JC Chandor’s AMostViolentYear finds our central character succeeding and struggling to achieve the American dream. It is a journey hampered by time, place, and competition. It is one helped by his own drive and tireless ambition and a genuine belief that he is always attempting to do the right thing.
That person is Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) circa New York City 1981. He owns Standard Heating Oil Company and he’s already taken it from a small operation to a growing one. The time and place troubles he faces is a metropolis plagued by high crime rates. His trucks are frequently being hijacked. The competition troubles comes from his suspicions that his rivals are responsible. And that attempting to always do the right thing business doesn’t mean an ambitious District Attorney (David Oyelowo) isn’t breathing down his neck.
Abel’s professional endeavors are assisted by two key individuals: his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) and his attorney (Albert Brooks) who seems to rarely give him good news. Anna is a fascinating character and Chastain’s performance only accentuates her. We are told she comes from a known family with a Brooklyn gangster father. We see flashes of ruthlessness in her that likely came from that upbringing. There are times when you wonder if Abel’s burgeoning yet troubled enterprise would run more smoothly (and probably with more bloodshed involved) if she were CEO.
We’ve seen plenty of crime dramas where our subject is a bad guy attempting to go good. Abel is more of a protagonist trying not to turn antagonist. Isaac is terrific. There are absolutely times where his acting reminds us of Pacino in the first Godfather. He’s a man surrounded by corruption, but with a moral compass that allows him to sleep at night.
For a movie called AMostViolentYear, we see little of it. A subplot involving one of Abel’s drivers (Elyes Gabel) provides some suspenseful and unexpected moments. There is thematically nothing very new here, but I welcomed this Sidney Lumet influenced character study and the first rate acting. Its early 80s NYC vibe doesn’t feel retro. More pleasingly, Year just feels like it could have made in 1981 when we would have watched it in old school VHS glory.
Four days before Oscar nominations are revealed, Hollywood will throw their annual party and awards ceremony known as the Golden Globes, put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press (whoever they are). The always entertaining Ricky Gervais is back to host and the show honors 2015’s best in movies and television. I won’t bother with the TV stuff (just because I haven’t followed it anywhere close to what I do with film). As you may know, the Globes divide the picture and lead actor races in two: Drama and Musical/Comedy. This has been a source of some controversy recently with titles like The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle being questionably placed into Comedy. The ante was upped this year when Ridley Scott’s The Martian made that category. It has laughs to be sure, but really?
I’ll go through each race and predict the winners (and potential runner-up) and will update the blog either Sunday evening or Monday with how I did:
Best Picture (Drama)
Nominees:
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight
Outlook: Early critical precursors have placed Spotlight in the position of soft front runner for the Oscars and here. In fact, one of its main competitors The Big Short is in the other category so that helps even more. Potential spoilers could be Carol or just maybe Mad Max, but Spotlight is the odds on favorite here.
Predicted Winner: Spotlight
Runner-Up: Carol
Best Picture (Musical/Comedy)
Nominees:
The Big Short
Joy
The Martian
Spy
Trainwreck
Outlook: Let’s dispense with the two outright comedies – Spy and Trainwreck – as they stand no real chance. Joy‘s mixed critical reaction probably leaves it out, too. So we’re down to The Big Short and The Martian. With the deserved controversy of having The Martian even here in the first place aside, Short seems to have the bigger momentum right now and it should edge out its main competitor.
Predicted Winner: The Big Short
Runner-Up: The Martian
Best Actor (Drama)
Nominees:
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Will Smith, Concussion
Outlook: While he’s famously never won an Oscar, Leo did take a Globe two years ago (in Comedy) for Wolf of Wall Street. Look for his dramatic work here to be recognized and it would frankly be fairly surprising if he didn’t win. I’d say Fassbender or maybe Cranston pose the only real upset threats.
Predicted Winner: DiCaprio
Runner-Up: Fassbender
Best Actress (Drama)
Nominees:
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Rooney Mara, Carol
Saoirise Ronan, Brooklyn
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Outlook: My inkling here is that Blanchett and Mara will pretty much cancel each other out for their work in Carol. Vikander is a double nominee this year, but appears to be a long shot in this race especially. Ronan is certainly a possibility, but Larson is the likely recipient for her lauded work.
Predicted Winner: Larson
Runner-Up: Ronan
Best Actor (Musical/Comedy)
Nominees:
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Steve Carell, The Big Short
Matt Damon, The Martian
Al Pacino, Danny Collins
Mark Ruffal0, Infinitely Polar Bear
Outlook: First things first – Pacino and Ruffalo have zero shot. Like the previously discussed race, I could see Bale and Carell canceling one another out and that leaves Mr. Damon.
Predicted Winner: Damon
Runner-Up: Bale
Best Actress (Musical/Comedy)
Nominees:
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Melissa McCarthy, Spy
Amy Schumer, Trainwreck
Maggie Smith, The Lady in the Van
Lily Tomlin, Grandma
Outlook: Schumer had her breakout role with Trainwreck and stands a chance, but this is probably Lawrence’s race to lose.
