Oscars 2021: CODA

Of all the best picture nominees, this one I probably the most interesting to me. CODA stands for “Child of Deaf Adults” , and is the story of Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), the only hearing person in her family, who has a passion for music. She’s torn between pursuing her love of music or abandoning her parents—her father is a fisherman, and eventually they’re busted by the Coast Guard for not having a hearing deckhand on board. Does Ruby give up her dream of music school to stay and help her family?

(Other reviews in this series: West Side Story, The Power of the Dog, King Richard, Belfast, Dune)

CODA has been nominated for three Oscars: best picture, best performance by an actor in a supporting role, and best adapted screen play (Of the big five oscars, we have three nominations. Not bad!) It’s rated PG-13.

I was really worried about this one—I didn’t think I’d like it. I loved it. It’s so good and deals with so many issues around deafness, but also family!

Ruby’s parents are pretty isolated. At one point, Ruby’s mom, Jackie (Marlee Matlin) talks about how they have their own Deaf community, to which Ruby replies, “Who, your deaf friends? You see them once a month.” And that’s a real issue for her family. Even though her father, Frank (Troy Kotsur) is part of a family that’s been fishing in Gloucester, MA, for generations, he’s not “buddy buddy” with the fisherman. His son, Leo (Daniel Durant), who is also Ruby’s older brother, tries, but it’s hard because there’s no one to interpret for him, and reading lips only gets you so far. (This is illustrated perfectly in a scene where Leo goes to get a beer with the other fishermen, and he just sits at the table, staring at his beer can and missing what is going on around him.) Ruby has to translate everything for her parents—at their doctor appointments, at meetings, even calling her grandmother when her mother doesn’t want to use the video relay because of an interpreter being present.

( I will say, I get that and it’s very weird. It’s like this other person is in on these personal details of your life and you really wish they weren’t.)

(Also: I groan when I hear people say, “I’m deaf (or I have CF, or I have whatever) and I can do ANYthING!” No, you really can’t. You can’t! I can’t! I can’t scuba dive, for example! If you are profoundly deaf you need help interacting with the rest of the world. That’s vitally true, and I’m glad CODA showed it, because it’s too often easy to say “oh, well I don’t need help”. )

The family’s “plan”, if there was one, is for Ruby to continue being the hearing deckhand that the boat needs to operate under Coast Guard guidelines. She’s also their line to the world. But when she joins the school choir and finds out that her music teacher thinks she has a shot at a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music, Ruby frantically tries to divide her time between fishing, school, preparing audition material, and being a normal teenager.

Daniel Durant (Leo), Marlee Matlin (Jackie), and Emilia Jones (Ruby) in CODA.

While Ruby’s family intesenly depends on her—something that her brother tries to get them to do less of, hoping they’ll rely on him (He has lip reading skills, and tries to insinuate himself into the hearing culture around him)—Ruby also expresses her ambivalence about leaving her family when she tells her teacher, “I’ve never done anything without my family.”

The Rossis are a vibrant, extroverted family, which can embarrass Ruby, but as one of her friends says, “You parents still like each other!” They’re close knit and that causes tension but they also really do want what is best for each other—even if that means change.

(There’s a crucifix in their house and Ruby wears a small Miraculous Medal throughout the movie. Loved it. :) )

Also from a music standpoint, it’s also accurate. Auditions tend to run the way they do in the movie and if you walked in without your music, you’d definitely get those looks. And you’d also definitely get those looks if you turned up dressed the way Ruby was dressed! (Also big dog, little dog? YES! cracked me up. But I wanted to scream, Ruby put on your concert dress it is right there!!!!!!!! when they left for the audition!)

If there was justice in the world, this would be the movie that people talked about instead of the inane The Power of the Dog, but, we sadly don’t live in this world. While there’s some crude sexual humor, this is a very warm portrayal of a loving family that has flaws and faults but also great strengths.

Kotsur is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the Rossi family patriarch, Frank, (He just won the BAFTA for it) and he does a great job creating a believable relationship with his daughter, and the struggle to stay with what’s familiar as opposed to being vulnerable to new people, who may or may not be totally straight with him.

