The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023)
Director: Francis: Lawrence
Screenwriter: Michael Lesslie, Michael Arndt
Starring: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andres Rivera, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Viola Davis

Everyone loves a good origin story. Whether that origin story is worth telling is a different matter entirely.

When The Hunger Games was released more than a decade ago, its massive success (both with fans and at the box office) opened the floodgates for countless other young adult dystopian adaptations. We got The Mortal Instruments, I Am Number Four, Ender’s Game, Divergent, The Fifth Wave, and The Maze Runner, all of which failed to garner the same praise as The Hunger Games had. Though this trend didn’t make it out of the mid-2010s alive, The Hunger Games series has continued to endure thanks to the quality and consistency of the performances, writing, directing, and production design across all four films. Its themes of war, rebellion, oppression, and the power of love, are more timely than ever.

It was inevitable that Hollywood would eventually circle back to The Hunger Games, especially considering the new trend that has emerged in recent years: nostalgia. In the years since The Hunger Games series ended, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Ghostbusters have all been resurrected to varying degrees of success, each new entry seemingly struggling to justify its reason to exist. But The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes somehow manages to escape the same fate. Based on the 2020 prequel novel of the same name by “The Hunger Games” author Suzanne Collins, the film stands on its own, reigniting the same spark that made the original films so popular, without ever using those films as a crutch.

In Songbirds and Snakes, we return to the world of Panem 64 years before Katniss Everdeen stepped into the arena. The country is struggling to rebuild following the war, the dark days are barely behind them. The Hunger Games is in its 10th year, but Head Game Maker Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) is struggling to figure out how to get people to keep watching her sickening reality show. Amid this, a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), years before he will become the powerful and cruel dictator we know him to be, is desperate to save his family from financial ruin. Though his father helped to create The Hunger Games, his suspicious death left the family penniless. Coriolanus lives in a constant state of possible eviction with his grandma’am (Fionnula Flanagan) and older cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer), who will go on to become a stylist for the games and later an ally to Katniss in the resistance against The Capitol.

At the academy, Coriolanus is informed that there will be one more test before graduation: seniors must become mentors in the upcoming games. “Your job is to make them into spectacles, not survivors,” Dean Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) tells them. Coriolanus ends up being paired with Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a fiery tribute from District 12 and member of the Covey, a traveling musician troupe. Lucy Gray doesn’t have much in the way of fighting skills, but she is a performer and the arena becomes her stage. She also has a habit of slicing snakes on people that have wronged her. When Coriolanus and Lucy Gray form an unexpected connection, he ends up risking everything to make sure she makes it out of the games alive, but the threat of rebellion in the districts and Coriolanus’ ambition begin to tear them apart.

Songsbirds and Snakes works for a couple of different reasons, chief among them being the fact that almost the entire production team behind The Hunger Games returned to make it. Francis Lawrence, who took over for The Hunger Games director Gary Ross with Catching Fire (2013) and stayed until the end of the series (2015), returned to direct, along with producer Nina Jacobson. Returning production designer Phillip Messina and cinematographer Jo Willem manage to recreate the look of the original series to ensure that it feels as though no time had passed between the final instalment and this prequel, while still giving the film its own visual flair. While The Hunger Games is not tame by any means, the luxury and gloss of The Capitol’s state of the art technology gives everything a glossy sheen. In Songbirds and Snakes, everything is primitive and wild: the arena is a crumbling concrete dome, there is no late night talk show, no fancy training center or tribute living quarters, everything feels rough and unpolished and ten times as dangerous. The color pallet, although reminiscent of the original films, is decidedly darker. The production and costume designers took obvious inspiration from the 1940s, and particularly Nazi Germany, especially in regards to the battle rifles used. While The Hunger Games used analogue technology as a jumping off point for its futuristic designs, Songbirds and Snakes takes that to another level. It’s easy to see how this Panem will eventually becomes that one, decades later. The film is one of those rare big-budget spectacles that actually looks as expensive as it is.

The Hunger Games succeeded in part because the novels were adapted with care, the filmmakers making sure to keep important details and characters and moments that made the story work in the first place. The narrative wasn’t tossed into a blender and then thrown up on screen. Suzanne Collins’ rich world building remained in tact throughout the four original films, and the same goes for Songbirds and Snakes. Every film in the original series is nearly 1 to 1 to its novel counterparts. Fans eager for another faithful adaptation will not be disappointed. Songbirds and Snakes stays almost entirely true to the spirit of the novel.

