89th Academy Awards: Predictions, Surprises, & Snubs

Oscar season is finally coming to an end. I have to say this year was an incredible year in Hollywood, and I am overall pretty satisfied with the nominations. So without further ado let's get into it!

Best Picture: Arrival, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, La La Land, Lion, Manchester by the Sea, and Moonlight
Winner: La La Land
Dark horse: Moonlight

I've made my peace with LLL winning. I really like the film, but would have liked to see Moonlight or Arrival take it. But the LA musical romance is a worthy winner for that dream ballet alone. And though I'm somewhat indifferent to HR and HOHW, there isn't a completely bad movie in the bunch.

Major snub: Jackie is the big movie I wish had more Oscars play. Silence as well if it had been marketed properly.

Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar is Anyone's Game

Normally when people talk about the Oscars, they talk about the biggest categories: Best Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor. And while the below-the-line categories are important and discussed, they don't get the attention or headlines This year, the Best Adapted Screenplay is stacked. The nominees are all Best Picture nominees, and they are all well-respected movies with lots of nominations around the different categories.

Here are the five nominees: Arrival (Eric Heisserer, based on the short story "Story of Your Life"); Fences (August Wilson, based on his play); Hidden Figures (Theodore Melfi and Alison Schroeder, based on the book of the same name); Lion (Luke Davies, based on Saroo Brierly's memoir); and Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue). Moonlight and Arrival have the most nominations this year (they both have eight), while Lion has 6, Fences has 4, and Hidden Figures has 3. And frankly I can't predict what film is going to win Best Adapted Screenplay.

The One Reason Why Disney is Ruling Hollywood

Finding Dory

It's no secret that Walt Disney Studios is killing it at the box office. The studio grossed over $7 billion last year, including the mega hits Finding Dory ($486 million), Zootopia ($341 million), Captain America: Civil War ($408 million), The Jungle Book ($364 million), and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($507 million). Five of the top ten highest grossing movies of 2016 are from Disney, with #11 and #12 being Moana ($235 million) and Doctor Strange ($231 million). And that's just the domestic list.

Disney owns some of the biggest franchises: the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Pixar films, the Disney animated films, the Disney live action remake series, and the Star Wars franchise. That doesn't include the random one-offs that the studio might release. I should mention that the animated (both from Pixar and from in-house Disney) and live action remake films aren't traditional franchises in that they are a continued story. They do act like franchises in that the Disney name + concept gets people excited to see them, and the films rely on the previous one's success. By acquiring these properties, Disney spent a lot of money and have reaped the rewards. But how do they do it?

7 Movies to Watch Instead of the Inauguration

Looking to skip the swearing in of Donald Trump? Here are some more diverse, inspiring films that are helping to make the world a better place...unlike certain people in high places...

Hidden Figures
In an era when both Black people and women are under attack, a movie about 3 Black women rising above racism and sexism to change the world is just what the doctor ordered. Hidden Figures is an unabashedly crowd-pleasing movie but a confident, well-executed one. With three compelling performances from Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Moane, Hidden Figures is striking in its depiction at the small, meaningless microaggressions that chip away at the soul bit by bit.

74th Golden Globes Predictions

This Sunday is the first televised awards ceremony, and we're all really excited. The Golden Globes are awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and there is no overlap with the Academy (who votes on the Oscars). However, winning a Golden Globe can shift a movie's chances through perception and buzz. As I've said before, the HFPA is very star-crazy so that often influences their winners. So here we go!

Best Actress - Musical/Comedy
Annette Bening (20th Century Women), Lily, Colins (Rules Don't Apply), Hailee Steinfeld (The Edge of 17), Emma Stone (La La Land), and Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)

Winner: Emma Stone. It's the kind of performance that the Globes would eat up. Luckily, Stone is also radiant and layered in the film.
Dark horse: Bening or Streep

The Hot Shots of 2016

Even though 2016 was a waking nightmare that will continue until at least 2020, there wre some people in the pop culture world who had a great year. So it's time for my annual Hot Shots list!

