Ciné Rambles' Top 5 Films of 2020

Well, it's certainly been an interesting year. One for the history books. I won't dwell too much on this year's cataclysmic events like I'd ususally do in these intros, since I'm sure everyone's acutely aware of them already, not to mention exhausted by them. Suffice to say, it's been a year of hardship and suffering, and a reinforcement of some of the uglier sides of the human condition, from both the politicians who run our countries and from the otherwise normal people who cannot think of anyone other than themselves.

So I don't know about you, but I could do with a bit of cheering up this festive season. This year more than any other, escapism has been high in-demand, and while the ball landed squarely in television's court this year, there have still been a number of standout films worth celebrating from the desolate remains of what was once a pretty promising 2020 release slate: the shiniest of the cinematic gems that kept us going through the strife.

Last year's rules are still in play, so only films that begun their wide UK release in 2020, and while I did make a reasonable effort to catchup, there will of course be films I missed (although I think this year's list is pretty agreeable). And if you're intereseted to see how the rest of this year's films stacked up, you can peruse the full ranked list here.

5. Portrait of a Lady on Fire - Céline Sciamma

Perhaps a little lower on the list than most people would have gone for, but hey it's still on the list, what do you want from me. This film seems to have really struck a chord with a lot of people, and while I did really enjoy it, I probably should preface that I don't quite love this film as others do, or at least not yet. My opinion may climb on a rewatch, but for now, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a really solid fifth place.

In any character-focused romantic drama, it's the acting and direction that make or break the film, and I think a lot of Portrait's success is down to these two crucial elements. Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel are phenomenal as the leads: their passion for each other is so believable, and their interactions throughout the film are brimming with a really genuine chemistry that's often quite rare in the genre.

Céline Sciamma's direction, too, pulls all the elements together to create a film that feels surprisingly relaxed, even calming at times with its beautiful beach-side setting and small, intimate scale. And yet beneath it all, every scene is loaded with emotion, both joyous and melancholy alike, be it in subtle subtextual flickers or in powerful frissonic creschendos. The final scene in particular left me with a bittersweet pit in my stomach, and even, almost, some tears.

So any reason why it's not higher up the list? No, not really. Potentially a bit of overhype may have crept in, as I only managed to see this last month and I've been hearing about this film since at least February. I mentioned at the top, I suspect my thoughts may improve further on a rewatch, and it's certainly something I'm looking forward to. Now I just have to wait for the Criterion bluray to get a region B release... (pretty please).  8/10, High Recommendation

 

4. Tenet - Christopher Nolan

Tenet will probably end up making a lot of other people's lists just out of sheer lack of competition, but even in a busier year I think I'd find it difficult to leave it off. It's without a doubt the weakest film here objectively speaking, but something about it just keeps drawing me back in: I've really not stopped thinking about it since I first saw it, and that was four months ago. We have discussed Tenet on the podcast, and I will be doing a big ol' post going into more detail on my thoughts at some point next year, so for now I'll try my best to summarise.

There are a lot of reasons to dislike Tenet, and I'd probably agree with most of them. The characterisation is laughable, in fact we don't so much have characters as we have cogs to turn the plot. We have a villain who wants to destroy the world because he's evil, and a man who wants to stop him because he's been told to: it's all a bit lacking in emotion and human motivation. The plot and time travel mechanics are frequently obtuse and either underexplained or not given enough time to be taken in, and yet the film constantly patronises its audience for not being able to keep up, in a way that's quite reminiscent of Primer, a film which thoroughly pissed me off for this exact reason.

And yet, Tenet also has some of Nolan's best action sequences yet (and that's saying something), both on smaller scale scenes like reversed one-on-one brawls, all the way up to a for-real plane crash and a truly breathtaking truck heist. Underneath it all, we have what might be my favourite film score since Blade Runner 2049, maybe even better than. From The Mandalorian to this, Ludwig Göransson is fast becoming my new favourite film composer, and here his soundtrack pulses with a frantic energy that pushes every action scene into overdrive, imbued with backwards rhythms and ticking clocks and looped sirens; it's the Dunkirk score on crack, an ever-present reminder that time is running out and every precarious, death-defying scenario could bring everyhing crashing down. POSTERITY, 747, TRUCKS IN PLACE, FAST CARS, RAINY NIGHT IN TALLINN. If you haven't already, go listen to these tracks and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Tenet is everything you've come to associate with Nolan's films, but pushed to the extreme, both the good and the bad. The result is a film that I, and many others, have found a lot of issues with, and yet I just can't ignore how much this film excites me every time I think about it. That's got to be worth something, right? 8/10, High Recommendation

3. Soul - Pete Docter

A pretty late entry in the year, but it counts. While Pixar has made their fair share of mediocre sequels and Good Dinosaurs over the past few years, they still have the capacity to deliver phenomenal animated features, and Soul is up there with their best.

A comparison to Inside Out, director Pete Docter's last film, is pretty inevitable, as on paper both films are on different sides of the same coin: one exploring the human mind and one exploring the human...well, soul. It's not really fair to judge either film as a comparison to the other, since they are doing their own distinct things, but since I did rewatch Inside Out this Christmas period anyway, I figured I should probably mention it.

I still really enjoy Inside Out and it retains a lot of that emotional power it had on my first viewing, but I do like Soul more. For me, a big part of it was that I went into Soul expecting a big sad moment like in Inside Out and other recent Pixars like Coco and Onward, and was pleasantly surprised when I realised Soul didn't have one and, more to the point, didn't need one.

Soul is a lot more of a relaxed, easy-going experience, and I actually really appreciate that. In some ways it feels like a more mature film: there's almost something quite transparent about the way Inside Out tries to pluck at your heartstrings, while Soul has realised that it doesn't need to be emotionally devastating to be profound or memorable. In fact, despite dealing with concepts of life and death and even the meaning of existence, Soul's story feels very low-key and almost unburduned by the weight of its existential concepts. Instead, Soul's message is all about appreciating the small details of life and the value of simply being, and existing in the world.

There's also some gorgeous animation on display, particularly in the Great Before, where entirey metaphysical concepts are rendered visually in a way that live action could never even attempt. Even the Great Beyond, a relatively simplistic design inspired by A Matter of Life and Death, through its animation and sound design mananges to fully communicate a truly unnerving existential dread while still maintaining a beautiful, yet disquieting simplcity not unlike a black hole.

Soul is exactly the kind of meaningful, optimistic content we all need right now, and it made me want to just lie down in a field somewhere and take in the smell of the grass and the currents of wind moving across my face and listen to the birds sing in the distance. Which was quite a shame considering the circumstances. 9/10, High Recommendation

 

2. The Lighthouse - Robert Eggers

Man, it feels like I watched this film in a different era, let alone a different year. I saw this for the first time when I met a friend for the afternoon in London: we saw it with about forty other people crammed into the tiny screen at BFI Southbank centre, a sold-out screening. Inconceivable now, but back then it was just a normal year.

Considering how 2020's release slate was all but wiped out from April onwards, it's probabaly no surprise that the top two slots came from the first quarter of the year, which I suppose is unusual considering often it's the end of the year when the big hitters are released. 2020 became less a year of anticipating which film would shine brightest and more if there was anything left to compete with these early champions that set the bar so high.

The first of these was The Lighthouse, which quite prophetically is all about being confined to a small building and isolated from the rest of the world. Broadly speaking a horror, but thats proabably a debatable point depending on how you define the genre, and The Lighthouse kinda straddles several genres anyway.

The best way to decribe it is a film of textures. The movietone ratio and black and white photography go hand-in-hand with the production design and period dialogue to give the film this air of scratchy authenticity, that only amplifies the opressive atmosphere created by the purgatorial setting. Special mention also goes to the film's haunting, nightmarish soundscape that drenches every scene with an encroaching malaise: the roar of the waves, the creaking of wooden floorboards, the thundering fog horn, the screams of seagulls.

Together, it creates a powerful paranoia that imbues every scene with symbolic suggestion. Is it just an argument about cooking? Just a fight with a seagull? Just a lighthouse, even? Or is there something more mythical at work beneath it all. Soon the lines between reality and insanity are blurring, and you know nothing good can possibly come from this as the characters hurtle towards their fates.

The Lighthouse is rich in potential meaning, but while there is plenty of room for audiences to discuss and debate their intepretations, the film still works on a literal level as a tale of deteriorating lucidity amongst men trapped at sea, so while it's still definitly closer to art-house than mainstream cinema, it retains a level of accessibility that not only endears itself to general audiences, but will keep them coming back for more. 9/10, High Recommendation

 

1. Parasite - Bong Joon-Ho

Surprising absolutely no-one. I mean, even if Corona hadn't happened and this year's original lineup of films proceeded as planned, I'd still be willing to wager Parasite would be sitting here on top. Seemingly every viewer and critic on the planet has unanimously adored this film and as far as I'm concerned it's with very good reason, because it's really not that often that a film as finely crafted as this one comes around. Not only is it a masterfully-assembled, genre-defying work of cinema, it's even managed the rare triumph of being accessible and appealing enough to the western masses to find mainstream success without sacrificing any of its artisitc integrity at all, instead merely telling a well-told story that is recognisable and translatable across all nations and still exciting at the same time, to the point that even people who don't watch foreign/subtitled films gave Parasite a shot. Even the Acadamy loved it enough to give it the first ever Best Picture award for a non-english language film, and they're not exactly known for their diverse taste in film.

