by reelmoviesmatter

4th Annual REELmoviesmatter.com Achievement in Film Awards

2019 was promised to be a major year at the movies, and it certainly did not disappoint.  The past year brought us at least three sure-fire classics (1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and The Irishman) that will be watched and loved for decades to come.  In addition, there were other great movies that in any other year would’ve been serious Best Picture Oscar winners, let alone contenders.  We saw Parasite become the biggest foreign-film crossover of all-time, being the first foreign-language film to earn a nomination for Best Picture (Roma was from Mexico, but produced and released by Netflix).  We saw Joker, a film about the origin of a legendary comic book villain, became an instrument for change regarding mental health.   Most importantly, we can see that filmmaking is continuing to get better every year, and streaming sites are evolving even further, allowing us to see this for ourselves from the comfort of our homes, rather than having to travel to crowded (or empty, depending on where you live) theaters.

With the Academy Awards being held tomorrow night, it’s now time to reveal the 4th Annual REELmoviesmatter.com Achievement in Film Awards!  Each category this year has the nominees listed in order of their finish within the category.  Let the debating begin!

 

MOST UNDERRATED FILM

  • Midsommar
  • Us
  • The Lighthouse
  • Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
  • The Irishman

 

Yes, The Irishman has received a lot of critic acclamation this year, and has been nominated for several awards.  However, for some reason, it’s often leaving empty-handed.  Also, if I hear another person say, “It’s just too long,” I’m going to scream.  It’s on Netflix, for crying out loud!  You can watch it at your own pace! The Irishman was such a great piece of filmmaking, so shame on those folks who didn’t appreciate its greatness.

I thought Zac Efron was great in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, proving to us that he can legitimately act.  The movie was captivating and very effective at showing the audience how charismatic, but manipulative and dangerous a psychopathic killer like Ted Bundy can be.

The Lighthouse was a great film, and was one of the best cinematic achievements of the year – as its cinematography was as unique and suberb as its actors, Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe. Both of their performances were absolutely underrated, as both very well could have been nominated for Oscars, and would have been nominated most other years.

Jordan Peele’s writing and directing once again was on full display in Us, an amazing film created by an amazing mind.  The film should have gotten nominated for several Oscars, in my opinion.  Aside from being one of the best pictures of the year, Lupita Nyong’o gave one of the best acting performances by a woman or man in 2019.  She was outstanding.

Midsommar took my breath away. Aside from its beautiful cinematography, the fact that director Ari Aster could make a movie that metaphorically told the story of a dysfunctional relationship that has taken its course and turn it into a hypnotizing, freaky cult bloodbath that you can’t pull your eyes off of was one of the biggest accomplishments in film this year.

MOST OVERRATED FILM

  • Parasite
  • The Lion King
  • Yesterday
  • El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
  • Booksmart

 

I saw Booksmart because it was said to be one of the funniest films of the year.  It was said to be the new Superbad.  Well, it was super bad, alright.  I have no idea what people saw in that movie.  I laughed maybe twice, and found myself hating it before it was even over.  I’d even go a step further and say if I had a daughter of age to see it, I wouldn’t even advise her to do so.  I saw it with my wife, who is also a teacher and around young people every day, and she thought it portrayed late-teen girls in a bad light.  Typically, if it was at least funny, I would have said something like, “It’s just a movie meant to make you laugh.  It’s not a public service announcement.”  Instead, I found myself absolutely agreeing with her.

I was excited to see El Camino, because I am a huge Breaking Bad fan.  However, once I watch the movie, I was underwhelmed.  In fact, it made me realize how much I didn’t really even care about Jesse Pinkman.  Instead, they should’ve made a movie about Gus.  That would’ve been way more appealing.

Yesterday is not only overrated, it’s outright terrible. It makes my blood boil whenever I hear someone say they enjoyed it.  I almost created a new category, movie with most plot holes, literally because of the plethora of them in that movie.

The same goes for The Lion King.  It was complete trash.  Upon the original screening to the execs, Disney should’ve trashed it and never have let it seen the light of day.  There was nothing original about this live-action version of the original animated classic.  It was almost shot-for-shot identical.  The hope I had for this movie was that Jon Favreau was going to make it his own.  I also thought it was going to be shots of actual animals in the wild with actor voiceovers.  Neither of which happened.  Instead, it wound up being equivalent to one of those bad Weezer cover songs.

