And the Winners are…

Best Picture

Winner: Moonlight

Directing

Winner: Damien Chazelle, La La Land

Actor in a Leading Role

Winner: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

Actress in a Leading Role

Winner: Emma Stone, La La Land

Actress in a Supporting Role

Winner: Viola Davis, Fences

Actor in a Supporting Role

Winner: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight

Adapted Screenplay

Winner: Moonlight

Original Screenplay

Winner: Manchester by the Sea

Animated Feature Film

Winner: Zootopia

Foreign Language Film

Winner: The Salesman (Iran)

Documentary Feature

Winner: O.J.: Made in America

Cinematography

Winner: La La Land

Film Editing

Winner: Hacksaw Ridge

Production Design

Winner: La La Land

Costume Design

Winner: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Makeup and Hairstyling

Winner: Suicide Squad

Original Score

Winner: La La Land

Original Song

Winner: “City of Stars,” La La Land

Sound Editing

Winner: Arrival

Sound Mixing

Winner: Hacksaw Ridge

Visual Effects

Winner: The Jungle Book

Animated Short Subject

Winner: Piper

Live Action Short Film

Winner: Sing

Documentary Short Subject

Winner: The White Helmets

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The Best Picture Reviews: La La Land & Lion

I wrote my thoughts yesterday on the two first nominees, read them here!  Now it’s time for the next two.

LA LA LAND (2016)

Directed by Damien Chazelle
Written by Damien Chazelle
Starring Emma Stone & Ryan Gosling

Synopsis (IMDb): “A jazz pianist falls for an aspiring actress in Los Angeles.”

I’ve been waiting to see Chazelle’s next move since seeing Whiplash about exactly two years ago. Whiplash blew me away, I couldn’t move after seeing it for the first time, that strong was the impact. And then I heard he is going to do a musical with the best on-screen couple of today. OMG! I only saw La La Land 10 days ago, so you can imagine how my expectations have been rising and rising. The film just couldn’t be THAT good. How unbelievably happy I’m to say it so was. This movie was made for me. Once a dreamer, always a dreamer.

La La Land is up to record-tying 14 Oscars and is loved by the cinema-going audience (IMDb Top-57 of all-time) as well as critics (Rotten Tomatoes score of 93%), so it would be silly to bet against it. There’s a chance that the Academy will spread the love but I still would predict that La La Land will be the big winner of the night. As I wrote yesterday, I haven’t seen all nominees yet but I hope that Emma Stone will get her Oscar, she’s dazzling. I love her anyway, so I might be a bit biased but to me she was perfect. And I’m not complaining about Ryan Gosling either but his characters in other movies are similar to Sebastian, so it is a fact he can do those roles. I did love Sebastian’s passion. Passion is the key to living, in my mind. Whatever it is, you need to have passion.

When it comes to technical categories, I would predict that La La Land will take home at least editing as Chazelle knows how to use editing when intensifying the story (see Whiplash right now if you haven’t seen it yet!). It has a great chance with costume design (Jackie is, though, a real competitor), cinematography (the first scene!), production design (that is, of course, over-the-top) and sound mixing as it is a musical. There shouldn’t be competition in music categories, Justin Hurwitz should be shoo-in for the score (although I have to say, we have had great music in films this Oscar season) and I bet “City of Stars”
will win the best song, I hope it’ll be “Audition” because I like it more but I’m putting my money on “City of Stars”. Also they should stage a pier on the stage at the
Oscars where Gosling starts to sing “City of Stars”, Stone joins him and after his part he leaves and Stone performs “Audition”. I’d love that.

Like I wrote yesterday, I absolutely worshipped Arrival and its director Villeneuve. And I think I’m in love with Damien Chazelle. He is SO talented. I wish they would share the best director Oscar. As it’s not likely to happen, I bet Chazelle will win this time. His work is so purely a work of passion. And as it seems, everyone is in love with La La Land and chasing your dreams, especially in Hollywood, so I also predict that La La Land will win the best picture Oscar.

