The 2018 Best Director category is not entirely unexpected. There is a surprise or two (mainly just one, though), but mainly this race remains the same as it was before the nominations were announced. The only hurdle left for the current front-runner to jump is the DGAs. Let’s talk about that.
Continue reading 2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Director
Not unlike his Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri co-star Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell seems to have this award locked up. But there are no sure things in this world.
Continue reading 2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Supporting Actor
I don’t want to say Best Supporting Actress is already a two-horse race. But Best Supporting Actress is already a two-horse race.
Continue reading 2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Supporting Actress
Best Actress has what is perhaps the widest gap between the front-runner and the other contenders. I mean, France McDormand is cleaning up from award show to award show. It is difficult to see anyone else taking that Oscar.
But, you know, I have to keep all other options on the table. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be an article to write.
Continue reading 2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Actress
Best Actor at the 2018 Academy Awards is looking to be one of the more…obvious categories. This and Best Actress are going to be some of the easier categories to call, at least in terms of who is the determined front-runner going into the ceremony.
That said, upsets are what make these award shows fun, right? That and, you know, the possibility that someone is going to screw something up while on-stage.
Continue reading 2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Actor
Mary and the Witch’s Flower is the first feature film from Studio Ponoc, a company made up of several former creators from the famed Studio Ghibli. It tells a story that is essentially Harry Potter adjacent, in which a young girl named Mary (Ruby Barnhill, in the English-language dub) stumbles upon a special flower, an engraved broomstick, and, ultimately, magical powers.
I say Harry Potter adjacent because Mary is whisked away on broomstick to an Continue reading Mary and the Witch’s Flower (2017) Movie Review
Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a famed couture designer in post-war London. He is quite idiosyncratic, very particular. He has eyes for a waitress named Alma (Vicky Krieps), whom he places in his house and sizes her up for a dress.
This scene, where Day-Lewis’ Woodcock measures Alma, is the beginning of an intensely fraught yet surprisingly understated romantic relationship. And it is a Continue reading Phantom Thread (2017) Movie Review
There is a lot on the surface of 12 Strong that has been done in war films before, again and again. Grunt soldier characters act like they do in every other movie. Fire-fight sequences involve everyone we don’t care about falling down dead, and everyone that has been established as a character surviving despite being amid insurmountable danger. Themes of camaraderie and learning to think differently about your fellow man abound. Etcetera. Etcetera.
With this, there is plenty of scenes that play out, down to the lines themselves, exactly as you would expect.
Our boys have to Continue reading 12 Strong (2018) Movie Review
Stop me if this sounds familiar. A hired gun is looking to get out of the game. She kills the wrong person. She finds herself in a relationship that adds empathy to a job that requires apathy. Based on circumstances outside of her control, her own crew turns against her. Now on her own, she has to leave a trail of bodies behind if she wants to get out and make a better life for herself.
Yeah, Proud Mary is that movie. Taraji P. Henson plays Mary, a hitwoman who has been following a kid, a young boy named Danny (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) whose father she assassinated a year earlier. She works for a Continue reading Proud Mary (2018) Movie Review
Paddington 2 has a simple message, but one that is nevertheless easily forgotten. Be nice to people. Pay it forward. Yadda yadda. It sounds obvious, and it sounds like it would play saccharine in a children’s film about a naive little bear. But, for the second time, it doesn’t.
I would like to make the argument that this second film is Continue reading Paddington 2 (2018) Movie Review
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