I do insist on keeping these top fives spoiler free, and so if you want to hear some more in-depth and specific comments I have on the film, you can watch our Parasite discussion from the podcast here, and if you haven't seen Parasite yet you absolutely should check it out, no questions asked. In the meantime, I'll do the best I can here.

There really are very few things to speak ill of, and overall it's one of those beautiful experiences where the more you think about any given detail, the more meaning and intricacy and subtext you discover. The one thing I will say is that on the second watch the film becomes a little unbalanced pacing wise; after quite a significant event which feels like it should be more of a midpoint, we go almost immediatly into the climax, which still works but considering how fresh and drastic the shift in status quo is, it feels like maybe a little more down time inbetween these moments, perhaps playing with the new precarious scenario, could help break up the tension a bit and even out the last half hour, pacing-wise (Hopefully that made sense for the people who've seen the film). But this is a minor quibble on an otherwise near-impeccable product. Any other element you care to name is phenomenal. The ensemble cast? Fantastic. Cinematography and editing? Beautiful. Production design? Exquisite. The writing? *chef's kiss* And at the centre of it all is a director wielding complete elegant mastery over his craft. 

Bong Joon-Ho is up there with Park Chan-Wook as one of the finest directors of South Korean cinema, and while Parasite is far from his first hit, this definitly feels like a consolidation of all his past achievements into one magnum opus that's put him squarely in the spotlight. And now the world watches and waits for his next move with breathless anticipation. 9/10, High Recommendation

And so the gaping maw of 2021 lays ahead, promising more misery and frustration, no doubt. For me, this year will be a game of 'how many of the delayed 2020 films are gonna get pushed back to 2022', with a bonus round of 'count the dying breaths of the golden age of streaming'.

Well, who knows what state the world and the film industry will be in this time next year. It's an incredibly hard time to be optimistic, but I'm sure no matter what happens, we'll all find our own ways to pull through, and the ever-enduring human spirit will defeat the roughest of what the year has to offer.

For what it's worth, I wish all of you readers a happy and prosperous 2021, and a great big thank you as always for reading (and listening), and I hope you'll return for many more ramblings in the new year!

Star Wars: A Ranked Retrospective - Episode II

Welcome back to my ranking of The Skywalker Saga. Last time, we covered the very worst of these films, but today things are gonna start getting a bit more positive.

#6) Revenge of the Sith
Regardless of how much you hate the prequels, most people generally agree that Sith is the strongest of the three. Which isn't exactly a glowing achievement, I'll grant you, but I do think this film is a lot better than people give it credit for, and the separation between it and Clones and Phantom is significant. For one thing, this is probably the most exciting and action-packed of the prequels, which doesn't automatically translate to better, but in a series called Star Wars, I'd consider it a significant factor. Similarly, this seems to be the most stylish and visually vibrant of the prequels, with the opening shot of the battle over Coruscant a particular highlight. Yeah, it's not got the charm of the OT's model shots, but if you're going to go CG, go all out, and that's exactly what this first shot does as the camera weaves between hundreds of Republic and Separatist cruisers, showing off the sheer scale and spread of the battle, with a manner reminiscent of a historical epic.

Lucas's direction has also improved. It's still not very good, but having watched them back to back, it's definitely not as hideous as Clones, although the problem with Sith's delivery isn't so much about being wooden as it is about being overly hammy and melodramatic. In particular, Ian McDiarmid seems to be having a great time as Palpatine, who was always a bit of a pantomime villain anyway to be honest, and Hayden Christensen is...well, he's certainly trying! Natalie Portman still seems to be struggling but I'm sure I saw at least one emotion in there, somewhere. There is still one perplexingly awful "love" scene between Anakin and Padmé, but I guess to make up for how few there are, they made it possibly the worst one yet. The lines don't even sound like they connect to each other, as if Lucas just threw a bunch of sonnets at a cement mixer and picked out whichever scraps of paper survived.

You know what is good though? Obi-Wan and Anakin's chemistry. Yes, I know every fucking line of McGregor's has been memed to shit, but do you know why they capture our hearts so much? Because it's banter. It's rare in a Lucas script, I'll grant you, but Anakin and Obi-Wan have a genuine rapport with each other, and you can believe that they're good friends. They talk like friends, they quip like friends, they tease each other like friends, and when Obi-Wan has to defeat Anakin on Mustafar, I can really believe how upset he is.

On a related note, the opening sequence where Anakin and Obi-Wan rescue Palpatine from The Invisible Hand is probably the closest any of the prequels get to reproducing the fabled 'Star Wars feel' that makes those OT films so enjoyable, in that the tone and scenario of the sequence are actually pretty similar to some of the ones you'd find in New Hope or Jedi. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar: the core group of protagonists infiltrate a heavily defended enemy base with a specific objective to reach and a half-baked plan that they keep improvising as they go. It's also got the same sense of humour, the cheesy one-liners and snarky dialogue and banter between the protagonists, and it's got a constantly evolving sense of peril. There are flashes of this formula elsewhere in the prequels admittedly, probably the next closest being the retaking of Theed Palace in Phantom, but it just doesn't have the charisma or character chemistry to make it work nearly as well as it does here in Sith, where it ends up being one of the highlights of the film.

This film does go off the rails eventually, of course, but what I found surprising was how far into the story the film got before it happened. The set up to Anakin's turn to the dark side actually makes a lot of sense. As sloppily as it may have been executed in Clones, we know that Anakin has a past trauma about losing his mother to the Tusken Raiders, and was too late to save her despite acting on a premonition he had of her in danger. So it makes a lot of sense for him to get obsessively paranoid about losing Padmé when he has similar premonitions about her. His tension with the Jedi council also makes a lot of sense, if you consider even from the very beginning they were sceptical of training him, and Anakin has always seemed to be held at an arm's length from the rest of the Jedi, ironically because they feared that he would be too dangerous, which then drove him towards wiping them out. Like that's actually good writing. And when his trust in the Jedi order is wavering, along with the lies fed to him about the Jedi trying to take over and the chance to save Padmé, it actually makes a lot of sense that Anakin lashes out at Windu, considering as well his impulsive nature. From that point onward though, it falls apart. Immediately swearing allegiance to the Sith and taking on the Vader moniker? Nuh-uh. He's not there yet. He's still travelling downhill, but he is far from reaching the bottom. But no, we go straight from that regrettable impulsive decision straight to evil bastard within about a minute. Even then, maybe we could swallow it with the melodrama of the thing if it weren't for...

The. Fucking. Younglings.

Again, everything to do with the younglings has been memed to death, and it doesn't take a genius to see how misguided and tonally kinda fucked up that is for what is basically a kid's film, but you know what, I get it. This isn't a pleasant story; it has to go there at some point. But not with Anakin. That's the problem with it. Like I said, Anakin isn't there yet, he's still at the top of his descent and should still be a somewhat good character. If I were writing this, I'd have Anakin shut himself away somewhere straight after the Windu scene and have some kind of breakdown as he comes to terms with what he's done. Meanwhile, the clones, which are faceless non-characters that are directly under the command of Palpatine, can go and do all the child-murdering in the Jedi temple, which is not only a lot more emotionally plausible but keeps Anakin as relatable as he can possibly be at this point, and it would sell the Shakespearean kinda tragedy angle that Lucas is going for a lot better. It is just straight-up inconceivable that Anakin goes from being an essentially good but haunted character who just wants to save his wife during the birth of his child(ren) to an unfeeling and unconflicted child-murdering machine within maybe an hour tops of in-universe time.

The other big problem for me is that Sith's entire plot about Anakin being manipulated by Palpatine makes no sense when you realise that prior to this film, there is very little relation between Anakin and Palpatine: they barely interact in either of the previous two films. And yes, there's a three-year gap which maybe The Clone Wars series plugs (but it doesn't count since it was made afterwards: that's called a retcon, boys and girls) where this might have been explored, but coming to Sith straight from Clones and being told Anakin is super-close best buds with Palpatine is baffling. Especially when Anakin randomly drops a line to the effect of "my allegiance has always been to the senate." WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? You've been a Jedi for the past thirteen years of your life; the closest you have ever gotten to politics is six inches inside the senator of Naboo!

