Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

OSCAR PREDICTIONS

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Well it is that time of year again!  Who will take  home a coveted Oscar?  Who will give the best acceptance speech?  Who will read out the wrong winner?  We will find out the answers to all of these questions (and the plain old ‘best’ awards themselves) on February 24th.  As a full-fledged Oscar nerd, I am ready to make my picks for this years’ winners.  This is the first year in a long time that I am not confident in all my picks.  There a lot of tight races, and I think there will be several upsets.  Be that as it may. here is my list of who I think will win (not necessarily who I want to win)

BEST ACTOR:  Rami Malek

BEST ACTRESS:  Glen Close

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:  Mahershala Ali

BEST SUPPORT ACTRESS:  Regina King

BEST DIRECTOR:  Alfonso Curan

BEST PICTURE:  Green Book (I am the least confident with this one)

BEST SONG:  Shallow

BEST ORIGINAL SCREEN PLAY: Green Book

BEST ADAPTED SCREEN PLAY:  BlackKklansman

BEST ANIMATED MOVE:  Into the Spiderverse

 

What do you all think?  I would love to hear your opinions.  Please leave a comment and may the best predictions win!!!

 

POSTSCRIPT:  Yay for me!  I got 9 out of ten correct.  The only one I missed was Olivia Coleman winning best actress.  This was well-deserved but a surprise none-the-less!

The Upside

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“The Upside” is based on the true story of a wealthy French aristocrat who was paralyzed in a paragliding accident, and the ex-con who becomes his caretaker.  This new American version  changes up some of the details, but the basic concept of a man and his assisstant remains.  Emmy winner Bryan Cranston plays Phillip, a quadrapelgc who is despondent and angry that he wasn’t allowed to die after the accident happened.  He is in the market for a new caretaker and this is where Kevin Hart makes his appearance.  He plays ex-con Dell, who has an exwife, a kid who he never sees, and a ton of back child support payments.  He is about to be sent back to jail unless he can prove he is seriously looking for work.  Dell stumbles upon the interview, thinking he is there for a janitorial position.  Phillip seizes this  opportunity to hire the worst prospect for the job and hopes that Dell won’t know how to take care of him properly and he can finally join his dead wife.  This is a very stale premise that has been overdone in movies and television, and yet in this movie it works.  I give a lot of credit to the chemistry between Bryan Cranson and Kevin Hart.  The are very good together.  Dell helps to mellow Phillip and give him many reasons to want to live and enjoy life.  In return, Phillip gives Dell a steady job and the seed money to venture out on his own.  I notice that many critics gave this movie a low rating, but don’t listen to them.  This is funny and heartwarming and I think you will enjoy it.  My favorite scene had to do with a painting that a pretentious rich guy thinks was painted by Banksy.  This movie doesn’t have a deep message like “Green Book” or a ground-breaking performance like “Bohemian Rapsody” but it is entertaining and satisfying.  I suggest you give it a try.

Serenity

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If you are a fan of the cult TV show “Firefly,”  I suggest that  you skip this movie, because you will be extremely disappointed by the title ( fellow nerds, you know what I’m talking about).  If you are not a fan of “Firefly,” I still suggest you that you skip this movie, because you are still going to be disappointed.  I expected way more from a movie starring Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey, who are both Oscar winning actors.  If you have seen trailers for “Serenity;” you will likely have been misdirected, as I was, because this movie is totally not what the trailer leads you to expect.  Matthew McConaughey stars as Baker Dill, an Iraq war veteran and fishing boat captain who spends every spare moment hunting a giant tuna called Justice.  His ex-wife, Karen, shows up with a story of being abused by her current millionaire husband (played unconvincingly and as a bland stereotype by Jason Clarke) and the bruises to prove it.  She wants him to take her husband out on a fishing trip and kill  him by throwing him overboard for the sharks.  She offers  ten million dollars in cold, hard cash.  Karen is played by Anne Hathaway with her hair dyed a perplexing and unflattering blond.  Diane Lane and DJimon Honshu are wasted in minor supporting roles, that frankly, don’t really servie to support anything! Up until this point, the action was slow, but the plot  seemed to be headed in the familiar territoy of suspense thriller.  Here is where the movie falls apart, and even gets silly.   I won’t give away the big plot “surprise,” although I feel I would be doing a public service if I did!  Anyway, think of a really bad rip off of Black Mirror’s ‘Bandersnatch,’ but without the myriad choices, and you will get the idea.  I read after the fact, that “Serenity” was scheduled to be released in September 2018, but was pulled and delayed until late January 2019.  It’s almost as if the distributors knew something, isn’t it?

