So….I was able to see an online advanced screening of CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) which is available on AppleTV this Friday. As you can mostly tell from the title, this is a story about a 17 year old girl (Ruby Rossi, played brilliantly by Emilia Jones) who is the sole hearing member of a deaf family, as her father, mother, and brother are all completely hearing impaired.
Ruby works with her father and brother early in the morning out on their fishing boat and then proceeds to go to high school right after. She ends up being the target of high school bullies between smelling like fish in the morning and being in a completely deaf family. Ruby decides on the spur of the moment to sign up for choir because she loves to sing, which her family never knew or even could know.
Her school’s choir is run by Bernardo Villalobos, played by the always enthralling Eugenio Derbez. “Mr. V” is that perfect mix of a tough teacher that also goes above and beyond to nurture talent when he sees it. Ruby’s first interaction with Mr. V is quite embarrassing when all he wanted everyone in choir to do was sing the beginning to “Happy Birthday” solo, just to gauge who was an alto or a tenor.
Without going further into the story, and possibly giving away things that happen, I wanted to give attention to Ruby’s family. Her father, mother, and brother were played, respectively, by Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin, and Daniel Durant. Why do I want to give attention to these three? All three deaf members of Ruby’s family were played by real life deaf actors, giving that full authenticity factor! Watching the movie, you start to realize that the family was really good at ASL and mannerisms that a deaf person would exhibit, because that’s how these actors live life every day. Marlee Matlin is easily the most well-known of these actors, as she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Children of a Lesser God in her film debut.
CODA premiered, virtually, at the Sundance Film Festival back in January 2021 and ended up winning more awards than any other film in Sundance history. This created a bidding war between Netflix, Amazon, Searchlight, and Apple, who ultimately won worldwide distribution rights and is releasing the movie on AppleTV and in select theaters this Friday. So if you want to watch a movie with a mix of drama, music/singing, some comedy sprinkled in, and will also bring tears to your eyes at certain parts, make an effort to catch this either in your local theater where applicable or on AppleTV!
Since basically all movie theaters have been closed for a few weeks now with the coronavirus running rampant, I thought I’d take a look back at movies that were released 20 years ago, at the turn of the century in 2000. This is going to be more of a countdown post of the 88 movies I found that I have seen and were released in the 2000 calendar year. Yes, 88 movies, but based on most recent years, that is actually a relatively small number for me.
2000 has always been a special year in cinema to me as it was the year that the most cinematically perfect movie ever made (in my opinion) was released. The Best Picture nominees from that year were Chocolat, Erin Brockovich, Gladiator, Traffic, and the international film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That year’s awards saw five films garner at least five nominations, composed of all five nominees for Best Picture. Chocolat, Erin Brockovich, and Traffic were all up for five awards, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was up for 10 awards, and eventual Best Picture winner Gladiator led the way with twelve nominations. Only three films won multiple awards that year, with both Traffic and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon winning four Oscars and Gladiator winning five. Director Steven Soderbergh also had the rare distinction of not only winning Best Director that year, but also losing, as he took home the Academy Award for directing Traffic but was also nominated for directing Erin Brockovich.
Now seeing 88 movies from one year may sound like a lot, but there are plenty notable movies from 2000 that I still have not. Some of these include Next Friday, High Fidelity, The Road to El Dorado, Love & Basketball, Hamlet, Dinosaur, Shaft, Chicken Run, Coyote Ugly, Almost Famous, Billy Elliot, Quills, The Emperor’s New Groove, Pollock, and Finding Forrester. When I revisit this list, maybe in 2025 for the 25th anniversary, some of these will have hopefully made the list and altered the rankings. For now though, here are my rankings of the movies released in 2000.
88. Whipped – Not even close to being the best comedy with Amanda Peet in it released this year
87. Bait – If you had told me after seeing this that Jamie Foxx would win an Academy Award for Best Actor in only four years, I wouldn’t have believed you
86. Lucky Numbers – One of many misfires in John Travolta’s career
85. The Ninth Gate – One of the two worst movies I’ve ever seen with Johnny Depp as the lead
84. Gossip – This unsuccessfully tried to build off of the success of Urban Legend’s format from two years prior
83. Gun Shy – Not the typical movie you would expect from Liam Neeson, with this being eight years before Taken
82. Held Up – Another little seen Jamie Foxx comedy, little seen for the right reasons
81. But I’m a Cheerleader – A coming of age comedy starring Natasha Lyonne, straight off of her roles in American Pie and Slums of Beverly Hills the previous two years
80. Eye of the Beholder – Ewan McGregor had this bomb release in between his memorable turns as Obi Wan-Kenobi in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and Christian in Moulin Rouge
79. Screwed – With a comedy cast of Norm MacDonald, Dave Chappelle, and Danny DeVito, you’d expect so much more
78. Reindeer Games – Ben Affleck can be great at times, Gary Sinise is great almost always, Charlize Theron is iconic….but they couldn’t save this action movie that some people watch for a laugh at Christmas
77. Nurse Betty – Renee Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock, Greg Kinnear, Aaron Eckhart….but the only thing most people remember from this movie is a scene with a scalping
76. Proof of Life – Meg Ryan was known as “America’s Sweetheart” throughout the 90’s until this movie that ended up causing her divorce to Dennis Quaid
75. Loser – Jason Biggs got a lot of comedic roles in the early 2000’s based off of his success in American Pie, this one also had Mena Suvari from American Pie, but was nowhere near as memorable
74. Boys and Girls – Another Jason Biggs role with an American Pie costar (Alyson Hannigan) but in a supporting role to the leads Freddie Prinze Jr. and Claire Forlani
73. The Watcher – A year after wowing us all as Neo in The Matrix, Keanu Reeves playing a serial killer was a complete 180
72. The Tigger Movie – A family movie based around Winnie the Pooh’s famous “sidekick”
71. Down to You – Another run-of-the-mill Freddie Prinze Jr. rom-com, this time with co-stars from some of 1999’s best movies, Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You) and Selma Blair (Cruel Intentions)
70. Wonder Boys – A film that was up for three Academy Awards (winning one for Best Original Song for Bob Dylan) starring future Marvel stars Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire. and Robert Downey Jr.
69. Woman on Top – Penelope Cruz as a chef whose husband cheats on her
68. The Gift – A town’s fortune teller (Two time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett) is called upon to assist in an investigation of a missing girl (Katie Holmes), also starring Keanu Reeves, Greg Kinnear, and Oscar winners Hilary Swank and J.K. Simmons
67. Battlefield Earth – A film based around the story of Scientology, starring Scientologist John Travolta as a 9ft tall alien
66. The 6th Day – Arnold Schwarzenegger and clones, much better on paper
65. Urban Legends: Final Cut – Sequel to the surprise hit, but couldn’t hold up to its predecessor
64. Keeping the Faith – A priest (Edward Norton) and a rabbi (Ben Stiller) fall for the same girl (Jenna Elfman)
63. The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps – The sequel to the monster hit with Eddie Murphy playing every member of his family
62. Chocolat – A Best Picture nominee during Miramax Films’ unprecedented run of consecutive years with a Best Picture nominee, a run that is believed to be aided by the wallets of founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein, yes, that Harvey Weinstein
61. Big Momma’s House – Martin Lawrence’s most notorious film role other than Bad Boys, also the second of four movies on this list with Anthony Anderson in it
60. Me, Myself, & Irene – Jim Carrey in a dark comedy about a Rhode Island State Police trooper that develops an angry second personality
59. The Beach – A young Leonardo DiCaprio goes to Thailand and searches for a beach paradise from a map given to him by a man that goes by the name Daffy Duck
58. 28 Days – Sandra Bullock enters rehab after wrecking her sister’s wedding (Side note: a popular misunderstanding of this film is that it is related to the horror movies 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, which it definitely is not)
57. Men of Honor – A biopic of Carl Brashear (Cuba Gooding Jr.), the U.S. Navy’s first African American diver, and his trainer Master Chief Billy Sunday (Robert De Niro)
56. Shanghai Noon – Jackie Chan tries to replicate the success of Rush Hour, but in the Wild West, and with Owen Wilson instead of Chris Tucker
55. Mission to Mars – A PG action thriller starring Tim Robbins, Gary Sinise, Connie Nielsen, and Jerry O’Connell sent on a mission to retrieve Don Cheadle on a previously failed “Mission to Mars”
54. Disney’s The Kid – Bruce Willis meets his 8 year old self
53. The Skulls – Joshua Jackson and Paul Walker get recruited to join a secret society at college
52. Supernova – A sci-fi/horror/thriller set on a medical ship in deep space, but doesn’t quite attain the status and prestige as the classics Alien and Event Horizon
51. Scream 3 – Neve Campbell reprises her role as Sidney Prescott in the third chapter of Wes Craven’s iconic horror series which introduced us all to the Ghostface killer
50. Charlie’s Angels – A hit movie based on the hit TV show from 1976-1981 that also spawned a sequel in 2003 and a failed re-imagining late last year
49. What Women Want – A tale of a chauvinistic executive that gains the ability to hear what all women are thinking, starring Oscar winners Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt as the leads, with Oscar winner Marisa Tomei and Oscar nominee Alan Alda in supporting roles
48. Gone in 60 Seconds – A remake of a movie from 26 years prior centered on a car thief that has to steal 50 cars in one night, featuring an all-star cast composed of Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Will Patton, Delroy Lindo, Timothy Olyphant, Chi McBride, Robert Duvall, and Vinnie Jones
47. Mission: Impossible 2 – The first sequel of Tom Cruise’s action franchise based on a TV show that ran from 1966-1973, Cruise is well-known to do almost all of his own stunts in these movies
46. Rules of Engagement – A colonel orders his troops to fire on civilians in this courtroom drama that reminds you at times of A Few Good Men, but not exactly the classic that AFGM was
45. Miss Congeniality – Sandra Bullock as an FBI agent that goes undercover at the 75th Annual Miss United States beauty pageant
44. Pay It Forward – A 12 year old student is assigned a task by his Social Studies teacher to come up with a plan to change the world through direct action, in this beautiful, underappreciated story
43. Gladiator – Russell Crowe won his only Oscar for his portrayal as General Maximus Decimus Meridius in this story of a Roman general whose wife and son are murdered by order of the Emperor’s corrupt son (Joaquin Phoenix in his first Oscar nomination), sent into slavery, and wants to avenge his family’s deaths. This movie also won Best Picture, which I obviously do not agree with since it is at #43 on this list
42. The Way of the Gun – Criminals, a kidnapping of a pregnant woman, a ransom, and the slowest car chase possible, what more could you ask for in this crime thriller written by the Oscar winning screenwriter of The Usual Suspects?
