Review – The Revenant

Movie Title: The Revenant

Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Date Released: January 8th, 2016

Date Seen: January 16th, 2016

Seen With: Daniel

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

I went into this movie not really expecting anything other than a great acting feat.  This movie delivered on that front.  But it also delivered a surprisingly interesting story that kept me hooked, had my heart pounding at times, and that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I liked this movie much more than anticipated, and for a variety of reasons.

We’ll get this out of the way – the acting in the movie is fantastic.  Yes, we know Leonardo DiCaprio can act.  A lot of this movie is him in more compromised positions and taking a lot of a beating.  There’s a lot of teeth gritting and whining and revenge seeking, and he’s wounded for a lot of the movie. Sometimes I have a hard time separating Leonardo DiCaprio the actor from the character he’s playing and this movie I didn’t have that problem. Is it my favorite Leonardo DiCaprio acting piece? No. But he still does a damn good job.  Tom Hardy plays a role that reminded me a lot of his role as Alfie Solomons in the Netflix show Peaky Blinders. I thought he did a good job but it wasn’t anything shocking.  Donhnall Gleeson surprised me as Captain Andrew Henry, probably just because I have his recent Star Wars: The Force Awakens role in my mind.  But again, unsurprisingly he did a great job.  The real treat was Will Poulter as Bridger, one of the younger fur trappers on the team with the aforementioned characters.  You might recognize him from the comedy “We Are the Millers”?  Well, seeing him pop up in the movie I was worried but he was the stand out performance in this movie.  He did a phenomenal job.  I can’t wait to see him in more serious acting roles after this.

The other great thing about this movie is the colors. It’s mostly filmed in blue and grey tones, so whenever there is red for fire or blood it really stands out and makes an even more significant impact.  There are a lot of panning landscape shots that are gorgeous to look at, even when the shots are filled with the remains of a battle.  For a good portion of the movie, Iñárritu uses a film technique similar to what he did in Birdman, with the camera following one person closely and then moving to another person to focus on a different area.  This was great in battle scenes, and actually made them feel more realistic than the usual cut to pieces fight scenes.  However, it didn’t work well during the close camp scenes and was annoying and out of place at times.

The plot also was great.  I didn’t know much about the movie going into it (the trailers didn’t tell you a ton), but it surprised me.  There was so much going on, and the different story lines you see through the course of the movie were all important and connected. I will say, I had heard about the bear fight before I went into the movie.  I heard it was intense and it certainly was.  My heart was pounding during it and it was a bit rough to watch.  Even though it’s a CGI bear (duh) it felt very real.

Overall I enjoyed this movie much more than expected, and would recommend it.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

The one thing I couldn’t really get behind was the Captain’s allegiance towards Glass.  Once it’s revealed that Fitzgerald left Glass for dead and killed Hawk, AND stole all the money, it makes sense that he’s angry.  But even before that Glass seems very very adamant about helping Glass stay alive and carrying him along with them while trying to make it back to the fort.  Could be because of things that had happened in the past with the fur trapping group, not sure, but it just seemed like he was always 100% on the side of Glass, even when it might not have benefited the company (like carrying his near-dying body for miles over mountains). Yes, there wouldn’t have been some of a plot without it, but I would have liked some explanation there.

Overall – 8/10

A grotesquely beautiful movie, with impressive acting, mildly annoying camera techniques, but an overall great movie.

Review – In the Heart of The Sea

Movie Title: In the Heart of the Sea

Director: Ron Howard

Date Released: December 11th, 2015

Date Seen: December 2th, 2015 – Screening Event

Seen With: Daniel

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Review

I got free tickets to go see this movie, and it was one that I was semi-interested in seeing. It was the idea of the plot I was ok. I loved Rush, also directed by Ron Howard, and his movies are generally very well acted and gorgeous so figured why not.

The plot surprised me, I knew it was a frame story, with Herman Melville being played by Ben Whishaw, hearing the fantastic tale of the Essex from one of the crew many years after the events.  The story would become that of Moby Dick.  So despite having a general idea of what would happen in the story (oh, you know, giant evil whale blah blah), it still managed to keep me on my toes.  This was in part due to the extremely well written characters.  Even the jerk/asshole characters you understood for the most part where they were coming from and they were a necessary part of the story.  This was also helped out by the phenomenal acting in this movie.  Chris Hemsworth plays Owen Chase, first mate on the Essex, and is one of the main characters.  He goes through a physical transformation that is frightening to see – especially if you think of his physique in Thor.  But he does a fantastic job.  Tom Holland plays Thomas Nickerson, a young deck hand on the boat.  He was a nice surprise, considering that thus far he hasn’t been in a large amount of acting roles (though he is going to be Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War). The other standouts are Cillian Murphy playing Matthew Joy, a long time friend of Owen Chase, and Benjamin Walker as George Pollard, the captain of the Essex.  Walker definitely took a step up from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

I was correct in that this movie would be gorgeous.  From the scenes just looking at a boat on the water, or close up action shots on the boat, everything had something beautiful to look at.  The colors were fantastic, going between scenes of deep blues and greens typically when there was ocean turmoil to the oranges, yellows, and golds, later on in the movie.  It kept the movie looking pretty even when there were horrors going on screen.  The sounds in the movie were also fantastic, and they added a nice level of realism to the movie that sometimes is lost.  There’s a scene early on when they’re boarding the ship, and the amount of different sounds going on in the shipyard, the conversations, the water sounds, the boat sounds, the people, etc. really makes you feel like you’re there.  It also continues throughout the movie.

All in all I was expecting to like this movie, but come out very impressed and happy that I saw the movie.  I thought it was a great movie that I would definitely go see again.  See it on the big screen if you can, it’s definitely worth the money.

 

Part 2 – Spoilers Review

I can’t think of anything spoilery I’d like to say at the moment.

 

Overall – 8/10

Beautifully shot and acted, good pace of the movie, while managing to keep you on your toes despite having an idea of where the story is headed.

Review – The Babadook

Movie Title: The Babadook

Director: Jennifer Kent

Date Released: January 17th, 2014 – Sundance Film Festival

Date Seen: April 24th, 2015

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

Have you ever wondered what it’d feel like to watch a whole movie that feels like a nightmare?  Look no further! I’ve found it for you. This movie.  It’s creepy, it’s freaky, and will scare you by bringing up those fears everyone has – darkness, the thing that went bumb in the night, the monsters under the bed, that creepy shadow in the corner of the room that kind of looks like a person.  It’s really good at those types of scares.  You see the Babadook for a fleeting few seconds a couple of times, but for the most part, it’s your imagination that’s going to scare the crap out of you.  It can be a little cheesy at times, and yeah, the kid is annoying as hell in the beginning, but it’s still pretty good.

