Quick Oscar Thoughts

Let the rampant whining from fanboys begin.

It’s an important milestone in any movie fan’s life when he or she comes to the realization that the people voting for the Oscars are little more than old white men jerking off other old white men. That doesn’t mean he or she can’t enjoy the ceremonies, and the nominated movies, but, you know, let’s maybe not take the opinion of a group composed mostly of out-of-touch all that seriously.

 

Never forget.

With that said, I still enjoy bitching and moaning about the movies, because literally nothing gives me more joy than bitching and moaning about trivial shit.

And yes, like last year, I will watch and review all of the Best Picture nominees this year. I’ve already reviewed The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road and Spotlight, and I need to get to watching The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, The Revenant (Which I should see this weekend, with any luck) and Room.

With that out of the way, it’s time to make some observations about the nominations for the 88th Academy Awards.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 2 (Movie Review)

“Be Prepaaaaaaaaared!“

And just like that, the last real quality YA adaptation franchise came to an end. Have fun with The 5th Wave and Divergent, plebes.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 1 (Movie Review)

“You say you want a revolutiooon, wehell, ya know…”

So, after my announcement a few days ago of the initiation of my new Deathmatch series, in which fictional characters get ripped from their comfort zones and are forced by me to engage in an ultraviolent fight to the death, it seems only fitting that this would shortly precede my review of the third movie in a franchise in which characters get ripped from their comfort zones and forced by their despotic puppet masters to engage in an ultraviolent fight to the death.

Except, y’know, they’re children, so I have that over Suzanne Collins, morally. For now, at least.

 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 1

Directed by: Francis Lawrence

Produced by: Nina Jacobson, Jon Kilik

Written by: Danny Strong, Peter Craig

Based on: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Genres: Science-fiction, war drama,

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Natalie Dormer, Sam Claflin, Willow Shields, Mahershala Ali

Music by: James Newton Howard

Plot: After the events of Catching Fire, Hunger Games veteran Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is whisked away to District 13, which, contrary to popular knowledge, was not wiped out by the tyrannical regime in the Capitol, and now houses the rebel movement fighting against President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and the jackbooted thugs named”Peacekeepers”.  Katniss, along with fellow victor Finnick Odair, her childhood friend, Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth), her trainer, Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) her family and former Gamesmaster Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) may have been spirited away to the rebellion, but her on-again, off-again sort-of boyfriend Peeta Mellark has been captured by the Capitol, and is being used, seemingly willingly in propaganda videos against the rebellion. With the knowledge that Peeta is in danger, Katniss is torn between her desire to save him, and the duty imposed upon her by the Rebellion of being the Mockingjay, a symbol of hope for the oppressed people of Panem.

So, in the pursuit of making all the money, Lionsgate decided to not only adapt the Hunger Games trilogy to film, but also to divide the final installment, Mockingjay, into two parts, following the trend set by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Hobbit. While it’s obviously a sound financial plan, the prior two movies, while none of them bad, per se, did suffer from the undesirable problem of trying to spread too little an amount of subject matter into two hours, or, in the case of The Hobbit, three years. To Mockingjay‘s credit, I didn’t feel like too little material was spread over too much time…Much. There is a scene in the middle of the movie where Gale and Katniss go hunting that looks like it’s building up to something, but doesn’t really go anywhere. Problem is, the movie’s actually too damn short. It’s around twenty minutes shorter than Catching Fire, and cuts off very abruptly, leaving the audience kinda surprised when “Yellow Flicker Beat” starts playing over the end credits. It kind of makes me wonder why they didn’t do something radical like just make one longer third movie. I mean, the people going into it should be expecting a truly epic conclusion to the series, so would it really be that much of a sin to extend it a little?

Whatever. Silly me for wanting trilogies to be actual trilogies, I guess.

By the way, in case you haven’t paid attention during the trailers, don’t expect too much similarities between the newest movie and the previous two in terms of action. While the other two movies were at least moderately action-packed, taking place in an arena full of teenagers murdering each other. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of exciting, brutal violence.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. Make your snarky Battle Royale references now, hipsters.

This movie, however, relies much more on subdued political drama than the first two. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like the political elements were non-existent, but they definitely put more of an emphasis on the politics of revolution-mongering than, you know, kids breaking each other’s necks.  I thought it was a welcome change, as it moved the plot along and was intense in it’s own way. The lack of action seems to be a major criticism of the movie, but if you don’t mind watching a lot of “moves and countermoves” then I don’t see why you wouldn’t let at least that aspect of the movie suck you into the story. Those of you not conditioned thanks to, say, Game of Thrones, might be a little less receptive, but know that you’re gonna sound really weird when you say that you favoured the jarring shaky-cam in the first Hunger Games over watching Jennifer Lawrence spar verbally with Donald Sutherland and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Of course, to really enjoy the drama, the actors have to show up, and fear not,  because, as was the case in the first two movies, the performances are great in Mockingjay. I’ll get to Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in a bit, but the other actors are definitely worth a mention. Philip Seymour Hoffman is, for the second-last time unfortunately, great, and injects some much needed humour into this very dark, grim movie. Yeah, as progressively dark as the movies in this series have gotten (Because, again, child murder) this movie actually might be the funniest of the three. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a funny movie as a whole. Not even close. But having Hoffman and Lawrence, as well as Woody Harrelson, who is always good for a few laughs as Haymitch,  spout a couple of funny lines helped bring somewhat of a sense of levity to a series in which his happens:

 

I like how she’s reacting to getting impaled about as strongly as I reacted to a 60 on my minor Physics quiz last week.

Oh, uh, belated spoiler alert, for all three of you who haven’t seen the first Hunger Games yet.

Anyway, Elizabeth Banks is once again fantastic as Effie, newcomers Julianne Moore and Natalie Dormer are both good as the rebel President Coin and propaganda filmmaker Cressida, and the only weak link in the recurring cast until now has, mercifully been eliminated. Yeah, I really hated Willow Shields as Katniss’s younger sister, Prim. I still cringe every time she delivers her lines. This time though, she’s pretty great by child actor standards. She also has some solid chemistry with Jennifer Lawrence.

SEEEEGWAAAAYYYY!!!!

Which brings me to Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen. Now, I don’t think anybody buys that she’s a teenager anymore, and I doubt that anyone even bought it when the casting was announced before the first movie. That said, I wouldn’t want anyone else playing Katniss. She’s strong, yet frightened and insecure, she’s occasionally kinda funny, and she gets some great chemistry out of her relationships with Gale and Peeta (Two more great performances, by the way). I guess some people would have a point in saying that it’s kind of annoying that it looks like she wants to save Peeta more than reverse the fortunes of Panem through being the Mockingjay. Yeah, there are some moments  that you kinda wanna shake her,  but when are humans ever that simple in real life?

Weak, I know, but it’s the best devil’s advocate response I could come up with.

Overall: It’s definitely a different direction for the series to go in, and I’d be lying if I said I was a fan of the halving of the last book, but Mockingjay is still a great installment into the series, getting by mainly on the strength of its performances, and making the audience forget about the notable lack of action.

Rating: 8.5/10

For fuck’s sake, it shares similarities with Battle Royale, we get it!!!  Can you leave it be, goddammit?!?!

My Saturn Award Picks

Joss Whedon attended once, so they’re legit, you guys.

In a few hours, the 40th Saturn Awards are due to be presented are to be presented in Burbank, California. Those of you with lives that involve more than lazily scrolling through Wikipedia might ask me what exactly the Saturn Awards are and why they should care about them. The short answer is that the Saturn Awards are presented each year by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honour the best in not only movies of those genres, but also TV and, for some reason, home video.

“Chucky: The Complete Collection” and “Award Nominee” are two phrases that you never thought would ever appear in the same breath.

As for why we would need this fairly anonymous award, that’s rather straightforward as well. While I love and cherish the Academy Awards, they can be notoriously stuffy when it comes to nominating movies for the Best Picture Award. There’s a reason that some movies are referred to as “Oscar-bait”: It can seem sometimes that all some movies need to to is try really hard to be nominated for an Oscar and the Academy will lose  its shit over it, even if it’s just so-so or, in some cases, just plain bad.

