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Movie: Loveless
Nominated for: Foreign Film
How I watched: Movie Pass
When I fell asleep: A lot. Over and over again. I saw maybe 50% of this movie.
Thoughts: Ugh. So sad, so bleak, so Russian. This was basically miserable people, making each other miserable and being self absorbed and cruel. A child becomes the sacrifice in all of this mess. And it snows, in Russia. It was a late showing in a cold theatre and I just couldn't stay awake.


Movie: The Greatest Showman
Nominated for: Original Song
How I watched: Cheap Theatre!
When I fell asleep: I got plenty of sleep during the Russian movie so I was good.

Thoughts: The music was a little cheesy but it still got to me. If I'd watched this on my own, I might have rolled my eyes and said it wasn't that great. But I saw it with my kids and because they loved it, I ended up loving it too. It's got what you need in a musical...big numbers, spectacle and elephants!


Movie: Animated Shorts

Dear Basketball - Dumb. It's Kobe advertising his retirement in a love letter to basketball. But I don't really need to hear from this alleged rapist.

Garden Party - The animation was wow! Beautiful frogs frolic humorously around a possible drug cartel shoot out crime scene. Kinda weird, but gorgeous!

Lou - It's Pixar so it grabs your heart! A bully is healed and reformed by a creature made up of lost and found items.

Negative Space - Moving quiet tale of grief and bonding. The animation is good but ugly? I shouldn't be shallow like that, but there it is.

Revolting Rhymes - Based on Roald Dahl's story. I'm sad to say I dozed off during this fun and interesting reimagining of fairy tales.


Movie: The Insult
Nominated for: Best Foreign Film
How I watched: Movie Pass!
When I fell asleep:  Nope, I was riveted
Thoughts: Ok. I totally pre-judged this movie based on its trailer and was not looking forward to it at all. I was wrong. The movie centers around an incident between a Christian Lebanese man and a Palestinian refugee living in Beirut. One man gets insulted and sets off a long personal and legal battle. But this movie dives deep to really dissect the reasons that we get stuck in struggle with each other as humans, whether as individuals or in groups based on our political, national or religious identities. I was challenged to look at what it means to be a human; how we get hurt, frightened, offended, traumatized or judged unworthy and then cease to operate as our better selves. We rely on anger and a need for vengeance to cover up for our feelings of despair, humiliation, grief and isolation. We focus on our own suffering an forget that everyone hurts; that our pain is never as unique as we'd like to believe. What a thoughtful and well put together film! Impressive.