Emilia Jones (Ruby) and Troy Kotsur (Frank)

I found this movie totally delightful, and I highly encourage you to see it.

Oscars 2021: "The Power of the Dog"

A continuation of the Oscars 2021 series. Previous entries: King Richard/ Belfast, Dune, West Side Story)

The Power of the Dog is nominated for 12 Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director (Jane Campion, The Piano) , Beset Actor (Benedict Cumberbatch), Best Supporting Actor (Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jessie Plemons), Best Supporting Actress (Kirsten Dunst), best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and is rated R. (Top 5 Oscars nominations: 4, the most so far)

The story revolves around two brothers, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons) who have come back to their Montana ranch home. Upon their arrival in town, they and their workers have a meal at a boarding house restaurant, run by Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). George marries Rose after a few days’ acquaintance, and takes her back to the family home, with Jesse still working and living at the boarding house. Phil doesn’t, to put it mildly, like this. After a year spent at college, Peter comes to live with his mother and stepfather for the summer.

This is not a comfortable movie to watch. It’s a nicely produced movie, but it’s a movie that sets your teeth on edge. It makes me wonder if people actually liked this movie or if they just think it’s appropriate “artsy” and thus, should be nominated for things. There’s no real story, moral, theme, what have you. There’s no clear arc for the characters. It just…is.

Cumberbatch’s nomination is clearly because he’s playing a baddie, as the Brits would say. He’s good—Cumberbatch is good in just about any role he does—although his American accent is terribly flat (especially up against the Americans in the cast). But there’s no real brilliance in his acting, like there is in Will Smith’s Richard Williams.

The movie is based off a novel, and there are interruptions every so often of “chapter numbers” on a title card, which creates jarring jumps in time. The movie also takes place during Prohibition, but there is conspicuous alcohol consumption everywhere, even at Rose’s boarding house, which would clearly be illegal. (This also becomes a major plot point, which is not….feasible, given where the family lives.)

I kept thinking, What was the point of this movie? What’s the value of making it, of telling it? There’s no arc, no redemption, no…anything. It showcases the worst sides of humanity and honestly, we don’t need a movie that does that. The “gotcha” ending doesn’t even sound plausible to me.

So, as you can probably tell—I did not like this movie. It was a waste of two hours and a lot of acting talent that could’ve been put to better use.

Oscars 2021: "West Side Story"

Next Up in my Oscar Race reviews: West Side Story!

(Previous entries: King Richard, Belfast, Dune)

This remake of the 1961 Best Picture winner by Stephen Spielberg has been nominated for seven Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Ariana DeBose as Anita), Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, and Best Sound. (Big 5 nominations: two, director and picture, the same amount as Dune.) Of course the 1961 picture was adapted from the Broadway musical, which was nominated for the Best Musical Tony Award.

When I first heard this was coming out (it was supposed to come out in 2020), I rolled my eyes. I grew up with the 1961 movie cast album, learning all the music and pretending to be Anita or Maria as a kid in the basement of our house. I didn’t think we needed a re-do.

My original assessment still stands: This isn’t a needed re-make. That being said, there are some strong points to it, along with some “meh”s.

Likes:

*Tony and Maria are actually the appropriate ages. As in, they don’t look like they’re in their late 20s or early 30s trying to play teenagers. Big plus. Same with the other actors. I love it when they’re the right age! (Or at least can pass!)

They look like teenagers! Yay! Ansel Elgort (Tony) and Rachel Zegler (Maria) meet at the Dance at the Gym.

It’s also great that everyone does their own singing, and everyone can sing. Some have done so on Broadway (Ariana DeBose was in the original Hamilton cast, and Mike Feist, who plays Riff, originated the role of Connor in Dear Evan Hansen as well as the role of Morris in Newsies. He’s also from Central Ohio! Yay local boy!) and are musical veterans (Brian D’Arcy James, who plays Officer Krupke, was in the original Broadway cast of Titanic, which was the first Broadway show I saw actually on Broadway.) I think that Elgort’s singing is just fine. Tony has a high tenor voice and it’s not an easy part to sing, but he does it well. (I do think that both he and Rachel Zegler, who plays Maria, could learn to emote a little more when they’re singing. They both do a lot of the “my face is blank while I sing!”)