Unrelated Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close poster.

 One of the more recent examples is The Dark Knight in 2009. TDK was the highest-grossing movie of that year and is widely considered, along with The Avengers and the new X-Men movie to be in the running for the title of greatest comic book movie of all time. It’s such a damn great movie that even the Academy took notice, rewarding it with 8 nominations: Best Visual Effects (Which it lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Best Film Editing (Lost to Slumdog Millionaire), Best Makeup (Lost to Benjamin Button), Best Cinematography (Lost to Slumdog Millionaire), Best Art Direction (Lost to Benjamin Fucking Button) Best Sound Mixing (Lost to Slumdog Bloody Millionaire) Best Sound Editing (Which it won) and, obviously, Best Supporting Actor for the late Heath Ledger (Which it also won, as it damn well should have).

Notice anything about those categories?

Not a single one of them is the Best Picture category.

Now, I can understand that not every great movie can get a nomination. If that was the case, the Oscar ceremony would double in length, and Ellen DeGeneres was already a bit thin on material during regular programming. But do you know what movie was nominated for Best Picture instead of TDK? The Reader. A movie that just barely got a “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and that you have probably never heard of before. Oscar-bait at its most stereotypical.

So basically, that’s why I like the Saturn Awards so much. Even if the movie are, in general, inferior to the Oscars, the Saturn Awards still let the movies that us plebes enjoy take the spotlight. Besides, let’s be honest here: How many of you actually watched 12 Years a Slave before it won the Oscar?

Ah,whatever. I’ve rambled long enough. The following are my Saturn Award picks. The list of nominees can be found here. I won’t be doing predictions for TV or Home  Video categories, but I do hope that Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones clean up.

Best Independent Film

“Fucking Matthew McConaughey.”

My pick: 12 Years a Slave

Second place: Inside Llewyn Davis

12 Years a Slave is the best movie of 2013 (The Academy didn’t screw this one up!) So it’s obviously going to win the majority of awards it’s nominated for, and it doesn’t even have to contend with Dallas Buyers Club or Gravity this time around.

Best Special Effects

My pick: Gravity

Second place: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Gravity has proven since its release that as long as you combine an unspectacular, somewhat predictable script with plot holes, nobody will give a shit if your movie looks pretty enough. Hell, I didn’t care! I gave it a 9.5 out of 10!

Best Makeup

Fun fact: Evangeline Lilly is from Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. She remains the only Fort Saskatchewan resident whose fame isn’t attributed to hockey or petty crime.

My pick: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Second place: Thor: The Dark World

 Any Middle-Earth movie is pretty much a shoo-in for awards like this. Odd that they couldn’t do anything about Orlando Bloom starting to look like Joaquin Phoenix though.

Best Costume

Good Lord.

My pick: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Second place: Thor: The Dark World

This might be the only category that 47 Ronin has ever been nominated for that wasn’t “Biggest case of cinematic blue balls of 2013.” Don’t pretend like you didn’t hear the words “Keanu Reeves samurai movie” and immediately start pissing yourself in excitement. Or maybe that was just me.

I might have problems, you guys.

Best Production Design

Blah blah blah Gravity, blah blah blah special effects orgasm blah blah blah so fucking good blah blah blah…

My pick: Gravity

Second place: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Man, if Gravity hadn’t been released in 2013, The Hobbit might’ve really cleaned up in their Oscar categories, never mind the damn Saturn Awards.

Best Editing

My pick: Gravity

Second place: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

I’m still not totally sure how to properly evaluate editing, but when in doubt, go with Gravity.

Best Music

“Doo doo doo, dooo, doo doo doo… Do do do… DOO DOO doo doo… doo doo doo…” That’s classic stuff, right there.

My pick: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Howard Shore)

Second place: Iron Man 3 (Brian Tyler)

I’m kind of surprised that Steven Price wasn’t nominated for Gravity, but hey, he already has the damn Oscar, and it’s not like you could ever go wrong with Middle Earth music.  

Best Performance by a Younger Actor

From Kick-Ass to Carrie, Chloe Grace Moretz is at her best when doused in blood.