Amy Adams
Hey, it wouldn't be an MATM Hot Shots list if five time Oscar nominee Amy Adams didn't top the list. However, the actress formerly known as Princess Giselle just keeps doing great stuff every year! This year, she's in the Oscar conversation for her luminous work in the brainy, emotional sci-fi drama Arrival (fingers crossed for Oscar nomination #6, people!). But she also delivered a knockout performance in the noir/melodrama Nocturnal Animals. #getitgirl

Mahershala Ali
The actor is known for his work on House of Cards and The Hunger Games. This year, he played a memorable supporting character on Luke Cage. And he starred in one of the best films of the year Moonlight. His sensitive, commanding performance is one of the year's most affecting, and it probably will win him an Oscar. Mahershala Ali has been toying with the A-list but he is such a terrific actor with charisma and conviction in spades.

Take it easy, Urvashi: LION and Cultural Displacement/Connection

There's a Hindi phrase that kept popping into my head while watching Lion: "na idhar ke, na udhar ke." Literally it means neither here nor there. But colloquially it suggests a sense of constant displacement. A lack of belonging in any place. The phrase came to mind during a scene where Saroo (Dev Patel) is walking to a party with his white girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara). The sequence is very Bollywood especially with the song "Urvashi Urvashi." The party is hosted by some Indian friends' house. And these friends are immigrants from India. There is Bollywood music playing and a Hindi movie on the TV. Lucy does some Indian dancing, Saroo struggles to eat with his hands. Through his facial expressions and body language, Saroo is visibly uncomfortable. This isn't his culture, his life, even if he is surrounded by people who share his skin tone. In another parry scene--this time, with mostly white people--Saroo is even more uncomfortable and sticks to the wall while Lucy dances with her friends. Saroo seems out of place wherever he goes.

Lion is the directorial debut of Garth Davis, who worked on the acclaimed miniseries Top of the Lake. The film is based on the autobiography A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly. Adapted by novelist Luke Davies, Lion stars Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Priyanka Bose, David Wenham, and Nicole Kidman along with debut child actor Sunny Pawar. The cinematography was handled by Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty), with editing by Alexandre de Franceschi (The Painted Veil).

Oscar Notes: LOVING and ARRIVAL

In part 2 of my Oscar Notes series, I look at two Oscar hopefuls: the civil rights romance biopic Loving and the sci-fi mind-bender Arrival.

Loving
The buzz: Jeff Nichols' film had its world premiere at the Canned Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme D'or. The film is based on the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, who were persecuted under anti-miscegenation laws. Forced to leave their home in Virginia, the couple settled in DC to raise their children. Unable to live far from their family, they decided to fight the laws and took their case to the Supreme Court. The fim stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga.

Possible nominations: Ideally, this movie could get nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Original Screenplay, and Cinematography. I think that is not going to happen. At best, this movie could be nominated for Picture, Actress, and Screenplay. Joel Edgerton could get a nomination because the Best Actor category is rather light this year. Ruth Negga should be a shoo-in, but Best Actress is more crowded than ever in recent memory. Jeff Nichols will probably get lost in the busy Best Director list.

What Will the Oscars Look Like Under the (Barf) Trump Administration?

I'm still processing how Donald Trump--liar, fraud, racist, misogynist, hysterical, under-qualified--won the presidency. There are a million reasons why, and others better suited than I have some hypotheses. But I am a pop culture blogger so I am curious what's gonna happen with Trump being in (barf) Oval Office. I think Hollywood and the media as a whole is going to have a strong reaction to the Trump presidency; he's too much a forceful presence to be ignored. But there are a few ways the Academy Awards could play out under these dark new times.

I don't mean to minimize the problems our nation and our world face with that man as President. However, this is a pop culture blog--and until March, mostly an awards blog--so that's where I want to focus. Hollywood has an effect on politics and obviously vice versa. Now, there are four major Best Picture contenders (among many hopefuls and long shots). And I think each of the four represent different reactions the Oscars could have next year regarding the 2016 election and the upcoming (barf) four years.

