Tag: Alfonso Cuaron

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Steve McQueen: Film Ranking

One of the most revolutionary film directors to emerge this century so far is Steve McQueen. A Turner Prize winning artist who has turned his attention to feature films, McQueen’s realistic and fearless approach to exploring serious topics such as domestic abuse and slavery as well as taboo subjects such as sex addiction. When it comes to mcQueen, nothing is off limits and he isn’t afraid to expose the realities of the film’s subjects. He is also the first black filmmaker to win the Acaemy Award for Best Picture for 12 Years a Slave. I also think he should have been rewarded the Best Director Oscar as well although Alfonso Cuarón did a great job with Gravity.

Given the current landscape, I think it is now more important than ever to highlight the talent and calibre that people of colour bring to the film industry. The film industry is so important when it comes to representation and sadly, it just isn’t where it should be. Film is a fantastic medium to express personal stories, provide escapism and bring relevant topics and subjects to the forefront as point of discussion. I thought it best to take a look into McQueen’s amazing filmography and do a ranking of his films. There are only four films but each one is a standout in their own right so as usual, it will prove to be a challenge.

Here are my mini reviews for each McQueen film follows by the ranking:

Hunger (2008)
McQueen’s feature debut stars Michael Fassbender as IRA protestor, Bobby Sands, who takes part in a hunger and no-wash strike. This is a fantastic debut for McQueen and deservedly won him a BAFTA for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer for their First Feature Film. We watch as Sands figuratively and literally begins to fade away as he becomes the symbol for the strike. McQueen doesn’t hide the dirtiness and the discomfort in watching Sands lose the majority of his weight to the point where he can’t function. Technically, the film appears simple but it is comprised of many brilliant shots, one in particular being a 17 minute non-stop conversation between Sands and Father Moran (Liam Cunningham). By bringing a minimalist and realistic angle to the film, it actually exemplifies the horrors of the strike. Hunger put both McQueen and Fassbender on the map and it made way for the former’s unapologetic point of view approach to filmmaking.

Shame (2011)
For his second feature, McQueen reunites with Fassbender who plays Brandon Sulliven, a business executive who has an addiction to sex. Much like Hunger, McQueen does not flinch away from the realities that sex addiction has. There is nudity, both male and female, in abundance as well as underlying issues of family conflict and self-harm. This is not a film to be watched lightly as it is even more uncomfortable than its predecessor but it talks about a topic that people consider taboo. It also explores classism and the idea of the untouchable rich white male. During his usual work day, Brandon religiously watched pornography on his computer and when this is discovered, it is automatically assumed that his intern is the one who has been downloading and watching it. The idea that someone like Brandon couldn’t be associated with sex addiction is an idea that McQueen rejects in Shame. Brandon surrounds himself with sex to avoid the fact that he is lonely and unfulfilled.

12 Years a Slave (2013)
The film that propelled McQueen to the major awards circuit, 12 Years a Slave is possibly the most explicit and “real” feature film about slavery in mainstream cinema. Based on the memoir of the name same by Solomon Northup, a New-york born black man who was kidnapped and sold as a slave in Louisiana. Northup is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor with Lupita Nyongo’o as fellow slave Patsey and Fassbender in his third McQueen film as slave owner Edwin Epps. It’s a star-studded cast but what McQueen does so well is focus so much on the characters and their development that the audience forgets which actors they are watching and it becomes almost documentary like. McQueen does not hold back on the brutality that the slaves face and it goes beyond daily beatings as we see Epps rape Patsey and Epps’ wife feel resentment for Patsey rather than her husband. It’s a film that demands conversation and McQueen refuses to allow the film to be whitewashed or edited to appeal to white audiences in the way that films such as Song of the South does.