#5) The Force Awakens
We have now crossed the threshold of 'bad' Star Wars, a term I'm still somewhat at odds with, and into the realm of 'good' Star Wars. I know a lot of people would draw this line a lot later, but no,there are at least five really solid Star Wars films, and here we have the weakest of them, The Force Awakens. After growing up with the OT and the prequels, when the lines of 'good' and 'bad' Star Wars were much more clear cut (to the point that a list ranking them like this was almost pointless), the announcement of a new trilogy made by Disney was met with a lot of trepidation, changing to tentative optimism when the trailer dropped and actually wasn't half bad. How refreshing it was when Awakens turned out to be not only a genuinely enjoyable blast of a film but also managed to recapture the same 'feel' of the OT and the magic of Star Wars which I only then realised had been so sorely missing from the prequels. Then a couple of days passed and we all collectively realised the reason it felt so much like the OT was because it was the OT: a flashy remake of A New Hope, to be precise, but with heavy use of the Find and Replace tool. Luke becomes Rey, Tatooine becomes Jakku, Ben Kenobi becomes Han Solo, Vader becomes Kylo and the Death Star becomes Starkiller Base. And that's just a sample; I nearly wrote a post back in the day exploring just how much of Awakens was just blatantly stolen from New Hope before I realised everyone and their stuffed Ewok was five steps ahead of me.

Of course, flashier doesn't mean better, just more polished and expensive. And when you make everything bigger and better, the cracks that existed in the original also become bigger and more problematic. The one that bothers me the most is Starkiller Base. Now, the Death Star has always been a bit of a hangup, even in the OT: in New Hope, we can just about accept that the Empire has the power and money and influence to build a space station the size of a small moon with the power to destroy planets. But with its swift destruction, plus the death toll and the presumed economic hit that surely accompanied it, you'd think the Empire would be dissuaded from trying it again. So when in Jedi they've just built another one in a fraction of the time and even larger in size, which is then also immediately destroyed, you'd think that any other Empire wannabes might be wise to avoid building such colossal and surely expensive battlestations in future, and that maybe future Star Wars writers might try coming up with something a little more original for their future instalments rather than just more planet-destroying superweapons. So then Awakens comes along with Starkiller Base, a Death Star that is to the first one in size what Jupiter is to Earth, with the ability to destroy five planets at once. This, ladies and gents, is how you raise the threat in the laziest way possible. "Look, it's five times as deadly, so its five times the threat". Except it isn't though, is it? Because while the ability to blow up one entire planet at once is quite a formidable threat for an audience to get behind, just simply upping the number of planets doesn't actually elevate the threat to any new level. The graph of 'number of planets that can be destroyed at once' against 'threat level' is not directly proportional: it's got to be at least logarithmic! And before you ask why I'm trying to illustrate my point with statistics graphs, may I remind you you are reading a ten-thousand word retrospective on Star Wars: I feel like most people who've read this far into such a document have at least some understanding of graph theory.

It's difficult to fully explain, but I guess if you imagine you were watching a thriller and one of the villains enters and says "I shot a hostage". Everyone's really shocked because this is a significant shift of the status quo, and now the blood being shed is innocent and what-have-you, but then if the same character comes back in and says "I've shot another four hostages" it just doesn't really have the same impact. You're certainly not five times as shocked, that's for sure. Starkiller Base isn't any more powerful or formidable plot-wise than the original Death Star except for being slightly more efficient. OOoooOOOOoooOoooOO, I'm so scared.

What also doesn't help was in A New Hope even though we never actually saw the world of Alderaan, we knew its emotional significance to Leia and so we still felt pretty bad about its destruction. In Awakens, even though we see people on the planet screaming as they see the blast approaching, we still feel nothing because we don't know who any of them are or why they're of personal importance to the main characters (spoiler alert, they aren't). Yeah, everyone's like "it sucks those planets got blown up", but there's nothing akin to Leia having her entire home, family and friends killed that made us feel something. Otherwise it has about the same emotional impact as a star destroyer being taken down. It's just flashy effects more than anything relevant to the story. Not to mention, which planets did they destroy? What were they called? Because they were never established other than just simply containing the Republic in some fashion, and so we have no real connection to them. Somehow the stakes actually end up feeling lower than they did in New Hope. Maybe if they'd destroyed Tatooine or Bespin or Coruscant we might have felt something, but then that would just be cheap manipulation. At least Starkiller Base was the last we saw of the Death Stars.

There are other niggles with the film, but on the whole, Awakens is a pretty solid and entertaining Star Wars film, even if it is just wearing a New Hope skin suit. If the OT didn't already exist, Awakens would probably be considered one of the best space fantasy blockbusters of its time. Of course, without the OT it wouldn't exist at all, so that's a paradox, but you get what I mean. Ultimately, while it didn't do much new, I do appreciate the logic of Awakens: that Star Wars fans had been let down so many times before and were nervous of how Disney was going to handle it, that Awakens essentially stood to prove that Disney understood the material and how a good Star Wars film should be, before they ventured forth and paved their way with a new story. Which is why it's such a shame to look back now and see Disney didn't have a fucking clue what they were doing.

#4) Return of the Jedi
Ok, things are starting to get a bit more serious now as we enter into OT territory. Originally, I was gonna spend a bit of time talking about the various changes that have been made to the OT but as with most things, the word count ballooned, and now I'm going dedicate an entire post specifically to them. So in the meantime, if you're wondering why I'm not mentioning Greedo shooting first or the dance scene at Jabba's palace or the blinking ewoks, don't you worry, it's coming.

Most people seem to be in agreement that Jedi is the least good of the OT, and while there are many factors as to why that is the case, I wonder if it's worth speculating that maybe some of the negativity towards Jedi comes from people watching it at the end of Star Wars marathons, and who are maybe starting to tire. Jedi is the longest of the OT by about ten minutes, and probably the most languidly paced, which isn't a bad thing, but it is the only one of the three where the action just kinda stops for a while in the middle, and if you've just sat through New Hope and Empire back-to-back immediately beforehand like I and many other fans do when we rewatch these, I think it's understandable that Jedi comes off as maybe the least exciting of the three. Which is still the equivalent of saying "this gold bar is probably the least shiny in the vault".

Now I have a bit of a rocky history with Jedi. When I first saw it as a three-year-old, I was mildly traumatised by the Rancor and its door-related demise. Not in like a bad way, in a perfectly healthy three-year-old-watching-a-mildly-scary-film kinda way. Plus I ended up developing a phobia of slugs at some point in my childhood (unrelated to Star Wars) and Jabba kinda freaked me out as a result. So for the longest time, I refused to watch Jedi, going so far as to read the novelisation instead of subjecting myself to the film again. I did revisit it eventually and of course I was completely fine, and I found myself kinda fascinated by the film, in the same way most people do when it comes to nostalgic horror.

So until very recently I kinda had Jedi on par with Empire in my mind as the best Star Wars films. Adding to that was, ironically, the Jabba the Hutt sequence at the beginning, because it's the best glimpse we ever really got into the seedy underbelly of bounty hunting and organised crime in the Star Wars universe, an area which I've always found a lot more intriguing than the 'evil Empire versus Rebels' plot and that I'd always wished we had a film entirely based around. Luckily, that's pretty much exactly what The Mandalorian is, and it's a big factor as to why I love that series so much. Oh, and Solo, which sort of does it too but really... rubbishly.

Today though, while the Jabba the Hutt sequence is still a highlight, it doesn't save the film, which definitely starts to suffer once said sequence concludes. There's definitely a sense of running out of ideas in Jedi. Some complain that the Jabba sequence is too long, and while I don't agree as such, I think it's still very deliberately there to kill some time. The Empire, in particular, seems to be running on creative fumes. As I mentioned above, the threat is just another Death Star (but don't worry guys, it's marginally bigger than the old one OOOooOOooOo), because the Empire has seemingly either run out of ideas of how to be threatening or have learned nothing from the first one (or both). And in another masterstroke of strategy, the Emperor is gonna be staying on the station too. And then a trap is set for the Rebels which involved letting them know the location of the new Death Star and the details on its shield system, and even consciously allowing them to sneak past the Star Destroyers guarding Endor. A very cocky move considering the Empire's track record, and while I get this was a plot to convert Luke to the dark side, it feels like the Empires not even trying to win at this point.

But then this isn't really about the Empire, this is about trying to conclude a trilogy of films with the biggest baddest threat of all and just not really knowing how to top what's come before. Not to mention contriving a way by which the Empire can be somehow permanently defeated in one fell swoop, and so taking out the new Death Star and also the Emperor if you fancy it and you're not doing anything else was about the best they could manage, like this is just some big ol' game of intergalactic chess.

Speaking of the Emperor, I know he's a beloved meme and the highlight of the prequels, but has anyone thought about how silly he is? His existence is important story-wise to motivate Darth Vader's arc, sure, but he's essentially a pantomime villain. Sitting in his chair looking like a witch, cackling like a witch, just saying evil things in his silly little raspy voice, it's very difficult to take him seriously and, let's be honest here, until the prequels came about this guy had zero character really. He's just the big bad evil guy, and has basically no real role or development otherwise. People complain about Snoke having no character or interest outside of being just a gross looking evil guy, but to be honest, both are about as complex as each other and their best contribution to their respective trilogies is being killed as part of the real villain's arc.

