The 2021 BAFTAs

                                       

   

Last weekend The British Academy Film Awards were held, like most things in this pandemic, virtual but it was one of the better virtual award shows.  I still think the Emmys were the best one out of the bunch, but BAFTA did not do a bad job either, as they probably had the Least Amount of technical difficulties. The ceremony was hosted by Edith Bowman and Dermot O'Leary (at least for the broadcast on BBC America) and they were just okay, not bad but not good. Now let's get to the winners 

Best Picture: Nomadland  

Nomadland is looking like a lock for the Oscar, but keep in mind that the BAFTAs and the Oscars have not matched for Best Picture since 12 Years a Slave back in 2014. In case you are interested, the movies that may overcome Nomadland will probably be The Trial of the Chicago 7,

Minari and Promising Young Woman (which won best British film) but if I had to put money on it I would say Nomadland  

Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins for  The Father 

This was the biggest surprise of the night but it is still very likely that Chadwick Boseman will win the Oscar, however, I can not say he is a lock anymore. 

Best Actress: Frances McDormand for Nomadland

This is one of the closest races of the season. Every nominee for the Oscar has a shot at winning but your three front runners are Frances McDormand, Viola Davis, and Carey Mulligan with Andra Day and Vanessa Kirby as your dark horses, but I think McDormand has a slight lead. 

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah 

He is totally a lock for the Oscars. 

Best Supporting Actress: Youn Yuh-jung for Minari

 

I  think she is going to win the Oscar but there's a 30% chance that Maria Bakalova or Glenn Close get the Oscar 

Best Director: Chloé Zhao for Nomadland

  

This race is over - she is going to win the Oscar 

Best Animated Feature: Soul 

Now a shoo-in to take home Oscar gold  

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Father

 

I’m thinking that this will win Oscar gold but there's a 45% chance that Borat (which won at The Writers Guild) or Nomadland could take it

Best Original Screenplay: Promising Young Woman

 

That is your winner but there still is a 25% chance that The Trial of the Chicago 7 may take it.

Thank you for reading.  If you want more awards season coverage I will recommend that you check out In The Mind Of Mr.Bee on my Facebook page.

Goodnight, and Bee Happy!™

Mr.Bee

 copyright 2021 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.  

image courtesy of BAFTA

2021 SAG Awards

Hello, and welcome to my award season coverage. A little delayed, But I'm back to keep you up to date on who/what may win an Oscar on April 25th. So, with that out of the way, let's Begin


The Screen Actors Guild Award (aka SAG Awards) aired last night. My opinion on the ceremony, To be honest, was 1 step above the Golden Globes press conference during the 2008 writers’ strike. The ceremony was only an hour-long pre-recorded zoom session which was too condensed for my liking and rendering the acceptance speeches too short to leave an impact. I have no idea why they did not do a 90-minute ceremony.


Let's get to Winners Best Supporting Actor which was won by Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah he is now a lock for the Oscar. 

Best Actor was won by the late Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom who is now a lock for the Oscar. 

Best Supporting Actress was won by youn yuh-jung, for Minari could very well give her a win for an Oscar but I'm thinking that Maria Bakalova for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm or maybe Glenn Close for Hillbilly Elegy, as a makeup Award, (Glenn Close may win an Oscar and a Razzie for the same performance! How is that for the record books?) I'm waiting to see what BAFTA will do but Close is not a nominee at BAFTA.

 Best Actress was won by Viola Davis for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom it is now a 3-way race for the Oscar between Viola Davis, Frances McDormand for Nomadland, and Carey Mulligan for Promising Young Woman.


Best Ensemble win was won by The Trial of the Chicago 7 and this category is SAG’s equivalent for Best Picture. However, I have my doubts that Trial of the Chicago 7 will win Best Picture at the Oscars for one very important reason: Trial of the Chicago 7 does not have a Directing nomination and only 5 movies in the 90+ year history of the Oscars have won without a Directing nomination (Wings(1929), Grand Hotel (1932), Driving Miss Daisy (1990) Argo (2013) Green Book (2019)) Now given the fact that the last two are only 6 years apart you could argue that maybe winning without a directing nomination is not as uncommon as it used to be. As of now, I predict that Nomadland will win, but on that note, Nomadland was not nominated for Best Ensemble at SAG which is also rare for a win as only 3 movies in the 20+year history of SAG have accomplished this. Those that have accomplished the win for best picture without the SAG Ensemble nomination are Braveheart (1996), The Shape of Water (2018), and Green Book (2019). This year only 2 nominations match between SAG Ensemble and Best Picture which is equally rare.

