a great time with DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, NEBRASKA, JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA, and FROZEN. I will see 12 YEARS A SLAVE out of a sense of duty. At least there are no Afghanistan/Iraq War films this year, outside the Best Documentary category (I don't know what all the documentary films are about).[*]

THE BUTLER was surprisingly passed over for nominations in every category. Merits aside (I haven't seen it), shameless Oscar bait is not the sure thing that it used to be.

Sound Editing and Sound Mixing sure are weird categories. I get the sense that, apart from the actual achievements in sound, these categories are becoming "The tech person's Oscars"--the best picture nominees to recognize general overall technical achievement, which has risen to astounding levels, outside the single meager slot available in the Visual Effects category. The Visual Effects slot is still dominated by superhero/fantasy fare (NTTAWWT--I love superhero/fantasy fare when it's well done).

[*] Correction: LONE SURVIVOR, nominated for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing, is an Iraq War story.

( Full list of nominees under the cutCollapse )

For those wondering why I haven't been posting here more often, I've been writing episode reviews at the Star Trek rewatch community I started, here. As of this writing, we've covered 31 episodes (including the unaired pilot) and just launched into Season Two. In the process, I received a free review copy of These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One by Marc Cushman. I think that officially makes me a Star Trek journalist! Here is my review.

Blazing through the galaxy of Star Trek reference books comes the new gold standard. These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One by Marc Cushman is massive tome that looks like a textbook. Here it is by the numbers: 541 oversize pages of text, original interviews with 65 people important to the first season of Star Trek, including Gene Rodenberry, Robert Justman, Dorothy Fontana, James Doohan, and Grace Lee Whitney, an 11-page bibliography of books, newspaper & magazine articles, and a 15-page index of quotations. All this, and it only covers Season One!

All the secondary research is supplementary to the real heart of this book: Cushman gained access to the original series archives, safeguarded through the years by Justman and Roddenberry, and now in the custody of the UCLA Performing Arts Library. These include ( Read more...Collapse )