Let's circle back to the Death Star quickly. The last real complaint I have is there's something very slapdash about the final battle to destroy the second Death Star. Firstly, all the major characters are either on the Death Star confronting Mean Mr Palpatine or down on Endor taking part in a much more exciting setpiece. Yeah, I know Lando's leading the fleet, but that's my point really isn't it, it's Lando: a recent addition to the core group who's really one of the more minor characters in the series if you really think about it, so no wonder he's left to do the obligatory space fight while the rest of the crew has fun down in the forest. So there's this feeling that the Battle Over Endor is almost more of a formality than it is an exciting part of the story.

And do you remember when the Death Star was activated for the first time and blew up Alderaan and it was this really shocking moment? And do you remember when the second Death Star first activates and destroys some random Rebel cruiser and it's just kinda "ok cool." There's a theme developing with this particular post, but again, who was on that ship? Why did they matter? Yes, I get they're Rebels, but to us they're nobodies. Other than the faction they were aligned with there was nothing that separates that ship from every other ship that's being blown up. Hell, that one A-Wing that takes out the Executor has a thousand times the emotional impact and that's almost entirely because we see the guy in his final moments. That's all we really need.

Plus when the shield finally is down (by which point I'd like to point out the Emperor and Vader are already dead), the actual attack on the Death Star also feels so rushed and arbitrary. It's just "go in, establish the minimum amount of peril by showing the radar dish getting knocked off, into the reactor, one little pew pew, and then back out." It takes maybe two minutes and there's just no emotional connection there at all, it just feels like its ticking the box, like the editor's going "yeah, we know how this turns out. Let's just get on with it."

I gripe, but this is still the OT we're talking about, and Jedi is still a damn fine film with plenty of great moments. For all the campiness of the Emperor, the final showdown with Luke, Vader and Palps is one of my favourite sequences of the entire series, with its fantastic music swell as Luke finally snaps at Vader and battles him out from underneath the platform, the great visual representation of Luke's contemplation as he looks between Vader's dismembered stump and his own mechanical hand, and of course, Vader's fantastic (and SILENT) moment where he chooses between his son and his master, all utterly supreme.

And you know what? The Ewoks are fine too. Have a heart.

But Jedi is the weakest of the OT, and I think that's a fairly uncontroversial opinion. Unlike next week's hot take, which I think most of you have already foreseen. Hoo boy, this is going to be fun.

Tune in next week for Episode 3 of Star Wars: A Ranked Retrospective!

Star Wars: A Ranked Retrospective - Episode I

Ayyyy, Happy Star Wars Day guys! Because apparently, this is a legit thing now: to celebrate and watch Star Wars on this, the fourteenth of May. Yeah, bit of an arbitrary date if you ask me, I haven't quite worked out the significance yet, but I'm sure that-

What's that?
...
What do you mean I've got the wrong day? It's May the fourteenth, isn't it?
...
It's May the-? Oh. Ohhhh! I see. Well, shit. And how's the time machine coming along?
...
That bad, huh?
...
No, I'm not going to backdate it, that's cheating. We'll just, *ahem*, we'll just keep going.

BOY, wasn't that a fun Star Wars day we had last week? I've gotta say, I had a great time, watching all the Star Wars films back-to-back on the day itself like the good little fanboy I am. So what if it took over twenty hours, this is a sacred ritual we fanboys must undertake in order to appease The Great Mouse, Mickey be thy name. He is a fair but vengeful god, and you know he'll cancel season two of The Mandalorian if he doesn't think we're worshipping him hard enough.

So I hope you were all watching along, clad in your Darth Vader pyjamas, sipping Rebel Alliance coffee from your Luke Skywalker mug, and lovingly caressing your Yoda wank doll through every crucial scene in the series. Unfortunately, with the number of Star Wars films to get through in one day, I didn't have time to perform the ritual sacrifice of my firstborn child to the Knights of Ren, and just as well too, because I realised I'd left my good Ponda Baba ritual dagger in my other limited edition Wuher messenger bag at a fellow cultist's house, and what with the lockdown and all, I could hardly ride my TK-421-branded scooter over to his, could I?

*sigh*

What am I saying? There's eight different Star Wars related posters, paintings and artworks on my bedroom walls, there's a Lego Millenium Falcon on the shelf beneath my television, and there's a collector's model of Boba Fett's helmet on one of my DVD shelves. Everyone's got a bit of Star Wars memorabilia lying around somewhere.

And you know what, despite the horrific over-merchandising, the toxicity of the fanbase, the constant tampering and revisionism of the original trilogy, and every dodgy decision made by Lucas and Disney on almost every film that followed, I'm still a massive Star Wars fan.

And it's hard not to be. Star Wars is probably one of the most popular and influential franchises in media history. It represented a distillation of every story and idea that came before it into one seemingly perfect space opera, and has inspired basically every filmmaker since who grew up with these films, me included.

My earliest memory is sitting with my dad on the sofa at about three years old, watching the OT and Phantom Menace, taped off the TV. I remember seeing that shot of the AT-ATs coming over the ridge on the Battle of Hoth and being struck with awe. Of course, back then my understanding of special effects was limited and I thought they'd actually built these machines for the film, but even when I cam back to these films as a preteen, that scene still had a power to it, and that was when I realised that film was what I wanted to do with my life. And I wouldn't be here to this day, writing this blog with a degree in Film and Television if it weren't for Star Wars.

So yeah, I'll always be inextricably invested in Star Wars as a universe and a franchise, but that doesn't change the fact that Star Wars as a film canon is, umm, a little rough shall we say.

While I don't think any of them are truly bad films and are all enjoyable in some kinda way, they certainly aren't all peaches, and even the OT, praised by many (including me back in the day) as being some of the best films ever made, certainly are far from flawless. And while I loved the prequels as a teen, I'm a lot older and wiser now, and a lot more well versed in film criticism, so why don't we see how the Star Wars franchise holds up, and more importantly, how they stack against each other?

So here we go, a ranked retrospective of all the Star Wars films. Except Rogue One. And Solo. Oh and we're not doing The Clone Wars movie either. No, we're not doing Caravan of Courage, what is wrong with you? Or The Battle for Endor! The Holiday Special? WHY would I include the-

Right, fine. Here is my ranked retrospective of The Skywalker Saga. Are we happy now? Oh and there's gonna be no restraint on spoilers, so if you somehow don't know what happens in the Star Wars films by this point, might want to fix that before you venture forward.

Oh and don't worry, Disney. I definitely rewatched these on your frustratingly-well-timed streaming platform Disney+, and not on the seven seas or the old pre-Disney DVD copies I've been hoarding for years. See kids, this is why you get a DVD collection: so that when all the fragmenting streaming networks take your favourite films hostage you can still watch them without having to give a toss about paying the monthly ransom for their fingers.

#9) The Phantom Menace
"I am immeasurably shocked and surprised that The Phantom Menace is on the bottom of a ranked Star Wars list," said absolutely no-one ever. Yeah, ok obviously this one wasn't going to appear super high, and to be honest, until the sequel trilogy came about the Star Wars ranking was a pretty open and shut case. And regardless of whether you hate this or Attack of the Clones more, they're both usually occupying these bottom slots, and with pretty fair reason. That being said, come on guys, it's not that bad. Ok, it's not great, but even the worst Star Wars films are still decent enough entertainment. And for what it's worth, Phantom does some things well. Some of the digital effects have actually aged half decently, a rarity with Lucas, and....umm...uhhhh...Darth Maul's pretty cool. Well, he'd be a lot cooler if he had any kind of character building at all. Ok fine, maybe there isn't that much to like when you start to dissect it but it was hardly an unpleasant experience. To criticise Phantom doesn't feel so much like beating a dead horse as it does beating a dried red stain on the concrete old enough to drink in America, but I am a critic, so for the record if nothing else, here we go.

The plot's a mess, and with the political side as well it genuinely gets incomprehensible at points. Also, I can't think of a more boring opening line (well, second line) to a Star Wars text crawl than "The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute." It sounds like its own Simpsons parody. A lot is made about the performances in all of the prequels, but clearly, a lot of these actors have done plenty of other, much better things, and especially when the acting's this stilted across the board, it's probably way more likely that George Lucas just can't direct his way out of a paper bag. Consequently, I feel quite bad for Jake Lloyd, who abandoned acting after being bullied about his portrayal of Anakin, but honestly, he's nowhere near as bad as people make him out to be, and in fact he's actually better (or at least more convincing) than a lot of other cast members. Such as Natalie Portman, who I'd say takes first prize for most wooden, but Ewan McGregor isn't far behind: both delivering lines like human emotion is a concept they've vaguely heard of but haven't really grasped.

Speaking of Portman, the Amidala decoy plot point still makes as little sense as it ever did. Oh, and the whole thing about Anakin being a virgin birth? I just... George, please, you're not a great writer but you're surely better than that.