Thank you,

Goodnight, and Bee Happy!™
Mr.Bee 

 copyright 2021 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.  

image courtesy of SAG-AFTRA

The Prom Mr. Bee’s Review

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run Mr. Bee’s Review

Hello and welcome,

Some of my long-time readers may remember one of my earliest reviews was on the last Spongebob movie (Sponge out of water). Without repeating myself too much, I am or was a big Spongebob fan, but somewhere in the late 2000’s I gradually lost interest (at least in the new ones that is), with that out of the way let's begin.

Background

To be honest, I don’t have much in terms of background for this movie but it will give me time to talk about Paramount’s odd release strategy.

This movie was supposed to be released in May of last year but was obviously pushed back because of the little thing called the pandemic. Somewhere between its original release date and its new one in August Paramount decided to cancel the theatrical release and decided to go PVOD (premium video on demand). It was, however, still released theatrically in Canada in August then it was sold to Netflix internationally and Netflix released it around November. Between the Canadian box office and the Netflix sale, the movie turned a profit for Paramount. We in the U.S. finally got the movie this month and we have a choice of either paying $20 for a 48-hour rental or just subscribing to Paramount Plus. Paramount’s release strategy is the equivalent of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks (On a side note, have any of you reading this decided to pay $20 instead of subscribing to Paramount Plus for almost half the price).

Plot

King Poseidon is using snail slime to make his face look younger but all the snails are running out of slime. King Poseidon then issues a decree that anyone that can get him a snail will be given a reward. Plankton sells Gary to King Poseidon as a way to get rid of Spongebob so he can get the Krabby Patty formula. Spongebob and Patrick go on a mission to save Gary.

Opinion

Let’s start with the positive. The animation in CGI takes a little bit to get used to (at least for me), but they have managed to translate the 2D characters to CGI fairly well which is a lot more than I can say about some other movies. Obviously, the original voice cast does an excellent job as usual and the newcomers do a good job. The humor can be a little hit-or-miss but when they hit they hit hard. 

Now to the negative. It is becoming apparent that almost every time I watch a new Spongebob that the franchise is running out of steam and this movie is, unfortunately, no exception. For example, the plot for this movie seems like a rehash of the plot for the first movie (The Spongebob Movie). Now granted there are differences throughout and this movie does break from the similarities in the third act, where surprisingly it gets a little bit better. This movie is a clear advertisement for the Kamp Koral spinoff show, where the characters meet at summer camp as children. This brings me to another minor criticism and that is there are obvious continuity errors such as completely rewriting how the characters met and having the King of the Seagoing from Roman mythology (Neptune) to Greek mythology (Poseidon). 

Overall this movie is just okay. If you are a Spongebob fan, it might be worth watching at least once. My rating is 3 out of 5 stars. I would also like to point out that Paramount Plus is also streaming all of the Spongebob episodes which in my opinion is worth more of your time (depending on what season you watch of course). 

Goodnight, and Bee Happy!™

Mr.Bee

copyright 2021 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.  

 images courtesy of  ViacomCBS Inc. and mango Bollywood respectively.

Tom & Jerry, Mr.Bee’s Review

 Hello and welcome!

It might be useful to start this off by telling you that I’m a moderate Tom & Jerry fan. I like their stuff, but I generally do not go out of my way to watch it as I have always been more of a Loony Toons guy.

This movie is an animated/live-action hybrid which I am not a very big fan of. I like the idea of these, but in execution, they tend to be, to put it bluntly, pretty bad (at least in recent years). With that out of the way, let’s begin.

Background

This movie is directed by Tim Story who is best known for directing the two 2000’s Fantastic Four movies and the Ride Along movies (not the greatest resume a director could have). This movie was announced in 2009 to capitalize on the success of Alvin and the Chipmunks (I don't know why it took over 10 years to produce).

Plot

Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz) steals a woman’s resume to get a job at the Royal Gate Hotel while a wedding is being organized for two very rich people. Jerry takes up residence in the hotel and they hire Tom to catch him.

