"Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool."
After watching DOWNSIZING, I felt embarrassed for its director Alexander Payne. It's painful to watch someone stumble, especially if it's someone whose work you've long admired--"Sideways," "About Schmidt," "The Descendants," even "Nebraska." If I didn't know any better, I'd say Payne should just go back to his American road trips, into Californian wine country, Hawaiian plantations, the Midwest. This latest effort had a great concept that went nowhere, while also birthing a multitude of storylines that ended in a narrative muddle. The saving grace here was really Hong Chau, who truly deserved that Best Supporting Actress slot far more than the likes of Octavia Spencer (no offense to Minnie the poop-pie maker).
The balls of this Francis Lee to make a gay farmland movie! But really, "Brokeback Mountain" should be the first thing that comes to mind when talking about the much-acclaimed GOD'S OWN COUNTRY. I didn't fall head over heels for this one. I'm still waiting for that gay movie that will top (Haha!) Andrew Haigh's "Weekend" from 2011--still one of the best LGBTQ films of the 21st century for me. Lee's movie is no slouch, but it's nothing novel either. Well, the extended bits with the sheep, maybe.
Then we have Paul Thomas Anderson's PHANTOM THREAD, which The New Yorker called "propaganda for toxic masculinity." I was amused by that article, by how the author completely missed the point. This movie dripped its venom as if it were pouring tea, fancy British style. That script was hilarious--the cattiness, the shade, the sarcasm--it ought to have been the frontrunner for Original Screenplay, really. And Jonny Greenwood's music was simply remarkable in the way it eased the viewer right into the world of this film, then almost two hours later, subverting expectations. Here I was, thinking I was just watching Daniel Day-Lewis (great) and Lesley Manville (greater) try to out-polite-sardonic each other, and then we get to the mushrooms! Mushrooms and gowns! Who would have thought they'd make such a poisonous pair?
You know what I realized after watching FILM STARS DON'T DIE IN LIVERPOOL? Frances McDormand's performance in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" should have been in sixth place, because her spot ought to have gone to Annette Bening, so brilliant and luminous and affecting in this movie about Gloria Grahame's final days. How many times has the Academy ignored Bening? BAFTA had the sense to nominate her, but that was at the expense of Meryl Streep. The film itself doesn't quite measure up to Bening's talent; it's another case of go see the movie to see the star performance anchoring it. There's a part near the end that shows the same scene from two perspectives, and that's where I felt the film weaken tremendously, turn flimsy and redundant. (They should have just stuck with Bening's perspective, by the way.) So now the question is, when will she win her Oscar, hmm? When is the Academy going to wake up and realize she's one of the most overdue?
ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ. is just sad. I feel sad for Dan Gilroy, the director, whose "Nightcrawler" I so adored. I feel sad for Denzel Washington, in a performance so mannered it's as if he were trying to pry himself loose from the entire project. I mean, they give him that awful hair for half of the film! Mostly I feel sad for all the actors who had to deliver all those unconvincing lines. And also all the actors who were robbed of an Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG slot by Denzel, in a performance that's nowhere near his best. Denzel, the great actor, so laboriously acting, as A.A. Dowd of A.V. Club called it. What an awful, stilted movie this is. The beginning (with all that typed narration) is shitty. The middle is shitty. And the end is shitty. What an insult to the craft of fiction and film.
Then we have Paul Thomas Anderson's PHANTOM THREAD, which The New Yorker called "propaganda for toxic masculinity." I was amused by that article, by how the author completely missed the point. This movie dripped its venom as if it were pouring tea, fancy British style. That script was hilarious--the cattiness, the shade, the sarcasm--it ought to have been the frontrunner for Original Screenplay, really. And Jonny Greenwood's music was simply remarkable in the way it eased the viewer right into the world of this film, then almost two hours later, subverting expectations. Here I was, thinking I was just watching Daniel Day-Lewis (great) and Lesley Manville (greater) try to out-polite-sardonic each other, and then we get to the mushrooms! Mushrooms and gowns! Who would have thought they'd make such a poisonous pair?
You know what I realized after watching FILM STARS DON'T DIE IN LIVERPOOL? Frances McDormand's performance in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" should have been in sixth place, because her spot ought to have gone to Annette Bening, so brilliant and luminous and affecting in this movie about Gloria Grahame's final days. How many times has the Academy ignored Bening? BAFTA had the sense to nominate her, but that was at the expense of Meryl Streep. The film itself doesn't quite measure up to Bening's talent; it's another case of go see the movie to see the star performance anchoring it. There's a part near the end that shows the same scene from two perspectives, and that's where I felt the film weaken tremendously, turn flimsy and redundant. (They should have just stuck with Bening's perspective, by the way.) So now the question is, when will she win her Oscar, hmm? When is the Academy going to wake up and realize she's one of the most overdue?
ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ. is just sad. I feel sad for Dan Gilroy, the director, whose "Nightcrawler" I so adored. I feel sad for Denzel Washington, in a performance so mannered it's as if he were trying to pry himself loose from the entire project. I mean, they give him that awful hair for half of the film! Mostly I feel sad for all the actors who had to deliver all those unconvincing lines. And also all the actors who were robbed of an Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG slot by Denzel, in a performance that's nowhere near his best. Denzel, the great actor, so laboriously acting, as A.A. Dowd of A.V. Club called it. What an awful, stilted movie this is. The beginning (with all that typed narration) is shitty. The middle is shitty. And the end is shitty. What an insult to the craft of fiction and film.
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