Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2015

The Contenders:

The Big Short (winner)
Brooklyn
Carol
The Martian
Room

Imagine the Bachelor Party

Film: Bride of Re-Animator
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on the new internet machine.

When someone is cast perfectly, it’s a thing of beauty. You know what I mean; you can’t think of anyone else in the role, like Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson. There are few castings more appropriate than Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West. I tend to like Jeffrey Combs in whatever he’s in, but he has never been as perfect for a role as he is for Lovecraft’s obsessive doctor who is desperate to dive deeply into the world of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. He was perfect in the role in Re-Animator, and he hasn’t lost a step for the sequel, Bride of Re-Animator.

We pick up eight months after the end of the first film. Dr. Herbert West (Combs) and his roommate/assistant/partner Dr. Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) have fled Miskatonic University for the revolutionary battlefields of Peru, where they are working as medics. Why? Because the battlefield allows them plenty of raw material for West’s experiments regarding the source of life. What we learned in the first film is that West’s glowing green reagent works…kind of. It does reanimate dead tissue, but doesn’t really reanimate it correctly. Despite the problems caused by the war, West has discovered that a local iguana might be the secret to improving his reagent. As their camp falls to the enemy, Herbert and Dan flee, returning to Miskatonic to work in the hospital and continue their work. How do they get their jobs back? Don’t worry about it.

Playing Things Straight

Film: Lake Mungo
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on the new internet machine.

The Blair Witch Project was revolutionary in the sense that it didn’t so much invent found footage as a concept, but made it mainstream. It also in a way touched on the idea of creating a documentary-style horror movie. At least that feels like a possibility, because the film is purported to be reality. Lake Mungo takes that a step further, creating an actual “documentary” about a haunting, complete with interviews and investigative journalism.

In the creation of Lake Mungo, the single-most important decision was to make this as if it were a documentary. This is a story that simply would not work presented in any other way. Shown as a documentary about the death and evident afterlife of a young girl, Lake Mungo presents a truly compelling story, one that could be taken as fact by someone not aware of its fictional nature. As a straight narrative, this would be ridiculously boring and would feel terribly unfinished.

Retcon

Film: Halloween (2019)
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on basement television.

Traditionally, horror movie sequels aren’t very good. Oh, sure, there are plenty of exceptions, but in general, because the monster/killer/creature tends to end the movie dead, destroyed, or otherwise neutralized, a lot of heavy lifting needs to be done to even get a sequel started. So how do you deal with a series of films that’s been around for 40 years and had a full reboot? Well, you could what was done with Halloween from 2018. This plays itself as a direct sequel of John Carpenter’s original film. It ignores all of the other sequels and the reboot. It pays homage to the original while being very much its own film.

The Halloween franchise is one that moves in a lot of directions. For instance, one way to follow the series is to go Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween IV, Halloween V, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Another path through is Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween H20, Halloween: Resurrection. This version is a direct sequel to Carpenter’s original, and has two additional sequels planned, a sort of trilogy after the original, if you will. But, significantly, this is not a reboot or a reimagining. It simply ignores every other Halloween franchise movie except for the original.

Kaboom

Film: Bombshell
Format: DVD from NetFlix on basement television.

Be warned: because of the nature of this movie, this review is going to be substantially more political than is typical for me. There’s no way to discuss this without dropping into politics. I’m watching Bombshell because Charlize Theron was nominated for Best Actress and for no other reason. I don’t typically delete comments, but I will; this is a movie blog and not a political one, and I’m not going to accept comments that aren’t at the level of respectful discourse and disagreement that I have attempted to cultivate here for the last 10+ years.

Who was Bombshell made for? I genuinely don’t know who the target audience was for this movie. Like most movies based on real events, there’s some truth here, but also a great deal of fiction. In the case of Bombshell, a movie about the sexual harassment problem at FOX News, part of that fiction is one of the characters experiencing the sexual harassment. But more than that, I don’t know who this movie was supposed to attract. The #MeToo movement, those most likely to rail against the practices depicted here, are simultaneously the least likely to have any sympathy for former or current FOX hosts. The political right, evidenced by their continued support of Trump despite more than two dozen credible sexual harassment accusations brought against him, won’t care.

8 1/2 Part Two

Film: Pain and Glory (Dolor y Gloria)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on basement television.

There are times when I feel like I have about a dozen different ways to start one of these reviews but don’t know what to say beyond that. When talking about Pain and Glory (or Dolor y Gloria, if you prefer), do I start with the fact that Almodovar was always seemed like the male director most attuned to women is doing a film about a man? Do I bring up the librarian I used to work with who loved Almodovar enough that she called him “My Pedro”? Do I talk about the fact that I will happily watch anything with Penelope Cruz in it?

The place to really start with Pain and Glory is to say that it feels in a sense like Almodovar is doing a riff on 8 ½. While I assume that not everything here is autobiographical, the man we will be spending all of our time with, Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas), is a gay film director. How much of Mallo’s other afflictions and problems are shared by Almodovar, I have no idea. He might well have a series of chronic pains and health problems. He might find himself unable to think of a new subject for a film (although the existence of this film belies that problem). I am relatively confident in suggesting that he doesn’t spend a great deal of his time smoking heroin.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2003

The Contenders:

Naomi Watts: 21 Grams
Samantha Morton: In America
Charlize Theron: Monster (winner)
Diane Keaton: Something’s Gotta Give
Keisha Castle-Hughes: Whale Rider