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Oscars 2025 Best Picture Reviews: Part One

Jon The BlogcentricLeave a comment

The 2025 Academy Awards have announced the ten films worthy of being nominees for the Best Picture award. All ten are different in their own ways and their own styles. All of them are good at showing why they are being considered for the Best Picture award. Even in the first of my five reviews of the Best Picture nominees, we have two films that are polar opposites. One of the nominees in my review is an arthouse film by a Greek director who has become a big name in the arthouse film scene. The other film is one of the biggest summer blockbusters of the year done by a rising name in Hollywood. Both films are great in their own ways.

Bugonia

This film has two themes that are common in our modern world. The first theme that stands out is the power balance of those in control and those below that they command. That’s something of common discussion in our modern world that really gets a lot of conversation and a lot of angry responses. Especially as we see the wealth gap consistently widen in our society. I’m sure there is frequent talk on social media of revenge plots and revenge wishes that somewhat resemble Teddy’s and Don’s on Michelle. The second theme reflecting what stands out in our modern world is that of conspiracy theories. Thanks to social media, they’re all over the place. They range from government conspiracies to aliens living among us and there’s no limit to what they can be. The film is also very reflective of the type of person who believes their conspiracy theory to be true. Sammy completely believes his belief in aliens from the planet Andromeda to be the truth. Everything he read from the book fits the narrative of Michelle. The only person he will befriend is his autistic cousin Don. When he hears opposition from anyone, he becomes hostile or even violent.

The film appears to play around with a far-fetched conspiracy theory and tries to create a scenario of what if such a certain conspiracy theory turns out to be true? Sammy’s plot of revenge appears ridiculous but it’s also personal. Michelle is CEO of a pharmaceutical company that used his mother to test out a medicine that left her comatose. Teddy is convinced she is an alien and not only does he and Don commit their revenge on her, they plan it days before a lunar eclipse so they can get what they want before the mothership they anticipate will take her away. At first, this appears ridiculous as Michelle is still rational in thought while Teddy is belligerent. She knows how to use the power of the word to expose Teddy’s weakness and is very good at resisting whatever torture methods Teddy and Don inflict on her. As the eclipse looms, Michelle appears to play around with Teddy’s alleged charade but after she finds a dirty secret behind Teddy, she confronts him to give him an alternative theory to his conspiracy. A theory he can’t handle. The ending will not only leave you thinking the conspiracy is true but give you a shock ending. One that’s semi-apocalyptic!

Once again, Yorgos Lanthomos delivers a great film. This film is actually based on a 2003 film from South Korea called Save The Green Planet. Here, he teams up with Will Tracy, a former writer for The Onion, to adapt the story into an American scenario and relating to the present. Now a film set in the present is not something I would expect from Lanthimos. All the films I’ve seen from him are either set in the past or exist in another universe altogether. Those who’ve seen Poor Things know that Lanthonos can do science fiction, but a film about aliens living in human form is something many of us would not expect. Once again, he takes on a story that one would expect to make for a dreadful film and makes it work. It could be Tracy’s writing, could be Lanthimos’ directing, or it could be the acting from the actors, but they make it work. Lanthomos again does the impossible by making something that has a big risk of failing succeed with flying colors!

Excellent acting again from Emma Stone. She’s been seen in big-name films for almost 20 years and she still knows how to work the role well. She is acted in the last four Lanthimos films. Again she works the role well and takes command of the picture. She makes what could be a ridiculous character work like magic! Also worthy of praise is Jesse Plemons. He does an excellent job of playing a conspiracy-obsessed man. He does a great job of capturing the common mind of such a person on how they live a world of their own and are hostile to opposition. He really convinced me. Aidan Delbis is great in his film debut. He’s autistic in real life and he captures the chemistry between him and Sammy very well.

The film also has a lot of standout technical work such as the set design from James Peice, the makeup and hair by Torsten Witte and the original score from Jerskin Fendrix.

Bugonia is a shocker of a film. It’s a shocker in the style of film and as a film with a twist of an ending. This is one film to expect the unexpected!

