I was invited back to give my predictions on what might be the big winners at the Oscars in 2015 on the William Hill Oscars Specials Podcast. I was invited on by Lee Phelps from William Hill last year and returned to give my opinions again this year. You can listen to the podcast below:
I've got too much riding on the Oscars now so I'm really hoping some of my predictions come true. My biggest bets are for Inarritu to win Best Director for Birdman and Boyhood to win Best Picture. I've also bet on a bunch of the favourites but I'm clearly not going to win much on them. If you want to have a gamble on the Oscars at William Hill, head here. There is loads of categories.
Showing posts with label best picture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label best picture. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 February 2015
Tuesday, 27 January 2015
Birdman Review
Actor Riggan Thomas (Michael
Keaton) once played iconic superhero Birdman, helping to usher in the age of
comic book movie franchises that (to some) are the plague of modern
multiplexes. Now, Riggan is washed up and putting all of his money into a
Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story ‘What We Talk About When We
Talk About Love’. Demonstrating some strangely powerful telekinetic abilities,
but struggling with voices in his head and a personal life in tatters, Riggan
has days of previews to go before the opening night of his big Broadway
comeback. With a new cast member in place, the arrogant and annoying Mike
(Edward Norton), and a daughter fresh out of rehab (Emma Stone), Riggan faces
challenges to his sanity both on and off the stage.
Birdman is as bonkers as its
deluded, self-destructive main character. Don’t go in expecting a
straightforward story of a struggling actor with ego issues trying to stage a
comeback. Birdman is far more than that. It’s about actors and their issues,
about critics and their power, and it’s about families and their complications.
This is from the director who gave us 21 Grams and Biutiful so it deals with deep
depression, but this time with plenty of harsh laughs to boot. The references
to superhero movies come thick and fast at the start; Robert Downey Jr and
Jeremy Renner are namechecked, while Keaton, Norton and Stone have all had
their turns at superhero franchises in the past. Birdman is as ‘meta’ as films
come, from the casting to the script to the fact that the music (which seems
non-diegetic) is often being played by a randomly appearing drummer.
The character of Birdman is a
constant shadow over Riggan, but he is also undoubtedly the reason for him
being in the position he is. Being an adored superhero has had a lasting effect
on Riggan, expanding his ego so much that he might be destined for the biggest
fall of his career by trying to do something different and daring. Keaton is
really put through the wringer by the script that tears apart these actors and
their delusions of grandeur, but also explores their deep seated insecurities
and desperation to be loved.
Birdman isn’t all about its
whip smart dialogue though and Inarritu directs with a visceral mixture of
simplicity and complexity. Long takes complement the fluid dialogue, while the
drumming score and use of real locations keep things grounded, even as Riggan
really starts to lose his mind. Unlike the superhero movies it rails against,
Birdman is smart and requires way more than one sitting to fully appreciate its
complexity. If only it could beat The Avengers at the box office in 2015.
Watch the trailer:
More recent reviews:
Tuesday, 4 March 2014
2014 Oscar Best Picture Nominees Rated and Reviewed
With award season coming to a predictable but fun end, I thought it a good time to round up my reviews of the Best Picture nominees in 2014. It seems Ellen did a great job of hosting and though I didn't watch the ceremony, there has been so much coverage of pizza eating, record breaking selfies and J-Law falling over some more, that I don't think I need to watch them. Check out the coverage at Cinematic Corner for more on the ceremony itself and some brilliant gifs.
As usual, I did some gambling and put £20 down over the whole awards season. After the Globes, I was down by a pound(ish), then after the BAFTAs I'd broken even again and then with the Oscars being as predictable as they were, I finally came out £4 up. William Hill invited me on to talk Oscar odds on their weekly podcast which you can hear here if you interested in my predictions.
I'm glad to see American Hustle didn't win much, sad to see McQueen not get Best Director but very pleased 12 Years a Slave got Best Picture and Lupita Nyong'o got Best Supporting Actress. Films I still need to see from Oscar season are Blue Jasmine, Frozen and 20 Feet From Stardom. I actually managed to review all but one of the Best Picture nominees this year which must be a first. I saw Gravity later than everybody else so by that time, I think every word possible had been written about it. I was also left a bit disappointed by it after all the reviews I had read. Technically brilliant and pretty damn gripping but I just felt the characters were a bit cliched and kept it from being a five star movie in my opinion.
