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Loading ...Film Preview: Booksmart (2019)
Page Revisions:
(March 24, 2019) Original
Release Date:
May 24, 2019
Synopsis:
From IMDb: “2 academic superstars and best friends who, on the eve of their high school graduation, realize they should have worked less and played more. Determined not to fall short of their peers, the girls try to cram 4 years of fun into 1 night.”
Poster Rating: D+
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Review: An unexciting, dull poster that features our main actors, but doesn’t say a lot about the film itself.
Trailer Rating: B+
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Review: A frequently humorous trailer that suggests a movie about teen good girls gone bad with a whip smart sense of humor.
Oscar Prospects:
It could be a longshot contender for Best Original Screenplay, but I doubt its otherwise an Oscar contender.
Trailer #1
Film Preview: Yesterday (2019)
Page Revisions:
(March 24, 2019) Original
Release Date:
June 28, 2019
Synopsis:
From IMDb: “A struggling musician realizes he’s the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles.”
Poster Rating: C+ / C
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Review: (#1) Hearkening back to the famous photo of the Beatles walking across the street, the homage ends there as the star isn’t barefoot and the composition simply doesn’t work. Toss in the ugly title design and black lettering and you have a modest misfire. (#2) This psychedelic design just sits there without being appealing or interesting.
Trailer Rating: A-
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Review: Bolstered by Beatles originals, this compelling romantic comedy looks to play into the strengths of the material with a fascinating and rich musical originality.
Oscar Prospects:
While Danny Boyle has only had one major Oscar contender, it was a Best Picture winner along with several other trophies, one of the few to win a boatload of trophies at the Oscars in the last decade. While none of the intervening films he’s directed have done much with Oscar, this one has all the earmarks of a potential one, especially in the Original Screenplay category.
Trailer #1
Oscar Preview: Weekend of Mar. 22-24, 2019
We had one film release this past weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.
Us
A scant two years ago, Jordan Peele entered the Oscar lexicon with his instant horror classic Get Out. He sticks to the horror genre with his second feature as a director, Us.
Starring Lupita Nyong’o, the film follows a family who are beset by a group of dopplegangers and must fight for their lives to survive. Little is known about the plot, but the critics are over the moon about it and it just had one of the biggest debuts of the year and one of horror’s all-time best openings. While the film’s 94% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes is slightly below Get Out‘s 98% (at MetaCritic, it’s a similar drop from 84 for Get Out to 81 for Us), the new numbers are outstanding.
The big question is now whether Us can replicate the Oscar success of Get Out. Get Out managed only four nominations in 2017, but they included all top categories: Best Picture, Directing, Actor (Daniel Kaluuya), and Original Screenplay taking the Oscar for the latter. If the film can hold on until the end of the year, it could follow a similar push towards Oscar recognition.
Horror has seldom been recognized by the Academy, so getting nominations two films in a row will be a stellar achievement, but an incredibly difficult one. Some have compared Peele to Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock was a regular Oscar nominee, but never took home a prize. Peele, on the other hand, already has an Oscar for his screenplay and, unlike Hitchcock, writes his own films, which could give him an upper hand in future runs at the Oscars. Then again, now that he’s been honored, the Academy may think it’s enough and ignore him from here on out. How the critics respond to the film at the end of the year might tell us how Oscar will react.
Review: The 2018 Oscar-Nominated Shorts (2019)
The 2018 Oscar-Nominated Shorts
Rating
See Below
Director
David Fine, Alison Snowden (Animal Behavior); Domee Shi (Bao); Louise Bagnall (Late Afternoon); Andrew Chesworth, Bobby Pontillas (One Small Step); Trevor Jimenez (Weekends); Vincent Lambe (Detainment); Jeremy Comte (Fauve); Marianne Farley (Marguerite); Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Mother); Guy Nattiv (Skin)
Screenplay
Alison Snowden, David Fine (Animal Behavior); Domee Shi (Bao); Louise Bagnall (Late Afternoon); Andrew Chesworth, Bobby Pontillas, Shaofu Zhang (One Small Step); Trevor Jimenez (Weekends); Vincent Lambe (Detainment); Jeremy Comte (Fauve); Marianne Farley (Marguerite); Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Mother); Sharon Maymon, Guy Nattiv (Skin)
Length
14 min. (Animal Behavior); 8 min (Bao); 10 min. (Late Afternoon); 8 min. (One Small Step); 16 min. (Weekends); 30 min. (Detainment); 17 min. (Fauve); 19 min. (Marguerite); 19 min. (Mother); 20 min. (Skin)
Starring
Ryan Beil, Taz Van Rassel, Leah Juel, Andrea Libman, Toby Berner, James Kirk, Alison Snowden (Animal Behavior); Louise Bagnall, Fionnula Flanagan, Aislin Konings Ferrari, Michael McGrath, Niamh Moyles, Caoimhe Ni Bhradaigh, Lucy O’COnnell (Late Afternoon); Ely Solan, Leon Hughes, Will O’Connell, David Ryan, Tara Breathnach, Morgan C. Jones, Brian Fortune, Kathy Monahan, Killian Sheridan, Martin Phillips, Caleb Mason, Barbara Adair, Julie Lockey, Helen Roche, Tom Pigot (Detainment); Felix Grenier, Alexandre Perreault, Louise Bombardier (Fauve); Beatrice Picard, Sandrine Bisson (Marguerite); Marta Nieto, Blanca Apilanez, Alvaro Balas, Miriam Correa (Mother); JOhnse Allende Jr., Zeus Campbell, Lonnie Chavis, Jared Day, Sam Dillon, Shelley Francisco, Maliq Johnson, Ronnie Tyrone Lee, Danielle Macdonald, David Maloney, Jahdai Pickett, Katie Ryan, Jackson Robert Scott, Ashley Thomas, Jonathan Tucker (Skin)
MPAA Rating
N/A
Original Preview
None.
