Best Picture 2018

In writing this now, the day that the nominations for 2019 came out, I still haven't seen most of these films. I have been trying to work on the other years in this project and I've become much less of a movie goer in the last few years. I used to watch everything I possibly could that came out in a year and I tried to finish the nominees before the Oscar ceremony. I'm trying to get back to that way of life but I at least have a year of time to reflect on this list and see if it holds up or not. This winner was not well liked by a lot of people online as a winner. They liked the film but didn't think of it as a Best Picture winning film. I don't know how I'll feel about it but I can't wait to dive in to find out. Going into this race, there really wasn't a clear cut favorite. Roma had some big wins but then so did Green Book. Others were hoping for another film to step up and take the top spot but this is what we got. I'll try to make sense of it all at the end.

2018 Best Picture

Green Book

Okay, I get it. There's a lot to unpack here. So I watch every Oscar night with a rooting interest whether I've seen the films or not. It's only natural. I've read and heard and know about the films and form a favorite or someone to root against. When this won, I was pissed. It's Driving Miss Daisy for this generation! It's a feel good film that doesn't quite capture the current Academy as it is now. Those all accurately apply to this film. I'm not sure it's a good winner, but I completely understand why it won. It's absolutely a feel good film about racism. It's a film that the old, white voters of the Academy can watch and go yeah, I'm that Tony guy solving racism by being a badass and changing gradually. This is a throwback film. And it's one hundred percent about making white people feel okay about their casual racism! The story is about Viggo's Tony who is the stereotypical New York Italian who is very racist and very New York Italian. He takes a job where he will drive this black man who is a piano virtuoso around the South for a concert tour. Along the way this gruff, uncultured man becomes more loving, accepting, and a better overall human. It's a feel good film and one that would have been a big hit 20-30 years ago. I say that knowing it was liked by audiences and won Best Picture. But this film feels so wrong. We get the casual racism in the beginning that is explained as just what Italian families thought about black folk. Then once Tony and Dr. Shirley meet it's like Tony is a neanderthal and Shirley is this patient saint. I dunno, the whole film doesn't sit well with me. There are lots of moments that just come off as insensitive or wrong and it's not me being some sensitive snowflake. If you read the blog, you should know that's not me by now. But this film just seems to have those moments that insults everyone involved. Black, white, Italian, whatever. It's doing so to get it's point across but it's so bad! I can't believe this film won Best Original Screenplay. While Tony is being this dumb as hell Italian, Dr. Shirley is this dumb as hell black guy when it comes to blacks. Doesn't know popular performers of the day like Little Richard. Never tasted fried chicken. Very proper and uptight while Tony is this caveman educating him on these subjects. It just seems like feel good white people solve racism type of junk. Yeah, they are driving around a black man but they educate him on fried chicken and black people music. Eventually the guy who threw out drinking glasses that black people used is now willing to fight random bar people who threaten the pianist. It feels exploitative of everyone involved. I wish I could articulate better just why this film bothers me so much. I think it's the simple approach to racism that does it. This guy who was super racist is made to work for a black man who then sees him as human and stands up for him at times and eventually invites him to his home. It just all feels unearned. And I actually like the film! It's feel good so it hits all those beats that a film goer is looking for. But it's not challenging and it is too convenient. This might be my longest review simply because I don't know how to say I dislike this as a winner while liking it as a movie. I don't like it as an Oscar film but I do enjoy what it has to offer. Whatever. This is not a good win and wish it were more than just a simple look at white people solving racism.

Black Panther

I was going to start this off with a dig at DC Comics having never had a Best Picture nominee and how Marvel is better as a joke, but then Joker was nominated this morning as I write this so there goes that idea. There are a lot of people who don't like this comic book movie being nominated and I actually understand where they are coming from. This is a standard Marvel film story that has some subpar visual effects and a decade plus of build up from the MCU behind it. But I agree with it's inclusion for the simple fact that this was such a cultural juggernaut and finally gave the black community a super hero for them to call their own. It made so much money and was so influential culturally that I do think this will be a film we point to in the future as a possible turning point for the Academy and just Hollywood in general. It's got some great characters and performances but also has some really cheesy dialogue and some characters who don't get the necessary depth to be more than just plot drivers. It has an incredible aesthetic from the dazzling, vibrant production design to the music and score that produced some huge hits. It's unfortunate that the visual effects at times were so poor and laughable because Marvel has the money to do better and to not interrupt our immersion in the action. But I feel you have to take the film as a whole and realize that combined with it's cultural impact, there is no way you could leave this huge money making film that was also highly entertaining off of a Best Picture list. It has a decent villain even if the story is pretty by the numbers and a lead titular actor who helps elevate the material. I thoroughly enjoyed this film and it was the only one I saw before the nominations and even the ceremony. It got everyone to go see it and to bridge all those different audiences together is no small feat. I feel this is a well deserved nomination especially when you go back in Oscar history and see all the films who were nominated simply because they were huge hits at the box office and with audiences.

BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee has made some incredible films during his career and this is no exception. It also undeniably looks and feels like a Spike Lee joint. That's indicative of who he is as a filmmaker that his best work has a timeless quality to it. This feels like a natural progression from Do the Right Thing and keeps that powerful narrative alive. His film is very political at the seams though the story is a pretty straightforward one about a black cop pretending to be white who infiltrates the local KKK with help from his white cop co-worker. It's a fun historical dramedy that is layered with serious tones of the current political climate and the social upheavals that are going on with the black community right now. Which stays true to what Spike Lee gives us with his film and I'm glad that this film was so well received. I actually really enjoyed his previous film before this one, Chi-raq, which was equally biting about current societal issues. That one didn't capture the public's attention much but this film really took off and I think it's because the story is almost universal. Infiltrating a racist, terroristic, awful group and then tearing them down from the inside is a fantasy I'm sure many have thought about. I think Spike Lee, when he has material that is strong, is one of our best filmmaker's ever. He just has such a unique artistic vision and expression that creates memorable, powerful work that can touch a country's nerve and soul. Spike also gets some incredible performances out of his cast with John David Washington, Adam Driver, and Topher Grace among others. Washington should have been nominated for Best Actor. Period, hands down. He drives the film and carries it with the balance of serious and funny. Grace surprises as a geeky, meek David Duke and Driver was nominated for his great performance. The film has all the typical Spike Lee flourishes with newsreel of current events playing, great music that sets the tone of the film, and some incredibly powerful scenes that juxtapose one another. The scene where an older black man is talking to the Black Student Union about a racist event in the past that killed some men in a horrific way with the scene of the KKK initiating a new recruit is moving and powerful to watch. That's the kind of filmmaking Spike Lee can bring us that touches our soul and makes us contemplate where we are as a people right now - and in the past. And I'm sure the end of the film pissed some people off showing Trump be his usual dumb fuck self and showing the car driving into the crowd at Charlottesville and then showing the upside down American flag. It's imagery that is disturbing but equates evil from the past rearing it's ugly head again in the present. Even if you forgot all the political points in the film, it's still a great story and the acting is amazing to watch. It's just a well done film that will go down as one of Spike Lee's best ever.

Bohemian Rhapsody

I thought about how to start this one off a lot and I didn't want to start off by saying this was terrible. But I do want to start off by saying I don't think this is a Best Picture quality film. At all. I feel it's not only a by the numbers musical biopic but it suffers from some atrocious pacing. Now before I get into everything, I must say that this was directed by Bryan Singer initially. He got called out for his reprehensible sexual misconduct and the film was finished by Dexter Fletcher. Most of it was filmed before he came aboard but it still feels incredibly disparate in tone throughout the film. The other thing I wanted to talk about was the Best Editing Oscar win for this film. It's my impression that films send in a sizzle reel for of their best work and only those scenes are judged and not anything else by the Editing committee (I don't for sure know this but I think I read it somewhere). I say this because a particular scene in the film has so many edits that are so quick and bad, that everyone made fun of the film and that scene even before it won the Oscar for Editing. Then the spin became well the film was a mess and had to be saved through editing and all the editing folk voted for it and then everyone at large voted for it because the editor saved the film. I reject the notion for that and do think everyone else voted for it because of the mess, so it's a disaster and a completely undeserved win for Editing in my opinion. So that's where we are coming from even before getting into the film for real. I don't like the first two hours. I'm not a big fan of Rami Malek's mimicry of Freddie Mercury because that's what it is. The beginning and a little beyond is just disjointed and jumps around too much and doesn't hit all the good songs we know from Queen (a pretty lame criticism, I know, but still we want to see and hear how those hits developed along with how the band starts out). And from what I know is that the two members of Queen minus the bass player were who drove this film and wanted equal screen time and had to approve everything that happened. So it definitely doesn't go in depth and doesn't make them look bad at all and probably contributes to that awful editing that somehow got nominated. This is a bad to mediocre film for most of it's run time. It has no business being Oscar nominated in Best Picture. It denied other films the chance to be here and that pisses me off. The saving grace of the film is Rami Malek and the Live Aid sequence at the end of the film. It's abso-fucking-lutely amazing and just a sequence that blows me away. That's what this film should have been and not cherry picking moments while whitewashing everything about Freddie. Give us more depth and more insight into Freddie and their iconic moments. This really shouldn't have been nominated but people seemed to love it and they especially love Queen, so here it is.

