A Bruised Ego: February 2019

Once again I haven't seen as much as I should have this year- it's getting harder to actually get out and see as many movies as there are nowadays- between Netflix and big movie theater films and random hard to find Indie features showing on one screen for one day in some tiny theater- it's virtually impossible. Even more so when it comes to seeing all of the Oscar nominated movies, mostly because they're so hard to predict year to year. There's definitely stuff that I always think should get nominated and doesn't. But this year especially there's several films getting a lot more recognition than I think they legitimately deserve. The negative hype against Green Book I think is rather overblown, especially given the history of the Academy liking movies of that kind- Driving Miss Daisy and The Blind Side for example- but also just the basis of the controversy itself which is, on its own a debatable aspect, one that I won't go into here. The short version is- for what Green Book is as a movie, namely an old school feel good historical drama that's easy to digest, its inoffensiveness just doesn't necessitate the kind of reaction it seems to be getting from a lot of critics.

Bohemian Rhapsody on the other hand...not gonna touch that movie with a ten foot pole for multiple obvious reasons. It's legitimately offensive enough that the movie got nominated but the fact that it could win...anything just makes my skin crawl. For now, I'm pretending the film doesn't even exist on the list of potential winners.

Etc. etc.

Hereditary getting no nods is also unforgivable in my book...

Then there's the Kevin Hart debate...and the potential cutting of four categories from the show debate...and the Best Popular film category debate...

Overall- not a great year for the Academy and it's very, very obvious attempts at mainstreaming the whole show. I understand the desire in theory but every step of the way the choices being made seemed to be turning the whole thing into a giant debacle. Which is even more amusing when you consider the overall track record of the Oscars in general in terms of truly getting with the program and recognizing what films deserve to actually be awarded or nominated. And how the trends of the generation, decade, year...all influence what wins and what doesn't. It's all a game and it's all political. And yet I come back every year and watch it with the utmost anticipation that maybe what I want to win will actually win.

But I digress.

Let's get to the heart of the matter. What are my picks?

As always I'm including what I consider for me to be the most important categories. I don't tack on Documentaries and Shorts and Foreign Language stuff- mostly because I don't actively seek out those movies personally. I don't dislike them or think less of them- they simply hold less artistic interest for me. I don't discount any of them as not deserving of awards or recognition, they just tend to not be on my radar. (Ditto for the earlier asides aimed at the Academy here as well: where is the nomination for South Korea's Burning or for the Mister Rogers documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor?)

So.

Here's my list. Unadulterated. Plain and simple.

Best Visual Effects

First Man