TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

10. GREEN BOOK The retrospective rundown: Having been crowned the Academy's movie of the year less than a year ago, it only took a few seconds after Julia Roberts read the name to realize a mistake had been made. And not a La La Land / Moonlight debacle either. I've heard it perfectly described as the second installment in the Driving Miss Daisy cinematic universe. This is not to say Peter Farrelly's Green Book is terrible. The chemistry between Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) and Dr. Shirley (Mahershala Ali) is what keeps this engine running. But the white savior narrative (not the only Best Picture on here with that problem, either) is so glaring. Tony saves Shirley from getting beat up by white supremacists, saves him from a police investigation of a gay hook-up Shirley had in a YMCA. And, of course, Tony saves him from loneliness when Shirley is invited to Christmas Eve dinner. The onscreen friendship is palpable, but who would ever go with centering a narrative on Tony...

10. CLOUD ATLAS This may be where I lose some of you. Goodness knows the Wachowski sisters and Tom Tykwer lost a lot of the audience for their 2012 sci-fi time zooming epic. This might be the most ambitious film of the decade (Linklater's 12 years has nothing on filming Tom Hanks as a Russian gangster, Halle Berry as an old Asian man, and a Jim Broadbent subplot about escaping a nursing home?!) They all tie in to form one of the most bizarre mosaics of cinema ever assembled. I lapped up every second, all 10,320 of them. Perhaps I'm fascinated by the ripple effect of time, how maybe nothing we do is original because we've been humans for so long, but I plan on rewatching Cloud Atlas for the years to come, fruitlessly and lovingly trying to decipher its message. 9. FRUITVALE STATION We've been blessed by a decade of Michael B. Jordan, and before franchises started deciding to put him in all their properties, he gave us the greatest tragic performance of the 2010's...

#OscarsSoDiverse? I'm hoping the Oscars will set the correction straight on this one, hopefully rewarding the actions of people of color like Barry Jenkins, Ruth Negga and Mahershala Ali. That's just amidst others, Ali and Fences frontrunner Viola Davis are on their way to supporting actor glory. Octavia Spencer and Denzel Washington, already Oscar-winners, are poised to be nominated once again! But the film that I predict will get nominations in the double digits goes beyond color to deliver one of the century's finest musicals; I've called it since I saw it on December 27th that La La Land will make a clean sweep, hold for Ryan Gosling, who'll deservedly lose to Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea . Check out the rest of my picks for this coming Tuesday morning in all the major categories. BEST DIRECTOR: Chazelle is the clear frontrunner, but it'll be nice to see Jenkins, who might be only the fourth black director nominated in this category. Let's ho...

It's been a hard year, y'know? Nothing made me happier than to ring in the new year last night with friends and family. I know what you may think: years are arbitrary markers of time, what difference does it make? Even if 2017 isn't an automatic clean slate for us all, it's what it represents, isn't it? And that's all the cinema is, life represented. This year offered a lot of hope...and superhero movies. In my personal selections of the five greatest films released this year (1/1/16-12/31/16), you'll see reoccurring themes of grief, family, hope, identity. It was a stellar year for the movies, and the fact that I had to leave gripping films like Love & Friendship , Nocturnal Animals , Hacksaw Ridge and Sausage Party (my ultimate guilty pleasure) off the final cut. And I still haven't movies I've been dying to see like Fences , The Lobster or Hell or High Water . Revel in the new year with me and enjoy my list! 5. SING STREET I nodded knowingl...

As predicted, there were some fresh, diverse faces present in the list! Let's take a look and see who's up!  BEST COMEDY/MUSICAL: La La Land predictably picked up quite a few nominations, but of course the most stunning surprise here is the presence of the Merc with the Mouth! I almost pegged Reynolds for a Deadpool nomination, but I thought it was too far-fetched. The indie everyone's fallen in love with, Sing Street , was this year's little film that could that only garnered one nomination, but in a big category.  La La Land Florence Foster Jenkins 20th Century Women Deadpool Sing Street BEST DRAMA: David Mackenzie's neo-western has been targeted for Oscar love ever since its late August release, and with several nominations here it's apparent. The highly Oscar-bait looking Lion also did quite well in its categories, and hey, if it can net Dev Patel the Academy Award nod he was robbed of in Slumdog , let it happen! Moonlight Manchester by the Sea ...

Some things change in the Golden Globes, some will always remain the same. For instance, I expect to see some color in the Crayola Box of nominees this year, with strong contenders like Moonlight and Fences sure to go toe to toe in the dramatic categories. What's unsurprising: seeing Globes favorites Amy Adams and the unstoppable awards magnet Meryl Streep in their respective categories. Florence Foster Jenkins has weirdly been getting a lot of buzz, and I just don't get it...is it because Streep's in it? But I'm getting ahead of myself, the nominations don't come out 'til this Monday the 12th! Down below is some educated guesses, but mostly stabbing in the dark. BEST COMEDY/MUSICAL: (The Globes are infatuated with the Coens, and their latest Hail, Caesar! will be the one movie that gets the best picture nod with nothing else. The rest are probably going to be a gaggle of indies, no offense Office Christmas Party , but I'll call right now that La La Land ...

Remember #OscarsSoWhite? Besides future directing winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu, there wasn't a single person of color in the major nominees of last year's Academy Awards. Idris Elba, the deserving winner of the Best Supporting Actor SAG, wasn't even nominated. So this year's Academy Awards have a lot of recovery to do, especially in the wake of the horrific racial violence and tensions that have plagued America and rocked the media all of 2016. So (unless the predominantly white male Academy is really set on alienating viewers) expect to see a lot more color amidst the nominees, with acclaimed films like Loving , Moonlight  and Fences all predicting to steal Best Picture nominee slots. Over my Thanksgiving break, I was thankful to have watched the former two of those movies, both in part dealing with the African-American experience. I'll start with Loving , because it literally hits close to home, in the Old Dominion! Three years ago I was lucky enough to attend t...