Avengers Endgame

(No spoilers here.) Avengers, Assemble!

Same for you Star Wars and Game of Thrones. Avengers Endgame just set a standard for wrapping up "universe" storytelling this year. What began in 2008 with Robert Downey Jr. breathing life into Iron Man, ends in 2019 with a satisfying, three-hour opus that will have you oddly wondering how long you can wait for a bathroom break at the expense of missing any of this. 

Walking into this film, I knew there would be consequences and likely the first death of a major character or two, or three or more. Because the stakes are high, you'll likely be anxious through every word, step or action involved. I was. The film delivers on action and results, but it cleverly slows down and simplifies the story to a few key characters and some slower, emotional moments that all work. I have a decade of movie tickets invested in these characters and I'm satisfied with every nugget this film gave me and fans. Same with how each character arc concluded.

And yes, despite the grim setup that Thanos gave us in the previous film, the Marvel humor is there in full. DC was finally on to something with Shazam, but Marvel just knows how get the big laughs that are also memorable moments. Unfortunately, even the gags are spoilers, so I can't say much, except that fans will be thrilled. 

Since the original Iron Man, none of these movies have been grand films on their own — but it's a marvelous serial that just paid off with an final comic book page for the fans.

Simply put: We know there will be more subtitles in all three of these franchises, but landing a climax that ends your original (and likely best) storyline is certainly a tricky feat. They landed it. I love it 3000.

Award potential: Likely Oscar nomination for three hours of Best Special FX.

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.

Enchanted April (1992)

April may be the month of foolish jokes, taxes and spring allergies. But for me, April is the month I rewatch Enchanted April, a sleepy little film from 1992 that most people missed in the theater.

Four British women rent a chateau on a remote Italian island in this sophisticated romantic comedy from director Mike Newell (Four Weddings And A Funeral, Mona Lisa Smile). While at the Italian seaside, each character finds their own place to bloom. It’s a lushly produced film that invites viewers to soak up the same sunshine.

The cast reads like one of your favorite Brit films or plays: Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright, Jim Broadbent, Alfred Molina and Josie Watckins — and each scene could be a painting itself. I watch this breezy gem every April. Trust me; it’s charming enough for you to do the same.

In a nutshell: A charming film that serves as a substitute for taking a little mini-trip to Italy.

Award potential: It was nominated for some 1993 Golden Globe acting awards for Miranda Richardson and Joan Plowright but never hit the Academy’s radar.

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks. (Now streaming on iTunes, Amazon Prime, YouTube and other services.)

Gloria Bell

Love Is in the Air.

Writer-director Sebastián Lelio's (A Fantastic Woman) 2013 Chilean film Gloria has been remade beat by beat with American pop songs and popular American actress Julianne Moore. The new and old films are as similar as the title change.
 
Gloria Bell is a simple comedy drama about a woman's resilience, smartly set over just a few days. The Gloria character is a Californian, middle-aged divorcée cliché, but not when played by Moore. She is one of the few, restrained yet fascinating actresses who can earn your full attention even when her character is just doing laundry while singing to Paul McCartney's silly love song No More Lonely Nights.

John Turturro plays Arnold, a similar cliché who meets Gloria at a club where fiftysomethings meet and shake their groove thing to songs such as Boogie Wonderland. I enjoyed the romance, everything about Julianne Moore's character and I'd recommend it just so you can see Moore sing along to Olivia Newton John's hit A Little More Love. You might sing along as well.

In a nutshell: If you've seen the original, skip it. If not it's a March must see.

Award potential: If this were fall, we'd be talking about Moore as best actress, but it's not over the top enough to keep top of mind for 2020.

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.

The Hummingbird Project

What's the word?

Movie studios notoriously dump films not fun enough for summer and not good enough for award season in March and April, so finding a quality drama this time of year can be as difficult as say...running a completely straight, fiber-optic cable from Kansas to New Jersey, securing a millisecond Wall Street advantage over other algorithmic traders.

That's the ambitious goal of our onscreen team — and it's an ambitious concept to turn into a riveting thriller.
 
For the most part, writer-director Kim Nguyen (War Witch) succeeds. He expertly simplifies this complicated scheme enough for audiences to stay involved,understand what's at stake and sweat along with the characters in this uphill, over and under the hill, across the U.S.A. challenge.

Credit Jesse Eisenberg (in Social Network mode) and Alexander Skarsgard (acting against type) for elevating this film. The Hummingbird Project is an average thriller, but delivers the goods as a character drama. Ultimately it provides a cautionary tale about the desire to speed up life.

In a nutshell: It's worth a few milliseconds of your time.
 
Award potential: None. Salma Hayek should have a few previous awards revoked for acting as if she landed the "evil boss" role in a soap opera. 

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.

Captain Marvel

A blast in the past.

 

Confession: I never cared for the superhuman Captain Marvel comic book character. If you're my age, Captain Marvel was more commonly the name for Shazam! — and if you really knew comics there was a male Captain Marvel and a Ms. Marvel too. 

I didn't care for the trailer for this new movie either, with scenes of Brie Larson (Room) flying and shooting fire mashed up with images of her flying and shooting fire. But when Avengers: Infinity War ended on a cliffhanger with a pager message to Captain Marvel as the solitary beam of hope, suddenly everyone cared about Captain Marvel, including me.
 
Captain Marvel the character cleverly lands on earth in a '90s Blockbuster store. Captain Marvel the movie lands in a point in 21st Century history where no one watches a stand alone superhero movie, we're all watching serials. Nothing about the trailer or the comic brought me to the theater, but my investment in the Marvel Universe story line did.

As a contribution to the series, the film works well. Oscar-winner Brie Larson is a wonderful woman addition to the Marvel Universe and it's a blast to see her interact with a young Nick Fury. When you see a 1995 Samuel Jackson in a boxy car, it sparks Pulp Fiction vibes. It's all digital manipulation of course, but seamlessly done. I had a blast seeing the "world's first superhero" set the stage for everything we know about the Avengers now.
 
As a stand alone movie, there's not much that will warrant a repeat watching. Oscar nominees Annette Bening (American Beauty) and Jude Law (Cold Mountain, Grand Budapest Hotel) have thankless roles and everyone seems to think if they deliver their lines deadpan it might add more depth to the story. Ben Mendelsohn, however, finds the sweet spot of dramatic interest and humor for most of the film, until some questionable choices steer the movie to a 1990's Star Trek: Next Generation corny TV vibe. Perhaps it was appropriate for a movie set in the 1990's. 

I did enjoy the retro touch overall, including a string of girl rocker nineties music, but ultimately it's difficult to recommend this as a film that stands on its own. Who am I kidding though, you're going anyway and you'll be as happy as I was to discover the mid-credit scene that sets up the next one, Avengers: End Game. Thank you, next.

In a nutshell: A fairly entertaining distraction until the the Avengers return in seven weeks.  

Award potential: None.   

The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks for fans of the Marvel Universe serial. Not worth ten bucks on its own.

Win Your Oscars Pool - stats for every category

It's been one of the kookiest years in the Academy's history, and that's before the host-less program has even aired. How on Wakanda can one predict how their members will vote? That’s why we’re here with our stat-tastic predictions.
 
Win the Best Director category
Go with whoever won the Director’s Guild of America award. Those winners have matched 64 times in the past 71 years. And the Oscar goes to: Alfonso Cuaron for Roma.

Win the Best Cinematography category
Does The Favourite have an angle on the black and white beauty of Roma or Cold War?
When you look at the last six years, this honor has gone to the same film that won BAFTA's Best Director — every time. The British Film Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), which awarded The Favourite in most every other category, went with Roma here. Oscars will too.