41. The Virgin Suicides – Sofia Coppola’s feature length directing debut takes on the famous novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. Typically Coppolla’s films run slow, which this one can at times, but this story of the five Lisbon sisters, their religious parents, and the boys that obsess over them is one that should be seen
40. Frequency – A son is able to talk to his father who passed away 30 years before, through an old ham radio, and tries to save him from his death before it happens
39. Shadow of the Vampire – Willem Dafoe as Max Shreck, the actor who played the role of Graf Orlok in the infamous film Nosferatu, in a movie about the making of Nosferatu and the belief that maybe Orlok was so good in his role because he was a vampire in real life. Dafoe was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance and would have won in most years, but not up against Benicio Del Toro in Traffic this year
38. What Lies Beneath – Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer in their primes as a married couple in a film reminiscent of Hitchcock that poses the question: is the house haunted or is she just losing her mind?
37. Return to Me – David Duchovny falls in love with the woman who received his late wife’s heart in a transplant
36. Boiler Room – Giovanni Ribisi as an investment broker that finds out the job isn’t exactly all it’s cracked up to be, with a supporting cast including Vin Diesel, Nia Long, Scott Caan, Jamie Kennedy, Tom Everett Scott, and Ben Affleck
35. Scary Movie – A spoof of Scream that ended up over-performing expectations at the box office and spawned four sequels
34. Whatever It Takes – A modern day telling of Cyrano de Bergerac set in high school
33. The Whole Nine Yards – A dentist (Matthew Perry) realizes that his new neighbor (Bruce Willis) is a former contract killer that was given amnesty for ratting out the mob
32. How the Grinch Stole Christmas – Jim Carrey as the Grinch in a live-action version of the famed Dr. Seuss story, ended up being the #1 movie at the domestic box office for 2000
31. Snow Day – An unexpected snowfall in upstate New York closes schools for the day while a brother and sister try to make the most of it, she tries to hijack the town’s plow which would cause the next day to be another snow day while he tries to get the most popular girl in high school to fall for him
30. Dracula 2000 – Gerard Butler as Dracula with a supporting cast including Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Esposito, Omar Epps, Sean Patrick Thomas, Danny Masterson, Shane West, and Nathan Fillion, that should be convincing enough
29. Center Stage – 12 teenagers are enrolled at the American Ballet Academy in a film that takes on competitive nature, romance, and even showcases the struggles with bulimia, also Zoe Saldana’s first movie role
28. The Replacements – Pro football is on strike so the owners hire “scabs”, replacement players, with Keanu Reeves, Orlando Jones, and Jon Favreau crossing the picket lines and taking the field for their coach, Gene Hackman
27. Remember the Titans – One of Denzel Washington’s most memorable performances in a based on actual events football movie that is more about racial integration, costarring Will Patton, Donald Faison, Ethan Suplee, Kip Pardue, Hayden Panettiere, Kate Bosworth, and Ryan Gosling
26. American Psycho – Christian Bale was warned early on that playing the role of Patrick Bateman in the film adaptation of the famous novel would be “career suicide” as he was trying to transition into a leading actor, his performance did the complete opposite of that as he is now an Oscar winning actor with four nominations under his belt to date and one of the most sought after talents out there
25. Meet the Parents – Ben Stiller has to meet his girlfriend’s parents before popping the question, but he wasn’t expecting her father (Robert De Niro) to be a retired CIA operative. The success of this film spawned two sequels while also introducing us to the phrase “circle of trust”
24. Cast Away – Tom Hanks as a FedEx executive that survives a plane crash and ends up living on an island by himself trying to survive and find a way back to civilization. Most of this film is literally just Hanks on the island with his new friend “Wilson”, a volleyball, in a role that honestly should have made him the first actor to win a third Best Actor Oscar, but the award ultimately went to Crowe in Gladiator
23. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – The fifth foreign language film to ever be nominated for Best Picture, the highest grossing international film in US history (with second place still less than half of this), the first of three Best Director nominations for Ang Lee (ironically the only one he has lost), the accolades are almost endless for Lee’s visually beautiful story of a young Chinese warrior that steals the famous sword Green Destiny
22. Erin Brockovich – Julia Roberts finally won an Oscar for her portayal of the real life single mother turned legal assistant that ended up being the catalyst in one of the biggest class action lawsuits in our country’s history
21. Bedazzled – Brendan Fraser sells his soul to the devil (Elizabeth Hurley) in exchange for seven wishes in this remake of a Dudley Moore film from 33 years prior
20. Little Nicky – Adam Sandler as the son of the Devil sent back to Earth to retrieve his two brothers causing chaos
19. Hollow Man – Kevin Bacon as the leader of a team experimenting with invisibility who volunteers to be the human test subject, causing him mental instability when it cannot be reversed
18. Pitch Black – A space transport gets caught in a meteor storm and crash lands on a planet that has three suns, a planet inhabited by flesh-eating aliens that only come out in the dark, and the planet is about to be engulfed in darkness by a month long total eclipse that happens every 22 years, starring Vin Diesel as a convict with surgically-enhanced eyes that let him see in the dark to lead the survivors
17. X-Men – The first film in the highly successful franchise that introduced us to Stan Lee’s world of mutants and, for most of us, Hugh Jackman
16. Bring It On – Who would have predicted that a simple movie about cheerleaders finding out that their former captain stole their cheers from an inner city squad would be #1 at the box office its first three weekends of release and spawn five sequels?
