Avengers/The Lion King

Best Achievement in Visual Effects - Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones, Elliot Newman

The Lion King is next in the line of Disney animated films remaking themselves into live action features.  The dialogue is almost exactly identical as the original with young Simba being outplayed by his treacherous Uncle Scar.  Simba's father is accidentally killed in a stampede and Simba runs off into the Savannah where he meets Timon and Pumbaa who teach him a problem free philosophy, Hakuna Matata.  Of course, as with all of these remakes, there is an outstanding voice over cast and at least one new song.  When the Pride Lands fall into the depths of despair due to mismanagement by Scar and his minyan army the hyenas, Simba returns to reclaim his birthright and restore order to the land.  

I've enjoyed most of these updated installments and the visual effects are stunning (spoiler alert, those aren't real lions talking to each other), but if you've seen the animated film, you're good.

Best Achievement in Visual Effects - Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Matt Aitken, Daniel Sudick

Avengers: End Game is the incredibly satisfying conclusion to the Avengers franchise (I mean, perhaps I should say "conclusion," this franchise is hardly at the end of shaking its moneymaker, I assure you.). When we left off the last film, half of the universe had been snapped into oblivion thanks to Thanos who believed that he is the adult doing the right thing to restore order to the world.  And that means lots of our heroes are scarred at the unbelievable amount of loss they experienced when so many of their compatriots vanished.  When the team discovers a way to reset the world, the Avengers assemble once again to restore order, and to finally defeat Thanos and his evil intentions.

Now THIS is a movie you should see (make sure to see Avengers: Infinity War first, of course!). What a pleasure.  What an exciting ride and what a great arc for our many heroes.  Three characters seem to be definitively laid to rest (literally and metaphorically), but this film shows why nobody beats Marvel at the superhero game.  I loved it.

Ad Astra - 1 nomination

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing - Gary Rydstrom, Tom Johnson, Mark Ulano

Friends, I have to tell you, I watched this entire movie and I still don't totally understand what it was about.  Brad Pitt (soon to be Academy Award winner, Brad Pitt) plays a talented astronaut Roy McBride who has been given a top secret mission to find his father's (also an astronaut) lost in space mission because it is about to destroy the planet.  He undertakes the dangerous mission with some assistance from Donald Sutherland, who plays another astronaut who knew McBride's father.  There is all manner of space danger, and there are some exciting (yet extremely random) obstacles that must be overcome in order for him to be successful.  Then, more totally random things happen and then the movie is over.

Honestly, this was the most disjointed film of the entire Oscars list this year, and there were so many moments that I had to watch a second time because they had no set up and no context.  They just happened.  

I can certainly see why the film is nominated for sound mixing, there are so many pieces of sound layered over one another, but I'm starting to think that maybe these nominees should come from movies that higher than a 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (yes, yes, I know that's an extremely impractical proposal, and impossible to execute).  I'm tired of having to watch mediocre (and in this case bad) movies just because they are technically excellent.

If you loved Ad Astra (and if you did, wow, good for you), I recommend reverting to last year's Oscars and watch First Man.  A much much better space film with more gravitas in the credits roll than this film had in its entire story.

Watch the trailer:

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) - John Williams

Best Achievement in Visual Effects - Neal Scanlan, Patrick Tubach, Dominic Tuohy, Roger Guyett

Best Achievement in Sound Editing - Matthew Wood, David Acord

Let's give you a little context as to why I already loved Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker before I even saw it.
1. Even seen every single film.
2. I've loved every single film (even 1, 2, and 3) and I'm not annoyed by Jar Jar Binks.
3. I went to an 8:30 a.m. screening of this film before I got on a 16 hour flight.  Did I need more sitting on that day?  No I did not.  Was there any chance I would miss opening week?  No, there was not.
4. I am a tried and true Star Wars fan.  I have nail stickers with Princess Leia on them.  This is not a drill, people.
5. In my first conversation with my now husband, we confirmed that we both were Star Wars fans, and now we are married.

Ok, have I undermined my own credibility on this film enough?  I believe I have.

So this installment puts a lovely little bow on the most recent of the Star Wars iterations.  There were so many easter eggs and just out and out references for the original films that I cried multiple times while watching it.  Ewoks! Tatooine! The X-wing Fighter!  Impressive CGI reproductions of Carrie Fisher, young and old! Surrounded by a really beautiful and compelling story, there was so much bloody red meat in the water for Star Wars fans that there was no chance I wouldn't love it.  It's an against all odds battle of the resistance versus the First Order, and the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and we still have a glimmer of hope that a door was left just open enough for us to hope that there will continue to be more films ever after.

By the way, John Williams is nominated for his 52nd Oscar, 6 of which have been for Star Wars films.  He won for the very first Star Wars and it is likely that he won't win for this one, but his score is magnificent, as always.  I believe only Walt Disney has been nominated for more Oscars than Williams has (59), but John is a very young 88 years old, so let's not count him out.

That's as many spoilers as you're gonna get.  See the movie.  It's awesome.  (Trust me.)

If you loved Star Wars, obviously you have to see them from the beginning.  There is no substitute.

Here's the trailer:

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling - Paul Gooch, Arjen Tuiten, David White

In-Laws, am I right?  (Just kidding, I love my in laws dearly, especially if they are reading this blog.)  Maleficent's daughter Aurora has gotten engaged, and neither family is thrilled about it.  But in laws have to have dinner together, and when Aurora's soon to be mother in law lays a trap to have Maleficent act out and have everyone turn against her, and all the while the mother in law's minion secretly works in a lab to develop a potion that would eradicate all fairy kind, well, let's just say that all does not go well for the two families.  Maleficent discovers that there are more of "her kind" and she comes into her own, but not in the most productive of ways.  The two communities (fairy and human) are being lulled into war, and Aurora's mother in law reveals herself to be a murderous villain (this is not a spoiler).

