Oscar Noms 2017: 13 of 13

Part 1 - La La Land, Moonlight, Arrival
Part 2 - Manchester by the Sea, Hacksaw Ridge, Lion
Part 3 - Fences, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, Jackie
Part 4 - Florence Foster Jenkins, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Passengers, Rogue One
Part 5 - Deepwater Horizon, Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, A Man Called Ove
Part 6 - Captain Fantastic, Elle, Loving, Nocturnal Animals
Part 7 - The Lobster, 20th Century Women, Silence, Hail, Caesar!
Part 8 - Live-action Short Films
Part 9 - Animated Short Films
Part 10 - Toni Erdmann, The Salesman, Land of Mine, Tanna
Part 11 - Allied, The Jungle Book, Doctor Strange, 13 Hours
Part 12 - Sully, Zootopia, The Red Turtle, My Life as a Zucchini

Trolls

1 Nomination

• Original Song: "Can't Stop the Feeling!"

Director: Mike Mitchell

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Zooey Deschanel, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Christine Baranski, Russell Brand, Gwen Stefani, John Cleese, James Corden, Jeffrey Tambor, Ron Funches, Aino Jawo, Kunal Nayyar, Quvenzhané Wallis, Caroline Hjelt

I have already written about this very stupid movie. But let's just say that although this movie was very dumb, in fact, we might consider it to be the year's most insistently asinine film, it was not without its pleasures, and I actually rather enjoyed myself. By the way, the reason why Justin Timberlake's troll in the picture above is fifty shades of gray instead of brightly colored like the pink thing to his right and the glitter bomb directly behind him and that llama-muppet at the far right is because Justin's troll is a sad troll who doesn't like to sing or snuggle. He will be, by the end of the film, cured of this unfortunate malady, as you might have been able to predict. The real question of Trolls is: what color will Justin's troll turn when he becomes colorful? If you never watch this film you will never know.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #62 out of 96

Jim: the James Foley Story

1 Nomination

• Original Song: "The Empty Chair"

Director: Brian Oakes

This is an interesting story about a guy named Jim who was a freelance journalist in Benghazi and then later in Aleppo. I really didn't know anything about James Foley before, but he apparently gained national attention as a hostage of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. This is a film about a filmmaker, and it is made with great attention to detail, but it is mostly a film that is designed as a way to mourn a man who did a lot of good during his life. Much of the film consists of interviews with family members – these are touching but sort of confuse the film itself. Foley's family members don't really understand why Jim did what he did, and they mostly use their interviews to sort of collectively puzzle out who this man that they loved was. The most interesting portions of the film to me were the interviews with men who were imprisoned with Foley in Syria. Foley was imprisoned and tortured by ISIL for nearly two years before they executed him publicly. So what happened to Foley while he was in prison had the potential to be the most exciting part of the film. This act of the film is told so strangely, though, that while it should have been the most intriguing section of the movie, it was the least filmic. Most of these sequences are very dark, and the movie includes hazy re-enactments that make this most violent section of the movie seem less real than the other stuff. If you know my work, you know I study torture and violence, and so this movie's refusal really to deal with this frustrated me a lot. As for the song... I checked it as one of the most interesting of the 91 eligible tunes, but there were a lot of better songs up for this award. If you want to listen without seeing the movie, go here.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Unranked (Documentary)

Star Trek Beyond

1 Nomination

• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Sofia Boutella, Idris Elba

I had a great time at this movie. I wouldn't really say that I love Star Trek as such, but I freaking love James Tiberius Kirk. So as long as Captain Kirk is running things, I am here for it. This movie is so much better than all of the other superhero/fantasy movies I saw this year (except Rogue One – I really liked Rogue One). It does crib a couple of things from Guardians of the Galaxy, to be fair, but I was on board even for that. And, finally, Star Trek Beyond turns its focus toward the crew of the Enterprise as a team. The movie is really about how a group of seven people who are devoted to one another can work together to solve a problem. I was buying whatever this movie was selling. I even really liked the Rihanna song that played over the credits. Will it win? I hope so, becaause the other option is Suicide Squad, more on which below.

Will Win: Makeup & Hairstyling

Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #28 out of 96

Suicide Squad

1 Nomination

• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: David Ayer

Cast: Margot Robbie, Will Smith, Viola Davis, Joel Kinneman, Jay Hernandez, Jai Courtney, Jared Leto, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Ben Affleck, Ike Barinholtz

This is beneath contempt. It has no script whatsoever. In fact, I kind of can't believe this was made. The makeup is kind of great, I will have to admit, and the Joker and Harley looks really have become iconic. But this thing is terrible and completely fucking incoherent. And I can't believe David Ayer, who made my beloved Fury made this piece of trash. Honestly what is Warner Brothers doing?
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Makeup & Hairstyling

My Rating: #93 out of 96

Back to:
Part 1 - La La Land, Moonlight, Arrival
Part 2 - Manchester by the Sea, Hacksaw Ridge, Lion
Part 3 - Fences, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, Jackie
Part 4 - Florence Foster Jenkins, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Passengers, Rogue One
Part 5 - Deepwater Horizon, Kubo and the Two Strings, Moana, A Man Called Ove
Part 6 - Captain Fantastic, Elle, Loving, Nocturnal Animals
Part 7 - The Lobster, 20th Century Women, Silence, Hail, Caesar!
Part 8 - Live-action Short Films
Part 9 - Animated Short Films
Part 10 - Toni Erdmann, The Salesman, Land of Mine, Tanna
Part 11 - Allied, The Jungle Book, Doctor Strange, 13 Hours
Part 12 - Sully, Zootopia, The Red Turtle, My Life as a Zucchini

Pregame: the Longshots

My November-February movie-watching is dictated by a couple of important parameters:
The Oscar nominations don't arrive until late January, but if I wait until the nominations come out, lots of things will no longer be in theatres, especially movies that don't do well. But, see, lots of bad movies get Oscar nominations in categories like Best Original Song, Best Costume Design, and Best Visual Effects. So I pick through what I think could be nominated and then basically gamble. What I don't want to happen is have a movie get nominated for something totally random like Best Sound Editing and then have it be in that period of time between theatrical release and Internet release when I can't catch it before the Oscars. This occasionally leads to some pretty egregious pregames... and to me seeing some terrible movies.

