Go ahead and now give the Academy Award for Best Lead Actor to Will Smith (Ali, The Pursuit of Happyness). It might not be a far-off assumption as we are on the cusp of Oscar season. I would wait to hedge my bets in Vegas entirely, but it might be worth taking a flyer without knowing much about the other players who might be up for the award. Smith gives the best performance in his storied career as Richard, the father of (then) future tennis greats Venus Williams and Serena Williams in Reinaldo Marcus Green’s (Joe Bell, Monsters and Men) King Richard.
Category Archives: Tony Goldwyn
A Walk on the Moon (1999)
I somewhat have an affinity for Viggo Mortensen (The Road, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring). His movie Eastern Promises (the only film he has received an Academy Award nomination for) was the first movie I ever reviewed for my blog. It wasn’t the most straightforward movie to review and one that I would like to see one day again and then read what I wrote for that first review, but that will be something that comes later. He’s a solid actor who seems to do fewer and fewer movies each year, but when he’s on his A-game, there aren’t many who are better. I had never heard of A Walk On the Moon before it showed up as a Netflix recommendation. I quickly threw it in the queue, and I’m glad I did. In addition to a fabulous performance by Mortensen, this was a solid movie with one of the significant foundations of human life at the forefront. It’s the most surprising movie I’ve seen this year, and I may have to reevaluate my 1999 top 10 list. I’m guessing this movie won’t be quite good enough to get on there, but there might be a chance. Maybe this review will be the deciding factor.
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Divergent (2014)
In the mold of The Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Maze Runner, and other young adult book franchises comes the surprisingly good Divergent. A surefire box office success because of the successful book series, Divergent did not do quite as well with the critics (41%) as well as the first Hunger Games (84%), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (80%), or The Fellowship of the Ring (91%), but was comparable with the other two. Interestingly, the Divergent franchise has the best cast of any of these movies, even though it is probably the least known. The franchise is four books, and it looks like we’ll get four movies from them.
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