 Finally, of course, there's Jar Jar. He's... well... he's Jar Jar. What more could I possibly say? The character has taken quite the proverbial beating in the Star Wars community ever since he was introduced and to be quite honest, it's mostly justified. He is obnoxious and feels weirdly out of place, both tonally and alongside the rest of the cast. But something I don't hear being brought up very often is how hard it is to understand what he's saying. I genuinely struggle to make out half of his lines because the way in which he speaks, specifically something that happens with the consonants, just makes him borderline unintelligible. And I can't decide whether that makes him easier or harder to endure.

In summary, I struggle to really muster any strong feelings about this film one way or another. It's certainly not a great film but it's really not too bad: it just kinda hangs out in the middle and evaporates shortly after watching it. For the most part, it feels like we're waiting for stuff to happen, and not in like an "I'm bored, get to the action" kind-of-way, more that everything in the film just feels so irrelevant to the overarching story. Besides discovering Anakin and having him bestowed to Obi-Wan, everything that happens feels like it just isn't going to go anywhere in the long term and doesn't really matter (which a lot of it doesn't), and I get an intergalactic war has to start somewhere, but a blockade of one planet that no-one else seems to care about feels a little small scale, and it feels like maybe we went a little too far back.

I guess the best way to describe it is if the Star Wars series was a student film, then The Phantom Menace would be the shot of an alarm clock going off, followed by the protagonist turning it off and getting out of bed. If that makes any sense at all.

#8) The Rise of Skywalker
Hooooo, boy. What in the ever-loving fuck happened here. It's Damage Control: The Movie. Now, the sequels have been pretty divisive among the Star Wars community, with The Last Jedi seemingly at the centre of it all. But while the wars still rage on as to whether The Last Jedi was a flaming heap of garbage that personally killed all of your family pets and gave your sweet old granny chlamydia, or whether it was the boldest and most artistically driven Star Wars film that dared to go against the grain we had grown weary of and try something adventurous and brilliant, both sides agree that Rise of Skywalker was the pits.

This is what happens when you attempt to make a sequel trilogy to one of the most loved franchises of all time with no plan whatsoever: something that I still cannot believe Disney went along with. So Force Awakens comes out: like most of J J Abrams' films, it's safe but ultimately enjoyable and it gets a favourable response from fans and critics alike. Satisfied, Disney hands Last Jedi to Rian Johnson and says "do what you like." So he does, leaping off from Force Awakens in a daring new direction/completely and utterly ruining the franchise beyond all repair (delete as to your level of butthurt). The critics love it. The fans love it until someone told them they shouldn't and they all decide they hate it now. Disney goes "shit, what are we going to do now? The fanboys are angry at us. JJ! Save us from the fanboys!"

And so we get a trilogy which reads like it was written by two recent exes in the wake of a traumatic breakup. The second instalment unpicks threads from the first one that it doesn't like, and the third instalment unpicks everything the second instalment did, seemingly out of spite, while simultaneously trying to pretend it never happened. But there aren't enough films to maintain this fight between Abrams and Johnson, and we're already at the end of the trilogy and need to somehow wrap this story up at the same time as JJ is trying to cover up an entire third of it.

So for one thing, Rise of Skywalker feels like it wants to be two films, or at least maybe one four-or-five-hour epic, but has had to squeeze into a skimpy 140-minute dress, and as a result, the story blasts through at breakneck pace. And not in a good, tight action thriller kind of way, in an "if we let up for even a second, everyone will realise how none of this makes any goddamn sense" kinda way. The characters move from one world to another on a convoluted MacGuffin hunt with scarcely room to breathe or develop character or do anything but move from setpiece to setpiece in the manner of an ADD-ridden squirrel, lest anyone go "hang on, why does this ancient Sith artefact that's existed for thousands of years perfectly line up with the jagged outline of the ruins of the Death Star that would have crashed randomly to the ground and, wait hang on, the Death Star was blown into oblivion, not just into chunks and WAIT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN PALPATINE'S RETURNED?"

Yes, the infamous line: "somehow, Palpatine's returned", barely spoken with a straight face and with a look of confusion matching the audience's, and again Star Wars is sounding like its own Simpsons parody. I mean really, there's no better line to perfectly and succinctly sum up the film and its refusal to explain or even give a shit about the hows or whys of its story as long as it thinks the fanboys are happy. I am convinced that a large part of the planning process for this film was done by looking at the Star Wars meme subreddits and going "ohh, so that's what the fans like", which is why Palpatine's back. It doesn't make sense, there's essentially no attempt to explain it outside of some half-arsed mention of cloning, but it doesn't matter,  because the fans love Palpatine and therefore they'll love this film because he's in it. Oh and look, we gave Chewy a medal out of fucking nowhere. Do you love us yet? It's all the hip memes you ever wanted, what more could you ask for. This film is probably the perfect embodiment of the argument that fans don't know what they want, and if you try only to appease the fans you will end up with a desperate mess. No-one knows what they want until they've got it, so they'll only ever demand the things they've seen before and your series will stagnate, that's why it's so essential to do your own thing and do something brave and interesting and different. Even those who hate The Last Jedi surely would agree they'd prefer it to this film: a film that tries something new and different and fails spectacularly is a thousand times more interesting than a film that shits itself in tired iconography and pathetically humps your leg as it begs you to love it.

There are loads more things that annoy me about Rise of Skywalker: the blatancy of its merchandising with the introduction of D0, a useless character that gratifyingly didn't take off as the latest cute droid mascot (plus of course the infamous "tHeY fLy NoW", after which I could practically hear "each sold separately"), the devaluing of the Death Star threat even further than it had already been in Force Awakens (more on that later) with the attachment of a Death Star laser to every star destroyer like a massive dangling cock that of course if shot directly blows up the entire star destroyer because at this point no-one's even trying, the almost complete refusal to do anything with Rose Tico other than shift her to the background in shame and cut all of her presumed lines, the fact that not only is every character besides Rey and Kylo completely ignored and basically get no resolution whatsoever, but the subplot introduced where Finn desperately has to tell Rey something is completely dropped after being established way too hard (and no, I don't care whether it's that he's force sensitive or in love with Rey, it doesn't matter what it is, you can't just make a big deal of establishing it then never speak about it again). But one thing that I think quite poetically sums up this film's revisionist attitude and disregard for its predecessor and by extension the reason it irks me so much is the Chewy fake-out.

There's a moment where Rey and Kylo are force-fighting over a ship containing an imprisoned Chewy, and in her anger Rey's force lightning destroys the transport. It's a shocking and powerful moment, and great character development for Rey since she's now being made out to be a Palpatine. It's the kind of risky and dark twist that I'd appreciate in such a final instalment, and there's this great almost Akira-esque notion of Rey's powers growing far beyond her control to the point that she can't stop them from harming the ones she loves. Nah, don't worry boys and girls, he's alright. There's all of maybe two minutes of grieving before "no look, he's fine. Chewy was on the other transport ship this whole time. He's not dead. We'd never kill Chewy, he's far too marketable and we don't want anything dark and challenging in this series about constant inevitable warfare that's becoming dangerously stagnant. Nope, Chewy's alive. Don't worry Rey, you just viciously murdered a bunch of First Order soldiers who probably had families but who cares. You don't need to feel sad for them, they're not as marketable as good ol' Chewy. Here, let's give him a FUCKING MEDAL".

*ahem*

I am putting it ahead of Phantom though, and for one key reason. Sitting watching this film in the cinema, as with every Star Wars film I've been fortunate enough to see in a cinema, was still very entertaining. At least stuff happens, even if it is a complete and total mess. Phantom on the other hand... well it wasn't boring but as I've said it felt like a lot less happened in it. And there we go. That's maybe Rise of Skywalker's only saving grace: for about ten minutes after leaving the cinema, you feel pretty good about it. Then you start thinking about literally any of it, and it falls apart. I guess that is ticking a box of some kind and I hesitate to give it a negative score because I was at least entertained but, god I don't know. The more I write about this film the more I begin to despise it.