Widows (2018)
The latest feature film released by McQueen is an amazing tour de force starring Viola Davis as Veronica, a woman recently widowed after her bank robber husband, Harry (Liam Neeson) and his cohorts are killed when their car blows up. Veronica along with the other widows of the men who died must work together to get some money that is owed to a crime boss. The team comprises of Veronica, Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) and it’s so empowering watching such a huge film led by women and more importantly such a diverse cast of women. Anyone who claims that women cannot lead a film because it doesn’t bring in money is mistaken as the film was a critical and commercial success. What makes the film so engaging is how well-rounded each of the women are. We get a grip of their backgrounds in a few scenes and yet the audience understands their story and motivations to get the money. Even when Belle, who wasn’t one of the original widows is brought into the plot, is introduced, her backstory as both a beautician and babysitter is made clear highlighting her struggling financial position.

Although it is not the longest filmography, McQueen has proven why he is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. I have included discussions of each of the films above when talking about Michael Fassbender and Viola Davis’ best roles which you can read here and here, respectively. I think that only demonstrates McQueen’s talent as director that he is able to create career-best films for his stars. His ability to create characters that are well-rounded is flawless and he has only demonstrated improvement as we go from a single standout performance in Hunger to four equally developed characters in Widows where he allows women to take the lead.

Here is my ranking of McQueen’s film:

1) 12 Years a Slave (2013)

2) Widows (2018)

3) Hunger (2008)

4) Shame (2011)

Do you agree with my ranking? Which McQueen film is your favourite? Let me know in the comments below!

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91st Academy Awards – Technical Awards

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My last blog on this year’s Oscars concludes with the Technical awards. This year has seen a huge number of large scale blockbusters that heavily use CGI to achieve their vision as well as smaller films that rely on using what they have. Both methods take imagination and it’s great to see films recognised across this spectrum.
Just in case you want to read my other blogs on this year’s Oscars, I’ll put the links below here:
Acting Awards
Creative Awards – Part 1
Creative Awards – Part 2
Creative Awards – Part 3
Here is my roundup of this year’s technology award winners!

Best Visual Effects
It seemed that Black Panther was the favourite to take this award home but the team for Neil Armstrong biopic First Man won. I feel that this film was deeply overlooked in various categories, particularly sound editing and this one throughout awards season but to see it recognised for its terrifically executed effects was deserved. I don’t think I have ever felt so claustrophobic watching a film before but this film managed to accomplish this from the first scene. Although the cast was the main talking point for this film on its release, I think that the visual effects were the standout feature of this film.

Best Sound Editing
I was happy to see First Man nominated in this category but given that it was up against box office smash Bohemian Rhapsody, I knew that it would lose. Personally, I feel that First Man should have taken this home but Bohemian Rhapsody is a film that relies heavily on its sound editing. I think that First Man used sound in a way that I hadn’t expected or seen before.


Best Sound Mixing
Again, Bohemian Rhapsody was the expected winner here and didn’t disappoint. I was happy with the win considering how they utilised mixing the Rami Malek’s vocals with Freddie’s so it wasn’t simply a case of Malek lip syncing his way through the film. It helped enhance Malek’s amazing performance and I think the win in this category was thoroughly deserved.

Best Editing
A lot of wins for Bohemian Rhapsody in the categories in this blog and this is the one of the film’s wins that I strongly disagreed with personally. I think that my main problem with the film as a whole was its editing. There were scenes that consisted of numerous cuts that made the film jittery. The film on the whole doesn’t flow well because it is badly paced and the editing is one of the main contributors to this problem. I thought that Hank Corwin should have won this category for his brilliant editing in Vice. It was innovative and unexpected, keeping the audience in a state of discomfort as we didn’t know what would happen next. The editing in Vice reflected the erratic nature of its subject and I think it conveys this fantastically.

Best Cinematography
Without a shadow of a doubt, this was Alfonso Cuaron’s for the taking and he won it completely deservedly for Roma. He manages to convey the problems of a Mexican classist society by keeping the focus solely on protagonist Cleo. Cleo becomes an embodiment of the working class female and the struggles of living a life that seems to be against her. Her story is told in black and white but the film is anything but. It teeters on a spectrum of emotions as we see Cleo in her darkest moments as well as her happier times as she navigates a pregnancy. Cleo’s friendship with her employer is beautifully conveyed as well as the two women bond over their mutual struggles.

