Among the films we’ve seen that are Oscar worthy, we’d single out “Bridge of Spies”. It’s Hollywood movie making at its best and the final scenes touched us so much we couldn’t help but cry. Tom Hanks as Atty. James Donovan and Mark Rylance as the Russian spy Rudolf Abel both deserve best actor and supporting actor nominations. We’d also include “The Walk” and Joseph Gordon Levitt’s fine portrayal of Philippe Petit.
Films that are yet to be released but have strong Oscar buzz include: “The Revenant” (about an American Frontiersman played by Leonardo di Caprio in 1820 who takes revenge on the men who left him for dead after a bear mauling, directed by Alejandro Innaritu), “The Danish Girl” (starring last year’s best actor Eddie Redmayne in the true story of Lili Elbe, one of the first gay men who had a sex change operation), “Spotlight” (about The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team uncovering sexual abuse of children by priests and the coverup made by the Boston Archdiocese starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams), “In the Heart of the Sea” (a retelling of Moby Dick starring Chris Hemsworth directed by Oscar favorite Ron Howard), “Miles Davis” (biopic of the troubled but brilliant and famous American Jazz musician starring Don Cheadle) and “The Big Short” (drama about the 2007 to 2010 financial crisis directed by Adam McKay and starring Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling.)For the best foreign language film category, the early favorite is the Hungarian film, “Son of Saul” by Laszlo Nemes, which has won the Cannes Filmfest Grand Prix. Universally well reviewed, it’s about a Hungarian-Jewish prisoner at the concentration camp in Auschwitz who sees the remains of his dead son and tries to give his boy the last honours before he is burned. Let’s see if our own “Heneral Luna” will have a chance against this universally well reviewed drama.
