Movie season is in full swing. The Oscar nominations were announced recently and, as usual, I'm a little behind watching all the films. I have several still to watch, but I'll tell y'all about some that I've seen over the last several weeks:
It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is the story about how Mr. Rogers became friends with a journalist who wrote about him. The movie was more serious than I expected. It's based on a true story, but it wasn't totally true to fact. That's Hollywood for you. Tom Hanks played Mr. Rogers. Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson and Chris Cooper also starred. It was good.
Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson play a divorcing couple in Marriage Story. Laura Dern and Alan Alda also star. I can't watch Adam Driver without thinking "Kylo Ren," but he did a good job in this film. They all did. Divorce isn't pretty and this movie illustrated that point, but it showed one way to do it better. It was good.
I've been wanting to see Jojo Rabbit for a long time and missed it the first time around in theaters. Since it's been nominated for an Academy Award or two, it's been re-released; so, I high tailed it to the theater. I'm sure glad I did. This quirky dramedy is about 10-year-old Jojo, a German boy, who finds out his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic. There's the added treat of Adolf Hitler popping in as Jojo's imaginary friend, Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell star and all do a great job performing. I loved it!
Parasite, in Korean with English subtitles, is a delightfully quirky black comedy about a poor family who, one member at a time, make themselves indispensable to a wealthy family. The Kim family lives in what is nothing more than a tenement apartment. All four work low-paying hourly jobs, until the son gets a job filling in as a tutor for the well-to-do Park family. He assesses the situation and identifies ways to finagle jobs for his parents and sister with the family. The Parks are not aware that the four are related. All goes swimmingly until it doesn't. The film stars Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik and Park So-dam. It is SO good!
Ford v. Ferrari is based on the true story set in the 1960s about Ford building the GT40 to beat Ferrari in the 24 Hours of Le Mons race in France. Matt Damon plays Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale plays British car racer Ken Miles. I know I'm a WOACA, but I didn't know this story before I saw this film. It was a good movie.
And now, a rant: In my humble opinion, just because a film is a good movie, it doesn't mean that it is Oscar worthy. Nine films have been nominated for Best Picture this year. I've now seen five of them. While I think they are good movies, Ford v. Ferrari and Marriage Story should not have been nominated for this honor. I mean, Ford v. Ferrari garnered a nomination over Motherless Brooklyn? Seriously? And, no love at all for Ed Norton's performance? Really?
MK out.
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