Film critics Carrie and Chris on who will – and who should – win the 91st Academy Awards
The 91st Academy Awards air this Sunday, February 24th, on ABC at 5:00 pm PST (with the requisite pre-show fashion assessments starting hours before). As they did last year, Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chris Piper share their predictions – and hopes – for the major categories. Guild awards – often harbingers of Oscars to come – have been all over the map this year, so there may actually be some genuine surprises. Tune in on Sunday to see how things play out, and to find out if we correctly read the minds of Academy voters.
Spielberg + Coens + Hanks = Better than your average storytelling.
The lawyer who became a negotiator. The negotiator who united three empires.
Thomas Newman seems to be doing his best musical imitation of John Williams throughout the former’s original score for Bridge of Spies. The reason I started with this opinionated tidbit is because it’s probably the weakest part of the movie. The score isn’t among Newman’s finest (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Finding Nemo) and it’s far from capturing the spirit of Williams’ finest (Star Wars, Munich, Lincoln, basically everything…ever). The music in Bridge of Spies is the weakest, though still serviceable, mixed result in a movie production full of interesting mixes. Bridge of Spies represents the first time the Coen brothers have written for Spielberg, the first time Spielberg has employed a composer other than Williams for a feature film in lord knows how long, and judging by the number of production companies listed in the beginning, probably the first time Spielberg has needed the aid of a half dozen independent companies to help a production out. Sure, it’s also the fourth collaboration between Spielberg and Hanks, so there’s that. However, point being that Bridge of Spies had a lot of award-winning talent working together, and the results are infectious, if not odd, but totally worth our while. Embracing the tonal patchwork that comes from great minds working together, Bridge of Spies is a tense, fascinating true story of courage during the Cold War.
A few leaks can’t sink this thrilling submarine flick.
Jude Law, looking happy, in Black Sea.
About halfway through Black Sea I realized that I wasn’t breathing. It was a scene in which a few members of the submarine crew exit into the blackness of the ocean floor, and the claustrophobic intensity got the best of me. I had to take a moment to inhale and exhale and remind myself that it’s just a film, and soon after I was sucked back into it. Kevin Macdonald’s Black Sea is not just a deep sea treasure hunt that entertains with its thrills. The film sinks in deeper intellectually by the way it weaves in post-war sentiments, economic tensions, and the battle between war-torn human nature versus basic human values. Black Sea is the best submarine film released in many years, and one of the tightest thrillers in recent memory.