Win the Best Animated Feature Film category
Nine out of thirteen PGA-winning animated films also won this Academy Award. Bad news for Incredibles 2 and Isle of Dogs. And the Oscar goes to the deserving Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse.

Win the Best Foreign Language Film category
It’s a two-horse race with Netflix’s Roma (Mexico) versus Amazon’s Cold War (Poland). Will voters reward Cold War here, assuming a Best Picture win for Roma? The safest bet is that every voter with Netflix (everyone) has at least seen Roma, the likely winner here.

Win the Best Adapted Screenplay category
The USC Scripter Awards, which has accurately predicted this category for the last seven years, awarded Leave No Trace, perhaps rewarding an overlooked gem that was snubbed in Oscars nominations? Looking for some better direction this year, the WGA award went to Can You Ever Forgive Me?, your statistical front runner and potential Oscar winner. 

I think you have to ignore the stats in categories where an unrecognized legend is in the running. Having zero competitive Oscars to Spike Lee’s name, Academy voters are sure to do the right thing here — BlacKkKlansman upsets.

Win the Best Original Screenplay category
Britian's BAFTA picked The Favourite. Of course they did. The winner in this category most closely resembles the Writers Guild of America's winner, but they honored Eighth Grade, a film not nominated here. Limited stats point to The Favourite, but this may be a place to reward Green Book, a film more likely to resonate in the U.S.. I'll go with stats and pick The Favourite in a tight race.
 
Win the Best Actor/Actress/Supporting Actor/Supporting Actress categories
The SAG voters are all actors and are the largest block of voters for the Academy Awards.
In the past ten years:
90% of the SAG winners also took home the Oscar for Best Actor
80% of the SAG winners also took home the Oscar for Best Actress
90% of the SAG winners also took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor
80% of the SAG winners also took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress


The Best Supporting Actress stat will dip further next year because winner Emily Blunt was not nominated for Oscar and Oscar nominee Regina King wasn’t nominated for SAG. Which means: Rami Malek, Glenn Close, Mahershala Ali and Regina King are your likely winners.

Win the Best Music (Original Song) category
Ooh-la-la. Lady Gaga does indeed go home with an Oscar on Sunday —for Shallow from A Star Is Born. Streisand won in this category for Evergreen from 1978’s A Star is Born. Judy Garland’s The Man That Got Away, from the 1954 A Star Is Born, lost to Frank Sinatra’s Three Coins In The Fountain so it's not a sure thing. Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-nominated Black Panther song is the one that would upset, but he's not even working the voter crowd and promoting it.

Win the Best Music (Original Score) category
My turntable would choose If Beale Street Could Talk. However, this award most often aligns with the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music, which honored A Star Is Born — not nominated here. This is a close race with Terrence Blanchard's  BlackKkKlansman score and Black Panther. I think the large group of voters will go with the one s connected to a Grammy-winning score and nominated album, Black Panther.

Win the Best Sound Editing category
This category rewards “most aesthetic” sound design and the creating of sound effects. Whatever,the loudest movie always takes Best Sound Editing, period. Speed, Pearl Harbor, Mad Max, Zero Dark Thirty, The Dark Knight, King Kong, T2, Bourne Ultimatum and Arrival have all won Oscars in this category. Bohemian Rhapsody took BAFTA, but my ears are still ringing from underdog First Man.

Win the Best Sound Mixing category
This category rewards most euphonic sound mixing, and often varies from the Best Sound Editing award. Whiplash, Les Miserables, Dreamgirls, Ray and Chicago are among past winners. That's a lot of music-driven winners. Plus, the CAS Award-winner often matches this award and they liked the music of Queen. Day-oh! Sounds like Bohemian Rhapsody to me.

