All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It

Deepwater Horizon (2016) Movie Review

The story of the people on board the Deepwater Horizon during the BP oil spill are the subjects of the Peter Berg feature Deepwater Horizon. As with other Berg films, it is a cinema verite style affair, with plenty of handheld shots following right over the shoulder of our heroes. That is, when indulgent crane shots aren’t taking snapshots of the glorious landscapes.

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These aforementioned heroes, namely Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg), are quippy, fast-talking working folk who feel something is up as soon as Continue reading Deepwater Horizon (2016) Movie Review →

2017 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

Academy Awards Predictions 2017 – Best Foreign Language Film

Best Foreign Language Film is one of those categories that  I don’t feel qualified to discuss, mainly because I’ve only seen one of the five films. But…I think I’ve got this.

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Best Foreign Language Film:

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2017 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

Academy Awards Predictions 2017 – Best Production Design

Production Design is great. It is necessary. Without it a film would be like Neil Breen taping garbage bags up in his garage as a set. But it is also not an easy Oscar category to predict.

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Best Production Design:

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2017 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

Academy Awards Predictions 2017 – Best Animated Short Film

Predicting one of the Oscar short film categories having only seen one of the five films is like calling your shot while wearing a blindfold. It’s like being a movie nerd badass, you know? Or…it’s like understanding what the term Pixar refers to…movie nerd badass is oxymoronic…moronic, really…What were we talking about?

Update: I have now seen all five of the nominated Animated Short Films. You can find a review of all five (save for Piper, a link for that review is below) here.

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Best Animated Short Film:

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2017 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

Academy Awards Predictions 2017 – Best Makeup & Hairstyling

All right, Best Makeup & Hairstyling. It’s only three movies, you can’t screw up. Come on, Alex! It’s just haircuts! You can judge haircuts!

Ahem, sorry. I didn’t realize you had…clicked through already.

The Academy Award for Best Makeup & Hairstyling is…ah man now I’ve lost my train of thought. Let’s see…there’s that Swedish movie. I think there’s some old-age makeup in that one. The guy wears a hat most of the movie…does he even have hair? Star Trek is aliens…now is that makeup or CGI? Chris Pine has nice hair…Suicide Squad…they’re all painted white like clowns…her hair’s kind of rainbow…

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Best Makeup & Hairstyling:

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2017 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

Academy Awards Predictions 2017 – Best Visual Effects

Visual effects, for some films, are pivotal. They make or break the film’s success. When effects are being honored by the Academy or elsewhere, it is often because the film’s either push the boundaries of the form, exemplify a careful precision to the craft, or utilize the vfx form to create immersive dynamic worlds that don’t exist in reality.

In regards to 2017, we have five films that all do at least one of these things very well. But I think there is one film that does all three…

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Best Visual Effects:

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2017 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2017 Academy Awards Predictions – All 24 Categories

It is perhaps serendipitous that the second anniversary of the CineFiles website coincides with the Christmas of film nerds: the announcement day for the Academy Awards nominations. This is also, quite coincidentally, the site’s 500th post.

It is only fair then that I do my best to roll out predictions for who or what will win in every category.

Below are links to articles on who will win in each category.

Best Picture

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2017 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

Academy Awards Predictions 2017 – Best Sound Mixing & Best Sound Editing

The Academy Award sound categories are always very interesting. Where many of the other Oscar categories share many films, Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Design allow for other films to get some Oscar love.

This year is no different (although, the major films are still more likely to win).

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Best Sound Mixing:

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2017 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

Academy Awards Predictions 2017 – Best Original Score

Certain Academy Award categories are hard to predict simply because each use of the given film technique can be so different. Best Original Score is one of these categories in my mind. A sonic complement to a film can be so unique to the experience of a given film that it is hard to compare that score to scores of other films. It is a qualitative comparison that can be quite difficult in Oscar predicting.

Luckily, this year’s Academy Awards has a strong musical.

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Best Original Score:

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One man. Thousands of movies.