There’s a lot of dream like elements in the movie – which help it feel like a nightmare.  The entire movie is a blue-grey colors scheme, even in the day time.  Sometimes there are these really jumpy cuts, or a scene of Amelia falling asleep by slowing falling into her bed with the camera above her.  The scenes where we see the Babadook are this weird clay-mation kind of feeling thing.  It feels like it’s coming straight from the pages of the book.  So it gives you that feeling you have in nightmares where you know you’ve seen some of this before in the day, and it’s coming back to haunt you.  For that reason, I’d also suggest not watching this right before bed like I did.  It makes you just a little extra paranoid about oh god what was that totally explainable by the cat noise I just herad? Definitely not the cat.  Anyway, the nightmare-ish aspects of the movie were probably my favorite part of it.

The plot was nothing too unexpected, but didn’t feel like a plot that’s been overdone too many times. You could get real artsy with how the Babadook doesn’t exist and it’s a woman and her son dealing with the death of her husband/his father. But why get all artsy-fartsy?  It was a good scare and good movie without even having to do that.  The acting was good, especially with the little boy that played Samuel.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

In the beginning of the movie I couldn’t stand Samuel.  Whiney brats annoy me and that’s exactly what he was.  But he gets way better once Amelia starts going crazy.  Though, he’s a smart kid with making those homemade weapons. They were pretty cool.

The Babadook/Amelia needed a new line other than “you little shit”.  I feel like they said it way too many times that it just lost its effect.  The first time is shocking, that Amelia would call her son that, but then it just gets repetitive.  Though could be because the Babadook didn’t seem to have that big of a vocabulary… who knows.

 

Overall: 7.5/10

It’s hard to scare me, considering my obsession with horror movies.  This one is creepy, preys on natural fears everyone has, and has that nice dream-like feeling I like.

2015 Oscar Nominations

Best Picture

• American Sniper – Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, Bradley Cooper, and Peter Morgan
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, and James W. Skotchdopole
• Boyhood – Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson, Scoot Rudin, Steven Rales, and Jeremy Dawson
• The Imitation Game – Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky, and Teddy Schwarzman
• Selma – Christian Colson, Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner
• The Theory of Everything – Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, and Anthony McCarten
• Whiplash – Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook, and David Lancaster

Want to Win: Theory of Everything, because it was my absolute favorite of those movies.  Imitation Game being a close second.

Will Probably Win: I’m slightly leaning towards Birdman, with Boyhood being the obvious second. Odds are one of the two of them will get it.  I think Imitation Game is the dark horse that if there was a surprise, that would be it.

Actual Winner: Birdman

Actor in a Leading Role

• Steve Carell in “Foxcatcher”
• Bradley Cooper in “American Sniper”
• Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Imitation Game“
• Michael Keaton in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)“
• Eddie Redmayne in “Theory of Everything“

Want to Win: Eddie Redmayne

Will Probably Win: Eddie Redmayne

Actual Winner: Eddie Redmayne

Actress in a Leading Role

• Marion Cotillard in “Two Days, One Night”
• Felicity Jones in “The Theory of Everything“
• Julianne Moore in “Still Alice”
• Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl”
• Reese Witherspoon in “Wild”

Want to Win: I don’t have any strong feelings in this category, but I did very much enjoy Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl.  So we’ll go with that.

Will Probably Win: Julianne Moore

Actual Winner: Julianne Moore

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Robert Duvall in “The Judge”
• Ethan Hawke in “Boyhood“
• Edward Norton in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)“
• Mark Ruffalo in “Foxcatcher”
• J.K. Simmons in “Whiplash”

Want to Win: Edward Norton

Will Probably Win: Probably J.K. Simmons with Edward Norton being a close second.

Actual Winner: J. K. Simmons

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Patricia Arquette in “Boyhood“
• Laura Dern in “Wild”
• Keira Knightley in “The Imitation Game“
• Emma Stone in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)“
• Meryl Streep in “Into the Woods”

Want to Win: Emma Stone was awesome in Birdman, and I would choose her if it wasn’t for Patricia Arquette who should win this and would absolutely deserve it.

Will Probably Win: Patricia Arquette

Actual Winner: Patricia Arquette

Animated Feature Film

• Big Hero 6 – Don Hall, Chris Williams, and Roy Conli
• The Boxtrolls – Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable, and Travis Knight
• How to Train Your Dragon 2 – Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold
• Song of the Sea – Tomm Moore and Paul Young
• The Tale of Princess Kaguya – Isao Takahata and Yoshiaki Nishimura

Want to Win: It doesn’t have a chance, but I’d love it if Boxtrolls won.  I loved going back to the claymation styling, and thus would love it if it won so that we’d maybe see more of these types of movies start to come back again.

Will Probably Win: How To Train Your Dragon 2 (which I thought was great, so I have no issues with it winning, either).

Actual Winner: Big Hero 6 (not going to lie, I was surprised, everything seemed to point at HTTYD2).

Cinematography

• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Emmanuel Lubezki
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Robert Yeoman
• Ida – Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski
• Mr. Turner – Dick Pope
• Unbroken – Roger Deakins

Want to Win: Birdman – I think the cinematography is part of the reason the movie was so cool to watch, so I think it should get it, but I also admit I haven’t seen the last three movies in the category.

Will Probably Win: Birdman

Actual Winner: Birdman

Costume Design

• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Milena Canonero
• Inherent Vice – Mark Bridges
• Into the Woods – Colleen Atwood
• Maleficent – Anna B. Sheppard
• Mr. Turner – Jacqueline Durran

Want to Win: Lolz Maleficent just to watch people be confused as to what the hell happened.

Will Probably Win: Grand Budapest Hotel, but equally as likely as Into the Woods.  I just think Into the Woods has so much inspiration from the stage show already, and there aren’t many costume changes between the main characters, that meh.  I don’t care for it to win.