Win the Best Film Editing category
Best Film Editing winners don’t always align with Best Picture winners. (Dunkirk, Hacksaw Ridge, Mad Max, Whiplash and Gravity are the past five winners). BAFTA editing winner Vice has an edge but it's similar and not as good as 2016 nominee-but-not-editing-winner The Big Short. The American Cinema Editors (ACE) award, The Eddie, has gone on to win Oscars in 11 of the last 15 years. Stats point to the zippy, flashy bio of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Win the Best Production Design category
This award, renamed from “Best Art Direction” in 2012, has only aligned with Best Picture four times since 2000. One might assume The Favourite to be the favorite; the past five years the winner of Art Director's Guild period film category went on to win this one. It rewarded The Favourite in that category and Black Panther in the Fantasy Film category.

The winner of this category often aligns with either the Critic’s Choice award which awarded Black Panther, or with the BAFTA Awards which chose The Favourite. For a tiebreaker, add in the energetic new diverse voters and one film gets the edge. And the Oscar goes to: Hannah Beachler, the first African American to be nominated in the category and to win — for Black Panther.

Win the Best Makeup and Hairstyling category
Realistic age transformations such as Gary Oldman-to-Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour win last year are the best bet. And the Oscar goes to: Christian Bale’s transformation in Vice.

Win the Best Costume Design category
Period pieces such as The Favourite and Mary Queen of Scots almost always (21/26) beat modern and fantasy ones, but this might be a year off trend. People want to see this winner: Three time nominee Ruth E. Carter (Malcolm X, Amistad) for Black Panther in a close call over Sandy Powell who created costumes for two nominees in this category, The Favourite and Mary Poppins Returns. She's won for The Young Victoria, The Aviator and Shakespeare in Love. 
 

Win the Best Visual Effects category
A nominee that also has a Best Picture nomination will always win in this category, but that’s not an option this year so we must look to the VES Awards. For eight of the past fourteen years, the winner for Outstanding VFX has gone on to win the Oscar. First Man may be more prestigious but I bet the Oscar goes to the VES winner, another superhero film: Avengers: Infinity War.
 
Win the Best Documentary category (Feature)
It's a year full of popular topics and films, so the jury's not out with Free Solo and RBG in the mix. RBG boasts a women duo of seasoned documentarians. Free Solo presents a wife and husband documentarian (and previously nominated) team that climbed (with tools) alongside their freesoloing subject — wow, it's a close one. I'd go with the one most everyone saw on home, rental or CNN — RBG.

Win the Best Animated Short Film category
Beginning just three years ago, ALL members of the Academy (not just category peers) can pick the winners of: Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Animated Short Subject and Best Live Action Short Subject. That means everyone from actors to musicians will have a say, so dumb it down a bit when making your picks

Bao,from Pixar, is the story of a mother suffering from empty nest syndrome who makes a baozi dumpling that comes to life as a boy. It was released with the Incredibles 2 this summer.Sounds like they wrapped this one up!

Win the Best Documentary Short category  
It's a category filled with heavy films. Period. End of Sentence aims to fight the stigma of menstruation across cultures. In its advantage? It airs on Netflix.
 
Win the Best Live Action Short Film category
An elderly woman who confronts her own long-repressed romantic feelings for another woman in the film Marguerite. It's done well at shorts film festivals and it's the most lighthearted of the bunch and may be worth your prediction. In a category without stats, I'm going with Skin, featuring a neo-Nazi who starts life anew. It's the choice that has been buying full-page trade ads and is getting the full film treatment next.
 
Win the show’s-running-time tiebreaker.
In 2002, the show ran four hours and 23 minutes. Whew! The Academy has loudly promised to come in at three hours. I’d bet on exactly three hours.

Here are the timings for the past ten years:
2009: 3 hours, 30 minutes
2010: 3 hours, 37 minutes
2011: 3 hours, 15 minutes
2012: 3 hours, 14 minutes
2013: 3 hours, 35 minutes
2014: 3 hours, 30 minutes
2015: 3 hours, 43 minutes
2016: 3 hours, 37 minutes
2017: 3 hours, 49 minutes
2018: 3 hours, 53 minutes 


Win the tiebreaker: Which film will win the most awards? And how many?
There are a lot of opportunities to spread the love. Bohemian Rhapsody should take three or maybe four, but I predict a solid four wins for Roma.

