Ranked: the 2017 Best Picture nominees

I refuse to watch Hacksaw Ridge because it looks like an absolute chore (and I despise Mel Gibson), so here be my rankings, from least favourite to favourite, of the 8 films nominated for Best Picture that I have seen. I’ll list the three most Bye Felicia ones today, and give the better five later this week.

08. Manchester by the Sea

Kenneth Lonergan’s bleak-fest has Casey Affleck in a domain he’s completely unfamiliar with: Boston. He plays a reclusive handyman, Lee Chandler, who is made legal guardian of his nephew Patrick after Patrick’s father dies, forcing him to revisit painful memories in his Massachusetts hometown of Manchester.

Some BBFC nerdiness at the Oscar nominations.

Hey Em, don't make it sad. Take a shite batch of Oscar nominations and make it better! With BBFC stats and shiz, of course.

Those Bloody Oscar Nominations

Below be my thoughts on the Oscar nominations, which came out on Tuesday. Belated post is belated because I’ve had somewhat of a busy week, and I couldn’t bring myself to blog on the day because I was too busy seething.

[picture credit] This image works on so many film banter levels: 1) Ben and Amy appeared together in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, one of the frontrunners.... for the Razzies, 2) Although not nominated, Ben Affleck will play a prominent part in the Oscar race, campaigning his ass off for his brother, and 3) AMAZING AMY WAS MISSING.

2017 Oscar nomination predictions.

The Oscar nominations come out on Tuesday, and seeing as there aren’t any awards shows/major critics circles announcing their wins/nominations before then, I thought there couldn’t be any harm in predicting Tuesday’s nominations now!

Best picture

Arrival

Hacksaw Ridge

Hell or High Water

Hidden Figures

La La Land

Lion

Manchester by the Sea

Moonlight

Alt: Fences, Nocturnal Animals, Zootopia

2017 Screen Actor Guild nominations!!

I’d just come out of a meeting to check the nominations and when I saw my girl Emily Blunt got a surprise nomination, I almost started hyperventilating!!!!! I was not expecting that one at all, as the film was terrible, and usually when people nominate a performance in a film, they tend to take the quality of the film into consideration. But so happy to be proved wrong! Here be some of my quick thoughts on the film nominations (don’t know enough about TV to comment)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
CASEY AFFLECK  – “MANCHESTER BY THE SEA”
ANDREW GARFIELD– “HACKSAW RIDGE”
RYAN GOSLING–“LA LA LAND”
VIGGO MORTENSEN– “CAPTAIN FANTASTIC”
DENZEL WASHINGTON– “FENCES” 

Would love to see Denzel win, but unfortunately, we all know this award is going to the Groper of Women when they Sleep, Casey Affleck.

Andrew Garfield’s SAG nomination means we get (sort of) his-and-hers nominations for him and his ex-girlfriend Emma Stone; although they’ve broken up, they parted ‘very amicably’ and by all intents and purposes seem to adore each other. Awww.

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
AMY ADAMS– “ARRIVAL”
EMILY BLUNT– “THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN”
NATALIE PORTMAN– “JACKIE”
EMMA STONE– “LA LA LAND”
MERYL STREEP– “FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS” 

Elated for Amy and Emily!!!!

Amy I was pretty sure was getting in, as she’s in a strong film and is popular with awards bodies, and she bloody deserves it. Adams is so talented she can even act well in Batman v Superman.

But I really did not see that Blunt nomination coming. The Girl on the Train was an absolute chore, tediously written and directed, but Blunt was far away the best thing about it. And she was absolutely phenomenal, one of the best drunk performances ever, even more impressive given she didn’t touch a sip of alcohol during the shoot. 

I just love how the top two performances from my Best Actress list so far this year have gotten recognised!

Now BAFTA better f_cking nominate Emily too and build some momentum for her to get that Oscar nomination! I'm not sure they will, tho, they didn't even nominate Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years last year...

