I Love That Film

Thursday, 16 January 2014

Critics' Choice Winners 2014

For a full list of the Critics' Choice Awards Nominees, and my predictions for who would win, please click here. The winners were announced last night and the ones I guessed correctly are in bold. Click the titles for the few that I have reviewed. Here is the list:

Best Picture: 12 Years A Slave

Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years A Slave

Best Young Actor/Actress: Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Colour

Best Acting Ensemble: American Hustle

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity

Best Original Screenplay: Spike Jonze, Her

Best Adapted Screenplay: John Ridley, 12 Years A Slave

Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, Gravity

Best Art Direction: Catherine Martin (Production Designer), Beverley Dunn (Set Decorator) – The Great Gatsby

Best Editing: Alfonso Cuarón, Mark Sanger – Gravity

Best Costume Design: Catherine Martin, The Great Gatsby

Best Makeup: American Hustle

Best Visual Effects: Gravity

Best Animated Feature: Frozen

Best Action Movie: Lone Survivor

Best Actor in an Action Movie: Mark Wahlberg

Best Actress in an Action Movie: Sandra Bullock, Gravity

Best Comedy: American Hustle

Best Actor in a Comedy: Leonardo Dicaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Actress in a Comedy: Amy Adams, American Hustle

Best Sci-fi/Horror Movie: Gravity

Best Foreign Language Movie: Blue is the Warmest Colour

Best Documentary: 20 Feet From Stardom

Best Song: Let it Go, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez – Frozen

Best Score: Steven Price, Gravity

I predicted 20 out of 28 correctly. That's not bad for me! Any surprises here?

Oscar nominations 2014

Here are most of the nominees for the Academy Awards 2014:

Best Picture:

American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
12 Years A Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Director:

David O. Russell American Hustle
Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Alexander Payne, Nebraska
Steve McQueen 12 Years A Slave
Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Actor:

Christian Bale American Hustle
Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street
Chiwetel Ejiofor 12 Years A Slave
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actress:

Amy Adams American Hustle
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Meryl Stree, August Osage County

Best Documentary:

The Act of Killing
Cutie and the Boxer
Dirty Wars
The Square
20 Feet from Stardom

Here is the full list of nominees.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper, American Hustle
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years A Slave
Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Sally Hawkins, “Blue Jasmine”
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years A Slave
Julia Roberts, “August: Osage County”
June Squibb, Nebraska

Adapted screenplay
“Before Midnight” Written by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke
Captain Phillips Screenplay by Billy Ray
Philomena Screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope
12 Years A Slave Screenplay by John Ridley
The Wolf of Wall Street Screenplay by Terence Winter

Original screenplay
American Hustle Written by Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell
“Blue Jasmine” Written by Woody Allen
“Dallas Buyers Club Written by Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack
“Her” Written by Spike Jonze
Nebraska Written by Bob Nelson

Best animated feature film of the year
“The Croods”
“Despicable Me 2”
“Ernest & Celestine”
“Frozen”
“The Wind Rises”

Best cinematography
“The Grandmaster” Philippe Le Sourd
“Gravity” Emmanuel Lubezki
“Inside Llewyn Davis” Bruno Delbonnel
Nebraska Phedon Papamichael
“Prisoners” Roger A. Deakins

Best costume design
American Hustle Michael Wilkinson
“The Grandmaster” William Chang Suk Ping
The Great Gatsby Catherine Martin
“The Invisible Woman” Michael O’Connor
12 Years A Slave Patricia Norris

Best editing
American Hustle Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers and Alan Baumgarten
Captain Phillips Christopher Rouse
Dallas Buyers Club John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa
“Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger
12 Years A Slave Joe Walker

Best foreign language film of the year
“The Broken Circle Breakdown” Belgium
“The Great Beauty” Italy
The Hunt Denmark
“The Missing Picture” Cambodia
“Omar” Palestine

Best makeup and hairstyling
Dallas Buyers Club Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews
“Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa” Stephen Prouty
The Lone Ranger Joel Harlow and Gloria Pasqua-Casny