My pick: Chloe Grace Moretz, Carrie

Second place: Ty Simpkins, Iron Man 3

Yes, Carrie was total dogshit, but Chloe Grace Moretz was the best part of that whole mess. Just please pick a better movie next time.

Best Supporting Actress

My pick: Scarlett Johansson, Her

Second place: Evangeline Lilly, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug… I guess

It might seem like an odd pick, considering that ScarJo never once appeared on screen, but a) She was pretty damn amazing in that movie and b) Name one other actress on that list who was anything other than “pretty good.”

Best Supporting Actor

My pick: Benedict Cumberbatch, Star Trek Into Darkness

Second place: Tom Hiddleston, Thor: The Dark World

Some people may criticize Benedict Cumberbatch for being, y’know, a white guy playing an Indian character (Khan Noonien Singh), which would be a legitimate argument if he wasn’t already played by Ricardo Montalban in The Wrath of Khan, who was, you know, Mexican.

Best Actress

My pick: Jennifer Lawrence, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Second place: Sandra Bullock, Gravity

Because Jennifer Lawrence is amazing, and Gravity can’t win everything.

Best Actor

My pick: Joaquin Phoenix, Her

Second place: Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis

I also really loved Robert Downey Jr in Iron Man 3, so any of these three actors winning would be fine in my book.

Best Writing

My pick: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis

Second place: Spike Jonze, Her

Her might have won the Oscar, and that was a fine movie, don’t get me wrong, but to tell you the truth, I grew a lot more attached to the Coen brothers’ movie. On an unrelated note, I was surprised that Jennifer Lee was nominated for Frozen. I love Frozen, but.. y’know, come on.

Best Director

My pick: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity

Second place: Peter Jackson, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Ah dammit, we’re back to kissing Gravity‘s ass. I guess you couldn’t really argue with it.  2013 was kind of Alfonso Cuaron’s bitch.

Best Comic-to-film Motion Picture

My pick: Iron Man 3

Second place: Thor: The Dark World

Gwyneth Paltrow notwithstanding, Iron Man 3 is the only nominee from this category that isn’t all that seriously flawed, although Thor, Man of Steel and Wolverine were all very enjoyable, in my opinion.

Best Animated Film

Seriously, that dress is made of ICE. There is no fucking way that’s comfortable.

My pick: Frozen

Second place: Despicable Me 2

Well, duh.

Best International Film

I don’t usually watch foreign films, so I’ve missed out on all these movies. The World’s End looks awesome though, so I’ll have to check it out at some point.

Best Action/Adventure Film

The only one of these movies that I’ve seen is The Lone Ranger, and fuck that movie.

Best Thriller Film

I haven’t seen any of these movies either.

Best Horror Film

My pick: This is the End

Second place: None. Horror movies suck.

Horror movies are, in general, pretty damn stupid. But hey, if this Academy is going to consider This is the End a horror movie for some unfathomable reason, then who am I to complain? That movie kicked all sorts of ass!

Best Fantasy Film

My pick: Her

Second place: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I considered going with The Hobbit, as I don’t consider Her to be a fantasy movie (At least in the traditional sense). However, This is the End isn’t an actual horror movie, and I still gave that movie the nod in that category, so whatever.

Best Science Fiction Film

My pick: Gravity

Second place: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

With no 12 Years a Slave or Dallas Buyers Club to stand in its way, Gravity should take the top prize it is capable of receiving. Much respect to Hunger Games, Star Trek and Pacific Rim  though, who would have been top contenders in any other year.

 

X-Men: Days of Future Past (Movie Review)

Personally, I just really wanna see more of this guy. What a boss.

Let’s face it folks: We live in an age of film where the only two superhero franchises that are really causing widespread debate are Marvel Studio’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, for all the right reasons, and Warner Bros. ‘ DC Cinematic Universe for, let’s say, less commendable reasons.

“Dawn of Justice”? Holy God.

