Oscar Nominations 2018: Quiet Reckonings

Let the dieting commence.

Now we know. It was cool to see Andy Serkis (with Tiffany Haddish) announce the nominations. The field of nine Best Picture nominees consists of Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri. Of those nine, Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour, The Post and Three Billboards failed to snag Best Director nominations, leaving Steven Spielberg out, along with Billboard's Martin McDonagh, who was considered a lock after getting both Director's Guild and Golden Globe nominations - he was presumably squeezed out by Paul Thomas Anderson for Phantom Thread. I really thought I, Tonya would get in there somehow, and I was hoping that there'd be some kind of recognition for Wind River, but it was not to be.

I'm pretty thrilled to see the strong acknowledgement for Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water, with 13 nominations. Likewise Jordan Peele, for Get Out. Hugh Jackman's Wolverine finale Logan nabbed an Adapted Screenplay nomination for Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green. There was some hope that Wonder Woman might ride the empowerment tide to a Best Picture nod, but it was not to be.

It's clear this year that the Academy was paying much closer attention to acknowledging women in key roles (Greta Gerwig) and people of color (Octavia Spencer, Jordan Peele and Daniel Kaluuya) while likewise distancing themselves from anyone carrying the whiff of harassment, as James Franco discovered.

Cinematography is always my favorite category, and Rachel Morrison made history as the first female cinematographer to get an Oscar nomination for Mudbound, powerfully evoking the Depression era photography of Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans. She is about to reach a much wider audience, as she's also DP on Ryan Coogler's upcoming Black Panther. But as much as I'd love to see her win, my heart's on my sleeve for the legendary Roger Deakins, scoring his 14th nomination for his staggering work in Blade Runner 2049. He's never won, and his work is always just stunning. Their competition includes Dunkirk, The Shape of Water and Darkest Hour.

There you have it - just some initial thoughts. We'll chew the fat and see how things sort out and be back with some predictions a little closer to showtime on March 4th.

Paddington 2: Genuine Charm When We Need It Most

In an age of increasingly unbearable, blaring, uncouth reality that can make you want to hide beneath the blankets, can it be that a sequel with a CGI bear is the breath of joy and hope and kindness that may actually help you cope, while saving thousands in therapy bills? I submit to you, that yes, just maybe, Paddington 2 is here to save us all.

Films aimed at children tend to suffer from increasingly mass-produced installment malaise, but I swear - like Aliens and The Godfather: Part II, this latest adventure of the immigrant bear and his adopted family is a simply marvelous, wholly restorative and superior sequel on every conceivable level. Directed by Paul King (who also helmed the original Paddington), the story of a small bear in London manages to delight both children and adults in equal measure, while also spooning just the right dollop of timely commentary to make us look in the mirror and vow to do what we can to set things right.

Paddington wants nothing more than to find the perfect birthday present for his beloved Aunt Lucy, but (doesn't this always happen?!) it's far more expensive than he can afford. So he decides to get a job. Employment soon leads to mishaps, and mishaps soon lead to misunderstandings, and before you can say "Marmalade Sandwiches," Paddington finds himself sentenced to ten hard years of labor at the pleasure of Her Majesty's prison system.

Without giving anything away, prison doesn't change Paddington - he changes prison. The cast is all back from the original, including the superb Hugh Bonneville and the sublime Sally Hawkins (Oh, what a roll you are on!), but it's Brendan Gleeson who steals the picture as the terror of the prison where Paddington finds himself. You often see actors having a hard time seeming to connect with their "motion-capture" costars, but Gleeson seems so utterly transfixed in his scenes with the diminutive bear, you're in awe when they're together and absolutely in the moment. Okay, I suppose I have to admit that yes, Paddington is largely a digital creation, but I'm pretty sure even Andy Serkis would doff his hat to Ben Whishaw and the legions of effects artisans who conspire to make Paddington so utterly - and soulfully - convincing and compelling.

Hugh Grant also shines as an actor of the grandiose Gilderoy Lockhart stripe, who has the best role he's had in ages - several, in fact. The Hugh Grant persona once loomed so large it's a delight to see him exhibit such craft and diversity of accents along with superb comic timing. He seems to be having the time of his life here, and he's fantastic.

Paddington has always been a heartfelt symbol for the immigrant in all of us, but never more so than he is here. Called often - and accusingly - by his surname of "brown" by the self-appointed neighborhood watch (Peter Capaldi, back from the first film), his heart remains full, and he always manages to see the good in people, even when he's looked at suspiciously or being judged. If there's a theme running through Paddington 2, it's that of Community - of the need we all have for it, and the power it can give us when we choose to see past fear and come together to make it.

