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...

The Oscar nominations are coming right around the corner! After a surprising Golden Globes, where The Revenant had a near sweep of three of the night's biggest awards, really anything could happen! Interestingly enough, Revenant isn't even up for a Best Cast nomination at the SAGs. No movie since the SAG's inception in 1995 ( Braveheart ) has won without a  Best Cast ensemble. Then again, eccentric choices like The Birdcage and The Full Monty have won, so it's anyone's guess. My choices for Best Picture are equally eccentric: you have fantastical blockbusters like Fury Road and Martian  here, along with solid indies ( Carol and Brooklyn ) and movies with big stars and small-ish budgets ( Spotlight and The Big Short ). I lost my bananas last year when The Lego Movie  only got a sole nomination for "Everything is Awesome!!!" I won't be that surprised if Inside Out doesn't make it with the big dogs, but I will lose what is left of my faith in the Osca...

Holy smokes do I have a lot of reading to do. All of the biggest movies of 2016 are comic book films, from Valentine's Day's Deadpool , to March's Batman v. Superman and the summer's Captain America: Civil War . 2016 looks like an incredible year for the movies, but don't be afraid to get nostalgic about the year that's passed us! For someone who champions original filming, I can't believe two sequels rest in my top five list (and maybe a comic book movie is sneakily hiding somewhere in this post). Being in college ate up most of my time this year, but I was still able to watch 22 candidates for my top spot, including Mission: Impossible 5 , Kingsman , Ant-Man and Crimson Peak . All (mostly action) movies I really enjoyed but couldn't find a place for. Maybe in a weaker year. Since I'm anal about only counting movies released in 2015 that I saw from 1/1/15-12/31/15, movies I missed like Room , Anomalisa , The Hateful Eight , The Revenant and the one ...

No one can ever say the Golden Globes are predictable. Phew. I'm so glad we have getting stranded in the middle of space and the 2008 financial crisis to laugh at because APPARENTLY these are two of the best comedies 2015 had to offer. Remarkable. Also I learned valuable lessons, like you can't always bank on Meryl Streep (and if you do, then bank on Maggie Smith, who over the years has just become one hilariously cranky awards statue from all of her wins), not to underestimate the power of Alicia Vikander, and to always remember the movies that came before the November-December Oscar season (sorry for leaving you out Danny Collins !) Without further ado, here are the major film category nominations for the Globes, and ones I missed/left out are in red. The list is notable for having completely gotten one field wrong, and another entirely correct! What can I say, it's the week before exams. DRAMA FILM:  Spotlight Carol The Revenant Mad Max: Fury Road (I could ex...

Fresh off his Oscar-winning film, Michael Keaton co-stars in Tom McCarthy's excellent journalistic drama about the Boston Globe's investigation into a massive ring of child-molesting priests. I say co-stars because this is truly an ensemble piece; though Mark Ruffalo's Mike Rezendes and Keaton's "Robby" Robinson probably have the most screen time, it is refreshing to see a film so dedicated to the delivering of its story that there is no main character. The main character is the horrifying tale brought to life by the year's best ensemble and diamond-solid screenplay. The film eases you into the subject matter, though. It doesn't startle you with a priest wagging a finger towards an alter boy: the subject is serious and the film too grave to wander into such territory. Tom McCarthy (who also wrote the story to Up , how cool is that) approaches the film journalistically. He gives you its key players: in this case Rezendes, Robinson and Sacha Pfieffer...