CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2018

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Volume 164, No. 24 Serving Chicago’s legal community for 163 years On the Oscars: The Best Picture nominees

his column is the first It’s the perfect upstairs-down - a writer or director can give a in a series discussing stairs companion to “Dunkirk,” fictional character. the incredibly strong also nominated for Best Picture, As millennial-friendly movies slate of 2018 Academy because the Dunkirk evacuation that repudiated the standard Award nominees. took place in the same early days takes on coming of age and race TWe’ll compare the contestants of Churchill’s leadership — relations, “Lady Bird” and “Get in different Oscar categories “Darkest Hour” in the war room REBECCA Out” are competing companion each week until the Oscars are and “Dunkirk” on the ground, in pieces in much the same way as awarded. the air and at sea. L. F ORD “Darkest Hour” and “Dunkirk.” I encourage readers to send Gary Oldman invisibly blends The delightfully fresh “Lady me their Oscar predictions at into the Churchill character. Bird” treats its title character, any time before the Sunday, There is never a moment when Rebecca L. Ford is counsel at Scharf who would have been sidelined in March 4, broadcast of the Acade - we are conscious of the actor Banks Marmor LLC, and concentrates the past, with humor, sympathy my Awards ceremony at under the prime minister. Bruno her practice on complex litigation, and respect. [email protected]. Delbonnel’s cinematography has compliance, board governance and “Phantom Thread” You don’t need a ballot. You a painterly quality, and many of specialized employment issues. She is According to the actor, Paul can simply send me your predic - the movie’s scenes are experi - the former executive vice president for Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom tions — shoot me a request if you enced as if they were artworks in litigation and intellectual property at Thread” will be Daniel Day- MGM. She can be reached at would like one sent to you. a gallery. (Director Joe Wright is [email protected]. Lewis’ final movie. He’ll be leav - Winners will be acknowl - also an artist and painter.) ing on a decidedly odd note. edged in the following week’s There are stronger contest - Reynolds Woodcock is a column. ants in the Best Picture field, in - “Get Out” British couture dressmaker in “Call Me by Your Name” cluding “Dunkirk,” and it was Made for $4.5 million with box postwar London. He’s engaged in This romance between a probably Oldman’s performance office receipts currently in ex - a battle of iron wills with his teenaged boy and his professor that propelled this contender cess of $250 million, “Get Out” main muse, who ups the ante in father’s research assistant dur - into the Best Picture category. If hit the zeitgeist with a bang. their relationship to shockingly ing a summer in is a story Oldman wins Best Actor, “Dark - Written and directed by come - high stakes. of first love and first heartbreak. est Hour” will have received the dian Jordan Peele (best known His creations are beautifully Luca Guadagnino, assisted by full honors it deserves. for his unflappable Barack made, if not beautiful to behold. ’s screenplay and “Dunkirk” Obama impersonation) and re - Like Woodcock’s dresses, this Andre Aciman’s novel, has deliv - The Battle of Dunkirk wasn’t a siding somewhere on the horror- film’s directing and acting are of ered a universal story about battle. It was an evacuation of parody spectrum, the movie the highest quality. But the sum longing, heartbreak, romance British soldiers from the beach presented a novel take on race of the parts do not add up to a and its inevitable end. when Germany was in the relations, and the Transporta - transporting whole. Timothee Chalamet, who plays process of capturing France. tion Security Administration. “The Post” the son, is a preternaturally fine Two weeks after first taking of - In this movie, it is a family of We love Tom Hanks, Meryl actor. , the love fice as prime minister, Churchill white liberals the black hero has Streep and . We interest, is so handsome, physi - (yes, that guy) commandeered to fear. love pining for the days when cally confident and kind, he is private pleasure and fishing ves - The quality of moviemaking in cities like Chicago or the Wash - everyone’s ideal. sels to rescue the infantry when “Get Out,” its originality and ington could support four or five “Call Me by Your Name” is a the Dunkirk harbor became too pluck, gives it a shot at the gold - newspapers. We love to see un - small movie with an indie feel. jammed with sunken ships to en trophy. derdogs prevail. We love to see That the Best Picture winner in navigate. “Lady Bird” presses roll. We love for the 2017, “Moonlight,” was also a sen - Directed by Christopher With #MeToo and the Time’s Supreme Court to rule in our sitive gay-themed film might in - Nolan, “Dunkirk,” with its eerie Up movement, the Weinstein favor. We love to see women get fluence the Academy to reward you-are-there soundscape and scandals and the spotlight on un - their due. We love to see this film in other categories than open-yet-claustrophobic cine - equal pay, one can’t help but re - Richard Nixon get what’s coming Best Picture. matography, follows three char - flect on the way women to him. We love feeling wistfully “Darkest Hour” acters: a fighter pilot and directors, writers and actors are patriotic. Prime Minister Neville Cham - infantryman and the captain of a received and rewarded. The year We love “The Post” the way we berlain, who shall forever be private vessel. of the woman is 2018. love Jimmy Stewart. It’s timely known to history as an appeaser The theme is a bit specialized “Lady Bird,” the charming, au - because it reminds us of a coura - of Adolf Hitler, is forced to step for such the broad Best Picture tobiographical-ish film written geous past. This nomination is an down, and Winston Churchill is category. It’s expertly executed, and directed by Greta Gerwig, acknowledgement of the star grudgingly elected by Parliament but it isn’t groundbreaking or about a Sacramento high school power of the cast and director, to be the prime minister of Great fresh — it’s nostalgia, a WWII senior’s coming-of-age adven - but it’s not the soaring movie it Britain in 1940. movie. tures, her romances and con - would need to be to hold its own “Darkest Hour” takes us into Although “Dunkirk” is proba - flicts. The title character, played against the other contenders. the war room to witness the bly the year’s most respected by Saoirse Ronan, has her ups “The Shape of Water” early days of World War II in film, the statuette will likely go to and downs — and she has Director Great Britain. a sprightlier contestant. agency, the greatest complement says his love of monsters comes

