Best Picture Nominee Catch Up Movie: The Favourite

The Favourite (2018)

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara

Stars: Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn, James Smith, and Mark Gatiss

Ever since Olivia Colman's surprise Best Actress, I wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I don't know what to say. I did not care for this movie.

Queen Anne (Colman) is ailing as a new servant Abigail (Stone) is brought to her services. Anne's close confidant is Lady Sarah Marlborough (Weisz) and also cousin to Abigail. The two cousins try to win favor for Anne's attention by any means necessary.

This type of movie would check all the boxes for me; gorgeous costumes, sharp dialogue, fabulous women and a lush score. It checked some of the boxes for me. The costumes were exquisite.

The problems I have with the film outweighs the positives. The score. Oh, dear. The repetitive chords drove me crazy. I learned that they were repurposed music from the musicians at the time period of Queen Anne's reign.

The fish eye lens shots were a terrible choice. I hated it so much.

The movie was billed a black comedy. I laughed once in the entire movie. The tone was all over the place. You have Queen Anne yapping like a chihuahua one minute and then you have one of the characters being poisoned and dragged. It was jarring.

The supporting performances by Stone and Weisz were far better than Colman. Colman's performance consisted of yelling, falling, stumbling, and being carted around. I don't get the hype with the movie.

Rating: 4/10

La La Land

La La Land (2016)

Written and directed by Damien Chazelle

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Rosemarie DeWitt, J.K. Simmons, Terry Walters, Callie Hernandez, Jessica Rothe, Sonoya Mizuno, and John Legend

I have avoided this movie like plague. Too soon for that saying? When a movie is an homage to better movies, I will look at it with a critical eye. This movie. Oh, boy. Be prepared. I am gonna rip this film to shreds.

The movie takes place around a year. Mia (Stone) is an aspiring actress that goes on countless auditions. Sebastian (Gosling) is a jazz pianist-- that's very important-- that wants to open up his own club. They met and have a relationship, blah, blah.

The movie starts with a musical number with people stuck in LA traffic singing about... (collective shrug). I didn't understand why everybody in the film is dressed like a Power Ranger. Monochromatic dresses. All kinds of no.

Chazelle was trying to make a Astaire/Rogers type of musical, but he failed on every level. What was up with the flashy cameras swoops? That shot in the pool that went in a circle faster and faster? Mia and Seb floating at the conservatory? How did this movie win six Oscars?

If you are going to make a musical, have people that could actually sing and dance?! A novel concept! The cringe look on my face when Emma and Ryan were "singing and dancing." Oof! No. Dub them. Holy shit.

The music was fine. By fine, I mean, boring. Side note: I enjoy jazz music. I would rather listen to actual jazz musicians than this. Jazz is not dying as Sebastian said. Jazz is Seb's personality. Seb's character is a pompous, mansplaining hipster jackass. I hated him. So much. Mia was just big eyes. Mia supposedly loves classic movies, but said she never watch "Rebels Without a Cause." Fuck off.

I did not get their "love story." Is it because the script told them to? They are like oil and water. The biggest beats of the movie didn't make sense. They don't have phones? Call each other. No? Oh, the script told them to.

This is like watching a car accident, a train derailment and a plane crash all into one. It was all a cacophony of nonsense sounds. My face was horrified.

Rating: 0/10

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Screenplay by Dan Fogelman

Stars: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Jonah Bobo, Analeigh Tipton, John Carol Lynch, Beth Littleford, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon

I was feeling down in the dumps. Getting out of the funk I wanted to see, a romantic comedy. Any romantic comedy will do. Something to pick up my spirits, I decided to watch this movie OnDemand. I'm glad I did. It's like Prozac for cinephiles.

Basic premise of the movie is a series of interconnecting stories of people falling in and out of love. We are introduced to Cal and Emily Weaver (Carell, Moore) that are coming home from a boring dinner where Emily reveals that she wants a divorce and admits to having an affair with her co-worker David Lindhagen (Bacon). Drowning in his watered down vodka cranberries, a handsome womanizer named Barney Stintson -- I mean, Jacob Palmer (Gosling) teaches Cal his ways of picking up women and boning them.  Jacob doesn't tell Cal is that he is constantly thinking about a woman that rebuffed his advances, Hanna (Stone). There is also a subplot about Cal's 13-year-old, Robbie (Bobo) is becoming stalkerish with his love for the 17-year-old babysitter, Jessica (Tipton) who is also in love with Cal. Hilarity ensues.

I wanted to be entertained with a movie that would pick my spirits up and it did. I was surprised at how much heart the movie had. Sure the movie had the obvious tropes that a romantic comedy has to go through, but I liked that they made of the clichés as they were happening. The movie was very meta that way. I thought that the movie was fine then, I paused it and I still had forty minutes to go. I thought it was wrapping up. I'm glad that I kept watching. The ending of the movie was unexpected, heartfelt and a bit silly. I wanted that.

Ryan Gosling was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. I thought he was very good with his scenes with Emma Stone. The other performances were fine for the most part. I thought the son's storyline was a bit bothersome to me. It was very creepy in his attempts to win his soul mate over. I have to give a special shout out to Marisa Tomei who plays Kate. She was hilarious in the limited time that she had on screen.