Chris from Movies and songs 365 asked how I would rank the Best Picture nominees so here goes. By the way this is incredibly difficult and liable to change in time. I don't envy all those who have to vote for the Oscar winners. Click the titles for my full reviews of each:
9. American Hustle
'Overall it's a clever con, funny at times and crammed with wonderful performances. It might not have the zip and the pizazz of a Goodfellas or a Boogie Nights, but what it does have is Batman, Lois Lane, Rocket Racoon, Mystique and Hawkeye all in one film and all playing characters that are far more interesting than their comic book counterparts.'
8. Nebraska
'With a melancholy score from Mark Orton, stark cinematography from Phedon Papamichael and some heartbreaking performances, Nebraska is a winner; even if Woody isn’t.'
7. Gravity
Technically astonishing but a bit lacking in the character department.
6. Dallas Buyers Club 'See it for two staggering transformations and a touching true tale that desrves to be told. While Woodroof is the flawed star of the film, Leto's equally damaged Rayon threatens to steal it away from him. It may not tell the full story, choosing to focus on one frequently unpleasant man instead of many other heroes in the fight against AIDS, but Dallas Buyers Club avoids cliche to become powerful, credible and profoundly affecting.'
5. Her
'Falling in love may be, as one character says, a form of socially acceptable insanity but it’s ultimately impossible not to love every bit of Her.'
4. The Wolf of Wall Street
'The Wolf of Wall Street is Scorsese's best since Goodfellas. BUT it is also a disgrace. It makes you forget just what a complete shit Belfort really is. It is not angry enough. Belfort gets off easily. He turns on everyone around him, gets away with a tiny prison sentence in a white collar prison and is still not paying nearly enough back to his victims. To have Belfort appear in the film is just another slap in the face for the forgotten victims of the story. Scorsese has made a fun film about a man who deserves nothing but disdain. There is little caution in this 'cautionary' tale. We need to stop paying to listen to Belfort but with a film like this, Scorsese makes that very difficult.'
3. Captain Phillips
'The young actors give life and breath to the tragically young men that tangled with the far superior American forces. Captain Phillips is an underdog story of epic proportions where the underdogs never stand a chance.'
2. Philomena
'Philomena is a brilliantly written script with an unforgettable character who has an incredible story to be told. While it takes potshots at journalism and the church, it is ultimately an inspiring story of forgiveness. Dench and Coogan make a hilarious double act with Coogan unexpectedly playing the straight man but it is the tragedy of Philomena's treatment at the hands of the nuns that will linger longest in the memory.'
1. 12 Years A Slave
'12 Years A Slave brings a terrible historical truth to life. It may only be the story of one man but it feels definitive; every frame is a painting that transports you to another time. Through it's cinematography, production and costume design, but most of all the performances of a completely committed cast, 12 Years A Slave depicts the ugliness of slavery with unforgettable imagery.'
What were your favourites of this awards season?
More awards coverage at I Love That Film:
Critics' Choice Winners 2014
Oscar nominations 2014
Who will win at the Critics' Choice Awards 2014?
Golden Globes winners and losers
BAFTA 2014 Nominations
As usual, I did some gambling and put £20 down over the whole awards season. After the Globes, I was down by a pound(ish), then after the BAFTAs I'd broken even again and then with the Oscars being as predictable as they were, I finally came out £4 up. William Hill invited me on to talk Oscar odds on their weekly podcast which you can hear here if you interested in my predictions.
I'm glad to see American Hustle didn't win much, sad to see McQueen not get Best Director but very pleased 12 Years a Slave got Best Picture and Lupita Nyong'o got Best Supporting Actress. Films I still need to see from Oscar season are Blue Jasmine, Frozen and 20 Feet From Stardom. I actually managed to review all but one of the Best Picture nominees this year which must be a first. I saw Gravity later than everybody else so by that time, I think every word possible had been written about it. I was also left a bit disappointed by it after all the reviews I had read. Technically brilliant and pretty damn gripping but I just felt the characters were a bit cliched and kept it from being a five star movie in my opinion.