#7) Attack of the Clones
Oh wow, this one really hasn't aged well since I last saw it. When it comes to deciding which is the worst of the prequel trilogy, I think it comes down to what people personally prefer in a film. The bad dialogue and delivery is a lot more egregious in Clones than it is in Phantom, but Phantom's plot is less interesting, harder to follow and less relevant to the overall story than Clones, and while both actually have half-decent setpieces for their climaxes, I do think Clones' is better. I'm reminded of back in the day when the Star Wars Machete Order was a thing, and the suggestion was made that Phantom can be skipped entirely as it offers very little to the overarching story that isn't reestablished anyway in Clones, and I've gotta say, that's pretty much right on the money. Not only is Phantom non-essential for understanding the rest of the series, the fact that it happens ten years before Clones, the longest gap between two entries of any of the trilogies, actually raises more questions, a lot of which boil down to what the hell has been happening politically in that time?! The situation only seems like it's a year or two tops on from where we last left it with the Trade Federation and the droid army, what have they been doing this whole time? I guess politicians really do get nothing done. But also just being able to assume the droid armies were being built by one of the Separatists would work better than knowing that the Trade Federation (which I guess is the Star Wars answer to the East India Company or something?) has just had this army for a decade already and have already invaded Naboo and revealed the existence of said army to the galaxy, and only now, ten years on, has anyone decided this was a problem? Whatever, this is Phantom's boo-boo, not Clones', and in fact, I feel Clones makes at least some effort to make up for the mistakes of Phantom, by streamlining the politics a bit more and reducing Jar Jar's screen time. But I'm sorry, Senator Binks? Senator fucking Binks? Lucas, I get that Jar Jar was supposed to be an important character and you still want him to have some involvement with the plot, I honestly do, but no-one in their right mind would put Jar Jar fucking Binks in a position of political power. He is a proven half-wit that constantly gets into trouble and can barely think for himself, how is anyone supposed to believe that he'd - oh. Ohhh. I get it, now. God, Lucas was a genius, we just never saw it.

Not as a writer though. Christ. I get Anakin is supposed to be angsty and hate-filled, but Jesus the stuff Lucas makes him say makes Todd Phillips' Joker look like Cassanova. Genuinely, I am going to show you a quote from Anakin when he's trying to confess his love for Padmé, and I want you to look me in the eyes (somehow) and tell me this doesn't sound like something a neckbeard would write.

"From the moment I met you, all those years ago, not a day has gone by when I haven't thought of you. And now that I'm with you again... I'm in agony. The closer I get to you, the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you- I can't breathe. I'm haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. My heart is beating... hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me... what can I do?- I will do anything you ask."

And that's probably the biggest problem with the film: Anakin and Padmé. Their 'blossoming romance' seems to be the focus of the film, but again, Lucas's direction and writing is so astoundingly poor that I just don't believe a word of it. There's no chemistry, they barely speak like real humans, plus Anakin is not just whiny but already disturbingly unhinged and creepy and it just doesn't feel plausible that Padmé would fall for him, especially after the whole Tusken Raider outburst, after which any sane person would probably back away slowly and make a note to sever contact.

Once you get past all that though, the climax on the whole is pretty exciting. The arena fight, the entrance of the Clone army, our first glimpse at the scale of the Clone Wars, and the fight with Anakin and Obi-Wan against Count Dooku, all together is probably one of the highlights of the prequel trilogy. However, there is still one thing in here that really pissed me off and that's the fight between Yoda and Dooku.

Watching the OT, Yoda has always been about the Force, and specifically how it should be used "for knowledge and defence, never for attack." This is kinda like the defining point of Yoda's character, he's never on the offence and seems almost pacifist in nature, and also doesn't seem massively keen on lightsabres. So why on earth in this film does he not only have a lightsaber, but fucking launches himself at Dooku with a battle cry and start flipping and flying off of all the walls. I'm sure you thought it was awesome to see Yoda kicking arse as a kid, but come on now, you've got to admit this is out of character to say the least. A Yoda fight is definitely possible and would be interesting to see (and we get one in Revenge of the Sith that's more along these lines), but I would expect it to be Yoda trying to outwit his enemy, using the force to expertly deflect attacks and find creative solutions to stun or restrain his opponent. But no, crazy flips and lightsabers it is. Although to its credit we do see Yoda blocking and absorbing Dooku's force lightning, which is pretty badass, so there's like a glimmer of that in there.

Again, not a terrible film, and it's above the other two primarily for its last thirty minutes or so, i.e. the point where the prequels finally start doing what we were kinda hoping for from the beginning. But if it weren't for that, this would probably slip further down. At its worst, it's probably more painful than Phantom, but again, so much more happens and it feels like it actually matters too, so it gives it the edge it needs to come out on top. In my mind anyway. I completely understand if people put this below Phantom.

Also, I know he built it in the first place, but did Anakin just steal C-3PO?

Stay tuned next week for Part 2 of Star Wars: A Ranked Retrospective!

The Ciné Rambles Podcast Announcement

Nope, no new post yet, although there will be one more written post before the end of the month. Instead, I've got a bit of an announcement to make in terms of the blog.

The astute amongst you may have noticed the lack of an Oscar results post this year. The more astute amongst you may have noticed that this year's written Oscars post was replaced with a two-hour-long podcast, available now on YouTube and SoundCloud. And with that comes our exciting new announcement!

Ciné Rambles has jumped mediums into the audible range of air pressure waves: sound! The Ciné Rambles podcast will be available on YouTube every week, featuring the dulcet tones of yours truly and my good friend Andrew Jones, where we'll discuss and review recent releases and chat about other film-related topics over the course of the hour.

But if you love reading my more tempered, written thoughts, don't fret, for the blog will continue in, err,  blog form with new written posts coming out once a month.

So if you'd like to keep up with the Ciné Rambles podcast, click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel, with episodes posted every Friday. And, even better, if you like Ciné Rambles on Facebook or Twitter, you'll be notified on new podcasts and new blog posts, the latter of which will be posted towards the end of each month.

That's everything for now. Make sure to check out the Oscar Results podcast if you haven't already, and stay tuned for more rambles, both written rambles and audio rambles. I'm afraid there're still some kinks to work out in the virtual reality rambles, but we're working on it

Oscar Nominations 2020

Ahh, you've gotta love Oscar season. I mean, you don't have to: it's a kinda meaningless and arbitrary award ceremony with decisions often driven by internal politics rather than genuine favour, rarely reflecting the actual best films of the year that stand the test of time, instead cluttered with nominations for forgettable films made to cash in on the award season buzz before immediately fading from memory the moment the ceremony is over.

Also, you're your own unique individual who can love or hate whatever you like. Obviously.

Regardless, what started as a one-off idea for a blog post about five years ago became an annual tradition, and now Oscar season has genuinely become one of my highlights of the year. Despite how much the Academy and their stupid decisions infuriate me, I just enjoy writing about them too much to truly hate them, and with so many nominated films to talk about, it feels like a film reviewer's Christmas. I've legit been looking forward to this for months! Right, no more dilly-dallying: it's time to unwrap my presents.

Best Picture

Wow, I'm genuinely kinda shocked. This might be one of the strongest best picture rosters I've seen in years. Not only is there nothing on this list that I would classify as Oscar bait, at least not in the traditional sense, but of all the titles on this list that I've seen, almost all of them I think are quality films deserving of the recognition. Almost all of them. Also, release date-wise, there are only three films on here that are taking the piss, which I think might be a record.

Ford v Ferrari
I briefly talked about this film last year, although in all honestly, that post was more of a Disney rant in disguise than a proper discussion of the film, that disguise being about as sophisticated as a pair of Groucho Marx glasses, but it's actually a pretty great film and nearly made my top five of the year. There's something about motorsport films like this and Rush that separates them from other sports movies. Maybe it's something thematic, like the relationship between man and machine or the power and ingenuity of human engineering. Or maybe it's just that the adrenaline rush of fast cars zooming past each other naturally lends itself to a visual medium like cinema. At any rate, whatever the magic ingredient, Ford v Ferrari has it in spades, with its expertly crafted racing sequences serving as the rich peppercorn sauce to the juicy steak of the background politics of the Ford motor company and the relationship between Damon and Bale's characters. I suppose you could say it all comes together like a well-oiled machine. I can't necessarily see it winning the top prize, but then, to be honest, it was a welcome surprise to see this film in the lineup in the first place, so I guess anything's possible. 8/10, Medium Recommendation

The Irishman
Next on the list of 'films that only just missed out on my top 5', Martin Scorsese's latest gangster epic. I've got to admit, I've never really enjoyed gangster films. I can't quite place what it is about them, but I've seen a lot of the greats and very few of them really hold my interest. Goodfellas in particular, often considered one of Scorsese's best, is a film I've just never really found particularly interesting, so when initial reviews of The Irishman started comparing them, I got the impression this wasn't going to be the film for me. Adding to that was The Irishman's infamous 209-minute runtime, which to be fair has turned off a lot of other people I know, too. But I gave it a chance one Sunday morning/afternoon, and I'll be damned if I didn't find myself utterly hooked. I'm not gonna pretend that I didn't feel the length at all, but the key point is I was never bored. I don't know if it was the writing or the acting or direction, most likely a combination of all three, but I found myself very absorbed in this decades-long tale of a gangster's rise and fall. And over such a long runtime and such a long period of these character's lives, it's almost impossible not to feel for them as *ahem* the ending draws near, let's say. To top that, the film's forty-minute-or-so epilogue is a very moving and personal reflection on mortality, and one that feels very much like Scorsese is expressing himself directly through the film. It's such emotionally honest filmmaking and its exactly the kind of thing this art form is all about: expressing an emotion or idea in such a way that an audience can feel it alongside you. I don't have any real criticisms of it, but the only reason it hasn't got a higher rating is just personal taste really. It is still a gangster film, and probably the best one I've ever seen, but there is kinda a ceiling on how much they can interest me it seems, so while I did enjoy it, it's not like I constantly find myself thinking about it. But if you love the likes of The Godfather or Goodfellas or Once Upon a Time in America, I'm sure you'll love this too. And if you are concerned about the runtime, there was a great suggestion on Twitter of how to split it up into a four-part mini-series, if that's more your thing. 8/10, High Recommendation

