Bria Lou Reviews

  Elwood (Ethan Herisse) has a promising future when he is sentenced to brutal reformatory Nickel Academy. Once there he meets Turner (Brandon Wilson) and forms a friendship that becomes essential to his survival. This is one of the Best Picture nominees that I knew the least about, so because of that, it was also one of the ones that I went into with the least context. I loved this film. I was immediately gripped just by the unique way it was shot. From what I've seen online the first person pov is a bit hit or miss, but it really hit for me. It was so creative and interesting, and immediately allowed me to build a connection with the characters. It also made everything that happened much more powerful, being able to live in this world through Elwood and Turner's eyes was really impactful. The film was really reminiscent of the film 'Sleepers', not just in terms of the subject matter, but in the way it creates fear and tension, and how these feelings are passed on to t...

  Cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) tour Poland in honour of their grandmother, but as they explore their family history, they are forced to confront their complicated relationship. This was one of the films of Oscar season that I was most looking forward to seeing. I really liked the premise and had heard really good things. I really liked this movie. For a start, it was clear from the first 15 minutes why this film has been nominated for a screenplay Oscar. The film is written so well, captures and evokes so many complex emotions and really makes the audience pay attention to the characters. Speaking of which, I loved both of the characters almost instantly. They're so different, and their interactions are what the film is pretty much centred on, and why it works so well. The balance of comedy/humour and drama is done really well, which is down to the writing, direction and acting. I didn't know until the credits rolled that Eisenberg wrote and directe...

  While imprisoned at Sing Sing Correctional Facility for a crime he didn't commit, Divine G (Colman Domingo) finds his purpose while putting on a comedy show with a group of other incarcerated men. This is a film I hadn't heard much about until it was nominated for an Oscar, but once it was I looked it up and was definitely interested in seeing it. I liked this film a lot. The group of characters was really interesting. They were all unique, fascinating to watch and wholly authentic. I knew before starting the film that a lot of the actors played themselves, as they were men that were formally incarcerated. But once I got into the film, I kind of forgot this. They felt like actors doing an amazing job of creating authenticity for these characters, so the fact that this was so real, and so close to them, just made the film a real experience to watch. It was also shot really authentically in the sense that it felt like a documentary. It never felt like the actors were on a '...

  Escaping post-war Europe, an architect (Adrien Brody) moves to America to rebuild his life and bring his family to safety. But their lives are forever changed when he meets a wealthy industrialist (Guy Pearce). This was probably the most highly-anticipated film of Oscar season for me, based on what I'd already seen and the way people were talking about it. It seemed like a front-runner for some of the major awards, so of course I had to see it. I liked this more than I expected to. I feel like the things most people talk about are the runtime, and the fact that it's broken into two parts (with the second part generally considered the worst). The runtime didn't really worry me much. Of course there's always the fear that a long film will feel 10 times longer if it's boring, but in general I don't mind long runtimes - though it was nice that it had an intermission. Though in saying that, I didn't really notice the runtime, particularly in the first half. It ...

In 1970s New York, a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) becomes the protégé of cutthroat lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Now if I'm honest, I wasn't planning to watch this film. I didn't think I'd find it entertaining and I didn't particularly care about the subject matter, so it wasn't on my list. But seeing that it has been nominated for awards, with one of those nominations being a very well-deserved 'Best Actor' Oscar nomination for Sebastian Stan, I couldn't not watch it. And as expected, the best thing about this film is Stan and his performance. He's great in the role, and the supporting actors do a great job of helping to tell this story. I didn't really know what to make of the tone of the film. From the very beginning things just feel a bit weird, and because of that, it took me a while to really get into it. It never made me care about any of the characters one way or the other, which may have been the intention.  The relationshi...

Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) must fight alongside the Fremen to avenge his family, while being plagued by visions of a dark future.  This was the biggest surprise to me during Oscar season. It's not that I didn't think it would get nominated, I just never really thought about it period, so I didn't expect that I'd have to watch it. I saw the first Dune, and I couldn't even review it or give it a rating because I felt nothing about the film, and didn't think it would be fair to try and critically review it. There was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't for me. And so I was never planning to watch the second, and I definitely wasn't planning to review it. So, while I have to write a post on it because it's nominated, this won't be a proper review, and I won't be giving it a rating. Because just like the first, I felt nothing about this film, I don't have any positive or negative feelings about it, and that doesn't usually happen ...