It's time to begin making my formal and official Oscar predictions. In this third post, we look at the minor film categories that include animation, documentary, and shorts. Let's do this!
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It's time to begin making my formal and official Oscar predictions. In this second post, we look at the musical and sound categories that include original score, original song, sound editing, and sound mixing. Let's do this!
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It's time to begin making my formal and official Oscar predictions. In this first post, we look at the visual and artistic technical categories that include cinematography, production design, costumes, makeup/hairstyling, editing, and visual effects. Let's do this!
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When a strikingly and surprisingly good movie musical does comes around and impress, the only thing to do is shout and sing its praises from the proverbial mountaintops, just as the main characters would have the proclivity to do. Well, we've got one right here, so cover your ears, and hear me roar! "The Last Five Years," the adaptation of Jason Robert Brown's Off-Broadway hit, is a new movie musical that makes this website's handful list of true gems and delightful keepers. This is the real film the date movie crowd should be seeking out this Valentine's Day weekend instead of the whips-and-chains-handcuffs of some certain monochromatic thriller. This film simply soars in every way!
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As the resident "movie guy" among my circle of friends, I'm always enthused and flattered when people come to me with great interest about what I think about a movie. That gesture tells me that I either have pretty decent reviews or at least a unique perspective with my specialty and hook to make my film reviews and commentary culminate with the "life lessons" that are offered by every movie. Without a doubt, my favorite friendly provocation and urging is the "Don, I can't wait to see what lessons you find from that one!" I'd be lying if I said I don't relish that kind of challenge. The movies normally in question by that statement and request are the most wild and preposterous ones. What I find is, sometimes, the really bad movies make for the easiest and best life lesson-centered movie reviews for me to write. The latest lightning rod film that is getting the "can't wait to see what you say" traffic is the Valentine's Day weekend film adaptation of "Fifty Shades of Grey." This is my take and "blind review" without even seeing it yet, because, as you will read, I find it all too predictable and predictably bad.
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"Jupiter Ascending" is an utter mess of missed opportunity and misguided world-building. Just as with a majority of science fiction movies, the visual panache is present in astounding detail. That, once again, is the easy part. Unfortunately, none of it (and I mean none of it), is created with purpose or direction that becomes compelling and stirring to you as the audience. None of its creative ingredients work to earn your investment, acceptance, attention, or even your basic comprehension.
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The Oscar nominations for the 87th Academy Awards were announced this morning. Directors J.J. Abrams and Alfonso Cuaron mapped out the little categories and then actor Chris Pine and Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs drops some bombs this morning. As always, there are plenty of surprises and plenty of snubs. Through it all, the frontrunners have already emerged and this race is taking shape, so much so that I could probably name the eventual winners already today.
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With the 87th Academy Award nominations being announced tomorrow morning, I'm cutting it close with my predictions of who and what names will hear their named called. I've been following the full awards season over on my Awards Tracker page, where I've been following the trends and reading the tea leaves. Using that data and a batch of hunches, here are my savvy predictions for tomorrow's nominations in the eleven major categories.
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More and more each year, the Golden Globes have become more an a popularity contest than a true precursor to the Academy Awards. What you're watching on TV is a party thrown by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in an effort to be loved and share some love. To its credit, the awards show still garners legitimate attention and ratings. The winners do get a pretty positive rub and the marketers gain a few more "Winner of..." graphics to put in the newspapers next to their films. Let's take a look at the film categories and pick some winners.
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As beautifully presented as Mike Leigh's "Mr. Turner" is at telling the story of English Romanticist painter J.M.W. Turner, too much of it is uninteresting, familiar in tone, and predictably in execution. What normally can save a film about an artist is the subject's life beyond his or her work. An interesting person can make up for the uninteresting content. Though led by a invested performance from character actor Timothy Spall, "Mr. Turner" can't muster enough of that to separate itself as something special.
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As I say every year, plenty of regular everyday people make New Year's Resolutions, but I think bigger entities, namely movie makers and movie moguls, need to make them too. Over the life of this website, this is my absolute favorite editorial to write every year. I have fun taking the movie industry to task for things they need to change.
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Getting into the numbers, I reviewed twenty four-star films and twelve five-star gems. That means my final "10 Best" list are all champs with two that had to be bumped to lead the next ten. From there, my four-star reviews were ranked from 12-20 and then honorable mention. In keeping with the hook of my website, each of my "10 Best" are presented with their best life lesson and linked full reviews. Enjoy!
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