I really hate to have Parasite as the winner here, because I actually liked the movie…a lot.  It is a total lock to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.  With that said, by no means was it the best picture of the year, as several critics have touted it to be.  At best, it was around fourth or fifth.  I would encourage people to see it because it is very good and the ending is trippy, but let’s slow down this train a little bit.

BEST CAST

  • The Irishman
  • Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
  • Marriage Story
  • Us
  • Knives Out

 

Although Knives Out wasn’t one of the more original ideas for a movie, its “who’s who” A-list cast portrayed their respective characters brilliantly, and was the movie’s saving grace.  The cast of Us may not have been as well-known top to bottom, but they all basically had to play two parts for the majority of the film, and they all did it masterfully.

Noah Baumbach’s script for Marriage Story was heart-wrenching and almost flawless.  The raw, realistic performances of its cast, particularly Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson propelled the movie into an even higher stratosphere.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was the latest Quentin Tarantino film to feature an awesome A-list cast. It doesn’t get much better than getting the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Al Pacino to sign on to your project and bring it to life, unless…The Irishman comes along.

For my fellow basketball fans out there, imagine a hypothetical starting five of the aforementioned Pacino with Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel and Ray Romano. Your bench consists of stars like Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham and Jesse Plemons.  On top of all that, your head coach is Martin Scorsese.  You get the picture, right?  Entrenched in Hollywood royalty from top to bottom, The Irishman featured a legend-filled cast the likes of which only come around once in a generation, and they all delivered.

MOST POWERFUL/IMPORTANT FILM

  • Harriet
  • Joker
  • 1917

 

We were long overdue for a great film about World War I. Sam Mendes finally brought it to us in 1917, a semi-autobiographical account of WWI told to him from his grandfather.  Although it doesn’t involve Americans, 1917 still shows us the bloody WWI battlefield in such a unique, unforgettable depiction.

As I wrote above, Joker is important because it gave the audience the chance to look at the world through the disturbing lenses of a man who is mentally ill. Consequently, for the first time ever, Arthur Fleck is often looked at as a sick and ignored victim, rather than an antagonistic psychopath.

The winner here, though, is Harriet. A historical biopic about Harriet Tubman, an American hero who risked her life routinely by leading slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad, a covert path that led from the depths of the South to the safe havens within Northern states.  This film was very polarizing, as there were a lot of people who enjoyed it, while others believed Hollywood found a way to “whitewash” Tubman’s story.  My view is that, either way, it got us talking about someone who wasn’t just a hero among Black Americans.  She was an American hero, period.

MOST ORIGINAL IDEA FOR A FILM

Jojo Rabbit

Taika Waititi wrote, directed and starred in Jojo Rabbit – a film about a young boy having tyrannical Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler as his imaginary friend.  To be blunt, how about the balls on this guy?  Although satirical, the premise of the film was still a lot for most folks to swallow, myself included.  To me, it’s like making a light-hearted film about slavery, or 9/11.  I respect Waititi for the risk, but it just wasn’t for me.

BEST ACTION FILM

  • Avengers: Endgame
  • John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
  • Captain Marvel

 

Captain Marvel was a successful, quality answer to DC comic’s Wonder Woman film, and the John Wick series continued to stay strong, despite the fact that a lot of people (myself included) were waiting for this franchise to release one too many sequels before the inevitable dud ended it all. Avenger: Endgame was epic, though.  Just when I thought Infinity War couldn’t be topped, Endgame gave the Marvel fanbase the perfect ending they deserved.

WORST FILM

  • Cats
  • X-Men: Dark Phoenix
  • The Lion King
  • Yesterday
  • Rambo: Last Blood

 

 

 

All of these movies were abysmal, so I’m not going to even waste my time breaking them down. All I’ll say is – I didn’t think ANYTHING could be worse than Dark Phoenix…until Cats came on the prowl (an awful, cheesy pun for an equally awful film).  The entire world was sold a bag of bad goods when the news of Cats being made into a movie came out.  I drank the Kool-Aid like everyone else, and even had it on my list of potential Oscar winners for 2019 almost a year in advance of its release (Yesterday was on there, too.  But to my defense, so was 1917, Little Women, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, etc).  That will go down as one of the worst predictions of my entire life – past, present or future.  Not only was Cats bad, it was historically bad (currently rocking a 2.8/10 rating on IMDB).  People were literally getting hammered just to go see it and laugh at it.  I have no idea what sort of bribery went down for Amblin Entertainment and the other supporting production companies to recruit and land so many great actors to be in that garbage, but I hope they all got paid up front. Cats will go down as one of the biggest cinematic blunders of all-time.

