2017 Oscar Nominee Predictions

Best Picture

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

La La Land

Silence

Moonlight

The Birth of a Nation

Manchester by the Sea

Best Leading Actor

Denzel Washington (Fences)

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)

Ryan Gosling (La La Land)

Tom Hanks (Sully)

Michael Keeton (The Founder)

Best Leading Actress

Viola Davis (Fences)

Emma Stone (La La Land)

Natalie Portman (Jackie)

Annette Bening (20th Century Women)

Ruth Negga (Loving)

Best Director

Ang Lee (Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk)

Martin Scorsese (Silence)

Nate Parker (The Birth of a Nation)

Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)

Clint Eastwood (Sully)

Best Supporting Actor

Liam Neeson (Silence)

Hugh Grant (Florence Foster Jenkins)

Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals)

Stephen McKinley Henderson (Fences)

Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)

Best Supporting Actress

Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)

Naomie Harris (Moonlight)

Nicole Kidman (Lion)

Greta Gerwig (20th Century Women)

Margo Martindale (The Hollars)

Best Animated Feature

Moana (Walt Disney Pictures)

Zootopia (Walt Disney Pictures)

Kubo and the Two Strings (Laika)

The Red Turtle (Sony Pictures Classics)

Miss Hokusai (GKIDS)

Best Cinematography

Silence (Rodrigo Prieto)

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (John Toll)

La La Land (Linus Sandgren)

Arrival (Bradford Young)

Nocturnal Animals (Seamus McGarvey)

Best Editing

La La Land (Tom Cross)

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Tim Squyre)

Silence (Thelma Schoonmaker)

Fences (Hughes Winborne)

Jackie Sebastián Sepúlveda

Best Original Screenplay

La La Land (Damien Chazelle)

Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)

Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, Tarell McCraney)

Loving (Jeff Nichols)

Jackie (Noah Oppenheim)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Fences (August Wilson)

Silence (Jay Cocks)

Lion (Luke Davies)

Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford)

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Jean-Christophe Castelli)

Best Original Song

La La Land – Audition (The Fools Who Dream)

La La Land – City of Stars

Moana – We Know the Way

Sing Street – Go Now

Hidden Figures – Victory

Best Original Score

Arrival (Johann Johansson)

Nocturnal Animals (Abel Korzeniowski)

The Jungle Book (John Debney)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Michael Giacchino)

Jackie (Mica Levi)

Best Visual Effects

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

The Jungle Book

Arrival

A Monster Calls

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Best Costume Design

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Colleen Atwood)

Jackie (Madeline Fontaine)

Fences (Sharen Davis)

Silence (Sandy Powell)

La La Land (Mary Zophres)

Best Sound Mixing

La La Land

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

Arrival

Passengers

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Best Sound Editing

La La Land

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Arrival

Passengers

The Jungle Book

Best Art Direction

La La Land (David Wasco)

Silence (Dante Ferretti)

Rules Don’t Apply (Jeannine Oppewall)

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Mark Friedberg)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Stuart Craig)

Best Makeup

Jackie

Nocturnal Animals

Star Trek Beyond

Silence

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Best Documentary Feature

Supersonic  (Mat Whitecross)

13th  (Ava DuVernay)

Gleason (Clay Tweel)

The Eagle Huntress (Otto Bell)

Best Foreign Language Feature

The Salesman (Iran)

Toni Erdmann (Germany)

Neruda (Chile)

From Afar (Venezuela)

Elle (France)

Supersonic - Documentary Review

A documentary tracing the career of Oasis. Everything from their council estate beginnings to their record breaking shows at Knebworth in 1996, taking in all the breakthroughs and bust-ups along the way. This is the journey of five lads from Manchester who started a revolution

On 31 May 1993, five lads from Manchester hired a van to drive up to Glasgow, where they played a show to “seven people”. A little over three years later, they headlined one of the biggest gigs in history when a quarter of a million people went to see them at Knebworth over two nights. Supersonic documents the rise of the great Oasis.

The film opens up with Oasis at those record-breaking gigs — the camera follows them out onto the stage as Columbia plays in the background. This is them in their pomp — kicking oversized footballs into the crowd, and taking in the noise and sheer vastness of the crowd in front of them. Then there’s a seamless segue to video footage of them recording a live demo of the same song in the basement of Manchester music venue The Boardwalk just a few years earlier. Their quick climb from unknown five-piece to tabloid-dominating brand, and the pressures it put them under, is one of the documentary’s major themes. And no-one interviewed — from Noel and Liam Gallagher, through the rest of the band, to the various people who shared their journey — shy away from this, discussing incidents such as Noel quitting the band amid a disastrous, crystal meth-fueled gig in LA and original drummer Tony McCarroll’s sacking with admirable honesty. Even McCarroll, who admits, “I think about it every day, believe it or not,” two decades on.