Best original score
The Book Thief John Williams
“Gravity” Steven Price
“Her” William Butler and Owen Pallett
Philomena Alexandre Desplat
Saving Mr. Banks Thomas Newman

Best original song
“Alone Yet Not Alone” from “Alone Yet Not Alone”
Music by Bruce Broughton; Lyric by Dennis Spiegel
“Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”
Music and Lyric by Pharrell Williams
“Let It Go” from “Frozen”
Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
“The Moon Song” from “Her”
Music by Karen O; Lyric by Karen O and Spike Jonze
“Ordinary Love” from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Music by Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen; Lyric by Paul Hewson

Achievement in production design
American Hustle Production Design: Judy Becker; Set Decoration: Heather Loeffler
“Gravity” Production Design: Andy Nicholson; Set Decoration: Rosie Goodwin and Joanne Woollard
The Great Gatsby Production Design: Catherine Martin; Set Decoration: Beverley Dunn
“Her” Production Design: K.K. Barrett; Set Decoration: Gene Serdena
12 Years A Slave Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Alice Baker

Achievement in visual effects
“Gravity” Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk and Neil Corbould
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric Reynolds
“Iron Man 3” Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash and Dan Sudick
The Lone Ranger Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams and John Frazier
Star Trek Into Darkness Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann and Burt Dalton

12 Years A Slave Review

The director of 12 Years A Slave, Steve McQueen, is an artist. He paints the bleakest possible picture of slavery imaginable, capturing beautiful but haunting images that seemed to have been beamed directly from the past. In 12 Years A Slave he transports you to another time and place making you feel the heat and the pain and forcing you to become a witness to the horror of history. Where Django Unchained tempered its brutality with its Tarantino-ness, the only respite from the misery of 12 Years A Slave is the beauty of its compositions and the fact that for one man there may actually be a way out of this hellish misery.

The slave in question is Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free man who lived in New York with his family until one day in 1841 when he is abducted by 'entertainers' who chain him up and send him down south to live the next 12 years as a slave. Along the way, he is beaten, humiliated, forced to work, to punish other slaves and to keep his past and literacy a secret. Over the 12 years, Northup is passed through three slave owners from the seemingly gentle and (vaguely) caring Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) to the sadistic psycho Epps (Michael Fassbender).

After watching 12 Years A Slave, it is incredible to think how few films there have been about the subject of slavery in America. 200 years of this shocking practice and fewer than 30 films that really explore slavery exist. 12 Years A Slave, though it may only be one film, goes to serious lengths to show the horror, the humiliation and encapsulate the experience of those who were slaves in the South in the 1800's. It is a true story, based on only one man's memoirs but it says so much that audiences may not ever feel the need to see another film on slavery again.

By having Northup as it's protagonist, 12 Years A Slave may not focus on the ordinary slave's experience but instead it zeroes in on the promise, the pride and the painful humiliation of one early African-American to emphasise the wrongs done to all slaves during American slavery's awful 200 year existence. Northup is stifled in every way by his circumstances; he must not admit to even being able to read and write and he is treated worse than an animal. McQueen never shies away from showing the slaves as broken people. Shots of them staring blankly, running back to their masters and treating each other poorly show just how dehumanizing the impact of slavery is.

12 Years A Slave is a constantly tough watch, just as it should be. Every ray of hope is dashed. Every kindness is stamped on and every punishment and humiliation is dwelt on. Sean Bobbit's cinematography captures the sweaty south beautifully but though many of it's shots look like gorgeous paintings, many more are stark reminders of the brutality at the heart of slavery. When Northup is hung from a tree, it is an ugly moment framed with strangely beautiful long shots; a series of depressing snapshots of history. Add to this, Hans Zimmer's haunting, achingly sad score and the sound of slave voices singing Roll Jordan Roll and 12 Years A Slave becomes a mournful ode to 200 years of misery and shame.

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.