Actual Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Directing

• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Alejandro G. Iñárritu
• Boyhood – Robert Linklater
• Foxcatcher – Bennett Miller
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson
• The Imitation Game – Morten Tyldum

Want to Win: Boyhood

Will Probably Win: Boyhood

Actual Winner: Birdman (again, the other one I was surprised with, obviously)

Documentary Feature

• CitizenFour – Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, and Dirk Wilutzky
• Finding Vivian Maier – John Maloof and Charlie Siskel
• Last Days in Vietnam – Rory Kennedy and Keven McAlester
• The Salt of the Earth – Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiero Salgado, and David Rosier
• Virunga – Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara

I haven’t seen any of these :(.  I fail.

Actual Winner: CitizenFour

Documentary Short Subject

• Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 – Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry
• Joanna – Aneta Kopacz
• Our Curse – Tomasz Śliwiński and Maciej Ślesicki
• The Reaper (La Parka) – Gabriel Serra Arguello
• White Earth – J. Christian Jensen

I haven’t seen any of these either, I fail again!

Actual Winner: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

Film Editing

• American Sniper – Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach
• Boyhood – Sandra Adair
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Barney Pilling
• The Imitation Game – William Goldenberg
• Whiplash – Tom Cross

Want to Win: No strong feelings on what I want to win here.  I think Boyhood is kind of a cop out because they had *so* long to work on it.  Yes, that doesn’t mean that their work wasn’t great, just you had 12 years to edit your movie when others had one or two.

Will Probably Win: Boyhood

Actual Winner: Whiplash

Foreign Language Film

• Ida – Poland, Pawel Pawlikowski
• Leviathan – Russia, Andrey Zvyagintsev
• Tangerines – Estonia, Zaza Urushadze
• Timbuktu – Mauritania, Abderrahmane Sissako
• Wild Tales – Damián Szifron

The only one I’ve seen is Ida, so I can’t make a very good decision on this category.

Actual Winner: Ida

Makeup and Hairstyling

• Foxcatcher – Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier
• Guardians of the Galaxy – Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White

Want to Win: Guardians of the Galaxy.  Because aliens.

Will Probably Win: Not sure, so I’ll just stick with Guardians of the Galaxy.

Actual Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Music – Original Score

• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Alexandre Desplat
• The Imitation Game – Alexandre Desplat
• Interstellar – Hans Zimmer
• Mr. Turner – Gary Yershon
• The Theory of Everything – Jóhann Jóhannsson

Want to Win: One of the few categories I’ve seen the majority of the movies!  The only one I remember “diskling” the music was Interstellar, just becuase it was so obvious normal Hans Zimmer stuff that it actually distracted me from the movie.  I just saw Imitation Game, and thought the music was great at times.  I also remember the music in Grand Budapest Hotel standing out to me in a positive way.  So basically, I just want one of Alexandre Desplat’s to win.

Will Probably Win: I don’t know.  Grand Budapest Hotel? Let’s go with it.

Actual Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Music – Original Song

• “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie – Shawn Patterson
• “Glory” from Selma – John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn
• “Grateful” from Beyond the Lights – Diane Warren
• “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell… I’ll be me – Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
• “Lost Stars” from Begin Again – Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois

Want to Win: EEEVERYTHING IS AWESOMEEEEEEEE EVERYING IS COOOL WHEN YOU’RE PART OF A TEEEAMMMMMM

Will Probably Win: I have legitimately no idea.  Let’s give our prediction to “Glory” from Selma, since they have to let it win something.

Actual Winner: “Glory” from Selma

Production Design

• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Adam Stockhausen (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)
• The Imitation Game – Maria Djurkovic (Production Design); Tatiana Macdonald (Set Decoration)
• Interstellar – Nathan Crowley (Production Design); Gary Fettis (Set Decoration)
• Into the Woods – Dennis Gassner (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)
• Mr. Turner – Suzie Davies (Production Design); Charlotte Watts (Set Decoration)

Want to Win: I watched a feature on the set design of Grand Budapest, so I’m slightly biased towards it.  However, I love how realistic the world of the Imitation Game felt.  Into the Woods I still always felt like I was on a “stage”, and I didn’t really like that.  So not that one.

Will Probably Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Actual Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Short Film – Animated

• The Bigger Picture – Daisy Jacons and Christopher Hees
• The Dam Keeper – Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi
• Feast – Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed
• Me and My Moulton – Torill Kove
• A Single Life – Joris Oprins

Guess which category I failed at?

Actual Winner: Feast

Short Film – Live Action

• Aya – Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis
• Boogaloo and Graham – Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney
• Butter Lamp (La Lampe au Buerre de Yak) – Hu Wei and Julien Féret
• Parvaneh – Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger
• The Phone Call – Mat Kirkby and James Lucas

Oh hey this is the last one I suck at, I swear.

Actual Winner: The Phone Call

Sound Editing

• American Sniper – Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Martin Hernández and Aaron Glascock
• The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Brent Burge and Jason Canovas
• Interstellar – Richard King
• Unbroken – Becky Sullivan and Andrew DeCristofaro

Want to Win: Interstellar, because I feel like a lot of the space sounds you have to really work at creating and figuring out what kind of sounds you need, that might not already be “out there”.  Like the Hobbit, we have cool battles, but we’ve had cool orc battles for 5 other movies.  With American Sniper, there have been countless war movies.

Will Probably Win: I’m not sure, honestly. I’ll stick with Interstellar, because I don’t have a better reason why one of the others should win.

Actual Winner: American Sniper

Sound Mixing

• American Sniper – John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga
• Interstellar – Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten
• Unbroken – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and David Lee
• Whiplash – Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley

Want to Win: Whiplash

Will Probably Win: Whiplash

Actual Winner: Whiplash

Visual Effects

• Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist
• Guardians of the Galaxy – Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould
• Interstellar – Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher
• X-Men: Days of Future Past – Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer

Want to Win: X-Men, because I’m an X-Men whore and will always pick X-Men for anything.

Will Probably Win: Interstellar

Actual Winner: Interstellar

Writing – Adapted Screenplay

• American Sniper – Jason Hall
• The Imitation Game – Graham Moore
• Inherent Vice – Paul Thomas Anderson
• The Theory of Everything – Anthony McCarten
• Whiplash – Damien Chazelle

Want to Win: The Theory of Everything or The Imitation Game

Will Probably Win: The Imitation Game

Actual Winner: The Imitation Game

Writing – Original Screenplay

• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo
• Boyhood – Richard Linklater
• Foxcatcher – E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman
• The Grand Budapest Hotel – Screenplay by Wes Anderson; Story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness
• Nightcrawler – Dan Gilroy

Want to Win:  Here’s where, despite the fact that I didn’t much care for Birdman, I think it’s the most deserving to win in this category.  So I’m choosing it, over Boyhood, which they had 12+ years to write/rewrite/rework, etc.  So no fair to them.