BEST SONG FROM A FILM

  • “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” – Rocketman
  • “Stand Up” – Harriet
  • “Into the Unknown” – Frozen II
  • “I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” – Toy Story 4
  • “I’m Standing With You” – Breakthrough

 

 

I didn’t think this past year was a strong year at all for songs from movies, so I kept the nominees here in line with the official Oscar nominees. Although “Stand Up” was a powerful ballad by Harriet herself, Cynthia Erivo, an original piece of music by Sir Elton John for his own biopic takes the win.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

  • 1917
  • Joker
  • The King
  • Us
  • The Irishman

 

Although the Original Song category wasn’t very strong this year, I thought the Original Score group was solid and a tough one to call. The score from The Irishman hasn’t gotten a lot of love around the awards circuit this year, but I think it’s catchy and timeless just like the film.  It goes hand-in-hand with the movie perfectly, which is the ultimate objective.

On the contrary, the score that has gotten the most critical acclamation this season has been Hildur Guonadottir’s Joker score.  She has won this category at every award show this season, and is the favorite to win the Oscar.  While her score is as dark as the film’s main character and is beautifully placed, Thomas Newman’s 1917 score is just about as good as it gets.  It is one of the most well-balanced, beautiful scores I have heard in a long time.  With that being said, it’s my winner in somewhat of an upset.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

  • Avengers: Endgame
  • The Irishman
  • 1917

 

Although the CGI to make the older characters look young again for The Irishman was cool and even astonishing at times, the work done on Avengers: Endgame was state of the art. I often times forgot that the film was shot on a set because of how realistic the settings and weaponry appeared.

BEST SOUND  

  • Ford v Ferrari
  • 1917
  • Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

 

This was a close one, but I’m going with Ford V Ferrari here.  I’m sure the balancing act of blending all the vocal and other ambient soundtracks in with the naturally loud sounds of engines and crowd noise of a motor speedway were extremely difficult.  Manipulating sound for films is such a meticulous and special craft that most of us simple moviegoers will admittedly never understand.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

  • 1917
  • The Lighthouse
  • Midsommar
  • Joker
  • Us

 

As great as the cinematography was in each one of these films, only one was truly iconic – 1917.  To film a complex war movie like 1917 with single-shot cinematography is extremely difficult, so to master it the way Roger Deakins did in such a breathtaking way is remarkable.  The cinematic work done on 1917 was uncanny, and showed exactly why Deakins is a cinematography legend.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY  

  • Joker
  • The Irishman
  • Little Women
  • Jojo Rabbit
  • The Two Popes

 

The Joker character has been iconic character ever since he debuted as Batman’s adversary back in 1940, yet Todd Phillips successfully found a way to create a new origin story to the villain. His Joker blurs the lines between good and evil, while showing the dangers of a man with mental illness being alienated by society.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

  • Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
  • 1917
  • Marriage Story
  • Us
  • Uncut Gems

 

The Safdie Brothers wrote Uncut Gems a decade ago and hand-picked Adam Sandler to be their star for the film. Thankfully, that wild, roller-coaster ride of a movie successfully introduced these talented filmmakers to an overwhelming majority of moviegoers.  They also were praised for writing a script that brought the best out of Adam Sandler, an actor known more for comedy rather than serious, Oscar-caliber roles.  Although Sandler fell just short of getting an Oscar nomination, the buzz for him to land one was there.

I omitted Parasite in this category because I feel as though Us was very similar in that they both centered around the idea of deception being the means for an economically lower-class group of people rising up and revolting against those in high society. I just felt as though Jordan Peele was more successful at displaying that, and his film was more impactful doing so than Bong Joon-ho’s was.

