I’ve been asked by the Web Team here at ABC2 for thoughts on some of the big movies that will be featured on the 2016 Acadamy Awards (airing Sunday, Feb. 28 right here on ABC2, to immediately be followed by – unsubtle hint -- ABC2 news at 11, anchored by none other than the writer of this very post).
Why am I doing this? Well they were very polite when they asked me, and also I enjoy paying my mortgage on time.
I would ALSO venture to guess that although I’m no movie critic, I probably saw more of the films nominated for Best Picture than you did.
That has a lot to do with the fact that as a TV reporter in Baltimore, I belong to the “AFTRA” union. A few years ago our union merged with “SAG” and so now we’re “SAG-AFTRA” and THAT means we get to vote on the SAG Awards. And THAT means that the film studios send out all these screener-DVDs for us to watch, so we can vote for their movies.
It’s nice, but when you consider the union dues, it would be a lot cheaper to just go out and buy tickets for all of these movies in theaters – for me and several dozen of my friends. But I digress…
Anyway, I only missed one of them -- “Mad Max: Fury Road” didn’t get any SAG nominations (so no screeners) and I didn’t see it in the theater. If it ends up winning, well this might be somewhat of a wasted endeavor. But I don’t think it’s going to win, so there’s that.
By the way if you don’t agree with my thoughts on these movies, I encourage you to write your own reviews. There's a chance the Web Team will publish them, as long as they don’t contain (too much) profanity or (any) references to large trucks crashing into television stations.
I’ll start with the movie that I think SHOULD win Best Picture: Spotlight
Great acting, based on a true story, important subject matter, what more could you want? In theory I could be biased by the whole journalism thing. But hey – if you want The Revenant to win maybe you’re just biased by a love of bears and rustic outdoor scenes. Spotlight won the biggest prize at the SAG Awards (Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture). And Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams are nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Actress Oscars. I remember a few years ago when “Argo” won Best Picture, critics said it was the kind of “high quality adult movie” (not THAT kind of adult movie! I mean “mature” … a movie for adults) that used to be made all the time but seemed like a lost art after years and years of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. For me, Spotlight is like that; a movie about a bunch of adults doing important work. A worthy Best Picture.
Up next -- a move that COULD win: Room
If there were an award for “film-most-likely-to-make-you-take-a-long-hot-shower-after-viewing” Room would win in a landslide. Oh man I’m still kind of disturbed just writing this and I saw it like a month ago. Haven’t heard of Room? It’s the one about the young woman who is kidnapped as a teen; the story picks up SEVERAL YEARS into her captivity. She’s got a son (with the kidnapper) and they both live in a shed behind the guy’s house. It kind of reminded me of a news story I did once, about a child abuser in Pennsylvania, who got caught. My photographer and I showed up and talked to neighbors about the guy. We asked one neighbor -- who would only allow us to refer to him as “The Captain” – if he was surprised by what had happened next door. The Captain’s response was something like, “Naw I ain’t surprised; he never looked me in the eye. Don’t trust no man don’t look me in the eye.” Oh I’m sorry.. back to the movie review. The actress who plays the mom, Brie Larson, won Best Actress at the SAG Awards and the “experts” think she’ll win the Oscar too. BTW everything you might be hearing about the kid in this movie (Jacob Tremblay) is true.. he’s really good. I don’t think Room is a GREAT movie but I won’t be surprised if it pulls the upset.
Now, for a move that I HOPE DOES NOT WIN: The Revenant
In order to describe my feelings about this movie I’m going to have to unpack my adjectives. Yes I admit -- he was a hairy bear. He was a scary bear. But the movie itself? Frustrating. Worst. Soggy. You get the picture. So I’m also going to unpack a useful analogy. Remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine hates The English Patient? Let’s just say I’m Elaine. Everybody’s telling me how great The Revenent is, and I’m like COME ON what is this movie trying to tell me? That times were tough out West in the early 1800s? Yeah I kind of figured that already. That people ate all kinds of strange things they were out in the woods? That showers were few and far between? Yeah -- all of this was information I’d already possessed before spending nearly three hours watching this. Now I’m no Leo-hater -- loved Leo in The Departed and Wolf of Wall Street. And he might even win Best Actor for this. But can anyone explain to me why I was supposed to care about this particular character that he’s playing? Because the movie never did. Anyway, a solid Oscar-night for me would be seeing The Revenant win for Best Cinematography, and nothing else.