Will Probably Win: Birdman or Boyhood.

Actual Winner: Birdman

Review – Interstellar

Movie Title: Interstellar

Director: Christopher Nolan

Date Released: November 7th, 2014

Date Seen: November 7th, 2014

Seen With: Dad

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

The enwest Christopher Nolan film that we have been excited and waiting months for!  It’s finally here! Interstellar, the story of a man who leaves his family behind in hopes to save the entire human race by going on an Interstellar journey.  Shocking, I know.  I bet you didn’t see that Interstellar journey part coming.  Overall this movie is GOREGOUS to look at.  That is far and away the best part of the movie.  Every little detail from scenes on earth to scenes out in Space are incredible.  I could sit and watch them travel through the galaxy for days on end and be completely content.  They were fantastic.  Nolan’s goal to “wow” or amaze the audience, and the movie does that from the visuals alone.

The plot, overall, is very good.  There are of course the usual plot holes (I mention some in part 2 of the review to not spoil anything) and annoyances, but overall it’s very well done. A lot of time is spent on the space plot line, which at times leaves the Earth plot line underdeveloped.  It was one of my major issues with the movie.  They focus a lot on how certain decisions really impact Cooper (like going on the trip), or how it affects the family, but then skip over some important development parts of that. The movie is very long, because it is a very long and complicated plot line, but didn’t feel long until the end of the movie.  It rushed a little bit at the end, which I would have liked to have seen time taken elsewhere to do just a little bit more explaining.  That’s my personal preference, however.  The movie, being a Christopher Nolan film, does of course have the usual “mind-fuck” as I like to call it.  It’s a slow and subtle mindfuck however, and I liked it.  You think you know what is going on, then it’ll throw you for a little loop.  Or you think you will have figured out plot line A, for plot line B to go crazy, so you forget about plot line A, which then comes back to mindfuck you all over again.  It was a nice ride.

The acting is incredible.  Mackenzie Foy (young Murph) was just great.  Anne Hathaway as Brand and Matthew McConaughey as Cooper were both amazing, but that’s to be expected.  I also really liked seeing David Gyasi, who plays one of my favorite characters in Cloud Atlas, Autua. One of my favorite characters is TARS (voiced by Bill Irwin), a robot who takes the journey with the team.  He was not only a nice addition to the team, but also made some plot points easier to explain away.  It kind of seemed like “oh hey, if we had a robot, we could do this. YEAH WE NEED A ROBOT”.  And if that’s how we got TARS, I’m OK with that.

This film does have a very limited rewatchability.  I think after 2-3 viewings, it’s not a movie I would ever pick up and watch again.  The first watch was a very fun one, and I’d like to go back and watch it again to see if there’s little hints at what is to come that I might have missed before.  Beyond that though, I don’t think I’d ever watch it again.  I know what happens.  It’s pretty.  It was cool.  End of story.  It’s a very well made piece of art, but to me, not what I want in a movie, and that brings the score down for me a bit.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

One thing I loved was the limited detail on what happened to Earth.  There wasn’t really a time frame of when the Earth started going to shit, what this new government was like.  It keeps the movie a little less dated that way. We knew the important details (crops failing, soon there will be no more food, nor air, must save Earth), and that’s about it.

Some of the parts I thought were VERY underdeveloped were the Earth scenes.   It could partially be because of the above reasons, the limited knowledge they give you about what is going on there.  But these were some big issues I had.  For a 2 hour 48 minute movie, certian plot lines SHOULD be well thought out or explained.  These issues start fairly quickly. Take for example when Cooper accepts the mission.  He accepts pretty quickly, in my mind, this huge responsibility of saving the world and possibly never seeing his children again.  This is right after he throws a huge hissy fit about Murph being in the other room, and then throughout the movie hes affected by his choice to go.  Seems like the decsion to go shouldn’t have been a quick scene.    The other Earth scenes that are very underdeveloped mostly focus with older Tom and Murph.  Why is it so crucial that Tom’s family leave RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND.  Why is Tom so anti-them leaving if it’s for their health? Why was Topher Grace even in this movie (what, who said that, not me!)?

Another thing, that could be considered a plot hole, or it’s just something that I’m looking too much into.  Professor Brand had already solved his part of the equation a long time ago. But didn’t tell anyone – because it was lacking the gravity part, which he wouldn’t be able to solve without knowing what the inside of the black hole looked like.  Why didn’t he just tell people that? I guess to give them *hope* now that  Ithink about it, but still seems dumb to me.

I very much enjoyed the visuals inside of the black hole.  However, I wasn’t very into the whole idea of “gravity” being the 5th dimension.  It wasn’t very well explained as to why/how it was another dimension.  It seemed more of a force that could act through the other dimensions (of time and space), but wasn’t really one in my mind.  They kind of explained this away by saying “oh, ‘they’ made this into a 3dimensional representation that your brain could understand”.  In other wrods, “JUST TRUST US ITS GRAVITY MMMKKKAYYY???”.  We could also talk about time travel-y, grandfather paradox-y, etc. type of stuff, but I don’t really care too.  I think it’s what Christopher Nolan was trying to avoid by adding in the 5th dimension stuff.  Again, “JUST TRUST US ITS GRAVITY MMMMKAAYYY??”

 

Overall: 7.5/10

Visually stunning, but a background plot line, that is rushed and underdeveloped at times, but still being a good, semi-surprising, sci-fi flick.

Review – Detention

Movie Title: Detention

Director: Joseph Kahn

Date Released: April 13th, 2012

Date Seen: September 7th, 2014

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

One of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen, quite possibly.  The trailers it looks kind of comedic horror, but it’s so much more than that.  It’s a parody of EVERY 80s and 90s movie you could posisbly think of, with the obvious Breakfast Club, and then reference after reference to other movies. I’m not a big 80s – 90s movie fan, but even I caught most of the references they were so obvious.  But anyway – the movie is way weirder than it sounds.  Someone is killing high school students dresesd like a prom queen, a group of them end up in an all day detention and shockingly people get killed there too.  I don’t really want to give anything away, but god is it weird.  Enjoyable weird, however.  They manage to make fun of so many different genres at once – horror, rom com, thrillers, monster movies, that it is just ridiculous.  And yet, still enjoyable.