Often lost in the discussion, however, is the X-Men film series from 20th Century Fox, especially after it faded from the public’s collective memory after the massive turd that was The Last Stand and the final nail in the coffin that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The series has been reestablishing itself, though, with a great origin story in X-Men: First Class and the likeable action movie that was The Wolverine. In 2013, a massive publicity campaign was launched for the next movie in the series, the $225 million dollar budgeted X-Men: Days of Future Past, which incorporates the original actors from the original trilogy and the newbies from First Class. How did it work out? Well, at the very least, it ensured that Shawn Ashmore and Halle Berry remained employed for a bit.

 X-Men: Days of Future Past

Directed by: Bryan Singer

Produced by: Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg, Hutch Parker

Screenplay by: Simon Kinberg

Story by: Simon Kinberg, Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman

Based on: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont and Josh Byrne

Sequel to: X-Men: First Class, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Wolverine

Series: X-Men (Seventh installment)

Genre: Superhero

Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas  Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Evan Peters, Ellen Page, Halle Berry, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy,  Daniel Cudmore, Fan Bingbing, Booboo Stewart, Adam Canto, Josh Helman, Mark Camacho,                                                                                  Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen

Plot: The year: 2023. In this dystopian future, the mutants have been all but wiped out by murderous robots known as Sentinels, who were created in 1973 by a military scientist named Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), whose Sentinel program was largely criticized by the American government until his assassination by rogue mutant insurgent Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), which convinced the people of the world to adopt it. After Mystique’s capture, her DNA was replicated for use by the Sentinels, who gained Mystique’s shape-shifting powers, making them into essentially the perfect mutant-hunting killers. After years of resistance , the only mutants left include Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), who has the power to send another person’s consciousness back in time to deliver warnings.

Realizing that it’s not long before the Sentinels find their hideout in China and extinguish the mutants once and for all, he decides to send Wolverine back to 1973 in order to stop the assassination of Bolivar Trask from ever happening. In order to do so, Wolverine must team up with the younger version of the deceased Beast (Nicholas Hoult), the younger version of Magneto (Michael Fassbender) who has been incarcerated in the Pentagon as the suspected murder of President Kennedy, and the younger version of Charles Xavier, who, now jaded and cynical,  has shut down his X-Men and regained the use of his legs through the use of a serum, at the expense of his telekinetic powers.

I’ve gone on and on about how recent superhero movies have seemed to commit the same error of making themselves much more convoluted then they really need to be. Both of the superhero movies released this year prior to Days of Future Past (Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man 2) , while both at least enjoyable, suffered from this problem, although one of them definitely handled this problem a bit better than the other.

Can you guess which one?

And you’d assume that a movie like this one, involving time travel, of all things, would be no different. However you would be wrong. Stop being so presumptuous.

At no point did the film ever lose me through convoluted dialogue or sloppy editing. Nor was it full of elaborate, pretentious dialogue that requires constant hand-holding (Cough-cough. House of Cards). When you’re making a movie that features Wolverine beating the shit out of a bunch of dickheads, you don’t need to mix in a bunch of convoluted crap in to make it feel like the Dark Knight. This movie holds off on that, which is greatly appreciated. All you need to know about the rules of time travel in this universe is neatly explained right from the get-go.

The movie also maintains a crisp pace throughout its’ relatively short run-time of 130 minutes (Ten minutes shorter than the new Spider-man). I never got bored, or felt my mind wander as boring dialogue took over. The movie finds a nice balance between witty dialogue, dramatic exposition and kick-ass action scenes. Sure, it had the minimal amounts of superhero cheese, but hey, you’re not watching Dark Knight. A little bit of cheese every now and then isn’t going to kill you.

Well, not right away, anyways.

Speaking of the dialogue, the movie hits the perfect balance between dark and funny, with most of the humor being provided by Hugh Jackman (Once again excellent as everyone’s favourite Canadian rage-monster), who provides surprisingly well-done quips and banter. and Evan Peters, who easily steals the show as everyone’s favourite new  X-Man, Quicksilver. Peters, otherwise known for his roles in American Horror Story  and Kick-Ass (Before he wisely jumped the ship of the latter franchise) brings his knack for comic timing to the table, which works all too well with the character of Peter Maximoff, who ends up having what could possibly be one o the best scenes in the entire movie.