The main loser from this list, sadly, is Isabelle Huppert, who had been gaining quite a lot of awards traction by scooping the majority of critics awards. Not being nominated here calls her chances of an Oscar nomination into doubt.

Her omission is good news for Natalie Portman and Emma Stone, who will probably go head-to-head for that Oscar.

Natalie has already won one (for being histrionic and taking the credit for her body double's excellent ballet dancing in Black Swan), so the odds probably favour the "half-Asian", Emma Stone.

Really hope Isabelle Huppert scuppers the both of them come Oscar time :P

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
MAHERSHALA ALI– “MOONLIGHT”
JEFF BRIDGES– “HELL OR HIGH WATER”
HUGH GRANT– “FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS”
LUCAS HEDGES– “MANCHESTER BY THE SEA”
DEV PATEL– “LION” 

I haven’t seen Florence Foster Jenkins, but the fact that Hugh Grant got nominated for Lead Actor at the Golden Globes suggests some category fraud here. Happy for him, nonetheless. 

Speaking of category fraud, this is the second time the SAGs have shamelessly enabled category fraud on the part of Dev Patel; he was nominated for Supporting Actor in 2009 for Slumdog Millionare. Supporting. When the whole film’s about his character! (but I’m very pleased for him;  he was great in Skins and seems a thoroughly sweet chap!)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
VIOLA DAVIS– “FENCES”
NAOMIE HARRIS– “MOONLIGHT”
NICOLE KIDMAN – “LION”
OCTAVIA SPENCER– “HIDDEN FIGURES”
MICHELLE WILLIAMS – “MANCHESTER BY THE SEA” 

With her Golden Globe and now SAG nominations, Octavia Spencer’s shots at an Oscar nomination for Hidden Figures have sky-rocketed. Her The Help co-star Viola Davis must be favourite for the win here, although her closest competitor is probably Michelle Williams.

I would have loved to have seen some recognition for Lily Gladstone's beautifully realised turn in Certain Women, but that film was probably too small-budget for major movie awards. Hopefully she'll win at the Independent Spirit Awards, tho.

I so, so wish Viola had campaigned for Lead; maybe then, someone could have put the brakes on Natalie’s second Oscar or the "half-Asian" winning. :'(

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC
FENCES
HIDDEN FIGURES
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
MOONLIGHT 

This is the SAG category that is most correlative to ‘Best Picture’ at the Oscars, so it may seem strange not to see Best Picture frontrunner La La Land on here. But as many who’ve seen the film have commented, La La Land is essentially a duet between Stone and Gosling, and there’s not much in the way of memorable support. So fair play to SAG for actually nominating films for the category that it says, rather than bending to populism.

Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight were always going to get nominated in Ensemble, but the other three: Fences, Captain Fantastic and Hidden Figures not necessarily so, so their chances with Oscar have just been boosted. I think Moonlight will win this category, making it La La Land's main competitor for Best Pic.

The race just got exciting!

BAFTA better nominate Emily Blunt for Best Actress!!! She’s one of your own, BAFTA!

So many explanation marks in this post. I’m just so giddy on Emily Blunt’s behalf. What a week. Between Jonah’s surprise Golden Globe nomination on Monday and Emmy’s surprise nom today, I am just loving these noms!

2017 Golden Globe nominations!

Here be the 2017 Golden Globe nominations, announced earlier today! As I haven't seen the majority of the films yet, I shall just post the lists unless I have something of value to say XD

Best Picture, Drama 
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Where on earth is Arrival? No way is Mel Gibson's tedious-looking Hacksaw Ridge more deserving of a Best Pic nomination than the beautiful sci-fi movie! I'm glad to see Hell or High Water get some love, tho.

Best Picture, Comedy or Musical 
20th Century Women
Deadpool
Florence Foster Jenkins
La La Land
Sing Street

Of these, I've only seen Deadpool, which was solid (7/10), although comedies I rated higher this year include Zootopia, Cafe Society, War Dogs, The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, The Edge of Seventeen, Ghostbusters and Love and Friendship, so I can't say I think it totally deserves its place on the list.

