Since I don't really have time to reach the cinema these days, I said to catch back a bit on my older "to watch" list... and the oldest entry was "The Third Man", considered actually a "classic" from the glory days of the noir movie.
Somewhere in post-war Vienna, divided under the control of the Allied troops, we have Holly Martins arriving. An American writer of cheap novels, without a dime, responding to an offer made by a friend for a possible job. Surprise, apparently his buddy Harry Lime is at the cemetery, deceased in an accident just in front of his home. Unhappy with the official version of the events, Mr. Martins starts an investigation on his own in parallel with the one led by a British officer. It doesn't take long to find out that at the moment of the accident there were three men taking care of the body, contrary to the police report that mentions only two - that's where the title comes from. Unfortunately the answer to the question of who's "the third man" becomes predictable quite fast...
The movie includes also a romance, which on one hand fills a bit the gaps, but on the other creates a bit too many unnecessary lengths... After it becomes clear what's "the main twist", all the story gets a bit boring. Besides that, the score, which initially is interesting and catchy, it slowly starts to have more of a lullaby effect. Opposite to that, the camera work is quite ok, and keeps surprising you. Probably one of the best parts in the whole movie is the unexpected documentary value - you actually get to see the Vienna of that time. Unfortunately, my expectations of watching a hitchcockian thriller were quite far from what I saw. And having a subject more simple than it looks to be, I think it also harms the aging factor. Verdict: acceptable, but I think too overrated...
If you'd ever try to imagine a mix of "Terminator", "Matrix", "E.T." and "Transformers", the result... well, most probably won't look like "Returner", but for some Japanese back around year 2000 seems that was the sum of all these. And it's so bad that it's (almost) good...
In 2080 and something, on an Earth invaded by aliens, the humanity is at the verge of extinction. Somewhere just before the last explosion, a girl jumps into "the last resort" = a wormhole to the past, with the purpose of preventing the first contact and all the disasters following - that's the "Terminator" part. The time bubble opens over a cargo ship used for human trafficking exactly in the middle of a fight between the members of a Triad and a guy seemingly coming from "Matrix" based on his apparel and moves (bullet-time effect included). To get "E.T." into the picture, after a while we find out that the first alien stranded from outer space is not hostile and just wants to go back home + doesn't resemble the terminating machines from the future and looks more like Spielberg's version from '82. For the "Transformers" piece, well... the trailer speaks for itself.
Each individual piece of the movie is sufficiently good and has some sort of originality (depite the above references) that would've led to a pretty decent result. Unfortunately, even if in the first half there's some acceptable flow, after this the action is so messed up when all bits are put together (= from plot holes and maximum predictability to just bad editing) that what's left in the end looks more like an indie movie made by some students between midterm exams. Don't get me wrong.. again, on each part (except the editing) we can say something good - for the budget it has the VFX are more than fine, the acting is ok, the camera work is quite nice on some frames especially on the chromatic side, and for the score we have some mixes of techno/synth with punk rock that give a retro-SciFi feeling reminding of the year when the movie was released. The lack of polishing is, however, terrible and brings a lot of damage to the final product. Still, if you have some memories left from the end of '90s - beginning of 2000's there's a good change of some pleasant nostalgia :)
"Molly's Game" is the best biopic I've seen in a while. I guess it's a bit better than "American Made", and before that I don't really remember something I could compare it with. I don't know if it's just the story, but the way the movie's written = the script, definitely has its merit.
The movie's based on a book with the same name + a long subtitle: "The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World", which actually concisely describes what we have here. Molly Bloom misses a career in ski after an unfortunate accident stealing her the chance of entering the Olympic team and somehow lands a job as a secretary for somebody in the L.A. high society. The guy organizes poker nights with other guys in the even higher society of L.A., or better said delegates this task to Molly, who for start finds in this another income source from the received tips. And so, all this leads to a successful entrepreneurship example = she takes all on her own at some point, even makes it fully legal, the sums move up and everything seems to go well. Until it doesn't, but as usual I'd rather not give out more than the trailer does...
