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Khushrenada's Annual Oscar Thread. 2018 Edition.

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Khushrenada:
My Thoughts on the Year of Movies in 2017

Man, these Oscar threads keep getting made closer and closer to the start of the ceremony. Next year, I'll be typing it just ahead of the show.  ;)

In truth, part of the delay was that it's taken me awhile to see this films. 2017 has been the year that my interest in movies has taken a hit. I've found it harder and harder to find the will to go to the theater to see movies. Even my movie watching has diminished. In 2017, I watched about 90 movies and a few of those were ones I'd seen before. Now that might still seem like a lot to some people but most telling is that from September to end of December (the last 4 months of the year), I only watched 20 movies. About 5 a month compared to about 8 or 9 a month for the rest of the year. Yet, even that total number of 90 is low from what I've been averaging. In 2016, I saw 172 movies, at least. Chances are I might have cracked 200. That number of 172 is titles I saw for the first time but I still had cable for the first part of 2016 and would re-watch movies I'd seen on TCM or The Movie Channel. I'm pretty sure that's about the same number in 2015 but I've only got 100 titles listed because it wasn't until mid July that I started keeping track of new movies I'd just seen for me to then add to an all-time list I had started making to keep track and see if I could figure out just how many movies I'd watched in life. I'm highly positive that for the last 4 years (at least) prior to 2017, I probably had an average of watching 1 movie every 2 days. That ratio could be a bit low but it's definitely not overestimating my film habits.

So, what changed? I'd say it's been a bunch of factors. One big thing is probably TV. Near the end of 2016 and going into 2017, I began watching a lot more in TV shows I either missed out on or wanted to re-watch. With the amount of movies I've been watching in the past few years, I haven't really been watching a lot of TV and if there was a show I was watching, I'd watch new episodes but haven't bothered to view any repeats. Not like 10 years ago where I'd re-watch The Simpson or The Office or even something like Enterprise. As well, I bunch of shows I really liked wrapped up like Mad Men, Parks and Recreation or Person of Interest and there's other stuff I just got bored of watching like Elementary or Shark Tank. That left me free to view more films. Lately, TV is something I've been going back to. Around the end of 2016, I re-watched Parks and Recreation. I've re-watched some of the early The Office episodes I hadn't seen now in almost 10 years. I've caught up on and saw all of Orphan Black. I went through Community, Arrested Development and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Rewatched all of Batman: TAS and then Batman Beyond since there were some later episodes of that series I had never seen yet. I've been working through all episodes of Good Eats and am about over halfway in that series. I'm slowly finishing through Star Trek: Voyager. I've gone through Star Trek: Discovery. I'm a couple episodes away from catching up to and being current with Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow which dropped in the summer of 2016 only to come back to them. I've been completely impressed by Better Call Saul, Mr. Robot, Fargo and American Crime Story: Season 1. (Season 2 just doesn't have the same intrigue factor sadly.) That's just some of what I've been watching but it illustrates how my viewing habits have changed a bit and how TV has a lot of addicting programs.

Another factor has been video games. Breath of the Wild completely took over a lot of my free time in the first couple months it was out and I'm still playing around in it on occasion on the anniversary of its release. While it may have dominated a lot of my console time, my 3DS has still been at my side as I've played a few other titles on it as I still like that system a lot. BotW has still ignited my passion for gaming and I've been wanting to do it more.

Movie watching, on the other hand, had begun to feel like a chore, at times. Maybe it was just bad timing but I there hasn't really been a lot of movies that have wowed me or excited me like in past years. Going to the theater to see what I've felt were a lot of average movies just started creating disappointment in that activity. Even movies I watched at home, the stuff I had seen before was just so-so or worse. Last year, I saw the 1927 silent movie The Jazz Singer and in November I saw Fantasia. With that, I've now seen all 100 movies in AFI's Original 100 Years 100 Movies list of 1998. I then checked their 2007 10 Year Anniversary 100 Movie list and the only one I need to see to complete that is The Sixth Sense. (Yes, I've yet to see it.) In any case, I really feel like I saved the worst for last with those two films. I also hit the halfway mark off the original 1001 Movies to See Before You Die list in that series of books. Of course, that number might change based on the various editions which have seen the list add and drop films over the years. Again, that has led to some of the perfunctory feeling of movies almost seemingly like a chore as I've checked out some of these titles just to sort of keep chugging along on that list and its not like every movie they list is a winner.

