Having previously looked at the technical categories, both big and small, we’re now moving on to the heavy hitters in this year’s Oscars:
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
NOMINEES
Call Me by Your Name—James Ivory
The Disaster Artist—Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber
Logan—Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green
Molly’s Game—Aaron Sorkin
Mudbound—Virgil Williams and Dee Rees
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With the Oscars on Sunday, we’re running through our predictions and preferences for all 21 feature categories. Yesterday, we looked at eight below-the-line fields; today, we’re continuing with some more high-profile technical categories. And by “high-profile” I mean “ones I care about”.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
NOMINEES
Blade Runner 2049—Roger Deakins
Darkest Hour—Bruno Delbonnel
Dunkirk—Hoyte van Hoytema
Mudbound—Rachel Morrison
The Shape of Water—Dan Laustsen
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Who cares about the Oscars? Nobody, and also lots of people. It’s silly to ascribe too much importance to a self-congratulatory festival, but at the same time, the Academy Awards can help raise the profile of good movies and the talented people who make them. As long as you don’t take them too seriously, you just might end up enjoying yourself.
Plus, the Oscars are an opportunity for uninformed speculation, which is always fun. Over the next five days, we’ll be predicting the winners in the 21 feature categories (sorry, I ignore the shorts). These prognostications are the result of tireless data mining and thorough research. Or I’m just winging it.
Today, we’re running through eight below-the-line fields that can easily swing your office pool if you don’t pay attention. Let’s dig in: Read More
Early in Black Panther, Ryan Coogler’s bold and thorny new film that is the eighteenth entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the titular hero asks his young sister, Shuri, why she’s bothering to upgrade an already elegant technological system. Shuri—played by an impish, scene-stealing Letitia Wright—responds with huffy wisdom: “Just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.” The MCU has its faults—low-stakes storytelling, visual sameness, an exponentially swelling character base—but as mega-franchises go, it’s pretty good, churning out suitably entertaining products that are typically funny, professionally made, and well-acted. What’s gratifying about Black Panther is the way it operates within the MCU’s preestablished confines (the groaning Stan Lee cameo, the post-credits scenes) while simultaneously seeking to push beyond them. In raw terms, it isn’t the MCU’s best movie—its hero is too bland, its story too busy—but it may be its most interesting. And in an era where carefully packaged formula rules the cinematic roost, an interesting superhero movie is something to savor.
It also helps dispel the myth that personal filmmaking and corporate oversight are somehow incompatible. With Black Panther, Coogler continues to tackle the themes of racial strife, familial loyalty, and youthful conflict that animated his previous features, the heartfelt docudrama Fruitvale Station and the boisterous boxing picture Creed. But he has also made—and I mean this sincerely rather than pejoratively—a comic-book movie, complete with bright colors, complex mythology, and CGI-inflected rumbles. His estimable achievement is to weave these elements into a cohesive vision. Black Panther is packed with excitement and ideas, but it never feels choppy or overstuffed. Read More
Yesterday, we posted our list of the 10 best movies of 2017. Today, per annual tradition, I’m ranking every single theatrical release of the year (well, except for all the ones I didn’t see). To be clear, this is a stupid and arbitrary exercise; if I made the same list from scratch tomorrow, I’m sure it would look dramatically different, especially the bottom half. But I like doing it because it serves as a recordkeeping function, and it encourages people to yell at me about my taste.
Housekeeping: For each movie that I formally reviewed, the hyperlink will take you to that review. I’m also including the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores for each film, just to show whether I conform to or diverge from the so-called critical consensus. And because I’m first and foremost a public servant, if a movie is currently streaming on a popular service, I’ll note that, just in case that nudges you into watching something from the comfort of your couch. Read More