Oscars 2018

Hello again! It's been awhile since I've used this blog to talk to you about movies, but now that I'm no longer working full-time hours for part-time money, I thought it was time to get back in the saddle. In the interim, I have, of course, not stopped watching, thinking about, and discussing movies, but I've done most of it in the concise and fleeting medium of Twitter. (If you're on Twitter, please come talk to me @ sugarandSpicer!) To kick off this return to blogging, and since we've so much to discuss, I thought it best to jump right in and give you all my brief impressions on the Academy Award nominees announced yesterday. Let's get down to it, shall we?

Ever since the Academy changed the number of possible Best Picture nominees, I'm always fascinated to see not just what gets the nod, but how many. In case you aren't in the know, 8 years ago, the Oscars expanded the number of Best Picture nominees from 5 to any number between 5 and 10. This year we have 9 and I always wonder how and why those decisions are reached. Anyway, to the nominees:
Call Me By Your Name - Just watched this one last night, so I'm still processing a bit, but initial impression is it's very Italian. That's not a judgement, just a fact. The film takes place in "somewhere in Northern Italy" in 1983 and is much a love letter to the setting as it is a coming-of-age story. In what appears to be his first feature film not starring Tilda Swinton, Italian director Luca Guadagnino transports the audience to the ancient beauty of this Alpine part of Italy with long shots slowly breathing in landscape and architecture. Everything moves slowly here. More than the aching tenderness of the story, I'm left with the impression of the place.
    This film also garnered nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay (from the novel by Andre Aciman), Best Actor Timothee Chalamet, and Best Original Song "Mystery of Love" by Sufjan Stevens. Adapted Screenplay is an interesting category this year, but it's hard to beat Aaron Sorkin, so I look for Molly's Game to take it. Timothee Chalamet, whom I also enjoyed in Lady Bird this year, is wonderful as Elio, but Best Actor easily belongs to Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour. And the Original Song category has Coco and The Greatest Showman, so another long shot for CMBYN there, although I'm personally slightly obsessed with "Mystery of Love."
Darkest Hour - Director Joe Wright is a favourite of mine, but his last offering, Pan, is better forgotten, so let's, because Darkest Hour is a magnificent return to form for him. Every last detail is meticulously curated, making this a strong contender for the Best Picture title in my book. The framing and lighting work marvelously to create moments of both epic grandeur and heartfelt intimacy. There are two things particularly I want to highlight before we go on to gush about Gary Oldman. Firstly, there's a wonderful moment of almost farcical comedy when Wright frames three perfectly spaced and timed closing doors. Secondly, the way the lights in the bunkers naturally dim and brighten is so real that it takes the audience right in, but then Wright uses that flickering to highlight the emotions of different scenes. (Props to the cinematographer, Bruno Delbonnel, as well, who received a nomination even though Wright didn't.) I hate to use the word "masterpiece," but I think it at least approaches that level.
     Then we have Gary Oldman, in an Oscar-bait role if I've ever seen one. As we know, the Academy loves 3 things: physical transformations of actors, British period dramas, and movies about artists/making art. This checks 2 of those 3 boxes. On top of that, it is actually spectacular. The film also received nominations for Hair & Makeup, Costume, and Production Design, all of which contribute to bringing Winston Churchill to life, but Oldman has truly disappeared and brought Churchill back from the grave. Insert applause emojis here.
Dunkirk - One of two Best Picture nominees from outside Oscar season, Dunkirk is the latest cinematic epic from visionary (another word I don't use lightly) Christopher Nolan. This film is specifically designed to be seen in the biggest format available to you and if you missed it in the cinema, you really missed out. I'm still bummed about not being able to have seen it in IMAX and I don't even like IMAX. Admittedly, it's been six months since it came out, so my memory might be a little hazy around the edges, but I remember leaving the theater humming Rule, Britannia! and feeling utterly blown away by not just the scale of this movie, but the intricacy with which Nolan has interwoven different perspectives and the immediacy of literally ticking clocks. Once again, Nolan has assembled an absolutely stellar cast, from the stately and serene Sir Kenneth Branagh to the wild-eyed Cillian Murphy to the gruff grumbling Tom Hardy (once again only using the top half of his face) to the young whipper-snapper Harry Styles (whom I secretly adore).
      Nolan is up for Best Director and if that award went for innovation in the craft of filmmaking, he'd be a sure thing, but we'll come back to that category later. The film is also nominated for Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Original Score, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. (Side note: the exact same 5 films are nominated in the 2 sound categories, proving that no one else knows what the difference between them is either.) Since the Best Director category is tight, I'd like to say Dunkirk will at least win Editing and/or Cinematography, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see Baby Driver snap up Editing and Blade Runner 2049 grab Cinematography, so we shall see. (Side note #2: Edgar Wright risked life and limb to get some of those Baby Driver shots and he deserved a nomination.)