ARRIVAL is the Feminist Sci-Fi Mind-Bender We've Been Waiting For (Review)

Amy Adams is one of the best actors of our times. She plays the conflicted nun in Doubt, a displaced princess in Enchanted, the creative but silenced painter in Big Eyes, the scheming matriarch in The Master, and a searching soul in Her with equal conviction, empathy, and inner strength. Recently, the five time Academy Award nominee has been a superb character actress in a large number of diverse films, but has yet to carry a film completely on her shoulders since Enchanted. (Even in Big Eyes, her restrained performance had to compete with Christoph Waltz's obnoxious showboating.) However, that film has arrived with Arrival, a ponderous, sublime science fiction drama from current hot commodity filmmaker Denis Villenueve. Much like with his previous films Prisoners and Sicario, Villenueve takes on a genre movie and invokes it with intelligence and questions about humanity.

Arrival stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Tzi Ma. Adapted from the acclaimed short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, the screenplay was written by Eric Heisserer (this summer's surprise horror hit Lights Out).  The cinematography was handled by Bradford Young (Selma), with editing by Oscar nominee Joe Walker (Sicario, 12 Years a Slave). The haunting score is by Oscar nominee Johann Johannsson (Sicario, The Theory of Everything).

Oscar Notes: MOONLIGHT

I am starting a new series where I take some notes on the potential Oscar heavy hitters. This week I'm looking at Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins. The film stars Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders, Alex Hibbert, Andre Holland, Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monae, and Naomi Harris. The film is scripted by Jenkins, from the unproduced play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McRaney. The film is about a young man (played by Rhodes, Sanders, and Hibbert) at different stages in his life as he comes to terms with his sexuality and masculinity culture in the black community.

The buzz: Moonlight opened to widespread critical acclaim. It earned rave reviews during festival season ever since its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in September. The film has received several nominations at the Gotham Awards, including a win for a Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Performance. Also, the movie is doing well at the box office in limited release. However,when the movie releases wide this weekend, we'll see if it clicks with mainstream audiences. Moonlight is expected to make a big splash at the Spirit Awards as well as the Academy Awards.

But can it go the distance?

DENIAL and the 2016 Presidential Campaign

There's a small movie playing in select theaters called Denial, directed by Mick Jackson. The film stars Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz, alongside Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall, and Andrew Scott. The film is about acclaimed historian Deborah Lipstadt (Wesiz) and her legal battle with infamous Holocaust denier David Irving (Spall). The film is small scale --I doubt you've even heard of it--but it's very significant. The film is essentially a courtroom drama, with impassioned speeches and suspenseful "waiting for the verdict" scenes. It's the kind of movie that warrants an iTunes rental. I definitely think people should see it, but you don't need to rush out to the megaplex.

While the film will mostly be known as a period piece about the Holocaust, I think it does have some unintentional relevance to politics today. I say unintentional because I don't think the filmmaker Mick Jackson had any goal other than to tell this specific story. And maybe I'm just too immersed in election coverage. This election is drowning our national conversation and it's quite probable I'm seeing it in places where it isn't. But the film Denial is about trying to prove something that doesn't need to be proved by physical evidence and I see a lot of that in this election.

THE BIRTH OF A NATION is the 5th Grade Thanksgiving Pageant of Slavery Epics (Review)

I really wrestled with going to see The Birth of a Nation. Its director Nate Parker and co-writer Jean Celestin are rapists, who escaped conviction thanks to the failings of the justice system and 1990s slut-shaming. Nate Parker is also homophobic (saying he'd never play a gay character because he doesn't want to take away from black masculinity or something). I don't really know much about Nate Parker except I liked him in Gina Prince Bythewood's sublime Beyond the Lights (but he was outshined by his co-stars Gugu Mbatha Raw and Minnie Driver). Ultimately I decided to go see it because I wanted to write about it, just to see if it was good enough that I can separate the art from the artist.

