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2017 Mediocrities

10/25/2017

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'Ceremony' to come on the evening of October 27th. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter (MediocreMovieCl) for up-to-the-minute results.
Best Picture
​
Brooklyn
Ex Machina
Moonlight - Winner
Tour de Pharmacy
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
The VVitch
Best Director

Robert Eggers, The VVitch
Jonathan Glazer, Under the Skin
Debra Granik, Winter's Bone
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight - Winner
​Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049

Best Actor

​Ben Mendelsohn, Gerry, Mississippi Grind
Denzel Washington, Malcolm X, Malcolm X - Winner
Joaquin Phoenix, Theodore Twombley, Her
Mads Mikkelson, Lucas, The Hunt
​Robin Williams, Lance Clayton, World's Greatest Dad
Best Actress

Annette Bening, Dorothea, 20th Century Women
Holly Hunter, Jane Craig, Broadcast News
Scarlett Johansson, The Female, Under the Skin
Anna Taylor-Joy, Thomasin, The VVitch
Jennifer Lawrence, Ree Dolly, Winter's Bone - Winner
Melanie Lynskey, Ruth Kimke, I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
​Gloria Swanson, Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard

Best Supporting Actor

Mahershala Ali, Juan, Moonlight - Winner
Albert Brooks, Aaron Altman, Broadcast News
John Hawkes, Teardrop, Winter's Bone
Andre Holland, Kevin (adult), Moonlight
Ralph Ineson, William, The VVitch
John C. Reilly, Amos Hart, Chicago
​​Elijah Wood, Tony, I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
Best Supporting Actress

Judi Dench, Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare in Love
Scarlett Johansson, Samantha, Her
Tilda Swinton, Lucy and Nancy Mirando, Okja - Winner
Marisa Tomei, Natalie Strout, In the Bedroom
​Catherine Zeta-Jones, Velma Kelly, Chicago
​

Best Writing

Broadcast News
Her - Winner
Moonlight
Winter's Bone
The VVitch
​World's Greatest Dad
Best Scene

​Man demands to know where the cartel buried his uncles, Cartel Land
Juan teaches Chiron how to swim, Moonlight
French police officer injects himself with meth, Tour de Pharmacy
Retrieving Jessup Dolly's body, Winter's Bone
​Black Phillip speaks to Thomasin, The VVitch - Winner

Best Jefe

Blair
Jon - Winner
Lane
Phil
Shane
Worst Jefe

Blair
​Bobby
Bryan
Cook - Winner
​Drew

Best Line

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."  Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
"They've got the upper body of an alien, and the downstairs of a horse."  Lucy Flerng, Tour de Pharmacy
"I should've known that if a guy like me talked to a girl like you, somebody'd end up dead."  Dale, Tucker and Dale vs Evil
"Hey, college kids!  We've got your friend!"  Tucker, Tucker and Dale vs Evil
"Wouldst though like the taste of butter?  A pretty dress?  Wouldst though like to live deliciously?"  Black Phillip, The VVitch - Winner
​"You guys didn't like Kyle. That's okay. I didn't either. I loved him. He was my son. But he was also a douchebag."  Lance, World's Greatest Dad
Worst Movie

Heatstroke - Winner
Singles
Turbo Kid
Walt Before Mickey
Wiener-Dog

Worst Male Performance

Ben Affleck, Ned Alleyn, Shakespeare in Love
Taylor Grey, Friz Frelong, Walt Before Mickey
Armando Guitierrez, Ub Iwerks, Walt Before Mickey
Jake Gyllenhaal, Dr. Johnny, Okja - Winner
Thomas Ian Nichols, Walt Disney, Walt Before Mickey
​​Jeremy Piven, Doug Hughley, Singles
Worst Female Performance

Chelan Simmons, Chloe, Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Greta Gerwig, Dawn, Wiener-Dog - Winner
Laurence Leboeuf, Apple, Turbo Kid
​Svetlana Metkina, Tally, Heatstroke
​​Maisie Williams, Jo, Heatstroke

Best Review

Jon on Mississippi Grind
Jon on Under the Skin
Lane on Midnight Special - Winner
Lane on Shakespeare in Love
Lane on Train to Busan
Shane on Tour de Pharmacy
Gamemaster

Bobby
JR
Phil - Winner
Sean
​Shane

House of Coddle Award

Caleb who coddles Ava, Ex Machina - Winner
Stephen Dorff who coddles the hyenas, Paul, Heatstroke
Curtis who coddles Gerry, Mississippi Grind
Anti-doping agency who coddles the riders, Tour de Pharmacy
​Nana who coddles her granddaughter, Wiener-Dog
Sean Riley Award (best barf-inducing moment)

Tour of the slaughterhouse, Okja - Winner
College kid jumps into the wood chipper, Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Meat slurry, Under the Skin
Crow 'breast-feeds' from Katherine, The Witch
​The witch mashes up baby Sam, The Witch

Dingo Award (best pet)

Whitey the rabbit, Fatal Attraction
Okja, Okja
Jangers, Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Wiener Dog/Doo Dee/Cancer, Wiener-Dog
​Black Phillip, The VVitch - Winner
Masturbating Kevin Memorial Award (most uncomfortable moment)

Militia questions man while man's daughter screams at them, Cartel Land
Double or nothing on the field, Mississippi Grind
Gerry's bad beat in Memphis, Mississippi Grind
Antonio rapes Okja, Okja - Winner
Rocky beach sequence, Under the Skin
0 Comments

Her

10/20/2017

1 Comment

 

A-
3.67

A lonely man falls in love with his artificially-intelligent operating system.

