Sharing my love of all things Oscar. I see all the movies with nominations so you don't have to - and I do my best to research and help pick the winners. Subscribe, share your comments, and feel free to share with others. Follow me on Twitter @JodiBee.
Best Achievement in Visual Effects: Charlie Noble, David Zaretti, Russell Bowen, Brandon K. McLaughlin
The fires in Paradise, CA were devastating on so many levels but there is at least one story that I didn’t know prior to this film, and that follows a school bus driver and a teacher who escorted a group of children away from and through the fires. I don’t know the extent to which the film is accurate, but the portrayal in the film shows obstacle after obstacle getting in the way of this one bus with terrified children and two adults who were prepared to do all they could to rescue them. It is an edge of your seat movie which America Ferrera and Matthew McConaghey ably lead, but as the Oscar nomination indicates, the star of the film is indeed what is accomplished through the visual effects. They make the impact that movies like Towering Inferno made in the 70s, and it is just the slightest of exaggeration to say that you can almost feel the heat on the bus. Without the extraordinary effects, this film is really nothing and there is a scene so powerful toward the end of the film that even knowing the outcome of the reality the movie is based on does nothing to mitigate the tension and the fear drummed up by the screenplay.
This movie is hardly a “do not miss under any circumstances,” but it was very good and worth a Saturday night if you’re looking for something to watch.
Best Achievement in Visual Effects: Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, Daniel Barrett
Best Achievement in Costume Design: Deborah L. Scott
In the 3rd installment of the Avatar story, Jake and his Navi family are still being hunted by the military and now they have discovered a new enemy, the Ash tribe who are hungry for power and will do anything to obtain it. James Cameron again takes us to a magnificent place where the spiritual and the ecological meet. The film does its best to teach simple values and while the tropes of good and evil may be overly binary in the Avatar universe, I still find the movies both exciting and entertaining. Visually, they are incomparably stunning - that goes for all of the technical categories, the costumes, the makeup and hairstyling, the visual effects, the production design, the sound design; there isn’t a detail in this world that isn’t both bespoke and utterly detailed.
This isn’t a film that you mustn’t miss. It’s not likely to win either one of the awards for which it is nominated. But I enjoyed it and if you’re a fan of this genre, you will too.
Best Sound: Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo, Juan Peralta Best Achievement in Visual Effects: Ryan Tudhope, Nicolas Chevallier, Robert Harrington, Keith Dawson Best Motion Picture of the Year: Chad Oman, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Joseph Kosinski, Jerry Bruckheimer Best Achievement in Film Editing: Stephen Mirrione
Put your hand up if you remember my favorite film genre: that’s right, musicals! But tied for first with musicals is without a doubt sports movies. Sports movies have heart - someone (or a team) work hard to overcome obstacles and they win! or they lose! but they learn something about grit and cliches like “the love of the game” and “it ain’t over til it’s over.” And when that last second arrives, “it all comes down to this.” If you’re not on the edge of your seat, or crying a little bit, then either you are made of stone or the movie wasn’t very good.
F1 was every cliche in the sports book. The seasoned athlete who has wisdom, experience, and calm is engaged to work with the young hotshot who knows everything and has it all ahead of him. The seasoned pro thinks all of the technology for training is ridiculous, the young gun thinks the old pro is past his prime and too old school to teach him anything. Then the wizened teammate begins to make big scores for the team moving them closer and closer to their goal, and their relationship blossoms while they chase the dream. Yep - that’s all in there, including the forbidden and unprofessional courting of the woman on their team; this time she is an expert on aerodynamics and building cars that go really fast.
But I just told you that I love a sports movie and F1 is no exception. Every single nomination for the technical achievements is well deserved - the sound, the editing, the visual effects combine to make one hell of an exciting, edge of your seat experience. A best picture? No. Nothing has me more surprised than the inclusion of F1 in that prestigious list, and I wonder if that isn’t just Jerry Bruckheimer and Brad Pitt working the circuit to make the top 10. I could easily replace F1 with two or three of the other films that have nominations this year. Having said that, a super fun romp with a lot of heart makes F1 a fantastic watch for a light evening with a great bowl of popcorn.
Eric Barba, Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser, Daniel Macarin and Shane Mahan
The film starts with a young worker and her adopted robot brother working in servitude. Her sentence is getting ready to end when the evil powers that be inform her that she won't be leaving anytime soon and that her sentence has been extended. She finds her way onto a ship with a bunch of looters and lo and behold they discover the alien species that haunted Ellen Ripley so many years ago. While the visual effects in this film are extremely cool, I've had enough Alien movies for the rest of my life.