Despite the pressure of being the first entry in a widely popular franchise in nearly decade, Songbirds and Snakes is not trying to replicate the story beats of The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins crafted an intriguing origin story for her main villain, and that is partially responsible for this, but the filmmakers can also take credit as they didn’t feel the need to replicate moments from the original series or reference characters and events that haven’t happened yet (in the timeline of their in-film world). The closest they get to a wink and a nod is when Lucy Gray tells Coriolanus that the plant she’s holding is Katniss. Of course, those looking to have a little bit of the original series injected in their veins will not be disappointed either. Composer James Newton Howard knows exactly when to employ his Mockingjay theme. The structure of the film is also different and not just a carbon copy of the previous films, which almost always ended in the arena or in some type of explosive battle. Songbirds and Snakes takes the opposite approach. The first half of the movie is spent preparing for and executing the games, with the latter half dedicated to the unravelling of Coriolanus and Lucy’s relationship. Although, the movie does lose some steam once the games are over.

As far performances go, Songbirds and Snakes has a strong main cast that helps elevate the material and convey the complex inner lives of our characters even when it’s not necessarily found on the page. In addition to an impeccable American accent and a really good blond wig, relatively unknown English actor Tom Blyth manages to step into the shoes previously worn by the prolific Donald Sutherland with ease, although he doesn’t quite have Sutherland’s flair for the dramatic. But he’s just as charismatic to watch, and although he makes the character his own, it is not hard to believe that he is the younger version of a character we already know. He has a similar face and a similar voice, but there’s a hint of humanity in him that he has all but abandoned when we see him in The Hunger Games. In Songbirds and Snakes, there’s a vulnerability to him, but there’s also a darkness lurking just below the surface and Blyth balances that very well. Rachel Zegler is perfectly cast as Lucy Gray, brimming with charm and confidence. It should be no surprise that Zegler has a fantastic voice, thanks to her screen debut as Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. Josh Andres Rivera is an absolute scene stealer as Sejanus Plinth, classmate of Coriolanus whose sympathy for the rebel cause becomes his ultimate downfall, and Hunter Schafer, who burst onto the scene as Jules on the HBO series “Euphoria”, is enchanting as Snow’s cousin Tigris, although her talent does feel wasted on such a small part. Jason Schwartzman (Asteroid City) is absolutely hilarious as Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman, first television host of the games and presumed relative of Caesar Flickerman, who was played by Stanley Tucci in the original. His one liners in the midst of children killing each other highlights just how crass and and out of touch the people in The Capitol are. His performance never feels forced or over the top, as Tucci’s sometimes did.

All in all, Songbirds and Snakes is a worthy entry into The Hunger Games canon, offering a rich and intriguing peek into the past. It’s not as emotionally satisfying as the original series, but with only one film as opposed to four, that’s a difficult height to reach. Still, in an industry overrun with remakes, prequels, sequels, and reboots, Songbirds and Snakes understands how capturing the magic of a series so many already love is easy, you just have to tell a really good story.

Score: 22/24

Prisoners (2013)
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Screenwriter: Aaron Guzikowski
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Paul Dano

Denis Villeneuve’s taut and gripping 2013 thriller Prisoners follows several characters in the aftermath of any parent’s worst nightmare: child abduction. When two young girls go missing on Thanksgiving, desperate father Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) enlists the help of Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal). After the prime suspect is released due to a lack of evidence, Loki is forced to take matters into his own hands, as the film explores how far humankind will go to protect the ones we love.

Hugh Jackman is utterly convincing as a despairing father, driven to the edge by an unforgivable act of evil. We feel his sense of urgency and utter desperation as he races against the clock to find his daughter and her friend. Gyllenhaal is great as a ruthless police detective, his own concealed rage simmering beneath a facial twitch, which grows more pronounced with frustration. He is scarily good at embodying anger behind a controlled façade, his carefully slicked-back hair falling loose during an explosive interrogation of a suspect.

Paul Dano is infuriating as the prime suspect who may or may not have information about the girls’ disappearance. Keller’s frustration at the man who clearly has learning difficulties is painfully palpable, as Dano’s Alex Jones refuses to offer any information despite the brutal violence he is subjected to.