My one problem with the character of Quickilver is the way that he is left behind by Wolverine and his berry band o’ mutants once they’re done using him. Couldn’t they have used somebody who can move at light-speed? I feel like that would’ve been extremely useful.

As for the rest of the giant cast, there isn’t really a weak link among the bunch. Jackman and Peters are great before, as mentioned, and Booboo Stewart, Shawn Ashmore, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Fan Bingbing and Omar Sy and company, while they may not have all that much lines, do what is required of them, which is, look cool in action scenes, and stand around stoically.  Patrick Stewart an Ian McKellen (Old Xavier and old Magneto) are great in their limited scenes in this movie, and Peter Dinklage does good work as Bolivr Trask even if I was a bit shaken by him using his natural American accent instead of the English one he uses in Game of Thrones.

The best performances in the movie, however, clearly belong to the characters returning from First Class. James McAvoy is downright fantastic as the cynical younger version of Charles Xavier, as is Michael Fassbender as the radical mutant idealist known as Magneto. The scenes between the two can be downright heartbreaking, as the two old friends continuously butt heads over their extreme ideological differences, but remain painfully aware of the bond they share as former brothers in arms.

Nicholas Hoult (Beast) is good as well, but his real-life girlfriend, Jennifer Lawrence is pretty damn great. Nobody’s gonna scream “Oscar” this time around, but she did a fine job considering that a) I didn’t find her too be that good in First Class and b) Her character, Mystique, is disappointingly one-note this time around, and basically serves as a plot device to move the story forward.

And hey, when it comes to one-note characters, you could do a lot worse than casting the most bankable movie star on planet Earth right now.

 

Overall: Side-stepping the many dangers that come with making a large-scale superhero movie like this, Days of Future Past is an action-packed, dark, and surprisingly funny film, and is comparable to The Avengers when it comes to sheer enjoyment level. It’s not exactly Dark Knight (The best superhero movie ever), and The Avengers is still superior in my mind, but hey, when Wolverine is tearing a bunch of punk-ass motherfuckers to shreds, who needs that “Why so serious” bullshit?

Rating: 9.5/10

And, for what it’s worth,  the Sentinels now top my list of movie robots to be fucking terrified of.

 

 

 

 

 

My Oscar Picks

Well, it’s not like I can do so much freaking Oscar reviews without doing a quick prediction. These predictions will have the same format as my Razzie predictions, with my top three picks for every category, except the ones which I haven’t checked out because they didn’t have any Best Picture Nominees (Categories with an “*” are categories in which I’ve seen less than three of the nominated movies). Also, if any movie that I did not watch wins their respective category, that movie will be added to my seemingly never-ending queue of reviews.

Honestly? I just look at the trophy and see a golden novelty dildo.

Best Visual Effects:

1. Gravity
2. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
3. Star Trek Into Darkness

This one is pretty much a no-brainer. While Benedict Cumber-Dragon was amazing and J.J. Abrams lens-flared Star Trek into beautiful oblivion (I’m hoping that nonsense I just pulled out of my ass makes sense to somebody), Gravity had some of, if not the most  the most, beautiful visuals I’ve ever seen in my seventeen years of watching movies.

Best Film Editing:

1. Gravity
2. 12 Years a Slave
3. American Hustle

I’m still not entirely sure how one critiques editing, so admittedly, this category is kind of a crapshoot for me.

Best Costume Design* 

1. 12 Years a Slave
2. American Hustle

American Hustle could beat out 12 Years, because it did have a pretty fantastic costume design team, or whatever (And Amy Adams’ necklines sure help), but I think that the latter’s  costumes were just a little bit better.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling*

1. Dallas Buyers Club

I’m shocked that American Hustle wasn’t nominated for this category, but honestly Dallas Buyers Club should win this award, based solely on the work they did with Jared Leto.

Best Cinematography*

1. Gravity
2. Nebraska

I’m kinda surprised that Nebraska was nominated for this category, because I really didn’t like the choice of black-and-white colouring, but whatevs. Gravity should and will win, anyways.

Best Production Design

1. 12 Years a Slave
2. Gravity
3. American Hustle

Assuming that “Production Design” means “film sets and such”, I’d give it to 12 Years, mainly for the stunning contrast between the natural beauty of Louisiana and the brutality of the subject matter.

