Every day until the Oscars ceremony we’ll be highlighting a different category or movie here on the LAMB! Here’s a link to all the posts written so far:
Today, Damien Riley of Riley on Film is here to look at the Best Picture nominee – 1917.
Thanks Damien!
BEST Picture Nominee – 1917
1917 for Best Picture
I’m not surprised this one is nominated. It is an incredible rendering of humanity through a WWI backdrop. I really loved this one. If you haven’t seen it, go and take someone with you. Recently I saw 1917 and what a film it is. I have to say, it looks kind of funny on the screen of IMDB because you have two years right next to each other: 1917 and 2019. This film took me back to the WWI time-frame where my great grandpa Clevenger on my mom’s side fought and was gassed by the Germans.
This film is rated R. it definitely has some bloody scenes, nothing too gory though. But I will say this is definitely a film that is not for everybody. I wouldn’t call it an out and out war film, but let’s just say it’s on the battlefield. People are killed. People kill as the rules of war. We all know as we have heard that war is hell. Now, president Trump likes to pretend that if you’ve got enough money, you can buy enough war machines and nobody can topple you. Well, unfortunately for us, he may find that that’s not true in this film. (Sorry for a little bias there). We learned that war is hell and there’s no place like it but we also learned that there are small victories even in a hell-like war. And we have George McKay taking us on that journey. This is an Epic drama. As I said, it is war-based, but it is an Epic drama. It has an 8.7 out of 10 on IMDB. I call that a 9 with 16,962 votes. It came out yesterday (at the time of writing this) and there’s already 16,000 basically 17,000 votes.
I haven’t seen a film that was this beloved by people who watched it (not critics though they love it too). It is described as two young British soldiers during the first world war. They are given an impossible mission to deliver a message deep in enemy territory that will stop 1,600 men and one of the soldier’s brothers from walking straight into a deadly trap. It is written and directed by Sam Mendes. Mendes is best known for Skyfall and Road to Perdition, the latter of which is a very dark drama, and the best kind of drama in my opinion. The attribute of darkness is always one that I look for in movies. Not just horror movies, but in any movie. He also did Revolutionary Road, which was a very different and dark kind of a relationship movie, American Beauty and many more. I think American Beauty had a lot of original concepts for its time back in 1999 but now having gotten the director’s accolades out of the way, I will tell you that I think 1917 is far and above anything that Sam Mendes has done up to now.
You get a panoramic history in technicolor of 1917. I recommend it and I think this film should win for best picture. What do you think?
Tags: 1917, LAMB Devours The Oscars