There's a truly sensational 3rd act bit of derring-do involving two steam locomotives that manages to give both Bond and Indiana Jones a run for their money. But more than anything else there are equal measures of hilarity and kindness throughout this marvelous film, that if you're dreading the prospect of what the grotesque and sometime cruel world may have in store for us, I urge you to go spend some time with Paddington and his friends, and you may come out feeling you can weather it after all, though you may find yourself in dire need of a marmalade sandwich. Without a doubt a must for anyone with children, Paddington 2 is utterly delightful, and very highly recommended. 

The Ferocious Heart of Wind River

Awards Season is in full flower (Oscar nominations announce on January 23rd), and here's hoping writer-director Taylor Sheridan's very deliberate scouring of all the films' ties to the Weinstein Company allow voters to appreciate this phenomenal drama/thriller sans any association with that fallen pariah.

Sheridan is one of the best screenwriters working today, having penned both Sicario and Hell or High Water, before making his mainstream directing debut here, also from his own script. Sheridan well understands the rhythms of the American West's more remote environments, that the modern world has somehow bypassed.

Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is a tracker for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Wyoming high country and the surrounding Wind River reservation. It's a community he knows well - married into it, had children, endured heartache and moved on. Foremost, he's a hunter, whose job is to find the rogue wolf or mountain lion that threatens the community's herds.

It's on one such patrol that he finds the frozen body of a young woman, clearly the victim of sexual violence. Murder on a reservation falls under the jurisdiction of the F.B.I., who sends an earnest but woefully under-prepared agent (Elizabeth Olsen) to learn what happened. She's in desperate need of a guide who knows the land and its people.

To say more would be to rob you of the surprises and ferocity of Sheridan's storytelling, and the work of his superb cast. Renner and Olsen leave their Age of Ultron heroics behind for roles of quiet realism. Sheridan proves to be just as sure of a hand behind the camera as he is on the page, and crafts a gripping, heart-rending story that's part police-procedural, part cowboy-noir, with social commentary that extends far beyond the marginalized people it depicts, and the apathy with which they're treated. Graham Greene is terrific as a local law enforcer, and Gil Birmingham - so memorable as Jeff Bridges' partner in Hell or High Water, shines even brighter here as the father dealing with a tragic loss.

If Wind River has any shortcomings, it's that there's really no reason not to have the protagonist be Native American. Renner is absolutely superb here - but reliance on a name Caucasian star seems a deal born out of demographics that perpetuates the notion of a White Savior - or Costner - necessary to bring any kind of justice.

Given the themes at work in the film, it's easy to see why Sheridan was repulsed by any hint of association with Weinstein and dissolved any connections. The movie is now financed by the Tunica-Biloxi tribe of Louisiana, whose Economic Development Corporation supported the film, with profits going to the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting Native women and children against gender-based violence - a fitting legacy.

Wind River is without a doubt one of the most gripping films of the year and will utterly wreck your emotions. I hope it finds the audience and acclaim it deserves. Overflowing with heart, it will leave tracks you may have a hard time shaking. 

You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love The Shape of Water

If you're different from everyone else, sometimes they fear you. It's worse if they can't understand you. If you're lucky, they dismiss you. If not, then they may call you a monster. But what if those who are different are actually the lucky ones? What if two "monsters" in an uncaring world actually find one another? What if they find a connection?

Guillermo del Toro has long been one of our best filmmakers, and a visionary for whom monsters resonate like nobody else. He's had an incredible career, but with The Shape of Water, del Toro's done something new and moving and given us one his absolute best films. A lush, romantic love story that springs out of the confines of the late-fifties government-labs-gone-wrong pictures he grew up with, rather than have "the creature" break loose of his shackles and go on a killing spree, del Toro let's this monster fall in love.