Stick around! Please enjoy some more reviews from I Love That Film:

Dallas Buyers Club

American Hustle

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

All is Lost

The Railway Man

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Captain Phillips

Saving Mr. Banks

Wednesday, 15 January 2014

Who will win at the Critics' Choice Awards 2014?

I love the way the Critics' Choice Awards have some categories for different genres like action and comedy. It's also good to see a few films that haven't been included on other nominations lists like Stories We Tell and The Way Way Back.

The winners are going to be announced on 16th Jan 2014 but for now, here are the nominations for the 19th annual CRITICS’ CHOICE MOVIE AWARDS. I've highlighted those I'd like or who I think will win. Here is a list of the actual winners.

BEST PICTURE
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska
Saving Mr. Banks
12 Years A Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST ACTOR
Christian Bale – American Hustle
Bruce Dern – Nebraska
Chiwetel Ejiofor – 12 Years A Slave
Tom Hanks – Captain Phillips
Matthew McConaughey – Dallas Buyers Club
Robert Redford – All Is Lost

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock – Gravity
Judi Dench – Philomena
Brie Larson – Short Term 12
Meryl Streep – August: Osage County
Emma Thompson – Saving Mr. Banks

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Barkhad Abdi – Captain Phillips
Daniel Bruhl – Rush
Bradley Cooper – American Hustle
Michael Fassbender – 12 Years A Slave
James Gandolfini – Enough Said
Jared Leto – Dallas Buyers Club

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Scarlett Johansson – Her
Jennifer Lawrence – American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o – 12 Years A Slave
Julia Roberts – August: Osage County
June Squibb – Nebraska
Oprah Winfrey – Lee Daniels’ The Butler

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS
Asa Butterfield – Ender’s Game
Adele Exarchopoulos – Blue Is the Warmest Color
Liam James – The Way Way Back
Sophie Nelisse – The Book Thief
Tye Sheridan – Mud

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE
American Hustle
August: Osage County
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Nebraska
12 Years A Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST DIRECTOR
Alfonso Cuaron – Gravity
Paul Greengrass – Captain Phillips
Spike Jonze – Her
Steve McQueen – 12 Years A Slave
David O. Russell – American Hustle
Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Eric Singer and David O. Russell – American Hustle
Woody Allen – Blue Jasmine
Spike Jonze – Her
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen – Inside Llewyn Davis
Bob Nelson – Nebraska

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Tracy Letts – August: Osage County
Richard Linklater & Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke – Before Midnight
Billy Ray – Captain Phillips
Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope – Philomena
John Ridley – 12 Years a Slave
Terence Winter – The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Emmanuel Lubezki – Gravity
Bruno Delbonnel – Inside Llewyn Davis
Phedon Papamichael – Nebraska
Roger Deakins – Prisoners
Sean Bobbitt – 12 Years A Slave

BEST ART DIRECTION
Andy Nicholson (Production Designer), Rosie Goodwin (Set Decorator) – Gravity
Catherine Martin (Production Designer), Beverley Dunn (Set Decorator) – The Great Gatsby
K.K. Barrett (Production Designer), Gene Serdena (Set Decorator) – Her
Dan Hennah (Production Designer), Simon Bright (Set Decorator), Ra Vincent (Set Decorator) – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Adam Stockhausen (Production Designer), Alice Baker (Set Decorator) – 12 Years A Slave

BEST EDITING
Alan Baumgarten, Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers – American Hustle
Christopher Rouse – Captain Phillips
Alfonso Cuarón, Mark Sanger – Gravity
Daniel P. Hanley, Mike Hill – Rush
Joe Walker – 12 Years A Slave
Thelma Schoonmaker – The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Michael Wilkinson – American Hustle
Catherine Martin – The Great Gatsby
Bob Buck, Ann Maskrey, Richard Taylor – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Daniel Orlandi – Saving Mr. Banks
Patricia Norris – 12 Years A Slave

BEST HAIR & MAKEUP
American Hustle
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Rush
12 Years A Slave

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Iron Man 3
Pacific Rim
Star Trek into Darkness