Copyright © 2018 Law Bulletin Media. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from Law Bulletin Media. from being afraid of them as a lit - beautiful and exotic as any un - Frances McDormand plays “Three Billboards” has been tle boy. As a toddler he made a derwater seascape. Mildred, a tough blue-collar criticized because its storyline deal with the monsters hiding It’s a blood-soaked gentle jewel. mom whose daughter storms out veers into the redemption of a under his bed: If they did not If the moment’s cultural ap - of the house after an argument racist cop who has a history of hurt him, he’d become their petite is for magical realism and with her, then is raped and mur - torturing black prisoners. friend. the healing powers of courage dered, her body set afire. The The cop doesn’t earn it. Sam In “The Shape of Water,” del and kindness, “The Shape of murder is unsolved, and Mildred Rockwell is so great in the role Toro’s love for freakish misfits Water” will make a strong ap - rents the titular three billboards that his character is given a and fantastical beasts is on full pearance in a number of Oscar to shock and embarrass the po - pass. display. It’s a paean to “Creature categories. lice into stepping up their efforts The tone of “Three Billboards” From the Black Lagoon,” except “Three Billboard Outside of to solve the crime. is on the opposite end of the in del Toro’s movie, the creature Ebbing, Missouri” Because there are no straight spectrum from “The Shape of gets the girl. “A cupcake rolled in glass,” is paths for writer and director Water.” Because “The Shape of Water” how Wesley Morris of the New Martin McDonagh — and even In this year’s Oscar race, any - is so firmly rooted in the monster York Times described “Three the crooked ones lead to misery thing could happen. movie genre, this strangest of Billboard Outside of Ebbing, Mis - — the movie is engrossingly un - In next week’s column: The films is oddly familiar. It is as souri.” predictable. acting categories.

Copyright © 2018 Law Bulletin Media. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from Law Bulletin Media.