Rating: ***** (out of 5)

LION (2016)

Directed by Garth Davis
Written by Luke Davies
Starring Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham & Abhishek Bharate

Synopsis (IMDb): “A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.”

Before going to see Lion, I was told I should take a towel with me because tissues wouldn’t be enough. True enough, Lion makes you cry. You have to be one hard boiled egg, if it doesn’t. And what is the coolest point here, it’s a true story. And it’s told well.

To me Lion is a bit like The Imitation Game of two years ago. Very well-made, with everything working but there’s nothing spectacular. The Imitation Game was up for 10 Oscars, Lion is up for six and I agree, there is that much difference in quality. I did enjoy Lion a lot but not as much as I thought I would. I absolutely loved the music, if Oscar goes that way, I’m not complaining. I did like the cinematography a lot too, so they could win that too. It’s a hard category to predict this year. Overall Lion is beautiful to look at and listen, it breaks your heart a bit and is tremendous accomplishment for a first time director.

Which I don’t like with the Academy again is that, that Dev Patel is in the lead role. Yes, Sunny Pawar, who was robbed by the way, might have more screen-time but the story is about how the adult Saroo found his family. And still they placed Patel in supporting actor category. I like that he is recognised but those category breaches still annoy me.

Lion should be watched as it’s a good story of never giving up (although that obsession was getting to my nerves a bit). I have a lot of friends who liked it much more than I did. Maybe I just don’t get the importance of your roots or something. Anyhow, good film and even though I think it’ll go home empty handed on Sunday, I wouldn’t mind giving it a statue or two.

Rating: **** 

P.S. Dev Patel has gotten so hot!

The Oscars Nominations Predictions 2017

Here we are again. The best time of the year, the Oscars time! And here are my final nominations. In few hours we’ll be hearing what the Academy picked.

BEST PICTURE

• La La Land
• Manchester by the Sea
• Moonlight
• Arrival
• Fences
• Lion
• Hidden Figures
• Hell or High Water
• Hacksaw Ridge

---

• Silence
• Deadpool

I couldn’t pick my 10th option because I’m hopeless optimistic and actually think they would go for R-rated comic book movie. Right yeah? I kind of wanted to leave Hidden Figures out as well but this is where the final list now. At the moment it’s either La La Land’s or Moonlight’s to lose.

DIRECTOR

• La La Land – Damien Chazelle
• Manchester by the Sea – Kenneth Longergan
• Hell or High Water – David McKenzie
• Arrival – Denis Villeneuve
• Moonlight – Barry Jenkins

---

• Hacksaw Ridge- Mel Gibson
• Fences – Denzel Washington
• Silence – Martin Scorsese
• Lion – Garth Davis

By far the hardest category to predict this year. The three of them are absolute locks (Chazelle, Lonergan and Jenkins) but the two others… I believe that Villeneuve is due with a nomination (I haven’t seen Arrival yet but I’m only hearing good things plus he’s done great job with previous films that were nominated, Prisoners and Sicario) but the last slot was hard to decide. I played a wild card.

ACTOR

• La La Land – Ryan Gosling
• Fences – Denzel Washington
• Manchester by the Sea – Casey Affleck
• Hacksaw Ridge – Andrew Garfield
• Captain Fantastic – Viggo Mortensen

ACTRESS

• La La Land – Emma Stone
• Jackie – Natalie Portman
• Arrival – Amy Adams
• Florence Foster Jenkins – Meryl Streep
• Elle – Isabelle Huppert

---

Loving – Ruth Negga

Because of the story of Loving, I wanted to give a slot for Ruth Negga but Huppert has been really strong and one can never leave Streep out, especially when she gave amazing speech at the Golden Globes in the middle of voting of the Oscars nominations.

SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Lion – Dev Patel 10
• Moonlight – Mahershala Ali
• Hell of High Water – Jeff Brigdes
• Florence Foster Jenkins – Hugh Grant
• Nocturnal Animals – Aaron Taylor-Johnson

---

• Manchester by the Sea – Lucas Hedges

I just might be hopeful here again but if Nocturnal Animals will soar at least a bit, Taylor-Johnson will be in. And the Academy has avoid to nominate younger actors in this category like Tremblay last year. But Hedges has been strong so far, so this is a game.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Hidden Figures – Octavia Spences
• Fences – Viola Davis
• Manchester by the Sea – Michelle Williams
• Naomi Harris – Moonlight
• Lion – Nicole Kidman

 

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Manchester by the Sea
• The Lobster
• Hell or High Water
• La La Land
• Captain Fantastic

 

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Moonlight
• Fences
• Lion
• Nocturnal Animals
• Arrival

---

• Hidden Figures

OK, I have a thing for Nocturnal Animals even I haven’t seen it, so again, I’m putting it ahead of probably stronger contender.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• La La Land
• Silence
• Arrival
• Lion
• Moonlight

EDITING

• La La Land
• Manchester by the Sea
• Arrival
• Moonlight
• Hacksaw Ridge

 

COSTUME DESIGN

• Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them
• Jackie
• La La Land
• Florence Foster Jenkins
• Allied

 

PRODUCTION DESIGN

• La La Land
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• The Handmaiden
• Jackie
• Arrival

 

MAKE-UP & HAIRSTYLING

• A Man Called Ove
• Deadpool
• Florence Foster Jenkins

---

• Star Trek Beyond

I asked my make-up artist friend’s opinion here and she chose Deadpool instead of Star Trek Beyond. I’ll blame her if I’m incorrect.

SOUND MIXING

• La La Land
• Arrival
• Rogue One
• Hacksaw Ridge
• Deepwater Horizon

SOUND EDITING

• Hacksaw Ridge
• Deepwater Horizon
• Roque One
• Arrival
• The Jungle Book

 

VISUAL EFFECTS

• Rogue One
• The Jungle Book 5
• Arrival
• Strange
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

 

SCORE

• Moonlight (Nicholas Britell)
• Jackie (Mica Levi)
• La La Land (Justin Hurwitz)
• The BFG (John Williams)
• Rogue One (Michael Giacchino)

 

---

 

• Lion (Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka)

I’m still a bit annoyed that Jóhann Jóhannsson is not eligible for Arrival as he is these days one of my definite favourite composers. Love his work! I wanted to leave John Williams out but you know, you just can’t. And it’s traditional that the composers branch always vote for their own and already now there are THREE new comers. I hardly see that happening but I don’t know who else to pick. Justin Hurwitz all the way, I looooooove La La Land’s soundtrack!

 

SONG

• Moana – How Far I’ll Go
• La La Land – Audition (The Fools Who Dream)
• La La Land – City of Stars
• Sing Street – Drive Like You Stole It
• Trolls – Can’t Stop the Feeling

---

• Sing – Faith
• Hidden Figures – Runnin’

Always hard category to predict. I gave a chance to Sing Street’s 80’s sounds, it’s a gamble, I know. I hope that the song above wins, I can’t get enough of it.

ANIMATED

• Zootopia
• Kubo and the Two Strings
• The Red Turtle
• Moana
• My Life as a Zucchini

---

• Finding Dory

Yes, I left out a Pixar film. I’m aware.

 

DOCUMENTARY

• Cameraperson
• I am Not Your Negro
• 13^th
• OJ: Made in America
• The Eagle Huntress

---

• Weiner

 

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

• Toni Erdmann (Germany)
• The Salesman (Iran)
• Land of Mine (Denmark)
• A Man Called Ove (Sweden)
• My Life as a Zucchini (Switzerland)

---

• It’s Only the End of the World (Canada)

I have a feeling I should not count out Xavier Dolan but I don’t know what else to do.