Chris from Movies and songs 365 asked how I would rank the Best Picture nominees so here goes. By the way this is incredibly difficult and liable to change in time. I don't envy all those who have to vote for the Oscar winners. Click the titles for my full reviews of each:
9. American Hustle
'Overall it's a clever con, funny at times and crammed with wonderful performances. It might not have the zip and the pizazz of a Goodfellas or a Boogie Nights, but what it does have is Batman, Lois Lane, Rocket Racoon, Mystique and Hawkeye all in one film and all playing characters that are far more interesting than their comic book counterparts.'
8. Nebraska
'With a melancholy score from Mark Orton, stark cinematography from Phedon Papamichael and some heartbreaking performances, Nebraska is a winner; even if Woody isn’t.'
7. Gravity
Technically astonishing but a bit lacking in the character department.
6. Dallas Buyers Club 'See it for two staggering transformations and a touching true tale that desrves to be told. While Woodroof is the flawed star of the film, Leto's equally damaged Rayon threatens to steal it away from him. It may not tell the full story, choosing to focus on one frequently unpleasant man instead of many other heroes in the fight against AIDS, but Dallas Buyers Club avoids cliche to become powerful, credible and profoundly affecting.'
5. Her
'Falling in love may be, as one character says, a form of socially acceptable insanity but it’s ultimately impossible not to love every bit of Her.'
4. The Wolf of Wall Street
'The Wolf of Wall Street is Scorsese's best since Goodfellas. BUT it is also a disgrace. It makes you forget just what a complete shit Belfort really is. It is not angry enough. Belfort gets off easily. He turns on everyone around him, gets away with a tiny prison sentence in a white collar prison and is still not paying nearly enough back to his victims. To have Belfort appear in the film is just another slap in the face for the forgotten victims of the story. Scorsese has made a fun film about a man who deserves nothing but disdain. There is little caution in this 'cautionary' tale. We need to stop paying to listen to Belfort but with a film like this, Scorsese makes that very difficult.'
3. Captain Phillips
'The young actors give life and breath to the tragically young men that tangled with the far superior American forces. Captain Phillips is an underdog story of epic proportions where the underdogs never stand a chance.'
2. Philomena
'Philomena is a brilliantly written script with an unforgettable character who has an incredible story to be told. While it takes potshots at journalism and the church, it is ultimately an inspiring story of forgiveness. Dench and Coogan make a hilarious double act with Coogan unexpectedly playing the straight man but it is the tragedy of Philomena's treatment at the hands of the nuns that will linger longest in the memory.'
1. 12 Years A Slave
'12 Years A Slave brings a terrible historical truth to life. It may only be the story of one man but it feels definitive; every frame is a painting that transports you to another time. Through it's cinematography, production and costume design, but most of all the performances of a completely committed cast, 12 Years A Slave depicts the ugliness of slavery with unforgettable imagery.'
What were your favourites of this awards season?
More awards coverage at I Love That Film:
Critics' Choice Winners 2014
Oscar nominations 2014
Who will win at the Critics' Choice Awards 2014?
Golden Globes winners and losers
BAFTA 2014 Nominations
Sunday, 19 January 2014
Philomena Review
National treasure Judi Dench gives one of the best, funniest and emotionally stirring performances of her long career in Philomena. Writers Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope and director Stephen Frears gift her a role that demands a huge emotional range and all wrapped up in a story that delivers so many twists, turns and unexpected revelations that it is also a seriously bumpy emotional ride for the viewer. With a character as wonderful as Philomena, you never quite know what to expect next, especially with such a warm and well written script and the film veers expertly between laugh out loud comedic moments and tear inducing heartbreak.
Philomena is the story of the titular little old lady's struggle to find her son who was stolen from her when she was just a very young woman. After a brief encounter with a young man in a fairground, Philomena was forced to give her boy up for adoption by the nuns who she lived with, worked for, and who convinced her of the shame she should feel. On the boy's 50th birthday, Philomena finally tells her daughter of the long lost son she has thought of every day since and her daughter makes contact with recently sacked spin doctor Martin Sixsmith to ask if he would be interested in helping tell Philomena's story. Sixsmith was a BBC political correspondent with only disdain for human interest stories in journalism but down on his luck and intrigued by the story, he decides to help Philomena to find her son in order to be able to turn it into an article.