The Favourite

Yorgos Lanthimos is an unbelievable talent. His films have such a vibrancy to them that watching his work is exhilarating. His stories are unique and interesting and well told and a breath of fresh air in a stale environment. Now, this wasn't one that he and his usual writing partner wrote themselves, but it still feels like a Lanthimos film. It is riotously funny. There were so many times where I was laughing out loud at something someone said or a slight visual gag, just wonderfully hilarious. And the humor is savage than people just telling a joke. It's the way Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz trade verbal barbs that come off as pleasant or courteous to one another. It's in how Nicholas Hoult is so drolly sarcastic as the leader of the opposition party. It's in how the politicians when arguing in front of Queen Anne, are told to leave and have to walk backwards in their big wigs which is an absurd sight. There's a lot of slight, biting humor that makes the film work so well. It's not a stuffy period piece. It feels vibrant and current and is very easy to watch. The directing is so good, as well. I love the kinetic movement of the camera throughout the film. I enjoy the fish eye lens look that pops in every now and then. The costumes and hair and makeup and set design are all fantastic. It's a film that looks amazing in every way and is a hoot to watch. And that's before you get to the acting which is tremendous from the three female leads. The story itself is almost inconsequential. You don't need to know about British history or anything like that. It's more of a simple story of two women fighting to be the real power behind the figurehead. This is simply a well made film that benefits from the expansion of the Best Picture field. I feel like a film like this would have had a tough time in the past to be nominated here and reach a wider audience, so it's nice to see it get it's due. This is the kind of work that gets me excited about film and I can't wait to see what Lanthimos gives us next.

Roma

I almost feel like me writing about this gorgeous film is going to do it a severe disservice and not do it justice at all. This is instant classic film that is going to make all those best film in history type of lists that some publications do every ten years. Roma is a masterpiece and that is saying something considering Alfonso Cuaron has made some of the best recent films we have seen. It's also even more impressive that Cuaron not only wrote, produced, and directed it, for which he won Best Director for the second time,  workbut edited it and did the cinematography for the film. He did everything for this film and became the first person ever in Oscar history to win Best Director and Best Cinematography in the same year. Quite an astonishing achievement and shows just how much this black and white film was a labor of love for him. The story is based off the memories of his childhood and of his own housemaid so that makes the black and white cinematography even more important to get right. Cuaron said that the film was like having the ghost of the present go back and observe the past and the film has that kind of quality to it. A lot of the shots are established from far away and we watch the action go on in the frame with maybe some panning left or right. We rarely see anyone close up in the film and these stylistic choices really help to add to the nostalgic factor of the memories we see. Cuaron gets some brilliant acting out of his first time actress Yalitza Aparicio where less is more for her. And the film has a languid pace at times that we slowly move on in some scenes, again adding to the feel of the film that Cuaron is going for. The languid pace is absolutely not a bad thing as it helps the film focus on certain moments as if we/Cuaron are remembering major details from the past which can always focus on the important and traumatic. If the Academy voters didn't have such a hatred for streaming service films, this would have no doubt been the winner. But I think there was a push back from voters that don't like that the way films are shown and brought to the world via companies like Netflix. It's a bullshit, petty argument that comes off as racial and isn't a good look for the Academy and denies a film a possibility to win a well deserved award. But even with that, this film is a straight up brilliant piece of art from Cuaron and will probably be the most remembered and revered film from this list in 20 years or so.