15. U-571 – Set in WWII, American submariners board and hijack a German U-boat in an attempt to take their Enigma machine, starring Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel, and Jon Bon Jovi, yes, that Jon Bon Jovi
14. Final Destination – Death has a plan for all of us, in a specific order. So when a teenager dozes off after boarding a plane for his class trip to France and sees that the plane is going to explode, he goes into a frenzy causing him and a few others to get off the plane, which ends up exploding, as he had seen, after takeoff. Death comes back for them in the order they were supposed to die in a surprise horror hit that gave us four sequels so far with a fifth currently in development
13. The Cell – This classic psychological thriller literally puts Jennifer Lopez in the mind of a serial killer (Vincent D’Onofrio) as the FBI needs to find out where his latest victim is being held before she dies
12. Unbreakable – 131 passengers on board a train from New York City to Philadelphia derails and 130 of them die, everyone but David Dunn (Bruce Willis), who doesn’t even have a scratch on him. Director M. Night Shyamalan unexpectedly made a trilogy out of this with sequels released in 2017 and 2019
11. The Perfect Storm – Swordfishermen from Gloucester, Massachusetts go further out to sea than they usually do and make the big catch, but between them and Massachusetts is a convergence of two powerful weather fronts AND a hurricane, “The Perfect Storm”. This based on actual events story starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C Reilly, William Fichtner, John Hawkes, and Diane Lane opened in theaters in late June and was still making money at the box office in early December
10. Snatch – A priceless stolen diamond is being sought after by a Russian gangster, angry bookies, incompetent robbers, boxing promoters, and “maybe” Jewish jewelers. Arguably director Guy Ritchie’s greatest film featuring an incredible cast including Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Farina, Brad Pitt (with such a spot-on, incoherent accent that the DVD came out with an option for Pikey subtitles, only for when he spoke), Rade Serbedzija, and introduced most of us to Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham
9. The Patriot – Mel Gibson plays Benjamin Martin, a veteran of the French and Indian War who just wants to go about the rest of his life peacefully. His oldest son Gabriel, played by Heath Ledger (who was actually considering quitting acting before being cast in this role), wants to fight for the Colonies in the American Revolution, against his father’s wishes. Jason Isaacs plays British Colonel William Tavington, who is undoubtedly one of the most memorable villains in cinematic history. This all-star cast also includes Joely Richardson, Chris Cooper, Tcheky Karyo, Tom Wilkinson, Donal Logue, and Adam Baldwin in a film that is vaguely reminiscent, obviously with a different setting, of Mel Gibson’s Best Picture winner Braveheart from five years before
8. O Brother, Where Art Thou? – A comedy directed and written by Ethan and Joel Coen, on a screenplay adapting the story of Homer’s The Odyssey but set in the deep south in the 1930s. George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, and Holly Hunter star in this classic telling of the famed epic poem which was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography)
7. Thirteen Days – Most of us know part of the story, some of us know most of the story, but how many people actually know the whole story of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Set in October 1962, this film details the most intense thirteen days of the Cold War, which could have ultimately created a chain of events that would have led to the beginning of World War III
6. Dude, Where’s My Car? – Potheads Jesse and Chester (played hilariously by Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott, respectively) just woke up from a night of major partying but have no recollection of what happened. A call from their girlfriends (Jennifer Garner and Marla Sokoloff as The Twins) reminds them that their one year anniversary is today. The gifts must be in the car but….Dude, Where’s My Car? The boys must backtrack throughout the day to figure out the incredible sequence of events from the night before and ultimately where their car is. The success of this stoner comedy opened the door for Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle four years later, which also surprisingly gave us two sequels
5. Here on Earth – A tearjerker that tends to be forgotten about when the phrase “tragic love story” gets thrown around. Kelley (Chris Klein) and Jasper (Josh Hartnett) are from different worlds (Kelley goes to a rich, private school while Jasper is a local in town) and get into a car race after Kelley brags about his brand new Benz which ultimately ends up leaving the local diner Mable’s Table, where Jasper’s girlfriend Samantha (Leelee Sobieski) works, in ruins. To teach them a lesson, the judge sentences them to help rebuild the diner, while Kelley has to stay with Jasper’s family, as his mother is the owner
4. Road Trip – Four friends at college need to retrieve a video tape of one of them cheating on his girlfriend, a tape that was mailed to her by accident. 1,800 miles in three days, can it be done? Yes, but it’s more difficult when the unexpected happens, and continues to happen. Josh (Breckin Meyer), E.L. (Seann William Scott), Rubin (Paulo Costanzo), and Kyle (DJ Qualls) are on this mission and leave Barry (Tom Green) behind to tend to and feed Mitch, a pet snake. Road Trip reunites Seann William Scott, Andy Dick, and Mary Lynn Rajskub, three costars from Dude, Where’s My Car?
3. Romeo Must Die – A modern-day telling of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but instead of the Montagues and Capulets, we have the Sings and O’Days, two rival gang families. The Sings are a Chinese family, while the O’Days are African-American. These two rival families are trying to buy, mostly by force, all of the waterfront properties in Oakland to sell them to a white businessman planning to bring a new NFL franchise there. Jet Li stars as Han (our version of Romeo) while singer Aaliyah stars as Trish (Juliet). Costars in this action/martial arts crime thriller include Isaiah Washington, Russell Wong, Delroy Lindo, D.B. Woodside, Anthony Anderson, and rapper DMX. Aaliyah’s #1 hit song “Try Again”, to me, is one of the best soundtrack songs of all-time, and I’ve included the music video below for your enjoyment. Not-so-fun fact: Romeo Must Die was Aaliyah’s acting debut, but also the only movie of hers that would be released before her tragic death in a plane crash in the Bahamas in August of the next year
2. Requiem for a Dream – You’ve definitely heard of the name Darren Aronofsky, the director of this look into the world of drug addiction. Aronofsky has shockingly only directed seven feature length movies as of the time of this post (in chronological order: Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan, Noah, and mother!) and odds are that you’ve seen more than one of them. This tale of addiction to heroin, cocaine, and speed doesn’t focus on the drugs themselves, but focuses more on the addiction aspect. This film pits three eventual Oscar winners together (Ellen Burstyn who was also nominated for her role here, Jared Leto, and Jennifer Connelly) along with Marlon Wayans as the main characters. Requiem for a Dream is one of those movies that when you plan to watch it, you need to give yourself extra time afterwards just to wind down from it (other movies like this would be Aronofsky’s mother! from 2017, the 2008 French horror film Martyrs and a pair of Gaspar Noe’s films Irreversible and Climax)
1. Traffic – In my opinion, the most cinematically perfect movie ever made. No flaws, perfect storytelling. Traffic has three intertwining stories centered around America’s war on drugs. One story follows the newly appointed drug czar of the United States (Michael Douglas) and his daughter (Erika Christensen) who is addicted to heroin. Another story follows a pregnant wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who finds out that her husband (Steven Bauer) hasn’t been truthful about his business and is actually a drug lord for the Obregon brothers in the US. The third storyline takes place mostly in Mexico (in Spanish, so be prepared for subtitles, if that bothers you) and follows a police officer (Benicio Del Toro) and his partner (Jacob Vargas) who get hired by General Salazar (Milian) to capture the hitman Francisco Flores (Clifton Collins Jr) who works for the Tijuana Cartel, headed by the aforementioned Obregon brothers. This was director Steven Soderbergh’s first time pulling double duty as cinematographer for his own film using the pseudonym Peter Andrews, which he has done for all of his movies ever since. Traffic was nominated for five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director for Steven Soderbergh, Best Supporting Actor for Benicio Del Toro, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing) winning every single one except for Best Picture?!? This is my main point in calling Traffic my generation’s Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane is highly regarded as the greatest movie ever made, but also lost Best Picture for 1941 to How Green Was My Valley.
In all sincerity, thank you to every one who followed this countdown as it unfolded and also those who decided to wait until the end just to see the whole list at once. My next project will be inspired by this year’s Best Picture winner, Bong Joon Ho’s masterpiece Parasite. Yes, Parasite was an incredible story, but was it the best film of the decade?
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on here, so I figured the best time to do so would be for the upcoming Academy Awards. This might seem a little rushed but the Oscars are two weeks earlier than last year, so there’s less time to really dive into them this year. Just to give a recap on my 2019 movie viewing, I actually ended up seeing more total at the theater than in 2018, but fewer individual titles. In 2018, I had seen 220 unique titles in the theater for a total of exactly 400 visits, but 2019 had 401 total visits amongst 206 unique titles. These were all in the theater, so just like last year with Roma, that means I have not seen either The Irishman (10 nominations) or Marriage Story (6 nominations). Enough about me though, on to the main categories.
Best Live Action Short Film is a category that I just started to be able to see the nominees last year. These films range from what country submits them. Brotherhood is from a combination of Canada, Tunisia, Qatar, and Sweden. This film shows how tensions can flare within an Arabic family when the son returns married, unknown to his parents, and they believe that he has joined ISIS. Nefta Football Club is submitted by France and shows the true innocence of children. These kids are playing soccer when two of them notice a donkey with headphones on its ears and bags containing a “white powder” on its back. We as adults know what this is but the children use it for something much better. The Neighbors’ Window is a submission from the USA that has similarities to Hitchcock’s classic Rear Window. A family (husband, pregnant wife, children) sees a new neighbor move in across the street, but this neighbor doesn’t exactly use curtains, so this family is able to watch everything they do from their apartment in NYC. Saria is a truly heartbreaking true story of the events leading up to the fire at the female orphanage Virgen de La Asuncion Safe Home in Guatemala. This fire would claim the lives of 41 young girls, aged 14 to 17, who suffered through physical abuse daily at this orphanage to begin with. A Sister, from Belgium, is one of those films and stories that stays with you long after seeing it. Alie is being driven home by someone that she’s not exactly that familiar with, but she has to call “her sister” on the drive. Personally, I would rank these (best to worst) as: A Sister, Saria, The Neighbors’ Window, Nefta Football Club, and Brotherhood.