That’s it for my Oscars roundup! What did you think of this year’s ceremony? Leave your comments below!

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91st Academy Awards – Creative Awards (Part 3)

Now I’m well into my roundup of this year’s Academy Awards and the more I write about it, the more I realise just how many surprises there actually were. In my first blog I spoke about the acting awards (here) and the following posts looked at the creative awards with the first batch here and the second lot here.

In this post, I will discuss the last batch of”creative awards”: Best Original Score, Best Song, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Best Production Design.

Best Original Score

This year’s win in this category was surprising, going to Ludwig Gorranson for his score for blockbuster Black Panther. Up to this point, Black Panther had been sweeping the technical categories and minor creative categories with multiple wins so this wasn’t as much of a shock on the night. However, I personally preferred Nicholas Brittell’s spectacular work for Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk and hoped that he would grab the win. I hope that there are many Jenkins/Brittell collaborations in the future and I am sure that he will win his Oscar one day.

Best Song

This is the one category where they may as well not have even had any other nominees. Smash it “Shallow” from A Star is Born is instantly recognisable even to those who haven’t seen the film. It is a brilliant track and definitely the highlight of the film. Personally, the film overall was a little underwhelming for my taste but this win was beyond deserving. Not to mention the undeniable chemistry between the film’s leads, Bradley Cooper (who directed the film) and Lady Gaga (who won the Oscar for her songwriting), which was one of the major talking points of the night. I think the song’s place in the film is the perfect starting point for the relationship of the two characters. I’d honestly be surprised if anyone voted otherwise just because it was pretty much a given as soon as the film was released.

Best Costume Design

Another category won by Black Panther and I can see why. One of the standout features of the film, the costumes were perfectly balanced between vibrant and muted costumes that had an eclectic mix between traditional tribal costume and a futuristic feel. I loved the hand-knitted pieces especially. Ruth E. Carter’s speech was one of my favourites of the night. I was sad that Sandy Powell didn’t win for The Favourite but the costumes in Black Panther are unique and haven’t been done before whereas I think The Favourite was enhanced by the makeup (badger) than the costumes themselves.

Best Makeup

Seeing as The Favourite was weirdly snubbed in this category, I am happy to see Vice recognised for the amazing transformation of its leading cast. The makeup allowed Christian Bale in particular to be completely lost in the role of vice president Dick Cheney. I personally enjoyed Vice a lot more than other people did so to see it win at all is welcome news.

Best Production Design

Another gong that went to Black Panther, I do think that this one should have gone to The Favourite. I understand that I am very biased to The Favourite but I do think it lost in categories that it shouldn’t have necessarily lost in. But also, these two films have great production design in their own way. Black Panther is a film that travels which gives the production team a chance to show of an array of various designs whereas The Favourite is mainly set in the one palace and is brilliantly designed to feel claustrophobic despite being an enormous estate.

That’s it for the creative awards. My next Oscars roundup will look at the technical awards.

What do you think of the winners? Do you agree with my thoughts? Let me know in the comments below!

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91st Academy Awards – Creative Awards (Part 2)

Continuing my roundup of this year’s Oscars, I will be discussing more of the Creative awards handed out on Sunday night. In my first blog I spoke about the acting awards (here) and the following posts looked at the creative awards (here). The array of topics from the winners and nominees show just how varied this year has been internationally. Without further ado, here’s my take on Best Animated Short, Best Live Action Short, Best Short Documentary, Best Documentary, Best Animated Feature and Best Foreign Film.