A Star Is Born

I have said it before in the reviews for this film and in his previous history with the Academy, but I'm a huge Bradley Cooper fan. I think he's such a versatile actor and now with this film, he has shown that he can be a marvelous director, too. First of all, he takes a film that has been done a few times in the past to varying degrees of Oscar success by people such as Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland and Janet Gaynor and puts his own modern spin on the tale. He updates the classic story and doesn't just rehash the old ones scene for scene. Second, he gets unbelievable performances out of himself, but also his costar Lady Gaga and Sam Elliott (not to mention Dave Chappelle). He and Gaga have undeniable chemistry that really lifts the film into a higher gear and the songs are all super catchy and some have become big hits. Third, he directs the hell out of this film. He gets some great concert footage of the songs and also just puts a bit of flair into some of the shots and camera movement/placement that we see. It's great for a first time outing and I'm beyond excited to see what he can do next. The film was, for a short time, considered the favorite to win before all the others landed and I think if this had come out a little later, it might have had the momentum to win it all. I just think it's such a tremendous all around film and one of my personal favorites for the year. Maybe some of my criticisms would be that Cooper's character is too charming and nice even though he is a disaster when he's drunk but I think that's just a choice Cooper made when portraying his musician. I struggle to really think of anything valid for me to nitpick on other than we have seen this very story so many times before. It's just that Cooper and company do such a good job with their interpretation that I can forgive we are watching this film for the fourth time in Oscar history. It's great and very well could end up my winner.

Vice

Before I watched this, I knew that it was from Adam McKay of The Big Short (and a million comedies you know) and knew it would have that fun, biting, satirical look at true political evil. But this is a really well done film that pulls off a lot of the same tricks as the above mentioned film and has even more fun. You still have some cutaways to say Naomi Watts as a Fox News boilerplate blonde news anchor talking about legislation being vetoed that gave rise to Fox News and the political extreme right leanings of much of America. You've got the fake ending 50 minutes into the film where it says Cheney stood by his gay daughter and retired to the private life and was in good shape. Or the Shakespearean dialogue about being W's running mate. Brilliantly funny and satirical in nature, putting a spin on just how absurd our political history is and why we have ended up with an Orange muppet in office currently. This is helped along because of Christian Bale's brilliant transformation into an awful human being who got to orchestrate all kinds fraud on the American public from the Vice President's seat. It's sad that a movie like this is the one to sum up all the awful things that went on and how it all happened for people to notice. And it's currently happening again because Conservatives are the scum of the country! Anyway, political bullshit aside, the film is so well made and has a great performance from Bale as well as all the other actors playing our country's leaders. Is it super liberal and probably threw off a lot of the conservative Academy voters? Oh yeah, no doubt. Will anyone that watches Fox News ever watch this? No. So it speaks to an audience that will agree with it but it won't ever see the eyes it needs to. I look forward in 2 to 6 years when McKay lampoons and satirizes Trump and we all laugh and then it happens again. Because it will unless we do better and wake up and stop electing idiots to office. Off my soap box but whatever, go see this film.



There are so many great films in this category this year. This is why I'm so happy that the Academy expanded the field to up to 10 total films. It allows all kinds of different films and genres to get in. Now, it's also back to the old Academy ways of rewarding bullshit over actual masterpieces, but maybe we will get there one day. It's also shitty that voters were openly hating the idea of a Netflix film winning Best Picture. How absurd! Who cares who makes it? You should be celebrating great films and not getting pissed because someone can watch it in their home instead of going to an overpriced movie theater. Bohemian Rhapsody has no business being on this list. It's bad in almost every musical biopic way. It's got one good scene at the end and a decent, but unbalanced performance from Rami Malek. Just not my cup of tea and I love the band and their songs a lot! Green Book has no business being a Best Picture winner. It's the reverse Driving Miss Daisy and I hate the convenient, feel good, white people solve racism crap that this spews out. I like the actors but this is an uneven film that wants to be everything and ends up being nothing. Black Panther is just happy to be here. It's an entertaining film that was a cultural juggernaut and I am happy it's on this list. Vice is that cool Adam McKay style film where we dive deep into something serious in a different kind of way that explains things simply and with lots of humor. BlacKkKlansman is one of the best films Spike Lee has done over his storied career. I actually wish it was a little longer to let the film breathe a little but it's still very good. John David Washington makes the film what it is with his performance. The Favourite is hilarious as hell and a gorgeous looking film. A Star Is Born is such a well constructed film from the songs to the acting to the chemistry and the spirit of it all. So well done from Cooper. Roma, though, is a damn masterpiece from Alfonso Cuaron. It's brilliant and nostalgic and dreamlike. It makes you feel a certain way that other films don't It's the one film from this list that will be hailed as an all time classic that makes those best film ever lists. And the Academy fucked up and gave the win to a film that's not even half the film Roma is. All because they are mad at Netflix for being different. What a joke. It was a pretty good year, though, and I'm ready to move on.


Oscar Winner: Green Book
My Winner:  Roma
A Star Is Born
The Favourite
BlacKkKlansman
Vice
Black Panther
Green Book
Bohemian Rhapsody