Directed by Spike Jonze
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, and Amy Adams
Initial Review by Jon Kissel

Picture
​In my reviews for our previous two AI movies, Blade Runner 2049 and Ex Machina, I’ve described both as technically impressive but emotionally cold.  I largely fail the altered Turing test in Ex Machina, where Oscar Isaac’s Nathan wants his human test subject to develop strong feelings for an android.  I never cared about any of the characters in 2049 even as I was wowed by the imagery and the vision.  This is often the case with sci-fi, a genre where writers and directors automatically translate a distance onto human-machine interactions, or settle for the marvel and skimp on the resonance.  The best of the genre, of which I would include Her, start with the raw question (Dan Harmon has described sci-fi as simply asking What If), apply it to recognizable human behavior, and follow it to a natural conclusion.  Her keeps this formula as simple as it can, asking a minimal amount of buy-in from the viewer, building an unostentatious world, and daring them to fall into the central relationship between a man and his operating system while still doubting the wisdom of doing so.  Her does it all and more, as plausible a vision of the future as it is a romance and a treatise on isolation.


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1 Comment

Ex Machina

10/15/2017

7 Comments

 

A-
3.57

A programmer is summoned by his tech genius boss to test his AI creation.

Directed by Alex Garland
Starring Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, and Domhnall Gleeson
Initial Review by Jon Kissel

Picture
​The title of Alex Garland's sci-fi film is notable for what it leaves out.  Ex Machina is missing the Deus that typically leads that phrase, meaning God of the Machine.  A Deus Ex Machina is a dramatic device in which a powerful solution is presented to a difficult problem.  Ex Machina doesn't resort to this often-cheap device, but by cutting God out of the title, it does invite the question of who in the film might fill that role.  Is it the inventor, the vastly-powerful invented, or the mediator between the two that drives the action?  As the writer of top-notch sci-fi films like Sunshine, 28 Days Later, and Never Let Me Go, Garland has long interrogated the relationship between creator and created, as well as the distance between cold rationality and empathetic feeling.  In his directorial debut, Ex Machina is of a kind with his previous work, as artificial intelligence is subbed in for contagion, cloning, or space travel while the themes remain the same. 


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7 Comments

Blade Runner 2049

10/6/2017

17 Comments

 

B+
​3.33

A cop on the hunt for renegade cyborgs unearths a conspiracy.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Starring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, and Robin Wright
Review by Phil Crone

Picture
Before diving into the review proper, let’s get a couple important questions out of the way…

SHOULD YOU SEE THE ORIGINAL? – Probably, but it isn’t required viewing.  A few pieces of the aesthetic might be lost in translation, but you really don’t need much beyond a basic understanding of who Deckard is, who Rachel is, and their relationship.  Everything else can be gleaned from context within the movie.

S
POILER-FREE, SHOULD I SEE THIS? – More than likely yes.  The pacing is a bit deliberate by today’s standards, but if you like Denis Villeneuve’s previous outings Sicario and especially Arrival, or you’re a fan of the original, you should see this.  And try to see it on IMAX or Cinemark xD or something like that, because this is a visual spectacle.

Ok, and with that, onto the show…


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17 Comments

A Monster Calls

9/29/2017

1 Comment

 

B-
2.78

A boy with a terminally ill mother encounters a story-telling tree monster.

Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona
Starring Lewis MacDougall, Felicity Jones, and Liam Neeson
Initial Review by Phil Crone

Picture
A Monster Calls should be commended for taking on a difficult subject with a more whimsical approach than we normally see, but confusing underlying decisions ultimately undermine what could have been one of the great movies of 2016.  The story starts with a strong enough foundation.  Conor is a young boy with a life no one wants: his mother is sick and presumably dying, he has no other significant support system to look to, and he is constantly bullied by another boy who may or may not actually be in love with him, but I digress.  His life is almost comically terrible – why not just give him a physical deformity while we’re at it?  Conor finds respite in his drawing, and these fantasies manifest themselves in the form of a tree monster who visits Conor with the promise of telling him three stories, after which Conor will reveal “his truth.”  The structure is reminiscent of the 2006 modern classic Pan’s Labyrinth, but the similarities begin and end there.


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