Nobody's Fool (2018)

I think Tyler Perry is underrated. His movies should have appeal with a much broader audience than just the African American community they're marketed to. He proves to be entertaining and accessible. Tiffany Haddish, especially, has universal appeal. Her personality is so electric and she appears to be having so much fun on screen you cannot look away. And I, for one, think Tika Sumpter is fantastic. Now there is a pretty major plot hole towards the end with the surprise twist that not only invalidates the previous hour of film we've just seen but also doesn't make sense. But if they could have patched up this hole somehow, I dare say, the plot is near Shakespearean. Catfishing is our modern equivalent of mistaken identity, the hallmark of a Shakespearean comedy. And by the end, I think it would have been more interesting if "they" didn't end up together but it then wouldn't be a Shakespearean romantic comedy.

Chris Rock: Tamborine (2018)

It's nice to have Chris Rock back. He's one of the greats. And he's still got it. The first half is better than the second half. And that's about all I have to say.

The Oscars 2016

I don't know if I'll ever come close to my personal best of 23/24 at the 2014 ceremony, especially when there are so many tight races with no obvious front runner. With the PGA, DGA and SAG unable to come to a consensus, best picture is anyone's game. This year's awards have been wrought with controversy over a second consecutive year of all-white acting nominees. The Academy even responded this year by changing the rules for voter eligibility to try to diminish the voting power of the largely old, white, retired male filmmakers. The Academy had to do something when Spike Lee, an honoree this year for lifetime achievement, said he would not attend. Will the Academy's reforms work? Not right away. It is certainly a start. It will not fix the industry wide problem--that is a lack of substantive roles for minority actors. Tackling that issue is another one entirely. Personally, I was predicting a Best Picture nomination for Straight Outta Compton and a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Idris Elba from Beasts of No Nation, but it was not meant to be. Chris Rock is set to host and I trust him to break the tension in the room and actively tackle the issue with comedy.

Best Picture Likelihood of Winning
1. The Revenant
2. The Big Short
3. Spotlight
4. Room
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. The Martian
7. Bridge of Spies
8. Brooklyn

Best Picture Personal Ranking
1. The Big Short
2. Brooklyn
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
4. The Martian
5. Room
6. Spotlight
7. The Revenant
8. Bridge of Spies

Personal Top 10 of 2015
1. Steve Jobs
2. Inside Out
3. Ex Machina
4. The Big Short
5. Brooklyn
6. Mad Max: Fury Road
7. The Martian
8. Room
9. Love & Mercy
10. Spotlight

Best Director
Will Win/Should Win: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant
Honorable Mention: George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Actress
Will Win: Brie Larson, Room
Should Win: Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Best Actor
Will Win/Should Win: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Honorable Mention: Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs

Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Should Win: Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

Best Supporting Actor
Will Win: Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Should Win: Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight

Best Original Screenplay
Will Win: Spotlight
Should Win: Inside Out

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will Win/Should Win: The Big Short
Honorable Mention: Brooklyn

Best Cinematography
Will Win/Should Win: The Revenant

Best Costume Design
Will Win/Should Win: Carol

Best Film Editing
Will Win/Should Win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Will Win/Should Win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Production Design
Will Win/Should Win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Score
Will Win: The Hateful Eight
Should Win: Carol

Best Song
Will Win/Should Win: Til It Happens to You, The Hunting Ground

Best Sound Editing
Will Win/Should Win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Sound Mixing
Will Win/Should Win: The Revenant

Best Visual Effects
Will Win/Should Win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Honorable Mention: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Animated Feature
Will Win/Should Win: Inside Out

Best Documentary
Will Win: Amy
Should Win: The Look of Silence

Best Foreign Film
Will Win: Son of Saul, Hungary

Best Animated Short
Will Win: Sanjay's Super Team

Best Live Action Short

Will Win: Stutterer

Best Documentary Short
Will Win: Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah

Update: 16/24 is worse than the 18/24 I got last year. Spotlight, which was the presumed front-runner for many months until the Golden Globes, won Best Picture. Guess I should've had a little faith. Mark Ryland beat Sylvester Stallone with a wonderfully nuanced performance. Quite frankly, he was better than Stallone anyways. Hollywood isn't as nostalgic as I thought it was. Best Visual Effects went to Ex Machina, which was a pleasant surprise. In a night when Mad Max was winning all of the below-the-line awards, it was nice to see the small indie take one. I missed on the Sound Mixing Category but the clip that they played for The Revenant was the one that I wrote about on my blog pointing out the sound mixing (some affirmation is always nice)! And Sam Smith stole Lady Gaga and Dianne Warren's Oscar. He was kind of pitchy and as far as Bond songs go, his was not even that good. And I still think that they should either perform all 5 songs, or none at all. Where's the respect for Manta Ray and Simple Song #3? That is an unfair bias. And as always, I love Chris Rock. I thought he was hilarious, relevant, and really hit the nail on the head on the race issue.

