Yes No Maybe So: Christian Bale is "Vice"

by Nathaniel R

click to embiggenThe major Oscar hopeful that's played things closest to the vest this season is Vice. The trailer and poster (to your left) have both finally dropped today and other Oscar campaigns are probably shivering a bit. The film, from writer/director Adam McKay of The Big Short fame, is a comedy telling the true story of how Dick Cheney came to rule the world (albeit behind the curtain as the Vice President) and set the US on a sorry new course.

It's an all-star affair with Oscar winners Christian Bale (Dick Cheney) and Sam Rockwell (George W Bush), Oscar darling Amy Adams (Lynne Cheney), and Oscar nominee Steve Carell (Donald Rumsfeld) in political drag as figures we know and love hate. Alison Pill and Tyler Perry are also in the film (though they aren't featured in the trailer) as Mary Cheney and Colin Powell respectively.

After the jump the trailer and our Yes No Maybe So breakdown...

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1972: The Emigrants

Editor's Note: We will now resume our intermittent investigation into 1972 films for the impending smackdown -- though it will not be this weekend due to unfortunate delays. Here's Eric Blume on the Oscar favored foreign epic The Emigrants, available to rent on Amazon or iTunes.

It’s fun (and by fun, I mean zero actual fun) to watch Jan Troell’s 3 hour and 20 minute epic film The Emigrants and try to figure out how this slow-burn, where nothing good happens to any of the characters for the entire running time, made it into the Oscar race, not in one year but in two!  Due to different rules than we have currently, The Emigrants was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 1971, and then for the 1972 Oscars was nominated for a whopping four of the big eight categories:  Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Liv Ullman), and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Emigrants mostly follows a peasant family in rural Sweden in the mid-19th century. Despite back-breaking work, the father (Max von Sydow) and mother (Liv Ullman), realize that they cannot survive on their farm.  A series of horrible events befall them before they decide to leave for a 10-week boat journey to America in hope of a better life. Another family, who leave for the promise of religious freedom, joins them for the grueling ordeal...

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If Beale Street Could Talk & First Man

by Nathaniel R

Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy are a dream together in "First Man"

Festival season is a relentless sprint. NYFF screenings are already underway and Middleburg is right after that so herewith a few quick notes on two TIFF movies whose directors are coming off of their most successful film yet two years ago and an Oscar year where they competed against each other quite famously though both left with Oscars (Barry Jenkins for writing Moonlight and Damien Chazelle for directing La La Land). I personally loved both of those movies but I think Barry Jenkins won the first round and Damien Chazelle takes the second . I realize they're not actually competing with each other. They're friends. Prizes for everyone! Yay for talent. We just like talking awards. It's a sickness. Okay, quick takes here we go...

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TIFF: Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma" Triumph

by Nathaniel R

Alfonso Cuarón's jaw-dropping Roma is inspired by his childhood in Mexico but it's no traditional memoir. Rather than focusing on his own life, he spins a slow-burn fictional memoir, imagining the emotional space occupied by the live-in maid/nanny who helped raise him...

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TIFF Delivers an Oscar bound-surprise with "Green Book"

by Nathaniel R

Go figure. The winner of TIFF's "Grolsch's People's Choice Award" is a film that literally none of my TIFF airbnb troupe (Joe Reid, Chris Feil, Nick Davis and I) saw during our 10 day stretch in Ontario. Green Book by Peter Farrelly (yes, of Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary fame) took TIFF's most coveted prize. (the runners up were Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk and Alfonso Cuarón's Roma). So we'll have to add it to the Best Picture chart when we update this week (we're looking at probably Wednesday night for across the board updates to reflect all the festival madness).

In the entire 40 year history of this prize, stretching From Girlfriends (1978) through Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), 16 of the winners went on to Best Picture nods at the Oscars. The 40 winners also include 7 future Best Picture winners, 6 future Best Foreign Language Film winners, and 2 future Best Documentary Feature winners. The Oscar correlation is getting stronger all the time, too...

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