Jojo Rabbit
Probably the most surprising film on this list, I genuinely wasn't expecting a whole lot of Oscar buzz for Jojo Rabbit, but hell, six nominations is quite a hefty buzz. Of course, as per my last post's decree, Jojo Rabbit isn't a 2019 film because it didn't go on general release here until New Year's day, but whatever. Had a lot of fun with this one: Taika Waititi is probably one of the best comedy directors working at the moment, and I know a lot of my friends probably feel similarly. It's especially interesting that Jojo Rabbit has been getting so many Oscar nominations considering that it seems to be quite a divisive film amongst critics. I've seen a lot of people decrying that this film is tasteless for trying to make light of Nazi Germany and I guess for skirting around the Holocaust or something. Personally, I don't get it. I mean come on guys, it's hardly "too soon". For one thing, we've been taking the piss out of the Nazi's for ages, why is it now suddenly a problem? God, don't show these people the Wolfenstein games, they'll have a fucking heart attack! Plus, with some of the more disturbing trends in American politics at the moment, maybe a piss-take of just how ridiculous the Nazi ideology was (and I guess, still is) might not go amiss. For another thing, even if you think this film isn't saying anything meaningful, which I would completely disagree with, whoever said a World War II film has to be Schindler's List or Downfall to be valid? Films can exist as just entertainment, and there shouldn't be any restrictions on what can and can't be used as a setting or topic, especially in comedy. Being able to make fun of something is the surest sign that we've moved on from it, but if we keep roping off topics as being too taboo or un-politically correct to make comedy out of, how do we ever expect society to move on? But then I do have a pretty dark sense of humour, maybe this stuff just bothers me less. Politics aside, this is a supremely entertaining film, and yet is still surprisingly heartfelt and emotional at points. As long as you're not some curmudgeonly old person with absolutely no sense of humour, I see no reason why most audiences shouldn't enjoy this film. But I really don't see it as an Oscar winner, at least not for Best Picture. I mean, if ever there were two words to describe the Academy voters, 'curmudgeonly' and 'old' would be some of my top choices. And maybe some other, ruder ones... 8/10, Medium Recommendation

Joker
With eleven nominations, Joker is currently leading the pack this year, which is honestly kinda crazy considering this is still technically a comic book movie, despite its artistry. Not that comic book movies haven't won Oscars before, but to put it in perspective, if Joker were to win all of its nominations, it would be tied for most wins with Titanic, Ben-Hur and Return of the King. And while Joker is still probably my subjective favourite out of the Best Picture noms (rewatch pending), I'm not sure I'd say it's the best. Not that it's not a good film, and not that it isn't going to be a film that's remembered and talked about for years to come, but there are other films here that I think are better and probably more deserving picks, not to mention safer, which is normally the way the Academy leans. And if you haven't read my thoughts on Joker yet and consider yourself a fan of essays, you can read my review from last year here. 8/10, High Recommendation

Little Women
One of only two films on this list I haven't seen, and that is something I plan to rectify in the next few days. It's been getting rave reviews from critics and audiences alike, and I've been actually quite eager to see it, even before it got nominated. And I'm afraid until I watch it, that's all I've really got to say. Tell you what, since I will probably be seeing it this week, I'll update this post once I do with my thoughts. In the meantime, having seen Lady Bird, it's clear Greta Gerwig has some definite talent as a writer-director, and I have no doubt that Little Women will be not only a really well-made film, but a strong contender for Best Picture.

Marriage Story
Probably one of the more humble films on this list, Marriage Story is very much a character-driven work, with the story of a divorcing couple and the toll their fight for custody over their son takes on the relationship between the three of them, made only worse by mercenary-minded lawyers trying to convince each party to fuck the other one over. As with any character-focused story, the performances are everything, and luckily Marriage Story boasts some stellar acting, in particular from Adam Driver. What I liked most about the film is that neither side really hates the other, and the divorce starts almost amicably, only for them to be slowly turned against each other by the money-grubbing ways of the American legal system. The problem with this, and my only real criticism of the film, is they add a point about Adam Driver's character having cheated on Scarlett Johansson, presumably to better justify why she's divorcing him, but it seems like such an unnecessary conflict that just kinda jars with the rest of his character. It also makes it a little harder to sympathise with him, even though he seems to be the one the audience is supposed to be rooting for. It just seems like such an out of place and misjudged detail. Other than that, I don't really have a huge amount to say about the film, but I did really enjoy it and I could easily see this being the Academy's choice, since while it's not exactly Oscar bait, it's the kind of performance-heavy drama that they tend to like. 8/10, High Recommendation 

1917
I feel like I'm about to receive a lot of flack for the following paragraph, but alas, here goes. The premise of 1917 is that in the World War 1 trenches, the Germans have set up a trap for the English, but communications with the attacking force have been severed and so two young soldiers must travel by foot to deliver a warning to the frontline before it's too late. To complement this, Deakins' cinematography imitates a single take, ala Birdman, that follows the soldiers as they travel through the scarred and war-torn French landscape, and in theory giving the film a sense of unfolding in real-time, with every second passing feeling like another second closer to disaster, an idea reinforced by the rather excellent tagline; "Time is the enemy". All in all, a great idea on paper. However, in practice, the film seems to buckle structurally under the weight of this technical achievement. Not collapsing exactly, but I definitely wouldn't want to stand under it if it were a bridge, put it that way. I get this sense that the story is fighting the cinematography and that the film is struggling against the one-take conceit like a challenge to overcome rather than an enhancement. Around the middle of the film, for example, they just straight-up cut to black and rejoin the protagonist several hours later, presumably because someone realised they needed to scribble forward in the timeline a bit and couldn't figure out any other way to do it. One of the problems with long takes is you're removing an entire aspect of filmmaking, the cut, and as a result, you lose a lot of control over the pacing and, perhaps more importantly, the rhythm. Consequently, 1917 could be charitably described as episodically structured, and uncharitably described as repetitive. The characters just move from one setpiece to another like they're on a sightseeing tour: they arrive at a place, something happens at the place and they move on to the next place, repeat. And it's not that this wouldn't work, it could very easily, it's a pretty standard format for a Hero's journey, but unfortunately, because there's no rhythm to the edit and the camera is just doing the same thing kinda movement throughout, it becomes visually monotonous, and it draws attention to the issues with the story, and the characters aren't developed enough to overcome this and get me emotionally involved in the story. To be fair, this only started to bother me around the middle of the film, and the first hour or so is actually pretty strong, with the exploration of the abandoned and very eerie German trench probably being my personal highlight of the film. It's also possible that, especially with the jump in the timeline, the film just loses its sense of urgency, because once we reach the frontline and the film moves towards its climax, it recaptures that spark. Ultimately, as impressive as the oneish-take is, I've seen the same thing done before and better, and not at the cost of the story. I saw a reviewer quote the other day on a Facebook ad that went something like "a stunning technical achievement", and that's probably the best way to sum it up: it's being pushed as a technical achievement more than it is a story. A very well made, yet still surface-level spectacle. It sounds like I hate this film but I really don't: for the most part it's great, and there are sequences of absolute brilliance, but when the cinematographic gimmick is pushed so hard in the marketing and it's clear that that's what we're supposed to be wowed by, it's disappointing when that turns out to be the film's downfall. But hey, everyone else seems to love it, so what do I know? 7/10, High Recommendation

Once Upon a Time In Hollywood
Ten nominations. Ten. TEN! What are people seeing in this film? It genuinely baffles me: it's Tarantino at his most self-indulgent, not to mention its bereft of drive or direction, presumably starting life as an almost self-insert fanfic about the Manson murders that then got a whole other unrelated film inexplicably tacked onto the beginning of it. My opinions on this film can be read in full here, and they really haven't changed much in that time. Compared to the other contenders on this list, I cannot see this film winning the Best Picture, but then I guess the old Academy voters are notoriously big on nostalgia and self-congratulations, so maybe a film about how great Hollywood was in the 60's will tickle that pickle for them. But come on Academy, don't fuck this up. 5/10, Low Recommendation

Parasite
Gee, well I'd love to tell you all about Parasite, but unfortunately it's STILL NOT OUT YET in the UK, and I don't want to pirate it because I respect Bong Joon Ho and the South Korean film industry too much to undermine it like that. All this stuff about how we need to support foreign and independent cinema, I'm absolutely on your side but I can't support if you don't give me a chance to see your film! America has had it for two or three months now, what are you doing to it that's taking so long? Are you rewriting the subtitles to include a phonetic cockney accent or something? Just release the damn thing! While Parasite has clearly done very well with critics and audiences, I believe there has yet to be a non-English language film to win Best Picture (do correct me if I'm wrong), especially while the Best Foreign Film category exists (regardless what they change the name to), so my prediction is the same as with Roma last year: Parasite will win Best Foreign film instead of Best Picture. Maybe history will change, maybe I'll be one of the naysayers who'll be laughed at after Parasite becomes the first non-English best picture winner. But this is the Academy we're talking about, so don't hold your breath.