Best International Feature Film used to be called Best Foreign Language Film. In previous years, seeing movies in a different language at the theater was not a common occurrence for me. I used to say the same thing about documentaries as well but 2018 saw me start to venture into uncommon territory by seeing 4 different documentaries (RBG, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Whitney, and Fahrenheit 11/9), including my first time seeing one twice. Now in 2019, as far as international features go, I was able to attend viewings of Everybody Knows, Climax (my first time seeing one twice), Pain and Glory, and Parasite (which I’ve seen four times so far, but we’ll get into that later). The nominees are Corpus Christi (Poland), Honeyland (North Macedonia), Les Misérables (France), Pain and Glory (Spain), and Parasite (South Korea). I obviously can’t say anything about the first three since I haven’t seen them (Honeyland has a unique distinction to also be nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category). Pain and Glory is wonderfully acted by Antonio Banderas (who is also nominated for Best Actor for his performance here) as Salvador Mallo in a story about a director in his decline told by legendary director Pedro Almodóvar. This film also stars Penelope Cruz as the mother to Mallo, but told in flashbacks, if there was any question as to how that could work. Parasite is easily my pick for winning this award, but I won’t get into much detail about this film until the Best Picture category.
Best Adapted Screenplay has five nominees that were all in strong consideration by the Academy for Best Picture as well, and four of them were nominated there. Two of the nominees here (The Irishman and The Two Popes) had limited theatrical runs before jumping right onto Netflix, so I have not seen them yet since I prefer seeing movies the way they were originally intended to be. The other three nominees are Jojo Rabbit, Joker, and Little Women. Since these are all also Best Picture nominees, I’ll leave my details for that category. The ironic thing is that the only two of these five that were nominated at the Golden Globe Awards are the two that I have not seen. Jojo Rabbit would be my personal pick amongst these nominees though as actor/writer/director Taika Waititi is quickly becoming a strong force in Hollywood.
Best Original Screenplay, exactly like Best Adapted Screenplay, has five nominees that were considered for Best Picture, and again, four of them were nominated for that award. Marriage Story follows the same route as The Irishman and The Two Popes with being very limited in theaters before going to Netflix, so I have no say on this script. 1917 is an incredible story of pushing yourself when you need to accomplish something within a short amount of time, something so important that it will save lives, but might actually be the least of the other four nominees in this particular category. Knives Out is a modern day “whodunit”, along the lines of Clue from 1985, which has well written twists and turns all the way to the climactic ending. Parasite is an amazing story dedicated to focusing on the differences between classes, the rich and the poor. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a fictional story based around many facts leading up to the Sharon Tate murder by the Charles Manson gang. Quentin Tarantino is a magnificent storyteller and doesn’t disappoint at all with his attention to detail in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is why this is my pick to win this award.
All of the acting categories have pretty much been decided for a while now, as the same four actors have been winning awards practically across the board. Best Supporting Actress has a wide array of talent that includes a previous Oscar winner (Bates), two women that have each been nominationed in the past (Dern and Robbie), a long overdue first-time nominee (Johannson), and one of the biggest up-and-coming actresses in years (Pugh). Previous Best Actress Academy Award winner Kathy Bates (Misery) plays Barbara “Bobi” Jewell in Richard Jewell. She brings to the screen a performance that puts you in the shoes of Richard Jewell’s mother, who knows her son is innocent of all charges and accusations related to the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics. This is Laura Dern’s third nomination, having previously been nominated for Rambling Rose (Best Actress, 1991) and Wild (Best Supporting Actress, 2014), but to be honest, everyone remembers her as Ellie in Jurassic Park. Laura Dern is nominated for Marriage Story, playing Nora Fanshaw, lawyer to Nicole Barber (played by fellow nominee Scarlett Johannson). Scarlett Johansson received not only her first nomination for these Academy Awards, but her first two (she’s also nominated for Best Actress in Marriage Story). In this category, she plays Rosie Betzler, the anti-Nazi German mother to Johannes “Jojo Rabbit” Betzler. Florence Pugh isn’t exactly brand new to acting but 2019 was definitely her breakout year. She started the year with February’s sleeper hit Fighting with My Family, then grabbed your attention in July’s controversial and divisive Midsommar, then closed out the year as Amy March in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s world-renowned novel Little Women. Margot Robbie has become one of the most recognizable actresses out there, stemming from her turn alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street only six years ago. She was nominated for Best Actress just two years ago as Tonya Harding in I, Tonya. Robbie had the unique distinction of being eligible for two different roles in the same category, as she could have also been nominated for playing Sharon Tate in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. She ended up being nominated for her portrayal of the composite character Kayla Pospisil in Jay Roach’s Bombshell. To be brutally honest, my vote from the four of the five that I’ve seen would be for Robbie, with one scene between her and John Lithgow that is acted with such quiet intensity that you actually feel uncomfortable watching it being the deciding point, but Laura Dern has been the one winning everything so far in this category. Some performances that could have been nominated here include Ana de Armas (Knives Out), Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers), Scarlett Johannson (Avengers: Endgame), Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart), Margot Robbie (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), and Octavia Spencer (Luce).
Best Supporting Actor is a category that pits five screen legends up against each other, all of which have won an Oscar for acting previously except for one, which will change after this year’s awards. Tom Hanks is nominated for playing the iconic Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Hanks won Best Actor (1993, 1994) in back to back years for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. The fact that Tom Hanks is nominated for the first time in 19 years, since Cast Away, is thoroughly astonishing. It’s not like he hasn’t given us amazing performances recently (Road to Perdition, Catch Me If You Can, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Saving Mr. Banks, Captain Phillips, Bridge of Spies, Sully and The Post all went without a nomination), it’s just that his bar is set way too high for the Academy. The next three nominees are from two movies that I have not seen because of the Netflix conundrum. Sir Anthony Hopkins, who has previously won for playing Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, is nominated for his portrayal of Pope Benedict XVI in The Two Popes. Just like Hanks, Hopkins has been in a nomination drought of sorts, no nominations since 1997’s Amistad. Al Pacino and Joe Pesci are both up for their respective performances as Jimmy Hoffa and Russell Bufalino in The Irishman. Pacino has a win under his belt for Best Actor in 1992’s Scent of a Woman, also the last time he has been nominated too. Pesci won in this category for 1990’s Goodfellas, and again, the last time he has been nominated for an Oscar. Brad Pitt is easily the actor with the most recent acting nomination in this field, with nominations for 2008’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and 2011’s Moneyball. Pitt does have an Academy Award on his mantle at home though, for his producing credit for 2013’s Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave. Pitt has been winning countless awards for playing Cliff Booth, stunt double to actor Rick Dalton (played by Best Actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio) in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Pitt’s whole body of work in this film will earn him this Oscar, but the final act just might be the best acting he has ever done. Some performances that could have but didn’t lead to nominations for Best Supporting Actor were Jamie Foxx (Just Mercy), Robert Downey Jr. (Avengers: Endgame), Chris Hemsworth (Avengers: Endgame), and Daniel Craig (Knives Out).
Best Actress is a category that had been looking like a two-woman race between Johansson and Zellweger as soon as about two months ago, until one of them started winning every award out there. Cynthia Erivo earned her first acting Oscar nomination this year for playing the title role of Harriet Tubman in Harriet. This could have been her second nomination as she was on my list of snubs last year for Supporting Actress for playing Belle in Widows. Scarlett Johansson is up for playing Nicole Barber, the wife in a divorce in Marriage Story. Again, this is the first year that Johansson has been nominated for an Academy Award, even though she has previously been nominated for Golden Globes for Lost in Translation, Girl with a Pearl Earring, A Love Song for Bobby Long, and Match Point, with only Match Point being for Supporting Actress. Saoirse Ronan earned her fourth nomination this year for diving into the character of Josephine “Jo” March in Little Women. Ronan has quickly become a bona fide young acting star, with this being her fourth nomination, third in five years, and she’s only 25 years old. She was previously nominated for Best Actress in 2015 for Brooklyn and 2017 for Lady Bird, with a Supporting Actress nomination back in 2007 for Atonement when she was only 13 years old. A previous winner of this award, Charlize Theron, takes on the task of playing Megyn Kelly, a journalist/attorney who became the face of Fox News and helped bring down noted sexual harasser CEO Roger Ailes. Theron won this award for playing famed serial killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003’s Monster and was also nominated two years later for North Country. Renée Zellweger is nominated for this award for the third time for playing the legendary Judy Garland in Judy. She has been nominated for this award in the past for 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and 2002’s Chicago, but she has won before for Supporting Actress in 2003’s Cold Mountain. Zellweger has been sweeping all of the awards for this performance and the Academy Awards should be nothing different here. Some Best Actress snubs include Lupita Nyong’o (Us), Florence Pugh (Midsommar), Awkwafina (The Farewell),and Cate Blanchett (Where’d You Go Bernadette?).
Best Actor is eerily similar to Best Actress in that it had started to look like a two-man race between Driver and Phoenix until actual awards started to be announced. Antonio Banderas, who turns 60 this year, finally earned his first Oscar nomination for his performance as Salvador Mallo in Pain and Glory. Notable movies that Banderas has been in include Philadelphia, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, Desperado, Evita, The Mask of Zorro, Spy Kids, Frida, and the Shrek sequels which led to the spinoff movie Puss in Boots. Leonardo DiCaprio is nominated for his role as Rick Dalton, an actor on the decline from his leading status, in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. This is DiCaprio’s fifth acting nomination (sixth overall since he was also nominated for Best Picture as a producer for The Wolf of Wall Street) and his first since winning for The Revenant four years ago. He has also been nominated for Best Actor for 2004’s The Aviator, 2006’s Blood Diamond, and 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street, with another nomination for Supporting Actor 26 years ago for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape back when he was first getting into feature films. DiCaprio is another actor like Hanks where he could have been nominated many more times than he has (The Basketball Diaries, Titanic, Gangs of New York, Catch Me If You Can, The Departed, Revolutionary Road, Shutter Island, Inception, J. Edgar, Django Unchained, and The Great Gatsby were all worthy for consideration). Adam Driver is up for playing Charlie Barber in Marriage Story, husband to Johansson’s Nicole Barber. Driver has been in some noteworthy movies before, but it wasn’t until his turn as Kylo Ren in Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, the biggest domestic movie in terms of dollars of all-time, that he really started to get noticed in feature films. This is his second year in a row as an Oscar nominee, being nominated for Supporting Actor last year for BlacKkKlansman. Joaquin Phoenix has been winning countless awards for his performance as Arthur Fleck, who eventually turns into the famed villain Joker, in Joker. This is Phoenix’s third nomination for Best Actor, and fourth overall, having been nominated previously for 2012’s The Master and 2005’s Walk the Line, in addition to his Supporting Actor nomination for 2000’s Gladiator. Should Phoenix win this award, as fully expected, this would be the second win for the role of Joker with Heath Ledger winning Supporting Actor in The Dark Knight 11 years ago, posthumously. Jonathan Pryce has finally been recognized by the Academy with his first nomination at 72 years old. He plays Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would succeed Hopkins’ Pope Benedict XVI as Pope Francis, in The Two Popes. Pryce has an acting career that has spanned almost 50 years now, but his most notable recent credits include playing Joe Castleman in 2018’s The Wife, opposite eventual Best Actress nominee Glenn Close, and his role as High Sparrow in 12 episodes of the critically acclaimed TV show Game of Thrones. Some amazing performances for Best Actor that didn’t equate to nominations include Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems), Taron Egerton (Rocketman), Christian Bale (Ford v Ferrari), Dev Patel (Hotel Mumbai), Kelvin Harrison (for both Luce and Waves), Daniel Kaluuya (Queen & Slim), Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell), and Mark Ruffalo (Dark Waters).
Best Director has that assortment of “legends” and new nominees that this category truly deserves. Martin Scorsese is up for his epic The Irishman. This is his 9th nomination for Best Director, having previously been nominated for Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed (his only win), Hugo, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Todd Phillips, Joker, is nominated for Best Director for the first time, but is actually up for three awards this year, since he’s also a producer and writer of the film, putting him up for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Joker is really the first time Phillips ventured out of his comedy roots, having directing credits for Road Trip, Old School, The Hangover trilogy, Due Date, and War Dogs on his resume. Sam Mendes won Best Director 20 years ago for American Beauty, his only previous nomination at the Oscars, but like Phillips, is also up for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay for his war film 1917. Mendes doesn’t take on too many projects, but when he does, he makes memorable movies, having been the director for Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, Skyfall, and Spectre too. Quentin Tarantino is that iconic director that you just expect to at least be nominated for anything he directs, writes, or produces. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is only his third time being nominated for Best Director, with Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds, 10 and 25 years ago respectively, as his only others. Bong Joon-ho now has the distinction of being the first Asian filmmaker to be nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay for the same film. He’s looking to be the first Asian director to take home Best Director since Ang Lee, who has won twice for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and The Life of Pi (2012). This award is looking like Tarantino’s to win, an award that has eluded him in his career, since his only two Oscars have both been for Best Original Screenplay, Pulp Fiction (1994) and Django Unchained (2012). Five snubs for Best Director include three women, where unfortunately it is too rare that a woman gets nominated here: Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim), Olivia Wilde (Booksmart), Jordan Peele (Us), and Ari Aster (Midsommar).
Best Picture is obviously the award that everyone ultimately watches for. This award is always up for grabs between “up to ten” nominees. The Academy chose to nominate nine films this year. Ford v Ferrari is based on the true story of the events leading up to the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France, a prestigious 24 hour auto racing marathon. The Irishman follows a truck driver getting involved with a mobster and his crime family. Jojo Rabbit is a comedy-drama dealing with a young German boy who aspires to have Adolf Hitler as his best friend, while his mother is hiding and protecting a Jewish teen girl in their house. Joker is a new origin story of the villain, showing the progression of Arthur Fleck to Joker, dealing mostly with mental instability. Little Women is the iconic story by Louisa May Alcott about the coming of age of the March sisters. Marriage Story ironically is more about a divorce story. 1917 deals with a two man mission during WWI, where they have important information to call off a doomed attack that is actually a trap set up by German forces. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a fictional account of events in 1969 that in reality ultimately lead up to the Manson Family murders of Sharon Tate and friends. Parasite is that film that can’t be put into a single genre. It’s somewhat indescribable without giving away important plot details, but it’s comedic, dramatic, and thrilling all in one. My pick for Best Picture is easily Parasite, the most complete movie that I’ve seen in such a long time.
Now if I had to rank the nine nominees, I would go with (keep in mind, The Irishman and Marriage Story I have not seen): 7. Ford v Ferrari 6. Little Women 5. Joker 4. Jojo Rabbit 3. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 2. 1917 1. Parasite
On the personal side, if I had to choose my nine best of 2019, I would rank them: 9. Bombshell 8. Joker 7. Jojo Rabbit 6. Midsommar 5. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 4. Hotel Mumbai 3. Waves 2. 1917 1. Parasite
As you can see, I would still keep five of the nine nominees, including the top two, but I would have still made some substitutions among the nominees.
Walt Disney Studios was always known for making great animated movies aimed towards the entire family. They have recently been remaking their classics into live action, giving that real life feel to them. This all really started with the success of Cinderella in 2015, which was received so well, both by audiences and critically, that Disney decided to open their vault even more to this trend. Disney had released a few live action adaptations prior to this, The Jungle Book (1994), 101 Dalmatians (1996), Alice in Wonderland (2010), and Maleficent (2014), but Cinderella was the first of their iconic princess movies to get this treatment.
Everybody has their personal favorites amongst the Disney animated movies. The ironic part for me is that all four on my “Mount Rushmore” were released theatrically within a span of only five years. They are The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994). Beauty and the Beast was redone in 2017 and became a true commercial success, making $504M domestically (currently #13 all time) and a phenomenal worldwide gross of $1.263B (currently #15 all time). Aladdin and The Lion King are both releasing in 2019. The Little Mermaid is currently in production without an official release date, as of yet.
When you think of the animated Aladdin, the first thing you remember is Robin Williams as Genie. If you say that’s not what you first think of, you’re lying. No one can ever recreate the legendary Robin Williams in anything, especially this role. When it was first announced that the live action Aladdin had cast Will Smith as Genie, I was truly disappointed. I honestly thought the best actor to play Genie in a live action Aladdin would have been Jack Black, who could’ve played this part as close to Robin Williams as possible. Will Smith made this Genie his own, without trying to imitate Robin Williams at all, and it honestly worked much better than I had anticipated.
Mena Massoud was chosen to play the title role of Aladdin after a worldwide search and multiple auditions. Massoud has mostly been known for acting in short films and TV shows, most notably for his 6 episode run in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Massoud was probably the closest you could come to being the perfect visual personification of the animated Aladdin and was also very believable as this character. Aladdin is a street urchin that gets through life day by day, moment by moment, with his pet monkey, Abu. He depends on his street smarts to survive because you “gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat”. I’d like to see him use this role as a stepping stone to more opportunities in his career.