 

ANIMATED SHORT

• Inner Workings
• Piper
• Blind Vayasha
• Borrowed Time
• Pearl

 

LIVE ACTION SHORT

• Graffiti
• Nocturne in Black
• Sing (Mindenki)
• Timecode
• The Way of Tea

 

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

• White Helmets
• Joe’s Violin
• Extremis
• The Mute’s House
• Watani: My Homeland

 

Agree, disagree? We’ll now soon enough how I did this year.

The First Oscar Predictions 2017 – Best Pic #1

As promised, I’ll take a little more detailed look to upcoming Oscar hopefuls. Here are the first seven Best Picture hopefuls that I think have good chances to end up being nominated.

First, but surely not least, is Damien Chazelle’s La La Land starring always adorable Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Right now La La Land’s hype is huge! The most of the Oscars are its to lose at the moment. I just hope it actually is as good as everyone is saying. It’s going around festivals now and was in official selection at Venice and won the best actress for Emma Stone in there as well as People’s Choice at Toronto International Film Festival. It has critics and audience by its side already.

La La Land is a musical set in LA and apparently it’s made in style of those oldies goldies like Singin’ in the Rain. I, myself, can’t wait to see it. I love Emma and Ryan together and here they even sing. Stone plays an aspiring actress and Gosling a jazz pianist. And they fall in love. And the tagline of the film is “Here’s to the fools who dream.” Two greatest films of this decade for me are Drive, starring Ryan Gosling, and Whiplash, directed by Damien Chazelle, so, talking about high hopes…

Next up is Manchester by the Sea that already got raves in Sundance, back in January. It still looks like it’s going strong. The film is directed and written by Kenneth Lonergan who’s been nominated two times for an Oscar, both for writing. And Manchester by the Sea seems to be another hit. I believe it will be nominated again at least for writing and for the lead actor, Casey Affleck. Besides Affleck, the flick stars Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler and Lucas Hedges whom all might have a change to get nominated. I like the trailer a lot, it looks like it’s well acted and especially well written. It will probably make you cry but also laugh. It feels like life.

Silence. A passion project of 20 years by none other than Martin Scorsese. Starring Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson, Adam Driver and Ciáran Hinds. Synopsis from IMDb says “In the seventeenth century, two Jesuit priests face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor and propagate Christianity.” Opening in the late December. Everything just screams Oscar, doesn’t it? No trailer available yet, only couple of photos.

#OscarsSoWhite will be THE THING at the next year’s Oscars. Or better said it will not be and thus there probably will be multiple nominations to the films that handle the subject of minorities facing thread from the majority. The Birth of a Nation being one of them. The longer synopsis of the film says:

“Set against the antebellum South, THE BIRTH OF A NATION follows Nat Turner (Nate Parker), a literate slave and preacher, whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer), accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves. As he witnesses countless atrocities – against himself and his fellow slaves – Nat orchestrates an uprising in the hopes of leading his people to freedom.”

According to critics the film is good or even better and obviously, the subject matter is hot and current with everything going on in the world at the moment. The film launched in the States yesterday and according to Box Office Mojo, it performed well and got a cinemascore “A” from the audience which bodes well. The director/writer, Nate Parker, has been under public eye lately because of rape charges in his youth and that might hurt the film’s chances at the Oscars. At least his personal chances. The film also won both, Grand Jury and Audience Awards at Sundance.

Ang Lee is back with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. And at least the trailer looks amazing! I love it. And I hope it will deliver. I’m also super excited that Lee chose a newcomer to play the lead role of Billy Lynn. Joe Alwyn must be good.

The film is shot with 120 frames per second, so Ang Lee is again pushing his boundaries. And if the film delivers, which I believe it will (we’ll know better in a week when it will be shown at New York Film Festival), technical categories are a sure thing. Then it’s all up to the story which is based on awards winning novel. The synopsis says “19-year-old Billy Lynn is brought home for a victory tour after a harrowing Iraq battle. Through flashbacks the film shows what really happened to his squad – contrasting the realities of war with America’s perceptions.” According to the test audience, the war scenes are apparently harrowing. I wasn’t a big fan of Life of Pi, except the visuals, but like said, I love this trailer and again I have high hopes.

