The Oscar Project
We are about three months away from the announcement of official nominations for the 91st Academy Awards and four months from the award ceremony in February, but last week, the Academy announced the list of films that have been submitted for consideration in the Best Animated Feature category. The good news is that many of these films are already available on DVD, Blu Ray and digital streaming services with several more scheduled to be released in the near future. You can see the full list below and look for a few of these films still to hit theaters in the coming weeks. Also check out the Academy's official announcement on their website.
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1. Blade Runner 2049 I waited quite some time to finally see this film, much longer than I originally wanted to since I love the original Blade Runner by Ridley Scott. I was not disappointed by this sequel and can fully understand why it won the award for Best Visual Effects. The main thing that I noticed when watching this film was that the visual effects served to drive the story forward when they were employed and at no time did I say to myself, "that effect felt out of place." Yes, there were times when the effects were obvious, but plenty of others where it was hard to determine if the effects were digital, practical, or some combination of the two. Overall, the visuals in this film are stunning and align extremely well with the visuals of the original. The use of light and shadow throughout the film lend an otherworldly feel to the future earth portrayed in the film. It also provides a sense of motion and unsteadiness, even when characters and camera are perfectly still. I rate this a strong 9+/10 for the film as a whole and agree with the Academy in selecting this for Best Visual Effects of 2017. I don't normally post information about films on a standalone basis here, but I felt this one deserved a special quick post. You know Peter Jackson from his work on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films as well as his version of King King from 2005. Through the process of making those films, especially the Lord of the Rings trilogy, a number of new technologies were born or vastly improved. From the motion capture used to bring Andy Serkis's Smeagol/Gollum character to life to the battlefield scenes with thousands of individual computer animated characters each fighting their own battle, Jackson and his team not only told their version of a classic story, but in doing so pushed the boundaries of the medium of film at the time. After doing my list of movies based on books the other day, I realized I left out a potential category of films that might need some research prior to viewing, remakes and sequels. Just like wanting to read the book before seeing the movie, I usually like to see the original version of a film if there is a remake or the first in a series if there are sequels. So today I am posting a list of upcoming films for the winter of 2019 that fall into one of the following categories:
I have included trailers for those films that have trailers as of this writing. Please let me know if I missed any that you know of!
Just a few weeks before the actual holiday, the long awaited sequel arrives in theaters this weekend with Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role in the original Halloween film from 1978.
And if slasher films aren't your style, I highly recommend checking out The Hate U Give which expands to a wide release this weekend. It is sure to get buzz throughout award season due to the present nature of the subject matter.
1. Coco After watching all five films, there is no question in my mind that Coco deserved the win. Watching it for the first time, I was truly invested in the story in a way I wasn't for any of the other films. The visuals are absolutely stunning and they contribute to the telling of the story in a way that I didn't see in any of the other films. It would seem that Pixar continues to have a stranglehold on this category and for good reason, they may fantastic animated films. I'm already looking at next year's crop of animated films and am certain Pixar will be nominated yet again in this category. Read my analysis of Coco.
This weekend we see the arrival of one of the bigger movies in terms of Oscar buzz this season. First Man blasts into theaters, chronicling the life of the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong.
As you'll see by my description below, I am extremely excited to see this film. It is likely the highlight of the weekend, and will be sure to garner at least a few nominations come Oscar time next year. With about three and a half months remaining until the announcements of the Oscar Nominees for this year, the Academy last week released the list of 87 films that have been submitted for consideration in the Best Foreign Language Film category. You can view their full article but I have included the list below as well with links to as many trailers I could find available online at this time. If you find any I missed, please let me know and I will add them to the post. Additionally, a few of the selections have already been previewed on this site. In those cases, I have included a link to the original preview post where appropriate. |
AuthorI'm just a film buff who wants to watch great movies. Where else to find the best, than the list of those nominated by the Academy each year? Archives
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