2016 Golden Globe Awards predictions

Prediction time! I feel reasonably confident about at least half of these - no way, for instance, La La Land, Natalie Portman, Emma Stone or Viola Davis are losing here. Some of these are true jump balls - Manchester by the Sea vs. Moonlight in both Drama Picture and Screenplay, Casey Affleck vs. Denzel Washington, Moana vs. Zootopia and arguably all of the contenders in Foreign Language Film. Upsets to keep an eye on include Jeff Bridges, Mel Gibson and yes, Ryan Reynolds, who I am begrudgingly predicting for the win here. (My feeling is if Deadpool could inexplicably garner a Comedy/Musical Picture nod, a Reynolds victory is not only plausible but perhaps even likely.)

Check out my predictions below, ranked from most to least likely to prevail. And of course, feel free to chime in with your own two cents as well!

Best Motion Picture – Drama:

1. Manchester by the Sea
2. Moonlight
3. Hacksaw Ridge
4. Lion
5. Hell or High Water

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy:

1. La La Land
2. Florence Foster Jenkins
3. Deadpool
4. 20th Century Women
5. Sing Street

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama:

1. Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea
2. Denzel Washington – Fences
3. Andrew Garfield - Hacksaw Ridge
4. Viggo Mortensen - Captain Fantastic
5. Joel Edgerton - Loving

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama:

1. Natalie Portman – Jackie
2. Amy Adams – Arrival
3. Isabelle Huppert - Elle
4. Ruth Negga - Loving
5. Jessica Chastain - Miss Sloane

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy:

1. Ryan Reynolds – Deadpool
2. Ryan Gosling – La La Land
3. Hugh Grant - Florence Foster Jenkins
4. Colin Farrell - The Lobster
5. Jonah Hill - War Dogs

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy:

1. Emma Stone – La La Land
2. Meryl Streep – Florence Foster Jenkins
3. Annette Bening - 20th Century Women
4. Hailee Steinfeld - The Edge of Seventeen
5. Lily Collins - Rules Don't Apply

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture:

1. Mahershala Ali – Moonlight
2. Jeff Bridges – Hell or High Water
3. Dev Patel - Lion
4. Aaron Taylor-Johnson - Nocturnal Animals
5. Simon Helberg - Florence Foster Jenkins

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture:

1. Viola Davis – Fences
2. Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea
3. Nicole Kidman - Lion
4. Naomie Harris - Moonlight
5. Octavia Spencer - Hidden Figures

Best Director – Motion Picture:

1. Damien Chazelle – La La Land
2. Mel Gibson – Hacksaw Ridge
3. Barry Jenkins - Moonlight
4. Kenneth Lonergan - Manchester by the Sea
5. Tom Ford - Nocturnal Animals

Best Screenplay:

1. Manchester by the Sea
2. Moonlight
3. Hell or High Water
4. Nocturnal Animals
5. La La Land

Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language:

1. Toni Erdmann – Germany
2. Neruda – Chile
3. The Salesman – Iran/France
4. Elle – France
5. Divines – France

Best Motion Picture – Animated:

1. Moana
2. Zootopia
3. Kubo and the Two Strings
4. My Life as a Zucchini
5. Sing

Best Original Song – Motion Picture:

1. City of Stars – La La Land
2. How Far I’ll Go – Moana
3. Can’t Stop the Feeling – Trolls
4. Faith – Sing
5. Gold – Gold

Best Original Score – Motion Picture:

1. Justin Hurwitz – La La Land
2. Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka – Lion
3. Nicholas Britell – Moonlight
4. Johann Johannsson – Arrival
5. Hans Zimmer, Pharrell Williams, Benjamin Wallfisch – Hidden Figures

Review: "Sing"

Earlier this year, I fawned over Illumination Entertainment's The Secret Life of Pets, an endearing roller coaster ride of an animated feature that was exquisitely drawn, enthusiastically performed and sported one hell of an Alexandre Desplat original score to boot.

The studio's latest effort, I'm afraid, is lacking in all areas where Pets excelled, a haphazard, pedestrian film that rarely even stimulates a smile.