Best Animated Short Film

It was obvious that this gong would go to Pixar short Bao. The first Pixar short created by women, it tells the story of a mother-son relationship between a woman and a dumpling. It is a beautiful metaphor that shows the ups and downs of family life as Bao grows up and eventually starts to make questionable life choices. This film wasn’t for everyone and it’s understandable why but I loved it and thought it was a very touching and maternal piece of work. It brought something new to the table at Pixar, whose repertoire as of late has consisted of sequels and prequels and showed why audiences fell in love with it in the first place by injecting the passion and originality voiced by the animators and artists who work there.

Best Live Action Short

The winner of this award was Skin, a story of modern day racism in American which follows a Neo-Nazi who is kidnapped by a group of African Americans after organising a racial attack of his own and he is then tattooed completely black. The win in this category shows the importance to tell stories about the racial divide that still exists today.

Best Short Documentary

Nothing felt better for my feminist heart than seeing a crowd of women fill the stage to accept an Oscar for a film about menstruation. Period. End of Sentence explores women living in India whose education had been cut short due to their periods due to a lack of access to sanitary pads. A group of women team up and begin to manufacture sanitary pads so young girls and women can go to school and worship at temples. It is a brilliant insight into global inequality and puts to rest the patriarchal belief that gender equality exists. It also opens the gate for non-white female filmmakers to talk about subjects that are considered taboo in the same vein as Pakistani filmmaker, Sharmeen Obaid whose film, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness that explores the so-called honour killings in her home country previously won an Oscar in the same category three years ago. The bravery that these women have to exploit these issues shows how powerful the medium of film is in communicating these topics to a society that tends to cover it’s ears to the problem.

Best Documentary

Free Solo follows rock climber Alex Honnold as he attempts to free climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. The filming itself proved to be a challenge as the production team had to ensure that Honnold was in no way hindered by bulky microphones or other film equipment. To do this they had a sound technician who knew how to rock climb and climbed alongside him. This is shows real innovation in filmmaking and brings a unique angle on this story rather than just having cameras at the top and bottom of the mountain.

Best Animated Feature

This year saw a welcome departure from the usual Disney win with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse winning the gong. It proved to be hugely popular mainly due to its inclusiveness in narrative as well as the animation itself which differs from the usual large-eyed computer animation that we have become accustomed to. This year also saw Wes Anderson’s return to animation with Isle of Dogs which was absolutely brilliant. Although not as strong as Fantastic Mr. Fox, Isle of Dogs gave the most star-studded cast from any of this year’s films and injected it into a tale about the love between a young boy and his dog.

Best Foreign Film

This category was one of the big competitions of the night. The pundits rightly put their money on Mexico’s entry, Roma, but it would be wrong to ignore the ferociously strong competition from Poland’s Cold War and Japan’s Palme d’Or winning Shoplifters. This year was a tremendous year for international film and I think Roma’s popularity specifically proves that mainstream audiences want to see non-English language films. There’s been a lot of debate on whether Roma should even qualify for awards season given that it is a Netflix film but I personally feel that using streaming it on Netflix means that millions of people will have a chance to watch a film that they may not ordinarily watch. I do think this debate played apart to its loss in the Best Picture race as I feel that the Academy may have felt that the Best Foreign Film win would suffice; however, there is no doubt that Roma was one of the most discussed films of the year and it won’t easily be forgotten.

That’s it for my second Creative awards roundup. My next post will look at the last batch of Creative awards: best song, best score, best costume design, best makeup and best Production design.

What do you think of the winners? Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below!

