Daily Archives: March 2, 2018

I, Tonya – Director, Craig Gillespie

Comedy, Drama, Loved it, Oscar 2018, Oscar Stuff, Uncategorized

There are no bad nominees for Best Picture this year. All the films are worthy and while some (Bladerunner 2049) were snubbed I can’t find fault with anything that made the list. However, all the buzz is about The Shape of Water and Three Billboards with an occasional pitch for Get Out but I am pretty sure that the most deserving film is I, Tonya, and it also got snubbed. The story of Tonya Harding is ugly and brutal and no one who remembers “the incident”, the breaking of Nancy Kerrigan’s knee ostensibly to guarantee that Tonya made the US Olympic team, has much sympathy for Harding. However the real story (and I am not sure how much of this movie is true) is much more complex as this film suggests. The story is brutal, funny, and in your face with some absolutely stunning performances from Margot Robbie as Tonya and Alison Janney as her mother as well as a great supporting cast. The film is a dramatic recreation of Tonya’s career that is interspersed with pseudo documentary style interviews with the main characters and brilliant little soliloquys to the audience. What is one of the most infamous episodes in US Olympic history is brought to life with great writing (what no nomination?) acting and direction. I had a very emotional response to the movie that had me going in many directions. Trying to figure out how to convey that was hard until I found this quote from Colin Covert the reviewer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Scene by scene, it made me laugh, cringe, get angry, upset, confused, enlightened, entertained, almost tearful and awed”. Spot on Colin. Other reviewers have noted the clever editing that gives the film an incredible energy. You will not look at your watch I promise. It is nominated for Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Film Editing. I think it deserves all three but will likely win for Best Supporting Actress (Best Actress is going to Frances McDormand I suppose) and maybe just maybe it will win Film Editing. Damn it, it deserves something for being one of the best movies I have seen in a long long time.

Best Documentary and Best Animated Feature at the Oscars

Commentary, Oscar 2018, Uncategorized

Time to complain a bit about the Oscars and I do this with just a modicum of background on the history of the Academy Awards but with a big interest in documentary film and animation. Trying to pick out the Best Documentary or Best Animated Film in 2018 is a total fools game. What on earth are the criteria? When it comes to the traditional Hollywood dramatic films we get to recognize directors, actors, editors, cinematographers, writers and on and on but do the directors, writers or cinematographers of the documentaries or animated films ever get nominated for these awards. That’s a rhetorical question and the answer is: No.

All the nominees in the Feature Documentary and Animation categories have qualities that deserve recognition but only one can win and the others (particularly the docs) will fade away. As I look at the documentary category I can only guess at the winner despite seeing all of them. Some feature excellent writing, cinematography, theme and direction. The choice however will be likely on the theme that resonates most with the viewers at this point in the year rather than on overall quality. All deserve more. In the animation category the Academy seems to be driven by Walt Disney’s foray into the feature length animated film with Snow White back in the 1930’s. So the films are seen as for children, have cute stories and are a nod to kids. In fact animation is way beyond that now with powerful stories told with artistic quality and aimed at general audiences. They deserve consideration for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing and so forth but are apparently excluded out of a blindness for their quality. The same can be said for documentary films as well. Wake up Academy and other award groups and recognize quality beyond live action drama.

The Breadwinner – Director, Nora Twomey

Animation, Loved it, Oscar 2018, Oscar Stuff, Uncategorized

I think this should win the Oscar for being the by far the best animated film I have seen in a long time. I am basing this not only on the quality of the animation art itself which is superb but also on the importance of the story and the need for us to see more stories that make us think about Islamic culture and people. I would compare this to the live action short Watu Wote which you can read about here: https://wordpress.com/post/movie-rants-and-raves.net/1241

The film tells the story of a young girl who disguises herself as a boy to get a job and support her family after her father is arrested by The Taliban and her mother is beaten for going out after curfew for women. The story is full of hope and courage and while open to a young audience is a moving story for adults as well.

I am making this judgement on the basis of only seeing one of this year’s nominees but I am not going to vote for Boss Baby or likely even see it, I am totally opposed to Disney or Pixar winning anything in the animation area despite Coco being the likely winner this year. When our choices to recognize films are so limited in areas like animation and documentary we need to support and recognize people and films that take a bit further than simply making $200 million dollars as Coco did. That shows its popular, well promoted and put in many theatres. The Breadwinner made less than $230,000 or .01% of what Coco made. I suppose it is lucky the film even got a nomination but it clearly deserves more in my opinion.