You will start watching this movie thinking it’s one thing, then it will change. Compeltely. Then it will change again.  And again.  And again.  IT’S SO WEIRD.  I can’t get over how weird this movie is.  The acting is better than expected for the type of movie – mostly because it’s clear that they all had fun with it and took it just as seriously as they should.  Josh Hutcherson is great, but I particularly loved Aaron David Johnson as Sanders, one of hte otherboys at school.  He’s only been in this and two other things, so that’s kind of disapointing becuase I thought he was great.  The main girl is good too.

If you feel like sitting down and just watching a weird as hell movie that’s kind of awkwardly funny – that’s what this is.  If you want to just be confused – that’s also what this is.  If you have some time to kill, give it a watch, even if it’s just to see Josh Hutcherson doing something you probably haven’t seen him in.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

I don’t even want to type spoiler things because I’m just so confused.  You just keep thinking that it can’t get weirder.  But it does.  We have fly monster things, aliens, switching brains with people in the past, horror movieception, Ron Jeremy literally eating a girls boob off, time travel, etc.  It’s just weird after weird after weird.  How is it possible to have that much weird in one movie? I don’t even know.  And they give you little “mini” stories, so they’re actually decently developed plot lines.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they’re GOOD plot lines, but they are developed in their own way.  It’s like when they were writing the movie, they had their friends get together and say ok “what do you want in this movie”.  “ALIENS!” done. “FLY MONSTER BOY” done. “TIME TRAVEL” done. “TV HANDS” meh… throw it in with fly monster boy, I guess. “BOOB” duh.

 

Overall: 6/10

It’s weird, it’s funny, I’m not really sure what happened but I had a fun time watching and I’d probably watch it again just to show someone how crazy this movie was.

Review – Evidence

Movie Title: Evidence

Director: Olatunde Osunsanmi

Date Released: July 19th, 2013

Date Seen: June 21st, 2014

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

An interesting little horror movie that has a nice change to the “found-footage” genre, but it still fails in the end.  The plot is predictable and it’s clear who is doing it, but I still enjoyed it.  We follow the detectives going through some found footage of a brutal murder scene, looking for evidence to lead them to a killer.  Then of course, we see the found footage.  Because of this it feels like two different movies squished into one.  It works well and I found it a welcome change from plain found footage films.  But as I said, if you pay attention it’s pretty clear who the killer is which leads you to having no real sense of urgency or dread for the characters.  They also sometimes show you the results of a death long before it happens, so you don’t even get worried when a character makes some dumb decision.

The acting from the found footage people was as to be expected.  Cheesy, over done, but not horrible to watch.  The acting from the detectives was alright.  I did find the female detective annoying.  It was more of the writing of her character though, as opposed to the acting.  The other thing about this movie that I hated was the ridiculous CSI-like techniques, particularly on images.  They would zoom in about 100x beyond the possible resolution of the picture or video and manage to get a crisp clean image.  I hate techniques like that and find them lazy.

Overall, the deaths are pretty decent, just ridiculous enough to be amusing, and it’s a nice background watch. Not a complete waste of time, but not one I would ever seek out to watch again or go out of my way to watch.  Even this review I’m half-assing while watching the USA vs Germany World Cup game, it’s just that much of a “meh” background movie.

 

Part 2 – Spoilery Stuff

So, if are watching the movie as it happens, not knowing who the killer is, a number of decisions made by characters are SUPER dumb.  Even knowing that the two girls were framing it all, their decisions are still SO DUMB.  I guess if you’re trying to make it look like an actual horror movie, some of the dumb decisions make sense (like the director girl going with the bus driver).  But, one of the dumb decisions is what gave away who the killer was for me.  So, that was annoying.  Anyway, here are the things I thought were dumb or annoying.

For wanting to be a director, Rachel is pretty oblivious to certain things.  “No, we haven’t passed anything for miles!” when literally a mile away they passed a ton of buildings that even I saw.  Considering I was watching the movie at that point from her POV, come on.  She’s also an annoying idiot.  “I volunteer to go with you down to the abandoned bus when there’s a killer out there!” Then she whines and is loud THE WHOLE TIME.  Don’t volunteer if you can’t handle yourself chicka chicka.  Especially if you are the killer anyway.  Try to come off not like a whiney little bitch. But, most everyone in the movie is dumb and makes these ridiculously dumb decisions.  Like screaming “who is out there?!” when all your friends are in the room.  Well sweetie, if all your friends are in the room, by process of elimination, WHO MUST BE OUT THERE? The killer.  Idiot.  The dumbest decision was the one that gave the movie away for me.  When Leanna and Tyler go looking for Rachel.  They knew her and Ben were going to the bus.  There was no point in them leaving the saftey of that room unless one of them was the killer.  The whole scorned boyfriend thing was too obvious, so it had to be Rachel.

I’m not sure why Vicki wouldn’t tell the girls on the bus what the sons present was, saying “it’s personal”.  She’s told them a lot about herself already so seems random.  After the crash Vicki whips it out pretty quickly offering it up to be used, so not sure why it was so “personal.”

Also, as I said up above, Detective Burquez is an idiot.  Using the ridiculous zoom and sharpen technique again, they find out that the killer had on a welding mask.  She immediately says oh then it HAS to be the old man with PTSD because he used to be a machinist.  She wants his face out every where and to “find him”.  She tells Detective Reese that she’ll stop if he finds irrefutable evidence against (for?) the old man.  Lady, you’re already putting out an APB on him and you have NO evidence against him…. maybe YOU’RE the one jumping at things.

I like how Reese just goes straight to Steven’s mouth, pulling out the memory card with no gloves on at all.  Then he goes straight from bloody memory card, to wiping it (and his hands) off and shoving it right into the computer. Ridiculous CSI tricks again? Perhaps.

 

Overall: 5/10

Some amusing deaths, nice change to the found footage genre, but a very predictable plot and some really dumb characters.

Review – Akmareul boatda / I Saw The Devil

Movie Title: Akmareul boatda / I Saw The Devil

Director: Kim Jee-woon

Date Released: August 12th, 2010 (South Korea)

Date Seen: May 27th, 2014

Language/Country of Origin: Korean/South Korea

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

A great Korean revenge movie, about a man whose wife is murdered by a serial killer.  He then goes on the hunt to find this serial killer and enact his revenge.  The plot sounds like one of many you’ve seen before in Revenge thrillers, but this one had a nice little twist to it.  I won’t ruin it for you, but it was very good. If you’re a fan of horror, revenge thrillers, or Korean cinema, this one has a great plot, great acting, and is extremely satisfying.