Win the Best Picture category
I saved the biggest (and toughest) category for last because we're going to have to narrow down ten almost-equal contenders. I hope the music doesn't cut me off before I finish.

1. We know that past films without an editing nomination don’t often win the best prize. That would narrow the field to just Bohemian Rhapsody, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, The Favorite and Vice. Bohemian Rhapsody and The Favourite failed to earnd DGA or PGA nominations, so remove those two.

2. But I don't think you can count out Roma and A Star Is Born. No film in the past 10 years has won the best picture Oscar without being nominated by both the Directors Guild and BAFTA; and Oscar winners have a history of being nominated for one of the Writers Guild's two top prizes. Counting just those who have DG and BAFTA noms, we now have five: A Star Is Born, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Roma and Vice.

3. The Globes don't help us narrow these. Despite having double the chance of predicting the Oscars, only 50 percent of Globe winners in the best drama (Bohemian Rhapsody) and best musical/comedy (Green Book) categories have gone on to victory with the Academy. 50/50 odds for Green Book.

Vice not winning a Globe for Screenplay or film in the slighter Comedy film category nor winning Best Actor or Best Supporting Actress SAG has removed this film from discussion. Plus, its divisive. It'd remove Vice. We now have four: A Star Is Born, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book and Roma.

4. For nine of the last eleven years, the Producers Guild’s choice for Best Picture went on to claim the top prize at the Oscars. 20 of the past 29 years have done the same. Good news for PGA winner Green Book. 

The stats are lining up for Green Book, however those awards came before some recent bad press for the director and for the film's authenticity. The Best Picture Oscar race is now determined by a preferential ballot on which members are asked to rank their top five nominees, so I think Green Book's reign is over.

5. That leaves three, each with an equal shot to win. A comeback and a nod for director-snubbed Bradley Cooper for A Star Is Born? (Did you see him on Oprah?) A long-deserved award to Spike Lee from a new diverse group of voters that honor BlacKkKlansman?  Or will it be a nod to the most stunning cinematic visual treat of the year, ironically by Netflix — Roma? Or will a win for Best Director and Best Foreign Film be enough reward? It's so close, I'm going with Roma. Go with your gut on this one folks, stats only go so far.

Good luck with your Oscars pool everyone!

Free Solo

Gripping to a fault. Free solo climbing is a form of climbing where the individual performs without using any ropes, harnesses or other sane protective equipment. This thriller of a documentary features Alex Honnold, the greatest surviving free soloist with over one thousand solitary ascents to his credit. "Surviving" is the key word in a sport that requires the climber to jam fingers and toes into the tiniest of cracks and hope that the wind stays neutral and a bird doesn't come nearby. "Irrational" and "crazy" are other words that come to mind.
 
Honnold has set his sites on free soloing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park and his preparation and eventual attempt is captured with breath-taking camera angles of the climb. This is combined with intimate close ups of his personal life that include not only his family and spousal relationships but also a brain scan that may partially explain his obsession with climbing large objects without help. Yes, he actually does have his head examined, and the result is compelling — and quite telling.
 
The husband and Wife team of Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhely have received an Oscar-nomination for Best Documeuntary Feature Film for this gem that may soon soar to new heights with a surprise win.
 
But the real drama is on screen. Will Honnold's soul be set free by free soloing? I won't spoil the story, but I will recommend that you go on this journey asap.

In a nutshell: More thrilling than any recent Star Wars film, Free Solo is a must-see.

Award potential: It's already nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award. If you're looking for an upset to help you win your Oscars pool, the directors and heroic crew that skillfully captured this climb may just rock this category and upset the stellar but grounded RBG.
 
The Ten Buck Review: Worth ten bucks.