Wow. I really wanted to love this movie. Bradley Cooper’s debut directorial performance was so close to perfect and yet so far away at the same time. I admire his vision and ambition for this movie so much that I want to credit it even in the areas it struggled with. Watching it through the lens of a moviegoer looking for an escape rather than that of a wannabe movie critic would have allowed me to see past some of its many errors. Ultimately, however, this film was far too flawed to be a legitimate contender for Best Picture or Best Director, despite what many seem to be already predicting. I will touch on all of the good and all of the bad in what will be one of my more thorough reviews.
Category Archives: Academy Award Nominees
BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Over seven years into my movie review website and BlacKkKlansman, this is the first Spike Lee-directed movie I’m reviewing. I realized this when I checked his category and saw that he wasn’t on my list. It certainly isn’t because I don’t enjoy a good Spike Lee movie. It’s more than one of my first 370+ reviews; more than 300 have been since 2010. And while Lee has certainly directed many films since 2010, I haven’t heard of nearly any of them. I did see (and enjoy) 2013’s Oldboy and am pretty surprised I did not write a review on it. It is a movie that I will go back and watch again and review. However, Lee is better known for the movies he directed over a 15-20-year period, starting with 1989’s Do the Right Thing and ending with 2006’s Inside Man. Shockingly, he does not have a Best Director Academy Award nomination to his credit and only has one actual nomination (as a screenwriter for Do The Right Thing). While Lee isn’t a Steven Spielberg, he has directed many memorable movies that people can immediately roll out of their mouths.
The Hurt Locker (2009)
“The rush of battle is a potent and almost lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” – Chris Hedges, author of War Is A Force that Gives Us Meaning.
2009’s The Hurt Locker is one of the finest movies ever. It was utterly gripping in its year of release and is a movie that will remain relevant until the end of time. It was monumental that director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Zero Dark Thirty) became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director and the first woman to direct a Best Picture of the Year. It only took 80 years. Just as impressive, and a significant credit goes to Bigelow, was the breakout performance for two future Hollywood A-listers in Jeremy Renner (The Town, Wind River) and Anthony Mackie (The Adjustment Bureau, Triple 9). Ironically, both have landed themselves as Avengers characters, something I will touch on later in this review. There have been many excellent movies about the war in Iraq (Stop-Loss, The Green Zone, The Messenger, Grace Is Gone, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, Jarhead), The Hurt Locker is second, falling just behind Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper. And it’s close. Each is a film that should receive multiple views. Each had a lead that hit his performance entirely out of the park, had incredible direction, and had a chilling score that could be listened to on a quiet night on the couch at home. It is, without a doubt, a movie that should be viewed by anyone who enjoys/appreciates war movies.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
Wrongly accused of murdering his wife and her lover, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins – Jacobs Ladder, Mystic River), a young, successful vice president of a major bank, is sentenced to serve back-to-back life sentences in Shawshank State Penitentiary never gets too down in his circumstances, even though he will spend out his days behind bars. In contrast, his wife’s killer roams the streets free. The legendary fiction horror writer Steven King (The Shining, The Mist) introduced himself to a new kind of audience with this quiet and underrated (at its release) The Shawshank Redemption, a film that is nothing like Pet Semetary, IT, Cujo, Misery, Needful Things, Christine, Thinner, Carrie, Firestarter, Children of the Corn or a host of his other adapted horror novels adapted for film. The Shawshank Redemption is the complete opposite of a horror film. It is the crowning achievement of director Frank Darabont’s (The Green Mile, The Mist) career. This movie has been the highest-rated movie on the International Movie Database (IMDB) in the history of its website.
Good Will Hunting (1997)
The crowning achievement of Robin Williams’ storied career is not the Mork and Mindy sitcom where he was first discovered. It’s not the numerous leading roles he has received recognition with, such as Best Lead Actor Academy Awards (Good Morning, Vietnam, The Fisher King, Dead Poets Society). It was not in the numerous timeless comedies we’ll watch for ages (Mrs. Doubtfire, The Birdcage, Jack, Robots, Night at the Smithsonian, Jumanji). It’s not for his creepingly effective turns in movies like Insomnia, One Hour Photo, The Night Listener, or heartwarming dramas such as Awakenings. Heck, it was not as the voice of The Genie in Aladdin. Instead, it is a community college professor who has not been able to move on from his life after losing his wife to cancer in Gus Van Sant’s (Milk, Drugstore Cowboy) surprise 1997 hit Good Will Hunting. Nevertheless, the film earned Williams the only Oscar of his career. And he’s not even the best part of this movie.