The second to the last of this post’s films is Loving by Jeff Nichols. It is one of those topical films of the season telling a-based-on-a-real-life story of a mixed-race married couple who were sentenced to prison in 1958 because they married. According to the critics both leads, Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, are great. Jeff Nichols as a writer and director has been making better and better films lately from Take Shelter to Mud and again to Midnight Special, so maybe this is his final breakthrough. But to be honest, I doubt it. I might be wrong but the hype is just not big enough. Then again, Focus Features has had those great smaller films at the Oscars almost every year and have won especially for the actors and actresses (Vikander for The Danish Girl, Leto and McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club, Redmayne for Theory of Everything), so I might really be wrong. And I kind of hope I am.

Denis Villeneuve is another up and coming director that one hopes to gain all the success. He has directed great films like Prisoners and excellent Sicario the last year and this time he is in the game with Amy Adams starring Arrival. This time it’s a classic aliens coming the earth story but not one with (just) blasts and bombs but one with communication and slow-burning tension. We’ll see how it will go through. Some say it’s too clean and emotionless but at least the trailer looks interesting and in a good-way eerie. And I’m officially biased as there’s my favourite lady in the lead role and my longtime movie-love in supporting.

There you go. The first seven out of 14 films I have chosen for my first Oscar predictions for 2017. New York Film Festival is about to start the next week and there will be a bunch of films having their first screening. We’ll be much smarter after those. I’ll be back with the latter half of the best pic hopefuls.

Any thoughts?

The First Oscar Predictions 2017

Here we go again! I did some predictions last spring right after the Oscars 2016 but so much have changed since then! So, here are my endless lists. The films are in random order in every category and as you can see, there are much more of them that is allowed in every category. I will get into them during the next 10 days, so bear with me. Here’s the first look.

The Oscar Predictions 2017 

updated October 6th

BEST PICTURE

• La La Land
• Manchester by the Sea
• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
• The Birth of a Nation
• Arrival
• Silence
• Fences
• Moonlight
• Lion
• Jackie
• Loving
• Nocturnal Animals
• Hidden Figures
• Hell or High Water
• Hacksaw Ridge
• Sully
• Passengers
• Live by Night

DIRECTOR

• La La Land – Damien Chazelle
• Manchester by the Sea – Kenneth Longergan
• Silence – Martin Scorsese
• The Birth of a Nation – Nate Parker
• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk – Ang Lee
• Loving – Jeff Nichols
• Arrival – Denis Villeneuve
• Nocturnal Animals – Tom Ford
• Moonlight – Barry Jenkins
• Fences – Denzel Washington
• Passengers – Mortem Tyldum
• Live by Night – Ben Affleck
• Jackie – Pablo Larráin
• Lion – Garth Davis

ACTOR

• La La Land – Ryan Gosling
• Sully – Tom Hanks
• Lion – Dev Patel
• Fences – Denzel Washington
• Manchester by the Sea – Casey Affleck
• The Founder – Michael Keaton
• Loving – Joel Edgerton
• Silence – Andrew Garfield
• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk – Joe Alwyn
• Captain Fantastic – Viggo Mortensen

ACTRESS

• La La Land – Emma Stone
• Jackie – Natalie Portman
• Hidden Figures – Taraji P. Henson
• Fences – Viola Davis
• Loving – Ruth Negga
• Arrival – Amy Adams
• Florence Foster Jenkins – Meryl Streep
• Elle – Isabelle Huppert
• 20^th Century Women – Annette Bening
• Miss Sloane – Jessica Chastain

SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Manchester by the Sea – Lucas Hedges
• Silence – Adam Driver
• Silence – Liam Neeson
• Sully – Aaron Eckhart
• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk – Steve Martin
• Moonlight – Mahershala Ali
• Manchester by the Sea – Kyle Chandler
• Nocturnal Animals – Michael Shannon
• Fences – Stephen Henderson
• Hell of High Water – Jeff Brigdes
• Florence Foster Jenkins – Hugh Grant
• Fences – Jovan Adepo
• Live by Night – Chris Cooper
• Live by Night – Brendan Gleeson