Predicting the 2016 Oscar Nominations

The Oscar nominations will be revealed tomorrow. And here's the thing that makes this year interesting: there is no clear front runner. It is a wide open game. Looking forward to some surprises. These are my predictions in the major categories (Things I've already seen in bold). I filled out my full predictions on Gold Derby, and the result would be a pack-leading 10 nominations for Mad Max: Fury Road, and 9 each for The Martian and Carol.

Best Picture- up to 10 nominees
1. Spotlight
2. The Revenant
3. The Martian
4. The Big Short
5. Carol
6. Room
7. Brooklyn
8. Mad Max: Fury Road
9. Bridge of Spies
10. Straight Outta Compton

Best Director
1. Ridley Scott - The Martian
2. Tom McCarthy - Spotlight
3. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu- The Revenant
4. Todd Haynes - Carol
5. George Miller - Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Actor
1. Leonardo DiCaprio - The Revenant
2. Eddie Redmayne - The Danish Girl
3. Michael Fassbender - Steve Jobs
4. Matt Damon - The Martian
5. Bryan Cranston - Trumbo

Best Actress
1. Brie Larson - Room
2. Saoirse Ronan - Brooklyn
3. Cate Blanchett - Carol
4. Jennifer Lawrence - Joy
5. Alicia Vikander - The Danish Girl

Best Supporting Actor
1. Mark Rylance - Bridge of Spies
2. Mark Ruffalo - Spotlight
3. Sylvester Stallone - Creed
4. Idris Elba - Beasts of No Nation
5. Jacob Tremblay - Room

Best Supporting Actress
1. Kate Winslet - Steve Jobs
2. Rooney Mara - Carol
3. Rachel McAdams - Spotlight
4. Helen Mirren - Trumbo
5. Jane Fonda - Youth

Best Original Screenplay
1. Inside Out
2. The Hateful Eight
3. Spotlight
4. Ex Machina
5. Bridge of Spies

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Steve Jobs
2. Carol
3. The Martian
4. Brooklyn
5. The Big Short

Update: I scored 8/8 in Best Picture, though I technically had Carol over Bridge of Spies. 3/5 in Best Director (cause Lenny Abrahamson for Room over Ridley Scott for The Martian was a big surprise).  5/5 in Best Actor, 4/5 in Best Actress (though Alicia Vikander did get a nomination for The Danish Girl, just in the supporting category), 3/5 in Best Supporting Actor, 3/5 in Supporting Actress, 4/5 in Original Screenplay (surprised they didn't go for Tarantino cause they usually do), and 4/5 in Adapted Screenplay (I am devastated that Aaron Sorkin didn't get nominated for his brilliant screenplay). Just 67% overall in all categories.

Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo (2015)

Amy Schumer takes her signature unfiltered, self-deprecating, raunchy comedy to the legendary Apollo Theater.  But this is no amateur night--no, she is a pro.  She has rather masterfully filled a void in comedy by bringing the female perspective tot Judd Apatow-style humor, a refreshingly funny take. It is more or less exactly what we've come to expect from her in her movie and sketch comedy show.  She is confrontational, unapologetic, loud, and fearless.  She takes on the sexist Hollywood establishment,in a very funny bit on Kevin James.  Not all of the jokes are of equal caliber, but few comedians can sustain a full hour with all knockout jokes.  I'm sure she will continue her upward momentum and we will see a lot more of her stand up. 

Top Five (2014)

In Chris Rock's best and boldest movie to date, he channels comedy master Woody Allen, even naming his protagonist after him.  Like Allen, Rock stars in, writes, and directs Top Five.  It is an indie-type film that stars a big name at the helm and Rock's film is packed with small cameos from a multitude of stars, some who play themselves.  Rock plays a comedian who has found great success in his cheap comedies (as a voice in a bear suit--analogous to his voice-over work as the zebra from the blockbuster series Madagascar?), but has tired of them and wishes to be taken more seriously.  This is very much the same dilemma that Tracy Jordan faces in 30 Rock; Tracy Morgan has a hilarious cameo as well. And much like Birdman, this is a case of art imitating life imitating art, in which Rock plays a version of himself searching for new success.  However, while his in-the-movie film Uprize is panned, Top Five deserves praise.

Chris Rock and Rosario Dawson are excellent.  They walk around New York chatting (as one does in a Woody Allen film) about just about everything. All of the cameos are brilliantly funny.  Rock muses about comedy, his art (as Allen likes to do).  There are a lot of funny moments, but perhaps he is at his best in his natural habitat on stage, doing stand up, as his character fittingly does.  But this is not just a comedy, there is a nice balance of drama and a twist that I didn't see coming.

The opening scene is a fast-paced, hilarious, back-and-forth between them about race.  This is unmistakably a "black movie" (the same way that Allen's films are "white movies"), but it is not explicitly about race.  They talk about race, and Rock penned a guest column in the Hollywood Reporter about blacks in Hollywood when the film was released.   Now for the big question, why is it called Top Five?  In the movie, the characters ask each other to name their top five hip-hop artists, like a party game.  It recurs, but is not central to the movie.  But hip hop is at the core of Rock's generation of black culture.  In an interview in the New York Times, Questlove said the co-star of the is the "hip-hop midlife crisis."  Hip hop is important, and it is an underlying theme that is not primary but constantly in the background.