On the Basis of Sex

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I didn’t know anything about Ruth Bader Ginsberg before going into this movie except that she seems like a Bad Ass.  After seeing this movie, I have concluded that she IS a Bad Ass!!  “On the Basis of Sex” follows the life of RBG from her time at Harvard Law School as a married undergrad to a ground breaking case that got her career going.  That case helped to toppled decades old laws that discriminated against men as well as women.  Her case, Moritz vs. the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, was distinctive for involving sex discrimination against a man.   Charles Moritz was denied a $600 tax deduction because it was ruled that a man could not be considered a caregiver.  Ruth knew all about discrimination as she faced prejudice, condescension and ignorance in her pursuit of a degree and then a career in law.  As a lot of women back in the day found out, a woman had to work twice as hard to succeed in traditional male occupations.  Once she got her degree, she had a hard time finding a law firm that was willing to hire a woman, even one who was at the top of her class. One prospective employer assumed she would get pregnant and quit while another told her that women were too emotional.  Through it all, her husband Martin, a successful tax lawyer, supported and believed in her.  One potentially tragic  episode in her life occured while she and her husband were both in law school; and Martin ( played  by Armie Hammer) is diagnosed with testicular cancer.  At the time there was about a 5% survival rate, yet they pulled through it all, and he subsequently was a great helper in her reaching her goal. Though the focus of her efforts was sex discrimination (a term they modified to a less aggressive gender discrimination-it was the 60’s after all), she and her team (including her daughter and the ACLU) attacked the issue using the test case involving a man. Ruth, in a fine performance by Felicity Jones, manages her classes, his classes(while he battled cancer) and their daughter as they get through this trying time with an even stronger marriage.  While I found this movie interesting and extremely topical, it is a little slower paced than most movies and I found my self losing interest here and there.  But the performances are great and the plot is full of information that was new to me.  I came out of this movie with a greater respect for the justice that some have nicknamed The Notorious RBG.

Glass

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If you liked M. Knight Shyamalan’s “Split” and “Unbreakable,” you are probably going to like “Glass,” even though it is not as good as either one.  That being said, it was nice to see some of these characters return.  I especially enjoyed Bruce Willis as David Dunn, the very reluctant super hero who uses his free time to find bad guys, and provide a little justice.  But he most notably is looking for  James McAvoy’s Kevin Wendell Crumb.  As the story begins, Kevin, and his many personalities, have kidnapped some female cheerleaders, and some of the personalities are warning the young women that ‘The Beast’ is coming soon.  We know that bad things will happen when The Beast arrives.  Just in time, enter David Dunn, and before you know it, the authorities – who’ve been watching for the two of them – have them both in custody.  Things get murky from here on.  Kevin Crumb has some 30 personalities, and James McAvoy is so spot on as he plays each one to perfection.  At some points, he flips from one to another with such facility and realism that you will be amazed that he is playing them all so quickly and believeably.  Samuel L. Jackson is back as the very breakable Mr. Glass, but I found his character too one-dimensional and unbelievable..  It wouldn’t be an M. Knight movie, though without some twists, which I will not spoil of course.  Part of the problem with this movie that keeps it from being really good is the character of Dr. Staple  played by Sarah Paulson.  She gets way too much screen time as a shrink trying to prove that the three main characters are not the super heroes they seem to believe they are.  The addition of the characters of Glass’ mother, Dunn’s son and the one cheerleader who escaped Kevin’s earlier attentions spread out the plot points, but not always to best advantage.  They are essential to a resolution that is essentially unsatisfying and a touch of that M. Night weak-ish resolution we all know. These parts of the movie lag, and it gives you time to notice many plot holes that you wouldn’t have otherwise bothered looking for.   But there are not a lot of great movies playing out there right now, so if you want to see some great acting by James McAvoy, the return of Bruce Willis, and a scene-stealing twitch, this is the movie for you!