Here are some of my most egregious pregames of this awards season:

Trolls. Yes, I did see Trolls. Justin Timberlake's song "Can't Stop the Feeling!" was one of my not-so-guilty pleasures last Summer, and it was super popular. It was written specifically for Trolls, so a nomination seems sort of inevitable. This happened when Pharrel got nominated for "Happy" for that stupid Despicable Me 2 concoction a couple years ago. In truth every year some idiotic films get nominated in this country, and I am forced to figure out a way to see them (Fifty Shades of Grey, The Lego Movie, Ted, The Muppets, you get the idea). I figured I would take the bull by the horns this year and get myself to the theatre for Trolls.

The verdict? It was so totally asinine. But I honestly didn't mind. It was plenty of fun, and even though I think Anna Kendrick is annoying, the movie has Christine Baranski, as well as enough irony about its own stupidity to squeak by. Will it be nominated? I still think so, although there is a lot of competition.

Allied. I am an asshole for seeing this one. I don't know what I was thinking. I think I had in my mind that this was vaguely about World War II and that its 1940s dresses and suits and possibly even the art direction would hook a nomination even though the critics tore this one to pieces and audiences seemed soft on the thing. That costume category can be very strange. How is a person to predict a movie like Mr. Turner or The Grandmaster or The Invisible Woman? These things are difficult.

The verdict? This movie is terrible. I almost never like Marion Cotillard in movies where she speaks predominantly English, and this one is no exception. She looks awkward in almost every scene, as though she isn't quite positive that she understands what she's saying. Now, this could work for her character, who is supposed to be a foreign spy, but it doesn't. And Brad Pitt (who I have said before is a brilliant actor) is totally phoning this one in. He is dull and stilted. He's supposed to be playing a bit of a previously-unloved dork, too, which makes no sense because he is Brad fucking Pitt and is cooler than most people who have lived on this earth in all of human history. Also, the script is terrible, and it appears as though a few superfluous shootout sequences behind enemy lines were added at the last minute just to give this bland narrative some spice. But nothing could have saved it. A disaster. Will it be nominated? No way.

Doctor Strange. I went to see this because everyone was talking about its special effects and because people drunkenly recommended it to me. I know you aren't into Marvel movies, Aaron, but trust me on this one. That sort of thing. Special Effects movies can be dangerous to miss, too, because sometimes the lag between theatres and the blu-ray release can take a while. So off to Doctor Strange I went.

The verdict? Boring. Why are all of these Marvel movies exactly the same. And why is the world always about to end so that all of humanity is threatened with destruction? Can't we, in one of these Marvel movies, just be threatened with something a little less apocalyptic? Perhaps magical space-bending wizards could avert the destruction of, like, 500,000 people or simply figure out how to stop a military coup in a European (or South American, I'm not picky) dictatorship. Why not? Why do they always need to repair the fraying of the space-time continuum or some other silly thing. Like, ooooo, I wonder if the superheroes will manage to stave off the apocalypse until yet another sequel offers a new threat to human existence. Yep, turns out they did! Whew, that was a close one. Will it be nominated? Yeah, I think so. The effects really are cool.

I've already talked about Rules Don't Apply, which I thought might nab a nomination or two, and The Dressmaker, which I thought might get a costume nomination, so I won't go into those here, especially since I don't think either will get nominated for anything next Tuesday. But I do have one more:

Hacksaw Ridge. This is the new Mel Gibson movie, and I had planned to see it with a friend, but he and I had seen a couple of real stinkers in a row, and I got nervous. I couldn't bear watching another really bad one with him. I wanted to make sure the next one we saw together was really good. I also wasn't really sure what this could be nominated for – sound? sound editing? acting?

The verdict? The film's first and second acts are both rather uneven – and do not seem to match one another either – but Hacksaw Ridge is amazing. It's stunningly, shockingly good, and the presentation of the violence during the war sequences is so fast and head-spinning, so disgustingly grotesque, so absolutely horrific that I sat with my jaw dropped for most of act three. I have never seen anything like the violence in this movie. I mean that honestly. And this movie's distaste for the violence of war is not only a part of its plot – the central storyline is about a soldier who refuses to carry a weapon and do harm to anyone else – it is part of its filmmaking as well. The direction of these war sequences is so refreshingly opposed to the horrors of war. It's great.

And will it get nominated for anything? Hacksaw Ridge has emerged as one of the frontrunners in the race this year. It's one of the big surprises of the year. People are talking about Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay. It could rack up 6 or 7 nominations next Tuesday and I wouldn't be surprised. If it does, it will have deserved them.

Two Cartoons

Moana was totally delightful. I can't get behind Lin-Manuel Miranda's singing voice, but when he has time to polish his rhymes, he cranks out some great stuff – a highlight for me was The Rock's song "You're Welcome". I loved all the Polynesian mythology, the animation is fun, and the characters are great. I cried like five times.


















Trolls is asinine. This is a movie based on a doll that used to be popular when I was a kid. What in the actual fuck. Honestly, I didn't mind one bit and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It doesn't take its own rainbows and glitter too seriously, and there is much to recommend by way of fun.