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Hidden Figures – Octavia Spences
• Hidden Figures – Janelle Monáe
• Nocturnal Animals – Laura Linney
• Nocturnal Animals – Amy Adams
• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk – Kristen Stewart
• Manchester by the Sea – Michelle Williams
• Naomi Harris – Moonlight
• Aja Naomi King – The Birth of a Nation
• Lion – Nicole Kidman
• Live by Night – Sienna Miller
• 20^th Century Women – Elle Fanning

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Manchester by the Sea
• The Lobster
• Moonlight
• Loving
• Jackie
• Hell or High Water
• La La Land
• Patterson
• I, Daniel Blake
• 20^th Century Women
• Captain Fantastic

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Hidden Figures
• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
• Live by Night
• Silence
• Fences
• Lion
• Nocturnal Animals
• Love & Friendship
• Hidden Figures

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• La La Land
• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
• Silence
• Arrival
• Passengers
• Nocturnal Animals
• Moonlight
• Fences

EDITING

• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
• Silence
• Live by Night
• La La Land
• Fences
• Jackie
• Arrival
• Lion
• Moonlight

COSTUME DESIGN

• Hidden Figures
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
• Love & Friendship
• Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them
• Jackie
• Silence
• La La Land
• Florence Foster Jenkins
• Hail, Ceasar!

PRODUCTION DESIGN

• Hidden Figures
• La La Land
• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
• Silence
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
• Rogue One
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Allied
• Jackie
• Arrival

MAKE-UP & HAIRSTYLING

• Hidden Figures
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
• Love & Friendship
• Nocturnal Animals
• Deadpool
• Jackie
• Star Trek Beyond
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Rogue One

SOUND MIXING

• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
• Silence
• Live by Night
• La La Land
• Arrival
• Passengers
• Sully
• Rogue One
• The Jungle Book
• Allied
• Hacksaw Ridge
• Deepwater Horizon

SOUND EDITING

• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
• Silence
• Live by Night
• Deepwater Horizon
• La La Land
• Roque One
• Arrival
• Passengers
• The Jungle Book

VISUAL EFFECTS

• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
• Rogue One
• The Jungle Book
• Star Trek Beyond
• Arrival
• A Monster Calls
• Strange
• Captain America: Civil War
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Assassin’s Creed

MUSIC

• Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
• Silence
• Nocturnal Animals
• Arrival
• The BFG
• The Light Between Oceans
• Finding Dory
• Rogue One
• Hell or High Water

SONG

• Hidden Figures – Victory
• La La Land – Audition (The Fools Who Dream)
• La La Land – City of Stars (or some other songs…)
• Moana – We Know the Way
• Sing – ?
• Trolls – Can’t Stop the Feeling
• The Eagle Huntress – Angel by the Wings

ANIMATED

• Zootopia
• Kubo and the Two Strings
• The Secret Life of Pets
• Finding Dory
• Sing
• The Red Turtle
• Moana
• Miss Hokusai

DOCUMENTARY

• Fire at Sea
• Cameraperson
• Risk
• Gleason
• Miss Sharon Jones
• Amanda Knox
• Weiner
• Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey
• Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World
• Tickled
• 13^th
• Jim: The James Foley Story
• Holy Hell
• Under the Gun
• Before the Flood
• Life, Animated
• OJ: Made in America

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

• Elle (France)
• Julieta (Spain)
• Fire at the Sea (Italy)
• Toni Erdmann (Germany)
• Neruda (Chile)
• The Age of Shadows (South Korea)
• The Salesman (Iran)
• It’s Only the End of the World (Canada)
• Ma’Rosa (Philippines)
• Land of Mine (Denmark)
• The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (Finland)
• Chevalier (Greece)
• From Afar (Venezuela)
• Death in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

ANIMATED SHORT

LIVE ACTION SHORT

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

• White Helmets

Liebster Award #2

Great JW at Film & Nuance nominated me for a Liebster Award for the second time in my blogging history. THANK YOU! It’s nice to be recognized. 🙂 Check out his site! And if you’re up to it, here’s my previous Liebster post.