My Rating

The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Directed by Marc Webb

Story by  James Vanderbilt

Screenplay by James Vanderbilt and Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves

Based on the comic books series by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Stars: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Chris Zylka, Irrfan Khan, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Martin Sheen and Sally Field

Let me warn you folks, I will using some coarse language in my review of this movie. If you don't like strong language, please turn away right now. Only warning.

When I heard that the Spider-Man franchise was being rebooted, I had mixed emotion with it. I enjoyed the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire franchise, expect for Spider-Man 3 -- which I did not see -- so I will not comment on that. I went into this movie with an opening mind and what I saw on-screen was nothing. Was Spider-Man "amazing? " I can certainly say with a resounding no.

Everybody knows about the origin story of Peter Parker that has Andrew Garfield slipping into the red and blue unitard suit which has to be done again for this movie. This movie takes place is a different universe than the other movies. This Peter Parker is a mopey, emo, skater kid that has a knack for photography and chemistry. He has a crush on Gwen Stacy (Stone) who he has a wallpaper of her on his computer. He tries to find what happened to his parents (Scott, Davidtz) and why they have to leave him with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May (Sheen, Field) years prior. He finds his dad's briefcase in the basement with a secret file to a decay algorithm he was working on with a former college, Dr. Curt Conners (Ifans). He tries to get closer to answer when he was bitten by an enhanced spider and blah, blah, blah.

I was warned before I went into this movie that the first half of the movie was going to be repetitive to give the origin story again. I have no idea whose idea it was to make Peter Parker into this cocky emo punk kid, but I fucking hated it. I understand that he goes into a dark place when he Uncle Ben is killed. (That is not a spoiler. Ben dying in the crux of Spider-Man existing.) When Spider-Man dons the costume, he becomes a giant douchebag, playing with the hundreds of guys that look like the guy that killed Uncle Ben.

I didn't understand the point of this movie. I was supposed to be entertained, but making the armrest next to me go up and down was more interesting than this movie. There was no immediate danger to anybody. I did not feel the tension, no suspense. Are these characters going to survive? I didn't care. I thought the dialogue made my eyes roll. I kept exclaiming, "Oh, God.Are you fucking kidding me?" I was in disbelief about how bored I was at the movie. Why was Chris Zylka in this movie? His role was the typical meat head jock bully that serves no purpose.

When you see the inspiration for the costume, I wanted to walk out. There were several times that I wanted to walk out of the movie. It was a waste of time. The sad part is that this movie is going to make a shitload of money. It's a damn shame. Columbia Pictures, you have dropped the fucking ball again.You have great source material and you fucking it all up with a repellent lead, laughable action sequences, a bland romance and atrocious dialogue. I rather look at Josh Hutcherson's audition video for two hours than see this movie again.

My Rating

The Help

The Help (2011)

Written and directed by Tate Taylor

Based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett

Stars: Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Alison Janney, Mike Vogel, Sissy Spacek and Cicely Tyson

I have heard great things about the Tate Taylor's debut film, The Help, since it was released last summer. It was a sleeper hit as some people called it. I know that people were surprised that the black driven movie could make money.

I have this unwritten rule that I usually shy away from the black movies, because these movies reflect on me. I cannot support a movie where people, especially black are the butt of jokes at people's expense. This movie I wanted to see, but I didn't get the chance to see until the movie premiered on Showtime a couple of days ago. Is it as good as people say it is? Yes and then some.

This time is 1963. A spunky journalist who recently graduated from Ole Miss, Skeeter (Roberts) has a hard time adjusting to the crusty society of Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter's quietly observed the way that her childhood friends treat the maids working for them. Skeeter wants to be a serious writer instead of doing a cleaning advice column. She tries to enlist the help of Aibileen Clark (Davis) and her sassy friend, Minny (Spenser) to write a book about the lives of the help. Tentative at first, they decided to try to make a difference and instill some change for generations to come.

This movie is beautiful beyond words. I could not believe that this white women would treated people like they were a dog. I know that I did not live during that time. My mom, late dad, aunties and uncles lived through that time where everything was separate but equal. Colored people did not have many opportunities in those days. People criticized the movie for the language that they speak. It's not correct English. People need to understand that the black people were not allowed to be educated. Some had to drop out of school to support the family. If this is the kind of movie that gets made, there is something wrong with Hollywood not giving black writers and filmmakers many chances. I was not offended with the movie. It made me proud that a movie like this exists.

I have to talk about the performances. I know that the movie movie was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress and two Supporting Actress nods. I love the cast, but I thought to myself, "Why was Jessica Chastain nominated for this movie?" I felt like it was a bit part like the other ladies. She didn't have that much to do. Octavia Spencer who won the Oscar for role of Minny is likable, but I didn't think it warranted an Oscar. The other performances must have been really weak. I am not knocking on Spencer's talent. I think it was wasn't Oscar worthy in my opinion. I thought Viola Davis really deserved her nomination. She made me laugh and cry at the same thing. I wanted hear to be okay and pulled through.

It is a great example of how a newcomer can make a movie that no one else would make. Thank you, Tate Taylor.

My Rating