Sadly, The Birth of a Nation is a garbage movie that is barely worth its running time let alone the pretzel I had to turn my crazy liberal mind into in order to justify spending money on it. I am not happy to report that the movie is an artistic failure, despite the air of prestige Oscar movie it has carried with it for the last nine months.  The film stars Parker as slave rebellion leader  Nat Turner, along with Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union, and Penelope Ann Miller.

Let's Talk About the Best Actor Race (Spoiler alert: it's not that interesting)

Ryan Gosling, La La Land

Does anyone even care about men these days?! When it comes to the Academy Awards this season, it looks like the answer is "oh, right, they give awards to men too..." While Viola Davis and Amy Adams and Emma Stone and Ruth Negga and Natalie Portman and many, many more are duking it out, it looks like the Best Actor category is without a frontrunner. A few frontrunners could pop up at any time; the Oscar season is long and fickle enough that things can change at any moment.

And I don't want to imply that this year's Oscar race is completely devoid of possible nominees and winners. Despite Bryce Dallas Howard not being forced to wear high heels in Jurassic World 2, Hollywood sexism isn't over so the majority of the films being talked about are heavily male-driven. It's just that no one has really stood out with an "it's his year" film like Emma Stone or Viola Davis.

Could Amy Adams Win an Oscar This Year? Can She?! Please?!?!

Five time Academy Award nominee Amy Adams is once again in the Oscar conversation this year. She has two well-received films working their way around the various festivals: Arrival, directed by Denis Villenueve (Sicario), and Nocturnal Animals, by Tom Ford (A Single Man). Though each film has their set of detractors--and Nocturnal Animals is turning out to be quite polarizing--I think Adams has obviously been praised to high heaven. Of the two films, most Oscar pundits are putting their Amy Adams eggs in the Arrival basket. Adams is on many lists of probably Oscar nominees for Best Actress, especially regarding her Arrival performance. I could see a nomination for either film (or perhaps some category fraud if they put her in Supporting Actress for Nocturnal Animals). But for now, let's pretend that Arrival will be the big Oscar movie for her.

But can she win? That's the question. For one thing, Amy Adams is well-liked enough in the industry that murmurs of "it's her year" are probably being heard around Hollywood. I'm not sure the murmurs will morph into the banshee call that preceded Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar win earlier this year. Amy Adams is talented obviously, and she's on the border of "oh yeah that girl" and true blue household name. However, Amy Adams has had the bad luck of being nominated alongside surefire winners, at least most of the time. Please read Amy Adams: Always the Oscar Bridesmaid, which further explores that idea.

My Top 10 Greatest Bollywood Films from the 21st Century

While writing my Top 10 Greatest Films from the 21st Century list, I realized I hadn't put any Indian films on it. Rather than try to restructure that list, I decided to give Bollywood its own top 10 list. I tried to include films of different genres, styles, and directors. Like the last list, I looked at both artistic merit and historical impact. So please enjoy! 

10. Band Baaja Baaraat (Maneesh Sharma; 2010)
On paper, this wedding rom-com might seem like a forgettably pleasant diversion. Thanks to Habib Faisal's script, Namrata Rao's editing, stars Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh, and Aseem Mishra's camerawork, the execution is an incisive and glamorous look at young Delhi residents following their goals. Band Baaja Baaraat is an excellent expression of how the typical Bollywood formula can come to life through innovative filmmaking.

My Top 10 Greatest Films from the 21st Century

For some unknown reason, I wasn't asked to join the BBC that compiled the 100 greatest films of the 21st century. So I decided to write my own list. This list is pretty Hollywood centric, and maybe that's a bad thing. But I really wanted it to reflect films that are important to me. Thee films maybe aren't my most favorite movies (though some of them are), but they are what I consider to be important in showcasing the best in terms of visual storytelling, themes, and historical relevance.

10. Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)
This melancholy, understated romance explores themes of isolation, human connection, and the effects of technology on human life. Boosted by expert performances, the script is warm and affectionate and the cinematography is striking. Spike Jonze is an incredibly heartfelt director, milking outlandish scenarios for what they say about modern human life.

