Quick Hit: Predictable, but maintains a steady level of suspense anyways through Lively’s performance.

Blake Lively hasn’t seemed to be in that many things lately. I pulled up her IMDB just to check, and indeed, I was correct. After Gossip Girl ended, she took a bit of a hiatus until 2015’s Age of Adaline. Turns out, she had a kid with Ryan Reynolds. I found this out from my wife – otherwise I would have had no idea as to her whereabouts.

Speaking of Reynolds, before I begin my full review about The Shallows, I just wanted to say that this movie has something in common with one of Reynolds’ movies. You may remember the campaign for it – it was essentially just a clip from the film. It was the one where he was buried in the coffin for the running time of the movie (and surprise, the movie was called Buried). The similarities are pretty obvious, as both Reynolds and Lively spend their movies pretty much alone. The camera is allowed to focus on them, and both movies sink and swim (haha, swimming pun) based on the performance of their actors.

Anyways.
So the Shallows came out in 2016. It’s not a great film by any means. It follows a pretty predictable path – girl runs away because sad things, girl tries to connect with someone dead, girl almost gets eaten by a shark… ya know. The usual. I’ve given most of the plot away in that sentence, but that’s ok, because the movie isn’t really about the plot. (The movie is essentially just a shark trying to eat people). The movie is about two things (ok, maybe three) –

1. Lively showing off the fact that she is no longer pregnant by spending the movie in a wet suit.

1. Lively showing off the fact that she can indeed act at times outside the overly dramatic role of Serena van der Woodsen.

1. Big, freaking shark effects that are supposed to be scary.

The movie accomplishes at least two of those goals (Can you guess which ones Good and Faithful Reader?). Lively is indeed not pregnant, and she does a fairly competent job as the lead in this – her name isn’t even important. I really liked the fact that they made her an actual person. She has a job, and she uses the skills she has as a medical professional throughout the movie. It’s nice to see a pretty women not just be a complete dummy in a film. Lively sells this too. One of the best scenes in the movie is when she is fixing her own wound, but talking to herself as if she is a patient.

The worst part of the movie is two-fold. First, why would anyone swim towards a dead whale? I know that I watch way too many animal documentaries, but surely a seasoned surfer would know that sharks tend to gorge themselves on this type of thing. Second, I didn’t like the fact that the shark had been caught before. Why is it necessary to include this detail? Are we trying to humanize the shark, make it seem as if he is seeking revenge for this injustice? It’s a FISH!! Jaws did this, but did it much better. So unless we are talking about the overly intelligent sharks from Deep Blue Sea, this is unnecessary. And way overly CGI’d.

Can you do better? Of course you can. But can you do worse? Duh. The sheer amount of shark movies that are out there proves this. Watch this for Lively’s performance, in order to get a new appreciation of her skills at times.

For more on this, check out IMDB.

Quick Hit: Yikes.

Wow folks. I mean… wow. I stated last Friday that I was going to do a brief recap. I can’t believe the things I saw last night. Just to get some stuff out there first – I think it’s great there’s a show that celebrates the films of the year. Is the system perfect? No. Obviously film is an entirely subjective medium, and often times studios with more money and prestige may win awards over those that may be more deserving. There’s also the issue of rules (or lack there of) and understanding of the Academy’s process when it comes to issuing winners – you don’t have to have the most first place votes.

That being said, this set of awards will go down in history for a lot of reasons (most of which everyone has already read and obsessed over a bit – and of course I will too). Let’s go over some of them, shall we?

Best Supporting Actor Nominations:
Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals)
Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) - Winner
Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)
Dev Patel (Lion)
Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea)

David’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Dev Patel, Dev Patel
Shannon’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Dev Patel, Lucas Hedges

Well, we were both wrong here. I really thought the winner would be Patel due to his screen time – he really should have been in the Best Lead in my opinion. But I can’t deny Mahershala was fantastic in his performance of Juan, and I’m all for the inclusion aspect of it – Mr. Ali becomes the first Moslem to win an Academy Award.

