Meh. There are many better movies to see this year than Aaron Sorkin’s (The Trial of the Chicago 7, Molly’s Game) Being the Ricardos. However, the 2021 Academy Award nominees seem more prominent regarding name recognition than in prior years. Movies that in previous years likely wouldn’t have sniffed a nomination are likely to get multiples this year. Being the Ricardos, with Sorkin and Academy favorites, four-time Oscar nominee Nicole Kidman (The Others, Lion) and three-time nominee Javier Bardem (Biutiful, No Country for Old Men) will receive recognition. Kidman will get a nomination for acting (though she has no chance of winning), but Bardem will not. The film could receive a best-picture nomination, making me cringe.
Category Archives: Nicole Kidman
Bombshell (2019)
Based on the real-life scandal at the Fox News Channel, Jay Roach’s (Trumbo, Meet the Parents) Bombshell tells the story of the eruption that occurred when many women were exposed to a sexually harassing environment due to its chairman at the time, Roger Ailes (John Lithgow- Late Night, The Accountant). Bringing to the surface the accusations of numerous females by the head of the company, Bombshell made, at times, an uncomfortable watch. It felt unfathomable that so much of this could have occurred. However, it also seemed as if you couldn’t make up a story like this had it not been proven true.
Cold Mountain (2003)
The year was 2003, and a quiet little movie named The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King took home the Academy Awards biggest prize that year, winning Best Picture. Some will argue that this reflected on the culmination of a pretty darn good trilogy and that will ensure that the Peter Jackson franchise was worthy of its share of accolades that maybe Best Picture of the Year wasn’t one of them. I can’t give my personal opinion on that one because I have yet to see the film as of the time of this writing (February 2019). I liked the first two enough and don’t really have a reason for not seeing the third yet other than length and the thought that I should probably watch The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers again beforehand. There was a slightly quieter movie that year that seemed to be the Academy sweetheart heading into Oscar night, a film that reestablished Clint Eastwood as a major force to reckon with as, perhaps, THE best director in Hollywood for the foreseeable future (2004’s Million Dollar Baby being his crowning achievement). Mystic River was nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood) and earned both Sean Penn and Tim Robbins their long-awaited trophies. 2003 was also the year for the excellent Seabiscuit, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Monster, and Lost in Translation. But there was one movie that was better than all of these. It too was a major name at Oscar night, earning seven nominations and landing Renée Zellweger her first win after receiving nominations for 2001’s Chicago and 2000’s Bridget Jones’s Diaries at the previous two events. That movie was Anthony Minghella’s (The Talented Mr. Ripley) sweeping Civil War piece Cold Mountain.
Boy Erased (2018)
After two movies, the jury is still out on Joel Edgerton as a director. After catching fire with 2015’s surprise hit The Gift, Edgerton tried his hand with material based on a true story, adapting and writing the screenplay for Garrard Conley’s novel Boy Erased. To be perfectly transparent, I had extremely high expectations for this film. This was actually a novel that I read a couple of years ago, well before I knew that a film based on the story was in the process. I enjoyed the novel, and when I saw that the cast was to include Edgerton, Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and that it was already being mentioned in Oscar discussions before it was released, I was more than excited. However, I knew that the topic of this film was a controversial one. When I read the book, I don’t think that I was dissatisfied with the ending, but one that I felt was rushed quite a bit. Boy Erased was definitely one of my ten most anticipated films of the year. And like a few others in my ten most anticipated films of the year (namely First Man), it completely failed to impress. A film that should have been ripe with emotion left me completely unaffected the entire time.
Continue reading Boy Erased (2018)
Lion (2016)
Prepare yourself. I’m not sure if I’ve had a movie theater experience with a more constant steady stream of tears since 1997’s Titanic. I know there have been movies that have scenes that have affected me more, and there have been home viewings where I don’t feel the same pressure to hold it together as I would in the theater. So while I was having sort of a sentimental day before I engaged with this movie, for whatever reason, I was wiping away tears early and often in this movie. In some ways, it was eerily reminiscent of 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire. It starred Dev Patel (Chappie, HBO’s The Newsroom) and revolved around the story set, mostly in the present, with flashbacks to childhood memories in India. Much like the fantastic Slumdog Millionaire put Patel on the map for the first time, Lion will, for sure, launch him to leading man status for years to come. Though he didn’t appear on screen until the movie was about 40% over, he commanded every scene he was in from that point going forward to transformed this movie from great to must-see. In a year where the top lead actors have portrayed characters riddled with guilt, doubt, regret, and self-loathing, Patel holds his own with the more accomplished Denzel Washington (Fences), Ryan Gosling (La La Land), and frontrunner Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea).