BLACKKKLANSMAN: This is the first year that I can remember when I actually saw every film nominated for Best Picture. That's even more surprising since they nominate more than five films now. But the internet has totally fucked Hollywood. I saw all of these films but none in theaters. BlacKKKlansman I watched on DVD, Roma was released on Netflix, and the others were all illegally put up online thanks to the DVD screeners that the studios send to the members of the Academy that end up leaked online. What's not entirely shocking is that none of these films are great films. I can't even remember when a Best Picture winner ended up on my Top 10 list of the year. I haven't even seen a few Best Picture winners in the last few years; Spotlight and A King's Speech. And the last two year's Best Picture winners, The Shape of Water and Moonlight, were good but not great. As for BlacKKKlansman, the critics loved it but I felt that it wasn't that good at all. Denzel Washington's son plays the main character, a Colorado police officer in the 70's that infiltrates the KKK through telephone conversations and by using a white, real-life stand in played by Adam Driver, who got a Best Supporting Actor nomination (John David Washington was not nominated). Spike Lee got his first ever Best Director nomination for this, but he's obviously made much better films in the past. I think John David Washington is as bad an actor as his father is; he never acts like a real person for some reason. The movie is somewhat entertaining but never reaches any kind of great, poetic energy that some Spike Lee films have. It's an okay film. ** out of ****.
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY: Rami Malek, the star of USA's awesome TV show, Mr. Robot, is Freddy Mercury. The film is basically about Mercury and Queen's rise and fall. It culminates in a pretty accurate, long adaptation of Queen's legendary 1985 Live Aid performance. For what it's worth, go watch that Live Aid performance on YouTube because it's a hell of a lot better than this film. While the movie is entertaining, it's also awful, silly, and really bad in parts. Malek does give a good performance, but the fake teeth he wears in the film are so distracting it's hard to notice much of anything else. Some have said that the film downplays Mercury's homosexuality, and I suppose that's true since his ex-wife is more prominent than any of the men he dated and slept with. What may have hurt the film is that the director, Bryan Singer, was fired late in production thanks to stories that came out that he had sex with underage boys. Singer's name is still on the film, which certainly isn't a good thing since new revelations about him just came out the other day. The film is an entertaining bad movie, if that makes any sense. **1/2
THE FAVOURITE: Yorgos Lanthimos is kind of like David Lynch in that their films are always interesting but usually never that good. The Favourite, much like Lanthimo's last picture, the super bleak and depressing The Killing of a Sacred Deer, is gorgeously shot. The Favourite looks incredible. The acting from the three women, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, and Olivia Coleman (all three received nominations, Stone and Weisz for Best Supporting Actress, Coleman for Best Actress), is excellent. And the script does have some nifty, fun, and amusing dialogue. The story, a tale about a real life English Queen and two women that lie to win her affection in the 1700's, is rather dull. The problem is that the first half is compelling and then it goes downhill, turns into a boring slog, and abruptly ends instead of building up to some sort of exciting, dramatic conclusion. **
GREEN BOOK: This film won the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival, which is why everyone says that it's a crowd favorite. The critics have not been so kind, and there's a ton of controversy about the film and how it deals with racism. Some say that it showcases the "white savior" narrative. After I watched it, I felt like it white-washed history. Making a buddy comedy about the horrors of segregation and racism in the 60's does seem to be a bad idea. Viggo Mortensen gives a pretty good performance as an Italian driver that has to drive Mahershala Ali's concert pianist through the South. The film won the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy while a real musical, Bohemian Rhapsody, won the Best Drama Golden Globe. The film is never boring, although it definitely feels wrong and out of place in today's world. I guess this is why a bunch of older men and women, like those that are members of the Old Hollywood Academy, like it. It takes them back to when racism was simpler. **1/2
ROMA: This is Alfonso Cuaron's latest, after a long stint of inactivity since Gravity. Roma was released on Netflix, which is why a lot of people probably actually saw it. It tells the story of a maid in Mexico City in the 70's and it's in black and white. The film looks gorgeous but is boring. It does feature 2018's best scene though, when the maid, played by Yalitza Aparicio (who got a Best Actress nomination), gets to hold her baby in the hospital for a very brief moment before they take it away. The scene is as heartbreaking as 2017's best scene, The Florida Project's next to last scene when the police are taking the daughter's mother away. There are a few sequences in this film that are mesmerizing to look at and beautifully staged. But, unfortunately, it's pretty to look at but that's about it. **
A STAR IS BORN: The first half hour or so of this film, Bradley Cooper's re-make, is great. Then it devolves into Lady Gaga turning into a star and Cooper hitting the bottle. If they had changed the ending and had the two of them reuniting on stage and the ending was happy then this movie would have perhaps been a masterpiece. This will probably end up winning Best Picture. It seems like the one film out of all of these that both audiences and critics have enjoyed. The sequence when Lady Gaga's character is forced on stage to sing, "Falling" with Bradley Cooper early on is the movie's highlight. **1/2
VICE: This was the best film out of all of these nominations. This is Adam McKay's Dick Cheyney biopic. McKay of course made zany comedies like Anchorman and Talladega Nights, so this isn't a boring, serious, biopic. It has tricks and plays around and goes for broke. It's, above all else, both entertaining and horrifying. Christian Bale disappears into the role as Cheyney, and while Sam Rockwell got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing George Dubya, I think Steve Carrell was awesome as Donald Rumsfeld. Amy Adams was nominated for Best Supporting Actress as Lynne Cheyney, but I didn't think she did all that much to warrant that. This isn't a great film but it's a good one. ***
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