Best Sound Mixing/Editing

1. Gravity
2. Captain Phillips
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug 

Yes, I know I mixed the categories of Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing, but a) It’s pretty much the same movies, and b) I don’t know what the fuck the difference between sound editing and sound mixing is supposed to be.

That said, Gravity‘s soundtrack was downright gorgeous.

Best Original Song (I Haven’t seen most of these movies, but the songs are on YouTube, so all’s good.)

1. “Let it Go” from Frozen
2. “Ordinary Love” from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
3. “The Moon Song” from Her 

Let’s face it, Disney songs are pretty much the bomb. Keep in mind that this is coming from somebody who thinks that any song off London Calling is the pinnacle of Western Civilization.

Best Original Score

1. Gravity
2. Her
3. Philomena

Like I said, Gravity‘s score is fantastic. I liked Hers’ soundtrack too, but Philomena‘s just seemed nondescript to me.

Best Animated Short Film, Best Live Action Short Film, Best Documentary-Short Subject, Best Documentary-Feature, Best Documentary Film, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Animated Feature Film

I  haven’t seem any of the movies nominated for these, because a) Honestly, these are the least interesting categories to me and b) While I actually love animated movies, there’s no way I’m going to a theater filled with screaming eight-year olds to watch Frozen.

Best Writing-Adapted Screenplay

1. 12 Years A Slave
2. The Wolf of Wall Street
3. Captain Phillips 

I didn’t find any of these scripts to be legendary, per se, but they were still pretty damn great. It could really go any way.

Best Writing-Original Screenplay

1. American Hustle
2. Dallas Buyers Club
3. Her

I wonder if I could somehow develop David O. Russell’s amazing dialogue-writing ability without also developing his crippling douchiness…

Best Supporting Actress

1. Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave
2. Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
3. June Squibb, Nebraska

Holy shit, I son’t think you could have picked three cuter nominees for this category.

Pictured: The Axis of Adorable.

Jennifer Lawrence is my favourite actress, and June Squibb was awesome too, but there’s just no way they match up to Mexican-born Kenyan Actress Lupita Nyongo’s film debut.

Best Supporting Actor

1. Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
2. Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
3. Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips

Fassbender played Edwin “Evil Incarnate” Epps to perfection, and Somali actor Barkhad Abdi was awesoome in his debut, but they just had bad luck this time, going up against Jared Leto as the tragic Rayon.

Best Actress

1. Sandra Bullock, Gravity
2. Amy Adams, American Hustle
3. Judi Dench, Philomena

I think that Cate Blanchett is gonna win, considering the love she got at the Golden Globes, but I loved Sandra Bullock.

Best Actor

1. Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
2. Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
3. Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street

Man, does Leo ever have bad luck getting easy opponents on Oscar ballots, huh?

I had to pretty much flip a coin to decide who I thought was better between McConaughey and Ejiofor. All I can say is that I hope I don’t have to type either of their names again until next Oscar season, at least.

Best Director

1. Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
2. Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
3. Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

I’m not that big of a director guy, but you don’t have to be one to know that Cuaron did a fantastic job with Gravity.

Best Picture

1. 12 Years a Slave
2. Dallas Buyers Club
3. Gravity

Just read my review of 12 Years a Slave, it’ll tell you all you need to know.

Oscar Movie Review: American Hustle

There’s one in every Oscar class.

Every year, in every group of Best Picture nominees, there is at least one movie that is divisive, that may be critically or popularly unloved, yet, it gets the nomination for the Big Prize. Sometimes, this scrutiny may be deserved (In the case of The Tree of Life, for instance). In others, it may not be (Winter’s Bone comes to mind). This year, the most divisive movie on the ballot is a David O. Russell-directed movie that is up for ten Academy Awards, and has broken the record for the lowest necklines in film history.

This is actually the smallest amount of cleavage that Amy Adams displays in this movie. I’m dead serious.

American Hustle

Directed by: David O. Russell

Produced by: Charles Roven, Richard Suckle, Megan Ellison

Written by: Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell

Genre: Crime Drama, Dark Comedy

Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence (Be still, my beating heart!!!)

