Academy Awards - The Oscars

Once again it is time to celebrate a year of film watching. Here are my choices for the following awards along with a few thoughts about some of the selections and non-selections The Academy made.

• Actor in a Leading Role – The nominees are: Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Timothee Chalamet (Call me by Your Name), Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread), and Denzel Washington (Roman J. Isreal, Esq.). Who else could be on this list? Tom Hanks (The Post), James Franco (The Disaster Artist), and Richard Gere (Norman). However, regardless of who wasn’t on the list, the runaway best performance is Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour. His Winston Churchill was simply sublime.
• Actress in a Leading Role – The nominees are: Meryl Streep (The Post), Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), Margot Robbie (I, Tonya), Francis McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, and Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird). Who didn’t get nominated? Rachel Weisz (My Cousin Rachel), Emma Stone (Battle of the Sexes) and Jessica Chastain (The Zookeepers Wife). If it were up to me, I’d select Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird because of the variety and excellent delivery of teenage emotions she effectively brings to the screen. Margot Robbie was utterly fantastic as Tonya Harding. Francis McDormand was filled with angst and fire as the woman who lost her daughter to rape and murder. Sally Hawkins was ethereal as Elisa Esposito a deaf woman who communicates with the captured creature. Meryl Streep showed the subtle development of strength as her character Katharine Graham.
• Supporting Actress – The nominees are: Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread), Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird), Allison Janney (I, Tonya), Mary J. Blige (Mudbound). Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water). Who is missing from this list? Melissa Leo (Novitiate), who gave one of most outstanding performances of the year. The film wasn’t seen and that is a shame. This is a strong field but choosing from the nominees, I’d select Allison Janney. Her depiction of Tonya Harding’s mother was vividly cold.
• Supporting Actor – The nominees are: Christopher Plummer (All the Money in the World), Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Willem Defoe (The Florida Project), and Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water). A great set of actors. Missing? Steve Carell (Battle of the Sexes) gave us an incredibly life like Bobby Riggs. I’d have to say that Sam Rockwell would get my vote although each of the above deserve the recognition.
• Best Cinematography – The nominees are: Bruno Delbonnel (Darkest Hour), Hoyte van Hoytema (Dunkirk), Rachel Morrison (Mudbound), Dan Laustsen (The Shape of Water), and Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049). Great list of people creating and delivering great pictures. My vote would go for Hoyte van Hoytema in Dunkirk. I admired the multitude and type of scenes that were shot and how they were made into a cohesive feeling of awe.
• Writing (Adapted Screenplay) – The nominees are: Dee Rees and Virgil Williams (Mudbound), Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter (The Disaster Artist), James Ivory (Call Me by Your Name), James Mangold, Michael Green and Scott Frank (Logan), and Aaron Sorkin (Molly’s Game). My vote would go to  Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter for The Disaster Artist.
• Writing (Original Screenplay) – The nominees are: Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor (The Shape of Water), Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick), Jordan Peele (Get Out) and Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird). This is probably the tightest category to be contested. Each of these stories is amazingly original. Therefore, I don’t have a single selection, they all are deserving.
• Film Editing – The nominees are: Lee Smith (Dunkirk), Tatiana S. Riegel (I, Tonya), Jonathan Amos and Paul MacHliss (Baby Driver), Sidney Wolinsky (The Shape of Water), and Jon Gregory (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). All very good, however the standout in editing goes to Lee Smith for Dunkirk. This is a story based film and not a character based film and because of this the editing makes this film engaging.
• Directing – The nominees are: Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread), Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water), Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird), and Jordan Peele (Get Out). What is missing. To me there are huge gaps here. Margaret Betts (Novitiate), Kathryn Bigelow (Detroit), Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya), and Joe Wright (Darkest Hour) all had a great firm hand on their story's and told them with excellence. Out of the nominees, I’d vote for Christopher Nolan and Dunkirk because he made this event come alive. However, Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) got amazing performances from her cast.
• Picture – The nominees are: Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Phantom Thread, Get Out, The Post, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Shape of Water, and Lady Bird. All these pictures, except Phantom Thread (review in process) are films I loved to watch for different reasons. What is missing? I think Novitiate, Detroit, and Battle of the Sexes were deserving as well. However, Novitiate would be my candidate for replacing Phantom Thread which I didn’t really find likable or engaging. Who will win? My wish would be Dunkirk, Lady Bird, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in that order. If Novitiate was in the mix, it would be a tie between it and Dunkirk.

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Logan

First Hit:  As a superhero movie, it's realistically dark and thoughtful.

Most superhero films are either tongue in cheek, lighthearted, go overboard on the superpower action, or all of these things. This film doesn’t do any of this. It is downright about the characters some who have superpower traits.

We have Logan (Hugh Jackman) as Wolverine who is aging, ill, and driving a limousine to make enough money for him and Caliban (Stephen Merchant) to take care of X-Men leader Charles (Patrick Stewart) who is dying. They are living out in the middle of nowhere and seem to be counting their days till they fade away and die. There haven’t been any new mutants born in the last 25 years and the clan is dying out.

However, a Dr. Rice (Richard E. Grant) has been experimenting with genetics on embryos and young children trying to create warriors/soldiers with superpower abilities. He's trying to create his own mutants. However, he's discovered that they have feelings and minds and cannot be controllable easily. He thinks he's got a way to make mutants that don't act on their own so he decides to kill all his previous experiments. Learning this, the young kids who are still alive, stage a revolt and escape.

