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Movies

The Northman (2022)

Years ago, as a camp counselor for the young teens of my church, we had a night of split activities for the boys and girls. As the girls went off to have their nails done, the gentleman stayed in the cafeteria/gym to have various types of physical challenges (most notably the push up contest, which one of my campers easily dominated).

Toward the end of this, the girls came in, complaining right away about a smell that none of the males could register. One of the camp’s leaders quickly quipped,

“Ladies, that is testosterone.”

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"Top Tens", and others Movies

The 94th Academy Awards: My take on the Good, the Bad, and…well, you know what moment.

In the words of Ron Burgundy, “That escalated quickly!”.

The 94th Academy Awards had more than its fair share of failures (one we will get to), but it is important to remember that it had some good moments as well. Great moments, in fact, that are worth remembering.

In no particular order…

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"Top Tens", and others Movies

The 94th Academy Awards: Who will win, who should win, and why you should not underestimate the Power of the (under) dog

This may be a bad analogy, but making my predictions this year has been akin to playing Candy Land, possibly the worst kids board game of all time. If the goal is to simply make the predictions at a reasonable time, I am still feeling stuck on that black dot space, or I keep drawing that stupid muffin guy or whatever that brings me back to the start.

Either way, after hours of personal research (including looking at multiple anonymous Oscar voter revelations) here are my predictions, as well as what I think should win. I was also on a podcast with an old High School friend as we discussed the nominations (thanks again Mike!). That was split into two episodes.

NOTE: Not all the predictions I made on the podcast are the same here. What I have typed out are my final predictions.

And, of course, I feel all the categories are important, and should be on TV. So we will start with the lesser known categories…

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"Top Tens", and others Movies

The Top 20 of 2021

From The Little Things to The Tragedy of Macbeth (Denzel bookends), I rounded out my amount of movies seen at seventy.

Even with that amount of movies, there was a fair amount of films I did not get to in time (especially, sadly, Foreign Language films). These include The Last Duel, The Green Knight, The Card Counter, Drive my Car, The Worst Person in the World, Stillwater, and The Tender Bar.

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4 1/2 Stars Movies

Mass (2021)

We are getting to the point in our country where everyone will have either been a witness to a mass shooting or will know someone who has (or worse, known a victim).

If you don’t believe me, well you will, because I was at NIU on Valentine’s Day in 2008 when a shooter killed five students before taking his own life.

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5 Stars Movies

Licorice Pizza (2021)

While I admit to not seeing all of his films just yet, it does not take much to realize that director Paul Thomas Anderson is indeed what one could call an acquired taste. It is a lighter affair this time around for Licorice Pizza, but it does not at all make it less fascinating.

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"Top Tens", and others Movies

The Cream of the Crap: Top 10 Worst movies of 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic is approaching two long agonizing years of existence. I am fortunate to say that, while some in my family have caught the disease, none has passed away. I am aware others have not been so fortunate.

That said, a last minute COVID diagnosis has cancelled my family holiday plans for the second year in a row, so I am rather upset. Therefore, I am transferring my anger in a healthy way to my current separate anger at the worst movies of 2021.

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5 Stars Movies

C’mon C’mon (2021)

After winning an Oscar for his performance in the titular role Joker, Joaquin Phoenix takes a big jump to the other side of the acting spectrum into subtle territory in C’mon C’mon.

Of course, that does not make his performance any less impressive.

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4 1/2 Stars Movies

Belfast (2021)

Up until about 15 minutes into Belfast, it never occurred to me that memories were able to be in black and white. I’m not talking about those shown in fiction, but my own personal memories.

That director Kenneth Brannagh’s movie had me thinking like this speaks to it’s power as what will surely be an Oscar front runner in the next few months.

Categories
2 1/2 Stars Movies

Eternals (2021)

I was as shocked as the next person when it was announced that Eternals had a low score on Rotten Tomatoes (as of this writing, the critic score is 49%.) This still did not deter me, as I had a good amount of hope knowing that Chloe Zhao was at the helm (more on her later).

When it was over, I left the theater knowing I was on the fence for this film as much as I have been for any film in some time.