Prepare your senses for the clock-woke orange pulp confection of audacious moviemaking to hit a nerve in some time. Funnyman-turned-first-time-director Jordan Peele’s psychological thriller Get Out (A-) is a suspenseful and lively tale of a twentysomething black photographer (Daniel Kaluuya) visiting the suburban family of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams), and the maiden voyage is a mindbender. Let’s just say that after the home tour, the events that follow will leave you guessing about a whole lot more than who’s coming to dinner. From the spot-on casting of Williams’ ultra-progressive parents to the sustained sense of dread around the townspeople and groundskeepers, Peele depicts the mounting terror that may be afoot in the neighborly facade. It’s like Shining-era Stanley Kubrick got an all-out David Lynching. Themes about the appropriation of race and culture are seamlessly marinated into a savory stew of a storyline; and the acting, music, sounds and setting all work in harmony to incredible effect. Catherine Keener is a standout as a therapist with unconventional hypnotic techniques, brilliantly rendered. As a horror film, it’s less gory and more allegory. But it’s edge of your seat material and sure to be the conversation starter of the year!
Category Archives: 2017
“LEGO Batman Movie” a Fun Adventure
Director Chris McKay shows audiences exactly where a famous caped crusader gets those wonderful toys in the whimsical mini-fig laden animated feature The LEGO Batman Movie (B). A spinoff of 2014’s similarly hilarious The LEGO Movie, this new movie’s creators prove the novelty behind these films is not a one-brick pony. Will Arnett successfully voices a braggadocio Dark Knight and enriches the legend with a story about the hero’s solitude and emerging pangs for a community of his own. Zach Galifianakis as The Joker, Rosario Dawson as the new police commissioner of Gotham City and especially Michael Cera as Robin help create a lively surrogate gang of foils and family. The humor is nonstop with anarchic delights as McKay and his team plunder both the DC and Warner Brothers canons for an endless parade of cameos ranging from Martian Manhunter to Stripe Gremlin. Like a Richard Scarry book come to life with Wonder Woman twirling her lasso in one corner of the frame while Zan, Jayna and Gleek do a conga line, there’s more visual feast on the screen than can be absorbed. The film’s builders demonstrate an uncanny knowledge of the superhero films preceding this one and even pull from a Superman universe plot line to propel the narrative. There’s enough action, comedy and heart to please the palettes of all who attend; and although it’s hard to top the novelty of the first film made of bricks, these pegs have legs.
2016 Oscar Predictions in Eight Major Categories
UPDATE: Moonlight was the upset Best Picture winner, and Casey Affleck prevailed as Best Actor in one of the most unusual awards ceremonies of recent years!
Original Story:
The countdown begins until Academy Awards weekend! 2016 ended up being a pretty good year for movies, with a slate of outstanding films vying for top honors Sunday night at the Oscars. Below are the nominations for the main prizes in acting, writing and directing along with my predictions of the expected winners.
Best Picture
The nominations are:
- Arrival
- Fences
- Hacksaw Ridge
- Hell Or High Water
- Hidden Figures
- La La Land
- Lion
- Manchester by the Sea
- Moonlight
La La Land is a celebration of Hollywood and romance among films with heavier and darker themes. It has swept most of the precursor awards and is expected to win the top prize. If there is an upset, it could be crowd-pleasing Hidden Figures, a surprising box office hit with historic gravitas and an empowering message. Moonlight, Manchester, Hell or High Water and Arrival are my favorites. And I’m a loner in my tepid response to Lion, which is the only head-scratcher on the list.
Best Director
The nominations are:
- Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)
- Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge)
- Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
- Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)
- Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)
This is likely a year when Best Picture and Best Director will match, thus a win for Damien Chazelle. After he emerged on the scene with the critically lauded Whiplash, his La La Land continued to make a profound mark in a great young career. Barry Jenkins also created a masterpiece with Moonlight, but it’s less showy.
Best Actress
The nominations are:
- Isabelle Huppert (Elle)
- Ruth Negga (Loving)
- Natalie Portman (Jackie)
- Emma Stone (La La Land)
- Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)
There’s talk of an Isabelle Huppert upset, but I’ll stick with a prediction for Emma Stone, who in her one-take “audition scene” transforms from everywoman to transcendent movie goddess. It was a great year for actresses, and I wish Annette Bening were in the mix for 20th Century Women.
Best Actor
The nominations are:
- Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)
- Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)
- Ryan Gosling (La La Land)
- Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)
- Denzel Washington (Fences)
I’m on Team Affleck or Team Mortensen for their magnificent portrayals of unexpected dads, but my prediction is for Denzel Washington who acted and directed himself in August Wilson’s domineering daddy of a role in Fences. The chance to honor the actor with a third statuette and induct him into a rarefied pantheon of multiple winners seems enticing to the Hollywood chattering class.
Best Supporting Actress
The nominations are:
- Viola Davis (Fences)
- Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
- Nicole Kidman (Lion)
- Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)
- Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)
She campaigned in the wrong category, because Viola Davis would have won for lead or supporting actress for her role in Fences. She is superb. In a different year, we’d be toasting Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams for their wonderful working class performances, but Washington and Davis have an August Wilson script and Tony awards already and have been refining these immortal roles for a while.
Best Supporting Actor
The nominations are:
- Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
- Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)
- Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea)
- Dev Patel (Lion)
- Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals)
As the drug dealer with a heart of gold, Mahershala Ali appears in only the first third of Moonlight, but he is unforgettable. This could be an upset category for Dev Patel or any of the nominees, but Ali stands tall in a noble role and sends a strong anti-bullying message.
Best Original Screenplay
The nominations are:
- Hell or High Water, Taylor Sheridan
- La La Land, Damien Chazelle
- The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou
- Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan
- 20th Century Women, Mike Mills
This category is a great chance to honor Lonergan, a journeyman playwright and screenwriter who penned a corker of a script this year with Manchester by the Sea. Or, Academy voters could just check every box for the Hollywood musical. I predict Lonergan and Manchester in this category.
Best Adapted Screenplay
The nominations are:
- Arrival (Eric Heisserer, based on a short story by Ted Chiang)
- Fences (August Wilson, adapted from his play)
- Hidden Figures (Theodore Melfi and Allison Schroeder, based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly)
- Lion (Luke Davies, based on the memoir A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley and Larry Buttrose)
- Moonlight (Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney, based on the play by Tarell Alvin McCraney)
This category is a great chance to honor Moonlight; and if there is an upset in Supporting Actor, there should be a win here for this moving coming of age film. After last year’s #oscarssowhite, this year’s ceremony should bask in a bit more of the rainbow.
“Fifty Shades Darker” a Vapid Erotic Thriller
The relationship status of Christian and Anastasia continues to be “It’s Complicated” in James Foley’s not-as sloppy-seconds-as-you’d-think sequel Fifty Shades Darker (C+). Dakota Johnson and Jaimie Dornan actually improve a bit on their original portrayals of a couple from different sides of the track marks, as they advance their unusual romance against the demons of his dysfunctional past. It’s perplexing, but they make the far-fetched characters relatable. The struggle to tame this wounded billionaire is real, and sometimes he earns a little Red Room. Overlong and oddly paced most of the time, this erotic thriller could have used some whips, chains and clamps in the editing room. The final act begins to progress like a season of a campy eighties nighttime drama (Falcon Breast?). In a particularly saucy role as a BDSM mistress who keeps showing up to warn Ana about Christian like a Dickensian apparition, Kim Basinger seems to cast all fifty forms of shade. The movie is beautifully filmed, a kind of love letter to Seattle through the spherical lens of Ben Wa. There’s even an homage to Johnson’s real-life mom with a line right out of Working Girl as Ana advances in her publishing company. The cliffhanger in the original didn’t prompt much interest in this sequel, but Foley tarts things up enough this go-around that he may indeed have built interest in bringing on a third.
“Split” is a Very Watchable Psychological Thriller
Regaining his strut as a writer/director of modern-day suspense films, M. Night Shyamalan has crafted an entertaining psychological thriller and met an acting match for his cinematic chutzpah in James McAvoy headlining Split (B+). The film is above all else a showcase for the considerable acting talents of McAvoy as a man with 23 discrete personalities (Dennis, Patricia, Barry and Hedwig among the most notable). McAvoy uses some pretty sly ticks and tricks to bring brilliant life to his menagerie of characters. What starts as an abduction and escape room type movie in the vein of the recent 10 Cloverfield Lane becomes a more labyrinthine glimpse into a shattered mind. The female protagonist played by Anya Taylor-Joy helps anchor the film gracefully; she’s a perceptive outsider bent on cracking the code of the man holding her captive with two other teens. It’s also a hoot to see a late-career Betty Buckley in fine form clearly relishing a role as a therapist specializing in split personality disorders. The two other abducted teens played by Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula aren’t quite as indelible in the face of other sharp characterizations. The film is mesmerizing at times and taut throughout until the end, when it limps a bit to the finish line. Like his clear antecedent auteurs Hitchcock and De Palma, Shyamalan has created a twisty tale full of engaging mental machinations. It lacks the visual urgency to match its lead performances and can’t quite sustain the mental sharpness of its moving pieces. But for horror fans who like a PG-13 level basket of scares, it’s a gangbusters gateway drug to the genre and a corker of a story.
“The Shack” is a Highly Effective Faith-Based Film
This is the film that finally answers the question, “Papa, can you hear me?” Octavia Spencer plays “Papa,” who quite possibly created the heavens and the earth. And the answer is “yes” in Stuart Hazeldine’s moving faith-based fantasy drama The Shack (B). Sam Worthington is an effective Everyman, and if viewers can get past his accent inconsistencies, they will appreciate his journey from desperation to hope in the wake of tragedy. The film offers a parable in the vein of The Wizard of Oz within the confines of what seems like standard-issue melodrama; and despite some mawkish moments and a bit of a “preaching to the converted” mentality, this spiritual tonic somehow washes down with grace. The diverse cast including familiar faces such as Tim McGraw and Graham Greene and game new talent such as Aviv Alush and Sumire is uniformly committed, and the film’s contemplative pace gives oxygen to its major messages. You’ve never seen many Christian themes depicted quite like this, and even the big budget effects and imagery are quite memorable. This film provides a positive and reassuring message to be cherished about heeding ancient calls to address and learn from contemporary pain.