Throughout the film, director Denis Villeneuve poses a thought-provoking question: can extreme violence ever be justified? During an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, Villeneuve described Prisoners as “a movie dealing with fears and angers that we all have inside ourselves. It’s a moral conflict”. The film will likely divide viewers on how sympathetic a character Keller is, but his questionable interrogation methods clearly come from a place of desperation and grief. Villeneuve realistically and powerfully presents a range of reactions from the grieving families. From Jackman’s sheer rage, to the hopelessness and inertia of his wife (Maria Bello), Prisoners follows the director’s prior film Polytechnique (2009) in illustrating how there is no “correct” way to respond in the face of such tragedy.

The cinematography is perhaps the film’s most notable element, with the dark and oppressive lighting reflecting the bleakness of the subject matter. Iconic British director of photography Roger Deakins has since become a regular collaborator with Villeneuve, and his cinematography for this film received a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score is also essential in establishing the sombre mood, and punctuates the narrative with a weighty sense of dread and foreboding. Jóhannsson would go on to work with Villeneuve across subsequent releases Sicario and Arrival, earning BAFTA nominations for both.

The film’s labyrinthine plot is creatively reflected by the maze imagery throughout, and the story twists and turns throughout its 2-hours and 33 minutes with no dull moments. There are some truly chilling and heart-stopping sequences that remain impactful a decade on.

Prisoners marks Denis Villeneuve’s first English language film, previously receiving critical acclaim for his 2010 Middle Eastern drama, Incendies. He has now become a prominent figure in the modern sci-fi genre, making Blade Runner 2049 and Dune among others.

The way in which the film thought-provokingly tackles an impossible moral dilemma makes Prisoners a superior addition to the crime thriller genre. In keeping with the title, we are held captive throughout and remains in its grip long after the credits have rolled.

Score: 20/24

Written by Gala Woolley

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Air (2023)
Director: Ben Affleck
Screenwriter: Alex Convery
Starring: Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, Chris Messina, Marlon Wayans, Matthew Maher, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis

Ben Affleck returns to the director’s chair for the first time in six years to turn what could be a dry boardroom drama into a thrilling, feel-good piece about the creation of the Air Jordan brand at Nike. The film, written by debut screenwriter Alex Convery, is centred around the struggling Nike Basketball division in 1984, focusing on the efforts of talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) as he hatches a ballsy plan to recruit up-and-coming star player Michael Jordan (Damian Delano Young).

Air plunges us into 1984: a montage of archival footage from the year accompanied with a sound bridge of Dire Straits’ electrifying ‘Money for Nothing’, several cutaway sequences to various memorabilia of the decade such as retro cereals and fax machines, a nostalgic foot-tapping soundtrack that illuminates the experience. Some of this works really well, such as a euphoric use of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” and an emotional pay-off that comes in the form of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”. But some is clumsy and tonally jarring. At times, it can feel like the nostalgia factor is forced to maintain the film’s feel-good tone, in order to keep us entertained during dialogue-heavy business meetings. This echoes the current trend of 80s nostalgia in both film and television, with ‘Stranger Things’ in 2016 being the catalyst. It is a formula that has started to grow rather stale.

On the surface, a film about executives at a sportswear brand may appear to be essentially a two-hour business meeting, but Air utilises all of the more exciting conventions of the typical sports film. At its core, this is an underdog story in which Nike Basketball are the underdogs of the sportswear game. They are underfunded (in a company worth over one billion dollars) and a laughing stock compared to the more successful divisions of rival brands Adidas and Converse. Their ‘team’ comprises of the gutsy Vaccaro, the sensitive Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), the eccentric Pete Moore (Matthew Maher), and the comedic Howard White (Chris Tucker). They are ‘managed’ by the spiritual Nike CEO Philip Knight, who is played by Ben Affleck himself. This mix of personalities, elevated by Alex Convery’s dynamic script and a stellar ensemble of supporting actors, creates a team that we can root for, even though they are playing the ruthless game of big business.

The focus on the business side of sport draws comparisons to other crowd-pleasers such as Bennett Miller’s Moneyball (2011) and Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire (1996). Both of these films centre around a sports person in a managerial role – coach and agent, respectively – and their relationships with the sports people they are involved with. Although the same premise can be applied to Air, Affleck’s direction takes a different, rather polarising approach. In both Moneyball and Jerry Maguire, the athletes are characters with their own agency within the narrative. In Air, the fictional Michael Jordan’s face is never revealed to us, Affleck instead using archival footage of the real Jordan and his achievements to create this revered character within the film.

Air isn’t a biopic about Michael Jordan, it’s a biopic about the jumpman silhouette that is stitched into every single pair of the Air Jordan shoes that Jordan and Nike made famous. It is a tale of how design, marketing and business go hand-in-hand to help transform a relatively unknown basketball prospect into an American icon.

The anchor of Air is its screenplay, as Convery’s work is well-paced and tight, making the film feel like a chapter in a miniseries about Jordan’s career and legacy. Despite featuring lots of business and sports-related jargon, the plot is straightforward enough to be enjoyed by a wide audience. The most significant strength of the script is the portrayal of the relationships between Vaccaro, Jordan’s agent David Falk (Chris Messina) and Jordan’s mother Deloris (Viola Davis). Falk provides an obstacle for Vaccaro, giving the first insight into Jordan’s negative feelings towards Nike. From there, Damon’s everyman portrayal of Vaccaro contrasts brilliantly with Messina’s tough-talking, bad-mouthed sports agent, transforming Falk from just an obstacle in the narrative into a memorable character that we love to hate.

One of the most memorable moments of Air comes in a monologue delivered passionately by Damon as Vaccaro. He tells Jordan about how the shoe will allow people from around the world to have their own piece of Jordan’s greatness, adding meaning to their lives. The film is not about the man Michael Jordan; it is about the myth and the legend of Air Jordan. Air is just like the shoes, another way for us to get a glimpse of Jordan’s transcendent magic.

Then, there’s Deloris Jordan, who provides the film’s heart in the midst of all the fast-talking and hard-hitting aspects of the business world. Whilst Falk has Jordan’s interests in mind, Deloris is the only character whose main priority is her son’s happiness and stability. Davis, hand-picked by Michael Jordan himself, gives a stellar performance by bringing each of us, and Vaccaro, back down to Earth to remind us that no amount of money or flattery can overtake the basic principles of respect and courtesy. In the first scene we are introduced to Deloris, she shows Vaccaro a tree that has been in the Jordan household for hundreds of years, sharply contrasting with the cold, corporate environment of the Nike offices. Deloris reminds us that this is not a straightforward underdog tale, but a story about protecting the interests of the ones we love so that they can grow and live on beyond our lifetimes, just as the tree will.

Air is a light, well-paced film that makes two hours fly by. It will leave you thinking, ‘wow, I can’t believe I got so invested in a pair of shoes’. It subverts the traditional boardroom drama, keeping us entertained with a mixture of comedic one-liners and heartfelt monologues, all interspersed with familiar 80s nostalgia. To echo Vaccaro’s words, ‘Air Jordan… it’s fucking fantastic.’

Score: 19/24

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin

The Suicide Squad (2021)
Director: James Gunn
Screenwriters: James Gunn
Starring: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Sylvester Stallone, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Peter Capaldi

2016’s Suicide Squad was doomed before it ever hit theaters. Batman v Superman had flopped while Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War made over one billion dollars at the box office. Warner Bros. screened two cuts of the film, one from director David Ayer, and the other from editing company Trailer Park who created a lighter version driven by flashy graphics and classic pop music. The latter went to theaters, and while it performed well enough, the film was another sign of Warner and DC’s inability to create works on par with Marvel. Zack Snyder’s DC work was too self-serious and complicated, while Trailer Park’s Suicide Squad was so blatantly smashed together to become the complete opposite – lost in its levity and music was any real character or sense of what DC was going for. It felt like a wannabe Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Suicide Squad shows Warner Bros. might finally be on the rails after a shaky start to their DC transmedia universe. Following a dismissal from Disney, director James Gunn arrived at Warner, and he and his team have turned any Guardians comparisons into praise. The Suicide Squad brings fun, humor, and music, along with gory bits Marvel can’t show in their films. The Suicide Squad reaches deep into the DC villain roster to find effective and comedic characters that help balance the fun with somewhat serious-feeling comic book stakes. Watching it feels like watching a graphic novel come to life, and what more could one want from a bombastic comic book film about a group of villains?

The Suicide Squad follows the ragtag Suicide Squad as they infiltrate a country on behalf of the US government to halt experiments on an extra-terrestrial being run by a super intelligent scientist called The Thinker. The group explore their various backstories and bond through violence as they travel to the mission, making introductions and exposition more organic than the first film. While the action scenes are rather enjoyable, the relationships and dynamics are what drive the story, aided by stylized lighting and camera movement that is missing in Marvel’s house style.

DC chose for the characters to resemble their traditional comic designs, no matter how absurd. John Cena manages to play Peacemaker – an assassin dedicated to peace at all costs – entirely straight in an outfit that Burt Ward’s Robin could laugh at. Gunn uses Peacemaker’s ridiculous helmet to shoot a fight scene, and it’s an interesting, creative way to use a costume. Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior) and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) stay true to their comic outfits while receiving interesting backgrounds that play into the general themes of the Suicide Squad. On the other hand, Bloodsport gets a redesign that boosts the strong performance brought by Idris Elba. He engages in banter, but he’s the most serious of the costumed individuals, and who knows how difficult that might have been without Elba and the costume.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Suicide Squad film without Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. She gets her own storyline which keeps the wider narrative from feeling too stagnant. There are plenty of colorful lights throughout the film, but Quinn’s segments are what allow Gunn and company to bring a strong sense of expressionism, each moment stemming from her insanity being as comic book adjacent as you might expect. She has the kind of arc that adds to the feeling of episodic storytelling found in comic books – this is the one where Harley Quinn is taken captive by a dictator and he proposes to her; what shenanigans will she get into next time? With this film, it has become clear that Robbie and Quinn are ballasts for the new era of DC transmedia without being tethered to the Joker.

The Suicide Squad also uses Gunn’s proclivity for giving character to the animated. King Shark, voiced by Sylvester Stallone, is a bipedal man-eating shark that the animation and characterization make lovable. Ratcatcher 2 is flanked by a sentient rat who is essentially a live-action Disney princess sidekick, and he steals several scenes with his cute little cape. There’s even a starfish creature that is imbued with plenty of character despite its simplistic, comic-accurate appearance. The CGI for the animal-adjacent characters is not quite on par with 2019’s The Lion King, but it still looks solid with plenty of expression. The only complaint to be had about the animated characters is that Sean Gunn’s Weasel is woefully underused, but there are so many bizarre characters that he may have been one too many.

There aren’t many other complaints to be had about The Suicide Squad. Perhaps it could be said to be overly long (it runs for 2 hours and 12 minutes), or that it loses a bit of steam by the end, but that will ultimately be relative to the viewer. An issue with the 2016 film was the over-powered magical villain that should have outclassed the Suicide Squad. While the villain here is quite powerful, it’s not unreasonable that this group of super villains could actually take on The Thinker, or loads of soldiers with bullets.

Fans like to think of Marvel as the quippy franchise, but it’s a style that works for all comic book movies, and DC films like Aquaman, Shazam, and now The Suicide Squad show that DC doesn’t have to make something too different from Marvel to be successful. Putting the right people in charge with a specific visions for their films will lead to the best results. Maybe DC will never achieve the continuity standards Marvel has set for the industry, but it can at least produce enjoyable works that will get viewers into individual films that happen to be DC, rather than the property itself holding value as a brand universe.

It should be noted that the film does feature a post-credits scene that is sure to be a lead-in to new HBO Max episodic series, so it’s not like DC isn’t viewing this film as a springboard for further transmedia content. However, it’s far from guaranteed that any The Suicide Squad spin-off will manage to be as successful as Marvel’s recent spate of Disney+ series.

20/24

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
Director: George C. Wolfe
Screenwriter: Ruben Santiago-Hudson
Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Viola Davis, Jeremy Shamos, Jonny Coyne

Summer, Chicago, 1927. Ma Rainey’s band await her arrival at a recording studio to put her latest album The Black Bottom on record. Tensions rise between the four band members as gutsy trumpet player Levee (Chadwick Boseman – Black Panther) tries to modernise some of the singer’s blues classics. Referred to by most as the “Mother of the Blues”, Ma Rainey (Viola Davis – Fences) has a reputation of being vile, rude and difficult to work with, a notion that is clearly all too familiar for her manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos), who has been pulled in every direction to ensure she is happy and comfortable for the recording. Studio owner Sturyvant (Jonny Coyne) adds to the tension by making a side deal with Levee to record some of his own original songs, only to then turn his back on him, buy the music for minimum wage and have a white band record them instead.

Portrayed by powerhouse Viola Davis, Ma Rainey is an unpleasant, rude and all together foul person, elements that Davis perfects right from the start of the film. In the opening scene, where she is shown performing at an underground show in the Deep South, her spotlight is literally stolen by her trumpet player Levee. We know right away that Levee will pay for it. 

Viola Davis is known for her work in The Help (2011), her Oscar-winning performance in Fences (2016) and more recently for the critically acclaimed drama series ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ (2014-2020). Black Bottom is unlike any of those, and as a result we see her in a completely different and challenging role. 

Levee, outstandingly portrayed by the late Chadwick Boseman in his final performance, is a downtrodden, traumatised young man with high hopes and big dreams of becoming a successful songwriter and performer. Ma Rainey’s distaste for Levee’s antics is clear from the off, and as the story unfolds it is apparent that she is looking for a way to remove him from the picture entirely. Levee’s smooth, sexy and aggressive nature gets him in trouble constantly with every member of the ensemble. He is rebellious and ill-mannered, traits which Boseman excels at portraying throughout the entire piece.

Up until now we have seen Boseman perform in a wide variety of films, from his most famous role as T’Challa, King of Wakanda in Marvel’s Black Panther (2018) to his biographical performance as the late great James Brown in Get on Up (2014). However, none of those performances can prepare you for what he puts into his performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. It’s a passionate, gritty and emotional performance, his outstanding take on the character only adding to the emotion already present from the knowledge that he was battling life-threatening cancer during the film’s production. His strength and passion for art was always going to be remembered, but perhaps it is showcased no more obviously than it is through this film.

The two lead performances hold the whole piece together. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a screen adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name, something that is obvious from the start thanks to it taking place entirely in one location and being incredibly heavy in dialogue. But at 94 minutes, the film is simply too short for a story of its type, and the narrative seems to be lacking the depth and backstory that could have made for a more powerful and more in-depth character study, which would have no doubt emphasised the fantastic performances of Davis and Boseman. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is an incredibly powerful character piece on the stage, but the film needed to delve deeper, whether it be in terms of additional information on the characters, more of a distinct narrative running throughout, a more creative edit or more distinct choices in the other aspects of the visual filmmaking.

The elements in the plot of racial injustice and discrimination within the arts are ever-powerful and sadly still relevant, and the outstanding performances spearheading the well written dialogue make this film what it is; the lack of substance is quickly forgotten about when watching Chadwick Boseman delivering one of the year’s great monologues. Intriguing and very watchable, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom isn’t the outstanding drama of 2020 but it does have some unmissable moments.

17/24

Perhaps the most shocking moment in Oscars history also occurred in the closing moments of the ceremony when ‘La La Land’ was announced as Best Picture despite ‘Moonlight’ being the actual winner. Unfortunately, the award presenter had been given the envelope of the previous award (Emma Stone for ‘La La Land’) and the entire cast and crew of Damien Chazelle’s famed musical had to be shuffled off stage for the ‘Moonlight’ crew to take their spot.

Among the winners, Damien Chazelle was named Best Director and, in turn, broke history by becoming the youngest ever winner of the award at just 32 years of age, while Casey Affleck beat Denzel Washington to the Best Actor award despite late rumours that the ‘Fences’ star would take home the award on the night.

Here’s a full list of the winners:

Best Supporting Actor – Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)

Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling – Suicide Squad

Costume Design – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Best Documentary – O.J. Made in America

Best Sound Editing – Arrival

Best Sound Mixing – Hacksaw Ridge

Actress in a Supporting Role – Viola Davis (Fences)

Best Foreign Language Film – The Salesman (Iran)

Best Animated Short Film – Piper

Best Animated Feature – Zootopia

Achievement in Production Design – La La Land

 Achievement in Visual Effects – The Jungle Book

Achievement in Film Editing – Hacksaw Ridge

Documentary Short Subject – The White Helmets

 Live-Action Short Film – Sing

Achievement in Cinematography – La La Land

 Best Original Score – La La Land

Best Original Song – “City of Stars” from La La Land

#Oscars: Watch @JohnLegend perform ‘City of Stars’ from ‘La La Land.’ pic.twitter.com/tcIksU16HC

— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) 27 February 2017

 Best Original Screenplay – Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)

Best Adapted Screenplay – Barry Jenkins & Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight)

 Best Director – Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

Actor in a Leading Role – Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)

Actress in a Leading Role – Emma Stone (La La Land)

Best Picture – Moonlight

We had full live coverage over on Twitter @thefilmagazine so go and follow us for more of the same!

We’ll see just how close I get this Sunday…

Best Motion Picture – Drama: Moonlight
With 6 nominations overall, and the most of any of the ‘Best Drama’ movie nominees, it seems like 2017 truly is the year for Moonlight. The drama, telling the development of a gay black man from a deprived area in Miami, seems to be one of the favourites at other awards shows so far this season and that could be enough to sway some voters in this category. With ‘Manchester by the Sea’ breathing down its neck as perhaps the most likely of its contenders, and ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ appealing to the hard right of Globe voters, ‘Moonlight’ is not without competition, but I just can’t see them passing on the opportunity to award such a landmark film.
Contenders: Hacksaw Ridge; Manchester by the Sea

Best Performance By An Actress In A Motion Picture – Drama: Natalie Portman (‘Jackie’)
This category is a two-horse race between the early front-runner for the award, Natalie Portman, and the late-comer to awards season, ‘Arrival’, and namely its star Amy Adams. With the Globes being a far more accepting place of so-called ‘mainstream’ or ‘genre’ films than the Academy is, Adams is the favourite in the minds of a lot of industry professionals, but it’s hard for me to pass on Portman as the winner simply because her performance was as a beloved public figure within a well constructed biopic, the likes of which is known as ‘awards fodder’ for a reason. By a whisker, Portman takes it.
Contenders: Amy Adams… the rest have been left in the dust. 

Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture – Drama: Casey Affleck (‘Manchester By the Sea’)
The ‘Best Performance by an actor in a drama’ category is perhaps the strongest of any category at this year’s Golden Globes, with every member of the nominees list having a realistic chance of winning the Golden trophy. I’ve gone with Casey Affleck simply because he’s won a lot of other awards in the build-up to this ceremony, though it’s worth noting that Andrew Garfield could have arguably been nominated for both ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ and ‘Silence’ and may earn himself the Gold as a means of two-for-one recognition. If Garfield does win for ‘Ridge’, the war movie would become the front-runner for Best Picture – Drama.
Contenders: Everyone else… Edgerton, Garfield, Mortensen, Washington.

Best Motion Picture – Musical Or Comedy: La La Land
I would bet my house on this. Owing to an overall weak category in terms of award nominated movies, ‘La La Land’ should blow away all competition on Sunday night. It was nice to see the creativity behind ‘Deadpool’ and ‘Sing Street’ be rewarded with nominations but they’re just making up the numbers in perhaps the most obvious category to predict on this year’s show.
Contenders: There aren’t any…

Best Performance By An Actress In A Motion Picture – Musical/Comedy: Emma Stone (‘La La Land’)
As with the category above, it seems like there can be no choice other than ‘La La Land’ and therefore Emma Stone. Annette Bening is perhaps the huge outsider, but considering any one of three leading women in ’20th Century Women’ could have been nominated for this award, it seems that the Globes were never truly sure on whom to select, the uncertainty of which could scupper Bening’s chances.
Contenders: Annette Bening… but only if Pigs fly.

Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture – Musical/Comedy: Ryan Gosling (‘La La Land’)
Much like Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling is the front-runner for his category courtesy of his work on this year’s awards favourite ‘La La Land’. Colin Farrell was excellent in ‘The Lobster’ but his inclusion came as a pleasant surprise rather than an absolute certainty, which all but counting him out, and the work of Hugh Grant (‘Florence Foster Jenkins’), Jonah Hill (‘War Dogs’) and Ryan Reynolds (‘Deadpool’) simply doesn’t match up to that of Gosling, despite there being positives in each performance.
Contenders: Zip.

Best Motion Picture – Animated: Zootopia
It’s very rare that Disney are knocked off their perch of collecting every ‘best animated feature’ award on the planet, especially during years of critical success like has been the case in 2016. The logic here seems to point to either ‘Moana’ or ‘Zootopia’ but, given the much more positive response ‘Zootopia’ got out-of-the-gate, it seems the most likely option despite ‘My Life As A Zucchini’ winning the animation award at the European Film Awards and ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ offering an artistic alternative to mainstream western animation.
Contenders: Moana

Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language: Toni Erdmann
Maren Ade’s German/Austrian comedy cleaned up at the European Film Awards and therefore seems the favourite to win at the Golden Globes given the very Euro-centric list of nominees. American awards shows do seem to gravitate towards French pictures in their ‘foreign language’ categories however, and this could tip the balance towards ‘Elle’, a movie that has had gained a lot of attention in the weeks building up to this event. This is a close one.
Contenders: Elle

Best Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role In Any Motion Picture: Viola Davis (‘Fences’)
This category is very strong, with each of the actress’s performances gaining a lot of critical attention and Oscar buzz since their respective movies were released. Naomie Harris has been on the frontline of such awards speculation as of late for her small but impactful role in ‘Moonlight’, and Michelle Williams has been strongly favoured at independent film award events, but the two front-runners seem to be Nicole Kidman for ‘Lion’ and Viola Davis for ‘Fences’, and I’m going with Davis simply because of a flick of a coin.
Contenders: Everyone… but mostly Nicole Kidman.

Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role In Any Motion Picture: Jeff Bridges (‘Hell or High Water’)
My heart says Aaron Taylor-Johnson for ‘Nocturnal Animals’, but my head says Jeff Bridges for ‘Hell or High Water’, simply because of the gravitas of the latter’s performance within a relatively small movie. It’s interesting to note that Dev Patel has been squeezed in to this category despite obviously leading ‘Lion’, and this may work in his favour as it has done for others in the past, but Jeff Bridges remains the front-runner and a choice I’d still support given its quality and how much exposure it will lend to his small but noteworthy movie.
Contenders: Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Dev Patel.

Best Director – Motion Picture: Damien Chazelle (‘La La Land’)
‘La La Land’ is a visual masterpiece that pays homage to Hollywood itself, and despite how sensational Tom Ford’s work on ‘Nocturnal Animals’ truly was, there’s simply no way that Chazelle isn’t going home with the Globe on Sunday night. Wins for Mel Gibson (‘Hacksaw Ridge’), Barry Jenkins (‘Moonlight’) or Kenneth Lonergan (‘Manchester By the Sea’) could inch their respective movies into the lead in terms of the ‘Best Picture – Drama’ race, but it seems like this category is wrapped up.
Contenders: Tom Ford… though I’d like to see the final order of this top 5…

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture: Barry Jenkins (‘Moonlight’)
This is as close as it gets between Kenneth Lonergan for ‘Manchester By the Sea’ and Barry Jenkins for ‘Moonlight’, but given the lack of attention I’ve given the massively nominated ‘Moonlight’ so far in this article, I’m inching ‘Moonlight’ into the winner’s slot. Every screenplay in this category is excellent, but it would be a surprise to see any of the other nominees (Chazelle, Ford, Sheridan) win.
Contenders: Kenneth Lonergan

Best Original Score – Motion Picture: Justin Hurwitz (‘La La Land’)
When you score what will ultimately become an iconic musical, you land yourself in the spot of ‘front-runner’ for the ‘Best Original Score’ category at awards shows, and Justin Hurwitz has done just that with his work on ‘La La Land’. Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka’s work on ‘Lion’ seems the most likely of underdogs but don’t count on it. 
Contenders: Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka

Best Original Song – Motion Picture: “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from ‘Trolls’
Justin Timberlake’s chart-topping smash will go down as one of the pop songs that defined 2016, and with that comes a responsibility on the part of the Globes to honour that. Though popular consensus certainly isn’t what sways votes in any other categories at the Globes, there has been a historic precedence of successful pop songs winning out over lesser known musical numbers in the history of this award. Even so, look out for ‘La La Land’ to be a suitable alternative with its Hollwood love-letter of a song, “City of Stars”.
Contenders: “City of Stars from ‘La La Land’.

For the full list of nominees, click here.

Davis recalls Leto hiring a henchman who would deliver the ‘gifts’ to his co-stars. According the award winning actress, the henchman ‘walked into the rehearsal room with a giant dead Pig and ploppped it on the table’. This was the actresses introduction to the actor and left her questioning his sanity. It was also added motivation for Davis who said that she reacted by acknowledging that she’d have to step up her game for her upcoming role.

Leto also sent co-star Margot Robbie (set to play The Joker’s partner Harley Quinn), a black Rat. A gift that was received with enthusiasm and has been kept by the actress.