As any biopic, to get its catchy factor, the story is maybe slightly adjusted here and there, but in any case is one with plenty of movie potential. The construction of the script makes it obvious that it takes the side of the main character, so, to be a bit mean, off-topic you can still probably ask yourself if the portrayed young lady really had so much integrity as it's shown. But that doesn't matter that much. For my concern, the movie could be very well pure fiction - what I've watched was a life drama with thriller accents and a happy-end that I liked. Maybe I'm a bit subjective about the character (keeping some reserve on it :) there's a reason for characterizing her at some point in the movie as the perfect type of "woman to fall in love with"), but more than this the movie has something motivational in it from beginning till the end, which might be discreet (= more or less between the lines) but that's exactly what makes it more real.
I said last year that I'll write at most one entry on the topic of Oscar 2018 and I'll keep my word. More, I'll try to just limit myself to some predictions. If these work out = if we won't get again some major surprise awards based on political/social criteria that have nothing in common with the cinema/art factor, maybe I'll resume next year the extended coverage of the event I was typically doing... maybe... But, let's get to the point.
For VFX the Oscar should go to "War of the Planet of the Apes". It's the third time in three movies when we have a nomination for this series and if it still loses I guess this category will also completely lose any credibility it still might have. "The breakthrough" to say it so was made by the first movie in the series, which brought something consistently new in the area of CGI depicting an animal in a movie. Even if the sequels didn't have something as revolutionary on the technical side as the first, the VFX complexity is still on top of the competition, first of all considering the nature of the movie. Unfortunately though, this award was way too much assimilated with the one for cinematography in the recent years, and it's not the same thing (it also happens the other way around...), but hopefully not this year too...
The sound categories of this year - editing and mixing - came with something that didn't happen for quite some time - the nominees list is identical. "Traditionally" four of them were the same and there was one difference. Normally, for editing the award should go to "Dunkirk", but I say that we might get a surprise winner here with "Blade Runner 2049". Again, normally the mixing award should go to "Baby Driver", where the final track mix is absolutely brilliant - and that's the stuff that should matter the most here, but the Oscar will most probably be awarded to "Dunkirk".
On production design = art direction & set decoration, we have a pretty tight competition, but I'd choose "Blade Runner 2049" as winner. For me this part is the strongest technically in the whole movie, considering the feeling it brings = transposing you in the created world, it's at least on par with the rest, and the advantage comes from the variation it brings. And from all this variation, if we just look at the Vegas part is already enough.
It's been long since there was such a tight competition on the score/soundtrack as this year. Even though the favorite movies seem to be others I say there are good chances for a surprise win for Jonny Greenwood and the music from "Phantom Thread". This is also judging based on the way the "ear" of the Academy works, which typically is sort of conservatory on this category. As personal taste I prefer the score of Carter Burwell from "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri", but it's far less likely to have a win here.
If we stopped at "Phantom Thread" let's just stay a bit longer with a certain prediction in this year awards: costume design. Not that I'm an expert on this, but given the topic of the movie I hardly see how it could lose here.
"The Shape of Water" will most probably bring a first Oscar for directing to Guillermo del Toro, which is a bit unfair considering that "Pan's Labyrinth" still remains his best movie. More unfair is that "Dunkirk" will not bring to Nolan a first Oscar for directing, given that, and I'll repeat once more, this man managed to put together and excellently composed piece of cinema from a subject that's hardly fit for a movie.
Generally I avoid talking much about the actor's performances, and this year the awards are anyway pretty predictable here. I'd still have comment on the leading actor where Gary Oldman is considered the certain winner for his Churchill take on "The Darkest Hour". As I wrote in the movie review, despite the character that was built where I can't objectively comment being extremely well studied/acted by the level of gesture, speaking habits, etc. and where the makeup had its share of contribution, I'd still would've found more natural the choice of some other actor who should've been naturally closer to the wanted result. Based on this criteria I would give the Oscar to Daniel Day Lewis, who in "Phantom Thread" has probably his best performance in a movie after the one in "There Will Be Blood". The irony is that he got it for "Lincoln", where he wasn't far from the position where Gary Oldman is this year, so...
I guess I covered enough categories to stop this year's "overview" with obviously, Best Picture. We have two favorites here: "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri" and "Shape of Water", which I say deserve their position in the current selection of nine nominees. As long as we don't have any surprise as in the last years where the title of best movie of the year reaches a production that's somewhere behind half of the rest even on some critics list (the few ones that are still not judging on political criteria), we'll have a step forward. I have blog entries for both movies above so, I'd like to end the Oscar 2018 chapter without more details. I'll just stick to my previous evaluation of the movies = although close, my final vote & prediction goes to "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri".
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