But the first 30 minutes are spent tracing first how the band came into being and then the time they spent before they were signed. Given this was the early ’90s, it’s remarkable how much footage of their pre-stardom years exists. Yes, there are gaps — and such stories are told via old photos, animation and voice overs — but what little we do have allows director Mat Whitecross to tell the story at the pace he wants, rather than rushing through it to finally get his stars on the screen. And they’re interesting snippets, too, from the band playing unreleased tracks (such as Take Me and See The Sun) to a live demo of Be Here Now single All Around The World recorded before they were even signed. And then, after Definitely Maybe became the fastest-selling debut of all time, the band were everywhere.

And so we see them being interviewed on TV, touring Japan and America (Liam: “First time on a jumbo plane”), at the recording sessions for (What’s The Story?) Morning Glory (although, sadly, no footage exists of Noel attacking Liam with a cricket bat), and then hitting the road again. It’s only here — as we move from Earls Court to Maine Road to Dublin — that the film begins to drag, but it’s ultimately justified as their estranged father resurfaces when they’re in Ireland. When that’s dealt with, it’s on to their grand finale at their record-breaking gigs.

Accompanying us on this journey is the era-defining music that reminds you just how vital the group were in their early years. But perhaps Oasis’ greatest strength was its two figureheads, Noel and Liam. Plenty of bands have good songs — but their charisma, bravado and (let’s be honest) flare-ups took Oasis to another level. They’re put to good use here — it’s their story, and they’re the main two voices telling it — speaking with typical wit and dubious wisdom about a time that feels simultaneously recent and impossibly long ago. And as the nostalgic memories from summer 1996 shimmer on the screen and we’re played out by The Masterplan, it’s as powerfully emotional an ending as any film will have this year.

The story of Britpop’s iconic band at its peak is told with wit, honesty and swagger. Which, given its two leads, is entirely fitting.Supersonic boasts as powerfully emotional an ending as any film will have this year.

Taxi Driver - Movie Review - Classic Film of the Week

A compelling and unsettling film exploring many of the fears, aches, and dislocations of contemporary urban life.

Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro) is a lonely, frustrated, and disoriented young Vietnam veteran from the Midwest who is working as a night cabbie in Manhattan. He despises "Sin City" with all its pimps and prostitutes, pushers and perverts. As a taxi driver, he stays somewhat sealed off from this ugly external world. He exists in the private space of his room and his cab — two isolated realms serving as a womb. Travis is the anonymous man. The other people to whom he should normally relate in his development as a person have become constant irritants and challenges to his self-will. By the middle of the film, his womb has been transformed into a fantasy chamber giving him the only opportunity he has to assert himself as the center of the universe.

Director Martin Scorsese who did such a masterful job using New York City as a backdrop for Mean Streets again succeeds in capturing the frantic and frightening side of the metropolis. Whether the scene is set in the slummy East Village, as the Bellmore Cafeteria (a hangout for hack drivers) or at Columbus Circle, the picture is a continuing presentation of an oppressive urban soulscape — the ever unfriendly environment.

Travis prowls the city in his cab. The wretched tenements, the glare of traffic lights at night, the eerie vapors emanating from the streets — all combine to create a feeling for Manhattan as an evil octopus. We begin to feel claustrophobic — closed in and pressed upon. The atmosphere of the film is feverish with constant intimations of impending violence.

Travis is hungry for love and recognition. He aggressively inserts himself into the life of Susan (Cybill Shepherd), an attractive, bright, and socially conscious woman who is working at the campaign headquarters of Presidential candidate Charles Palatine (Leonard Harris). Their encounters at her office, over coffee in a restaurant, and on one date are both bizarre and extremely revealing. The relationship is doomed from the start. Seeing her as "an angel in this filthy mess," Travis puts Susan on a pedestal. When he discovers that she is something less than an angel, his despair deepens.

If he can no longer be an adoring prince, Travis wants to be a savior. He showers his affections upon Iris (Jodie Foster), a twelve-year-old hooker who is the property of Sport (Harvey Keitel), a self-obsessed pimp. The taxi driver offers Iris some money in hopes that she will leave the city and the degradation of her life as a prostitute. She laughingly tells him: "I don't know who's weirder — you or me." But we know.

