Joy is the epitome of a very average movie with a standout lead performance. Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) will most definitely earn her fourth Academy Award nomination (third for Lead Actress) in five years for her role as the title character. Still, she does not have a chance to win. I think she would have had a shot had the movie been better received with critics and audiences, but it likely would not have been enough to knock off favorites Brie Larson (Room), Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn), or Charlotte Rampling (45 Years). Lawrence and Cate Blanchette (Carol) likely will be the final two nominations, with Carey Mulligan (Suffragette) having an outside chance to spoil.
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Category Archives: Based on a True Story
The Danish Girl (2015)
The closer that each of my reviews is to awards season, the more unconventional they become. For the past four or five years, I’ve tried to see absolutely everything I can. If a movie gets nominated in one of the big six awards, I will see it regardless of how I feel about it. Sometimes this can be a painful experience, but it’s part of what I’m trying to do. So before I get into my review of The Danish Girl, I want to talk about the Best Actor Academy Award nomination category. In a year where the male lead performances have been far below the caliber that they have been in recent years, the battle for Best Actor comes down to two people. These include Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything, My Week With Marilyn) for this movie and Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant. When Matt Damon (The Martian) or Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs) are the next guys in line behind these two, you know it’s a two-dog race. I am a massive fan of both Damon and Fassbender, but they each have at least three movies in their filmography in which they delivered better performances than the ones they gave this year.
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In The Heart of the Sea (2015)
I was excited when I saw a blurb earlier this year about In The Heart of the Sea coming to the big screen in 2015. I have stated numerous times that Nathaniel Philbrick’s novel of the same name is the single most descriptive book I’ve ever read. But Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex had a way to make me feel I was actually in the book. I read this book on a whim probably seven or eight years ago and was utterly engrossed. I didn’t understand the place of this movie in historical literature. I learned that it was set to be released in 2015, that it would be directed by Ron Howard (Apollo 13) and star Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Rush), which got me even more stoked. Finally, I learned that this would have a December release. Unfortunately, it has failed to meet its critics’ expectations and has been squashed. Still, In The Heart of the Sea was probably my anticipated movie of the year. I felt that this movie met all of my expectations and then some. It was exactly like the novel, and I gave it a solid A. However, I could easily see a scenario where this movie might not have been as enjoyable as it was for me.
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Spotlight (2015)
There are a couple of different ways to start the review for Spotlight. I could talk about the cast (quite possibly the ensemble cast of the year). I could talk about the hypocrisy that is organized religion. I will mention both of these in this post. But I will start with the old-fashioned newspaper reporting that used to be our number source of reliable news. In many ways, it is unfortunate that newspapers aren’t what they used to be, nor will they ever be again. With the invention of the Internet, it was only a matter of time before most newspapers folded while others had to majorly trim their staff, editions, and the number of pages produced with each issue. Where will The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and The New York Times be in 20 years? Well, if the changes in the previous 20 years are any indication, I’m not sure these newspapers will even be around in 20 years. If they are, they might be entirely electronically based. There will still be a place for prominent metropolitan newspapers, but it will not be in the print variety. There are still things that I am interested in in the Washington DC area that I feel can only be fully addressed in something like The Washington Post. Still, I haven’t purchased a physical newspaper in over a decade and only read one if I saw it sitting at a bar when I’m eating dinner, in the school library, etc. Likewise, I go online to The Washington Post to get the same information that I cannot find elsewhere, but their website isn’t nearly as user-friendly as some other sites I go to. And finally, after I read several articles, I’m told that I reached my limit for the month and that I need to pay for a subscription to read anymore. Well…how hard is it to use a different device that hasn’t yet recognized me to access the same material? And am I going to need to read more than five articles a month? Nope. I have other resources that I still have at my disposal. Long story short…I still want and need these major newspaper articles to survive. Yet, I haven’t given a cent towards any of these papers in over a decade, and I don’t plan to. If these newspapers are going to survive, they need to do something to tap into my monetary resources.
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Suffragette (2015)
I’m not entirely sure how Sarah Gavron’s (Village At The End Of The World, Brick Lane) Suffragette could have been a film that I truly enjoyed. I’m not the biggest fan of British historical dramas, and this was not a movie I went to see for enjoyment. It was a film I went to see just because I always try to see every movie that potentially could receive a nomination for a Best Six Academy Award. I think it’s unlikely that this film will get any recognition, but there was some buzz surrounding it before its release. In any regard, I knew this would be a movie I would end up seeing. Is it a bad movie? Not at all. It’s actually a very educational movie that has some above-average acting performances. But, unfortunately, it was very predictable (which I expected) and not nearly as riveting as it probably could have been (also something that I expected). Also, if you are hoping to experience the annual Meryl Streep (Doubt, The Devil Wears Prada) Oscar nomination, this isn’t it. She has all of one scene and is on the screen for less than two minutes.
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