Less than a month ago, I would have said Natalie Portman (Black Swan, Brothers) was the one lock for an Academy Award win. Her portrayal as the grieving Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the wake of her husband’s assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald. Portman just looked the part, and it felt like this was the role she was born to play. Portman is a fantastic actress who did an above-average job in Jackie. But this movie was so flat and depressing that I wonder if it will be enough to take out Emma Stone in La La Land, which has been gaining lots of steam in recent weeks. I’m not overly impressed when I look at this list of contenders for Best Actress. This helps Portman. This film only had to be pretty good to convince me she should win. Unfortunately, the movie did not live up to my expectations at all. While I learned a lot about Jackie Kennedy, her relationship with her family, the media, and the people of America, and the events that occurred on November 22, 1963, and the week afterward, this movie overall was very dark and dull. Though only an hour and a half, it felt like a three-hour snoozefest. It’s hard to recommend a film that felt more like a history lesson that you should be required to watch in your 11th-grade U.S. History class.
Category Archives: Based on a True Story
Loving (2016)
Jeff Nichols’s (Take Shelter, Mud) Loving is an early contender for my most disappointing movie of the year. While there are plenty of other candidates, Loving is the only one likely to be considered for Oscar contention. It likely will get a nomination for Joel Edgerton (Warrior, The Gift), who I think is one of the best actors we currently have but whose performance was not one of the five best of the year (and probably wasn’t even one of the ten best). It likely will also get a nomination for Ruth Negga (Of Mind and Music, Warcraft), whose performance was equally uncompelling. And it could earn Oscars for Nichols (who I also love, but who should get nominated as well as Best Picture).
Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
Hot take. Hacksaw Ridge > Saving Private Ryan.
That was my claim after my theater viewing of Mel Gibson’s (Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ) newest film. I’ve since slept on this, but I should have watched it again. Nonetheless, it doesn’t take away from Gibson’s movie. Hacksaw Ridge was based on a true story, whereas Saving Private Ryan was not. For me, when all else is equal, it nods to the more factual-based one. Saving Private Ryan was a fantastic movie. The Invasion of Normandy Omaha Beach to open the movie was one of the most captivating and memorable action sequences in film history. When I claimed that Hacksaw Ridge was a better movie, I almost inserted the caveat that “outside of the opening 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, Hacksaw Ridge is a better movie.” But that seemed like a copout. I couldn’t spoil it with some condition that limited my case.
Christine (2016)
Rebecca Hall (The Gift, Everything Must Go) does what many actors and actresses have tried and failed to do, which is to portray a person with an untreated mental disorder successfully. In this case, the mental disorder is depression. Many actresses find it hard to put themselves in that mold if they’ve never directly experienced that disorder. I’m not sure if Hall has ever experienced a major depressive episode in her life. Still, if she has not, she did a great job researching Christine Chubbuck and bringing this character to life in a way that makes you feel like she’s that one co-worker of yours who you know is struggling with life but doesn’t know how bad it really is. Chubbuck, a reporter for Sarasota’s WXLT-TV news broadcast, made headlines when, while live on air, stated, “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in ‘blood and guts,’ and in living color, you are going to see another first —attempted suicide” before shooting herself in the head and splattering blood against the back wall. She died later that evening in a local hospital.
The Birth of a Nation (2016)
Nate Parker (Beyond the Lights, Non-Stop) made his big-screen debut in 2006, but a decade later, many moviegoers might need help picking him out of a lineup. However, that’s all about to change. The incredible The Birth of a Nation will launch Parker into the next tier of actors, directors, and screenwriters. I’ll be the first to say that I didn’t know who Parker was, but it might be time for me to go back and watch some of the movies on his filmography. Not only did Parker give an Oscar-worthy leading actor performance, but he also directed and wrote this film that, somehow, is flying under the radar. Parker knocked this movie out of the park. The 79% rating it receives on Rotten Tomatoes is quite respectable (especially for a film based on an actual event, but one that even Parker described as reality-based fiction). Still, I have yet to see any promotional materials for this movie. It opened the same weekend as Girl on the Train, which may have received as much publicity as any other movie released in 2016 so far.