Mike Goes To Movies

Parasite: Ushering In A New Era For The Oscars? Last night's Best Picture win by Parasite was a major milestone for the Academy Awards. It marked the first time in history that a foreign-language film won the Oscars' highest accolade. As many voices are currently discussing, this may be the precursor to a new era of internationalism for the Academy Awards, as well as, for Hollywood and Western cinema.  Firstly, let's just say with certainty that Bong Joon-Ho's Parasite deserved the myriad of awards it received last night: Best International Feature, Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture. Notably, making the wins even more special was the fact that it was the first time a South Korean had been nominated for either Best Picture or International Feature. Parasite really is a marvelous film though, and one that should be seen by all. The film is about a 'parasitic' lower-class family who slowly infiltrate an upper-class family through various i...

Today is the big day! For now, I am going to keep this post more positive and optimistic and simply talk about this year's nominations and my predictions and hopes. In another post I may discuss some of my disappointments with this past year's general output of quality films. I have now officially seen all of the Best Picture nominees as well as a healthy dose of other general nominees. Generally, I am going to predict all of the categories, even though, for some of the categories, I have not seen any of the nominations at all. Therefore, for a category such as Best Documentary Short, my thoughts will likely be quite arbitrary and possibly based on something as trivial as the name or subject of the piece... Jump further down the list for the 'bigger' awards. Short Film (Animated) Prediction - Bao Hope - Bao Short Film (Live) Prediction - Skin Hope - Fauve Production Design Prediction - First Man Hope - The Favourite Makeup and Hairstyling Predictio...

Green Book (2018) My first proper review! Last night, I finally got the chance to see the past year's hottest ticket, Green Book, ahead of its probable multiple winnings this coming Sunday. Expectations for the film have been fairly cemented in my mind since its premiere at TIFF this past fall where it won the festival's acclaimed People's Choice Award and, since its wide release, it has gone on to garner quite unanimously positive reviews. It's in these instances that my often pessimistic self likes to buck the trend and endeavour to find fault where most have been unable to, especially with a 'wholesome' type of film such that Green Book has been categorized as. It's for these reasons that, upon finishing Green Book, I was pleased to find that I had enjoyed the film and that it had met the high expectations I had for it. Yes, the movie is, in fact, quite the wholesome story and one who's plot does not contain much surprise. However, when a film ...

10. There Will Be Blood (2007) and No Country For Old Men (2007) Yes, right off the bat I am going to go ahead and cheat on my list... (hey, it's my list anyways, so lay off!). I place both of these films together because they resonate in similar ways for me, on top of the fact that they also do bear a number of factual similarities. Both were filmed in 2006 in the same vicinity of western Texas, released in 2007 and widely competed with each other for the highest accolades at the awards ceremonies that year. Both films take place in an arid, beautifully-shot, desert landscape, each following the machinations of a violent and unfailingly driven man. One is motivated by wealth and success, the other... well, it's not entirely known. In both, the filmmakers involved are without a doubt at the height of their crafts. Direction, writing, cinematography, editing, score and acting, among others, are all at their finest levels within these two films. It is unsurprising then t...

Mike's All-Time Top 10 To ease into things a bit, I thought I would be self-indulgent and list off some of my favourite films. This list may not be entirely accurate... Numbers 1 and 2 have been clear in my head for a long time in those respective positions. The rest of the list, however, I just thought up now, and so, they may be somewhat interchangeable with one another, and also, had I thought longer about this list, other films may actually more deservedly hold those spots. A few thoughts about this list: 1) Yes, I am still fairly childish; many of these films are genre films: horror/sci-fi/fantasy, they are simply ones that I grew up with, 2) I do not have any comedies here because I find that where I place them frequently changes over time (maybe I'll do a separate comedy list at some point), and 3) in some of these cases, I simply wanted to do service to a particular director and so I chose one that I thought represented them well. This list is of my favourite fil...