Early Oscar Front-Runner “Belfast” Defies Expectations: Film Review
The early Oscar frontrunner is a semi-autobiographical tale of writer-director Sir Kenneth Branagh’s childhood in Belfast at the height of the tragic civil unrest. But don’t let that description discourage you — it is a surprisingly bold, funny, and crisply paced film that defies expectations.
A Brief Note on the Race for the 94th Academy Awards
The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony was an outlier for many reasons, mostly due to the unprecedented circumstances posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The eligibility window extended beyond the calendar year for the first time, movies that premiered on streaming services became eligible for the time, and multiple socially distanced ceremonies were held simultaneously for the first time. The result was a remarkably drawn-out season that highlighted relatively small films and culminated in the lowest-rated Oscar telecast in history.
It is a true shame that the negative buzz generated by the telecast and all of the award season’s anomalies made the 93rd Academy Awards a footnote in the history of the Oscars in the minds of many, because there were multiple truly exceptional films released last year. In fact, I thought that all 5 of the films that won in the top 8 categories — Nomadland, The Father, Promising Young Woman, Judas and the Black…
