Oscars

Image Courtesy of the EarthX Film Festival

By David Baldwin

The EarthX Film Festival wraps up today with its last day of virtual screenings. The festival’s in-person portion ran from May 12-15 in Dallas, Texas and virtual screenings ran from May 16-23. The festival’s mission is:

“…to bring awareness of the environmental crisis in order to create sincere action on both an individual and communal scale; to inspire local and global change on how we as humans affect our home planet and our fellow beings. We aim to include Texas, and the Southwest, in the conversation on climate change through compassionate, positive, truthful storytelling.”

While I was not in the ground in Dallas, I did have the opportunity to view two of the bigger titles at the festival: Fire of Love and We Feed People.

Continue Reading

Review by David Baldwin

179 minutes. That’s how long Co-Writer/Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film Drive My Car is. I heard unanimous praise coming out of Cannes for the film — where it won Best Screenplay, the FIPRESCI Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, not to mention being In Contention for the Palme d’Or — but all I could fixate on was the length. It was daunting and trying to schedule watching it during TIFF in September alongside 40+ other films was a logistical nightmare and a battle that I lost all too quickly. Instead, I just continued hearing the unanimous praise and continued seeing the film’s poster taunting me on Letterboxd as one of the “Highly rated films you’ve yet to see”.

So when the time came to finally watch Drive My Car a few weeks back, after it being chosen as Japan’s Best International Feature entry for the Academy Awards, I was filled with trepidation and anxiety. Adding to the pressure, multiple critics’ groups had started calling it the Best Foreign Language Film of the year and last week, the NYFCC straight up awarded it as the Best Film of the Year period. Could the film match what I had been picturing for months? Would I be able to watch it all in one sitting (quick answer: no)? How the hell did Hamaguchi and Co-Writer Takamasa Oe manage to turn Haruki Murakami’s short story into a 3 hour film?! All of these thoughts were swirling in my head, and continue to as I finally settle down to write this. It seemed patently wrong to dismiss it entirely because of its gargantuan running time. A film like this was too important not to watch.

Continue Reading

Review by David Baldwin

Years after a school shooting incident, two sets of parents — Jay and Gail (Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton), and Richard and Linda (Reed Birney and Ann Dowd) — agree to sit down privately to converse, grieve and find a way to move forward.

Mass was one of the hottest films I missed during this year’s Sundance Film Festival. I finally had my chance to watch the film at last month’s Cinéfest Sudbury Film Festival and was left in a state of shock and awe by the time it ended. It may just be a film mainly comprised of four people talking in one location (very much in line with a play), but it is a riveting and necessary work that may prove to be too intense for some viewers. I had to literally pause the film and take a 10-minute break before diving back in. It really was that visceral and aggravating to watch. That is not to say that the film is bad or disappointing. Rather, it is just so deep and moving, that it bends the line between fiction and reality in ways that will affect you no matter what stage of life you are at.

Continue Reading

Review by David Baldwin

Shook and unsettled. That was how I felt after watching Promising Young Woman back in November. I rarely feel either of those emotions watching movies nowadays (especially during a raging pandemic when so little is genuinely knocking my socks off), and after it ended, it felt like entire scenes were seared directly into my brain. I kept thinking about Writer/Director/Producer Emerald Fennell’s debut feature for weeks on end, and kept coming back to what an incredible achievement it was to behold.

I finally received another chance to watch it again this week and hoped it was all hyperbole or something I was just remembering differently. I thought I would feel less shook knowing exactly where it was going. Less unsettled. But those same scenes and moments just struck harder. They echoed and reverberated more powerfully. I still felt the ground give out below and the wind get knocked right out of me. That is what kind of an unforgettable and uncompromising experience Promising Young Woman is. It makes for one of the very best films from last year – and one that might even be hard to top this year too.

Continue Reading

Review by David Baldwin

It’s been a bit of a crazy week for me, but even crazier if you’ve been paying attention to what’s been happening with the Oscars. The wording is still a bit confusing, but The Academy announced this week that they will be handing out the awards for Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Live Action Short, during the commercial breaks and editing together a piece to show the winners and their speeches sometime later in the ceremony.

Oh, and they are trying to hold all winners to 90 seconds for their speeches – and this includes the time it gets them to stand up, be congratulated by their loved ones and peers sitting around them, and sprint to the podium. The guys might be able to pull this off in their dress shoes, but what about the women? Is The Academy encouraging them to wear sneakers and not have trains on their dresses? Naturally everyone is furious. Petitions are being signed. Celebrities and industry people alike are speaking out and protesting the Academy’s decisions. Twitter is on fire with rage. But it’s just another day as we stumble towards the ceremony on February 24.

And with that, here’s a few words on the Oscar-nominated Documentary Short Films I missed posting about last week.

