The Lighthouse - 1 nomination

Best Achievement in Cinematography - Jarin Blaschke

"At least it will be nominated for Cinematography and I'll have had to see it," I said as the lights came up after The Lighthouse concluded.  My son and his girlfriend had heard about this movie with only two actors (if you can believe it, they hadn't heard of either... even Robert Pattinson! Of course I reminded them about Harry Potter and those vampire ones) in which both struggle to keep their sanity while tending to a Lighthouse on a remote island in New England.  It's a highly stylized film and admittedly, the attention to beautiful detail with the language and the accents is impressive (assuming they are right about those... they sure seemed right).  But as the descent into madness takes hold, the film got less and less interesting to me, exactly the opposite of what all of the directing and screenplay choices were meant to be going, I presume.

Bottom line, this is the kind of film that you either love or hate.  If you've seen My Own Private Idaho, this film reminded me of that with some of the posed - stop the scene - moments, and coincidentally, I didn't love that one either.  There is something to be said for the film, there is no denying that it's a rich portrayal of madness, but that's not really my genre, so I don't recommend it.

I've thought a lot about what to recommend if you liked this movie.  I was going to go for Pete's Dragon, also with many scenes surrounding a lighthouse.  But instead, I'm choosing also cinematically beautiful AND descent into madness film, Shutter Island.  (or if you really loved this, go for My Own Private Idaho!)

Here's the trailer: