Of the three best picture Oscar-nominated movies (Mank, The Trial of the Chicago Seven) that have a chance to knock off Nomadland, the odds on favorite to be selected as the year’s best movie, Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah was undoubtedly my favorite. It’s ironic since the other two films have a better chance of earning the night’s biggest prize. But much like the other five nominated pictures, there isn’t anything particularly remarkable about this trio. As a whole, it wasn’t a great year for movies. There were some great acting performances during the year. Judas and the Black Messiah was no exception, earning not one but two nods for Best Supporting Actor.
Category Archives: Daniel Kaluuya
Black Panther (2018)
In 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expanded on a tradition that it had in place since 1927. It increased the number of potential Best Picture nominations from the normal five to a potential maximum of 10. It was a move to inject more blockbusters into the Oscar mix and to give movies like Avatar, Inception, and Toy Story 3 the recognition of Best Picture that they deserved. But in essence, this was The Dark Knight rule. This 2008 film most incredible superhero movie ever made, was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two (Best Supporting Actor – Heath Ledger, Best Achievement in Sound Editing). Still, it failed to earn a Best Picture nomination. While 2008 produced five excellent Best Picture nominations (Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Reader, Frost/Nixon, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), it still felt like The Dark Knight belonged, either in addition to one of these five or as a replacement. And the Academy changed its rules after that year. Instead of the top five vote earners being selected as the nominees, if a movie received a certain threshold of votes, it would be nominated for Best Picture (up to 10 nominations). I don’t believe we’ve had 10 movies selected yet in the last decade, but we have had nine on multiple occasions. This year there were eight. And while the last decade resulted in many movies earning a Best Picture nomination that they wouldn’t have received before the rule change, the first superhero to benefit from The Dark Knight rule was Ryan Cogler’s (Fruitvale Station, Creed), Black Panther, a film that made history by becoming the first-ever superhero to receive a Best Picture nomination.
Widows (2018)
After watching Widows, the best movie of 2018 that has been released before Thanksgiving) I can very confidently say that if you team up director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, Shame) and writer Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, HBO’s Sharp Objects), I’m going to have my butt in a theatre opening weekend. I’ve heard about Widows for months now but never actually saw the trailer until the day before I saw the movie. And I still haven’t seen the whole trailer. I needly only watch the first half of it to know that it was a movie that I wanted to see and that it was a movie I wanted to see right away. With all due respect to A Star Is Born, I think that its parade walk to 2018’s Best Picture just hit a major roadblock in McQueen’s masterpiece of a movie. The man who was narrowly beaten out for Best Director (Alfonso Cuarón – Gravity) hardly seemed upset when half an hour later, his 12 Years a Slave won topped Gravity (and others) for the Best Picture of 2013. He’s been off the grid for the last five years (save for a few shorts), but he is back with a movie that might be better than any of his previous three masterpieces (12 Years a Slave, Shame, Hunger Strike). The only thing missing is an appearance by Michael Fassbender, but you won’t even notice. Not only has McQueen delivered the best movie of 2018 (so far), but he’s brought the best ensemble of the year, one that will likely garner awards for a couple of people and a surefire one for the film’s protagonist Veronica (Viola Davis – Fences, The Help). And while some might think I’m crazy to suggest that her performance in Widows is better than her performances in Fences, The Help, or Doubt, I would counter that she led a star-studded cast in this movie. In contrast, while she was fantastic in her other three films, she wasn’t the center character. AND, I am still upset that she was put up for Best Supporting Actress in 2016 Fences, an award that she won) because that was a leading performance and would have won Best Lead Actress. She was not anymore a supporting character than Denzel Washington was. But I digress…
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Get Out (2017)
Jordan Peele’s debut feature film Get Out was a film that I originally wasn’t going to review. I liked the movie well enough, but it wasn’t one that I totally felt comfortable writing about. I only do so now because it will likely be nominated for Best Picture and could get as many as 10 nominations. This is kind of crazy for a movie released in February. It certainly isn’t unheard of, but it is rare. Its Academy Award nominations, 99% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and $175+ million in box office revenue off a $5 million budget confirm that this is one of the most surprising and successful movies of all time. It may be THE most successful horror movie of all time if you measure it by those four factors alone. It’s a movie that keeps you engaged and entertained from its very first scene (think a toned and shorter version of the first scene in Scream), powers its way through a unique plot that you’ve never seen on film before, and keeps you on the edge of your seat through its bold and unpredictable final act. It’s not only a great time at the movies that will keep you guessing until the very end. It takes on some underlying racial tones and tensions of the day that makes it seem like comedian Peele (Key and Peele) has been doing this his whole life. But this is is his first real dabble with anything outside of comedy, his first attempt at writing something for the big screen, and his first attempt at directing. He nailed each of these with pure precession. He will undoubtedly receive an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. There will be other nominations too, and it appears that Best Picture will be one of those. It will be much deserved in a year that will be forgotten about for the most part when it comes to movies. That is outside of little, unsuspecting movies such as this.
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Sicario (2015)
With three months left to go in 2015, we have a new contender for the best movie of the year, and the name of that movie is Sicario. This movie is a fantastic ride that will keep you thoroughly engrossed and guessing the entire time. Like many great movies over the last couple of years, the less you know about the movie going in, the more I think you’ll like this movie. For me, this has been the case recently with films like Ex-Machina, The Drop, The Gift, and Chef. All of these were surprises, and each is a movie that I plan on watching again in the future. The same can be said about Sicario. Once you know how the movie ends, you’ll want to watch it again to try and see it again through a new set of lenses. It’s intense. It’s filled with drama. It will leave you with your mouth hung ajar. That is if you let it. This is a movie where you need to pay attention. If you doze off for even a couple of minutes, you might miss something important. If you miss something important, you might feel lost. If you feel lost, you might get frustrated. But if you are willing to work as hard as the movie does, you’ll be rewarded with one of the most exciting, well-crafted, and original movies that you are likely to find this year (or any year for that matter).
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