But, even keeping up with new releases has begun to wear on me and keeping up with Oscar season just hasn't been that interesting either. I finally got around to watching The Post last week and just Phantom Thread yesterday. And I never did get around to seeing Call Me By Your Name but that seemed to have a pretty quick and limited release. It also marks the first time in about 6 years that I haven't seen all the Oscar nominated movies before the program. Maybe it's a bit of last year and what I thought was a weaker year for films as well continuing into this year but I just haven't been that excited or interested in the stuff getting nominated of late. That said, I have seen 12 movies already in 2018 so that average is going up a bit and I am actually looking forward to a bunch of movies coming out later this year. Last year, the only movie I was really looking forward to was Guardians of the Galaxy 2 but it wasn't as good as the original to me. I did get excited for Blade Runner 2049 and I think it should have been one of the nominees for Best Picture this year yet at the same time I'm conflicted about it. I love it and hate it at the same time. I'm not really a fan of the original Blade Runner either. I finally got around to seeing the original about three years ago and it wasn't at all what I expected based on the pictures and clips and summaries I'd read about it before. I've never gone back to it nor did I get the vibe that Ford was a replicant or understand why that was such a big obsession for people about the original as it seems to be completely irrelevant to the story of the movie. I think 2049 is better than the original but it is maybe to beholden to it as well.

So, for me, that's what 2017 has felt like. A weak year of movies with just a couple good points but nothing special and more flawed movies than true gems. TV and Gaming were the better industries in 2017.

Khushrenada:
This Year's Rankings

With that said, let's get to the selected crop of nominees this year.

Unranked -  Call Me by Your Name. As mentioned, I never got around to it just like I almost didn't get around to The Post and finally just decided to go and see Phantom Thread yesterday so that I almost saw them all. Like a lot of movies nominated this year, the trailer just didn't motivate me or interest me in this movie and I just couldn't get past that disinterest to see it in time.

Khushrenada:
8. Phantom Thread - I still haven't seen some of P.T. Anderson's earlier work like Boogie Nights or Magnolia but I have seen most of his more recent stuff from There Will Be Blood onwards. (Just the documentary Junun is the only thing I haven't seen and was only aware of it when double checking everything he's done since TWBB.) There Will Be Blood is still the best thing I think he's done from what I've seen and the fact that he was teaming with Day-Lewis for what Day-Lewis is saying is his final role had me intrigued with high hopes. Then I saw a trailer for it and completely lost all interest in this movie. It looked like a dull and boring mess. When it was released, reviewers didn't seem to be that excited over it either so it looked to be an Oscar also-ran. But then, it surprised a lot of people by getting 6 nominations including a Best Picture nomination and Best Director nomination. (The Day-Lewis nomination always felt like an inevitability unless the movie was a complete stinker.) In the past week as the ceremony came closer to airing, I saw some comments online of more people really talking up and liking the movie. In fact, when I did my yearly check of the top ten movies of the year on Roger Ebert's site, Phantom Thread was the number 2 movie of the year. (Lady Bird was their number 1 choice.) That comes from all the critics who contribute to that site putting together their top ten lists and then ranking all those choices and tabulating them together. So, I still went in with low expectations but I guess I was partly hopeful that I was wrong about this expectations.

And, in a way, I was. Whoever was responsible for the trailer should probably be fired. It really didn't provide an accurate picture of the film but then it didn't really provide much of any picture. Thinking hard about it, I guess the impression it gave was that a woman comes into Day-Lewis's life and he loves her but she upsets his life and seems to be pushing him to madness or he's pushing her to madness. And, I suppose, that picture might even be accurate or one way to see the movie but that's not a description I'd completely agree with. Here's how I'd describe this film. It starts out by being more like an English romance or period piece like a Merchant/Ivory type film or maybe even something in the 50s or 60s. Day-Lewis's character of Reynolds has fallen out of love with a lady but then he finds a new woman whom he finds inspiration in and is his newest muse. This muse, Alma, is partly charmed but partly at odds with Reynolds. Reynolds expects everyone to conform to his way of tolerated behavior but Alma finds herself conflicted as she wants to be love Reynolds and be loved by him in her way of doing things. Alma does end up conforming to a lot of Reynolds whims. This is seen most obviously through a couple breakfast scenes which have been talked about a lot through other reviewers and commenters. There a comes a point where Alma isn't sure what her standing with Reynolds is anymore but she finds a way to finally become important to him and affect him in a great degree. However, that connection soon starts to unravel again and the question and climax is what Reynolds and Alma are going to do about it. The answer caused me to laugh out loud. It just seemed to be a real tonal change over the past two hours and verged on farce or comedy to me. Especially with some of Day-Lewis's facial reactions.

