BEST PICTURE
Oscar Nominees (ranked):
- Moonlight
- Fences
- Arrival
- Manchester by the Sea
- Hell or High Water
- La La Land
- Hidden Figures
- Lion
- Hacksaw Ridge
My Nominees (also ranked):
- See below for my ranked top 40 movies of 2016
BEST PICTURE
Oscar Nominees (ranked):
My Nominees (also ranked):
The Academy Awards are a hot topic right now leading up to Sunday, but very few talk about…THE SHORTS!!! Most people don’t know that the nominated Live Action (good), Animated (better), and Documentary (best) short films are currently playing in movie theaters near many of you (if not, they’re also online and on demand, but everyone who CAN see these in theaters should do so; they deserve the big screen treatment). Since it’s really the most unappreciated and flat out best annual movie event (FAAAAR more enjoyable than the actual Oscars ceremony), I decided to write a bit about this year’s entries:
Continue reading “THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS: The Most Unappreciated Annual Movie Event”
For much of my life, I’ve made a concerted effort to see wide release movies together in their opening weekends. Though rival studios only really focus on one element when choosing release dates – $$$$$ – unintentional connections can still be forced made between the flicks because most contemporaneous art tends to comment on shared factors intrinsic to the time and environment in which they’re produced. As such, I shall attempt to explore these ideas – BRIEFLY, I swear – every Monday through the lens of the weekend’s slate after having the opportunity to see them all (within reason). Though they’re almost always far superior offerings, because of their ever-changing release dates from city to city, independent films will be excluded from this series, which I’m dubbing “Weekends in the Cinema” (SONDHEIM!!!). Without further ado…
The three movies released wide this past weekend – A Cure for Wellness, The Great Wall, and Fist Fight – are all throwbacks in their own way:
Continue reading “A Weekend in the Cinema: A CURE FOR WELLNESS; THE GREAT WALL; FIST FIGHT”
LION revels in the latter, making it what I like to call an Onion Cutter movie. This term was inspired by others, but here’s my definition:
— Steven Strauss (@aintnohero) January 22, 2017
Continue reading “LION (Garth Davis) – Tweet of Consciousness”
THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS (Derek Cianfrance): 2016’s BY THE SEA, AKA an underrated gem of a probing relationship study starring a real couple
— Steven Strauss (@aintnohero) January 22, 2017
Continue reading “THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS (Derek Cianfrance) – Tweet of Consciousness”
JASON BOURNE (Paul Greengrass): Every page of the script is utterly formulaic, but nobody cinematizes kinetic tension like Paul Greengrass.
— Steven Strauss (@aintnohero) January 22, 2017
ASSASSIN’S CREED (Justin Kurzel): Contains the type of stilted, perfunctory writing non-video gamers wrongly associate with all video games
— Steven Strauss (@aintnohero) January 14, 2017
Continue reading “ASSASSIN’S CREED (Justin Kurzel) – Tweet of Consciousness”
If this wins Best Doc and LA LA LAND wins Best Pic, this year’s Oscars will be uber self-masturbatory regarding the BELOVED POWER of movies
— Steven Strauss (@aintnohero) January 13, 2017
Continue reading “LIFE, ANIMATED (Roger Ross Williams) – Tweet of Consciousness”
The rare case where a ‘lifetime achievement’ Oscar will go to a worthy performance actually representative of their ‘lifetime’ of work
— Steven Strauss (@aintnohero) January 9, 2017
Continue reading “Tweet of Consciousness: 20TH CENTURY WOMEN (Mike Mills)”
His customarily ravishing aesthetic portends the chasms of emotion brimming in wait under the ravishing surfaces of the characters’ lives.
— Steven Strauss (@aintnohero) January 9, 2017