Best Director 
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

I'm not convinced Tom Ford's ponderous brand of perfume commercial 'directing' in Nocturnal Animals was better than what Denis Villeneuve achieved on the other Amy Adams film, but there you go. I know I haven't seen Hacksaw Ridge but ew at that raging anti-semite Mel Gibson being recognised.

Best Actor, Drama 
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Joel Edgerton, Loving
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

I haven't seen any of these titles yet, but Casey Affleck  has been absolutely decimating the competition in all the Critics Awards so far, so he's considered front-runner for Best Actor. Which is annoying as he groped a woman whilst she was asleep, but hey-ho, I guess Hollywood has short memories about sexpesting when you're white and your big brother does all the campaigning on your behalf, precluding you from looking thirsty.

(The irony of me complaining about a sibling showing off on their younger brother's behalf is a bit rich, given I'm constantly bragging about my brother's grades on Facebook, but not like me to be a hypocrite, now is it? *cough* have a go at Blahra Delevingne for using her father's connections to get into films when I didn't do a dissimilar thing to get on my MSc *cough*)

Best Actress, Drama 
Amy Adams, Arrival
Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie

Yesss at Amy Adams getting nominated for the right movie. And yessss for her fellow redhead Jessica Chastain getting a nom; an Oscar nom is probably out of the question now, but it's nice to see Queen Jessica recognised somewhere! 

Isabelle Huppert has been slaying at the Critics Awards so far, and whilst the overlap between critics (who tend to favour arthouse, European performances) isn't identical with the Oscars and HPFA, their star-f_cking Hollywood counterparts, this nomination builds good momentum for Isabelle. I hope she wins the Oscar!!!!

Best Actor, Comedy 
Colin Farrell, The Lobster
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Jonah Hill, War Dogs
Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool

Ma boi Jonah Hill for War Dogs had me like 😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎

I've been trawling Oscarwatch websites and the dismay and shade at Hill getting nominated here has me trollfacing, so hard. He provoked a similar reaction when he got his second Oscar nomination for The Wolf of Wall Street, as if because he's rotund and a comedy man, he's not allowed to recognised for his acting performances???

My money is on 99% of the naysayers not even having seen War Dogs, because Hill was immense in it. His unsettling giggle and his portrayal of a self-aggrandising, jumped up prick was just so on point and I would know about self-aggrandisement. He fully deserves this nomination, haters gonna hate. SO PROUD OF JONAH!!!!

Best Actress, Comedy 
Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
Lily Collins, Rules Don't Apply
Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

And so proud for young Hailee Steinfeld as well!!!!!! Hailee was snubbed of a Golden Globe nomination for her majestic turn in True Grit, although she eventually went on to get an Oscar nomination for that film, so it didn't harm her too much. I love her, she's in Taylor Swift's Bad Blood music video (along with another actress who I love and never discredit, Cara Delevingne) and she's a sick singer too; Love Myself needs to be everybody's masturbation anthem.

Plus Hailee was absolutely radiant in Edge of Seventeen, bringing empathy and pathos to a character who (on paper) was an absolute nightmare. Her expressive face just lit up the screen.

I hope Hailee wins this category, although that's very unlikely. Emma Stone will certainly be frontrunner for this award, not least because La La Land will win multiple categories at the Globes. I be hella petty and fangirlish; I don't want Emma Stone to win an Oscar until her Superbad co-star Jonah Hill wins his first. (also, she played a half-Asian in Aloha. Just sayin').

Best Supporting Actor 
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Simon Helberg, Florence Foster Jenkins
Dev Patel, Lion
Aaron Taylor Johnson, Nocturnal Animals

I'm so happy ATJ got credit for Nocturnal Animals!! In all the other precursors so far, it's Michael Shannon who has been getting nominated for Supporting Actor, so the fact that the Golden Globes bucked the trend is both surprising and welcome. Aaron was creepy AF in Nocturnal Animals, what a transformation given he's quite the dish in real life. And I know this isn't related to his acting, but I just love that he took on his wife' surname.