Writer-director Garth Jennings' Sing starts off on a decent-enough note, as we see the theater-owning koala bear Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) come up with an idea to save his failing, once-extravagant venue - a singing competition. The event draws far more attention than anticipated when Moon's bumbling secretary misprints the contest as having a grand prize 100 times the actual amount. This draws in a host of characters, few terribly interesting or funny, voiced by the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Seth MacFarlane and Nick Kroll, who belt out new and old Billboard hits.

Each A-lister has their own little subplot but there's not much to write home about. Only MacFarlane, as an arrogant mouse who croons like Sinatra, interjects some life into the proceedings. Perhaps superfans of American Idol and/or The Voice (or - sigh - the Pitch Perfect films) will get a kick out of the musical performances here but I was left mostly unmoved. And where Pets crafted a breathtaking Manhattan setting that really popped off the screen, Sing feels curiously claustrophobic and isn't all that visually striking.

Sing is animated cinema for only the most undemanding of moviegoers.

C

Review: "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"

Fingers crossed this does not spur the wrath of franchise fanboys - I am not much a fan of Star Wars. I respect The Empire Strikes Back and get a real kick out of Return of the Jedi (largely on account of Jabba the Hut and those irresistible Ewoks) but A New Hope mostly bores me and I felt Episodes I, II and III often teetered on the hideously awful. I was entertained by last year's The Force Awakens but trust me, there was no urgency felt to revisit it anytime soon.

So, as you might imagine, I was not terribly pumped about the latest picture to sport the Star Wars name. There is, however, some good news to report - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is not a complete miss, on the level of The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones. It is still, I'm afraid, not an especially great film.

Rogue One opens with scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) being plucked away from his peaceful home life by the malicious Orson Kreenic (Ben Mendelsohn) to work for the Empire. Years down the road, he is the lead engineer for that notorious, seemingly unstoppable weapon, the Death Star. Galen's daughter Jyn (Felicity Jones), who fled the scene when Orson took her father, teams up with a Rebel spy (Diego Luna) and other members of the resistance to take on Orson and hopefully destroy the Death Star. There are, of course, plenty of bumps, explosions, one-liners and half-baked action sequences along the way.

Despite an accomplished cast and screenplay by the usually reliable Tony Gilroy and Chris Weitz, Rogue One never quite takes off. It's not a bad film but rather one that just kind of sits there, as you wait for something fabulously exciting to happen (it never does). Jones, who was superb two years ago in The Theory of Everything, has a nice screen presence here but isn't given a whole lot to do. Even less meat is on the bone for her talented co-stars to devour. Only Mendelsohn really shines, as the film's one truly compelling character.

Michael Giacchino's original score is no John Williams but also not half-bad. Visually, the picture is not as striking as the last entry, or the first three pictures released, but at least it's not the same wall-to-wall, head-inducing CGI of Episodes I, II and III. Even as someone not enamored with this series, I sorely missed past characters, so much more memorable and fun than this bland crowd.

Could someone please make a spin-off for me with just Jabba, the Ewoks and Yoda?

C+

Review: "Fences"

The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning August Wilson was, I would argue, one of the finest American playwrights of the 20th century. Prior to his death at age 60 in 2005, he had penned 16 plays, including a collection of 10, dubbed "The Pittsburgh Cycle," depicting the African-American experience in Pittsburgh in each decade of the century. His piece set in the 1950s, Fences, won Wilson his first Pulitzer and only career Tony Award in Best Play.

Now, Fences has been adapted to the big screen by leading man and director Denzel Washington, who brought along with him most of his fellow cast from the immensely successful, Tony-winning 2010 revival of the play. This marks the first time a Wilson play has been brought to the silver screen and the result, while imperfect, still packs a solid punch.

Fences focuses on the Maxson family - father and breadwinner Troy (Washington), his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and their son Cory (Jovan Adepo). There's also Troy's brother Gabe (Mykelti Williamson), whose head injury in World War II left him mentally impaired; Bono (Stephen Henderson), Troy's best friend and a constant presence in the Maxson house; and Lyons (Russell Hornsby), Troy's estranged son, whose dreams of becoming a musician don't sit well with his father. That's largely on account of Troy's failing earlier in life to become a professional baseball player, something he believes was on account of the color of his skin but, in actuality, was due to his age. That sentiment creates great conflict in the home when Cory gets scouted by a college football team - something Troy is adamantly against - and blood further boils among the Maxsons when Troy reveals something to Rose that will forever alter their marriage.