Continue Reading

Review by David Baldwin

I love watching the Oscars. Full stop. Despite the on-going shenanigans the Academy continues to pull on a daily basis, not to mention the seething and vile commentary from bloggers and Film Twitter, I am still very excited for this year’s ceremony. But much like the rest of you, I rarely know which Short Films to pick when I am filling out my ballot for the yearly office Oscar pool. I have had some successes in the past — and by sheer luck, went 3/3 way back in 2004 and then never again — but I typically miss properly predicting these categories entirely.

So when the opportunity arose to watch and review these films this year, I jumped at the chance. I am always well versed in the nominees for the major categories, but the Shorts have consistently been a major blind spot. And now I’m slightly more optimistic at my future picks this year. I still need to catch up on the Documentary Shorts, so today I will focus on the Animated and Live Action Shorts.

Here’s hoping the Docs are a little more uplifting, because if there’s anything these short films have in common so far, it’s that they are very bleak and depressing. And the majority of them involve children.

Read more

#TIFF17 has come and gone, and like most years — it kicked my ass. I saw 32 films this year between Thursday September 7 and Friday September 15 (along with 4 before the festival even began), shattering my previous best of 25 films from previous years. And I tied my personal best number of films seen in 1 day at 5. I was hoping to see 6, but the combination of Revenge starting almost an hour late (at 1AM no less) and the eye-opening experience of watching mother! were a bit too much to handle. So while I am disappointed that I cut this year short, I am more than satisfied with what I did see.

I had a lot of activity going on Twitter reviewing all the films quickly, but did get to write out a few journals for the great Oscar-tracking site NextBestPicture.com. Here are the links to the journals filled with thoughts on the films I saw, as well as some of my experiences (including getting to tell Nicolas Cage he was my spirit animal!).

On the Ground at TIFF – Days 1 & 2
Film Highlights — Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird, Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!

On the Ground at TIFF – Days 3 & 4
Film Highlights — The Current War, Molly’s Game, mother!

On the Ground at TIFF – Days 5 & 6
Film Highlights — Darkest Hour, The Disaster Artist, The Shape of Water

On the Ground at TIFF – The Final Days
Film Highlights — Mudbound, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

And here are the links to the capsule reviews I wrote for my favourite film and celebrity news site, Mr. Will Wong:

Lady Bird
mother!
The Shape of Water

Until next September!

roomstill

It has been two weeks since I watched Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, the eventual winner of the Grolsch People’s Choice Award at TIFF, and it remains in my mind the best film I saw during the festival. The power, emotion and harrowing beauty of the film is quite remarkable, and it has left a lingering impression that has not dissipated since it’s Canadian premiere. You have likely read a lot of hyperbole and praise for the film by now, and not think much of it. But believe me, it deserves all of the hype and more.

I knew very little about Room going in, and feel it is the best way to see the film. But suffice to say, the film follows the lives of Ma (Brie Larson) and Jack (an absolutely incredible Jacob Tremblay). They live their lives in a confined room, hoping to break free. The circumstances of their captivity are disturbing, but no more so than Jack not knowing about anything outside of the titular Room.

Room is an emotional gut punch from beginning to end. It stuns in its simplicity, and never overly complicates itself explaining everything we do not see. Abrahamson navigates the abrupt tonal shifts very well, moving with ease from the likes of psychological drama to a breathless thriller. Even better, it is narrated and follows the point of view of Jack, making for many moving and deeply emotional scenes. But Room never feels like it is pandering to the audience — it earns every single feeling you have watching it.

As suggested, the young Tremblay is astounding as Jacob. He brings a genuine feeling to each moment in the film, whether his character understands what is happening or not. Watching and experiencing the film through his eyes is simply mesmerizing, and almost shifts your perception of what Room is actually about. He is the heart and soul of the film, and I fear for what it would have looked like had Jack been played by someone else. And Larson truly breaks out here as his Ma, giving one of the most brilliant performances of the year. Where Tremblay brings absolute joy to the film, Larson brings a harrowing darkness and deeply disturbing psychological neurosis. Her character is damaged, and watching her cope with everything that happens is a master class all on it’s own. She commands every moment, and you simply cannot look away from her when she is on-screen.

Room may be hard for some to watch, but it is a genuinely powerful film that is simply unmissable. It has a simply story, but packs incredible Oscar-worthy performances from its two young leads. This is a bonafide Oscar contender in every sense of the word, and I cannot wait to see it again. When it hits theatres near you, trust me when I say do not wait to see it — rush out and see it as fast as you possibly can.

southpawposterbig

Southpaw – Review

By David Baldwin

If you have had the misfortune of seeing the trailer for this week’s Southpaw, you may be disappointed when you watch the movie. It is common place for a film trailer to give away the best parts of the movie. That is nothing new. But Southpaw‘s trailer gives away all but the entirety of the film. A little disheartening but even with that in mind, the film may still rank as one of the best this summer has given us.

Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an unstoppable force as a boxer. He has a storied past as an orphan and a criminal, but he turned it all around with the help of his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams). He is at the top of his game when tragedy strikes, losing Billy everything including the custody of his daughter Leila (Oona Laurence). With nothing to lose, he turns to veteran boxing trainer Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker) to help him turn it all around.

Continue Reading