One of the movie's more poignant scenes takes place one night at the Bellmore Cafeteria. Travis tries to convey to Wizard (Peter Boyle), a veteran cabbie, what he feels about the meaninglessness of his life. He struggles to into words his depression, anger, and bewilderment. Although Wizard is somewhat tuned into that same feeling, he can offer nothing except the suggestion of cheap thrills. This vignette works on a gut level; it puts before us in a very realistic way the many situations in our lives when we have played either the role of victim or adviser. And when the scene is over, we feel the sense of loss in both the failure to communicate and the botched opportunity to help a despondent friend.

Robert De Niro's performance as the nervous and psychopathic Travis is a tightrope act of sustained intensity. It is to the actor's credit that he can involve us so deeply with this person's disequilibrium and rage. De Niro doesn't allow us to distance or disassociate ourselves from this character. He places us in the cab and by the sheer insistence of his performance takes us along for the whole ride This is acting worthy of an Academy Award.

Although Taxi Driver contains an assassination attempt on a Presidential candidate, the movie is not about that subject. By taking us inside a killer's mind, it reveals a very important truth: most murders are little murders. What shocks is the ease with which basic human aches can add up to murder — the working out of private grudges thought political symbols (Travis tries to get back at Susan through Palatine) and the sudden anger which finds release against whoever is at hand (the stomach-turning carnage of the film's finale). Taxi Driver is not for those who are unable to handle cinematic violence.

Goodnight Mommy - Movie Review

Like many of you I’ve been following the hype and reviews for the Austrian film Goodnight Mommy for months. When twins Lukas and Elias’ mother arrives home from an apparent cosmetic surgery operations they begin to have suspicions that this woman may not be their beloved mother. She’s cold, distant, and prone to violent rages which she takes out on the boys. Isolated by rolling fields of corn and farm houses, the boys are left to their own devices and set out to find the truth. But is it the truth they want?

The film opens with the boys, Lukas, and Elias, playing hide and seek in a giant cornfield and exploring the woods around the house. I immediately got a strong sense of texture from the first scene. Everything in this film has a distinct texture whether it’s the corn field swaying or the blinds in the home that are continuously being opened and shut. I wanted to reach out and touch everything. Once back home the boys run in to find their mother grotesquely bandaged from her surgery making their first encounter unsettling. The language barrier helps with the dread and overall ferocity that spews from Mother (who’s name is unknown) as she explains the new rules in the house. Complete silence, blinds closed at all times, no bringing things in from outside, etc.

Goodnight Mommy suffers from a misleading trailer. Everything that happens in the trailer happens in the first 20-25 minutes.The film is full of haunting imagery, namely the gigantic collection of hissing cockroaches the boys keep and follows a somewhat slow-burn structure which mainly consists of following Lukas and Elias around their giant house and endless trails. The build up does a fine job of inducing a sense of dread in the atmosphere. In a particular scene, Mother grabs Elias by the hair and forces him upstairs away from Lukas and forces him to say multiple times he will not talk to his brother anymore while Lukas bashes his fists into it.

As I mentioned before, Goodnight is highly texturized but that’s not the only interesting aesthetic too. Overall the theme of the film is isolation and this is extremely evident within the home. Despite the giant floor to ceiling glass doors/windows in every room, the house seems very clinical but what I found the most intriguing was the wall art. There are various pieces of artwork hanging up featuring blurred or distorted female figures. This plays heavily into the is she/isn’t she their real mother. I found that little nuance to be a nice touch.

The film is also wrought with disturbing imagery such as the fish tank of cockroaches, a dead cat, and images of torture. Let’s talk about that list bit for a moment. Once the boys decide to find out the truth it’s on like Donkey Kong between them and mommy dearest. I don’t want to give away too much because what occurs between the boys and Mother happens to be where the movie slides into predictability. However, I was genuinely disturbed by some sequences between them. It’s worth mentioning that the twins in this film are quite good child actors. They never grate on your nerves and because they are really brothers it almost feels like they aren’t acting at all when paired together and on their own.

But unfortunately, all the dread and suspense is undermined by the highly predictable ending. I was really annoyed with it honestly because I had enjoyed the film so much up to that point. This was a co-written and co-directed debut feature from Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz who’s only other works consist of a few shorts and a documentary. So perhaps I’m being too critical but the twist ending just really blew it for me. Mad props for filming on 35 mm but…ugh. I will say that this team has enormous potential so I do look forward to what they do next.

The Best Leonardo DiCaprio Memes

After the long overdue Oscar that Leonardo DiCaprio received at the 88th Academy Awards this Sunday. We have also witnessed the death of the Leonardo DiCaprio Oscar memes. So here are a few of my favorite creations.

Rest in Peace Leo Memes