Opinion

Let me start with the good stuff. The animation is pretty good with some innovative techniques to make the characters look 2D. I really liked the texture of the characters when it was raining. I liked the idea that all the animals in that world were cartoons (granted, it might be a little bit of a cop-out to explain why Tom and Jerry were animated). The slapstick is decent. The live-action cast did a decent job as well. The integration of the animation and live-action looks convincing enough, but it of course is no Roger Rabbit".

Now for the bad stuff. The music is not good as it was mostly rap music which does not appeal to everyone and just does not fit well into a Tom & Jerry movie. They really should have taken a cue from the original shorts and did classical-style music instead of rap. I did not care about the live-action characters at all. For a movie called Tom & Jerry, they got relegated to the B storyline, which brings me to an overarching point about, not just this movie but all of these hybrid movies is that in recent years they seem to miss the point on why people go to these movies, which is to enjoy the original animated characters. Unless I am wrong, few went to the Smurfs wanting to simply see Neal Patrick Harris. Back to this movie at hand, although it had a great cast it felt like they were only in it to get a paycheck.

Overall the things with Tom & Jerry are great, but the things without them are lacking, let’s just say it made me want to skip ahead. For my recommendation, if you have an HBO Max subscription (If you are reading this in the first month of this release) it might be worth watching, but I would also like to point out that HBO Max is also streaming over 100 of the original Tom & Jerry shorts, which in my opinion, is a much better value. Overall, my rating is 2.5 stars. This is at least better than the 90’s movie, but then again, anything is. 

Goodnight, and Bee Happy!™

Mr.Bee

copyright 2021 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.    

                       top image courtesy of AT&T Inc. bottom image the copyright holder is unknown

Earwig and the Witch, Mr. Bee’s Review

Hello and welcome,

If you happened to watch my update video you will know that I have made a New Year’s resolution to watch, and review, all of the major released animated movies this year. Our first one of the bunch is Earwig and the Witch from Studio Ghibli. If you are unaware of this studio, they are a Japanese studio that has made some of the most legendary animated movies like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totoro, just to name a few. 

  

Background 

To let you guys know, the 3 movies that I mentioned above were all directed by Hayao Miyazaki but this movie, however, is not, but instead is directed by his son, Gorō Miyazaki. Goro has directed two other movies, Tales from Earthsea and From Up on Poppy Hill. If you are wondering my thoughts about these two, Tales from Earthsea I thought was meh, and I have not yet seen the other one. The movie we have here is the first CGI from Studio Ghibli. Apparently, Goro had to work with a whole bunch of amateur artists with the medium. Allegedly Miyazaki encouraged Goro to do this movie in CGI but then offered no help (which is very “on brand” for Miyazaki). 

Plot

 

A witch drops a baby girl (Earwig) off at an orphanage and the baby grows up there until she is about nine or ten years old. She is then adopted by another witch named Bella Yaga, and a demon named Mandrake but does not want to go because she does not want to leave her friend. They adopt her to be simply an extra pair of hands to serve them.

Opinion

For the record, I am reviewing the English dub. One thing I will say about the animation is Studio Ghibli’s first attempt at CGI is not a total embarrassment, but I have seen better and the animation looks like it is better suited for TV (to be fair though, in Japan, ironically, it first premiered on TV before going to theatres).  

To get some positives out of the way, the music is pretty decent. I really do like some of the characters, particularly Mandrake and I really wish we had more of him. The English voice cast was good (I can obviously not speak to the Japanese cast).  

Now we, unfortunately, have the negatives. The movie is too short, at just under 90 minutes, making it one of the shortest Studio Ghibli films. Most of the movie takes place in the witch’s house, more-or-less in the parlor (as in where the potions are made). There is a mystery about Earwig’s mom, but that is barely glanced at, and we only start discovering it in the last 5 minutes. This movie literally ends while starting to get good. 

Earwig is completely unlikable. Her only motivation is to get people to do what she wants and there is no change in her character through the course of the movie. Now for the record, the main character does not necessarily need to go through a change. For example, in the Little Mermaid, Arial did not go through a drastic change during the course of the movie (for that reason I would argue that King Trident was the protagonist and not Arial) but she was just likable enough that the audience could root for her. When your protagonist leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouth, right from the start, it is kind of necessary for a character arc, however, this movie, unfortunately, does not do that. To be fair though there are elements of a well-developed character trying to peek through. Just maybe, something got lost in translation but I highly doubt it considering the fact that Studio Ghibli has a very strict no-cut policy on dubs. 