With all that being said, Tarantino is one hell of a screenwriter, and flexed his cerebral muscles when he wrote Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.  As I wrote in my review of the film, that was Tarantino’s smartest film he’s ever written to date, and that did not go unnoticed with me.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

  • Laura Dern – Marriage Story
  • Margot Robbie – Bombshell
  • Nicole Kidman – Bombshell
  • Scarlett Johansson – Jojo Rabbit
  • Kathy Bates – Richard Jewell

 

Admittedly, I haven’t been a huge fan of this category this past year, but Laura Dern’s performance in Marriage Story was great, and she has been the constant frontrunner all year long in this category. She wins here pretty easily.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

  • Brad Pitt – Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
  • Al Pacino – The Irishman
  • Joe Pesci – The Irishman
  • Willem Dafoe – The Lighthouse
  • Tom Hanks – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

 

 

Another heavy favorite all season, Brad Pitt gave the best performance of his career in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Consequently, he is my winner in this category, which is saying a lot considering the fact that it’s probably the deepest list of nominees this year.  How often do we see Tom Hanks nominated for anything and having little to no chance of winning?  All these guys were phenomenal.

BEST ACTRESS  

  • Renee Zellweger – Judy
  • Lupita Nyong’o – Us
  • Scarlett Johansson – Marriage Story
  • Cynthia Erivo – Harriet
  • Charlize Theron – Bombshell

 

No joke, I originally thought they got Megyn Kelly to play herself in Bombshell, and then I found out that it was Charlize Theron. Theron looked and acted exactly like Kelly, which would have probably put her in the winner’s circle in most years.  However, this was the year of Renee Zellweger.  If anyone portrayed their real-life character better than Theron, it was Zellweger.  Her work as the late, great Judy Garland was unforgettable and will be talked about for years to come.  This was another tough category, though, as all of these women brought their A+ game to their respective performances.

BEST ACTOR

  • Joaquin Phoenix – Joker
  • Adam Driver – Marriage Story
  • Leonardo DiCaprio – Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
  • Robert De Niro – The Irishman
  • Adam Sandler – Uncut Gems

 

This is much of a slam dunk as you possibly could have. Phoenix’s performance as Arthur Fleck in Joker was one of the best I’ve ever seen.  The fact that anyone could dispute him winning this category is honestly laughable.  As great as the other actors were in their respective roles, Phoenix delivered a performance for the ages.

On a side note, what’s with all the De Niro snubs this year? He starred in one of the best films of the year, and gave one of his best performances of his career in The Irishman.  I have been scratching my head all awards season long at why he didn’t receive a Golden Globe, SAG, or Oscar nomination for that movie.  I got you, Mr. De Niro. Cheers!

BEST DIRECTOR

  • Sam Mendes – 1917
  • Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
  • Martin Scorsese – The Irishman
  • Todd Phillips – Joker
  • Ari Aster – Midsommar

 

I’ve written a lot about all of these films throughout this piece already, so I will just say this. To all those people who are angry that Greta Gerwig didn’t get an Oscar nomination for Little Women, and the fact that no female filmmakers were nominated at all – I get it.  I really, truly do.  With that said, though, I challenge you to convince me and anyone else who to take off the list of nominees in order to add her.  It was an amazing year in filmmaking, and this category is certainly a reflection of that.  In fact, if any woman was deserving of being nominated for their work this past year, it was Lulu Wang for The Farewell.  As a person of color, I could question (and have in the past when appropriate) where are the Oscar nominations for the minority directors – but I respect the nominees and their films this year way too much.  I couldn’t even manage to fit fellow minorities like Jordan Peele or Bong Joon-ho onto my own list!  We all need to know when to fight and when to “fall back.”  With the abundance of legendary work this past year, I would say this was a “fall back” year.

This isn’t taking anything away from Gerwig, but I think it’s unfair to the other female directors to single out Gerwig above all as the one who was “screwed over.”  She is a great filmmaker, but this is not the year for that argument.

BEST PICTURE

  • 1917
  • The Irishman
  • Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
  • Joker
  • Midsommar
  • Us
  • Parasite
  • Marriage Story
  • The Lighthouse
  • Ford v Ferrari

 

 

 

Without question, this is the best group of nominees I have had since I started this site. 1917 and The Irishman were my only two perfect scores I’ve ever given out, which is why they both are positioned firmly atop the list.  A case could honestly be made for each and every one of these movies to be the winner, but Mendes’ 1917 won me over.  Between the storyline of time, not the Germans, being the biggest enemy to the protagonist, the uncanny cinematography, the perfect production sets and impressive score, 1917 is the best war film of this generation, and arguably of all-time.  In the future, when we look back at the movies from 2019, we are going to be blown away by the fact that a definitive winner had to be crowned amongst classics like 1917, The Irishman and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.  Although only one could win, all of them (as well as the other nominees) will withstand the test of time and be enjoyed for countless years to come.

BY: CHRIS GUEST