Most entertaining movie in this category: The Big Short
Of the Best Picture-nominated movies that I saw, The Big Short is the most fun to watch. Which has to be surprising when you consider that it’s a movie about the housing bubble, credit-default swaps and hedge funds. But there’s a lot of really good actors here (Steve Carrell is fantastic) and I happened to enjoy learning more about the housing collapse. But given the complexity of what did happen, the people who made this movie knew they had to make sure the audience understood it. To that end, they have several characters talking directly to the audience, explaining, for example, what a CDO is and how all of this came together to cause the financial collapse. They did a nice job of doing it creatively, and you won’t hear me complain about the use of Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez. But IMHO all that explaining, with actors talking “through the wall” has to knock this film one notch below Best Picture-level.
Most inconsequential movie in this category: Brooklyn
Did you see Brooklyn? You should – I think you’ll like it. It’s such a nice story; immigrant girl moves from Ireland to New York in the 1950s, encounters relatively minor challenges, gets help from a solid support system that includes a kind rooming house owner and a priest, meets a boy and eventually succeeds in building a new life in America. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie in which the main character faces such low hurdles. It’s not that I was rooting against her, I just thought if you’re going to make a movie all about one young woman’s journey, you’d want her to at least see if she can get out of a bigger jam than seasickness. My wife’s story about immigrating to the US is vastly more interesting than this, and no one’s made a movie about that. But Saoirse Ronan’s great.. going to be a big star. And the boyfriend’s kid brother is funny.
Worst movie title in this category: Bridge of Spies
This movie has “must-see” writing all over it. Important subject matter? Definitely. The Steven Spielberg-Tom Hanks combo? Check. Coen Brothers script? Yep. Great-performance-by-a-supporting-actor? Absolutely (Mark Rylance). So what’s with the title? At the end of this movie, there’s a bridge. And so they name the whole movie “Bridge of Spies?” To me that makes it sound like some kind of TLC miniseries. I don’t know; I guess it’s hard to name a movie. But go back to another Spielberg-Hanks jam. Who would NOT go see a moved called “Saving Private Ryan.” Now it’s a modern classic, and oh by the way EVERYONE saw it. Again I’m no movie expert and I could be way off-base here, but I think with a better name “Bridge of Spies” might have been higher up on my list. Got any ideas?
Best space-movie: The Martian
THAT’S a good name for a movie! You get it? It’s called “The Martian” because he’s the only one living on the whole planet! This was the “big movie” of the Best Picture group. All seven other films – combined – made about $316-million in 2015. The Martian grossed $226-million all by itself. So maybe it loses some “Oscar-buzz” for being so commercial, but I still liked it. Of course, I like the space-movies. Apollo 13, Armageddon, Gravity, etc. etc. etc. Matt Damon’s just cocky enough to pull of the astronaut-botanist, and it’s an interesting story. If there’s one thing you learn from The Martian, it’s that it’s going to be extremely difficult for us to send a person to Mars in real life. Especially if we’re going to leave them there and then turn around and go back to get them.
Best movie I did not see: Mad Max: Fury Road
If you’d written down all of these movies on a list before I’d seen any of them, and asked me which one I wanted to see, the answer would have been Mad Max: Fury Road. And yet -- I still haven’t seen Mad Max: Fury Road. I can’t believe I haven’t seen this. And now with this Oscar-buzz it probably won’t even come to the Netflix for-freaking-ever…
Anyway thanks for reading my exceedingly-long blog post for movie reviews! Now back to covering the news in Baltimore. Let me know how I did!
-Christian
christian.schaffer@wmar.com
@chrisfromabc2