Wilson's words are stirring as ever in Fences and the acting is dazzling all-around. Davis, who is largely relegated to the background in the film's first half, walks away with the picture's back half in a powerhouse, enormously empathetic turn. Adepo is a great find and Henderson a real charmer, managing to steal moments with a simple smile. In the demanding and commanding role of Troy, Washington does fine work selling Wilson's brilliant dialogue. His performance does, however, seem more tailored to the stage than screen - where Davis has toned down her delivery a bit to fit the new medium, Washington is still playing the back row of the balcony.

Washington's direction of Fences is a bit on the staid side - considering this, The Great Debaters and Antwone Fisher collectively, he certainly seems a more compelling force in front of, as opposed to behind the camera. The picture recalls recent stage-to-screen adaptations like August: Osage County and Doubt that, without a great filmmaker calling the shots, got all of their mileage out of the screenplay and performances.

That isn't to say Fences is a bad film in the least - it's a must-see for Davis's performance alone. And I would love to see additional Wilson works adapted to the screen, except preferably with another, more daring director at the helm.

B+

Review: "La La Land"

Ah, the movie musical. When done right, it can create more magic upon the silver screen than any other film genre. Singin' in the Rain, All That Jazz, even Little Shop of Horrors - all make me swoon. I've been all too often underwhelmed, however, by recent offerings - ho-hum stage-to-screen adaptations of the likes of The Producers, The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables, among others. Even the Oscar-winning Chicago I felt missed the mark, albeit to a lesser extent than those three.

So, I was of course ecstatic when I first heard about filmmaker Damien Chazelle - whose Whiplash I was completely head-over-heels for - collaborating with the endlessly charming Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling on an original (!) musical for the big screen. Oddly enough, the result, La La Land, is something I think works a bit better as a love story than it does a musical.

The story - Mia (Stone), an aspiring actress who works as a barista on a Hollywood studio lot, meets Sebastian (Gosling), a brilliant jazz pianist who makes ends meet playing uninspiring Christmas jingles at a restaurant. Their brief first encounter is during a moment of road rage on a busy Los Angeles highway. Mia later discovers Sebastian playing a gorgeous composition at the restaurant (which gets him fired from that gig) and sees him perform again (a not-so-gorgeous tune this time) at a party months later.

At this point, they (at last!) start to warm up to each other, and Mia and Sebastian create plenty of adorable moments, but the relationship is greatly tested by their careers. Mia finds herself rejected in audition after audition, while Sebastian is pressured to abandon his classic jazz sound for something more mainstream and pop-heavy. The love between these two is palpable and undeniable but hey, we're talking about a city infamous for building dreamers up, only to tear them down.

Scattered throughout the picture are, of course, an array of original songs, composed by Justin Hurwitz, who also worked on Chazelle's Whiplash. There are some goodies here - I particularly liked "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)," performed by Stone, and "Mia and Sebastian's Theme," a key piano composition of Sebastian's - but I have to admit, I did not leave the theater humming a whole lot. The splashy opening number "Another Day of Sun" was all too reminiscent to me of those cheesy late-'90s Gap commercials that brought swing music back to the mainstream. Other tunes are well-choreographed on the screen but fail to much resonate beyond the dancing. Still, the Hurwitz orchestrations on the whole are pretty great and Chazelle has a fine grasp on how to effectively shoot a musical.

Beyond the music, there are of course the film's stars, Stone and Gosling, both of who truly dazzle here. Yes, they're irresistible to watch, and can sing and dance pretty darn well to boot, but these are two powerful, subtle, even often times heartbreaking turns, worthy of all the attention they've garnered thus far. When Mia abandons a dud of a date to join Sebastian at a screening of Rebel Without a Cause? Talk about sparks flying.

From a technical perspective, the picture looks terrific, with lovely cinematography by Linus Sandgren and production design by David Wasco. The film is edited by Tom Cross, who won a richly deserved Oscar for his work on Whiplash.

Is La La Land among the all-time great movie musicals? Not in the least. I don't even think it's Chazelle's strongest film or quite among the best pictures of 2016. It is, however, a real charmer and an immense delight to sit back and watch Stone and Gosling take over the screen. And hey, even if it's not a great musical, it'd still be pretty sweet if this film inspires non-musical lovers to check out some of the older, better stuff.

B+