Sunday night is the Academy Awards, which is the most magical night in Hollywood. I love watching the Oscars and celebrating the best in film. For the last several years I've made it a point to watch all the nominations for Best Picture before the big night. While I don't always find these films as my favorites of the previous year, I see that most of them are an achievement in the art of film.
Previous years I've loved nominees such as Whiplash and Room, while others years I walked out of the theater during the movie, like last year's Best Picture winner: Moonlight. Most aren't the popcorn flicks we all wait months to see or breaking box office records, so that means most of these films aren't seen by the average movie viewer. So I decided to give you the run down on this year's Best Picture nominees. The nominees below are listed in the order I enjoyed them(from least to most favorite). Along with it is my description of the film so you can know what they're all about. So just in case, SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!!
9) Call Me By Your Name
From a director you've probably never seen one of his films comes a movie about a young man who has a gay affair with his father's research assistant. He tries not to care about him, has sex with some chick, then does back to Armie Hammer in the end. But months later he finds out Hammer went back to America and got engaged to a woman. The only reason I watched this till the end was because I felt bad I didn't finish Phantom Thread.
8) Phantom Thread
The director of Boogie Nights gives us a movie about Daniel Day-Lewis as a famous dressmaker and his relationship with his girlfriend/model who he treats like shit. And like any dumb woman she thinks she can change him. This is supposed to be Day-Lewis's last performance(I don't buy it) so you would expect him to win the Oscar, but I think he's going to get beat by Gary Oldman in a fat suit. Day-Lewis and the cast was great, but it was late at night when I saw this film so I didn't have the patients for Alma to slowly wise up that Reynolds is a narcissist and she should just leave his ass.
7) Lady Bird
It's so hard being a teenage girl. Lady Bird has good friend(s). She's a good student. But her real name isn't Lady Bird, and she hates her mother simply for the idea that she loves her. I'd call this a coming-of-age story, but really it's a just a spoiled brat that needs to be thrown on the streets to realize her life is nice. Skip this film and watch The Edge of Seventeen instead. It's much more entertaining.
6) Dunkirk
Could this be the film that Christopher Nolan finally gets his Best Directing trophy for? I'm gonna piss off the Nolan fanboys when I say "no". The film looks amazing and I wish I saw it in IMAX but there is practically no story here. Yes, they are trying to evacuate all the soldiers off the beach before the AXIS come back, but I don't know any of these characters so why should I care about what happens to them. This kind of feels like the IMAX films you saw at the museum before IMAX decided they wanted to show movies people actually want to see.
5) Darkest Hour
This is almost a companion film to Dunkirk as a portion of this film is Winston Churchill trying to figure out how to get the soldiers off the beach. It's a lot of talking and Oldman is a slam dunk for Best Actor. He shows Churchill's quirks, frustration, and challenges as he tries to navigate England through WWII. The director is the one who did Hanna, Atonement, and the Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightly, but his latest film was unfortunately Pan.
4) The Shape of Water
A deaf janitor works at a science lab and her only friends are her lonely, gay, neighbor and her saucy co-worker. She befriends Abe Sapien pre-Hellboy just as Michael Shannon is about to cut it open. She brings Abe home, puts it in her tub and has sex with it several times(you heard me). Then she sets it free in the bay, but not before Abe gives her gills so she can live under the sea too. I hope Del Toro gets the Best Directing award. The film had great acting, costumes, and production design, but as far as Best Picture.......I mean.....she has sex with a fish!
3) Get Out
The guy who gave us the hilarious "you done messed up A-aron" skit gives us a movie about crazy, rich, white folks. Chris goes to meet his girlfriend's family for the weekend. He finds out she's a crazy bitch and her family is trying to steal his body so they can give it to a old, rich, white dude. His token black friend tries to save him, and ends up stealing the film.
2) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Want a movie that is real, sad, and kinda messed up? Well this movie is for you! Frances McDormand is a grieving mother who harasses the town sheriff to find her daughter's killer. Sam Rockwell is the goofy, redneck, deputy who gets fired, both figuratively and literally. In the end McDormand and Rockwell drive off to kill a guy who may not have killed the daughter, but he still deserves to be killed. Both of them deserve Oscars!
1) The Post
Steven Speilberg directs Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in a film about a media company calling the government out on their bullshit. So it kind of has modern context. The first scene with Streep and Hanks are them just talking and eating breakfast; and it was mesmerizing. That's how good these two are! Some say Streep was nominated just because she's Meryl Streep. I say watch the damn movie and tell me she doesn't give a damn fine performance. Speilberg didn't get a directing nomination, but he's the greatest director ever and everyone knows it. So I think he'll be ok.