*Ariana DeBose deserves her Best Supporting Actress nomination—her performance as Anita is extremely well done, especially in “America” and “A Boy Like That”. She is fabulous!

*Mike Feist is an amazing Riff, and for my money, the best actor amongst the “gang” kids. I feel like he shouldn’t been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, because he plays Riff just right: there’s an edge to him you believe, a fatalism that works for a kid who is supposed to be the leader of a gang. The scene where Riff goes to buy a gun for the rumble is one of the few good additions to the script, mostly because of Feist’s work in it.

Mike Feist as Riff

*Justin Peck’s choreography improves on some of Jerome Robbins’ original work; this is especially clear in the opening sequence, the re-imagined “Cool”, and the sprawling “America” sequence. Also those crisp motions leg movements during the Mambo section at the dance—gorgeous. Also “Officer Krupke”’s move from the streets to a NYPD precinct is a great call, with excellent choreography and vocals (check out the beginning, which starts a cappella and then the orchestration comes in.).

*The re-imagined “Somewhere” sequence works very well, especially as a solo for Valentina (Rita Moreno).

*it’s a gorgeous movie to look at. The cinematography, the color, the sets…gorgeous. Great production values. I definitely think it should win the Production Design Oscar. I also love Maria’s costumes for the last scene and “I Feel Pretty.”

Dislikes:

*The Spanish isn't captioned. This is a ridiculous decision on their part. I actually went back and read the screenplay, and then translated what was said, and it’s not the same as “what was just said next” as a lot of reviewers say. We’re missing the spice of the original, and in some cases we’re missing insults and even context. The song the Sharks sing in the opening fight with the Jets? Apparently it’s the Puerto Rican national anthem. If it was translated, we’d at least know what they’re singing about (Usually if a song is being sung in a non-musicals, the captions will give you the title of the song. This happened in Belfast.)

When Anita speaks to Valentina after her almost gang-rape, Anita is actually saying something along the lines of Valentina letting pigs in under her roof. It’s much sharper and harder than anything that Anita says after that. But Spielberg said that adding captions would have been disrespectful.

(I think it’s pretty disrespectful for those of us who rely on captions…but I digress. )

The only time I have ever seen the “no captions” thing work is on Outlander, where Gaelic isn’t subtitled because Claire doesn’t understand what’s being said, so the audience is as lost as she is. That’s the point.

Here the audience is just….lost. And the fact that it’s not even captioned for the hearing impaired? That’s ridiculous on a whole other level.

*Anita and Bernardo live together with Maria (which I really don’t think was happening among Catholics in the 1950s?) in a big apartment. We’re talking two big bedrooms and a large kitchen, bigger than any NYC kitchen I’ve actually seen, with an equally big dining room. This just struck me as unrealistic.

*And that leads into the re-writing of the script. Having Tony be an ex-inmate doesn’t work. You never buy it. You never buy that he’d break his parole to go to a dance (I mean, come on, are we in Les Miserables here? We’re going to rip up our ticket of leave and go on the run?). Why does this back story exist?

Valentina is also criminally underwritten when compared to Doc in the original. Doc had many more lines, and a lot more world-weariness that played against Tony really well. That doesn’t happen here at all.

(Also: Anita talking about having little mix during the Quintet while she’s….at Mass? Can we not?)

*The meeting scene. Tony and Maria meeting behind the bleachers is tacky, and it takes away the magic of the “eyes meeting across the room and the world fades away” thing. It’s just not magical anymore. And the re-write doesn’t help it here. Leave it alone, people! We get crappy dialogue where before it was better.

*Some of the the costumes. I like Paul Tazewell’s work in theater—he did the costumes for Hamilton. But the issue with some of the scenes is that the clothes are too theatrical. The general idea is that the Jets are in cool tones, and the Sharks are in warm ones. But at the dance, that translates into just about every Jet in a shade of blue (often the same shade of blue!), and every Shark in a shade of red.

See what I mean?

Again, this is great in theater. It works in theater. On screen it reads as off, at least to me. (The costumes are gorgeous, don’t get me wrong.) Compare it to Dune, where you have people who wear uniforms and color schemes, but it looks realistic as opposed to, “yes, we designed all of this! Look at our color scheme!”

