Road to the 2017 Oscars: Part 2

 

Part two of a four part series taking a look at the Academy Award Nominations. Part One can be found here.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

Hell or High Water

I wrote about this movie in my ‘5 Hidden Gem Movies from 2016’ article from a couple months ago. Here’s what I said at the time:

“Westerns have been making a bit of a comeback lately and while I wouldn’t characterize this strictly in the genre it certainly has the feeling of a modern one. And a good one at that. Chris Pine and Ben Foster play brothers that are targeting a specific brand of banks to rob in order to keep the family ranch after their mom passed away. Jeff Bridges meanwhile plays a sheriff whose ‘one last job’ is to try and bring them to justice. Nothing new here but one twist is that Bridges doesn’t want to retire. He enjoys his job catching ‘bad guys’ too much. Its also just incredibly well made. Director David Mackenzie is coming off one of my favorite movies from 2014 in ‘Starred Up’ and is now firmly in my ‘must watch’ list whenever he comes out with something new. ‘Hell or High Water’ looks great. Dirty at the same time beautiful. It just feels natural in the same way a Jeff Nichols (Mud, Take Shelter) movie does. Violence is used sparingly here but when it is you can feel it. Its brutal. Its also funnier than I ever thought it would be. The performances help in that regard, they’re all pretty good but Chris Pine is the standout. It reminded me a bit of ‘No Country for Old Men’ if you get rid of Anton Chigurh. Who wouldn’t like that?”

I stand by that. As for it’s nominations I’m fine with this getting nominated for Best Picture. I’m glad its getting some shine in the spotlight so that more people are encouraged to see it. Jeff Bridges was nominated for Best Supporting Actor which I have to say is a little disappointing. I thought he was the weakest performance of the bunch (although certainly not bad). I’d rather have seen Ben Foster in his place as he did some great work. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Deserving in both cases although I have a tough time picking out great editing and distinguishing it from other good edits. Its one of those things where I only really notice it when its flashy or bad. In this case I’ll just assume they’re right. No argument from me.

My Ranking: 5^th out of the nine

Hidden Figures

This is one of those movies that just feels very ‘Hollywood’. A by the book, paint by numbers account of a historical event that leaves you feeling good without making anyone look too bad. And while that sounds like a negative it actually works quite well for the film in this case. The story of Katherine Johnson, an African American NASA “computer” (mathematician before actual computers came around) in the early 1960’s who was integral in the launch of John Glenn and went on to calculate the launch of Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 space missions is really well made. Its a big step up for director Theodore Melfi who directed ‘St. Vincent’ in 2014. A movie that had its moments but ultimately leaned more to the bad side of a predictable feel good movie. Here he is able to get some great performances, not just from Taraji P. Henson in the lead but from Janelle Monae and Octavia Spencer as well who play Johnson’s friends and co-workers. Spencer was nominated for Best Supporting Actress and just like with ‘Hell or High Water’ I think they picked the wrong performance. Monae was better to me but thats not to say Spencer isn’t deserving.

The movie that this most reminds me of is 2011’s ‘The Help’. Besides the obvious connection of a period piece about the struggle of African American women, its also similar in tone and quality. ‘The Help’ was another movie that felt very Hollywood like mentioned above and was better than I expected along with it. Octavia Spencer is another link between the two films. ‘Hidden Figures’ also got a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. I could probably pick out some snubs that I might prefer over it if I did some digging but its not egregious. The movie is both at once light hearted and sincere in its drama. It has a great pace to it helped out by a really fun soundtrack highlighted by “Runnin’” by Pharrell Williams. You also get a good performance out of Kevin Costner who is an actor I don’t always appreciate. The movie is currently in theaters and doing quite well for itself, sitting at $120 million domestic at the time of this writing.

My Ranking: 7^th out of the nine

La La Land

Undoubtedly you’ve heard of this one. Currently raking in the dough at the box office ($268 million worldwide on a $30 million budget) after tying the record for most Academy Award nominations with 14. After ‘The Artist’ temporarily brought back a modicum of excitement for black and white film in 2011 Hollywood tried to do the same for movie musicals in 2012 with ‘Les Miserables’. Where that failed to capture the movie going public at large ‘La La Land’ has seemingly taken the world by storm. At least by insular movie industry standards. The love story of two young artists, Ryan Gosling the musician and Emma Stone the actress, plays out through song some of the time but really isn’t as much of a pure musical as you probably think it is if you haven’t seen it. Its worthy of most of the praise its getting. I’m certainly no big fan of musicals (there have been some that I’ve enjoyed a great deal but they’re usually not of the traditional variety) but I enjoyed this a great deal. The movie starts off with a bang and carries that momentum for the first 30 minutes or so before falling into a bit of a lull and ending very strong.

The film’s 14 nominations include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Score, two Best Songs, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing. The only ones I can argue against are Ryan Gosling in Best Actor (he’s good but was better in ‘The Nice Guys’) and one of the songs, doesn’t matter which one you remove but room needed to be made for ‘Drive It Like You Stole It’ from ‘Sing Street’. Emma Stone is the front runner for Best Actress and she does a great job as usual. Its not a powerhouse performance but this just happens to a train plowing straight ahead and shes along for the ride. Director Damien Chazelle is coming off of 2014’s indie hit ‘Whiplash’ and proved that it was no fluke. He’s made a beautiful film here and I look forward to seeing what he comes out with next. While ‘La La Land’ may not be as good as the number of awards it will probably win on February 26^th its a movie worth seeing even if you feel like it won’t be your cup of tea. It might just charm you anyway.

My Ranking: 4^th out of the nine