Awards season has begun
Hello again. Golden Globes were this past Sunday and I’m
pretty happy with how everything turned out. The 2 first movies I reviewed on here won
the 2 best picture awards (‘3 Billboards’- drama; ‘Lady Bird’-comedy). After
the results Sunday night, I am now super excited for the Oscars. On January 23rd
the nominees will be announced and don’t worry, I’ll write all about what I
think about it afterwards.
Right after I published my previous
post I made my top 10 list of movies for 2017. I thought about editing that
post and adding it in but I decided to just add it to this post and instead
only review 1 movie this time. Just to be clear, I made this list before the Golden
Globes so there wasn’t any influence there. So here it is, out of all the films I’ve watched this past year here are my favorites in order from best to least:
1. Lady Bird
2. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
3. Get Out
4. Baby Driver
5. Blade Runner 2049
6. Gerald’s Game (Netflix)
7. XX (Netflix)
8. Detroit
9. The Babysitter (Netflix)
10. Logan
Netflix is becoming a real contender now in movies and TV.
Best part about it is you can watch their premiers at home vs a jam-packed
theater. Although, I do very much appreciate and enjoy the ritual of going to
the theater, sometimes ours can get too crowded and you never know who you’ll
end up sitting next to. I highly recommend ‘Gerald’s Game’ if you are into Stephen
King and psychological thriller type movies. Also ‘XX’ is a collection of short
horror films that are all made by different female directors. Think ‘VHS’ anthology style
except with badass women behind all the shorts. ‘The Babysitter’ is another
good horror but it’s really campy and more funny than scary. I doubt any of
those will make the Oscars but I still felt like they were worth mentioning as
they were some of my favorite horror flicks this year.
Last Saturday I saw ‘I, Tonya’ and loved it. It would’ve
made my list had I seen it in 2017 but I made that list solely based on the
movies I watched last year. I have a new Letterboxd list where I’ll start
adding my 2018 movies. If you’d like to follow it, here is the link. I also
registered for Movie Club which is basically Cinemarks version of Movie Pass.
It was a tough choice whether to get that or Movie Pass but most of the time we
go to Cinemark and their deal gives you discounts on popcorn and discounted
tickets for guests so we went with that.
Now let’s carve into ‘I, Tonya’.
I, Tonya (RT 89%)
Cut to the chase: I, Tonya is a dark comedy/drama that attempts
to set the story straight on the events that occurred in January of 1994 where
Tonya Harding was accused of injuring fellow American ice skater Nancy Kerrigan’s leg
before the winter Olympics.
We were a little late coming into the theater so I missed
the opening credits but it didn’t seem as though we missed anything. The movie
watching experience was good minus the guy sitting behind me who kept bumping
the back of my chair with his foot… I mean, once or twice on accident is whatever
but it was constant throughout the movie. Finally, I turned around and glared
at him and that made him stop. Since we moved I do sort of miss our old theater
with reclining seats and plenty of room to stretch out. The theater in downtown
Redwood City is nice enough, clean, and I have noticed that people are more
considerate than in Fremont but there aren’t reclining seats and very little
legroom. But I do have to say, the popcorn is always on point… guess life is
all about making sacrifices. Ok enough with the complaining, just want to give
a sense of what I deal with when I go to my theater.
The first time I watched the trailer I knew I was going to
like this movie. Even though I was only 4 when this all originally went down I
feel like everyone knows who Tonya Harding is. Just some backstory if you never
heard about this story before- Tonya Harding was a very talented figure skater in the
90’s and went to the Olympics twice. She is the first woman ever to land 2
triple axels in a single competition. She was controversial because unlike most
figure skaters she did not live a lavish life and was given (very) tough love
from her mother growing up. Being an elitist type sport, most figure skaters were prim and
proper but she was tough and scrappy so she never fit into that mold.
Therefore, the judges never gave her the scores that she deserved which was
frustrating for her. Nancy Kerrigan was her competition and was planning to
represent the US in the 1994 winter Olympics beside Harding. Unfortunately, she
never got that opportunity as a man bashed her leg in while she was leaving
practice and she had to withdraw. Harding was suspected to be behind the
assault and ultimately ended up pleading guilty to knowing about the plan and
got banned for life from competing in figure skating.
This film was about setting the record straight behind all
the drama that went down back then. We got to hear Tonya’s story. The whole
thing was set in a documentary style, a style I’m seeing more and more in
movies now. It’s as if Tonya and the people involved are explaining the events
in present day interviews while we are seeing it unfold in the past. I thought
it was a cool approach and really liked it. This is for sure a comedy, there is
a lot of heavy stuff in it like domestic abuse and child abuse but they made
light of it. For example, there is a scene where we see a montage of Tonya’s
husband (played by Sebastian Stan) beating the living hell out of her while Dire
Straights’ lighthearted love song ‘Romeo and Juliet’ plays in the background. I
am a fan of dark comedies so I wasn’t offended at all but maybe some people
will feel triggered by some of the abuse scenes.
Acting wise I thought they totally nailed it. After watching
the movie and going back to see interviews with the real Tonya Harding I am
floored by how amazing of a job Margot Robbie did playing her. The way she
contorted her lips and facial expressions to match Harding's was so impressive and
spot on. Probably one of my favorite performances of the whole movie is right
before her last competition, sitting in front of the mirror doing her makeup
and trying to keep her shit together while her life is crumbling in the
background. It’s such an emotional scene and I felt so much for her character
at that moment which is why I’ve made it the main photo of this review.
Ok, Allison Janney holy shit… she killed it. She plays
probably the worst mother in history. No one could’ve done a better
performance. She deserved every bit of that Golden Globe and I’m rooting for
her to get the best supporting Oscar. She is amazing in everything she is in
but I think this performance is her best yet and is going to open a lot more
doors for her. The whole theater was laughing at every scene she was in.
Another thing I loved about this film was the music. Any
movie that includes Supertramp in the soundtrack has my support. They did great
things with the music and made the film every bit more enjoyable. I really
appreciate all the good music that was in it considering it had a budget of
$11M and was a relatively small release.
‘I, Tonya’ was a funny movie with great acting and music and
I’d be surprised if it doesn’t walk away with at least 1 Oscar.
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