Trying to prep for Oscar noms - Baby Driver, The Boss Baby and Girls Trip and American Assassin

12/24/17 American Assassin, not yet nominated, 2017

What can I say? I had a free movie with Redbox and the choices were pretty limited. That and the previews looked interesting. Eh. American Assassin was like a Jason Bourne movie without the smart plot and cool locations.

12/24/17 Baby Driver, not yet nominated, 2017

I understand that the title of Baby Driver comes from a Simon & Garfunkel song, but when I first heard it, it just sounded dumb. First impressions can be wrong. The more I think about this movie, the more I like it. Directed by Edgar Wright (Ant-Man, Shaun of the Dead), it's got action, some good acting by Ansel Elgort as Baby/Miles, and a soundtrack that propels the narrative in a fun, unique way. Baby is a driver (duh) for a gang of bank robbers, led by Doc (Kevin Spacey). Baby lives with his deaf foster father, and driving. He has music in his ears constantly as a way to offset tinnitus. Baby is pretty quiet, letting the rest of the 'crew' do the trash talking, even if it was about him; he let his driving speak for itself. Doc uses different crews, including Buddy (Jon Hamm, very scruffy and grungy), Bats (Jamie Foxx, foul, violent and dangerous), Eddie (Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Griff (Jon Bernthal). Baby meets Debora (Lily James - Cinderella, "Downton Abbey") who is a waitress. Baby owes Doc a debt, and once it's paid, he wants to leave town with Debora. The plot isn't all that complex or intellectual, but I liked the pace of the movie, and the way the music was used with the action, like it was choreographed. There was humor (it's nominated for a Golden Globe for comedy/musical, and it's described as a comedy) but it wasn't thigh slapping laugh out loud funny (not a bad thing, just my opinion). I thought it was an original take on heist films, and it could be nominated for original screenplay, sound editing or film editing. This was also part of my Redbox night, and it more than made up for American Assassin.

12/31/17 The Boss Baby, not yet nominated, 2017

When I saw the previews for The Boss Baby, starring Alec Baldwin as The Boss Baby, I thought it might be cute, mildly entertaining, and then I heard some initial reviews, and they weren't great. Normally I make up my own mind, but I have so many movies to watch, that I thought if I could avoid a 'bad' one, I should. Then it goes and gets nominated for a Golden Globe. Often, but not always, a Golden Globe nomination indicates an Oscar nomination. So, The Baby Boss it was for our annual New Year's Eve movie night. Our narrator (Tobey Maguire) introduces us to Tim, an inventive and imaginative 7 year old, who has the sole attention of his parents (Lisa Kudrow and Jimmy Kimmel) until a mysteriously precocious baby arrives. Tim suspects there is something different about the baby, and it turns out, that the baby is in management at Baby Corp. It seems that babies are losing affection to puppies, and the Boss Baby has been sent down to change the course of  Puppy Co. and it's leader, Francis E. Francis (Steve Buscemi). Baldwin brings aspects of his Jack Donaghy personality to the role, and he seemed perfectly cast, and there were parts of Francis' character that reminded me of Buscemi's Randall Boggs from Monsters Inc. There's lots of cute scenes with babies doing unbaby-like things, and Tim behaving like the reluctant brother, and his parents clueless to everything. It was sweet and funny, but compared to other animated movies from the past, this is no Oscar nominee. It might have won me over as a nominee if it was done as a short.

12/31/17 Girls Trip, not yet nominated, 2017

Our second movie of the night was Girls Trip, not my typical fare, but it looked interesting, and I love Queen Latifah, and it could be good for a laugh. Sasha (Queen Latifah), Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith), Ryan (Regina Hall) and Dina (Tiffany Haddish) are school friends who reconnect in New Orleans after some years of estrangement. They have all taken different paths in life; Ryan is a very successful author and motivational speaker; Lisa is a tightly wound nurse and mother; Sasha is a journalist who has fallen on hard times and has resorted to writing a gossip blog; and Dina, well, Dina is the crazy friend who has no filters. Mike Colter is Stewart, Ryan's cheating husband, who puts on a good show for the cameras. I only saw The Hangover once (hated it, but I was told I wasn't the target demographic), but Girls Trip had that buddy movie/road trip feel, with New Orleans and Bourbon Street as the setting; music plays a big part in the film, with hip hop and R&B stars making cameos throughout the movie. There were some laugh out loud moments (Tiffany Haddish was hilarious), and I like seeing more movies with women as the featured characters, I just felt it was a little long, and sometimes a little too raunchy for me.