The crop of contenders for Best Actress this year is fantastic. There won’t be a wasted slot; no matter who gets into the top five, they will have earned their place. All the same, there can only be five!
Continue reading 2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Actress Nominees
People were surprised when Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele were snubbed for the Golden Globes crop of directors. Will they get into the Academy nominations? Is there a scenario in which Spielberg doesn’t get in? Will Guillermo Del Toro win…well that’s an article for another day.
Let’s talk about it!
Continue reading 2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Director Nominees
The biggest movie award for the year of 2017: The Oscar for Best Picture. There is a fine crop of movies from which the Academy can select its nominees this year. But there’s only room for 10.
Which 10? Well…
Continue reading 2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Picture Nominees
There is one word that describes every facet of the film I, Tonya. Energy. From the acting performances, to the editing, to the camera work, to the dialogue, to the framing device, to the soundtrack there is a constant and consistent energy. There is never a wasted or dull moment. It is a two-hour movie that breezes by.
Beneath this energy, which is spear-headed by dark comedy, is a surprising amount of empathy that the film drums up around the figure of Tonya Harding (portrayed here by Margot Robbie). The highly publicized story of Harding plays out in the film in a Continue reading I, Tonya (2017) Movie Review
DeKalb Elementary from director Reed Van Dyk is one of five films nominated for the 2018 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film
The entirety of the short film DeKalb Elementary takes place inside of an administrative office of the eponymous elementary school. A man (Bo Mitchell) walks in and calmly proceeds to take out a semi-automatic rifle. Holding a woman (Tarra Riggs) hostage, he waits for the police to arrive.
The calmness of the characters involved may at first appear anachronistic to the plot that is unfolding, but the short plays out in what feels like a realistic way. This is accomplished through Continue reading DeKalb Elementary (2017) Short Film Review
Black Mirror is one of the highest rated, most buzzed about shows on Netflix. If you haven’t heard about it by now, you likely don’t have an internet connection…which is to say, you’re not reading this right now…nevermind.
With season four having recently dropped, it seems as good a time as any to rank the 19 episodes of the show, from worst to best.
For an episode-by-episode review of season four, click here.
“Men Against Fire” has an interesting (if not predictable) arc for its protagonist, but the episode also contains very obvious Continue reading All 19 Black Mirror Episodes Ranked
Season four of Netflix’s Black Mirror takes on fanboys, helicopter parents, vehicular manslaughter, and the like. Does it hold up to the high standard set by previous seasons?
The jam-packed 75-minute season opener, “USS Callister,” immediately immerses us into the world of the episode. Infinity is an online multiplayer game designed by Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), but he kept his initial prototype offline: a modded, Star Trek-style world in which Daly is Continue reading Black Mirror Season 4 (2017) TV Review
Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name is a film that takes its time yet never wastes a moment. It may seem at first that it is slow to startup, but this humdrum beginning that meanders almost lazily through this formative summer of Elio’s (Timothee Chalamet) is used as a basis from which the film’s central relationship can form. From the point at which this relationship comes to be, the film becomes an intensely emotional and sensual experience.
Certainly, this lengthy and deliberate film will lose some viewers. The simplicity of the plotting does not help in that regard. But beyond mere plot is a film that captures Continue reading Call Me By Your Name (2017) Movie Review
Guillermo del Toro, with his latest The Shape of Water, weaves, in effect, a fairy tale monster movie. Imbued with the shadowy lighting and terse patriotism of the Cold War 1950s, in which nationalistic patsies are led by men in trench coats who speak in passwords, the film sets itself in an industrial government building that hides away U.S. military secrets.
Working in this industrial warehouse, underneath the shadowy government officials and their shills and patsies, is the mute Elisa (Sally Hawkins). With the camaraderie of Zelda (Octavia Spencer), who fills the space where Elisa’s words cannot reach, they clean the facility. This includes cleaning up the blood after a new arrival to the facility causes Continue reading The Shape of Water (2017) Movie Review
Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game is based on a true story; a true story told by a potentially unreliable narrator. Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), a one-time Olympic contender, is under indictment for running an illegal gambling ring. Technically, she’s guilty (she wrote a book on the subject when she was in need of some money). All the same, the story is much more complicated than guilt versus non-guilt.
The story is complicated, but the movie makes it much more complicated than it needs to be. Sorkin jams into this 140-minute movie three storylines involving Continue reading Molly’s Game (2017) Movie Review
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