| Best Picture 2001: A Space Odyssey Amadeus Inside Out - Winner The Princess Bride Room We Need to Talk About Kevin Best Actor F. Murray Abraham, Amadeus - Winner Abraham Attah, Beasts of No Nation Oscar Isaac, The Two Faces of January Choi Min-sik, Oldboy Jason Mitchell, Straight Outta Compton Best Supporting Actor Benicio del Toro, Sicario Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation - Winner John Houseman, The Paper Chase Tom Hulce, Amadeus Mandy Patinkin, The Princess Bride John C. Reilly, We Need to Talk About Kevin Best Writing Amadeus - Winner Chi-raq Four Lions Inside Out We Need to Talk About Kevin World of Tomorrow Best Review Bobby on Straight Outta Compton Bobby on We Need to Talk About Kevin Jon on A Trip to the Moon Jon on Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Jon on World of Tomorrow Lane on The Paper Chase - Winner Lane on White God Best Jefe Blair Bobby Bryan Jon - Winner Shane Worst Movie Escape From Tomorrow Jane Eyre Meet the Patels Pee-wee's Big Holiday The Ridiculous 6 - Winner Worst Female Performance Clair Danes, Stardust Julia Jones, The Ridiculous 6 - Winner Michelle Pfeiffer, Stardust Elene Schuber, Escape From Tomorrow Robin Wright, The Princess Bride Nonsense Award #1 - House of Coddle Award (overly-forgiving characters) Timothy Bottoms, James Hart, The Paper Chase Kang Hye-jung, Mi-do, Oldboy Synnove Macody Lund, Diana, Headhunters John C. Reilly, Franklin, We Need to Talk About Kevin - Winner Vinessa Shaw, Dierdre Banks, Side Effects Nonsense Award #3 - Dingo Award (best pet) Faisal's crows - Four Lions Bing-Bong, Inside Out - Winner Egg Snake, Room Gerbil that Kevin kills, We Need to Talk About Kevin Hagen, White God | Best Director Lenny Abrahmson, Room Milos Foreman, Amadeus Cary Fukunaga, Beasts of No Nation Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey - Winner Park Chan-wook, Oldboy Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin Steven Spielberg, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Best Actress Emily Blunt, Sicario Brie Larson, Room - Winner Teyonah Parris, Chi-raq Kate Siegel, Hush Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin Best Supporting Actress Joan Allen, Room Drew Barrymore, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - Winner (Tie) Angela Bassett, Chi-raq Elizabeth Berridge, Amadeus Kirsten Dunst, The Two Faces of January Phyllis Smith, Inside Out - Winner (Tie) Best Scene Unplugging HAL, 2001: A Space Odyssey - Winner One-take home invasion, Beasts of No Nation Hallway hammer fight, Oldboy Westley and Inigo fence-off, The Princess Bride Abner Doubleday improvises the rules to baseball, The Ridiculous 6 Best Line "I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint," Amadeus - Winner "Can ten years of imaginary training be put to use?", Oldboy "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die," The Princess Bride "Just because you're used to something, doesn't mean you like it. You're used to me," We Need to Talk About Kevin "I am very proud of my sadness because it means I am more alive," World of Tomorrow Gamemaster Bobby JR Phil - Winner Sean Shane Worst Jefe Ashli Cook - Winner (Tie) JR Sean Topper - Winner (Tie) Worst Male Performance Roy Abramsohn, Escape From Tomorrow Charlie Cox, Stardust Taylor Lautner, The Ridiculous 6 - Winner Spike Lee, School Daze Adam Sandler, The Ridiculous 6 Vanilla Ice, The Ridiculous 6 Nonsense Award #2 - Sean Riley Award (best barf-inducing moment) Seeing the blind and limbless neanderthal women, Bone Tomahawk Split balls to brains, Bone Tomahawk Hiding in the outhouse, Headhunters - Winner Oh Dae-su eats an octopus, Oldboy Lil Pete is fellated by a donkey, The Ridiculous 6 Nonsense Award #4 - Drew and Joe Award (most uncomfortable moment) Pruitt's speech about his dead wife, The Invitation Greg shows Rachel his awful film, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Oh Dae-su's incest is revealed, Oldboy Oh Dae-su takes out the warden's teeth, Oldboy Kevin doesn't flinch when Eva catches him masturbating, We Need to Talk About Kevin - Winner |
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1 Comment
