Yes, it's that hallowed day again - Oscar Sunday. It is also Selection Sunday, for those of you who observe the holiday known as March Madness. In our house, it's also the end of week three of Flu B and we're having gale-force winds, which means my fence is trying valiantly to collapse.
Are we having fun yet?
With all that in mind, Oscar Sunday looks a bit different this year. Due to my kids subsequently falling ill with just enough time in between to lure me into a false sense of immunity before Influenza felled me with a mighty cough, I only saw eight of the 10 Best Picture Nominees. Also, three of them I saw while sick, so I didn't finish them because a head full of phlegm does not a movie critic make.
The bonus of the fence trying to fall over was a plot twist I should have seen coming. And yes, I will clearly have to call a professional for a more permanent fix, but it's Sunday and so instead I relied on the brute strength of a teenager and the various heavy junk we could find in my garage.
Sure, some would call this trashy - I call it what happens when I yell "OMG JUST GRAB SOMETHING" to my nineteen-year-old, and grab something he did.
Because of his extraordinary efforts and because even while he furiously works on brackets, he's printing out the Oscar ballots for me and his brother, and because I know both my kids only care about watching college basketball today, I am not asking them to humor me by making an Oscar video. I'll take the ugly fence repair photo and pretend it's a still from an indie film called "The Fence." There's probably already a movie named that and it's probably Swedish.
Now that I've set the scene for why today's Oscar post is a bit haphazard, here are my reviews of the movies I managed to see. I won't review Bugonia or Marty Supreme because I didn't see them, and not to get into the whole West Coast-East Coast ping pong vs opera beef, I will just point out that The Nutcracker is still a banger.
In order of least to most favorite...
8. Sentimental Value - I am really sorry about this one and it's unfair to the movie because I was coughing too much to pay attention, but when you yourself feel gray and blah, watching a movie that also feels gray and blah is just not a recipe for movie magic. It also reminded me of everything my Grandma Gladys said about "the old Swedes" which is what she called her older relatives who sounded like a dour bunch, much like some of the characters in this film. As the kids would say, this movie was 'giving' I've gotten lost in the Frisco IKEA and I'm never getting out. Again, my apologies, I'm sure it would have been better under different circumstances.
7. The Secret Agent - this is another totally unfair rating, but I had a fever and I kept pausing the movie to see how much longer I had left and when it seemed like I'd been watching forever and there was still an hour left, I decided maybe the "secret" was that the movie's too long. Again, not the film's fault. Just did not have the mental stamina for this one, but I bet it was a lot better if you didn't have the flu.
6. One Battle After Another - this one gets a six because I hated the first twenty minutes of the movie. Like a viscerally inexplicable angry phlegm-driven hate. Now that I think about it, that may have been when I was just starting to get sick, so my apologies to the cast. But then it got a lot better and the ending made up for the beginning. 19YO gave it multiple stars. 16 YO unavailable for comment because he and his brother were fighting and couldn't be in the same room. Because brothers. Also he never watches a best pic unless it's Dune, Marvel or ... just wait for it till the end.
5. Hamnet - this was really good up until the point I took my prescription cough syrup. Loved the scenery, the story and I thought Jessie Buckley's performance was so powerful. Unfortunately, so was the codeine, and so I missed half the movie.
4. Train Dreams - this movie was quietly beautiful and just stunning. It was also incredibly depressing, and I would not advise watching alone. Up until now, my "most depressing movie ever" title has been held by Last Exit to Brooklyn, but watch out Williamsburg, there's a new downer in town. I don't mean that flippantly, it was a really really good movie. But it will you make you cry, so just go in forewarned. It made the 19 YO cry. (OMG MOM NO IT DIDN'T!)
3. F1 - ok, this one was just plain fun. Very reminiscent of Ford vs Ferrari, clever dialogue, dizzy track scenes and an overall fast-paced film. Which, I mean, it is is a movie about racing, so it would be a little weird if it was slow. Both the 19YO and I were struck by how freaking long that race track is. At one point we got distracted by a discussion of what's even the point of driving that long? But I don't make the Formular One rules, so who cares? Anyway, thumbs up on this one - it felt like the kind of movie you went to in the 80s with your whole family before movies cost a million dollars. And that's always a good thing.
2. Frankstein - say what you want, but that Mary Shelley knew her shit. This is one of those stories you can tell a million different ways and it's still interesting, I liked the second half of the movie way better than the first, though, because I was not a fan of the doctor and unless you are Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the Dr Frankstein character is always the most loathsome. My chief complaint - WHY SO MANY RATS???? Seriously, guys, there are some things you DO NOT NEED THE REAL THING for, and rodents are one of those. The Plague would like a word, and that word is CGI.
1. Drumroll please....Sinners. To quote Stefan, this movie has everything: vampires, the blues, twins played by Michael B. Jordan and a bouncer named Cornbread. This movie was the only one that all three of us in my house watched and loved. We did not watch it together, however, because 16YO saw first and said um NO, that is NOT a movie to watch with your mom. Which, ok, I get it now. But listen, you have to work pretty hard to get that kid to watch anything that isn't a series involving superheroes or sci-fi, and this movie DELIVERED. The music, the dancing, the scenery - it was all gorgeous and gripping.
And here's a mark of a movie I find to be true - if I have to stop the movie halfway through watching it because I get interrupted, and I don't have a chance to finish until the next day, and it still has me on the edge of my seat - that's a fine film. And yes, I know we are all supposed to go see movies in the theater and I get it, but life is busy, movie tickets are expensive and as a parent who spends most of my weekends doing all the stuff I don't have time to do during the week, carving out the time and money to go to the theater sometimes seems impossible and I find streaming movies to be one of the greatest innovations of this century...right after Instacart.
So yes, Sinners gets my house's vote - and that's the theme of our Oscar meal. It's a little scaled back since I'm still coughing too much to get fancy, but cornmeal-crusted fried chicken with Mississippi comeback sauce, coleslaw and biscuits, and Mississippi mud pie are nothing to sneeze at. Of course, we all will, because again...flu.
Bon appetit, y'all and May the best picture win!
*chicken, sauce, coleslaw and biscuits not pictured because I have not cooked them yet. And given how I still feel, I'm guessing an hour standing at the stove frying chicken is not going to make me want to sit at my computer. Just use your imagination.
No comments:
Post a Comment