[M]ost of the Oscar nominated films are in theaters now. All are worth seeing before Oscar night Sunday, March 4. In what was an otherwise lukewarm movie year, Hollywood saved the best for year’s end and reassured us that the industry continues to showcase brilliant performers of all ages.
Lady Bird
A whip smart high school graduate is navigating the familiar elements of growing up. Director Greta Gerwig assembled and directed a cast that lifts this right to the top of this year’s movies. In the hands of Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, and Timothee Chalamet, what might have been an ordinary coming of age tale is fiercely intelligent and deeply moving. This is Gerwig’s masterpiece.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
A mother is enraged at police who have failed to find her daughter’s murderer. Frances McDormand rents three abandoned billboards near her home to call out the inaction of local police. The movie unfolds inside the police department in an odd mixture of accusations, violence, profanity, shifting alliances and comic moments. You will laugh and shiver as McDormand embraces the violent script with abandon.
Call Me By Your Name
Against the beauty of the Italian countryside a young boy and his older friend build a friendship, and make love. In other hands, the relationship might have been fraught with family disapproval and drama. Director Luca Guadagnino has created magical surroundings and wise, quiet people who make this a coming-of-age story that catches what so many feel but don’t say. A superb cast delivers this story with great sensitivity.
The Post
The Pentagon Papers case ignited Watergate and transformed The Washington Post from a local newspaper into a national media powerhouse. The film shows how publisher Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) and editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) risked everything — jail time and the potential ruination of the newspaper — to publish the story. Hanks becomes the inimitable Bradlee. Streep uses great restraint in portraying Graham who succeeded her editor husband after he committed suicide.
The Shape of Water
Two afflicted, isolated people who never expected to lose themselves in a beautiful romance become lovers. In one of the finest performances of this year, Sally Hawkins becomes a mute woman who can convey everything she is thinking by gesture and expression. Against tough odds, she turns the story into a powerful fable and her astonishing performance helped the film win 13 Oscar nominations.
Darkest Hour
Winston Churchill unexpectedly came to power in 1940 when England faced imminent attack after the fall of Europe. As England stood alone against Germany, Churchill lead the nation through a bombing onslaught that threatened to destroy the nation. Oldman fully inhabits the role of Churchill who was central to saving Britain from the grim reality of Nazi occupation. His outstanding performance makes him a front runner for Best Actor.
Get Out
In this thriller/satire, director Jordan Poole, turns a weekend to meet the parents a la “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” into a social critique of race relations and an expose of phony white liberalism. The film is funny, brutal and unrelenting its savage examination of just under the surface racial hostility.
Dunkirk
Christopher Nolan captures the reality of the impending disaster on the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. The film pays tribute to the men who died and to those who rallied to save Allied Forces as the sea and sky filled with Nazi soldiers, sailors, and pilots bent on slaughter. And then came the small boats. Dunkirk gives viewers a renewed appreciation of a key battle that turned the tide of World War II.
Phantom Thread
Daniel Day Lewis is devoted to perfection, and in this film he portrays a designer who is thoroughly absorbed in himself. Lewis plays a fashionista designer who is exacting in the execution of minute details — the application of each button, the pull of each thread — and who is equally demanding of his models. When he eats out with a new lover or his sister, the slight noise of a clinking ice cube sends him into a tantrum. Fastidious? Weird? Whatever this actor chooses to do, he does it perfectly.