Get Out - The biggest surprise in this category, because not only did it come out in February 2017, but it's also a genre film! Even so, Get Out deserves to be here, because we haven't been able to stop talking about, for all the right reasons. Like all great horror movies, it is part paralyzing terror, part biting comedy, and part timely social commentary. It also poignantly utilizes Childish Gambino's "Redbone," earning it about 50 extra points with me. (Fun fact #2: Roman J. Israel, Esq. which earned the always magnificent Denzel Washington a Best Actor nomination this year also has a Childish Gambino song, "Baby Boy," on its soundtrack!)
     Get Out has also garnered first time nominations for Best Actor Daniel Kaluuya and Best Director and Original Screenplay for Jordan Peele. Like I said earlier, Gary Oldman's got the Best Actor statue locked up, but the Directing and Original Screenplay categories are both full of awesome, deserving nominees. (Shout out to The Big Sick, which was a movie I followed from its very early script stages all the way to an Oscar nomination!) At the end of the day, I'm not sure if it'll get any wins or not, but I think it's very cool that it's in the conversation. 
Lady Bird - Let's first establish that despite its title, this movie has absolutely nothing to do with ex-First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. It's a delightfully sweet coming-of-age story about a girl learning that loving your hometown and wanting nothing more than to leave it are strangely enough not mutually exclusive ideas. Now that we've got that out of the way, I'll say that I'm a fan of Greta Gerwig and I thought that as a directorial debut, Lady Bird is really lovely. Objectively, I'm not sure if it's good enough to win in this category, but as a member of its target audience, it's a movie I very much enjoyed.
      I'm excited to see Greta get nominated for Best Director and Original Screenplay and honestly think those are the 2 categories that are anybody's game this year. Saoirse Ronan has been getting a lot of awards season love in the Best Actress category and could easily walk away with the win here as well. Laurie Metcalf is also highly deserving in the Supporting Actress category, but Allison Janney just had so much more to play with in I, Tonya and has been sweeping the early awards.
The next 2 on the list are Phantom Thread and The Post. I haven't seen either of these yet, because, in all honesty, I don't want to. Part of me says I SHOULD see them anyway, but the other part of me says life's too short to waste time and money on things you're not into. I will say that I was disappointed to see Daniel Day Lewis get nominated for Best Actor because it seems like he just got the nod because he says Phantom Thread is his last film and he's retiring from acting. It doesn't seem like there's a lot, if any, of the patented DDL method acting involved in this role and I think that nomination could've gone to someone more deserving this year (my dad is campaigning for Ryan Gosling). As for The Post, I think the story is an important one, but I'm very rarely impressed by either Spielberg or Hanks and Meryl has already played Margaret Thatcher. (I know her character isn't LITERALLY Thatcher in this movie, but she looks just like her in the trailers.) You're all free to disagree with me here. I've made generalized judgments. These are just my opinions. Moving right along.
The Shape of Water - Another magical fantasy from the mind of Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water is the beautiful fairytale of the voiceless princess and her amphibian god-like prince, set against the backdrop of Cold War America. Especially striking to me was the use of color, mostly blues and greens, of course, but also reds and golds, creating character and environment and emotion in the background of every moment. It's everything we've come to expect from del Toro and earned 13 total nominations, but it's the nominations it didn't get that baffled me--no love for Visual Effects or Makeup/Hair, which seem like no brainers for transforming Doug Jones (unrecognizable and perfect, as always) into a man-sea creature. Guillermo del Toro is one of the most original filmmakers of our time, so any awards he wins are 100% deserved.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Martin McDonagh's third feature film is not his best work, but it couldn't have come at a better time. Known for his dark humor and intense psychological insights, McDonagh delivers again with this film about a mother dealing with the unsolved rape and murder of her teenage daughter. In a year where strong women have come forward to talk about sexual assault in record numbers, Three Billboards has found itself in prime position going into awards season. I'll be the first to say that the performances in this movie are top notch, but even as a fan of Martin McDonagh, I'm not sure that as an overall film, Three Billboards is the one I want him to win for. In fact, as far as movies about dealing with the aftermath of the rape and murder of a young girl, it's not even the best film of the year. Taylor Sheridan's Wind River, which chronicles the hunt for justice on a Native American reservation, came out in August and was a much more moving and visually striking film.
Ok. I don't know about y'all, but that was a lot to take in at once, so let's let that percolate for a while. And as always, I look forward to your letters.