Simon Helberg is ace on The Big Bang Theory as smarmy Howard, so it's nice to see he's transitioned to films well!

Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Strong category. I haven't seen any of the performances yet, but currently in my personal Supporting Actress ballot, I have Viola Davis fifth (for Suicide Squad) and Michelle Williams sixth (for Certain Women), and these aren't even the films they're in awards contention in, so I'm sure  they'll bring a lot of gravitas to their nominated roles.

Best Screenplay 
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water

Surprised to see Hell or High Water nominated, but very pleased about it. I'm not convinced about Nocturnal Animals' screenplay, as I was with the direction. It was just a pulpy revenge movie? A very sleek pulpy revenge movie, but a pulpy revenge movie nonetheless. Unless I'm missing something... Personally, I thought the best thing about the film were the performances (particularly ATJ).

Best Original Score 
Moonlight
La La Land
Arrival
Lion
Hidden Figures

Yay for Arrival! Jóhann Jóhannsson's ethereal score suited the vibe of the film perfectly.

Best Animated Feature Film 
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
Sing
Zootopia 

Zootopia is currently my third favourite film of the year and Kubo and the Two Strings my sixth, so I would be happy with either winning.

Best Foreign Language Film 
Divines
Elle
Neruda
The Salesman
Toni Erdmann

No Handmaiden here, hmmm. But Elle, Neruda and Toni Erdmann, the latter which was named Sight and Sound magazine's top film of 2016, are high up on my to-see list.

A film I was surprised to see completely shut-out at the Golden Globes was Martin Scorsese's Silence. Here be a film poster of it I spotted yesterday:

Silence has its BBFC rating, by the way, 15 for 'strong violence, scenes of torture'. Which is actually tame by Scorsese's standards~~~~

Film review: CERTAIN WOMEN (Kelly Reichardt, 2016)

Certain Women is a triptych of stories about three women living in Montana, whose lives are peripherally connected. In the first instalment, lawyer Laura (Laura Dern) struggles to get through to a stubborn client, who later takes another character hostage in order to get what he wants. In the middle segment, Gina (Michelle Williams) and her husband try to build a house together, the procurement of sandstone for which betrays some fundamental fissures in their marriage. And in the final story arc, a nameless ranch hand (Lily Gladstone) attends an evening class taught by Beth (Kristen Stewart), and develops a crush on her teacher.

Relative unknown Lily Gladstone, who has been picking up various critics’ awards for her beautiful performance as the rancher, is easily the film’s MVP, and consequently, her section of the film was my favourite. In another universe, where independent films could afford to distribute screeners for the Oscars (and Oscars were actually awarded on merit), she’d be a shoo-in for a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The majority of her character’s feelings are illustrated through her face rather than words and her big brown eyes convey a lifetime of longing for human company. It's a mesmerizingly moving performance, all the more poignant for its artlessness.

Interestingly, in Maile Meloy's short story collection from which this segment was adapted, the character Gladstone played was a man. But it’s a curiously gender-fluid role, and a sign of cinema graduating with the times, that Reichardt successfully adapted the character to be female in her film. In fact, the besotted way in which Gladstone gazes at Stewart was hauntingly reminiscent of the loving look Jesse Eisenberg gives the same actress in Café Society, as well as the way Emory Cohen looks at Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn. Both actors gave fine portrayals of men in love, but in witnessing the unguarded yearning in Gladstone's eyes, and knowing that the object doesn't feel the same way, filled me with more pathos than watching the guys did.

Michelle Williams cements her reputation as one of the best actresses of her generation as a hardworking and under-appreciated wife and mother. As with her most powerful scenes in Brokeback Mountain, Williams makes excellent use of body language to convey a mountain of resentment at her slack husband. Michelle Williams, Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart all impressively shed their natural grace and beauty to inhabit far more ordinary characters, without the de-glamorisation process feeling too ‘awards-begging’.