The movie is super gory and yet still manages to have a number of visually striking, yet gorgeous shots.  For example, at one point early in the movie (not spoilery since the whole movie is based around this), the killer beats a woman and drags her bloody body off in the snow.  The way the shot is set up and the contrast between the snow, the people, and the bright red blood is very nicely done. There we a lot of very simple shots like that that ended up being oddly pretty.

The acting is very well done.  One of my favorite things about this movie is the personality differences between the killer, Kyung-chul (Min-sik Choi), and the man seeking his revenge, Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-hun Lee).  Both should be easily recognized actors, with Min-sik Choi appearing in the Vengeance trilogy, most noticeable as Oh Dae-su in Oldboy.  Byung-hun Lee has appeared in a few Hollywood movies, such as GI Joe and Red 2, and of course a number of Korean films, such as The Good, the Bad, and the Weird. So we know they are both fantastic actors.  The interesting thing is that the characters are written so that the killer has a MUCH more identifiable personality than that of Soo-hyeon.  The killer is funny, amusing, smart, albeit a deeply disturbed individual. He constantly expresses his emotions and can be sort of likeable at times – again despite the fact that he’s a serial killer.  Soo-hyeon has just gone through a big loss, but hardly speaks, comes off cold, boring, and disturbed in his own way. When he does express some emotion, it’s rage and anger.  Beyond his mission of revenge, there isn’t much to like about this man just from his personality.  I really liked that contrast, since it switched the normal roles.  Our “hero” wasn’t really an anti-hero, but he didn’t have the personality of the hero, and the killer really was the more personable one.

Again, if you like Korean film, horror/thrillers, or the revenge thriller, this is a very good one to watch and you will enjoy yourself. Going back over my notes I left for myself while watching this movie (most of what is in the spoilery part), nearly every single one started with “I like” or “I love”.  I feel like that says a lot about the movie, when comments were continually positive during my initial viewing of the movie.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

As I said above, I wrote comments while watching the movie.  Below are a number of the comments, talking about specific scenes or thoughts I had while watching the film.

Towards the beginning of the movie, Soo-hyeon is going through the files on the top suspects in this serial killer case.  I love that the actual killer is in fact in there.  I hate sometimes in movies when the cops have been working on a case for months and this person comes in after a day and solves it all on their own and the cops were completely wrong.  I like that he’s getting a starting point and the cops were looking in the right direction, just hadn’t found it yet.  Part of that is because, you know, they were doing things in the legal way, and Soo-heyon’s methods aren’t legal – but get results!

I love that Kyung-Chul has a homemade guillotine… and I especially loved that it played a (major) part in his final death.

Related to what I mentioned above, about how the killer seems more like a real person: I like watching Kyung-chul’s parents fight, that part just oddly cracked me up, because the dad clearly knows Soo-hyeon is not there for an “insurance policy”.  He has a real family, who is kind of smart, and seems to have an idea that at least their son isn’t doing legal things.  They probably don’t actually know what he’s doing, but just know it’s probable that he’s in trouble. I also liked Kyung-chul’s “House of the Rising Sun” on the guitar.  Creepy, but both those scenes made him just so much more of a real person to me, rather than just “the cannibal villain”.

Shall we talk about how awesome the greenhouse scene was?   Anytime a scythe is a weapon, I’m pretty much down, but this was pretty great anyway. I liked how quick it started, how it went back and forth on who was winning a couple of times, and how quick it was over.  It was intense.

Again related to the personality of Kyung-chul, I like that he had a “friend”, albeit a cannibal.  Sometimes a killer has “friends” but this seemed to be an actual friendship.  For example, Kyung-chul doesn’t just leave the cannibal tied up and completely vulnerable.  He does untie him a little bit, giving him a chance to get himself the rest of the way out.  That’s strongest hint of an actual relationship we’ve seen him have so far so, hey, good for him.  It also further points to him being more relateable than Soo-hyeon.

This movie does have pretty good effects with the blood and gore.  There was only one scene where I thought it was done pretty poorly.  When the cannibal is killed, you can see the exact moment that the blood pack is punctured and it ends up coming out in a just straight jet of blood.  It pulled me out of the movie.  But don’t worry, moments later I got pulled right back in because of the “Home Alone” esque fish hooks on the floor.  Yikes.

The dumbest decisions made in the movie came from the cops, I thought.  For one, the sheriffs daughter.  You’d think growing up with your dad being a sheriff/police chief/whatever, you’d think you’d have the good sense to realize when some shit was going down at your house.  Oh hey, Dad always answers me when I get here, but he didn’t this time and I see small signs of a struggle… hmmm… Maybe something is wrong? She doesn’t seem to have any of those inclinations.  The cops collectively make a dumb decision when Kyung-chul pulls his car over.  They’re clearly waiting around to get him – and they also know Soo-hyeon talked to him. Thus it would seem to me that Soo-hyeon might possibly know that Kyung-chul will be there and try some stuff.  They should have just grabbed Kyung-chul immediately rather than dicking around for way to long.  It’s their own fault for losing him (but I’m glad they did).

Oh and finally at the end of the movie we finally get to see Soo-hyeon with some emotion.  His version of mourning, finally.  He avenged his fiance (though in a crazy extreme way).

 

Overall: 7.5/10

A great gory Korean revenge movie with great acting and a very well done plot.

Review – Divergent

Movie Title: Divergent

Director: Neil Burger

Date Released: March 21st, 2014

Date Seen: March 23rd, 2014

Seen With: Dad

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

Divergent – another dystopian young adult novel taken in by Hollywood and turned into a movie.  Having read the books and knowing what to expect – the movie wasn’t a let down.  If you’re going into this expecting another Hunger Games type movie, you might be a bit disappointed as the plot is a lot more basic and pretty predictable.  However, it does have a strong female lead who can kick some serious ass.  The book Divergent, by Veronica Roth, seems to be written for a slightly younger audience than Hunger Games, however still manages to deal with a number of important topics.  We see a girl, Tris, who has to decide who she is – and realizes that she doesn’t fall into one pre-defined category.  Being the main premise of the book, of course the movie got this right.  It also deals with some touchy subjects, such as rape and murder.  But again, Tris is one kickass girl who can take care of herself.  The movie does a surprisingly good job of following the overall plot of the book, which sometimes is a big fear when I see a book – movie adaptation.  The overall arc or “message” of the story is one we’ve seen before, you might not fit perfectly into a category – and that’s damn well alright.  The movie provides us with a nice vehicle to get this message across, while being a bit fuzzy at times, but strong actors and decent pacing keep you engaged.

