Hollywood Prom Night

Next week (or possibly later this week) I will continue my Degrees of Separation format. This week I visited my dad and was, sadly, much too busy to watch movies. Since this blog is about film, I think this is the perfect opportunity to post my Oscar predictions before the big night.

Best Picture

Should win: Room
Will win: Spotlight

Actor in a Leading Role
Should win: Michael Fassbender
Will win: Leonardo DiCaprio

Actress in a Leading Role
Should win: Brie Larson
Will win: Brie Larson

Actor in a Supporting Role
Should win: Tom Hardy
Will win: Sylvester Stallone

Actress in a Supporting Role
Should win: Kate Winslet
Will win: Kate Winslet
Side note: I think this is the toughest category this year. Every actress brought her A-game and honestly all of them deserve a win.

Animated Feature Film
Should win: Shaun the Sheep
Will win: Inside Out

Cinematography
Should win: The Revenant
Will win: The Revenant

Costume Design
Should win: Carol
Will win: Cinderella

Directing
Should win: Lenny Abrahamson or George Miller
Will win: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Documentary
Should win: The Look of Silence
Will win: Amy

Film Editing
Should win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Will win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Foreign Language Film
Should win: Son of Saul
Will win: Son of Saul

Makeup and Hairstyling
Should win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Will win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Original Score
Should win: The Hateful Eight
Will win: The Hateful Eight
Side note: Sorry Daniel Pemberton and Stephen Rennicks. Your times will come.

Production Design
Should win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Will win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Visual Effects
Should win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Will win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Adapted Screenplay
Should win: Aaron Sorkin. But he wasn’t nominated.
Will win: Room

Original Screenplay
Should win: Ex Machina or Spotlight
Will win: Spotlight

A Paranoid Schizophrenic Walks Into A Bar...

Movie: Legend
Actor From Previous Movie: Tara Fitzgerald (Gloria, Mrs. Shea)
Where to Watch: DVD

I wanted to like this movie so badly. Rewind to last summer when I first saw the trailer before Southpaw. It was love at first sight. Between the 1960’s setting, the frantic energy of the trailer, and my new found love for Tom Hardy, this was everything I could want in a movie. On my breaks at work (at an AMC theater) I would sneak into Southpaw during previews to watch the trailer over and over. In my excitement I even read the biography, The Profession of Violence, which inspired the film. Then the reviews started coming out. The movie was doing so poorly that it never even got a true wide release, and I was heartbroken that I wouldn’t get the chance to see one of my most personally anticipated movies of the year. So you can see how even though I knew the movie was not going to be very good, my hopes were still far too high. And Legend did not deliver.

The movie was just kind of a mess. It couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a gangster film or a biopic. The pacing felt painfully slow. Narration in movies is usually iffy at best, but then making it from the perspective of such a dull and minor character was a huge mistake. For the character who is supposed to be the audience’s bridge into the world of the Krays, Frances (Emily Browning) isn’t particularly engaging. Her romance with Reggie is cute, but not particularly interesting. Even Ronnie’s outbursts got stale after awhile because they became too predictable.  You came to expect him to say something outrageous and do something violent, even if you didn’t know what exactly.

There were things I liked though! Obviously Tom Hardy did a wonderful job playing the infamous twins. He really made each one a distinct and complete character. Ronnie was more compelling and interesting to watch because of how unpredictable he was, but Hardy managed to make the more composed and fiercely loyal Reggie lovely to watch. Any scene with both twins together showed just how differently he played them, especially in their facial expressions. As good as Tom Hardy was, Taron Egerton was the surprise scene stealer. Whether cackling manically or posing as the picture of perfection, his portrayal of the psychopathic Mad Teddy Smith was the best thing about the entire movie.

It’s time that I brought up the Bechdel Test. In the past few weeks I have found myself increasingly frustrated with Hollywood and the failure to pass this simple test, especially in movies that were enjoyable and had otherwise positive female representation (I’m looking at you, Deadpool and Hail, Caesar!). The cartoonist Alison Bechdel joked about this idea of a woman not seeing movies unless they met three requirements: The film has at least two female characters, they both speak to each other, and they speak about anything other than a man. Thus the test was born. The test should be so easy to pass and yet many films don’t. So for the rest of my posts I’m going to end with assessments of how each film passes or fails the Bechdel Test.