Other actors: Louis C.K., Jack Huston, Michael Pena, Robert De Niro

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture,Best Director, Best Actor (Christian Bale), Best Actress (Amy Adams), Best Supporting Actor (Bradley Cooper), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Best Writing-Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing

Plot: In 1978, highly successful con artist Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) and his mistress, the equally intelligent Sydney Prosser (Adams), are at the top of their game, making oodles of money off the desperate, and, in Rosenfeld’s words, doing whatever it takes to survive. Unfortunately for them, they are caught in the act by ambitious FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Cooper).  Richie takes a liking to Sydney (Or rather, Sydney’s English alter-ego, “Edith Greensley”) and recruits Irving and “Edith” to help him fight white-collar crime, specifically, by helping him arrest four people.

I only had two problems with the plot. My first problem is with the ending (Which I’ll discuss at the end of this “Plot” section, in order to avoid spoiling it for people). My second problem was how muddled the plot was at the beginning. The dialogue was  being presented so quickly that I didn’t catch everything that was being said, and was pretty much just watching it for the performances. However, I did catch on eventually, and it really is quite an engrossing plot.

*SPOILER BEGINS HERE*

Now, while most of this movie was damn near perfect, there was one thing that didn’t sit well with me for one little bit. That would be the ending. I didn’t like how mayor Polito being incarcerated, the Mob being let off scot-free and Richie having his career ruined were presented alongside an (Admittedly, quite funny) scene between Irving, Sydney and Richie’s wife, Rosalyn as part of a “happy ending”.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I realize that the movie made it pretty clear that not everybody was getting out with their lives intact. But this “unhappy ending” seemed all out of whack. I felt kind of unsure what to feel when the movie cut from Richie sobbing in despair when he realizes he’s been conned, to mayor Polito being led away from his family by the police and then, suddenly, to everybody laughing about Jennifer Lawrence being in a neck brace. In my opinion (And remember, I wouldn’t know how to execute this, I’m just an armchair critic at this point), they should have had a much more melancholic ending scene with Irving, Sydney and Rosalyn. You don’t ruin the lives of two sympathetic characters, and then pretend that it’s the end of a buddy comedy.

*SPOILER ENDS HERE*

Acting: The acting in this movie is downright incredible. I’ll get into it a little more later, but these actors were PERFECTLY cast for their roles. Christian Bale is excellent, as are Cooper and Jeremy Renner (As the idealistic, yet somewhat naive, mayor of Camden, New Jersey). I wasn’t a fan of Amy Adams in Man of Steel, but she is fantastic and damn sexy in this film. Even the smaller parts in this movie (Louis C.K., Robert De Niro, etc.) are played exceptionally well.

However, the best performance, in my humble opinion, comes from the lovely Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Bale’s highly intelligent, yet mentally unstable wife. She strikes the perfect balance between being clearly not O.K., but also hilarious, and even sympathetic. J-Law has displayed, once again, why she is my favourite actress.

What Oscar nominations does it deserve?: 

• Best Film Editing: Sure, I guess. The movie flowed very well from one scene to the other, though, as I mentioned before, it seemed kind of muddled at the beginning.
• Best Costume Design: Yeah, for sure. The costumes had me reminiscing about the seventies right away… which is an impressive feat, considering I was born in ’96. Also, cleavage.
• Best Production design: See “Best Costume Design”.
• Best Writing-Original Screenplay: Absolutely. This screenplay was both intelligent and hilarious.
• Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Lawrence): YES.
• Best Supporting Actor (Bradley Cooper): Cooper did a fine job as Richie DiMaso, but honestly, I think I preferred Jeremy Renner as mayor Polito.
• Best Actress (Amy Adams): Absolutely.
• Best Actor (Christian Bale): Yeah, sure. This is is the first Christian Bale movie in a long time in which I hadn’t been imagining him in a Batman costume and a fucked-up voice box.
• Best Director (David O. Russell): He may be a bit of a douche, but yes, Russell deserves the nomination.
• Best Picture: I highly doubt that it will (Or should) win the award, but it deserves every bit of that nomination.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10