It's 1962 and as the Cuban Missile Crisis escalates, Elisa Esposito (Blue Jasmine's Sally Hawkins) is a cleaning woman at one of those secret experimental installations - somebody's got to mop up the blood when something goes wrong inside the lab. Because Elisa can't speak - she's been mute since birth - her existence is barely even acknowledged by the lab coats and soldiers scurrying about their business. Her best work friend Zelda is a similar outcast - because she's black. The always superb Octavia Spencer is only too happy to fill the void left by Elisa's silence and does plenty of talking for both of them. Zelda understands Elisa, and so do we. Elisa's use of sign language is punctuated by vivid subtitles that let us keep up with the confidences she shares with Zelda, but Sally Hawkins'
performance here is on its own transcendent, ethereal level. At times it borders on the expressiveness of dance. Never once do we have any doubt about how Elisa's feeling - her face - those eyes - we're with her every step of the way - from her enjoyable visits with her gay neighbor - another outcast (given the time), played by the wonderful Richard Jenkins, to her moments of intimate solitude . Jenkins' Giles, Zelda, and Elisa are all outsiders of one stripe or another - being gay or black in 1962 both held their own potential perils. For Elisa, because she's so easily dismissed, is able to move and explore with the freedom that comes with invisibility - and it isn't long before her curiosity draws her to "The Asset," the thing in the lab, an amphibious being exploited for its cold war space-race potential against the Russians - a webbed captive (Doug Jones) who evokes both del Toro's own Abe Sapien (Hellboy) and the gill-man from the great 1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Elisa and "The Asset" are drawn to one another, and it isn't long before she's sneaking in to bring him food (hard-boiled eggs) and a portable record player to share her favorite music. The Shape of Water does a potent job of showing us that love lives outside of normalcy and convention, its power surpasses speech or surface physical differences. And when love that deep is threatened, you'll do anything you can to save it.

As the starch-shirt straight-arrow running things, Michael Shannon's Richard Strickland is an incredible character to behold. Shannon's played a wide range of villains (Man of Steel), but I've never seen him go where he did here. A slithery, obsessive Don Draper, when he's not torturing his captive, he's ruling the facility from a place of genuine fear - it's all he knows, and so it's his first and only response to others. Don't dismiss this as a stock bad guy role, Shannon's work here - like everyone else in this stellar cast - is simply incomparable. A scene at the urinal with Elisa and Zelda looking on is one of the best scenes you'll find this year.

























Doug Jones has made an impressive career inhabiting strange otherworldly beings (in addition to Abe Sapien, he was both the Faun and the Pale Man in del Toro's own Pan's Labyrinth), and his physicality here and ability to express emotion through movement is phenomenal. They will be studying the use of color in The Shape of Water for years to come. The cinematography by the great Dan Lausten (Crimson Peak, Solomon Kane, Brotherhood of the Wolf) is rich and uses hues of green (and teal...!) to beautiful, subtle effect, marrying colors with emotions. It feels like he and del Toro must have enthusiastically traded notes on hundreds of late-fifties romance pictures, as there are so many little visual grace notes it became impossible to even begin to keep track of them.

Del Toro's range is humbling. After seeing him run amok with the giant kaiju/mecha sandwich of Pacific Rim, The Shape of Water is such an intimate, emotional story on so many levels, it's just remarkable to see a director who can move so...fluidly from one end of that scale to the other. He orchestrates jaw-dropping performances from every actor in this film - all clearly having the time of their lives - while conjuring a visual feast of pure cinema that spans fifty years of visual storytelling, resulting in a tale of pure suspense, poetry and love, that feels fresh and timeless all at once.

The Shape of Water is without a doubt one of the best two or three films of the year, and I can't wait to dive in again and savor even more. It's a story of mythic love, maybe even destiny. If your heart is still beating, and if you've ever felt even just the littlest bit different, miss this one at your peril. Highest possible recommendation. Cinema at its finest.

The Toys That Made Us!

Sorry, I keep sending you to Netflix this week.

You probably know I have a bit of a toy collecting problem. And if you share my addiction, then do not miss the new Netflix docu-series, The Toys That Made Us!

The first (currently of four) episodes focuses on the big kahuna: the birth of the Kenner Star Wars franchise in the seventies! This is priceless stuff! All the original Kenner guys participated, reminiscing with a low-key Tin Men vibe about the heyday of this amazing time in history.

You just have to listen to the guy who was Kenner’ssole attorney – just a modest Cincinnati guy –who ends up going to Hollywood to wrangle the rights deal of the century. Subsequent episodes focus on Barbie, He-Man and G.I. Joe. VERY highly recommended!

MUST WATCH: Netflix's USS Callister is the Best Sci-Fi Out There!

This one is flagged RUN, don't walk! If you are any kind of science fiction fan – or especially any kind of a Star Trek fan, you owe it to yourself to immediately drop what you're doing and bring up the Netflix series Black Mirror, which just dropped its 4th Season. Black Mirror is an anthology show, so you don't need to have ever watched a single episode or have the slightest idea what it's about. Think The Twilight Zone, for a bit of a reference point. Cue up the first episode (of season 4), titled USS Callister. Prepare to be amazed. Starring the fantastic Jesse Plemons, this is easily one of the best hours of televised science fiction I've seen in ages. AGES.

