Fact: As of this past Sunday, I watched every single film (including the shorts) nominated for an Oscar this year. It’s not usually that easy, as some films — especially international ones — may be hard to find, either in a theater or on streaming.
Movies
Review: The Father (2020)
The Father is the last of this year’s Best Picture nominees that I’ve seen; unfortunately, it wasn’t released until last month, and only became available to rent until a couple weeks ago. You may wonder if it’s worth $20 to rent, and it certainly is, especially if you consider how much it would cost for 2+ people to go to the movies, get popcorn, etc. I watched it with my mom, and even though we had to pause multiple times — and watch over two days — I still found The Father to be an extremely effective, sympathetic, authentic portrait of living with dementia.
2021 SAG Awards Predictions (All Categories)
Remember when Parasite won Best Ensemble at last year’s SAG Awards? That was pretty dope, as the young people say. This year’s winners are both difficult and easy to predict, if that makes any sense. But, I’ll do my best.
Reviewing the 2021 Oscar-Nominated Documentaries
When Oscar nominations were announced last week, the Documentary Feature category was among the most surprising; acclaimed docs like Dick Johnson Is Dead, All In, and Boys State were all shut out, in favor of five diverse films, ranging from terrific to a disappointing and ineffective. Here are my reviews of the nominees, in order from best to worst.
Review: I Care A Lot (2021)
The dark comedy I Care A Lot from writer-director J Blakeson is based in reality, and points viewers to the sad fact that people are often taking advantage of elderly individuals with no real heirs, by posing as their legal guardians. Blakeson’s film certainly takes things to the extreme, and is a pitch-black comedy with no truly likable characters.
Review: The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)
It’s disappointing that a movie featuring such important, relevant material — drug use, lynching, among others — can be so, well, disappointingly bad. I certainly hope Lee Daniels redeems himself after this atrocity, and that Andra Day is able to find another script and filmmaker worthy of her talent; however, she has said that this role took so much out of her that she may never act again.
Review: The Mauritanian (2021)
I was fortunate to get to watch a screening (through The Hollywood Reporter) of The Mauritanian, one of the last movies to be released during this incredibly long awards season. It’s a very powerful story, directed by veteran filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, featuring a couple of solid performances but is inconsistent in its story and execution.
Review: The Prom (2020)
Apparently, queer-centric films can be as disappointing as heterosexual ones. That said, I still appreciated The Prom’s message of love and acceptance; I just wish it’d been executed better.
Review: Hillbilly Elegy (2020)
I could probably write a whole book about everything that’s wrong with this movie. What keeps me from assigning it the lowest grade imaginable is Close’s performance, but I don’t think it’s enough to win her the Oscar, nor is it enough to make me recommend that anyone watch this.
Review: Minari (2020)
Who’d have thought that Minari, a film that centers on an Korean immigrant family that tries to start a farm in Arkansas during the 1980s, would end up being the quintessential American film? It represents the American dream in ways both subtle and overt, and it irks me to no end that it has received numerous foreign film nominations, simply because a great deal of the dialogue is in Korean.