Almost perfect. While it may not even end up in my top five movies of the year, Tom Ford’s (
A Single Man)
Nocturnal Animals was almost perfect. I liked it so much in this movie, and Ford almost created a masterpiece, but it fell short. An A- for sure. Maybe even an A. But it won’t be the 49th movie I’ve seen that would classify as an A+. Jake Gyllenhaal (
Love and Other Drugs, Everest) is better than ever, and he could end up with an Oscar nomination for this film. In a perfect world, he would, especially since he may have been the odd man out in 2015 (
Nightcrawler) and 2016 (
Southpaw) for a Best Actor Academy Award. But with four of the five slots pretty much locked up (Tom Hanks –
Sully, Denzel Washington –
Fences, Casey Affleck –
Manchester by the Sea, Joel Edgerton (
Loving), that leaves only one more nomination between Gyllenhaal, Ryan Gosling (
La La Land), Warren Beatty (
Rules Don’t Apply), and Andrew Garfield (
Hacksaw Ridge). And, honestly, while his performance was excellent, it wasn’t nearly the performance he gave in either
Nightcrawler or
Southpaw. Ford’s chances for a Best Directing nod look even dimmer, and an impressive performance by Amy Adams (
The Fighter, American Hustle) may be overlooked entirely because she will likely receive a nomination (and may even be the frontrunner) for
Arrival, a movie that was released just a week before
Nocturnal Animals.
Continue reading Nocturnal Animals (2016) →
It’s getting closer and closer to awards season, and I have continued to wait for that one movie that will establish itself as the movie to beat before the real crop of contenders comes out between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Unfortunately, some of those I thought would show themselves, especially 
Brothers, the Tobey Maguire/Jake Gyllenhaal/Natalie Portman collaboration, had the opportunity to be the very best movie of 2009. The trailer, showing a mentally unstable Maguire as a decorated soldier returning home from Afghanistan after being purported dead, shows us one thing is for sure…this isn’t the Tobey Maguire we are used to seeing in Spider-Man, Seabiscuit, or The Cider House Rules. From the three-minute movie trailer alone, I knew I would see this movie the day it came out because I was gripped by Maguire’s turn from a loving husband and nurturing father to a menacing psychopath.