The fact that the actresses so convincingly slip into their run-down roles make the human interactions which they are implicated in the more urgent, even if the register of the film never reaches a dramatic crescendo. In Certain Women, there are 'good' or 'evil' characters, epitomised in the first part, where the disgruntled client who entangles Laura in a hostage situation, it transpires, really was screwed over by his previous company, and feels he has nowhere left to turn. Such scenes are reflective of the real world, where there are no easy answers, and people can only try to make the best of bad situations.

Essentially, Kelly Reichardt's understated, intelligent film makes like that Beyoncé lyric; "Who run the world? Girls." Except in her celebration of the minutiae, she illustrates that while certain women don’t make a song and dance about their actions or their consequences, it doesn’t render them any less profound.

8/10

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If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my other reviews here. Certain Women hits UK cinemas on the 3rd March 2017.

Every night I go, I go sneaking out the door.

Brothers (Jim Sheridan, 2009)
Vaguely interesting re-make of Brødre, with some strong performances from Gyllenhaal and Maguire, but Portman was lol-worthy. I strongly disliked the uglier daughter in the film as well; the things she said to Tobey Maguire over the dinner table deserved a slap.

Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010)

I'd read the book beforehand so knew the twist, but even so, I adored this film, a lot. Not my favourite from Scorsese, mind, that’s The King of Comedy, but it was really tense and well-sculpted, and Leonardo DiCaprio reminded me why he’s one of my 3 favourite actors with a characteristically strong performance. The sequences with DiCaprio and Williams were terrifically staged and dead depressing. The music was reallllly intense (albeit heavy on the usage of the double bass), which added to the impending sense of doom of the film. I don't think I like it quite as much as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but I prefer it muchly to Mulholland Dr.  Anyway, recommended.

Shank (Mo Ali, 2010)
Oh dear. I'm not exaggerating when I say this was one of the worst films I've ever seen in my entire life. I only watched it in the first place for Kaya Scodelario (Effy from Skins), but, aside from looking quite slutty and skinny, she didn't do anything. The male characters were all major pains in the backsides and I found myself, more than once, thinking "just die already". There was also a quite terrible scene in which two dogs beat the crap out of each other. Shit acting, shit direction and animal cruelty to boot. Piece of shit.

Cracks (Jordan Scott, 2009)

I'd been looking forward to watching this film for ages, and it didn't disappoint! Eva Green oozed charisma and it wasn't hard to see why Juno Temple and her fellow classmates idolised her so. Relative unknown María Valverde impressed me greatly and I felt for her in her plight. The "seduction" scene, wherein Green misuses her teacherly role was classily and darkly handled, and the score from Javier Navarrete (the guy that scored Pan's Labyrinth) was beautifully haunting.

Saw VI (Kevin Greutert, 2009)
Disappointing and not even terribly scary. I just thought Saws I-III did it a lot better, and some of the tortures (a man getting his insides incinerated with hydrochloric acid) were just beyond grim. Saw I was brilliant because it was so groundbreaking, but now everything was done and nothing surprised me.

Pretty Persuasion (Marcos Siega, 2005)

My main problem with this film was that it quite patently couldn't decide what it wanted to be more like: a Heathers of the noughties, or a slightly meaner Mean Girls. As such, it couldn't quite deal with its own tonal modulations. Some of the banter was fun, but on the whole, it turned my stomach to think about 15-year-old girls doing some of the things that Evan Rachel Wood's character did.

I also watched the Easter special of Jonathan Creek, called "The Judas Tree", and I was reminded of why I love this show so much. Whilst I still haven't quite accepted Sheridan Smith as his sidekick, the mystery, plotting and denouement were all brilliant, and there was a fair dose of heartbreak in the finale. <3

06. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)