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This Day in Oscar History: March 25 (2019)
Poll: What Are You Most Anticipating? (Apr. 2019, Limited)
Weekend Preview: Mar. 29-31, 2019
Below are two previews for films opening next weekend.
Dumbo (Wide)
The Beach Bum (Limited)
This Day in Oscar History: March 24 (2019)
Film Preview: A Dark Place (2019)
Page Revisions:
(March 17, 2019) Original
Release Date:
April 12, 2019
Synopsis:
From IMDb: “When a young boy goes missing in a sleepy backwoods town, a local sanitation truck driver, Donald, plays detective, embarking on a precarious and obsessive investigation.”
Poster Rating: –
Review: There was no poster immediately available for my review. Should one become available in the future, this section will be updated.
Trailer Rating: C
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Review: I don’t generally approve of using mental disabilities as a jumping-off point for a narrative and even if there were elements of this trailer that look interesting, there are few, it does not feel appropriate.
Oscar Prospects:
None.
Trailer #1
Film Preview: Mission of Honor (2019)
Page Revisions:
(March 17, 2019) Original
Release Date:
March 15, 2019
Synopsis:
From IMDb: “The exploits of 303 Squadron RAF during the Battle of Britain. The squadron consisted of Polish pilots, many of whom were veterans of the air battles involved in Germany’s invasion of Poland.”
Poster Rating: –
Review: There was no poster immediately available for my review. Should one become available in the future, this section will be updated.
Trailer Rating: C+
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Review: This World War II drama looks like the kind of film that tried to find some aspect of the war that might have some excitement and hadn’t already been covered and decided to give a half-assed go of telling that story.
Oscar Prospects:
None.
Trailer #1
Film Preview: Late Night (2019)
Page Revisions:
(March 17, 2019) Original
Release Date:
June 7, 2019
Synopsis:
From IMDb: “A late-night talk show host suspects that she may soon be losing her long-running show.”
Poster Rating: –
Review: There was no poster immediately available for my review. Should one become available in the future, this section will be updated.
Trailer Rating: C
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Review: After hearing good word about this film from its festival run, this trailer makes the film look mediocre and only moderately funny. That said, Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson alone are reason enough to see this.
Oscar Prospects:
The film earned solid support out of its festival debut, so it could make a play at the end of the year, but the first trailer isn’t promising.
Trailer #1
This Day in Oscar History: March 23 (2019)
Film Preview: Berserk (2019)
Page Revisions:
(March 17, 2019) Original
Release Date:
April 5, 2019
Synopsis:
From IMDb: “Three characters make the realization that none of them have ever felt true-fear, so over the course of one night, they set out to trick each other into feeling it.”
Poster Rating: –
Review: There was no poster immediately available for my review. Should one become available in the future, this section will be updated.
Trailer Rating: C+
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Review: Where this bizarre trailer is going is anyone’s guess, but there are just enough interesting bits to be potentially enjoyable.
Oscar Prospects:
None.
Trailer #1
Film Preview: The Public (2019)
Page Revisions:
(March 17, 2019) Original
Release Date:
April 5, 2019
Synopsis:
From IMDb: “In “the public” an unusually bitter Arctic blast has made its way to downtown Cincinnati and the front doors of the public library where the action of the film takes place. The story revolves around the library patrons, many of whom are homeless, mentally ill and marginalized, as well as an exhausted and overwhelmed staff of librarians who often build emotional connections and a sense of obligation to care for those regular patrons. At odds with library officials over how to handle the extreme weather event, the Patrons turn the building into a homeless shelter for the night by staging an “Occupy” sit in. What begins as an act of civil disobedience becomes a stand off with police and a rush-to-judgment media constantly speculating about what’s really happening. This David versus Goliath story tackles some of our nation’s most challenging issues, homelessness and mental illness and sets the drama inside one of the last bastions of democracy-in-action: your public library.”
Poster Rating: C+
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Review: There’s only so much you can do with a public library reference in a poster design. At least that’s what this lackluster design would suggest. Staid character insets and a loose visual connection to the locale of the film.
Trailer Rating: C+
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Review: While one should never make the case that highlighting poverty and homelessness is a waste of time, this trailer doesn’t do a very good job making us care about the situation enough to watch this film.
Oscar Prospects:
None.