It’s Oscar season, which can mean only one thing…it’s time to feel bad about the number of films you haven’t seen. Time to look over the list of the best films made last year and realised how many you haven’t seen. If you’re British you’ve got a pretty good excuse, what with some of them not being released over here until February, which makes it hard to judge whether they’re worthy. Americans can sit there and be like “I know what that’s like as I saw that months ago, and it was deeply flawed”, whereas if you’re over here you’re dependent on either basing it entirely on other reviews or watching them illegally. Or just do neither and not mention them.
The Post was nominated for both Best Picture, and Best Actress (for Meryl Streep, obviously, who is seemingly allergic to not giving award-winning performances). It’s a weird dichotomy for me to say this but I both agree and don’t agree with them. It’s a weird realisation when you notice there’s a difference between award-winning films and films you love. Horrors and comedies for example never do well come award season, yet people love them. The Post was a very well made film, but I will find it very odd if someone says it’s their favourite film of the year. Essentially I appreciated it more than I liked it.
Maybe part of that reason is that it’s harder for British people to be invested in a journalism story than it is for Americans. American newspapers have a much more dignified history than British ones. The history of American newspapers are things like Watergate, Bloomingdale Asylum, The Color Of Money, and investigating the Catholic church sexual abuse scandal. They’re good things to have movies about, things that make you proud of the industry. What’s the British equivalent? Hillsborough, hacking voicemails of murdered schoolgirls, saying it’s impossible for straight people to get AIDs, saying MMR causes autism, and supporting the Nazi’s during World War 2, saying the Jews were all lying for attention. Don’t exactly have the same level of nobility to them. So it’s hard for us to feel that same sense of pride in journalism.
That’s enough about the circumstances, the film itself? It knows it wants to do and it does that well. It builds up to the “Meryl Streep moment” well. You know, that moment which happens in a lot of films lately, where she seems kind of meek and timid but then is like “no, I’m right and you’re going to do what I say because I’m Meryl Streep”. There’s a moment where everyone is locked in a room and panicking to get through a massive document before the print deadline, meanwhile they’re still debating whether they’re going to print it at all as it runs the risk of them being taken to court. It’s incredibly tense and nerve-wracking, and just all-around brilliant. If the entire film was like that I’d have loved it, but sadly the rest of the film couldn’t really match up to that one scene. It is an oddly relevant film for these times. A film about the president attempting to censor the media, a few years ago that would have seemed only slightly relevant, now it seems so relevant it’s almost scary how history is repeating itself (although this led to Nixon being impeached and shamed, so fingers crossed).
I knew nothing about the situation going into this film, I didn’t even know what the film was about due to cinemas not showing any trailers for this for some reason. The film should be commended for making a rather complicated situation simplistic enough for the audience to understand. You don’t sit there thinking “but what’s going on?” and feeling the need to check the internet mid-film to see what’s going on. Which is good, as if you check the internet whilst in the cinema you’re an asshole.
And that’s how I’m ending this review.
Oh wait, no, I’ll end it with this. Boss Baby is an Academy Award nominated film. 2018 Is weird.
Who should have been nominated: Surprisingly difficult to pick another great lead performance from 2015, but I’m going with Michael Caine from Youth. Though a very natural role for the old actor to slip into, it was still towering above anything he’s done in the last few years, and maybe even his whole career. Caine brings a real edge and melancholy to the aged composer, and though a very specific character in his own right, manages to cut to the heart of all people old and young, to make us treasure the life we still have to lead, and the life we already have.
Who should have been nominated: Bel Powley for The Diary of a Teenage Girl. No actress last year gave more of an emotional, funny, heart-breaking, fun, sincere, and just naked performance than Bel Powley in The Diary of a Teenage Girl. She was the embodiment of the teenager, and her courage to commit to the sexually explicit role added more emotional weight than all of the actual nominations combined.
Who should have Won: Sylvester Stallone for Creed. Not that I think his performance is better than Rylance’s (but it is as good), I just think the sentiment of Sylvester Stallone winning an Oscar for Rocky would have been nicer, as we all doubt he’s got another one in him (but who knows). His performance is also genuinely very strong and thoughtful, and I think the main reason he didn’t win in the end was because Creed got too sentimental about itself near the end, and the cancer subplot was a bit much.
detail about his performance in our year end awards post here. But to say again, Segel shocked everyone with his subtle and quiet turn as the famed writer David Foster Wallace, his performance doing the surprising thing of letting us see his humanity, instead of understanding his genius (like most biopic type films try to do). With the right push I could have seen him getting a nomination, the Academy tend to love when comic actors go serious.
Who should have Won: Ahhhhh let’s say, Jennifer Jason Leigh for The Hateful Eight. Don’t really have much for any of the nominations, but Leigh’s excellent turn as the vulgar and funny Daisy Domergue was one of the films highlights, having physicality you don’t see enough in female roles, and it was one of the few nominations that didn’t feel Oscar-baity.
Who should have been nominated: Charlize Theron for Mad Max: Fury Road. Talking of physicality, Charlize Theron has in in buckets as Imperator Furiosa, and gave one of the most intense and physically (and emotionally) raw performances of last year. The fact Rachel McAdams’ got a nomination for her okay work in Spotlight and Charlize Theron didn’t is just an insult, especially with how Oscar friendly the film was treated. Would an acting nomination really just too much for you Academy? Did all the sand and dust confuse you and you thought she was black!
actors, this is less a who’s better choice, and more just the context of the win. Both directors worked in insane conditions to produce their fine films and I think the directing shown in both is as good as each other, from the harrowingly naturally lit landscapes of The Revenant, to the perfect mess of explosions and carnage of Fury Road. But with Alejandro G. Iñárritu having already won last year for Birdman I think it would have been better for the Academy to show love for the talent in a genre and style that rarely gets it.
Who should of Won: Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, and Josh Cooley for Inside Out. Inside Out is one of the most imaginative, smart, and emotionally resonating films I’ve ever seen, it already stands proud amongst Pixar’s classics and was considered by many to be the pinnacle of 2015’s films. And the idea on paper could have gone soooooo wrong, ‘what if feelings had feelings’, it sounds more like a joke Pixar film than a real one. But with an intelligent script, vivid and mature takes on the ideas, and the most poignant message given to us last year, Inside Out was definitely it’s best original script…that I saw.
Who should have been nominated: Aaron Sorkin for Steve Jobs. Arron Sorkin writing a feature screenplay is like Meryl Streep acting in anything, it should almost automatically get nominated, and Steve Jobs is no exception. His second film about a computer billionaire, Sorkin’s signature dialogue crackles in this very showy and masterfully executed play set in three real time acts, that manage to explore the humanity of Steve Jobs and his co-workers without leaving the confides of the backstage.
great detail about why this is the best film of 2015, and I was shocked after all it’s critical praising that it wasn’t at least nominated for best picture, because that’s what it was. Hell, back when I first saw it I would have put flesh on it being the first animated film to win best picture. But it’s shameful absence just goes to show that, along with race, sexism, homophobia and everything else, the Academy still have a long way to go before they really look at all films and filmmakers equally.
Troubled Productions 