As I said, the acting was pretty damn good.  We have Shailene Woodley as Tris, the protagonist.  She’s come a long way from “Secret Life of the American Teenager”.  I was very impressed and thought she did a great job.  Theo James plays Four, and I really liked him as Four – almost exactly as I imagined him in the book.  Kate Winslet plays the super smart and intimidating Jeanine, head of the Erudite faction.  She is great in that role and very terrifying with her crazy bleached blonde hair (I couldn’t stop staring at it!).  Other people I enjoyed were Zoe Kravitz as Christina, one of Tris’ new friends in Dauntless.  I also really loved Jai Courtney, as Eric, another trainer of the new recruits.  There’s other great people as well, but those were the standouts in my mind.

It’s not an impressive movie in the cinematographic sense, however, there were a lot of very well done scenes that seemed straight out of the book.  The one that stuck in my mind was the ferris wheel scene.  This could be because it’s a sort of big deal and very cool part in the book, so of course it stuck out, but I liked it a lot.

Overall the movie was an enjoyable ride.  It does spend a bit too much time, in my opinion, on the fighting and physical tests, while I would have liked to seen a bit more of the fear landscapes.  Also, the main story arc with the other factions is pretty confusing if you haven’t read the book (or read it in a while like me).  My dad was slightly confused as to what was going on.  But still, overall, I’m happy to have seen the movie, and I’d say if you think you’ll like the movie, go ahead and see it in the theater.  Otherwise, watch it on Netflix or rent it when it comes out, and you’ll have a good movie night at home for cheap.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

Now, I haven’t read the book in a while, but there were only a few things I noticed that were different, besides stuff being left out.  First was that Tris’ fear landscape was slightly different.  It was missing drowning in the ocean, but that was probably because it would be very repetitive considering the other drowning scene.  It was also missing being kidnapped, which I would have liked considering it would have shown how fears could be created – and then once you have them they never go away (as we learned in Four’s landscape).  The other thing I noticed that seemed different was when the Dauntless attack Abnegation and the fight with Four, Tris, her mom, etc. all happen.  I just looked back at the book at the part and it actually wasn’t that different than what happened, just location changes, but it just seemed different in my mind.

Then there’s the ending, which goes down in a much more interesting and satisfying way for a movie.  I’m completely fine with Tris injecting that stuff into Jeanine – why? Because I love Kate Winslet and I liked watching that scene with her.  There, I said it. I’m happy with the slight ending change.

 

Overall: 6.5/10

An enjoyable movie, runs slightly long, slightly messy plot at times, but overall a good watch.  Netflix watch unless you’re a big fan or think you’ll really enjoy it, then it might be worth a theater trip.

Maria’s 2014 Oscar Picks

These are my 2014 Oscar picks.  I’ve noted who I WANT to win and who I THINK will win.  Sometimes they’re the same, sometimes they’re not.  This is mostly for my own amusement, more than anything.  Also noted, if I have a review for the mentioned movie, the link will take you to my review of it.

*Edit* The actual winners are now noted.

Actor in a Leading Role

• Christian Bale in “American Hustle”
• Bruce Dern in “Nebraska”
• Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street” – Will they ever give him an Oscar? We can keep dreaming… I’d like him to get one but not in this category this year.
• Chiwetel Ejiofor in “12 Years a Slave” – WANT to win and probably WILL win
• WINNER – Matthew McConaughey in “Dallas Buyers Club” – If Ejiofor doesn’t win it, I think McConaughey will.

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Barkhad Abdi in “Captain Phillips” – haven’t seen it but heard he was great, so I’d be ok if he won.
• Bradley Cooper in “American Hustle” – honestly surprised he was nominated….
• Michael Fassbender in “12 Years a Slave”
• Jonah Hill in “The Wolf of Wall Street” – He was surprising in this, I’ll give him that.  But I think other performances by people in this category were better.
• WINNER – Jared Leto in “Dallas Buyers Club” – WANT to win and strong chance that he WILL win.

Actress in a Leading Role

• Amy Adams in “American Hustle”
• WINNER – Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine” – WILL win, if the other award shows are anything to go off of.
• Sandra Bullock in “Gravity”
• Judi Dench in “Philomena”
• Meryl Streep in “August: Osage County”

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Sally Hawkins in “Blue Jasmine”
• Jennifer Lawrence in “American Hustle” – If it doesn’t go to Nyong’o, I want it to go to JL.
• WINNER – Lupita Nyong’o in “12 Years a Slave” – WANT to win and I hope to god she WILL win. I think she has a good chance.
• Julia Roberts in “August: Osage County”
• June Squibb in “Nebraska”

Animated Feature Film

• “The Croods” Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco and Kristine Belson
• “Despicable Me 2” Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin and Chris Meledandri
• “Ernest & Celestine” Benjamin Renner and Didier Brunner
• WINNER – “Frozen” Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee and Peter Del Vecho – Is there even really a debate in this category? WANT to win and WILL win.  If it doesn’t, people will freak out.
• “The Wind Rises” Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki

Cinematography

• “The Grandmaster” Philippe Le Sourd
• WINNER – “Gravity” Emmanuel Lubezki – Probably will win… which I don’t think it’s fair since so much of this movie is CGI.
• “Inside Llewyn Davis” Bruno Delbonnel
• “Nebraska” Phedon Papamichael
• “Prisoners” Roger A. Deakins – WANT to win – I thought this movie was gorgeously shot.