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91st Academy Awards – Creative Awards (Part 1)

For this segment of my Oscars 2019 roundup, I am looking at the four “big” categories in the creative department – both adapted and original screenplays, director and best picture. I have previously discussed my thoughts on the acting categories here. The screenplay categories are my favourite categories in the whole of awards season and this year provided an array of offerings from industry veterans and newcomers alike but ultimately we saw the veterans win the day.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Blackkklansman was one of my favourite films of this awards circuit. I knew it didn’t really stand a chance against the other Best Picture nominees that appeared to be more popular so seeing this great film recognised for its killer script was a great feat and to see the genius Spike Lee win an Oscar in competition was one of my personal highlights of the ceremony. This truly was his moment and although set in the 70s, the script seemed as though it could have been set this year. The timelessness shows not only his skill as a filmmaker but also breaks the illusion that we live in a society that is “equal” or “more equal” to make ourselves feel better. Spike uses this film as a vehicle to hold the mirror up to society through techniques such as combining footage from the news today with racist propaganda film The Birth of a Nation. The protagonist is the only black policeman in his unit so we get to see how he is treated within the African American community as well as the white men in power.

This script was my pick by far for the adapted screenplay award so I am thrilled that it won.

Best Original Screenplay

This winner was both a surprise and a disappointment in my personal opinion. Peter Farrelly won for the script for Green Book which was a very mixed film for me. My main issue with the film was its script. The story was lifted by the charisma of the actors rather by being lifted by the words they were saying. Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali did a fantastic job of carrying the film but sadly it seemed that they were driving a cardboard car rather than a real one.

My pipedream is to one day win the gong in this category so it tends to be the one I follow the most. My vote would have gone to The Favourite. The humour and depth of all three leads is unlike anything I have seen and to see a film treat three women with such vigour and respect was really refreshing. In my eyes, this was one of the major robs of the night.

Best Director

There was no doubt that Alfonso Cuaron would take the trophy home for Best Director. Whether or not Roma was to everyone’s liking, it cannot be doubted that this was the film Cuaron was born to make and could only be made by him. The vision was truly his as he took over practically every aspect of production including cinematography (which he also won) and co-editing. It’s rare that a film brings a first time actor award attention yet Cuaron created a star in the form of film lead Yalitza Aparicio, a recently graduated teacher who had no plans to enter acting and happened upon the audition by chance. Within the last six Academy Awards, Mexican filmmakers have won this gong with this being Cuaron’s second win in this category. In an industry where diversity still has a way to go, those statistics show good promise for the future of film.

Although Cuaron undoubtedly deserved his win, my personal pick would have been Yorgos Lanthimos for The Favourite but I knew Cuaron would take the gold and I am really happy for Roma’s success. Also, considering Lathimos had been largely left out of the director races for other awards, I was thrilled that he received a director nomination at all.

Best Picture

Now for the big one! We know the eventual winner of the big prize (Best Picture) went to Farrelly’s Green Book which some have viewed as deserving but others have already deemed will go down as one of the biggest mistakes in the Academy’s history. I think it’s too early to see whether it’s one of the biggest mistakes in the Oscars history but I do think it was the wrong choice. Usually this category tends to be a race between two (sometimes three) films but there was an array of films that had a chance this year all for different reasons. Green Book was among these but given that it was being consistently recognised for Mahershala Ali’s performance which I think is a huge bulk of its eventual win in this category, I didn’t think it would actually take it. I do feel strongly that this award should have gone to Roma or The Favourite because these films were experimental and yet had a lot of heart and love in them. I’m not sure I felt the same way about Green Book. As I said above, the script was too bland for my liking but also the context of production put me off. The fact that the film has all white male producers, director and screenwriters is already problematic. How do you make a film about the black American experience without a major black figure of authority behind the camera? I know I speak from a white female perspective but it just seemed so strange to me when you had other films in the mix such as Blackkklansman and Black Panther which proved to be popular with audiences and critics alike. On another note, I really feel that If Beale Street Could Talk should have been included in the nominees and considering films like Bohemian Rhapsody were included, there’s no reason why it was omitted.

I would have loved to see The Favourite or Roma take this award. I felt more of a connection with them. Both were films that stretch the imagination and remind me why I love films so much.

That’s it for this post. My next blog will look at another batch of creative awards including Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary Feature and Best Foreign Film as well as the shorts.

What did you think of the winners and losers in these categories? Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below!