Here are the questions he set up for all of us nominated:

1.What is your favourite movie in your least favourite genre. And why?

• This is kinda hard to answer. There are three genres that I don’t like that much: western, war movies and mafia related films. But to be honest, all the films I’ve watched in the last genre mentioned, I’ve liked, so I should probably stop saying that I don’t like it. And I don’t remember watching any westerns that I actually liked. So, let’s say… Atonement. Can I call it a war movie? No? Well, hmmm, what about Inglourious Basterds? Still no? Ok, I’ll change genres back to western as I just realised (after checking my  IMDb ratings) that there is one western that I liked a lot: True Grit, Coens’ version. There you go, found it.

2.If you had to favour a certain style (for directing a film,writing a book or any other art form of your choice), would you prefer a no-frills and direct approach, or an artistic and ambiguous one. Why?

• I’d had to go with no-frills and direct as I enjoy those kind of films more than artsy ones. I do love beautiful writing in a book but without obvious story it just doesn’t work for me.

3.Name a movie you can watch any day.

• That would be something silly and easy to watch like Legally Blonde, Mean Girls, Love Actually, Trainwreck etc.

4.If you could keep an object that you had previously but by now either lost it,sold,misplaced,had it stolen or destroyed, what would it be?

• Nevermind album by Nirvana. I used to listen to it all the time and got fed up with it and for some idiotic reason sold it. Same goes for special edition of Green Day’s Dookie. Idiot.

5.Pick an era to live in.

• Hippietime, sometime around 60s to 70s. Interesting times, a lot of political changes, freedom and great music.

6.The best film you’ve seen this year and an unreleased 2016 film that you think might beat it.

• Spotlight and I doubt there will be one but possible contenders are The Light Between Oceans, Silence, Arrival, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and La La Land. I’m really picky about films that I give 10/10 and there have been years when I haven’t awarded full points to any film. But La La Land is my the most awaited film of the year as I absolutely love both Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone and Whiplash, that was made by same man, Damien Chazelle, was my absolute favourite from 2015.

7.Name a memory you would keep till your death.

• I don’t think I can single out one memory. I have a lot of those that I’d like to keep. I haven’t done anything THAT spectacular that I could point it out.

8.Ice-cream or popsicles?

• Ice-cream

9.Where do you stand on the Harambe case?

• I wasn’t aware of this case but went and read about it. Idk, to me zoos are no-no anyway, so… But I think the staff acted the best way they thought was suitable at the moment. In case there’s someone as clueless as me, here’s the story.

10.Favourite type of music? And what does it mean to you?

• These days I listen to all kinds of music from classical music to hard rock and anything between, also EDM. But I guess my favourite kind is still rock especially classic rock e.g. Led Zeppelin.

11.How do you cool off after being upset/angry?

• Music. It always works. My ex-roommate aka one of my best friends used to say it was easy to know my mood by the music I was listening to. I use music to manipulate my feelings. It affects me a lot.

There you go. Something about me. Now it’s your turn. I should nominate ten blogs I guess but I’ll settle with half of them. Here are the blogs I love to follow and I hope they will get a lot more followers! I know it should be under 200 followers but I choose not to care. 😉 Check them out!

• Movie Reviews 101
• Vinnieh
• Life of This City Girl
• Jordan and Eddie (the movie guys)
• House of Geekery

So, here are my questions for you guys and girls:

1. What kind of a role in a film would be the most interesting to you to play?
2. If you read, what is the book you always go back to?
3. Three things that would make your life better?
4. Who is your ultimate celebrity crush and why?
5. Who’s your favourite dead director?
6. If you could choose to study whatever despite the future earnings/finding a job/the place of the study/etc. what would you study?
7. What film do you think will win the best picture Oscar next February?
8. Your dream vacation spot?
9. The best movie memory?
10. Do you have a schedule for blogging?