Bechdel Assesment: Pass, but just barely. The few times Frances speaks to her mother it’s about Reggie. There is a scene where the Krays’ mother is criticizing Frances on her ability to make tea. She mumbles a response. Hardly a conversation, but they do kind of interact.

You Remember Them, Love? Dinosaurs, Dodos, Miners.

Movie: Brassed Off!

Actor From Previous Movie: Ewan McGregor (Oliver, Andy)

Where to Watch: Netflix

For something so pervasive in British pop culture, you would think the UK Miners Strike would be taught in history classes. As an American, my only knowledge of the strike comes from movies and books where it exists simply as a backdrop to fictional characters’ conflicts. I guess I’ll blame it on how recently it happened and the fact that it wasn’t in the US. I can’t say I learned much of anything about Thatcher’s Administration except in regards to American history.

Brassed Off! isn’t the best movie I’ve seen about the Miners Strike, but it’s the most directly involved. I thought it was neat how it really delved into the struggles of the working class in the UK at this time, while maintaining the main story of brass band composed of miners participating in a music competition. Unfortunately the things that made it stand out from most cheesy underdog stories were also the places where it lacked. Sometimes the melodrama made it too much like a lifetime movie.

The comedy of the movie is pretty typical British humor, so take that as you will. The jokes are just as likely to elicit groans as they are laughs, but it’s all in good fun. I think it’s funny that for all the similarities between British and New York humor (sarcasm, self-deprecation, a soft spot for puns) the styles are so different. I don’t mind the style of comedy, so I thought it was alright but not exceptional.

On Netflix the movie has a 3 out of 5 star rating, and that’s what I would give it too. It wasn’t a bad movie, but it wasn’t very memorable and it lacked finesse. It felt low-budget and super British, but that’s only because it was low-budget and super British. So while it might not be something I watch again, it was enjoyable and cute enough to merit watching once.

It's Lonely Out Here So You Better Learn How To Talk

Actor From Previous Movie: Mélanie Laurent (Shosanna Dreyfuss, Anna)
Where to Watch: Netflix

I’m not typically one for romance. More often than not I find that love stories aren’t strong enough to carry an entire plot. This is especially true because most love stories follow the same narrative: they meet, they fall in love, they break up, they get back together. For me to enjoy romance, there needs to be something extra. For example, I enjoyed the movie Carol for technical reasons, the great performances by Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett, and because it showed a kind of romance that has been ignored or mistreated by society. It was unconventional and even though the plot was sort of weak because it centered around a relationship, it had depth to it.

Beginners is more than a love story. As important as the relationship between Oliver and Anna (Ewan McGregor and Mélanie Laurent) was the story of Oliver’s father Hal (Christopher Plummer) who comes out as gay shortly after being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It was a heartfelt look at Hal finding his place in a community while at the same time having to say goodbye to it.

The technical aspects of the movie are what make it beautiful. The camera work and offbeat tone reminded me of Wes Anderson. The soundtrack didn’t stand out much, but it was nice and fit the feeling of the movie well. The script, written by the director Mike Mills, was full of quirky comedy but also touching sincerity. It makes sense that Mills based the story on his own life, because Oliver’s relationship with his father feels very real.

One of my favorite things about the movie was the relationship between Hal and Georgia, Oliver’s mother. While Georgia sometimes drifted into Manic Pixie Dream Girl territory, it was that quirkiness that made her my favorite character. The parallel drawn between Hal and Georgia hiding who they were in a world that wouldn’t accept them was unexpected and incredibly moving. Sadly, we only get to see Georgia in flashbacks, so we don’t get a full view of her life as a Jewish woman at a time when Jews were persecuted or much her life once she felt safe and proud to be Jewish. I thought this comparison between them was a creative and interesting aspect of the movie.

Altogether, I liked the film. Some things I found a bit too cutesy, like Oliver’s depression inspired artwork and the dog who could communicate through subtitles, but I thought the quirkiness never went overboard. Oliver and Anna’s relationship may have at times seemed too idealized, but they were enjoyable enough characters that I was never bothered by it. I thought it was funny that Mélanie Laurent played an actress, as if she’s too pretty to be believable as a normal person. If I had to describe the movie in one word, it would be "charming."