Miss Bala is a story of an innocent bystander caught between two sides of a war. Unwittingly working for both the drug kingpin (Ismael Cruz Cordova) and the DEA, Gloria (Gina Rodriguez), must take her fate into her own hands to save herself and her friend.
And it’s a fairly bland experience.
Gloria travels to Tijuana to see her friend, Suzu (Cristina Rodlo), who is about to compete in the Miss Baja California pageant. After a night club shooting, Suzu disappears and Gloria is Continue reading Miss Bala (2019) Movie Review→
Joe Cornish’s follow-up to his 2011 critical darling Attack the Block is something completely different. Both Block and The Kid Who Would Be King focus on the plight of British youth, but Block is a hoodie horror deconstruction mixed with a shlock homage to B-movie creature features. The Kid Who Would Be King, on the other hand, is a family friendly action adventure in the style of Arthurian legend.
That is, rather, that Arthurian legend drops itself into the life of a modern day boy named Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis). After fleeing from a pair of schoolyard bullies (Tom Taylor and Rhianna Dorris), Alex finds himself Continue reading The Kid Who Would Be King (2019) Movie Review→
Poor Shoplifters. Such a great film, yet such a slim chance of winning an Oscar. Even in a year without Roma, I don’t know if the Academy would give Kore-eda’s film its due.
Also, Burning.
But no use crying over spilled milk. The nominees are what they are. And it is clear where the conversation goes from here.
The Best Animated Feature Film category can sometimes be tricky. You can almost always be sure of a Pixar nominee. Usually a Disney picture is present. One or two foreign films sneak into the race. But sometimes a front-runner is hard to pin down. Putting your money on Pixar is not always a sure-thing.
And this year, in particular, the crop of films is particularly strong.
Across the two 2019 writing categories, I think there are seven high quality scripts. There are two-to-three that are damn near brilliant. But that holds no bearing on the task at hand, which is to suss out exactly which scripts have a chance at taking home the trophy.
Four of the five Oscar nominees for Best Cinematography have received nominations before. Alfonso Cuaron has won two, albeit not for cinematography. Caleb Deschanel has been nominated a whopping six times. The only outlier here is Robbie Ryan, who makes a convincing case for himself in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite.
It is a category stacked to the gills with talent. Somehow, though, I believe it is not that close of a race.
Editing can be a tricky category to judge when it comes to the Academy Awards. The Academy likes flashiness. It likes showmanship. But often the best editing constitutes a lack of flash and show.
The Best Editing Oscar winner often splits the difference in this regard: visible yet functional. Dynamic editing that doesn’t hinder the film itself. Films with challenging editing tasks, like war films and action films. Editing that is visible enough for the Academy at large to understand and, thus, vote on, yet subtle enough for the Editing branch to nominate in the first place.
The nominees in the Best Director category are all very good. After not getting Best Director nods for Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, Spike Lee finally gets his due. Pawel Pawlikowski returns to the Oscar sphere with his follow up to the Best Foreign Language winner Ida. Adam McKay returns, as well, with his follow-up to The Big Short. Yorgos Lanthimos makes his debut in the Best Director category after receiving nominations in other categories for The Lobster and Dogtooth.
And then there is two-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron.
Unlike Best Supporting Actor, the 2019 award for Best Supporting Actress is a tough call. There is immense talent in this pool of actresses, and no single name has risen to a front-runner status.
For whatever reason, Best Supporting Actor is, year after year, the easiest acting race to predict. It is often narrowed in on one or two candidates long before the Screen Actors Guild announce their awards. The SAGs just act to solidify the already established front-runner.
2019, by and large, shows the same conditions. The race is already narrowed down, and it is not hard to pick a winner before the SAGs even happen. There is always upset potential, but this race is much more predictable than the other categories.
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