Steve Coogan is clearly getting something off his chest with Philomena. Oddly, for a guy who has been so vehemently against the tabloid press, getting his own back on the News of the World by airing their dirty laundry at the Leveson Inquiry, Coogan centres his script and also takes the role of journalist Sixsmith. Without lumping all journalists together under the disgusting umbrella of the gutter press, it is still strange to see Coogan playing a man who decides to try earning his living at digging into someone's private life. Sixsmith is obviously a fairly decent fellow, not one of the tabloid snoopers that Coogan so despises in real life. His career as a journalist took him to Washington and Moscow and when he decides to have a go at a human interest story, he is careful not to exploit Philomena but instead turns the story into an investigation and expose of a terrible wrong doing.
While the ethics of this kind of journalism is touched upon, with Sixsmith encouraged to find the 'best' story by his cold, calculating editor, most of the rage presented in the script is reserved for the Catholic church. Though Philomena the character is an incredibly sweet soul who will never blame, hate or crucify the Catholic church and in particular the nuns who wronged her so spectacularly, Philomena the film feels filled with the righteous anger that Sixsmith and every member of the audience is likely to feel by the end.
The script piles on revelation after revelation and it would be a shame to reveal its many secrets. Philomena and Sixsmith travel to Washington after finding out that the lost boy was adopted by an American couple. It is never black and white like the stories Sixsmith's editor wants with heroes and villains and happiness or tragedy. Both happiness and tragedy are found during their search and though there does appear to finally be a very great evil at the heart of the story, Philomena's response to it reveals the kind of woman she is.
Dench gets to have a great time bringing the charming Philomena to screen. Whether boring Sixsmith to tears with her retelling of romance novels or admitting that she didn't know she had a clitoris, she is frequently hilarious. Beneath her naivety however is a steely resolve, fierce bravery and unexpected smarts. She is a brilliant character and Dench delivers hilarity and heartbreak perfectly. Watch her excitement when she learns Sixsmith once met her son in Washington and weep as her face falls at other revelations. It is a layered performance that could easily have been one note and simply had a good laugh at the expense of the character.
Philomena is a brilliantly written script with an unforgettable character who has an incredible story to be told. While it takes potshots at journalism and the church, it is ultimately an inspiring story of forgiveness. Dench and Coogan make a hilarious double act with Coogan unexpectedly playing the straight man but it is the tragedy of Philomena's treatment at the hands of the nuns that will linger longest in the memory.
Philomena is the story of the titular little old lady's struggle to find her son who was stolen from her when she was just a very young woman. After a brief encounter with a young man in a fairground, Philomena was forced to give her boy up for adoption by the nuns who she lived with, worked for, and who convinced her of the shame she should feel. On the boy's 50th birthday, Philomena finally tells her daughter of the long lost son she has thought of every day since and her daughter makes contact with recently sacked spin doctor Martin Sixsmith to ask if he would be interested in helping tell Philomena's story. Sixsmith was a BBC political correspondent with only disdain for human interest stories in journalism but down on his luck and intrigued by the story, he decides to help Philomena to find her son in order to be able to turn it into an article.
Steve Coogan is clearly getting something off his chest with Philomena. Oddly, for a guy who has been so vehemently against the tabloid press, getting his own back on the News of the World by airing their dirty laundry at the Leveson Inquiry, Coogan centres his script and also takes the role of journalist Sixsmith. Without lumping all journalists together under the disgusting umbrella of the gutter press, it is still strange to see Coogan playing a man who decides to try earning his living at digging into someone's private life. Sixsmith is obviously a fairly decent fellow, not one of the tabloid snoopers that Coogan so despises in real life. His career as a journalist took him to Washington and Moscow and when he decides to have a go at a human interest story, he is careful not to exploit Philomena but instead turns the story into an investigation and expose of a terrible wrong doing.