Let's just say that on the surface, you're being treated to the most knowing riff on the United Federation of Planets you've ever seen. But that's just the welcome mat. If you are in fact a big Star Trek fan, you may need some counseling after this. No spoilers here, but DO. NOT. MISS. THIS. 

2018 Movie Preview: Ready When You Are!

Hey, 2017, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

It was by pretty much every imaginable yardstick, a crazy year – it definitely was at the movies. 
Even after The Last Jedi, revenue was down nearly 3%, after a summer that saw a drop of 10% – making for a three-year low. There were some terrific films to be sure: Get Out, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman, Dunkirk, It, Blade Runner 2049, Thor: Ragnarok, Coco, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and of course, the sublime The Shape of Water numbered among my favorites. But plenty of films I was looking forward to did not bear fruit: looking over last year's "most anticipated" list, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets bombed – I still haven't seen it – as did The Dark Tower (fondness for the material makes me never want to see it) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. And everyone's pretty much on the same page that Alien: Covenant and Justice League left a lot to be desired. 

So here we are, ready to set sail once again. And in reviewing the calendar ahead, I gotta say I'm not getting the best feeling about the releases to come. There are a lot of "Eh, maybe..." candidates, but less than a dozen I'd get excited about for opening weekend. Now much of this will change, as gut reactions can often miss, and there are bound to be plenty of surprises – the really sensational pictures that no one expected, that seem to come out of nowhere and take the culture by storm. Those are the ones I'm always most delighted by – the sleepers. But as it stands now, summer is worrisome, and there's no as-yet identified December Savior to help salvage a year's worth of lackluster receipts like we had this year. Meaning the holiday season is looking weak, too. But hey – I love being wrong! So here's what I'm most excited by:

Black Panther (February 16th) – Creed's Ryan Coogler knows how to get an audience excited, and as Thor: Ragnarok and Doctor Strange have proved, Marvel still knows how to keep the recipe tasting fresh, and this cast – and that trailer! – are looking pretty damn fantastic. Sure looks like a winner to me!

Annihilation (February 23rd) – This was one crazy, crazy book, which must have given writer-director Alex Garland all kinds of grief adapting, but his Ex Machina was absolutely amazing, so I'm ready to follow wherever he goes next. Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh will be the ones enduring surreal and mind-altering flora and fauna.

Isle of Dogs (March 23rd) – Wes Anderson returns to the animation fusion of his beloved Fantastic Mr. Fox, and if you're a fan of Anderson's visual style and eccentric whimsy, you're already in line for this one, his first feature since The Grand Budapest Hotel. 

Ready Player One (March 30th) – Yes, it's true: spring is feeling more and more like summer. Steven Spielberg's long-awaited adaptation of Ernest Cline's widely embraced pop mash-up virtual reality novel is the closest bet to a sure thing out there. Given how much the novel was influenced by Spielberg, it's almost as if Stephen King wrote an episode of Stranger Things. Promises to be wildly entertaining. 

Avengers: Infinity War (May 4th) – Did someone say "Summer?" After Black Panther (above), Infinity War is the epic culmination that all the previous 18 Marvel Universe films have been leading up to. And did fans ever love that trailer. After a couple of tepid behemoth bad guys in the last couple of DC films, we're getting a genuine Bad Guy in Josh Brolin's Thanos. Expect absolute super-sized insanity that will leave jaws agape. 

Solo: A Star Wars Story (May 25th) – After three of the most successful Decembers in box office history, is Disney really going to let us have a holiday season without a Star Wars movie?!? Especially given the incredibly troubled road it took to get this Han Solo stand-alone completed? Pinch-hitter Ron Howard has my vote of confidence, but coming virtually right on the heels of The Last Jedi, if Solo isn't completely superb on every level, the new breed of cranky, fickle fans will be lightspeed-quick to dump all over it and calls of "too-much too-soon" will fill the galaxy. We still haven't seen a trailer yet (maybe Superbowl?). I wouldn't be at all surprised if in the next 30 days we see Disney push this out to December. We'll find out soon, either way. 

Deadpool 2 (June 1st) – The so-called black sheep of the Marvel family, Deadpool was a riotous success in every sense of the word. Much like The Punisher, these days I'm a lot more turned off by the excessive gun-enamored breed of superhero – I'd rather see powers and cleverness than ammo-fetishization. But Deadpool is also funny as hell, and unique. Plus this time we get (again!) Josh Brolin as fan-favorite cyborg Cable, so barring any unfortunate misjudgments of tone, this should be another smash hit. 