 I need to stop picking Kubrick movies that I rate so highly. I'm never quite sure how to review them without just simply gushing and rambling. But, if any Kubrick flick deserves that... it's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I like to think that there's no such thing as a perfect movie, that there has to be some flaw, be it technical, plot based, directing, acting... something. But, 2001 may be as close to perfection as there is, at least in my likely biased eyes. I'm not going to go on as long as I probably could here, but want to simply touch on a few things that make the movie so worthy of praise. When I get to the plot, I will absolutely be leaving a ton out, as there is just a ton to unpack... even if the movie wasn't two and a half hours! I'll start where 2001 does... with music. I love the overture intro, as it essentially prepares you for what's to come (more on that later). I won't pretend to know much at all about classical music, but the importance and fit of 2001's score is undeniable. The music always worked along side the visuals, adding to the immersion in any given scene. Since most of the film goes without dialogue, it's vital to have such a powerful score. The film won a well deserved BAFTA for best Soundtrack
 Netflix describes The Two Faces of January as “A tour guide and part-time con artist finds himself caught in a dangerous arrangement when he meets a wealthy couple sightseeing in Greece” Genres: 20th century period pieces, thrillers, crime thrillers. Suspenseful.
Based on that description I added to my list and was excited. I loved Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina, Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst are recognizable so I was expecting a combination of excitement and beautiful scenery. We start strong. Oscar Isaac is very charismatic as tour guide conman Rydal and you can see all the girls on his tour swooning over him and his quick exchange rate swindles over lunch establish who he is. Viggo and Kirsten as Chester and Collette are introduced as the typical rich American tourists heavy on the cash and light on the local knowledge and language. The exchange in the bazaar when they overpay for the bracelet is brilliant. Rydal begins with throwing out a price that is more than enough then “negotiates” it down while tacking on a chunk for himself to the delight of the salesman as he gets paid and a couple American fat cats get screwed because they don’t know any better. So far I’m feeling like we’re getting a version of The Talented Mr Ripley.
 “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” might pander to critic sensibilities with the famous movie parodies and decidedly hipster references early on, but it’s a great story with a lot of heart built around three likable characters.
The movie lives and dies with its characters, and most of all with Greg. I could see Greg being polarizing, but I found him likable. He’s got a dry sense of humor, rattling off several great lines throughout the movie, and he’s the type of painfully-stunted introvert that I think is easy to root for. We’re getting the story through his eyes, and it’s interesting to see how the story morphs as Greg tells it. His opening line winds up being all we think we need to know about his ruined senior year and terrible movie that killed a girl. As we go along, we feel Greg soften to his situation of being forced into an awkward friendship with Rachel and how it helped him grow as a person. This gave me the sense that Greg didn’t realize how much he cherished his time with Rachel until he’s actually telling the story. This impression is only reiterated by the details as the story progresses. Early scenes feel very stiff, as they should, given the situation Greg and Rachel find themselves in. By the end, I get the sense that Greg began to soften and present a more distorted, lighter side to the affair. He even goes so far as to retract his opening statement of Rachel dying, attempting to convince himself more than the audience that the ending isn’t already written. Ultimately, this gives me the sense that we don’t know the whole story about Earl or Rachel, but in Greg’s version at least, they’re impossible to dislike.
 “The Invitation” is a slow simmering pot of a film that rewards the patience of those that stay to watch it boil over. It’s a film that relies on mood, shadow, and atmosphere; sticking with it may be hard, because like any terrible party, you might want to find an excuse to leave. I resisted the urge to break the watching of the film up into two or more segments and I’m glad I did. Once the final port was poured, the uncomfortable dysfunction of the first hour and twenty minutes finally erupted into the chaos you knew had been brewing at the molecular level. Suspicions are confirmed and the viewer finds a perverse satisfaction in finally being able to say, “I knew that was going to happen!”
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