While the ethics of this kind of journalism is touched upon, with Sixsmith encouraged to find the 'best' story by his cold, calculating editor, most of the rage presented in the script is reserved for the Catholic church. Though Philomena the character is an incredibly sweet soul who will never blame, hate or crucify the Catholic church and in particular the nuns who wronged her so spectacularly, Philomena the film feels filled with the righteous anger that Sixsmith and every member of the audience is likely to feel by the end.
The script piles on revelation after revelation and it would be a shame to reveal its many secrets. Philomena and Sixsmith travel to Washington after finding out that the lost boy was adopted by an American couple. It is never black and white like the stories Sixsmith's editor wants with heroes and villains and happiness or tragedy. Both happiness and tragedy are found during their search and though there does appear to finally be a very great evil at the heart of the story, Philomena's response to it reveals the kind of woman she is.
Dench gets to have a great time bringing the charming Philomena to screen. Whether boring Sixsmith to tears with her retelling of romance novels or admitting that she didn't know she had a clitoris, she is frequently hilarious. Beneath her naivety however is a steely resolve, fierce bravery and unexpected smarts. She is a brilliant character and Dench delivers hilarity and heartbreak perfectly. Watch her excitement when she learns Sixsmith once met her son in Washington and weep as her face falls at other revelations. It is a layered performance that could easily have been one note and simply had a good laugh at the expense of the character.
Philomena is a brilliantly written script with an unforgettable character who has an incredible story to be told. While it takes potshots at journalism and the church, it is ultimately an inspiring story of forgiveness. Dench and Coogan make a hilarious double act with Coogan unexpectedly playing the straight man but it is the tragedy of Philomena's treatment at the hands of the nuns that will linger longest in the memory.
Stick around! Please enjoy some more reviews from I Love That Film:
Dallas Buyers Club
12 Years A Slave
American Hustle
All is Lost
The Railway Man
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Captain Phillips
Saving Mr. Banks
Sunday, 24 February 2013
The Moral Murkiness of Zero Dark Thirty
Zero
Dark Thirty tells the ten year tale of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Directed
by Kathryn Bigelow it is a morally complex, ambiguous film that is both
thrilling and intellectually stimulating.
It
is a thoroughly engaging, if not a little hard to call entertaining, real life
thriller. As an example of a film about the fight back against terror, it pales
in comparison to United 93 in terms of raw emotional power but its realism and careful
construction come close to that film’s documentary style. In the final sequence
at bin Laden’s secret hideout, it is hard to believe at some points that it was
not filmed at the exact location of the true events, so meticulous is the
reconstruction. The thriller and the procedural elements are wholly gripping
and powered by horrendous torture scenes, references to real life tragedies and
a climax that is edge of the seat exciting and simultaneously depressing.
It
is the politics however that make Zero Dark Thirty the most difficult to watch
and comment on. It shows torture in all its disgusting glory from water
boarding to treating detainees like dogs to sleep deprivation and humiliation.
It positions scenes of torture immediately after the real life voices of the
innocent victims of 9/11 fill your ears with cries for help giving context to
why America would feel the need to commit such inhumane acts. It only shows the
torture of detainees who are clearly guilty of some involvement in terrorism.
It seems to almost implicitly suggest that more torture could have prevented
later tragedies in 7/7 and elsewhere and it makes a CIA operative who commits
the worst, most degrading and reprehensible acts of torture to be a reasonable,
kind of nice guy who has to get out of the job because of what it is doing to his mental health. Torture it seems is a
tough job but the film seems to say someone has to do it. When Obama comes on
the television saying he plans to scrap torture, it puts a right spanner in the
works of the characters we have come to care about.
But
the film does not celebrate torture. It does not glorify it. And it even sort
of suggests that torture failed and that instead good detective work solved the
case of where in the world bin Laden was hiding. It suggests the impact torture
has on the people who commit it but fails to say much about the devastation it
causes detainees and certainly not the ‘perhaps hundreds whom the
U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis
of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments’. It’s a streamlined Hollywood narrative film so perhaps
there is no time for such issues but as it is, the film seems to suggest
torture had its merits, might have been necessary and perhaps even should still
be allowed. This strict sticking to narrative conventions also explains why there
is no context to the 9/11 attacks, no sense of the CIA’s past sins or the
reason for jihadist’s hatred of America; not that that would excuse the attacks,
just as the attacks don’t excuse the murder of Afghan and Iraqi civilians. And
on the subject of inexcusable, so is the using of 9/11
victims phone calls without the families’ permission.
