The BeMovieSeeMovie Top 10 Exciting Oscar Contenders for Fall 2021
Now that you’ve had your popcorn and explosions, let’s get down to serious business. Also part of the fall movie slate are those prestige films your glasses wearing overly excited city friend will try to get you to see instead of Top Gun: Maverick. So when I, er, “your friend” starts clamering about these films, at least you’ll be prepared to see one or two of them because of this list! You might find a period piece or two on my list, but I’m more into the pedigree of the director/writers and the premise of the movie than anything else.
The 2021 Irritating Oscar Bait Trio:
Blue Bayou – The trailer alone probably comes with Kleenex. On top of the topical pandering subject matter you have cheesy condescending dialogue hoping Alicia Vikander can gloss over the schmaltz. Not likely from what I can see.
Cry Macho – Recent Clint Eastwood films I’ve enjoyed best usually are about someone the 91 year old cannot play (Sully, Richard Jewell). When Eastwood makes himself the subject, the movie becomes a metastory about Eastwood and his persona, which Cry Macho looks like its going to do. Hey at least this one probably won’t have Clint in a 3 way with 2 20 year old Hispanic women like his last.
West Side Story – The last decade of Steven Spielberg has been wholly forgettable, with the once ultrabrilliant director becoming infatuated with cinema history. I would be more excited for this remake if Jon Chu and Lin Manuel Miranda didn’t already release the modern version of it, called In the Heights.
Here are some Honorable Mentions, films much less pandery than the goopy dross above:
But prestige high quality Oscar bait in 2021 is better represented by these 10 films below, a who’s who of famous actors, including some double duty work from Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio. But the biggest surprise is what’s at the top of my list, previously Oscar poison, but it appears to be a…a…comedy?!?! Better read on to find out what that might be.
Early buzz on this one is sky high. Kenneth Branagh, having been sucked into Disney and Christopher Nolan land recently, goes back to his roots, in this case, literally. This black and white soon to be delight looks to tell the tale of Branagh’s upbringing in Belfast, Northern Ireland during the tumultuous 60s landscape, but grounding it with a loving, sweet family at its center. This should be bonafide crowd pleasing period magic, as evidenced by my favorite trailer of Oscar season so far. Please watch and get excited!
Even if just one Coen brother is directing a movie it’s gotta be somewhere high on my list. Joel is writing and directing this one solo, putting his spin on Shakespeare’s MacBeth. But because he’s a Coen, he’s got Denzel Washington, Corey Hawkins, and his wife and 3 time Oscar winner Frances McDormand on board to help find a new way to tell my favorite bard tale. We’ve got a real shot to get near Throne of Blood good with this cast and a Coen brother!
I’m not the biggest Wes Anderson fan, but the unique director finds some strange way to spin his tales. Get ready for those ornate set shots, maybe the cast of the year (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, Saiorse Ronan, Benicio del Toro, and all of Anderson’s muses like Jason Schwartzman), and a loving ode to newspapers and journalism that should be a delightful romp.
Big year for Ridley Scott the ageless wonder, who’s got 2 films on this list. Also big in this one is the return of best friends Ben Affleck and Matt Damon on the big screen together and writing a movie together. This one is about France’s last duel, which had to do with Damon’s wife (played by Jodie Comer) accusing a squire (played by Adam Driver) of assaulting her and Damon protecting her honor. We’ll see if Damon/Affleck can channel that Boston chemistry into an ancient French tale, but if they can, Scott’s movie could become a Gladiator type must see event.
The obvious pitch is “African American Western.” But in practice? This movie looks like something old and new combined into something exciting. Regina King, Idris Elba, Lakeith Stanfield, and many other amazing black actors/actresses are on board this Netflix western which looks equally familiar and foreign, oozing all kinds of style and substance and shoot em ups.
The best part of movies vying for Oscars is that some of them, the rare ones, depict a world and place we’ve never seen onscreen before. Flee looks to be one of those tales, as we get the story of an Afghan refugee telling his tale about how he fled his country in search of a safer, new life. The reviews so far are excellent, and this has the makings to be one of the great films of the year, and something different and exciting for documentary storytelling.
Like everyone on the planet, this movie had me at “Martin Scorcese crime caper.” Scorcese leaves New York and Italians for the story of the Osage Native American tribe in the 1920s, and a series of murders so extensive J Edgar Hoover and the FBI got involved. When Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro agree to star in your movie, that lends the picture a pedigree boost, only magnified by Scorcese’s magic touch.
Despite what I thought was a misfire with his last film, Edgar Wright has instantly won me back with this one. Telling the tale of a small city modern girl (Thomasin McKenzie) time traveling back to the 1960s and getting involved in a film noir. Wright gets bonus points for putting Anya Taylor Joy in the role she was born to play: a Hitchcockian Femme Fatale. This movie looks creepy as hell, and should also have some nice undercurrent or subversion Wright has up his sleeve ready to unleash on the audience when they least expect it.
If The Last Duel doesn’t deliver, then Ridley Scott has this gem in the bank. Lady Gaga and Adam Driver play a younger married couple and part of the Gucci Family, trying to get to the top of the power pyramid for that sweet fashion money and notoriety. This movie’s a lock for best costumes for sure, and the story about family, betrayal, murder, sex, power, and Italians. That’s usually a recipe for Oscar and movie success.
This is the power of Adam McKay. He’s got me putting his comedy at the top of the Oscar list, because it looks to be a bona fide scathing satire and allegory of our times. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence (I’m guessing here) are a pair of astronomers who discover a comet is approaching Earth, so they have to go on a PR tour to warn everybody. I can practically feel McKay’s sharp twisted knife plunging into my heart and funny bone making me angry and giddy in equal measure.