Better Man
Luke Millar, David Clayton, Keith Herft and Peter Stubbs
This was an incredibly interesting approach to a biopic. Robbie Williams tells his life story from child to superstar, but does so in the form of an ape. His lifelong insecurities manifesting themselves in many ways, but primarily as someone who is a misfit, never quite believing himself to be fully human. I enjoyed the movie and I didn't know anything really about Robbie Williams except that he was part of Take That.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Erik Winquist, Stephen Unterfranz, Paul Story and Rodney Burke
Here's another franchise that every time I see another one come out, I say do we really need another Planet of the Apes story? Yes, the visual effects are very cool, but what is this adding to the cannon? The problem is, each time they make one, they get nominated and I end up watching it. And guess what? Each one comes up with another engaging story - they are not the same film repurposed each time (I'm looking at your Alien Romulus), they add something to narrative and always have the central message warning against tribalism. I like this one, as well. Looking forward to the next one - Kingdom of the Phylum of the Class of the Order of the Family of the Genus of the Species of the Universe of the Planet of the Apes.
"Oh, what a celebration we'll have today! Thank goodness!"
What if we could go back in time and learn how the Wicked Witch of the West became so reviled and renowned? That's the story of Wicked Part 1 when Elphaba and Glinda are paired together at Shiz University and shenanigans unfold. Glinda is popular and beautiful, Elphaba is studious and different, that is to say, green. And while normal maneuverings at school and normal love triangles abound, there is also a populist movement against talking animals; maligning them and making people fear them as the enemy. (hmmm, totally unrealistic, of course). Elphaba doesn't want to be different, much like most people, but also doesn't want to admit that she is troubled by her difference. When the head mistress takes a special in her interest as a practitioner of magic, Elphaba is invited to meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz who lives in the Emerald City. Having now developed a friendship with Glinda, she invites her friend to come along and off the two go to meet the wizard.
I'm a huge fan of the musical (and for the love of God, would somebody please give Marc Platt his do over Oscar? Haven't you bothered this guy enough???) Back to the musical - if you know it, if you love it, if you have trouble sitting quietly in the theater and not singing along with the songs, you're going to absolutely love this film! But more than that, seeing it on screen brought to life two concepts from the stage that I had overlooked.
First, there's the trip to the Emerald City where everything is green. it hit me watching the magnificent costumes and production design that Elphaba's visit to the city is the first time in her life that she fits in more than the popular girl. She has come to the land of green, where green is keen (sorry, I couldn't resist) and it is everywhere. I know the movie sprinkled in tiny bits of pink into the Emerald City, but that choice showed even more how Glinda and her pink personality didn't quite fit in the hallowed city as much as Elphaba does. I can imagine both overwhelmed by the new feelings - fitting in for one, sticking out for the other.
The other revelation is how many plays on good, goodness, bad disguised as good, good disguised as bad - the themes are literally spread throughout the entire movie. If you've seen it already, go back and watch or go back and listen to the soundtrack. Almost every use of the word good has multiple meanings, "I have been changed for good." Does that mean I have been changed in a good way, or does that mean I have been changed permanently? Or both? Even the line I opened this post with - Thank Goodness! Is that, "thank the one who is representing good (Glinda)," is it "thank the state of being good," or just the plain old "phew!" This show is riddled with these suckers, and watching the movie again was a pleasure for all of the new discoveries that await even the longest time fan of the show. (or, good God, maybe just me... oh! There's another one!)
See this film for goodness sake! (That's another one... is it, "for the sake of goodness" or is it "gosh darn it!" OK I'LL STOP NOW.)
Before I describe a bit about Dune Part 2 (and frankly, the story is complicated enough rendering it nearly indescribable in a short blog post), I want to remind you that Dune Part 1 was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 6 of those. At the time, I thought surely that when Part 2 came out, it would be the leading candidate for Best Picture and that Denis Villeneuve (who took the unfilmable story and made it very filmable) would be a shoo-in for Best Director. He's not even nominated, and beyond the Best Picture nomination, all the accolades are in the technical categories for production craft.
So what happened? I can't pretend to know. But if you look at the other films nominated for Best Picture, there is a way to describe the stories, there is something that sticks with you. Wicked's got hummable songs and a power cast. Emilia Perez has songs and a power cast. Nickel Boys has history and a whole different way of telling a story. A Complete Unknown has Timothee Chala... ok, that's one for Dune 2, as well.
In addition to all of that, Dune has also released a tv show which has the same characters and family intrigue, and it's just possible that people are simply Dune-d out. When you add that the movie inconveniently is very hard to describe, it's hard to get the buzz. (You know, that movie with the sand monsters and something about spice, maybe? is hardly the catchy narrative that some of the other nominees can claim.)
To be sure, the second film is as good as the first and certainly as impressive as a work of science fiction and I enjoyed it once my memory kicked in from the first installment. (I highly recommend doing some sort of review of the first film before you begin the second, there is no "last time on Dune 1"...) But if I were cutting the nominees down to just 5, Dune 2 would not make my list. And frankly, if I had to kick one out to make room for Sing Sing (review coming soon), this would be the one I would choose. And no, there is no chance of my being able to describe the plot succinctly, so for the first time in 12 years of blog posts, I'm skipping even trying.
Posts