Laura (Dafne Keen) is assisted by a nurse in the clinic and is in search of finding Logan because Laura has Logan's genetics and his wolverine superpower. The story is about how Logan helps Laura escape Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), Dr. Rice and a group of soldiers whose job is to kill all the remaining mutant children.

The effective parts of the story include strong acting by Jackman as a superhero whose both aging and slowly being poisoned by the adamantium (fictional metal alloy) that is imbedded in his body. The high-strung touchiness by which Logan and Caliban have towards each other while taking care of an ever-fragile Charles is indicative of their fading lives. The scenes are designed to breathe and nothing was rushed to show the strength of the mutant children, Laura, Charles, Logan, or Caliban. However, the ending fight was a little elongated and the men brought in to capture the mutants were too large an army to be believable.

From an acting point of view Jackman was perfect. It would be my guess that he’s probably glad to end his reign as Wolverine. He ends it with dignity which is a good thing because Marvel has let other characters in its stable get too far afield to enjoy or believe. Merchant was wonderful as Caliban with his ability to track and find. He made this role work. Stewart was wonderful and, like Jackman, is probably glad to have this role end because series like these can get too wildly convoluted. Grant was appropriately arrogant as Dr. Rice. Keen was mind-blowingly sublime. I loved her character and silence throughout the film until the end. She was totally believable. Holbrook as the soldier tasked with finding Laura was appropriately demonized. Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green wrote a very solid, strong and not overdone script. Characters could grow and develop which is rare in a superhero type film. Mangold did a wonderful job of directing this story and making it work.

Overall:  This was one of the best superhero mutant films on the books.

A Walk Among the Tombstones

First Hit:  Neeson is really good in an OK film.

Even when he’s given a poorly conceived script, Liam Neeson brings the quality of any film up. Take the last film I saw him in, “Non-Stop”, it was truly a mediocre script, but he made it better.

Here he does the same, although this script is better and overall it's a much better film than “Non-Stop”. As a former police officer who accidentally kills a young girl in a shootout after he’d been drinking, he gives up the drink and law enforcement. When we are re-introduced to Matt Scudder (Neeson’s character), we see he's a changed man, he does AA meetings and does unlicensed PI work on the side.

The story begins when he’s asked to find the killers of a drug dealer’s wife even though the husband paid the kidnappers $400,000 in ransom money. Will he take the job? Yes. At times the scenes of NYC are stunningly shot.

The grit, yet livability of the spaces and streets are true to form and add to the film’s story-line and feel. Scudder meets TJ (Astro) a homeless sickle cell stricken young man who ends up becoming an “associate” that helps him find and apprehend the culprits. Ray and Albert (David Harbour and Adam David Thompson respectively) are two really sick guys that kidnap, kill and maim their young female victims. Their mode is to hit on drug dealers who will have lots of cash on hand, have meaningful women in their lives, and ask for and get a ransom.

However they are sick guys who also just want to maim beautiful women, and paying the ransom won’t return them to their loved ones. I found myself wondering more about the interaction between these two guys because they were sick and odd. This could have been explored more along with their fixation with deviant sexual practices (thrill killing) and the cutting up women.

This edge in the film hung there like a huge weight.

Neeson as is his way, kept the film edgy and believable. Astro was great as the young man wanting to be a part of something and matter in some way. The interactions with Neeson were great. Harbour and Thompson were both perfectly sick in their actions and the way they interacted with each other. Scott Frank both wrote and directed this film.

Overall:  Aspects of this film were strong yet I felt something missing and maybe it was knowing more about the kidnappers.

The Wolverine

First Hit:  Convoluted story but it is somewhat amusing.

Someone in movie land felt it was important for the “The Wolverine” to have his own movie – again. The past film “X-Men Origins:  Wolverine” focused on his earlier life. Here Logan (Wolverine – Hugh Jackman) is lost because he killed his love interest accidentally.

Here the film’s story is a vehicle for Wolverine to find himself and get out of the self-imposed isolation of the Pacific Northwest. The story the writers chose is one that dips back to where the Wolverine saves Japanese General Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi) from dying during the bombing of Nagasaki. Right before his eyes, General Yashida watches The Wolverine melted and scarred from the heat and radiation of the bomb, heal right before his eyes.

For the rest of his life the General attempted to find ways for his body to reproduce itself and respond to damage, just like the Wolverine's. He wants immortality. To get it from the Wolverine, the General sends Yukio (Rila Fukushima) to find him and bring him back to Japan. The General’s granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto), who is the one who’ll inherit the General’s company when he dies, becomes a foil and someone the Wolverine opens his heart to, to love again.

But the story (outside of the bomb blast, which I thought was really good), lacked a reason to care much about the characters.

Jackman as the Wolverine was strong (physically looking) and portrayed his suffering well enough, but some scenes were just senseless and unnecessary (think 100 arrows in his back, each with a rope to the arrow shooter). Okamoto was very good and her model’s beauty was an asset while portraying the granddaughter of the General. Fukushima as the protector of the General was the most fun and interesting of the film’s characters. Mark Bomback and Scott Frank wrote an overly complex storyline to introduce bring forth the Wolverine character. James Mangold directed the film which was, at times was well choreographed, and at the other times meandering with forced action.

Overall:  This wasn’t the worth price of admission but maybe something to stream when bored some Sunday evening.