Every year I do my best to watch every movie in the list nominated and create my own top 10 of who’s going to win. I fell in love with two movies this year. One was Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” and the second was “Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri”.
I was pretty off last year but I hope I’ll do better this one around!
Nearly finished my 2017 Oscar List. How far have you guys come?
#1 The Shape of Water
Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece got me shivering even thinking about it. The story is amazing – an inter-species romance against all odds, filled with music, sign-language and a lot of water. It teaches a very important lesson about the marginalised, the forgotten and the overlooked. And it’s a story about acceptance, tolerance and love. Artfully crafted around one colour: Teal.
And that poem at the end got me teared up..
Unable to perceive the shape of You,
I find You all around me.
Your presence fills my eyes with Your love,
It humbles my heart,
For You are everywhere.
Del Toro said he read it years ago in a book of Islamic poetry. Not sure to whom it belongs..
#2 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Freaking hell, this movie was awesome! I hope she wins best actress and the screenplay was pretty hot too!
This is the story of a woman who tries to get the police to move a year after no-one has been arrested for the rape and murder of her daughter. It’s funny and guess what – it’s got Peter Dinklage in it. One moment you are laughing your butt off from the hilarious dialogue then you feel like someone just punched you in the gut. With every victory you think this story brings you feel like it was taken away from because of the world’s unfairness and injustice.
#3 Star Wars: The Last Jedi
YEAAAH! Star Wars! I am one of the few people in my workplace who still defends the new movie as being absolutely stunning, original, away from the norm, a great epic saga in space with a range of diverse actors who can show off their skill. I don’t like haters and there are so many types of haters for this little movie! Non-Star Wars fans hated it because it wasn’t what they expected, Star Wars fans hated it because it wasn’t like the others in the past. I just look at it from an entertainment perspective and I shout! hell yeah! Give me the porgs! (PS: did you know they created the little Porg creatures because the island where they filmed on had loads of indigenous Puffins which they could not relocate and had to be CGI-ed over.)
#4 Get Out
This was unexpectedly a very, very good movie. Saw it this summer and I couldn’t get it out of my head. It’s got racism (hidden and on display), a human auction, a girlfriend who is cat fishing for black guys to bring home and perform brain surgery on. It’s got tons of underlying messages – like the void where the guy gets thrown into when the mother puts him under hypnosis which signifies the void where the racial issues get handled in – the fact that the parents remained as “the help” in the new bodies they received. Their weird obsession with hair and caps which is only there to hide the fact that they have a scar around their scalp! And the way this weirdo chick was so racist she wouldn’t even mix her coloured cheerios with her white milk.
I hope they win big this year.
#5 Molly’s Game
Hell yeah! A girl that can do stuff! “I, Tonya” has Margot Robbie as a professional ice-skater, “Molly’s game” has Jessica Chastain as a professional dealer / underground casino owner. I loved this movie. A powerful woman who can achieve what she decides on, from a power-house family, based on a true story. I would say it’s definitely worth an Oscar – if not for the performance of the two lead roles, then for the amazing script adaptation.
#6 Blade Runner 2049
Hated the original, loved the new one for two reasons: the photography which is freaking epic and the technology used which rivals the one displayed in Ghost in the Shell. Besides that, the movie is pretty boring and I know there are loads of fans and it’s been pretty talked about but in my humble opinion, advertising Harrison Ford just to have him show up in the later part of the movie was just a ploy to get people in the cinema. The “Am I Human?” drama unfolding has been done before in the before-mentioned “Ghost in the Shell”, “I am Robot”, “Her” and “Transcendence” to name a few… so nothing new on that front. What I did like in this movie (besides the scenery and the neon shots), was that dream machine that girl used to implant memories into the cyborgs.
Memory orb – memory maker machine (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nXW6O)
#7 The Greatest Showman
This movie was visually astounding – so much colour, so many characters, such well-rehearsed dance routines! Unfortunately this movie did not do it for me as it was too much Hugh Jackman. I loved him in Logan, in here he just seems to try to hard – to sing, to dance, to shine as the centrepiece. The story itself starts promising, an opening of a place where people who do not fit in can be themselves. You have social prejudice, you have requests to be accepted, you have a inter-class love romance between “the help” and the “heir” which to me seemed forced. And the drama that comes when in search for fame and fortune, Hugh Jackman’s character leaves his family behind and all the people that relied on him to pursue a woman and a dream, ending up in tatters. I hated that part.
#8 Darkest Hour
I know Gary Oldman wanted an Oscar so he did what he had to do: put on some kilos for an amazing physical transformation, smoke enough cigars to give him nicotine poison and star in a World War drama related to Dunkirk (which I absolutely loved by the way!). It was boring as hell and I can see why Churchill wasn’t re-elected after being dismissed from the Government. Go watch Dunkirk, it’s better. Or Their Finest (2016)(which is a British drama/comedy about a young girl who is trying to write a screenplay for a heroic movie to show during the war and ends up interviewing people who helped in the Dunkirk small ships rescue).
“Wonder” was a “safe” Oscar movie. Everything can be solved with a hug and there are no real huge anxieties that plague a normal kid – just the ones that a hug can fix. It was too much of a melodrama for me and talking from experience of someone who’s experienced bullying – this is overly dramatising it. I know this movie wants to be motivational and wants to spread the message about being yourself and respecting others. Bullying is much worse in real life and just a stray personality from the norm can feel it, let alone someone who looks like the poor kid in the movie.
#10 Coco
BLESSED? – Aspiring musician Miguel learns from the head clerk in the Department of Family Reunions in the Land of the Dead that he’ll need a blessing from a family member to return to the Land of the Living. But Miguel’s great-great-grandmother Mamá Imelda’s blessing comes with an unfortunate condition. Featuring Anthony Gonzalez as the voice of Miguel, Gabriel Iglesias as the voice of the clerk and Alanna Ubach as the voice of Mamá Imelda, Disney•Pixar’s “Coco” opens in U.S. theaters on Nov. 22, 2017. ©2017 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.
This movie will probably win animation movie of the year even though it’s a blatant rip-off of “The book of life” which was released a year prior. Couldn’t watch it without noticing all the stuff they’ve stolen. If you are looking for a good laugh and a pretty decent animated movie, go watch “Ferdinand”
#11 The Post
Great movie again but I wouldn’t put it in my top 10. It’s too much like the Boston Globe revealing the paedophiles in the catholic church last year to make it worthwhile. The subject is good though – freedom of press and how far a gag order can go.
Which ones were your favourites? Who do you think will win best picture?
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