Naomi Scott was chosen to play the Disney princess Jasmine. Jasmine is one of those iconic female empowerment characters that Disney writes so well. She’s the daughter of the Sultan of Agrabah, a fictional city along the Jordan River. Agrabah law states that, as the Sultan’s daughter, she must marry a prince, and also that as a female, she cannot become Sultan, which is what she is absolutely determined to become. Scott has been an up-and-coming actress that is starting to land more big budget roles. Her first feature film was as Escarlette, Antonio Banderas’ daughter in The 33, a great film based on the real-life event from 2010 of the Chilean miners that were trapped in a cave in for 69 days. She has also played Kimberly, The Pink Ranger, in the 2017 Power Rangers movie and will star in the new Charlie’s Angels movie coming out later this year. Scott has also been showing off her singing ability lately. Her powerful voice was necessary to pull off the new song “Speechless”, a perfect addition to this version of the film.
I will say that I did have issues with two actors that were chosen for the supporting cast. One of those was the casting of Jafar, the antagonist of this story. Jafar, played by Marwan Kenzari, is the Grand Vizier to the Sultan, who will do anything that it takes to take over the role of the Sultan. The casting did not make sense to me, and to many others, because Jafar’s character is supposed to be roughly 20 years older than Kenzari. The other casting issue I had was with Nasim Pedrad as Dalia, handmaiden to Princess Jasmine. Don’t get me wrong, Pedrad was great in this role and actually stole some scenes. My issue is only due to her prominent role as Aly in the TV show New Girl. I just kept waiting for Winston Bishop to show up in any scene that she was in. If you’ve seen the show, you’ll understand what I mean. Pedrad is also mostly known for her work on Saturday Night Live and the short-lived TV show Mulaney.
All in all, I appreciated this Aladdin much more than I went in thinking that I would. Some good casting decisions, amazing scenery throughout the Middle East, and well choreographed musical numbers that give you that Bollywood feel all add up to an enjoyable movie for the whole family.
A drama full of intensity is one of my favorite genres of movie, a close second to the horror film. Some prime examples of these intense films would be Everest (2015), Exam (2009), Hard Candy (2005), The Impossible (2012), Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Kidnap (2017), No Escape (2015), and Mean Creek (2004). In addition to an intense drama, I also love movies based on real events. Everest and The Impossible manage to fall into both of these categories. The trailer for Hotel Mumbai gives you the impression that it would fit this combination and it absolutely does! This movie is now the fourth addition to my 2019 Potential Best Picture Nominees List.
Hotel Mumbai is based on a portion of the actual events that took place in Mumbai, India from 11/26/08-11/29/08. 10 members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Righteous) Islamic terrorist organization carried out 12 attacks (using AK-47s, IEDs, grenades, and the explosive RDX) over 4 days killing “at least” 166 innocent people and wounding roughly 300 more. This film focuses primarily on the events that occurred at The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel but also shows you the beginnings of all of the attacks. Throughout, you will see these terrorists interact with their leader, referred to as The Bull, only via phone calls. The Bull wants them to kill as many as possible, including making sure some are visible to the media cameras watching from outside to show their carnage, while also keeping the highest profile guests alive to use as hostages.
This film pieces together an underrated all-star cast of actors that you may know more by face than by name. The biggest name and possibly most recognizable of these actors is Dev Patel. Dev essentially broke into Hollywood with his role as Older Jamal in the 2008 Best Picture Academy Award winner Slumdog Millionaire. He earned his first Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Actor) for playing Saroo in 2016’s Lion. In this film, Dev plays Arjun, a waiter at The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel who does everything he can to save as many of his guests as possible. In the back of his mind, Arjun also has a toddler at home along with a pregnant wife that could go into labor “any day”.
Armie Hammer is a name that has been getting bigger throughout the years. Armie’s first noticeable role came in The Social Network when he played both of the Winklevoss twins. He started to become bigger and more apparent to movie viewers with his role as Oliver in the Best Picture nominated film Call Me By Your Name, a performance that many felt should have garnered him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In Hotel Mumbai, he plays David, an architect who was dining with his wife in the hotel’s restaurant while their nanny is upstairs in their room taking care of their newborn son Cameron when the terrorists start shooting inside the hotel.
Jason Isaacs has built a career around being cast as an antagonist. He has done so expertly as Captain Hook in the 2003 live action version of Peter Pan, as Colonel William Tavington in Mel Gibson’s The Patriot, and most notably as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series. In Hotel Mumbai though, Isaacs plays Vasili, a Russian VIP who is very rough around the edges but also assists the innocents in this time of crisis.
Two other key actors from the supporting cast are Nazanin Boniadi and Anupam Kher. Boniadi is better known for her TV roles as Nora in How I Met Your Mother and Fara Sherazi in Homeland. She plays Zahra, David’s wife who also happens to be a Muslim. Kher is recognizable from his roles in Silver Linings Playbook and The Big Sick. He plays Chef Oberoi at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, who leads the effort of the staff in trying to save the lives of as many of his guests as humanly possible.
All in all, Hotel Mumbai will literally keep you on the edge of your seat with its intensity. Personally, I didn’t know many details as to what happened in Mumbai on those fateful days, even if some poetic license was used to alter some facts. This was also director Anthony Maras’ first feature length film, having previously directed three short films, and I would love to see him grow even more as a director. He kept this movie very detailed, from the nonchalant bloodshed caused by these terrorists to keeping them speaking in their native language (accompanied with subtitles). That may seem minor to most but it keeps the authenticity factor high as opposed to having everybody speak English just to make it easier on the audience.
Five Feet Apart is what one would consider a tragic love story. Tragic love stories are turned into films quite often, as they have a definitive niche audience. Some examples of a love story that turns tragic would be The Notebook, Remember Me, and The Best of Me. Now, Five Feet Apart deals with main characters that suffer from Cystic Fibrosis (or as referred to by the protagonists in this film, “C.F.”), a genetic disorder that mostly affects the lungs. The most current life expectancy of someone living with C.F. (according to Cystic Fibrosis News Today in May 2017) is only 37.5 years. Some examples of a tragic love story centered around a medical condition would be The Fault in Our Stars (cancer), Me Before You (tetraplegia), and A Walk to Remember (leukemia).
The basic premise around Five Feet Apart is that two patients that have C.F. need to stay at least six feet apart at all times (a guideline set by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation), so they don’t contract each other’s bacteria. This is also why they’re supposed to wear their masks when they’re not in their room, since their wing of the hospital is being used for C.F. patients. Stella is a prime candidate for a lung transplant while Will is not, due to him also having Burkholderia cepacia (commonly referred to as B. cepacia in the film). The more Stella falls for Will, the more the “six foot rule” really digs into her. She makes a life-changing decision that with how much C.F. has stolen from her, she’s going to steal something back. “One foot, just one f****** foot, closer.” She uses a pool cue, which is typically 59 inches in length, to act as their barrier.
Haley Lu Richardson stars as Stella Grant, the responsible C.F. patient with O.C.D. that has been “living for her treatments instead of doing her treatments so that she can live”. Stella has proven her responsibility to the staff at Saint Grace Regional Hospital, where most of this film is set, so much that she’s trusted to have her own personal med cart in her room. Richardson has been an up and coming young actress for a few years now. You might recognize her from The Bronze, The Edge of Seventeen, or (most notably) Split.
Cole Sprouse plays Will Newman, the rebel C.F. patient that is not responsible in taking his meds or doing his treatments, the polar opposite of Stella. Will also expresses his emotions through the drawing of cartoons, which plays a big part of his character development throughout. I would compare this character to Shane West’s Landon Carter in A Walk to Remember, with Carter’s attitude towards school running parallel to Newman’s attitude toward his sickness. Cole Sprouse has made a bigger name for himself throughout the years, having had an acting career that has spanned over two decades already. His most notable roles have been in Big Daddy, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, The Suite Life on Deck, and Riverdale (all but Riverdale including his twin brother Dylan).
Five Feet Apart has some notable performances from the supporting cast as well. Parminder Nagra (from Bend It Like Beckham) plays Dr. Noor Hamid, Stella’s doctor that’s intent on getting her a new set of lungs via transplant. Claire Forlani (mostly known for Meet Joe Black and Mallrats) plays Will’s mother Meredith with a quiet intensity that makes you believe they are mother and son, with common traits in their DNA. Kimberly Hebert Gregory (her highest profile role being in Kevin (Probably) Saves the World) plays Nurse Barb, an extremely dedicated nurse intent on keeping Stella and Will apart, for their own safety. Moises Arias (from Nacho Libre, Despicable Me 2, Pitch Perfect 3, but known mostly for his role as Rico in the Hannah Montana series) plays Poe, Stella’s best friend that has commitment issues stemming from his C.F.