I will say it’s not as overt throughout the entire film, and when it’s not, the costumes work much better.

A still from “America.”

Overall West Side Story is beautiful to watch. There are good performances, the music and dance are excellent; but there are things that keep it from being a great movie.

Oscars 2021: Dune

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Welcome to the continuation of my Best Picture Nominee Reviews! Here’s the overall list, with links to the reviews that are live, and notes about forthcoming reviews. I might not be able to see all the movies before the awards at the end of the month, but I’ll try!

(All the movies, with my linked reviews: King Richard/ Belfast , CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley , The Power of the Dog (review forthcoming) ,West Side Story (review forthcoming) )

Dune has been nominated for 10 Oscars: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Production Design, Original Score, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Costume Design, and Cinematography. Of the “big five” awards (picture, director, actor, actress, screenplay—original or adapted), it’s nominated for two. (For comparison, King Richard is nominated for three—picture, actor, and screenplay, and Belfast also is nominated for three—picture, screenplay, and director.)

I hadn’t read the massively popular sci-fi novel until right before I saw the movie. While some people said you didn’t need to read the novel ahead of time, I found that I did, and even then I’m still sort of sketchy about certain things. If I hadn’t read the novel, I think I would’ve been pretty lost. The screenplay does do a good job of exposition, but I still wondered about certain things and wanted more detail, which, of course, the source novel has. (You can’t get everything into a movie; it’s not possible.)

The novel is actually divided into two films, because the director, Denis Villeneuve (Arrival), didn’t want to skip anything from the book. So in order to present it in its entirety, it’s two films. This movie stops about halfway through the novel.

(Before we get into the plot: if you are a massive fan of Dune, I give you my apologies right now, because I’m probably mangling the plot in an attempt to simplify it. I’m sorry!)

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The basic plot: Paul Atreides, heir to House Atreides, is sent to Dune (aka, Arrakis) since the Emperor of the Galaxy (or something like that) has decided that his father, Duke Leto (Oscar Isaacs, The Force Awakens), is the new ruler of the planet. This comes with the extremely lucrative “spice melange” contract—spice is really the only thing worth having on Dune, which is a desert planet where the lack of water affects everything from the color of the sky to the clothing you wear. The spice has incredible powers—it enables higher levels of cognition, it makes space travel possible (you can’t navigate in space without spice, apparently), etc. (More here.)

However, this move comes with a cost, because the former rules of Arrakis are the Harkonnens, who are enemies of the Atreides, and they are, as one of the characters says, “BRUTAL!” So this promotion is not without a lot of danger, because obviously the Harkonnens are a little annoyed at this turn of events.

Our enemy: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard)

Paul’s mother is Lady Jessica (the fabulous Rebecca Ferguson, Mission: Impossible, The Greatest Showman) and is a member of the aforementioned Bene Gesserit, an order of what are basically nuns (they have a Reverend Mother, for example) who are gifted in manipulation, both bodily and otherwise, politics, and all sorts of other shadowy machinations. Before the family leaves for Arrakis, the Reverend Mother (Charlotte Rampling) comes to test Paul with a few Bene Gesserit tests—a box of pain and the gom jabar. Paul passes these tests with flying colors, and the Reverend Mother thinks that Jessica has manipulated her body (when she was pregnant with Paul) to produce “a mind”—the great mind that can see beyond space and time, into the future and the past, and bring about all sorts of things. Basically, a Messiah.

Paul (Timothee Chalamet) undergoes the gom jabar test at the hands of the Reverend Mother (Charlotte Rampling)

So, with all this happening in the background, the Atreides family leaves their home planet of Caladan and take up residence on Arrakis/Dune. From the first, things are not good. There’s an assassin’s plot to try to kill Paul in his room, the housekeeper that Lady Jessica interviews gives her a crysknife, a Fremen’s weapon, to defend herself, and there’s rumors that someone is going to betray the family. Paul has been trained in combat, and he wants to prove his worth, but at the same time, his father is reluctant to let him do that, since he is the House’s only heir.

Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) and Duke Leto (Oscar Isaacs)

And, just to make things really interesting, Paul has been having dreams about Arrakis and a certain Freman girl, and his dreams about the future tend to come true.

I think that’s enough plot to get you going, right?

The movie is, first and foremost, gorgeous. The scenery, the effects, the cinematography, and the costumes are first rate and deserve to win the Oscars for their respective categories, I don’t think anything else comes close in terms of costumes this year. Lady Jessica gets to wear a lot of fun things, but every person is costumed appropriately and well, in a way that is uniform but not over the top (I thought this about the West Side Story costumes but we’ll get to that in that review.)

Costuming: Lady Jessica and Paul on Caladan, at the “Herald of the Change” ceremony.

On Dune: Paul and Lady Jessica in stillsuits, which enable survival in the desert by recycling the body’s water.

The casting is an embarrassment of riches. Ferguson and Issacs interact well together, and with Paul, create a believable family. You feel the affection they all have for each other. It’s criminal to me that Ferguson didn’t get nominated in the Best Actress category, because her part is difficult and she pulls it off beautifully.

Chalamet, who plays the teenage Paul, has been in high profile projects before, especially Little Women and Beautiful Boy. He does justice to the role of the perhaps-Messiah of the galaxy, going from a boy eager to fight to one who knows he has to fight to fulfill his destiny, even if he’s not entirely sure what that is. There’s a mystical edge to the part that could be overdone, but I don’t think Chalamet does that.

Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck and Oscar Isaacs as Duke Leto

Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa are excellent as members of the Duke’s entourage, and Javier Bardem plays a Freman leader, Stilgar, with the appropriate shadowy qualities—we’ll see more of him in Part II, along with Skarsgaard’s Baron, who only appears in flashes but whose menace underlines the entire movie.

Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho,

Zendaya plays Chani (aka the Freman girl in Paul’s dreams) well, even if we don’t see much of her here. (Again, more to come in Part II). There’s also one more cast member I really liked. In a gender-bending role—the character is male in the novel—Dr. Liet Kynes (played by Sharon Duncan-Brewster) is the planet’s top expert, and she’s in charge of helping with the peaceful (ha!) transfer of power. Duncan-Brewster’s performance is excellent.

I really enjoyed Dune. Of course I think the Best Picture Oscar would go to it after the second installment, assuming it’s nominated again ( a la Lord of the Rings being nominated but not winning the top prize until Return of the King). It’s an “old school” kind of movie: adventure, action, drama, all put together in a complete, gorgeous package. I’m very excited to see Part II.

Oscars 2021: "King Richard", "Belfast" reviews

If you’ve been reading here for awhile, you know I like to review movies and I’m generally insterested in the Oscar race (well, assuming there re good movies in that race.) This year I’ve seen several of the movies up for Best Picture and I’m hoping to see more before the awards at the end of the month, and I’m writing reviews about them!

The nominees for Best Picture are:

Belfast (reviewed below)

CODA

Don’t Look Up

Drive My Car

Dune (review coming)

King Richard (reviewed below!)

Licorice Pizza

Nightmare Alley

The Power of the Dog

West Side Story (review coming)

In this first installment I’m combining two movies, King Richard and Belfast, because I mostly have short notes about them—but that doesn’t mean they’re not good!

King Richard has been nominated for several Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actor (Will Smith), Best Supporting Actress (Aunjanue Ellis as Oracene ‘Brandy’ Williams, Richard’s wife), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. It’s rated PG-13.

The film focuses on Richard’s drive to ensure that his daughters, Serena (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton) get the world class tennis training he knows they deserve. He’s doing his best, teaching them skills he’s found in magazines and on VHS training tapes, but he knows the girls deserve better than practicing on a public park tennis court, where they’re also harassed (maliciously) by a gang of guys. The desire for excellence isn’t just in tennis, it’s in life, as seen in the scenes at home, where the girls are told to reach for excellence in every part of life, and to be humble. (A scene where Richard makes the family watch Disney’s Cinderella drives this point home in a cute way.)