This is an odd movie. Early on, for the first hour, I was finding the movie rather pleasant. In my head, I'm even thinking it might be something my mother would be interested in seeing. The score by Jonny Greenwood added to the appeal and feeling of it being a sort of romantic drama of yesteryear. Despite various pieces about the persnickety behavior of Reynolds character, sure, he might be a bit priggish but he's not a monster as some have made him out to be or compared to someone in real life like Harvey Weinstein. The movie does go under a bit of a change after the first hour in which Alma's motivations began to be questioned and wondered about by the viewer creating a bit of intrigue. Nothing highly thrilling but curious. It's the Alma character who really is the main character of the movie even though Day-Lewis seems to be getting all the attention for his role. But then that ending happens and it just makes this an odd film. I don't hate the movie. There is a lot I do like about it. It's not that visually striking to me and knowing the story now, I'm not sure I'd ever really revisit this film. It's not as bad as the trailer made out but it's not really something I'd have much to recommend about it. There's nothing really standout or overly special about it to me. Even though the next couple movies I've ranked ahead of it have some scenes that felt contrived and irked me, there's nothing about this movie that I hated even with its silly ending. You generally don't hate something that makes you laugh. It's just that at the same time there's nothing about the movie I really loved or any part of it that I think is exceptional. So, for that, it gets the 8th spot.

Khushrenada:
7. The Post - Now this is a movie that I may want to criticize more than praise but that's just because it includes some eye-rolling moments that just fell flat and they are what I think of most instead of the rest of a mostly good movie. For that, I blame Spielberg. I think this is his weakest movie since Munich.
(Of course, I've yet to get around to seeing The BFG to know for sure.) Sometimes, Spielberg can get a bit hokey or let's say unsubtle with a message and he definitely leans into that here at the end. Probably the biggest, most egregious moment is when Carrie Coon's character is reciting a court ruling coming through on a telephone and tearing up to emphasize the importance of this message. (Also hilarious is how Carrie's character is about to tell everyone the court's vote of whether in favor or not and some random dude suddenly shouts out the news. In a movie that was sort of promoted as a bit of female empowerment with Streep's character, it seemed like a misstep to suddenly come in and interrupt Coon with the verdict announcement.) Then there is the last couple scenes of Nixon declaring war on The Washington Post and then a guard finding the thieves during their Watergate break-in with the music playing it up because we know what comes next. It's like the ending of Godzilla 1998 with Matthew Broderick. At the end of the movie, it goes back to Madison Square Garden where all the velociraptors baby Godzillas had died only to show one egg had survived and out pops another Godzilla. SE-QUEEEEEEELLLLL!!!!!!! (Except the sequel is the 1975 movie All The President's Men and it's already been made so this is really a prequel. Who knew?) It was such an unnecessary moment but it's like Spielberg has to pay homage to the inspiration for this film but it just made me shake my head.

Since Roger Ebert died, I found the reviewers carrying on in his name on his site to be an inferior replacement and don't really check in on that site much anymore. However, the review done for The Post pretty much matches my thoughts so to save time on typing, here's the link for it. I do want to say that I never really knew anything about The Pentagon Papers but learning about them and the information they contained is pretty amazing even with the Vietnam conflict long-ended. The story and the issues faced by The Washington Post during this time were pretty engaging. I liked the cast. It took me a moment to place David Cross. I recognized the voice but without glasses and with hair, it took a moment to figure out who he was. Thanks to Breaking Bad and now Better Call Saul, I'm a big fan of Bob Odenkirk and I've now come to realize a lot of the other parts he's done before those shows and how long he's worked with David Cross so the fact that they were together in the film was just a connection that I liked for that fact alone. I think this is actually one of the better roles that Streep has gotten a nomination for as well so that gives the film another point in its favor (even if she and Hanks also have a "Important Message Statement" scene at the end). In the end, it's the Yin and Yang of Spielberg. He's still one of the all-time best Directors in the business and he can craft a slick engrossing picture but he can also be a bit melodramatic and lean in to hard on a message.

Khushrenada:
6. Darkest Hour - Darkest Hour probably owes a lot to Dunkirk for helping make it really relevant this year. I suppose it could make for an interesting double feature as Dunkirk shows what life was like for the soldiers stuck on foreign soil while Darkest Hour shows the home front and what had been done to get them to the point and get them away.

(To be continued)

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