I Saw Some of the Oscar Nominees this Year

Jack is into movies these days. He's seen all but one of the Oscar nominees. I'm very impressed. Even back when I was a big movie fan, I don't think I ever managed to accomplish that.

And I haven't accomplished it this year either. But I did see four out of nine of the nominees. That's much more than what I usually see.  I'm looking at the nominees for the last few years. I usually see one or zero of them. Although back in 2010, I saw Toy Story 3 AND The Social Network.

Anyway, I wanted to just give my brief opinion about the movies I saw.

The first was Parasite. Jack invited us to go see that with him.  I had never heard of the movie, and the only thing I got from Jack is that it was Korean.  We all somehow decided that we'd go to the movie not knowing anything about it. We didn't know if it was a drama, comedy, dark comedy, horror, etc. It's kind of fun going into a movie totally not knowing what to expect. 

We all loved it. 

We debated afterward whether the wealthy family were parasites as well or did the word apply only to the low-income con artist family.

I argued that that the wealthy family were NOT parasites, but now I've forgotten my argument.

Don't get me wrong. I definitely think they were awful and took advantage of their employees.

I think it was more about the analogy not fitting as well.  

Oh! Maybe it was that the employees were fully aware of what the wealthy people were doing to them/demanding of them.  Usually, if we have a parasite, our body is being taken advantage of and we have no idea it's happening.  

The wealthy people would probably be more like a diagnosed cancer. You know it's there, and you can maybe get rid of it...but then you're also going to be putting some good cells in peril. If they spoke up and said, No we don't actually want to help out at your child's birthday party, they might have freed themselves from the birthday party, but they might have also lost their employment status.  

Okay, I should move onto the next movie.

This was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  I really loved that movie, which made me feel a bit conflicted since I had heard about Quentin Tarantino being awful to Uma Thurman.  But that's nothing new. The Me Too movement has made me feel conflicted about a lot of movies I love. 

Anyway....

What I probably loved most about the movie was the production design, but the storyline was very lovely too.

I want to talk about the ending, so SPOILER WARNING. (and actually...the spoiler warning should probably be applied to all the movie nominees) 

I thought the end was brilliant and very sad. I cried.

I mean cried, cried. Usually, when I say I cried I mean I got choked up a bit.  And that's what happened with this movie as the credits rolled. But later I was trying to talk to Jack about the ending, and I started actually crying.

What's weird about the sad ending is that it's sad, because it's not sad.

I felt very anxious for the last hour of the film...waiting for the bad stuff to happen. And at some point I thought about how movies can be so suspenseful even if we already know what's going to happen. There's that feeling of wishing we can change the ending and knowing it's impossible.  

Anyway, later I thought about Sinead Tinker dying on Coronation Street and how even though it was very sad, somehow Sharon Tate NOT dying was even sadder.  

There's one more thing I need to say about the movie. I was really hung up on the dog issue.

Meaning...why was Brad Pitt's dog at Leonardo DiCaprio's house?

It seemed to me that they got back from Italy, went out on a last dinner together, and then, on a whim, decided to have a sleepover.  But then the dog is there and his food.  

Maybe they made prior plans for Brad Pitt to sleep over, so he went ahead and brought his dog and left him at the house?  OR...my other idea is that Brad Pitt had left his dog at Leonardo DiCaprio's house while they were in Italy and someone was dog sitting over there for them.  

I'm not even sure, though, that their dinner plans happened immediately after Italy. It seemed that way, but...I might have missed something.  

OR maybe there was a scene where, after dinner, they went and picked up Brad Pitt's dog. And that scene got cut out of the film.

I'm guessing also that since Leonardo DiCaprio lived in the big fancy house and Brad Pitt lived in something around the size of a trailer home. Or was it a trailer home?  Well, I'm guessing Brad Pitt probably often found a way for him and his dog to get an invite to the fancy neighborhood. And I guess it's good that he did...that night.  They really saved the day.

Moving onto the next movie.

Little Women.

I didn't like it.

I've read the book and didn't love that. I saw the 1990's Winona Ryder movie and didn't love that either.

I've just never been into Little Women.  For bygone day stories about women, I prefer Little House on the Prairie or All of a Kind Family.  Really. Someone should make a movie about All of a Kind Family. Why hasn't that happened yet?

Anyway, I kind of dreaded seeing the movie. But I EXPECTED to surprisingly like it. I pictured myself leaving the theater saying, To be honest, I thought I wasn't going to like that movie. But I totally loved it.

Nope. I was bored and eager for it to be over. 

Later I realized that I was not just bored by the film but bothered by it.  

I felt it pushed the idea that women need to be self-sacrificing.

It bothered me that Jo (Saoirse Ronan) went from being rightfully furious at Amy (Florence Pugh) for burning her manuscript to feeling guilty that Amy almost drowned in the ice.

It was Amy's fault for following them...when she was most definitely not even wanted.

No, I don't wish that Jo held Amy's head down in the cold water while laughing gleefully. But I wish her feelings had been a bit more conflicted.  I still kind of hate you for burning my book but...I kind of hate you even more for scaring me to death by almost drowning.

The movie had a bit too much sisterly love and forgiveness.

I did like, though, when Laura Dern admitted that she gets angry but...

I forgot what the but was.

Maybe it's that she hides it?

I think that helped me dislike the movie less.  On the surface, the movie pushed this idealism of women being charitable, self-sacrificing, forgiving, etc. But then it was saying that society expects this out of us but if you have to shove down those feelings of anger, resentment, despair, etc....you're a normal human and not a complete moral failure.

Moving on....

The last nominated movie we saw was Jojo Rabbit. 

To celebrate our plans of seeing the movie, I had Alexa play the soundtrack to JoJo Circus.  

I was initially interested in Jojo Rabbit, because I thought Theon Greyjoy was the star. Later I realized he was not the main star, but I did think he was in the movie movie than he actually is.

He's not in it very much.

But despite the lack of Theon Greyjoy, I really loved this movie. It's my favorite of the four. And I even declared that it had replaced Us as my most favorite movie.

This afternoon, though, I was thinking about my love for Us, and now I'm rethinking my declaration. I'm not ready to let go of it as my favorite movie. So I'll just leave it as a tie for now. 

I don't think Jojo Rabbit will win the Oscar, but I wish it would. I think it's one of those important-movies-for-our-times kind of thing. 

I wish more people would see it, and I wish it would reach them in the way I'd want them to be reached.

I'd want Trump fans to see Jojo's love for Hitler and hopefully recognize themselves in it. 

Then I think those of us on the left can benefit from the movie as well.  I think it can soften our hearts a bit. Because I think in some ways, our hearts have hardened.  The movie can remind us that good sometimes hides in places we don't expect. And even among those that have become rotten, there's hope of recovery. 

Also....the kids are SO cute in that movie.  Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) looked so familiar to me. But afterwards I looked on IMDb and couldn't find anything in which I'v seen her in. Then I decided she must remind me of someone.  I thought about it and the answer I came up with was Lydia (Cassady McClincy) from The Walking Dead.  I'm not sure if they actually really look alike...or if it's something else about them. 

Read my novel: The Dead are Online