That’s it! Good luck and

 

Past-Oscar Thoughts And Some for the Future too…

It’s over again. The awards season and especially the Oscars weekend. This year I was “forced” to spend it alone compared to those past Oscar weekends that I’ve spent with friends watching films and eating well and debating about dresses and who should or should not win. But thanks to social media, it was very easy to stay touch with my girls and continue debating during the red carpet and show itself even when there’s 1000 km between us. 🙂

Thoughts… Well, apart from Sam Smith winning over Lady Gaga I thought all winners were deserving and none of the wins made me angry, quite the opposite. Especially happy I was obviously for Leo (I think everyone was!), Lubezki (again), Mark Rylance (which I predicted correctly!), Morricone for music, Ex Machina for visual effects and of course for the Best Picture going to Spotlight which was my favourite film of the season! Here’s my review of it if interested. I still don’t get why people were so surprised by its win? Justin Chang of Variety puts it to words why it was the best choice to win.

When it comes to the show itself, I wasn’t a fan. I don’t like Chris Rock and especially now when the whole attention was on #OscarsSoWhite discussion, the show was awfully repetitive and not very funny. And really; bringing out all these minority representatives? Kind of obvious and a bit weird. At least to me. Thankfully many of the attendees made the point clear; there should be better offers for people of minorities in movies and from my point of view, I believe we’re on a right track where TV is leading the field (think of Scandal or anything from Shonda Rhimes or Orange is the New Black or Modern Family etc.). It’s good to make people think but as the winners proved, Hollywood hardly is the racist part of the US as already the best director and cinematographer  of the year (and the year before that too) are Mexican.

In reference to my predictions, this year I got 75% correct which is good but not my best (that being 82% if I remember correctly). The ones that I got wrong were the best song, visual effects (wonder if anyone got that right?!), two short categories I predicted wrong (hard ones as I hadn’t seen any of them) and I got sound mixing wrong when I chose The Revenant instead of Mad Max and also editing when I had The Big Short instead of Mad Max. Oh, I’m also very glad that Mad Max won that many Oscars! Go Aussies! ❤ Btw, I always predict at Gold Derby site and again those “experts” lost to users and I keep wondering why they call them Experts?! Even I beat most of them…

What about the future? Well, I already have my short list of possible contenders here at IMDb, check it out! There’s Michael Fassbender with two films, The Light Between Oceans from Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) with bo and brand new Oscar winner, Alicia Vikander, and Weightless from Terrence Malick with cinematography by Lubezki and co-acting by e.g. Natalie Portman, Benicio Del Toro, Christian Bale, Holly Hunter, Rooney Mara, Ryan Gosling and Cate Blanchett (some cast, huh?!). There’s also (for techs) Star Wars spin-off and new X-Men and Star Trek movies coming out this year and there’s Morten Tyldum’s (The Imitation Game) Passengers with JLaw and Chris Pratt (he’s also in Magnificent Seven this year). Btw, I just noticed that this girl, Haley Bennett, is in three of these films mentioned so far, bet she’s the It Girl of 2016. Never heard of her before, remember the name! What else?! There’s already Sundance certified Manchester by the Sea (Casey Affleck getting the most of the mentions and also Michelle Williams), another Michelle Williams vehicle in Certain Women and of course The Birth of the Nation that was bought by Fox Searchlight with $17,5 million and will be released in October to be ready for the awards season. And there’s also my “the most awaited” film, La La Land, a film by Damien Chazelle who did amazing Whiplash, the best debut for ages, and stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. ❤ There’s also so, so many other “looks great on a paper” films that makes 2017 look promising again. Go and see yourself. I’ll get back to that list in May when Cannes has had its say.

P.S. I liked Cate Blanchett’s dress the best but only she could’ve wear that dress. Only she.