Predicted Winner: Lawrence
Runner-Up: Schumer
Best Supporting Actor
Nominees:
Paul Dano, Love and Mercy
Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Outlook: This race is a little trickier and could be ripe for an upset (Elba or Shannon wouldn’t shock me). However, this probably comes down to Rylance (who’s picked up numerous critic precursor notices) and Stallone (for the sentimental vote). I’m going with sentimentality trumping all else.
Predicted Winner: Stallone
Runner-Up: Rylance
Best Supporting Actress
Nominees:
Jane Fonda, Youth
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Helen Mirren, Trumbo
Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
Outlook: Another race that could feature an upset (any one of these ladies are possible), but I’ll give the slight momentum to Leigh’s work.
Predicted Winner: Leigh
Runner-Up: Winslet
Best Director
Nominees:
Todd Haynes, Carol
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Ridley Scott, The Martian
Outlook: Don’t see Haynes or Inarritu prevailing, so that leaves this question: will the HFPA go with the likely Best Drama Picture winner’s director (McCarthy) or the outstanding visual work from Miller or Scott. Miller has picked up a number of precursor awards, so I give him the edge over Scott and I ultimately believe he’ll eek out the victory here.
Predicted Winner: Miller
Runner-Up: McCarthy
As for the other categories – here are my picks
Best Screenplay
Predicted Winner: Spotlight
Runner-Up: The Big SHort
Best Score
Predicted Winner: The Hateful Eight
Runner-Up: Carol
Best Song
Predicted Winner: “See You Again” from Furious 7
Runner-Up: “Love Me Like You Do” from Fifty Shades of Grey
Best Animated Feature
Predicted Winner: Inside Out
Runner-Up: Anomalisa
Best Foreign Language Film
Predicted Winner: Son of Saul
Runner-Up: Mustang
And there you have it, folks! My Golden Globe predictions…
The coffee shop scene in Michael Mann’s brilliant 1995 crime thriller Heat will forever be remembered in film history as the first time Robert De Niro and Al Pacino shared screen time together. However, the more times you watch the picture and watch that scene, you realize it’s important for other reasons.
I described Heat as a crime thriller. More than that, it’s a movie about work and family. Specifically, it’s about people who are excellent at their chosen fields of profession and how it hinders their ability at a stable family life. You see it in Pacino’s character, Vincent Hanna, who is terrific at catching criminals and bad at holding a marriage together. You see it in De Niro’s character, Neil McCauley, who is a master thief who must sacrifice any meaningful relationships to do his job. You see it with McCauley’s crew, most notably Val Kilmer’s Chris Shiherlis who gets away at the end, but must leave his wife and young child forever in order to escape.
This all comes to a head in that coffee shop scene where Vincent and Neil casually discuss the situation they find themselves in. Vincent knows that Neil is looking to pull off one last huge score and he’s determined to not let it happen. Neil feels the same way – nothing will get in the way of him doing his job. The pair make it clear that they enjoy their careers – one tasked to stop criminals and the other being the criminal – and that they, frankly, really aren’t good at anything else. Neil and Vincent know their strengths. They’re going to keep doing what they do and lets the chips fall where they may. They both know and have known for some time that everything else besides their work must fall to the wayside, including their families and significant others.
Heat is a film about cops and robbers, but one like no other that delves deep into their psyches. We see example after example after how their thought process hurts their personal lives. At the end of the day, though, it’s something they’ve learned to accept. And the coffee shop scene illustrates that point with great dialogue that develops the richly written characters of Pacino and De Niro further.
Putting these two actors together, two of the best in American history, is reason enough for it to make movie history. It’s the amazing screenplay and willingness of director Mann to take Heat to a higher level of art than practically any “crime thriller”, though, that makes the scene Movie Perfection. And, of course, Pacino and De Niro are absolutely incredible in it.
It was 22 years ago Today in Movie History when the film that finally earned Al Pacino a Best Actor Oscar debuted in theaters. Scent of a Woman cast Pacino as a retired blind Army Colonel and the role earned him Academy gold after seven previous nominations and losses.
Speaking of Best Actor wins, Jack Nicholson picked up his second Best Actor trophy for the comedy/drama As Good As It Gets, which opened 16 years ago today. James L. Brooks’s picture also earned Helen Hunt a Best Actress award and a Supporting Actor nod for Greg Kinnear.
25 years ago today marked the opening of Garry Marshall’s Beaches, the tearjerker with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. And that film gave us one of the most gloriously cheesy monster hit ballads in memory – “Wind Beneath My Wings”.
As for celebrity birthdays, today would have marked the 42nd birthday of Corey Haim, who died in 2010. One half of the “Coreys” duo that included Corey Feldman, Haim costarred in such features as Lucas, The Lost Boys, and License to Drive.
Today is the 34th birthday of Estella Warren, best known to moviegoers as the female lead in Tim Burton’s 2001 Planet of the Apes “reimagining”. Since then, most of her work has been on TV with appearances on “Law&Order” and “Ghost Whisperer”.
As for the daily Six Degress of Separation between birthday performers:
Corey Haim was in The Lost Boys with Jason Patric
Jason Patric was in Narc with Ray Liotta
Ray Liotta was in Date Night with Mark Wahlberg
Mark Wahlberg was in Planet of the Apes with Estella Warren
And that’s today – December 23 – in Movie History!
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