Five Feet Apart may not be for everyone. Some parts might be difficult to watch as they attempt to showcase the disease. If the sound of coughing up phlegm gets to you, this might not be for you. You’ll even see the visual act of this happening as well. If you’re opposed to foul language, there are two F bombs in this movie. The typical rule of thumb is that one use gets you an automatic PG-13 rating while the second one immediately pushes you to an R. I would assume that a PG-13 was still given based on these uses being more for emphasis in their context and having nothing else to push it to an R.
With that being said, this was definitely an enjoyable movie to see. It will definitely tug at your emotions as you obviously want them to end up together but at the same time, you also don’t want them to because of the chance of worsening their medical condition. “Don’t Give Up On Me” by Andy Grammer, the theme song for Five Feet Apart, is also perfectly fitting for this film.
***The following post has some “slight” spoilers assuming you’ve already seen the theatrical release of A Star is Born (2018). So if you have been living under a rock for the past 5 months and haven’t seen it yet, do NOT continue reading.
A Star is Born (2018) was easily my favorite movie of 2018 and also my choice for Best Picture. I know that sounds redundant but your favorite movie is not always the best overall film. Everybody has their guilty pleasure movies that they can watch at any time, but they’re not always the greatest movies.
With that being said, A Star is Born Encore was just released (for one week only), which was the same movie but with 12 additional minutes added to it. The extra footage was definitely noticeable. Some of it was just slight extensions on scenes. For example, in the very beginning, Ally’s first appearance on screen, when she’s arguing on the phone in the bathroom with her current boyfriend (and by the end of the phone call, her ex) Roger. The end of that scene showing her reaction after that phone call is extended an extra 1-2 seconds. The very first scene of the film, Jackson singing “Black Eyes” at his concert, has an extended cut of the song.
A very important question posed was also answered in the Encore release. How were Jack and Ally able to coordinate and sync the lyric “In the sha-ha-sha-ha-llow, in the sha-ha-sha-la-la-la-llow” together on stage for the first time when that part of the song was never shown when they were putting it together in the original cut? The scene in the parking lot of the Super A Foods, when Ally first sings “Shallow”, is extended to show this lyric, resulting in how they were able to perfect the duet on stage. It’s originally implied that there was a time gap to continue writing the whole song together. This is because the scene in the lot is in the darkness of the early morning and the next scene, Ally being driven home to where her father is, is in the sunlight of the later morning.
Other scenes are completely added. Ally sings “Is That Alright?” at her wedding reception, a song that was only in the credits in the theatrical release of the film. You also see when Jackson first got the song “I’ll Never Love Again” in his head and started piecing the music together. Not gonna lie, my eyes opened wide when that part transpired as I wasn’t expecting that to be shown, especially where it happens.
All in all, A Star is Born Encore was even better than A Star is Born to me. Ironically though, I don’t think I would have seen it in the theater as many times as I did if it was this cut. That’s solely because the extra 12 minutes adds to the run time, and when planning out a day, I would have had to put aside basically 3 hours for this when you include trailers and everything. That would have just hindered my ability to do a double feature with another movie. If you’re a fan of A Star is Born, I fully suggest you try to see the Encore cut of this masterpiece before it leaves theaters on Thursday.
This month, February 22nd to be exact, marks the 10th anniversary of Heath Ledger posthumously winning the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for the greatest, and most surprising, cinematic performance I’ve ever seen. His performance as Joker is a major reason why The Dark Knight is still considered the greatest superhero movie ever made, although Black Panther is the first of this genre to be nominated for Best Picture. The Dark Knight not being nominated for Best Picture caused so much of an uproar that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences changed their format of only five Best Picture nominees to “up to ten” the following year.
When Ledger was announced as the actor chosen to play Joker in Christopher Nolan’s sequel to Batman Begins, I had originally questioned it. I was reluctant because to me, Ledger was most known for 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, A Knight’s Tale, and Brokeback Mountain. Neither of these movies suggested to me that he could play a role previously made famous by Cesar Romero and screen legend Jack Nicholson. Looking back though, his roles were so diverse, that he was actually perfect to play Joker.
Ledger was actually approached to play Batman/Bruce Wayne while Batman Begins was still casting major roles. He made it clear that he “would never take part in a superhero film”. After seeing Batman Begins, he convinced himself that he had to be Joker in the sequel. Ledger ended up being cast for the role and a legendary performance was to follow.
It was actually his idea to mess up his makeup, to make his character seem more like a psychopath, a specific trait that wasn’t portrayed by both Romero and Nicholson. Ledger dove so far into his character that fellow supporting actor Michael Caine (a six time Oscar nominee and two time winner already at the time of filming) has stated on the record that he would repeatedly forget his lines due to Ledger’s insanity on set. Maggie Gyllenhaal also made it clear that she couldn’t even look at Ledger on set while filming wasn’t happening. To make the action scenes look more realistic, Ledger even convinced Christian Bale to actually hit him during their fight scenes. These all add up to Ledger being an extremely underrated character actor.
Ledger passed away on January 22nd of 2008 at an apartment in Lower Manhattan, exactly 13 months before his Oscar win. “Mr. Heath Ledger died as a result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine. We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications” would be the official statement from the NYC medical examiner’s office.
Oxycodone and hydrocodone are painkillers. Diazepam and alprazolam are anti-anxiety drugs. Doxylamine and temazepam are sleep medications. As per Dr. Gregory Davis (College of American Pathologists and drugs.com), “the combination of drugs could cause the brain and brain stem to ‘fall asleep’, halting heart and lungs function.” Ledger had discussed his inability to sleep after his roles in I’m Not There immediately followed by The Dark Knight.
Did he dive too deep into the role of Joker that he couldn’t get out of it? That’s something that we can only really speculate without knowing for sure. He was one of the most respected actors of his time, even with the short amount of time his career spanned. Ledger was filming The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus at the time of his death, a role that he didn’t get the chance to complete. Three acclaimed actors (Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell) stepped in to finish his performance in the movie. They even made a deal that their salary would not be given to them. Their salary was to be given to his then 2 year old daughter Matilda, who was born after his most recent will. If that act of generosity doesn’t prove how much Ledger was loved and absolutely respected in the acting community, then I don’t know what will.
The nominations for the 91st Academy Awards were announced last Tuesday. Some well deserved nominees were announced that morning by Kumail Nanjiani and Tracee Ellis Ross. As with every year, there were some surprises and snubs. The following is my take on some of the chosen nominees in the major categories.
In the category of Best Documentary Feature, the expected winner is Free Solo. Now until 2018, I had never seen a documentary in the theater. That all changed this past year as I was able to see four different documentaries. They were, in chronological order, RBG, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Whitney, and Fahrenheit 11/9. I can honestly say I was impressed with all of them and Fahrenheit 11/9 was the first documentary I went to see twice in the theater. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is actually the one that has been winning many awards but to the shock of many was left out as a nominee. The only one of the nominees that I had seen this year was RBG, an incredible documentary about Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
For Best Original Song, it’s not even a contest. “Shallow” from A Star is Born is literally guaranteed to win this award. This category is already so far decided that the telecast is only scheduled to have two songs performed during the show, “Shallow” and “All the Stars” from Black Panther. Lin-Manuel Miranda has been very open lately that “The Place Where Lost Things Go”, from Mary Poppins Returns which he had co-starred in, won’t even have the opportunity to be sung during the show. The Academy has a limit of two songs that can be nominated from any one movie and A Star is Born had three songs submitted for contention, with the other two being “Always Remember Us This Way” and “I’ll Never Love Again”. All three of these songs from A Star is Born had the potential to be nominated but “Shallow” just outshined everything else. Personally, I felt that “I’ll Never Love Again” was the best one of the year but I don’t have a vote…yet. I also felt that “We Won’t Move” from The Hate U Give should’ve garnered a nomination.
Supporting Actress is an interesting category. Amy Adams is up for her 6th Academy Award, the same number nomination that Kate Winslet finally won on. The ironic stat is that half of Amy Adams’ nominations are from movies that Christian Bale also ended up being nominated for (The Fighter, American Hustle, and now Vice). Rachel Weisz and previous Best Actress winner Emma Stone are both up for The Favourite, a movie that I wasn’t a fan of at all. Marina De Tavira is up for Roma, a movie that was barely in the theater as it was almost exclusively made for Netflix. The standout to me from the nominees though is Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk. There were some other worthy performances that could’ve been nominated here. Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place, Debra Messing in Searching, Cynthia Erivo in Widows, and Margot Robbie in Mary, Queen of Scots are a few of those performances that didn’t make the cut.