I was not excited to watch this film.  Though I enjoyed the first one (which was nominated for an Oscar in costume design), I didn't think there was enough there to warrant a sequel.  I was wrong.  I really enjoyed this one!  It was fun - one could say enchanting - and the makeup is impressive.  When movies like these are nominated for an Oscar, I do sometimes think to myself, "say that out loud.  Bad Grandpa, Oscar nominee."  But it is not unusual for "low art" to achieve in the technical awards, and this one is at least good enough to spend the time.  But, I would only recommend it under the following conditions:

1. You saw the first one (Maleficent) and LOVED it.

2. You try to see every single nominated film, as I do.

3. End of list.

Here's the trailer:

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:

Live Action and Animated Shorts!

*Sorry Oscars babies, this is another very combined blog post.  Let me know if you like this solution, or if you think multiple posts in one day would be better.  And help me lobby the Academy to stop making the interim period so short!

ANIMATED SHORTS

A daughter and her father have never really found a way to be close and communicate with each other, and the sadness of that divide permeates as his life is winding down.  This wasn't my favorite, but the animation captured the emotion so beautifully, it was very impressive.

My favorite and the likely winner of the bunch, Hair Love finds a dad ill equipped to style his daughter's gorgeous hair, but a #girldad never gives up.  With a bit of help from YouTube and a big scoop of "can do," nothing will keep this father daughter team from making his daughter gorgeous before they go to visit her ailing mom in the hospital.  Many prognosticators are calling it for Hair Love (and I'm one of them!)

A skittish kitty makes friends with a pitbull who is being kept for an underground fighting ring.  He is sweet and abused.  Oy, this one was so hard to watch!  I can't imagine how anyone can do this to these dogs.  But worry not, the kitty knows how to be strong when he needs to, and this unlikely friendship will mean more to both than they ever could predict.

The heartbreaking but beautiful depiction of memory loss, the animation portrays every stroke, every drop of "paint" that goes into making a life, and how hollow people become when the sufferer can no longer fully remember the people in his life.  

A deceptively charming short about the cruelty of China's one child policy and forced abortion.  One man reenvisions his life had he had the sister sibling that his mother was forced to terminate.

LIVE ACTION SHORTS

Brotherhood is the very disturbing story of a boy returning home to his family.  He went to join ISIS in Syria against his family's wishes, and the father in particular is not tolerant of his son's murderous past, nor of his extreme Muslim views.  The son even arrives home with a fully burqa covered very young wife.  The father acts before he knows the rest of the story.

The discovery of pounds of cocaine in the desert by two young brothers prompts the older brother to spy a money-making opportunity.  The younger of the two thinks they have found laundry detergent, and the older one does nothing to change that perception.  But when the savvy brother attempts to make a sale to the local criminals, he discovers that his younger brother has other plans for the product.

A movie that's starts out funny and titillating - a couple with a direct view of their young neighbors' apartment, they find themselves obsessing over their lives filled with sex, parties, dancing, and fun.  They even buy binoculars as they fantasize about the grass-is-always-greener lifestyle of counterparts who don't have children and responsibilities.  As they watch, they discover that the grass is not always greener, and sometimes, the most important thing, is actual human connection.

This short is based on the true story of young teenage orphans held in a detention center in Guatemala.  They are children functionally being kept in cages for their life circumstances - and the girls are regularly raped, beaten, and treated to the worst of living conditions.  After a staged protest that draws the attention of the country, they try to escape but are caught and returned to their locked in lives.  When a fire is set inside the locked room, the guard at the door ignores what is happening and all 41 girls die in the fire.  There is a lesson here about callous disregard for human life.

This thrilling, edge of your seat, short follows a young woman who tells her rapist (who she knows) that she needs to call her sister.  She really calls the police and the operator on the other end of the line must decipher that the woman is in trouble, and figure out where the woman is so that she can send help.  This one is tense and epitomizes what can only be done in a short film.  It was excellent.

Knives Out - 1 nomination

Original Screenplay - Rian Johnson

Oh my gosh I loved this movie so much.  It's funny, it's clever, it plays with the murder mystery genre and it reminds me of one of my favorite books ever, Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.  The movie starts with the death of family patriarch and author/tycoon, Harlan Thrombey, and everyone in the family and the help who were in the house is a suspect.  Benoit Blanc is a private detective who comes to investigate the case and interview each person who apparently has motive and means to have committed the crime.  Thrombey has a very special relationship with his caretaker, Marta, and she knows more than she is letting on, but apparently not as much as she thinks.  There are so many excellent twists and turns in this film that it is worth the over 2 hours (yet ANOTHER Oscars film that is over 2 hours this year).  That's all you get!  Every word I could convey is too close to being a spoiler and it's not worth it to ruin the surprises for you to give you more of the plot in this post.  I went into this film blind and you should too.

So many people ask me to prioritize the film options from the nominees.  I always give you my top 3.  This is not in the Top 3.  But if you're expanding out to a top 10, Knives Out is definitely going to be in that list.  It's everything a murder mystery is supposed to be, and it's everything an entertaining movie is supposed to be.  I LOVED it.  And I think it has a shot at being the winner of the category.  (a shot... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is another one...)

If you didn't figure it out already, I recommend that if you loved Knives Out, you READ Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie.  You can certainly see the film (the 1974 version with Albert Finney and Lauren Bacall, NOT the 2017 version), but the book is the classic.