And to conclude, here's a recap of my predictions. The Irishman, Little Women and Marriage Story are my front runners for the win, but 1917 also wouldn't surprise me. Joker and Ford v Ferrari are less likely but still in with a chance, I'd say. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Jojo Rabbit just don't seem like the kinda thing the Academy would vote for, and Parasite is highly unlikely to win just because the foreign film category already exists and the Academy are rarely ones for breaking the mould. If forced to pick just one, my money's on Little Women, and although Joker is technically my favourite of the bunch, The Irishman would probably be the one I would crown Best Picture if I had such power. Although there are probably better things I could be doing with my time if I had that kind of power.

Notable Omissions
It's rare for the Academy to ever show much appreciation for the horror genre, despite it being home to a lot of the more creative and thematically interesting of what cinema has to offer. Midsommar got no nominations at all, and while it's not really a surprise considering the above, it's still pretty disappointing as Midsommar was definitely one of the year's highlights. Not to mention Ari Aster is clearly very talented, between this and Hereditary, but I guess until he makes a period drama or something the Academy's not gonna give him the time of day. My film of the year, of course, was Knives Out, which I feel is quite conspicuous in its absence, and considering the Agatha Christie roots of the film, you'd think the older demographic that is the Academy would have been kinder to it. Finally, the other film that I'm surprised has gone completely unmentioned is Uncut Gems, which while I haven't seen yet because, as ever, it ain't getting properly released until the end of the month, has been getting stellar critical and audience praise, and I was half expecting Adam Sandler to get a Best Actor nomination. It's possible the producers of these films didn't want or bother to create Oscar campaigns, which would be fair enough; more power to them, if anything. But still, disappointing.

And now, the rest!

Best Director
It surprises me that Martin Scorsese, probably one of the most legendary film directors still working today, has only ever won one Oscar for his directing. The Irishman was an absolute tour de force, and I could easily see him winning for that, especially if the Academy, in turn, snubs The Irishman for Best Picture. On the other hand, Sam Mendes' direction is actually pretty good in 1917 despite everything, and one could argue that Todd Phillips is worthy of recognition for transitioning from shitty Hangover sequels to something as regarded and competent as Joker. You know who shouldn't be on here? Tarantino. No, he's not a bad director all things considered, and I like most of his work, but this was his worst film to date and he really doesn't deserve any awards for it. As per usual with the Oscars, there's been some outcry about the lack of diversity in the award nominations, especially at the lack of female directors, and while I don't think anyone should be entitled to an award just because of their gender or race etc, what I will say is Tarantino is taking up a valuable spot here, that could have been better awarded to someone like Greta Gerwig, or any other director that actually made a good film this year rather than three hours of cinematic wank.

Best Actor
If it were any other year, Adam Driver would surely crush this category. Marriage Story was a film made by its performances, and amongst them, Adam Driver's frustrated husband and father trying to do what he can to save his relationship with his son in the midst of a breakup he never asked for, is probably one of the film's strongest. You really grow to feel for him and the emotion he puts behind it is so utterly believable. Unfortunately, Joker also came out this year, and there's basically no way Joaquin Phoenix won't win. The Academy has shown a preference for transformative performances in the past, and Phoenix seems to have ticked that box quite well. Also, it's not like his Joker isn't a great performance. It's utterly fantastic, and I imagine the film probably would not have worked nearly as well without such a stellar performance at the centre. Ultimately, my money's on Phoenix to win, but really I'd want both him and Driver to win. Maybe they can share.

Best Actress
I'll be honest, the only one of these I've seen is Marriage Story, and while Scarlett Johansson was by no means bad, I wasn't as into her performance as much as I was Adam Driver's to be perfectly honest, and she's probably not going to be the one taking home the statue. Out of the nominees, my gut says Saoirse Ronan just because I know how good she is, but with the transformative performance thing in mind, an argument can probably be made for Renée Zellweger in Judy as well. Consider my opinion abstained.

Best Original Screenplay
This is the only nomination Knives Out has gotten, which, again, is pretty disappointing, but on the other hand, this is at least one that it absolutely deserves. Knives Out was such a fantastically put together mystery thriller, with so many fantastic reveals, red herrings, payoffs and characters that all weave together perfectly. On the other hand, 1917's weakest point was story-related, even if its dialogue was generally pretty good, and I assume we can all guess which of the nominated films here I think shouldn't belong. The award is probably down to Knives Out, Marriage Story or Parasite, and I'd like to think Knives Out will snag it, but I think Marriage Story has a really strong chance too.

Best Animated Feature
Everyone rejoice! Frozen 2 is nowhere to be seen, even if it inevitably got a Best Song nomination. Toy Story 4 is here, however, which I guess is to be expected but look, Pixar, I love you guys but there are other animation studios, it's not just you guys. Luckily, we've got some reasonably diverse choices for animated feature this year, with the indie I Lost My Body and Klaus both making the list, as well as Studio Laika's stop motion Missing Link. While its story kinda fell apart towards the end and kinda just stopped rather than concluded, I Lost My Body was for the most part really entertaining and full of creative spirit and visuals, and while it occasionally frustrated, there were parts that made me feel quite warm and fuzzy. Meanwhile, I managed to persuade my family to put on Klaus this Christmas Day rather than Finding Dory, and while I was in the midst of flu and wasn't able to give it my full attention or mental faculties, I did still enjoy the film a lot, and again, a lot of creativity and passion was on display. Let's face it, Toy Story 4 will win, but if we dare to dream for a second, I think Klaus would probably be my pick. Although while I haven't seen it, I would also be supportive of Missing Link winning, just because Studio Laika need some goddamn respect for seemingly single-handedly keeping stop-motion alive. That shit is crazy difficult, not to mention just such a uniquely characterful artform.

Best Cinematography
Well you already know I'm not a massive fan of 1917's cinematography: not only did it hamper the film rather than add to it, but it also just wasn't that visually interesting overall, at least not compared to Deakins' other works. I take no pleasure in saying any of this, but yeah, 1917 just isn't my pick, although I'm sure it will be the Academy's. Looking at the rest of the nominations, The Lighthouse has yet to surface this side of the pond, and that really only leaves Joker and The Irishman. Look, even if I wasn't predisposed against it, Once Upon a Time wasn't particularly interesting visually anyway. Besides 1917, nothing really jumps out at me, so let's just say The Lighthouse cause it was in black and white and I'm an edgy bastard.

Best International Feature Film
I mean, Parasite is going to win this. Hands down. No competition. What's more interesting to me is the title change from 'foreign film' to 'international feature'. Is this supposed to be some kind of anti-xenophobic move? Like is 'foreign' now too alienating a word? Or are the American public so triggered by the concept of foreigners that the very word triggers them? I mean, I have nothing against the name change, besides it maybe being a little more of a mouthful to say, (foreign film just rolled off the tongue, ya know?) I'm just very mildly bewildered, is all.

Best Supporting Actress
Laura Dern is sure to win this one for her amazingly punchable lawyer in Marriage Story. It's probably the performance that sticks out the most besides Adam Driver's, and she became such a pivotal part of the conflict, carefully driving the wedge further between them while smiling that sickly smile as she did. I love how much I hated her!

Best Sound Editing/Mixing
Oh my god, just make it one category! It's clear you want to, since again you've got nearly identical lists for each category, with just one film conspicuously different, presumably just to justify that "no, really: these are two completely separate things". Ad Astra has Oscar-worthy sound mixing but not sound editing, and Rise of Skywalker has Oscar-worthy sound editing but not mixing. Go fuckin' figure.

(also kinda sad this is the only nomination for Ad Astra, I think it deserves a nomination for cinematography at least)

Best Costume Design
"Normally, period pieces are a safe bet", I thought as the nominations were revealed. Then I looked through them all. "Oh." Let's just say Little Women, since it's the oldest of the periods being emulated here and I have no other grounds to really judge this on.

And I think that's about everything I have to say there. As usual, part two will be up in February as soon as I can after the ceremony. But this year, if you want to join in the festivities (and presumably don't care about fucking up your sleep schedule) I shall be live-tweeting my reactions to the results on the official Ciné Rambles twitter! Oooh!

Have I mentioned this yet? I don't think so. There's now an official Ciné Rambles twitter account, where you can also find my micro-reviews of recent releases. There's a link here and in the sidebar if that's something that takes your fancy. Otherwise, stay tuned for an Extra Rambles later this month, since the Oscars have now messed up my blog schedule, on top of everything else.

Ah, what am I saying? You can't get angry when Christmas comes early.