The Incredibles 2 (June 15th) – Fourteen years is a long time between movies, but Pixar does their own thing - after all, there were thirteen years between Dory movies. The cast's all back, and writer-director Brad Bird is a pretty amazing cat, so there's every reason to expect Mr. Incredible's Mr. Mom hijinks to be a massive success. Just make damn sure we get plenty of Edna Mode, dahling. 

Alita: Battle Angel (July 20th) – This one almost fell into my maybe bucket, and it could easily go wildly wrong. But this script is one of James Cameron's passion projects, and handing the wheel over to Robert Rodriguez could make for some cool stylistic collisions. My fondness for these two is topping my trepidation of those ginormous CG anime eyes. My biggest fear: this could be another Ghost in the Shell.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (November 16th) – Potter fans are a loyal bunch, and I absolutely loved the first Fantastic Beasts film, kicking myself for having missed it in theaters. That won't happen this time. Plus the word "Crimes" in the title conjures up hopes of a darker, more perilous Empire Strikes Back chapter, full of villainous deeds. Will the world accept Jude Law as a young Dumbledore? Will Johnny Depp start to look less like Roy Batty? Positioned just before Thanksgiving, this will be a juggernaut. 

Mary Poppins Returns (December 25th) – Wow, here we are, Christmas already! Will this be another Beauty and the Beast? A box office colossus? It's a real gamble, and a Disney sacred cow, to be sure. But it seems everyone's given their blessing, from Julie Andrews to Dick Van Dyke, who even has a part. But it's been 54 years! It's a heck of a cast, and the presence of Lin-Manuel Miranda is comforting. It's a little late in the holiday season, though – worried that's going to cost them. But fans are curious and Disney knows families better than anybody. But it better be practically perfect in every way. 

So there you have it. See? Doesn't exactly feel like a banquet, does it? 
And while I mentioned it above, it bears repeating that this is (at this writing) going to be the first December in three years without a Star Wars movie. It's really becoming a holiday tradition for folks now, and to veer away from that cadence feels risky. Because after three years, I for one am going to feel the void.

"But what about...?!" Yes, all those others. These are the ones that certainly each have the potential to be huge and successful, but which for some reason just don't quite feel like they have the secret sauce. They all feel a bit lackluster somehow, and I certainly hope marketing successfully makes me feel differently about each of them before opening day...

Pacific Rim: Uprising – I enjoyed the trailer, and the idea of John Boyega as the son of Stacker Pentecost is a fun one – but without the giddy eccentrics of Guillermo del Toro, it’s hard to get too excited, still – it’s hard for me to stay away from anything involving giant monsters and robots duking it out.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – When that first Jurassic World trailer hit with that “Great White Sharkbait” moment, a hit was born – and there’s nothing in what we’ve seen so far from this sequel that even comes close to that. Plus, that title. Expect a big push to find a similar marketable moment – they’d better. These guys pretty much own the July 4th time-frame, so they’d better sell us on more than “dinosaurs running from a volcano.”

Ant-Man and The Wasp – Will the Marvel streak continue? The first Ant-Man was a pleasant surprise, and little is known about the plot, other than Scott Lang’s now juggling both being a dad and a superhero (see Incredibles 2, above, for emerging summer theme), and we’ve got Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburn and Walton Goggins joining the MCU. Definitely rooting for them to pull this off.

Mission: Impossible 6 – The last Mission was fantastic, and we’ve got all the members of the band back together. It will be interesting to see Tom Cruise back after The Mummy and find out if the IMF can still find a place to seem relevant in the insane chaos of the modern world.

The Predator – With Shane Black at the helm, this has every chance of being fantastic, as he was in the original Predator, for cryin’ out loud. But fans will tell you Aliens and Predator sequels have not fared especially well, so hoping they’ve got a dynamite script and the right kind of fresh spin for this quasi-reboot. Shane, don’t hold back.

Aquaman – Jason Momoa was one of the bright spots of this year’s Justice League, and with horror-maestro James Wan (The Conjuring films) directing, let’s hope for all kinds of edgier thrills. The cast has everyone from Nicole Kidman and Willem Dafoe to Dolph Lundgren. If we can somehow avoid too many awkward underwater dialogue scenes, this could be fun and exciting – but a Christmas movie…?!

And that's all, folks. You know me – those genre flicks always have the strongest pull, and nothing I've mentioned here's likely to be much of an awards front-runner, so there will undoubtedly be plenty of other fantastic surprises and more serious offerings we didn't even consider today. Not trying to sound like a broken record, but we truly need our escapes more than ever, so here's hoping 2018 is made up of equal parts thrills and satisfaction. Enjoy responsibly.