But
beneath the politics is a solid film, well acted, incredibly sombre in the face
of what should have been a great victory and subtly feminist. Jessica Chastain
is fantastic as Maya, supposedly a composite of many CIA officers (mostly
women) who were deeply and determinedly involved in the hunt for the world’s
most wanted man. The score resembles the anticipation inducing dull thudding of
United 93, a film that similarly created a pain staking reconstruction of real
events.
One
of the most interesting points of the film is where it makes your sympathies
lie. You can’t help but sympathise for the torture victim despite his
involvement with 9/11. You want Maya to succeed in her quest but then the final
fire fight makes you sympathise with the people closest to bin Laden as they
wail and weep. It’s a tricky, morally complex mess, just like the real situation.
Zero
Dark Thirty certainly does not shy away from the controversy surrounding the ‘war
on terror’ and should be commended for that. Simply as a film, it stands tall
amongst real life thrillers. Its politics might me morally dubious but they are
complex enough to provoke serious and stimulating debate and for that I highly recommend
it.
Friday, 22 February 2013
Best Picture Oscar Catch Up
I've just got back from finally seeing Django Unchained and with just two days left until the Oscar ceremony, I've still got to see Beasts of the Southern Wild and Lincoln out of the best picture nominees. Showcase Cinemas are doing a special offer for their Insider members that you can get two tickets to Beasts for only £5 all this week up to Thursday and you can get a single ticket for Lincoln for just £5.
Of the Best Picture nominees, I have already seen the following and if I've reviewed them, just click the title:
Argo
Amour
Life of Pi
Silver Linings Playbook
Les Miserables
Django Unchained
Zero Dark Thirty
For some reason I've only reviewed five of these and I'm afraid it's far too late to write reviews of Argo and Amour as I saw them both ages ago. Suffice to say, I loved Argo but Amour wasn't really my bag, well crafted and superbly acted though it undoubtedly is.
As I said in this post the other day, I've got a little bit of money riding on the Oscars this year and am hoping selfishly and stupidly for Zero Dark Thirty to win best picture; not for its directing, acting, story, cinematography or the whole producing package but simply because the odds are about 80/1 and I'd make a killing!
Anyway this is by far the most of the best picture nominees I have ever seen before the Oscar ceremony so it all makes the awards season slightly more interesting and entertaining than I normally find it. I guess the main purpose of this post is to ask anyone reading this, how may of the best picture nominees have you seen?
And if I could only see one out of Beasts of the Southern Wild or Lincoln before the awards ceremony, what would you recommend is the one I should go for?
So far, for me I'd like either Argo or Life of Pi to bag the award. Les Mis and Amour should get some for acting and give Tarantino one for his best screenplay since Pulp Fiction!
Of the Best Picture nominees, I have already seen the following and if I've reviewed them, just click the title:
Argo
Amour
Life of Pi
Silver Linings Playbook
Les Miserables
Django Unchained
Zero Dark Thirty
For some reason I've only reviewed five of these and I'm afraid it's far too late to write reviews of Argo and Amour as I saw them both ages ago. Suffice to say, I loved Argo but Amour wasn't really my bag, well crafted and superbly acted though it undoubtedly is.
As I said in this post the other day, I've got a little bit of money riding on the Oscars this year and am hoping selfishly and stupidly for Zero Dark Thirty to win best picture; not for its directing, acting, story, cinematography or the whole producing package but simply because the odds are about 80/1 and I'd make a killing!
Anyway this is by far the most of the best picture nominees I have ever seen before the Oscar ceremony so it all makes the awards season slightly more interesting and entertaining than I normally find it. I guess the main purpose of this post is to ask anyone reading this, how may of the best picture nominees have you seen?
And if I could only see one out of Beasts of the Southern Wild or Lincoln before the awards ceremony, what would you recommend is the one I should go for?
So far, for me I'd like either Argo or Life of Pi to bag the award. Les Mis and Amour should get some for acting and give Tarantino one for his best screenplay since Pulp Fiction!
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