Supporting Actor will be a category that I won’t agree with. Mahershala Ali won this category two years ago for his amazing performance in Moonlight, and is the expected winner this year as well for Green Book. I don’t agree with this nomination. I’m not saying that he wasn’t great in Green Book. He was fantastic in it, but his role was more of a co-lead actor with Viggo Mortensen than a supporting role. Richard E. Grant is up for Can You Ever Forgive Me? for playing Jack Hock, friend of author Lee Israel. This role was very different than what I’ll always remember him for, Darwin Mayflower in Hudson Hawk, one of those universally panned movies that I can watch whenever it happens to be on. Adam Driver, mostly recognized for playing the villainous Kylo Ren in the new Star Wars trilogy, is up for BlacKkKlansman, one of the best and surprisingly great movies of the year to me. Sam Elliott received his first ever nomination for A Star is Born. Somehow this screen legend has never been nominated before. Bradley Cooper wrote the role of Bobby Maine specifically for him to play, even before Elliott was secured to co-star in the film. Last year’s winner Sam Rockwell is the fifth nominee in this category that surprised most people. His performance as George W. Bush in Vice was both comical and short in length. The expected fifth nominee was actually last year’s Best Actor nominee Timothée Chalamet. Chalamet generally has taken on difficult characters in his young career, last year for Elio in Call Me By Your Name and this year for Nic Sheff in Beautiful Boy. Other potential nominees for Best Supporting Actor were Daniel Kaluuya in Widows and Russell Hornsby in The Hate U Give.
This was a stellar year for actresses in cinema and the Best Actress category shows that. Olivia Colman is up for The Favourite, even though she has less screen time than Best Supporting Actress nominee Emma Stone from the same movie. Yalitza Aparicio from Roma grabbed her first Oscar nomination for her first ever movie role. Melissa McCarthy earned her second career nomination for Can You Ever Forgive Me? playing author Lee Israel, a real life American author known mostly for her literary forgery. Lady Gaga, yes the pop star, took on the role of Ally in the 4th version of A Star is Born and has been winning some awards for her incredible performance. Glenn Close earned her 7th career nomination, without any wins yet, for The Wife. Close has been winning the majority of the awards, basically any award that hasn’t gone to Lady Gaga, for playing Joan Castleman. Close is the favorite to win this award, especially with never having won before, but I’d personally prefer to see this one go to Gaga. Like I said before, this was a stellar year for actresses in cinema and unfortunately only five could be chosen as nominees. Other actresses I could’ve seen being nominated that didn’t make the cut were Charlize Theron in Tully, Toni Collette in Hereditary, Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade, and Amandla Stenberg in The Hate U Give.
Best Actor is a category that could go a few different ways. The Academy has a history of rewarding actors that transform themselves into a real life historical figure, especially when the use of a lot of makeup is involved to make them look the part. Since the turn of the decade, we’ve seen Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club), Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything), Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant), and Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) all win following this script. This year’s nominees follow this trend as four of the five actors are nominated for playing actual people. The only written character amongst this year’s nominees is Bradley Cooper as singer/alcoholic/drug addict Jackson Maine in A Star is Born. Willem Dafoe took on Vincent Van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate while Viggo Mortensen played Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga in Green Book. This year’s award is pretty much between the last two options. Christian Bale takes on the reclusive former Vice President Dick Cheney in the biographical comedy-drama Vice. Rami Malek plays the legendary Freddie Mercury in the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. Bale and Malek have been splitting awards throughout the year for their performances, with Malek winning more than Bale. A few missed nominees from this year include Ethan Hawke in First Reformed, Daveed Diggs in Blindspotting, John Cho in Searching, and the most surprising of all the snubs in this category, John David Washington in BlacKkKlansman.
Best Director missed the ball on a particular nominee. Bradley Cooper is not a nominee for his directorial debut with A Star is Born. Cooper spent two years devoted to this project, with him getting credit for acting, writing, directing, and producing the film. If you want to make a name for yourself as a director after being an acclaimed actor, this is exactly how your debut should go. Two of this year’s directing nominees are for foreign language films. Previous winner Alfonso Cuarón (winner for Gravity) is nominated for Roma while Pawel Pawlikowski is a first time nominee for Poland’s nominee in the Best Foreign Language Film category Cold War. Polarizing director Yorgos Lanthimos is up for The Favourite. I’ve been vocal in the past about not liking his directing style and the way his movies run, especially his previous projects The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, but some people do enjoy his films. Adam McKay, a previous nominee for The Big Short, is up again for Vice. Both of his nominated films take a satirical look at real-life events. Finally, the iconic Spike Lee is nominated for BlacKkKlansman. How this is Lee’s first ever nomination is mind boggling. 2019 is the 30 year anniversary of Do the Right Thing, a movie that caused some controversy by Spike Lee NOT being nominated for Best Director and it’s believed by some that Lee was held back by the Academy for this until he had done a movie that without a doubt he had to be up for. BlacKkKlansman is easily that incredible movie. Others that could’ve been up for this award include Aneesh Chaganty for Searching, Carlos López Estrada for Blindspotting, John Krasinski for A Quiet Place, Steve McQueen for Widows, and George Tillman Jr. for The Hate U Give.
Now on to the award everybody waits for, Best Picture. Ever since the public outcry of The Dark Knight not being nominated for the award for 2008, the Academy has changed from 5 Best Picture nominees to “up to 10”. With this being the 10th Academy Awards since then, there have been 10 nominees just twice (the first two years with this amendment), 9 nominees five times, and 8 nominees three times including this year. This year’s “best of the best” are Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Green Book, Roma, A Star is Born, and Vice. Black Panther, the first superhero movie to ever be nominated in this category, is the 3rd highest grossing domestic release of all time with over $700M in ticket sales. BlacKkKlansman is Spike Lee’s telling of Ron Stallworth, an African-American detective in Colorado Springs who manages to infiltrate the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Bohemian Rhapsody shows how Queen was formed, how they became the legendary band that everyone loved, and the lead up to their unforgettable performance at Live Aid. The Favourite tells the story of two cousins competing to be “The Favourite” of Queen Anne’s court in 18th century England. Green Book follows the real-life relationship between Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga and musician “Doc” Don Shirley as Frank is hired by Don to be his driver during a concert tour through the Midwest and Deep South. Roma follows a live-in housekeeper to a middle-class family. Roma is the only one of the 8 nominees that I have not seen, so my following rankings will not have it included, even though it is the early favorite to win this award. A Star is Born takes a look at how a current music star can meet an unknown, bring her into the industry while falling for her, and have his “star” start to fall while hers rises. Finally, Vice takes a satirical look at the life of former Vice President Dick Cheney, arguably the most powerful person to ever hold that title in our nation’s history, while also using some poetic license for details that were unknown about Cheney.
My rankings for the chosen nominees (again, minus Roma) are as follows:
A Star is Born
BlacKkKlansman
Vice
Green Book
Bohemian Rhapsody
Black Panther
The Favourite
Now if I were to choose the 8 Best Picture nominees for 2018 myself, I would actually have to sub out 6 of those choices and add in Blindspotting, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, The Hate U Give, A Quiet Place, Searching, and Widows.
Before seeing Replicas, I had read multiple reviews, not professional reviews but actual people’s opinions after seeing it, all of which were very negative. Now sometimes when you go in to see a movie with high expectations, it falls short. The reverse is true too, low expectations tend to make a movie seem better. I enjoyed Replicas. Was it the best movie? Absolutely not. Was it the worst? Not at all.
The most common thing I had read was that the accident that pushes the movie forward (not a spoiler, you know this from the trailer) happens too soon in the movie to have true character development for those involved. It does happen early on, and I kind of wish they had given about another 5-7 minutes for character development, but it didn’t hurt the movie as drastically as I had been expecting.
Replicas does have the pace of two different movies. The beginning runs a little slow, not too slow, but slower than the rest of the movie. The second half of the movie runs a lot quicker than the beginning, as a movie honestly should.
The first act of a movie is where you should learn about the characters. The second act being where the “conflict” of the story happens. The third act is where the resolution of said conflict happens. I’ve seen movies that follow this with definitive boundaries that break up the movie perfectly evenly (a 2 hour movie broken up into 40 minute intervals for example). Replicas skews those boundaries where the second act is a major portion of the movie with smaller first and third acts.
All in all, seeing Replicas was worth it. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s not the greatest movie nor the worst. To further cement that statement, I’ve attached a countdown of the 18 Keanu Reeves movies I’ve seen, along with 10 of his that I have yet to see but should have. Replicas falls perfectly in the middle of this list at #9.
Zackman at the Movies 