F1: The Movie

A movie about fast facing cars makes for an attention-grabber for the hypercompetitive summer movie season. A pure sports film about auto racing isn’t as much of an attention-grabber like the mix of fast auto driving and action as in the Fast And The Furious films. Having Brad Pitt in the film does help but there has to be more to it. Scenes of fast racing always make for a thrill ride but there will still have to be a good story to go with it. The film does provide it with the story of a racing team that struggles to survive, an older racer who wants to prove he’s not washed up and a younger racer who has in a lot of potential and is hungry to win. There’s the clash of racer’s egos and a technical director who’s trying moves and methods that are unorthodox and even risky. Add in the fierce rivalry between the two, illegal moves and a romance in the way, and you have a good story. With many actual Formula One racers added into the film, you can tell this is a film that means serious business. It even goes into family relations of how Joshua and his mother have conflicting opinions of Joshua pursuing a Formula One race career and even the mother’s reactions after her son’s near-fatal crash. It’s not the Oscar fare type of story but it does make for a film that’s more than just the effects.

As for the effects, the film delivers on this. When you have a film about Formula One auto racing, the crowds are naturally going to expect a film that delivers the experience of race car driving. Most of us will never live that thrill and a movie is the closest we’ll ever get outside of a video game. The film does capture the high-speed moments a racer commonly experiences as well as the crashes and the intensity of the races. Outside of the effects, it also captures a lot of top training moments and the tension of the Formula One season and the difficulties of being a racer on the circuit as well as the challenges in making it for both the racer and the team. The film goes all over the spectrum in delivering a story about Formula One racing that captures the overall essence and challenges of being part of the Formula One circuit.

This film is another accomplishment for director Joseph Kosinski. It seems unnoticed, but Kosinski appears to be a rising name for blockbuster films. His success started with 2010’s Tron: Legacy and continued with Oblivion and Only The Brave, but he finally achieved Oscar acclaim with Top Gun: Maverick. Here, Kosinski works to make a fresh story about Formula One racing work with the story he co-wrote with Ehren Kruger. This story is not as deep as most of the films nominated for this year’s Oscars but the story delivers a lot more than the stories of common blockbuster fare. The story takes the audience beyond the Formula One racetrack and shows the common difficulties a Formula One racer has to face along with giving the racers Sonny and Joshua more personality and more depth than you’d see in roles of common summer blockbusters. It’s a story that goes beyond what one expects.

Brad Pitt is great as racer Sonny Hayes. A racer who never had his chance but sees a chance during a time he’s not fit to race again, that could be played off in simple manner. Brad gives the role of Sonny some depth and makes Sonny relatable as well as keeping the story from going cardboard. Damson Idris does a great job of playing rising racer Joshua Pearce. He does a very good job of playing a racer that is hungry but arrogant and has a lot to learn, His rivalry with Sonny while also being a student adds to the story. Javier Bardem is also great as the team owner Ruben Cervantes. He does a great job in showing Ruben anticipating good results but nervous because of what he fears could happen to his team. Kerry Condon does a great job in her role as a technical director who dares to pull risky moves and even challenge the rules. Sarah Niles is also very good in playing the mother who’s supportive of her son’s career but also fearful.

The technical aspects of the film area especially great. Claudio Miranda delivers winning cinematography for this story delivering the right shots to capture the excitement of racing. Stephen Mirrione delivers top editing in piecing together a story that works. Hans Zimmer adds in a score that fits the film excellently. The film’s visual effects team delivers excellent effects to give the audience the thrill ride of racing they expect to get out of a racing story.

F1: The Movie is a racing movie that goes beyond being a simple racing story. It delivers in a story with intensity and gives characters with a lot of dimension. It also doesn’t compromise in the action moments and the effects that the movie crowds expect it to deliver.

And there you go. This is my first pair of reviews of this year’s Best Picture nominees. I’m planning to have it two films per blog so you can expect to see four more blogs to come.

VIFF 2020 Review: Beauty Water (성형수)

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Beauty Water is a Korean animated film about an attempt to become beautiful gone wrong.

It’s interesting that the first foreign-language film I see at the VIFF is an animated film. The Korean film Beauty Water is definitely something else.