Costume Design

• “American Hustle” Michael Wilkinson – WILL probably win, though both this and Great Gatsby I think had the same amount of “wow” in costume design.
• “The Grandmaster” William Chang Suk Ping
• WINNER – “The Great Gatsby” Catherine Martin – see above.  Want to win equally with American Hustle.
• “The Invisible Woman” Michael O’Connor
• “12 Years a Slave” Patricia Norris

Directing

• “American Hustle” David O. Russell
• WINNER – “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón – WILL probably win.
• “Nebraska” Alexander Payne
• “12 Years a Slave” Steve McQueen – WANT to win since I thought this movie was incredible and the directing was fantastic.
• “The Wolf of Wall Street” Martin Scorsese

Documentary Feature

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “The Act of Killing”Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
• “Cutie and the Boxer” Zachary Heinzerling and Lydia Dean Pilcher
• “Dirty Wars” Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill
• “The Square” Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer
• WINNER – “20 Feet from Stardom” Morgan Neville, Gil Friesen and Caitrin Rogers

Documentary Short Subject

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “CaveDigger” Jeffrey Karoff
• “Facing Fear” Jason Cohen
• “Karama Has No Walls” Sara Ishaq
• WINNER – “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life” Malcolm Clarke and Nicholas Reed
• “Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall” Edgar Barens

Film Editing

• “American Hustle” Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers and Alan Baumgarten – want (ish) to win.  Not a fan of the movie, but the editing style of this movie was interesting, so I’d be ok if it won.
• “Captain Phillips” Christopher Rouse
• “Dallas Buyers Club” John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa
• WINNER – “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger – Will probably win
• “12 Years a Slave” Joe Walker – Of course I’m biased and would rather have this win over anything… because again, best movie.

Foreign Language Film

I haven’t seen any of them, though have heard great things about “Omar”.

• “The Broken Circle Breakdown” Belgium
• WINNER – “The Great Beauty” Italy
• “The Hunt” Denmark
• “The Missing Picture” Cambodia
• “Omar” Palestine

Makeup and Hairstyling

• WINNER – “Dallas Buyers Club” Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews – WANT to win and WILL win.
• “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa” Stephen Prouty
• “The Lone Ranger” Joel Harlow and Gloria Pasqua-Casny

Music (Original Score)

Having only seen Gravity, which didn’t have memorable music to me, I don’t feel I can accurately judge this category.  I’m sure The Book Thief score is great since it is John Williams, but I’ve not heard any so can’t judge.

• “The Book Thief” John Williams
• WINNER – “Gravity” Steven Price
• “Her” William Butler and Owen Pallett
• “Philomena” Alexandre Desplat
• “Saving Mr. Banks” Thomas Newman

Music (Original Song)

• “Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”
  Music and Lyric by Pharrell Williams
• WINNER – “Let It Go” from “Frozen” – WANT to win, because like most people, I’m addicted to this song.  And probably WILL win.
  Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
• “The Moon Song” from “Her”
  Music by Karen O; Lyric by Karen O and Spike Jonze
• “Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”
  Music by Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen; Lyric by Paul Hewson

Best Picture

• “American Hustle” Charles Roven, Richard Suckle, Megan Ellison and Jonathan Gordon, Producers
• “Captain Phillips” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca, Producers
• “Dallas Buyers Club” Robbie Brenner and Rachel Winter, Producers
• “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón and David Heyman, Producers – If ’12 years a slave’ doesn’t win, this one will.  Which I honestly don’t get…. but meh. I’d rather DBC or Wolf of Wall Street get it than this.
• “Her” Megan Ellison, Spike Jonze and Vincent Landay, Producers
• “Nebraska” Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, Producers
• “Philomena” Gabrielle Tana, Steve Coogan and Tracey Seaward, Producers
• WINNER – “12 Years a Slave” Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen and Anthony Katagas, Producers – WANT to win, so much.  It has a good chance of winning after seeing all the pre-Oscars award circuits.
• “The Wolf of Wall Street” Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joey McFarland and Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Producers

Production Design

• “American Hustle” Production Design: Judy Becker; Set Decoration: Heather Loeffler
• “Gravity” Production Design: Andy Nicholson; Set Decoration: Rosie Goodwin and Joanne Woollard – Probably WILL win, which I would be ok with for this one. The interiors of the ships were amazing.
• WINNER – “The Great Gatsby” Production Design: Catherine Martin; Set Decoration: Beverley Dunn – WANT to win, since the sets for this were super cool.
• “Her” Production Design: K.K. Barrett; Set Decoration: Gene Serdena
• “12 Years a Slave” Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Alice Baker

Short Film (Animated)

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “Feral” Daniel Sousa and Dan Golden
• “Get a Horse!” Lauren MacMullan and Dorothy McKim
• WINNER – “Mr. Hublot” Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares
• “Possessions” Shuhei Morita
• “Room on the Broom” Max Lang and Jan Lachauer

Short Film (Live Action)

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me)” Esteban Crespo
• “Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just before Losing Everything)” Xavier Legrand and Alexandre Gavras
• WINNER – “Helium” Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson
• “Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)” Selma Vilhunen and Kirsikka Saari
• “The Voorman Problem” Mark Gill and Baldwin Li

Sound Editing

I had to look this up. The best description I found is that sound editing is the creation of NEW sounds while sound mixing, below, is the mixing/layering of all the sounds.

• “All Is Lost” Steve Boeddeker and Richard Hymns
• “Captain Phillips” Oliver Tarney
• WINNER – “Gravity” Glenn Freemantle – Equal chance to WILL win with Hobbit.
• “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Brent Burge and Chris Ward – Equal chance to WILL win with Gravity, but this is my WANT to win.
• “Lone Survivor” Wylie Stateman

Sound Mixing

I had to look this up. The best description I found is that sound editing, above, is the creation of new sounds while sound mixing is the mixing/layering of all the sounds.

• “Captain Phillips” Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith and Chris Munro
• WINNER – “Gravity” Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro
• “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick and Tony Johnson – I kind of want this to win since there is just SO many different things.
• “Inside Llewyn Davis” Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland
• “Lone Survivor” Andy Koyama, Beau Borders and David Brownlow – I also kind of want this to win, I’m conflicted though.  I think this one would be super hard to get the mixing of shots, dialogue, and music right.

Visual Effects

• WINNER – “Gravity” Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk and Neil Corbould – Probably will win.
• “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric Reynolds – I also think has a decent chance to win.
• “Iron Man 3” Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash and Dan Sudick
• “The Lone Ranger” Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams and John Frazier
• “Star Trek Into Darkness” Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann and Burt Dalton – I’d love for this to win, it’s my strong WANT to win, but I doubt it will.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• “Before Midnight” Written by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke
• “Captain Phillips” Screenplay by Billy Ray
• “Philomena” Screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope
• WINNER – “12 Years a Slave” Screenplay by John Ridley – WANT to win. Probably WILL win.
• “The Wolf of Wall Street” Screenplay by Terence Winter

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• “American Hustle” Written by Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell
• “Blue Jasmine” Written by Woody Allen
• “Dallas Buyers Club” Written by Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack – WANT to win.
• WINNER – “Her” Written by Spike Jonze – probably WILL win, which I am ok with.
• “Nebraska” Written by Bob Nelson