The Oscar nominations were revealed this past week which means the year in film is winding down. 2016 may have ended almost a month ago but because of the way Hollywood structures their movie releases its not until a ‘Best Picture’ winner is crowned in late February/early March (this year it’s February 26th) that the movie industry puts a bow on the year’s slate. With a lot of the best releases stacked at the end of the calendar they usually spread into the early months of the next year for moviegoers to see them in theaters. Almost nothing of note gets released in January or February (although ‘Split’ and ‘Get Out’ are getting some good buzz) so it gives us a chance to catch up on what the Academy has deemed the year’s best. Over the next four weeks I’m going to give my thoughts on the nine Best Picture nominees and end this series with my predictions for who will win and who should win each category. Without further ado lets get started, in alphabetical order.

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arrival

Arrival

Denis Villeneuve’s follow up to 2015’s ‘Sicario’ is his first major science fiction film (his excellent 2013 indie film ‘Enemy’ had some sci-fi elements) and it seems to have propelled him into A list status as far as directors go. His next film is the long awaited sequel to the cult classic ‘Blade Runner’. But before we see how he handles that sci-fi franchise we got to see him tell the story of 12 alien spaceships that land seemingly randomly across Earth. The film follows Amy Adams as Louise Banks who is a linguistics professor that gets recruited to try and help the US military communicate with the alien species. Once there she meets scientist Ian Donnelly and Colonel Weber, played by Jeremy Renner and Forest Whittaker respectively. Together they try to figure out what the alien’s are doing on Earth and if they pose a threat to humanity. Since there are spaceships over many different countries, predictably each country has different ideas on how to handle the situation.

The movie is great. Don’t expect a fast paced, action heavy science fiction movie. This is an intelligent, thoughtful, realistic as possible look at how something like this might go down. There are some great ideas involving language, time, and other things I won’t go into due to spoilers. On a technical level the film is brilliant. It looks great, sounds great, has great performances across the board. I could see it not being for everyone but if a methodical detail oriented sci-fi movie piques your interest then you can’t go wrong here. Its not really a contender to win Best Picture but the fact that it was nominated for eight awards is pretty good. It may come away with a minor award or two by the end of the night. And Amy Adams was snubbed out of a Best Actress nomination although it was a strong field this year.

My Ranking: 3rd out of the nine

fences

Fences

Denzel Washington has directed a couple other movies before this but ‘Antwone Fisher’ and ‘The Great Debaters’ weren’t exactly Oscar bait. But the fact that his third directorial outing is an adaptation of the highly acclaimed August Wilson stage play that he and co-star Viola Davis starred in themselves on Broadway was a can’t miss film for the Academy. Denzel stars as Troy Maxson, a sanitation worker in 1950’s Pittsburgh, as he tries to raise his family while dealing with the missed opportunities in his own life. Davis plays his wife who has to juggle making her borderline alcoholic husband happy and taking care of their son who has aspirations of being a professional athlete. Since Troy once had those same aspirations and it didn’t work out he wants to prevent his son from going down the same road. Thats not the only struggle the family goes through but it was the most interesting to me.

The film has no real chance at winning Best Picture but that doesn’t mean it has no merit being here. The performances are incredible to go along with the script that has clearly been lived through many times by these and other actors. Denzel Washington doesn’t play the charismatic likable guy that you’re used to. Hes a certain kind of monster at times but manages to use his charisma in a way that never lets you completely turn on the character. Viola Davis is a slam dunk to win Best Supporting Actress and for good reason. She won the Tony award for the same role and clearly nothing was lost in translation with the adaptation to the big screen. Stephen Henderson is great as Troy’s best friend while Jovan Adepo and Russell Hornsby are similarly very good as his sons. ‘Fences’ isn’t a great movie but it is definitely worth seeing if not for the performances alone.

My Ranking: 6th out of the nine

hacksaw ridge

Hacksaw Ridge

After years in Hollywood purgatory following the racist, anti-Semitic, and crude audio tapes that were released in 2010 it looks like 2016 (how ironic) is the year that Mel Gibson is being forgiven with Best Picture and Best Director nominations at this year’s Oscars. Unfortunately I wish the movie deserved the recognition its getting. The story of Desmond Doss, a WWII pacifist medic who refuses to kill enemy soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa, is one that seems like its perfect for a movie treatment. He becomes the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot, choosing to rescue and treat his fellow soldiers despite being treated poorly for his views. I can see why people could come away from the movie on a high. The war scenes that take up most of the second half of the movie are very effectively done. The action is not the problem here. The violence is brutal (if not a little over the top) and you can almost feel the anxiety of being put in that situation. And it ended on a good note.

But the problem is Gibson didn’t put the care that he did into the war scenes into the first half of the movie. It feels like something out of a Lifetime or Hallmark channel made for TV movie its so cheesy. The content on display might’ve worked much better under the hands of a different director but I was unable to get invested in these characters so that by the time the action started I didn’t really care what happened to them other than on a superficial level. The family stuff early on felt rushed as did the love interest. There is a plotline involving Doss’ father and his past experiences with war that felt like it could’ve been explored more or at least better. ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ is not a terrible movie thanks to its second half and its probably worth seeing if you have any interest in war movies but I just don’t understand how or why this film got six nominations including Andrew Garfield for Best Actor. He was much better in ‘Silence’ which only came away with one nomination.

My Ranking: 9th out of the nine

Bob Phelan
Bob Phelan

BSL Analyst

Bob is a co-host of ‘On the Verge’ an Orioles podcast focused on the O’s farm system here on BSL. He used to run the baseball blog ‘The Oriole Report’ before transitioning to podcasting about movies, TV, Video Games, and MMA. ‘The Redbox Report’ movie podcast was started in 2013 followed by ‘The Redbelt Report’ MMA podcast in 2016. Bob has also written for Konsume.com and BaltimoreSportsReport.com and delivers mail for a living in Baltimore County. Follow him on Twitter @TheOrioleReport.

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