Best Costume Design
Allied
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Winner
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jackie
La La Land

No surprise to see that most of these nominations are period pieces. Fantastic Beasts wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, and I probably would have given the award to Jackie, but hey, I don’t mind Fantastic Beasts getting a little attention.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
A Man called Ove
Suicide Squad – Winner
Star Trek Beyond

I can’t really say much more than this terrific article by ScreenRant. It shows that despite the popular belief, Suicide Squad is more than deserving of this award.

Best Documentary Feature
Fire at Sea
I Am Not Your Negro
Life, Animated
O.J.: Made in America - Winner
13th

Cool. I like Documentaries, but haven’t watched a single one of these. Kudos to the makers.

Sound Editing
Arrival - Winner
Deepwater Horizon
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Sully

For those that don’t understand the difference between the sound categories – Sound Editing is essentially making the sounds, whereas sound mixing is taking all the sounds and putting them together so that it’s not an obnoxious menagerie of sound. Arrival had a great sound set coming from the Hepapods, so I’m not surprised here.

Sound Mixing
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge - Winner
La La Land
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

All the sounds of the fighting were really impressive, and it’s easy to see why Hacksaw took this. Good job internet on exploding at a man on Gibson’s team winning.

Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, Fences - Winner
Naomie Harris, Moonlight 
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

David’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Viola Davis, Viola Davis
Shannon’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Viola Davis, Viola Davis

Can I say Duh here? Was there any doubt about this one? It wouldn’t surprise me if this came out as close to unanimous as possible. Well-deserving and well snotted.

Best Foreign Language Film
Land of Mine
A Man Called Ove
The Salesman - Winner
Tanna
Toni Erdmann

Seems a shame that the man who made this film was essentially banned from the country. Good to see him handle it with grace though. The movie looked interesting from what I saw in the previews I saw for it (almost everything I saw at Plaza Frontenac had a preview for it), so I’m going to assume it is deserving.

Best Animated Short
Blind Vaysha
Borrowed Time
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Pearl
Piper – Winner

Another win here for Pixar! Surprise! – Said no one ever.

Best Animated Feature
Kubo and the Two Strings 
Moana 
My Life as a Zucchini 
The Red Turtle 
Zootopia – Winner

Probably should have been Kubo here, but movies that are a bit out there in animation styles rarely win here.

Production Design
Arrival 
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 
Hail, Caesar! 
La La Land  - Winner
Passengers

At this point, there was an audible relaxation in the room after La La Land won its first award. That’s because after being nominated for so many, it wasn’t winning. This started off a good night for the film (not great though).

Best Visual Effects
Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
The Jungle Book - Winner
Kubo and the Two Strings
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Personally, I thought the effects for Dr. Strange were more impressive, but I can’t deny that the technology done with the CGI made The Jungle Book that much more exciting. This was Disney’s category to lose apparently.

Film Editing
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge - Winner
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Moonlight

So... people freaked out when Hacksaw won this because most often this film also corresponds with Best Picture. That's cool though. I get it - the editing in this film was terrific. It's hard to switch camera shots quickly in a battle scene, and Hacksaw handled it swimmingly.

Live Action Short
Ennemis Intérieurs
La Femme et le TGV
Silent Nights
Sing - Winner
Timecode

Hurray for Kids!

Cinematography
Arrival
La La Land - Winner
Lion
Moonlight
Silence

Here La La Land starts to pick up some speed, with another deserving win.

Best Original Score
Jackie
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Passengers

Any other year, Jackie takes this home. But the fact that La La Land is a musical means the score is a little important to its success, so it won. I’m not mad either way.

Best Original Song
"Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" from La La Land
Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
"Can’t Stop The Feeling" from Trolls
Music and Lyric by Justin Timberlake, Max Martin and Karl Johan Schuster
"City Of Stars" from La La Land - Winner
Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
"The Empty Chair" from Jim: The James Foley Story
Music and Lyric by J. Ralph and Sting
"How Far I’ll Go" from Moana
Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda

I’m sure a few people probably thought about changing their vote after hearing the performance from Moana herself, but “City of Stars” is a very deserving winner. It’s a perfect song that encompasses all moods.

Best Original Screenplay
Hell or High Water
La La Land
The Lobster
Manchester by the Sea - Winner
20th Century Women

This one surprised me. I really thought La La Land would have this one in the bag, due to the original nature of its story. But, it’s not upsetting that MBTS won. It’s an extremely powerful film.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Arrival
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
Moonlight – Winner

No surprise here. Only other winner would have been Fences posthumously to Mr. Wilson.

Best Director
Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge)
Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)
Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)
Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)
Damien Chazelle (La La Land) -Winner

David’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Denis Villeneuve, Damien Chazelle
Shannon’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Denis Villenueuve, Kenneth Lonergan

Not really surprising to me. I thought that overall if La La won Best Director, it’d probably take Best Picture as well, despite the fact that recent Academy trend is splitting those two awards.

Best Actor
Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)
Ryan Gosling (La La Land)
Denzel Washington (Fences)
Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) - Winner
Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)

David’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Casey Affleck, Denzel Washington
Shannon’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Andrew Garfield, Denzel Washington

I’ve never seen someone look as disinterested in the Awards as did Mr. Washington last night. Anyone else get that? Anyways, Casey Affleck’s dead-eyed emotional performance was terrifically deserving.

Best Actress
Emma Stone (La La Land) - Winner
Isabelle Huppert (Elle)
Ruth Negga (Loving)
Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)
Natalie Portman (Jackie)

David’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Natalie Portman, Emma Stone
Shannon’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Natalie Portman, Natalie Portman

The momentum kept up despite the fact that Portman put on a strong showing. Congrats to a terrific actress here.

Best Picture
La La Land
Arrival
Lion
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
Moonlight
Hacksaw Ridge
Manchester by the Sea
Fences

David’s Choice and Academy Prediction – La La Land, La La Land
Shannon’s Choice and Academy Prediction – Lion, La La Land

And here, my friends, is where the show went off the rails. I guess Warren Beatty ended up with Emma Stone’s envelope for best actress, and Faye Dunaway announced the wrong name. Which meant La La Land’s producers were halfway through their acceptance speeches before Moonlight was announced the winner. Yikes. I would hate to work for that company now. Here’s an article that explains what all went wrong.
 
That’s all folks. I’ll be thinking about this til next year. Enjoy all the movies we post until then!
Signed, David of DFP.
 

This critical darling has been on my radar since I started hearing about how good it was when it was on the festival circuit. The thing was I deliberately excluded myself from knowing anything about it – all the way up to the point I actually watched the movie (quite an achievement these days). So when the opening shot of the camera sliding around the car to the drug dealing corner occurred, I thought I would be in for a pretty standard film about the drug scene in Miami.

Man was I WRONG (and I really don’t like to be).

Moonlight follows Chiron from a young boy of 10 to a 30 something male. It’s not quite as effective as say, Boyhood, because the actors are different (but who can really hold up to Boyhood when it comes to having the same actors over 19 years???), but it’s remarkably effective in the way it makes you feel. You trace Chiron throughout the movie as a young boy living in neighborhood where he is bullied and hiding in crack holes just to get away. There he is befriended by a young man who is the lead drug dealer in the area, Juan.

Overall, Moonlight’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. The time gaps, which allow us to better track Chiron overtime as he grows into a man who is still hiding himself inside, are a massive disservice to other characters in the film. Most, outside of Kevin, are thrown aside with only minimal contact. That’s unfortunate because at times you can see their story on the fringes, and it makes you want to get back to it. That’s because Chiron, as good as the story is, is tough to stay with consistently due to his habit of falling into silence when the conversation gets tough.

Overall, I think Moonlight is a great film for a lot of reasons, but it could have been even better. Nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor, Moonlight does a lot right and I recommend it overall.

For more on this film, check out IMDB.