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Frozen
Monsters University
The Wind Rises

BEST ACTION MOVIE
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Iron Man 3
Lone Survivor
Rush
Star Trek into Darkness

BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION MOVIE
Henry Cavill – Man of Steel
Robert Downey Jr. – Iron Man 3
Brad Pitt – World War Z
Mark Wahlberg – Lone Survivor

BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION MOVIE
Sandra Bullock – Gravity
Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Evangeline Lilly – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Gwyneth Paltrow – Iron Man 3

BEST COMEDY
American Hustle
Enough Said
The Heat
This Is the End
The Way Way Back
The World’s End

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Christian Bale – American Hustle
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Wolf of Wall Street
James Gandolfini – Enough Said
Simon Pegg – The World’s End
Sam Rockwell – The Way Way Back

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Amy Adams – American Hustle
Sandra Bullock – The Heat
Greta Gerwig – Frances Ha
Julia Louis-Dreyfus – Enough Said
Melissa McCarthy – The Heat

BEST SCI-FI/HORROR MOVIE
The Conjuring
Gravity
Star Trek into Darkness
World War Z

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Blue Is the Warmest Color
The Great Beauty
The Hunt
The Past
Wadjda

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Act of Killing
Blackfish
Stories We Tell
Tim’s Vermeer
20 Feet from Stardom

BEST SONG
Atlas – Coldplay – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Happy – Pharrell Williams – Despicable Me 2
Let It Go – Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez – Frozen
Ordinary Love – U2 – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Please Mr. Kennedy – Justin Timberlake/Oscar Isaac/Adam Driver – Inside Llewyn Davis
Young and Beautiful – Lana Del Rey – The Great Gatsby

BEST SCORE
Steven Price – Gravity
Arcade Fire – Her
Thomas Newman – Saving Mr. Banks
Hans Zimmer – 12 Years A Slave

Any you agree or disagree with?

Monday, 13 January 2014

American Hustle Review

American Hustle is more than anything else, a showcase for its actors; a sure fire Oscar contender in all the acting categories. It may seem to many a bit of a stretch to call performances 'brave' but American Hustle is full of such performances. Christian Bale balloons and covers baldness with an ambitious comb over, Amy Adams spends the entire film showing off some serious side boob, Jennifer Lawrence plays a hideously manipulative bitch and Bradley Cooper turns what should be the good guy into an utter prick.

American Hustle is the story of con man Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) who, along with his smart and attractive partner Sydney (Adams) is caught grafting and then forced by Federal Agent Richie DiMaso (Cooper) to aid the FBI in catching high profile targets using their skills. In return for leniency, Rosenfeld and Sydney will lure their prey in and ensure DiMaso gets his men. When the stakes are suddenly raised and senators, congressmen and the Mob become involved, all the characters quickly find themselves out of their depth, made worse by Rosenfeld's scheming and completely untrustworthy ex-wife Rosalyn (Lawrence).

Its a film lush with production design detail,showing off not just its cast's considerable acting talents but also their commitment to looking a little bit silly and mostly unlikeable. The hair, the costume and the decor is wonderfully awful and fortunately only adds to the performances. The murky grey areas of morality are explored throughout with the con artists robbing the poor, the FBI behaving in equally questionable ways and it all takes place in an America only recently recovering from Vietnam and Watergate. No one is nice, few get out clean and even those that do manage to keep their heads up, leave a lot a lot to be desired.

The story is 'mostly true' but Eric Warren Singer and director David O. Russell's screenplay is a little too neat to be credible. The characters are great fun to watch when they get into the scamming but watching Bale and Adams falling in love is less essential. Bale seems to be channeling De Niro (who briefly turns up for a cameo) and Adams is the smartest but least interesting character beyond wondering how her breasts stay in her dresses. In fact, these two get the less exciting roles being more dependable than electric. It's when Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence rev up that the film really takes off. Both smart and stupid and incredibly manipulative, they are the fuel that makes American Hustle catch fire.

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.