Rose Byrne is Hollywood's Secret MVP

Rose Byrne may not be a household name, but she's certainly a household face. The Australian actress has been in a lot of mainstream movies, ranging from horror to comedies to superhero movies to musicals. Byrne made herself into a reliable character actor, often being cast in versatile projects and being comfortable in all of them. Did you see X-Men: First Class? Or Insidious? Or Bridesmaids? Yup, she was in them. Or maybe you know her from five seasons of Damages with Glenn Close. Rose Byrne seems to be bursting under the surface, ready for A-list. And considering she's of major value to all her projects, Byrne has become Hollywood's secret MVP.

Rose Byrne made her name in Australia, in several well-regarded Australian movies. FYI I have not seen any of her movies from down under but according to Wikipedia she was good in them. Byrne's first major Hollywood role was in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. She played Dorme, handmaiden to Senator Amidala (Natalie Portman). She did more Hollywood movies, such as Troy, Wicker Park, Sunshine directed by Danny Boyle, Adam, and her pre-breakout movies Insidious and Get Him to the Greek. All Rose Byrne needed was a major breakout movie.

The Calm Defiance in VEER ZAARA

Legendary Bollywood director Yash Chopra's penultimate film is the romantic epic drama Veer Zaara. Released in 2004, the film starred major Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, and Rani Mukherji, with supporting turns from Kirron Kher, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Boman Irani, Manoj Bajpai, Divya Dutta, and Anupam Kher. At the time, Veer-Zaara was one of the most anticipated films for a few reasons. First of all, that stacked cast. Second, it was Chopra's return to directing after seven years. Finally, its soundtrack consisted of unused tunes from the esteemed late composer Madan Mohan. Yash Chopra, who passed away in 2012, is one of my favorite directors. His filmmaking is lush and romantic in Veer-Zaara, often using the camera to bridge the gap between the traditional and the modern.

Veer-Zaara is a story of romantic rebellion curtailed by honor and duty. Zaara Haayat Khan (Zinta) is a Pakistani young woman who defies her parents to travel to India to spread the ashes of the woman who raised her. In India, she meets Squadron Leader Veer Pratap Singh (Khan) and over the next few days Veer and Zaara fall in love, as he helps complete her task. However, Zaara is facing an arranged marriage back in Pakistan, so the two separate. Back in Pakistan, however, Zaara's mind keeps going back to Veer. I wanted to deconstruct my favorite scene in the film where Zaara tells her mother Miriam (Kirron Kher) about Veer. This scene uses tracking shots, different angles, and editing to complement the dialogue and thematic elements.

Why I'm Glad the New GHOSTBUSTERS Isn't a "Passing the Torch" Sequel

People who follow entertainment news are probably familiar with all the nonsense going on with the Ghostbusters reboot coming out in July. Basically, the Paul Feig directed comedy stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon. Some people, mostly men who aren't used to the world not catering and pandering to their tastes, are upset that their beloved franchise is being turned into a gimmick. Articles upon articles are being written about this Internet controversy. Just a simple google search will deliver some great essays on why the vitriol against the new film is inherently sexist, with one guy even posting a six minute video on YouTube about why he won't even see the new movie. Click here for the best one from Birth.Movies.Death.'s Devin Faraci.

Granted, the trailers for Ghostbusters 2016 have not been that great. But I have to mention that trailers for Feig's previous films--especially Spy and Bridesmaids--were pretty uninspiring. The films themselves have been total treasures. Paul Feig uses his privilege as a white male director to tell stories about women friendships and struggles women face in becoming the best versions of themselves. His previous three films, including the action comedy The Heat, gave women (especially in their late 30s and early 40s) the space to be funny and slapsticky. It's awesome that the new Ghostbusters has an all-women cast. The movie is guaranteed to pass the Bechdel Test several times over, and considering the talent involved, it's sure to be funny all heck.