Eventually Richard gets training for Venus, but not Serena; Serena enters tournaments on the sly and begins racking up her own wins. So with two potential champions in tow, Richard begins to search for sponsors and opportunities—but he wants to do it his way, which begins to cause some problems with the coaches and tournament directors. The film climaxes with Venus’ match against world number 1 Arantxa Sánchez Vicario (who, by the way, was one of my favorite payers to watch back in the day). But undergirding the story is the question: is Richard doing this for his girls, or is he doing it for himself?

Smith and Ellis make a great couple, and their scenes together are fiery and realistic. They both deserve to win their respective categories. The girls who play Venus and Serena are excellent as well, both in their tennis skills and in their portrayal of young girls with incredible talents, being driven by their father in ways they sometimes don’t want to be (such as when they’re practicing in a downpour). Sidney is especially notable because she’d never played tennis before shooting this movie!

Even if you’re not a tennis fan, this is an enjoyable movie to watch because of the focus on the family and Richard’s quest to see his girls reach tennis stardom.

Demi Singleton (Serena) and Saniyaa Sidney (Venus), training with their dad.

Belfast is based on the life of director Kenneth Branagh, who grew up in Belfast until he was nine and his family moved to England to escape the escalating “Troubles.” Buddy, the nine year old boy at the center of the story, is played charmingly by newcomer Jude Hill, who is absolutely perfect in the role (it also makes me wish the Academy still did Juvenile Oscars.)

Buddy lives with his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie), his Ma (Caitriona Balfe, Outlander), Pa (Jamie Dornan), and in the same neighborhood as his Grannie (Judi Dench, charming as always) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II). He has a crush on Catherine, a Catholic girl in his class at school. He loves playing int he alley with the other neighborhood kids and wants to do his space project with Catherine.

Then the Troubles begin in his neighborhood, on August 15, 1969 (as a card tells us). There is violence on Buddy’s normally quiet street, and there are barricades set up that he has to go through to get to school. There’s violence against the local Catholics, and Buddy asks his cousin what the difference is between the religions—she says you can tell mostly by their names, until Buddy stumps her with “Thomas” ,which can go either way!

In a very funny scene, Pa tells the boys that Catholicism is a “religion of fear”, then cuts to the boys attending service, where their pastor is preaching unrelenting hellfire at them, making Buddy terrified of choosing the “wrong way” that leads to hell.

Ma (Caitriona Balfe) and Pa (Jamie Dornan) dance at a neighborhood party.

Pa works in England, but that doesn’t mean the family is exempt from local problems. There are men in the area who want Pa to join them to “remove” the Catholics from the area; there are debt collectors calling and sending overdue bills, and Ma worries about money and the safety of her boys. Can the family stay in Belfast with all the chaos around them, or should they decamp for England?

This is a very sweet streak to this movie, since it’s told through Buddy’s eyes. We see him absorb the violence, but he doesn’t really understand it. When one of his friends decides to join a crowd of rioters in looting a Catholic-owned grocery, Buddy tags after her, not knowing that it’s wrong since adults are doing the same thing, and if adults are doing it, it must be OK, right?

The violence is tempered with Buddy’s innocence (especially in his scenes with Catherine, played by Olive Tennant. They’re perfect). Is there violence in the film? Yes. It’s not gratuitous and it’s never close up, but it’s there (Buddy and Will hide under the kitchen table while Ma hides in the living room as a car bomb explodes, for example). Buddy worries about his family, especially his ailing Pop. But even with the danger, Buddy feels secure with his family, and that warmth is tangible and important to see in movies. (Especially since one of the other nominees, West Side Story, essentially does away with family underpinnings.) In fact, that’s one of the things I liked best about both Belfast and King Richard: the emphasis on family.

Belfast has been nominated for seven Oscars: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Ciaran Hinds), Best Director (Kenneth Branagh), Best Performance by an Actress a Supporting Role (Judi Dench), Best Original Song (Van Morrison) and Best Sound. It’s a shame Balfe wasn’t nominated for best actress, since she’s been nominated in other major award shows (BAFTAs, Screen Actors’ Guild, Critics’ Choice Award, and the Golden Globes.) and she gives a luminous performance.

At the Golden Globes, Belfast won Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for several other awards, including Best Picture—Drama. It’s rated PG-13 and is available to stream on via iTunes.

Have you seen either film? What did you think?