For my recommendation, if you are an HBO Max subscriber, it might be worth watching at least once to make your own decision. If you are not a subscriber, this movie is worth casting a disappearing spell on. My rating, and it really pains me to do this, is one and a half stars. I hope this movie is not a sign of what to expect in animation for 2021.

Goodnight, and Bee Happy!™

Mr. Bee

 

copyright 2021 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.   

 images courtesy of Studio Ghibli Inc. and thefilmfile.com respectively.

Why Disney is not giving up on the theatrical window.

Hello and welcome,



The recent big WB and HBO Max announcement that all the WB movies this year will be going to HBO Max as well in movie theaters on “day and date”. Many people are asking why not Disney? Why isn't Disney doing the same thing with all of their movies and sending them to Disney+? It is not an easy question to answer but I will do my best. At the Disney Investor Day during the Q&A session Disney CEO, Bob Chapek was asked why they are not following the HBO model. He replied, “we made 13 billion dollars at the box office last year (2019) and that is nothing to sneeze at”.



Just to be clear, Disney is doing premier access for Raya and the Last Dragon (I still have my doubts about the viability of the release model) however, they did not do this for all of their movies. One big reason why they are not doing this is that WB is in a PR nightmare. To explain this in a simple way the movie business is about ‘who you know’ (that is the reason why I haven't been cast in a Marvel movie). WB has pretty much ticked off everybody they know which is not a good thing when you're running a business that depends on who you know and also they may also be in some legal trouble as well. With that said, what Chapek said about making 13 billion dollars at the box office I'm not sure if he was referring to the profits or total box office gross, but either way, it was very good. In 2019 Disney had 7 movies that joined the billion-dollar club (Captain Marvel, Aladdin, Avengers: Endgame, Toy Story 4, The Lion King, Frozen II, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker). 8 if you count Spider-Man: Far From Home but that is technically a Sony movie. In 2018 Disney had 3 movies that made a billion dollars (Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Incredibles 2).



Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that the movie theaters never truly bounce back but another thing to keep in mind is that 80% of what people watch on Netflix is licensed content and not original, and although I am not privy to the information, I would estimate that it is the same, if not higher, that most people are watching library content on Disney+ (Licensed/library content is, for the sake of simplification, is content not made for the service). As of right now, Disney has plenty of library content still to add to the service, but eventually, they will hit a ceiling if they stop sending things to theaters and all they can put on would be original. Just to be clear this probably went through Chapek’s mind but I am sure that this is not the main reason and will simply be a minor annoyance rather than anything else. Another big reason, and another thing that Chapek said, is that theaters build franchises. To explain my point, can any of my readers think of a Netflix franchise that could rival any of the big screen franchises? Theaters also oftentimes keep things in conversation, for example, with Infinity War people were talking about the ending right up until Endgame came out and now both movies have entered into the pop culture zeitgeist. If those movies had simply been dropped on a streaming service the impact would have been questionable. Remember when Netflix released Bird Box and that movie got the internet talking for a good month or so but then the conversation died.



Now you might be thinking about the Mandalorian which has made a big impact for Disney+, but this series is based on Star Wars and Star Wars is a multibillion-dollar franchise for Disney. 4 out of the 5 Star Wars movies that Disney released made a billion dollars and the solo one that did not was Solo (sorry, I could not resist). Of all time only one of the Star Wars movies that did not turn a profit was Solo. Imagine if the Mandalorian was entirely original, would it be as much of a hit? One thing is for sure, Baby Yoda merchandise would not be flying off the shelves. One of the biggest reasons and I am sure Disney knows this, is that the pandemic will end and one thing to keep in mind is the era that immediately followed the 1918 pandemic was the roaring 20’s (the Great Depression did follow the roaring 20’s but we can skip that part). There are reasons to believe that after this pandemic we will have similar events and chances are that it will help the theaters (providing they can stay afloat).



My last point is that the difference between the number of HBO Max subscribers and Disney+ subscribers is staggering and Disney does not need that much help. One thing to keep in mind is that I do not have any insider information so all of this is my own conjecture.



Goodnight, and Bee Happy!™

Mr. Bee   

 copyright 2021 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.   

 image courtesy of The Walt Disney Company