The film begins in a production studio for a television network. It starts with a conversation between the actors and actresses and conflict arises. In the background is Yaeji, the make-up artist. She’s overweight and has average looks. She doesn’t get involved in any arguments. She’s just there listening in. The actors and actresses then come to her when they get their make-up done. Even if the prima donna actress berates her looks, she carries on as if nothing is happening. After work, she goes home to live with her parents. The parents have always been there for Yaeji from her days pursuing ballet as a child to her present career.

One day the producers of an advertising show think Yaeji is perfect for an advertising campaign. It’s to do about a cooking gadget. In that advertisement, they will show Yaeji eating. She agrees, but she is completely embarrassed when she later learns of all the mocking internet memes on social media. Embarrassed to tears with her body, she decides to fix things for her. She saw an ad for a product called Beauty Water. You wash your face in the water for 20 minutes and you peel away the old skin for a new beautiful face. But it’s not simply peeling away the skin. It’s peeling away the thick excessive flesh.

Yaeji orders a bottle and uses it on her face. The result leaves Yaeji happy that she’s now beautiful, but it’s not enough. She wants enough Beauty Water to change her whole body. She begs to her parents for financial assistance, but would be the equivalent of four months of their income. Yaeji begs to them, believing she’ll be nothing without that Water. They agree and the bottles of Beauty Water come in time to change her whole body.

The end result is both a face and a body of a beauty perfect to get noticed by television producers and the rich and famous. She rushes out and buys expensive stylish clothes from Seoul’s Gangnam District. She attends a party for the rich and famous over in Gangnam. She wins the notice of a production company of Jihoon. She also wins the attraction of a certain handsome man she noticed at the party.

However she is insecure. She’s afraid the effects of the Beauty Water won’t last. She also still has images of her past self she wants to forget, but reappear out of nowhere. With the money she made in her new modelling career, she’s able to afford more Water and soaks in a bath of it. Unfortunately, the phone dies before the alarm is to go off at the 20-minute mark and the Water goes deeper into her flesh leaving her almost depleted. She begs to her parents for them to give her some of their flesh. They agree by bathing in the water and giving their removed flesh to Yaeji.

Despite her new flesh, Yaeji’s body looks hideous. Nevertheless she still plans to meet up with the man she met. She tries to hide the effects from the man while she’s over at his place. She even goes to a woman who helps her return the form of her body, or at least make it human-like. However when she returns back to his place, she makes a shocking discovery. She sees identifications of other women. Did they also use the water? Did he kill them? She tries to escape him, but it’s of no avail. She learns the awful truth of him. I won’t give away the ending, but I will say she’s still alive in a way you won’t expect.

This film is a film that’s a good example of the common style of Korean animation. Most of you may already familiar with the style of anime from Japan and a lot of the grim and even bizarre stories and images it showcases. Korean animation is also similar in its way of showcasing bizarre and grotesque imagery and bizarre storylines. This film is good in showcasing the bizarre style of Korean animation that could just rival anime. However it’s not just for shock and gore. It has a story to say.

The main message of the story is to show the nations obsession with beauty and youth and how it’s actually quite damaging. If you’ve noticed in the last twenty years, South Korea has emerged in the world’s eyes with its entertainment industry being seen as a force to be reckoned with. We already have K-pop phenomenons like BTS, 2ne1 and BigBang. All of them are young with picture-perfect looks, clothes and bodies. The television and film industry in South Korea is also obsessed with youthful beauty.

You can tell director Cho Kyung-hun has something to say about this film. South Korean society in recent decades as it has worked to become a world power has become a nation that values beauty, wealth and prestige. There’s a lot of plastic surgery young women in South Korea undergo. There’s also news of many women in South Korea having eating disorders. This film has even been advertised with a tagline: “In a society as obsessed with physical appearance as modern South Korea, ugliness is a fate worse than death.” I think that’s the point Cho is trying to make. He’s trying to show how damaging the obsession with physical beauty is in Korea, but doing it with the bizarre style that is Korean animation. Very rarely is there a film that tries to both freak you out and get you thinking.

