The Best Picture nomination format has changed a bit over the last decade. For 65 years, up until 2008, The Academy would nominate five films, just like it does in every other major category. However, feeling that deserving films weren't even being recognized with a nomination, in 2009 and 2010 ten films were nominated for Best Picture. For the past 3 years, and now this year once again, The Academy uses a complicated algorithm that makes my brain hurt because math is hard to settle on somewhere between 5-10 nominees. For the third year in a row, they've settled on nine nominees.
I've had a chance to review six of the nine trailers for films nominated for Best Picture in this space so far, and I figured I'd take a look at the other three today. I do plan on making some predictions before the big date in early March, but as of now I've only seen three of the nominees for best picture, so I've got some "work" to do.
If you want to go back and see what I had to say about the other nominees, you can find my reviews for Her and American Hustle here, for Nebraska here, for Dallas Buyer's Club and Wolf of Wall Street here, and for Gravity here.
Captain Phillips (Six Oscar Nominations)
This was one movie I meant to go see in IMAX, but I never got around to it since it was playing at the same time as Gravity. I still haven't caught it, but I'm excited, just like I was the first time I watched this trailer.
Before I'd ever seen the trailer, someone mentioned to me that it was "a pirate movie with Tom Hanks". I was basically picturing Splash 2, with lovable, parrot-toting pirates and and awe-shucks Tom Hanks along for the ride, so this was a little bit different.
The trailer does a great job on a couple of levels. It manages to establish that this is a Tom Hanks movie within the first five second, and gives him plenty of screen time. It gives us a great look at the main problem in the movie, even though it was only about ten seconds, watching the pirates latch the ladder on to the ship was pretty powerful for a trailer.
I also really liked the main pirate talking to Tom Hanks, with the great line "I am the captain now." That role is played by Barkhad Abdi, who actually received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor in his first ever on-screen role. Fun fact: Abdi was driving a cab in Minneapolis before he got this role. Minneapolis cab drivers are notorious for leading tourists around on wild, out of the way routes to drive up their fares, so I guess he had a little bit of practice being a "pirate".
Trailer: 3.5 stars
Philomena (Four Oscar Nominations)
I remember watching this trailer months ago while looking for material to write about in this blog, and not including it because I though it was cliché and yawn worthy. Nothing has changed.
None of the jokes landed for me (except for the "I never knew I had a clitoris" one at the very end that I must have missed the first time around... But there's something a little weird about hearing Judi Dench say the word clitoris) the music was horrible and tried to be "uplifting", and it seemed like another movie that paints all journalists as scumbags until they stumble upon a story that changes their lives.
Apparently, the film is worthy of a Best Picture nomination, but the trailer did an absolutely horrible job of getting me excited for the film. That being said, I'll be sure to check it out before March 2.
Trailer: 1 Star
12 Years a Slave (Nine Oscar Nominations)
12 Years a Slave took home the Golden Glove for Best Picture (Drama) this year, and it's expected to repeat with a Best Picture statuette this March. It's not hard to see why from the trailer. It's a twist on the typical American Slave movie we've seen done in so many ways; a free black man from New York is kidnapped and sold to a plantation in the South. The material is super compelling.
I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm anxious to see it. I say anxious and not excited because I'm sure director Steve McQueen doesn't hold anything back. It looks to be a brutally honest showcase of the horrors slaves were faced with in the 19th century.
That being said, the cast of the film, highlighted by Michael Fassbender and Chiwetel Ejiofor (both nominated) and supported by Paul Giamatti and Brad Pitt, should knock this material right out of the park.
Trailer: 4 Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment