Academy Award Nominations 2021


Best Picture
”Belfast”
“CODA”
“Don’t Look Up”
“Drive My Car”
“Dune”
“King Richard”
“Licorice Pizza”
“Nightmare Alley”
“The Power of the Dog”
“West Side Story”

Best Director
Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, “Drive My Car”
Kenneth Branagh, “Belfast”
Paul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza”
Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story”

Best Actress
Nicole Kidman, “Being the Ricardos”
Olivia Colman, “The Lost Daughter”
Kristen Stewart, “Spencer”
Penelope Cruz, “Parallel Mothers”
Jessica Chastain, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”

Best Actor
Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Power of the Dog”
Andrew Garfield, “Tick, Tick … Boom!“
Will Smith, “King Richard” 
Denzel Washington, “The Tragedy of Macbeth”
Javier Bardem, “Being the Ricardos”

Best Original Screenplay
”Licorice Pizza”
“Belfast”
“Don’t Look Up”
“King Richard”
“The Worst Person in the World”

Best Adapted Screenplay
”The Power of the Dog”
“The Lost Daughter”
“CODA”
“Drive My Car”
“Dune”

Best Original Score
”Dune”
“The Power of the Dog”
“Encanto”
“Don’t Look Up”
“Parallel Mothers”

Actress in a Supporting Role:
Ariana DeBose, “West Side Story”
Kirsten Dunst, “The Power of the Dog”
Aunjanue Ellis, “King Richard”
Jessie Buckley, “The Lost Daughter”
Judi Dench, “Belfast”

Best Film Editing
”King Richard”
“Don’t Look Up”
“Dune”
“The Power of the Dog”
“Tick, Tick … Boom!”

Best Supporting Actor
Ciaran Hinds, “Belfast”
Troy Kotsur, “CODA”
Kodi Smit-McPhee, “The Power of the Dog”
Jesse Plemons, “The Power of the Dog”
J.K. Simmons, “Being the Ricardos”

Best Live Action Short Film
”The Long Goodbye”
“The Dress”
“Ala Kachuu – Take and Run”
“On My Mind”
“Please Hold”

Movie Review: Backlight


Every year around this time, one can depend on a new Liam Neeson action movie to be released. This is also the time of the year that some of the weakest movies of each year are released. Unfortunately for Neeson just about all of the movies he has made since the huge hit Taken in 2008 have been about him playing just about the same character every time. This is not only the problem with this movie, but is also the main reason for the extremely low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes of only 6%. For the record, this movie is not a 6% rating, but it is not any better than 50% either. We have seen all of this before, with the one exception that this time around Neeson is a fixer of other agents who go rogue and its his job to save them and turn them around.

Other issues with this story is the skipping-around-mix-it-up-confusing scenes that very often are not connected enough, making most of the story annoying. One theory I have always had about Liam Neeson is that he makes so many movies because he is still trying to get over his wife dying in a very tragic freak skiing accident in 2009. Unfortunately, making this many movies and way too many bad ones may eventually wreck his acting career.

There is no way anyone could recommend Backlight, which also has a title that makes no sense.

Movie Review: Marry Me


Other than perhaps Doris Day, Jennifer Lopez now just might be the #1 female Rom Com (Romantic Comedy) actor of all time. If you see enough of her movies, you realize that when you see a new one, like “Marry Me”, they all pretty much seem the same. The only big difference this time around is that the story is so off the wall that it rides the line of unbelievability more than any of her other movies. Marry Me is one of those movies that anyone can realize the entire story just by seeing the movie Trailer. Two major celebrity singers are about to get married onstage, but Lopez notices that her soon to be husband has recently cheated on her, so she marries a random man in the audience, played by Owen Wilson, who is a high school math teacher. This is a completely stupid idea, that for some reason was greenlighted and funded into a film.

I thought overall the movie is not that bad, with some good moments including the appearance Sara Silverman as Owen Wilson’s friend, but the story is so predictable and boring in too many areas to say that this insane idea here was worth a try. The ratings on Rotten Tomatoes for Marry Me are an accurately low 57%. For Jennifer Lopez die hard fans, pay for a one month trial of Peacock and save the movie fee. For the rest of us, just see the trailer for this movie – and save the two hours of sitting through predictable mess.