The story itself is creative. It aims to get one thinking while at the same time aiming for the thrills and shocks. Already the first shock is near the beginning when you see this Beauty Water make one not simply peel off skin but flesh! That’s what the Water does and that’s why Yaeji uses it on her whole body, even though it’s intended for just the face. It’s hard to notice a flaw in the story. I admit I don’t understand Asian animation styles. There are times I wonder if it did get the message across or did it rely too much on the shock imagery.

Beauty Water does more than just show an animation style that’s common in Korea. It also has a message to tell about beauty and how a society values it almost dangerously. It conveys the message in a very bizarre style.

VIFF 2018 Review: The Running Actress (여배우는 오늘도)

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

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The Running Actress is about actress Moon So-Ri and her coping with ageism and her ‘yesterday’s news’ status.

I’m not too familiar about the Korean movie industry. However The Running Actress does offer some interesting insights.

The film is divided into three acts. Act 1 consists of Moon going on a hike with two friends. Then they soon run into producer Won Dong-yeon and two of his colleagues. Later all six of them go on a dinner together. However the dinner is discomforting to Moon as all they focus on is her looks and having her work in their film for free. She’s unhappy about it and on the way home, she has the manager stop the car and she runs out!

Act 2 is all about the discomforts of fame, especially past fame. She has to deal with past images of her in the limelight. She also has to deal with the fact she hasn’t had a role in so long, and the first role to come in recent times is for her to play the mother of an adult child. At her age? She tries to get a loan, but is turned down. She tries to use a sick estranged in-lay for assistance, but it comes to no avail. Home life with her husband and small child is no escape from all the pressures. At the end of it all, she is back in the car with her manager and again demands he stop the car. She runs out screaming again!

Act 3 is at a wake for a director she worked with during her young-and-famous days. She doesn’t plan to stay there long because she wasn’t on good terms with the director. However noticing the small size of the wake — just her, his wife and son — she stays there longer. She even starts up a conversation with an old acting acquaintance.  Then a younger actress who the director has last worked with comes in and mourns out loud. She later joins in a conversation with all and it turns ugly as the director’s widow has a lot of wrath towards her. The film ends with Moon and the young actress walking together in friendly conversation.

The funniest thing about this film is that it makes the Korean film industry so bitingly close to that of Hollywood. I may not be very familiar with the Korean film industry or how it operates, but this film is a reminder that judging an actress by age isn’t simply a Hollywood-only thing. I can see that happening in Korea especially since we have this whole K-Pop phenomenon. Young singers handpicked mostly for their youthful looks and then trained for four years as an act together to top the charts. I can easily see how the Korean film industry can be very youth or young-adult oriented. I don’t know what types of movies they shell out in Korea but I can see it happening.

In the meantime there’s Moon So-Ri. She had it big for so many years and then she lost it. She’s so starved for money, she has to rely on an estranged ailing in-law for help to get it. Her slate of film roles dry up because of her ‘yesterday’s news’ status, and her only chance is playing a mother of a young adult. Interesting that Hollywood wouldn’t be the only film industry to be as judgmental as that in terms of an actress’ age.

At the same time, it not only tackles the dark side of the entertainment profession in a humorous way. It also pokes fun at the emotional reactions of those involved too. Moon herself has her moments where she just can’t hold it in and just lets it out. Even at the funeral for Director Lee, there are the over-the-top emotional reactions from those as well. It really shows how interesting the people in entertainment are like.

The star of the film is Moon So-ri. She wrote it, directed it and stars lead in it. In actuality, this film was actually three short films Moon did as she was completing an MFA program at Chung-Ang University. I think she did a smart thing by putting the three together and creating a feature-length movie. It’s humorous and smart. It draws on some of Moon’s own experiences, but also includes some fictionalizations too. She does a very good effort as a whole here. The supporting players also do a good job in their own acting here. She even has her own real-life husband Jang Joon-hwan play himself in the film. It’s also interesting real-life producer Won Dong-yeon agree to be in it. I think he probably agrees with the message.

The Running Actress is a humorous look at a reality of the stupidity of the entertainment industry. It’s also a humorous look at the emotional attitudes of the artists involved. Moon So-ri does a good job of showing a stupidity in a humorous way.