The Rest of the Best

Movie:  Call Me By Your Name
Nominated for: Best Picture, Acting, Screenplay, Song 
How I watched: With my friend
When I fell asleep: Daytime viewings are easier!
Thoughts: This movie started seemingly unremarkable and then won me over, which is just perfect, really. The tension builds slowly and beautifully between the two romantic leads. The mundane turns sublime and fraught with emotional conflict. The relationship felt real in a way that I am not used to seeing on film. And just to add depth, you get to watch the subtleties of the parents and how they deal with the life changing event taking place in secret under their noses. At the end I really felt like I had taken a journey and seen some things from new perspectives and was surprised to realize that I had thoroughly enjoyed myself.



Movie: Darkest Hour
Nominated for: Best Picture, Acting, Production Design, Cinematography, Make up and Hair, Costumes
When I fell asleep: Barely dozed, then rallied
Thoughts: This surprised me! I knew Gary Oldman would be terrific (and he was, he seems like a shoe in) but otherwise I expected a straight forward dry biopic. Not so! This movie had some excellent style and direction. Scenes are painted beautifully with light and some very striking images highlight the isolation and conflict faced by Churchill. The scope of the story seemed right to tackle for a two hour movie. Lily James's role provided the film some welcome light comedic moments and a sense of Churchill in his private life. I enjoyed being surprised by this movie.



Movie: The Post
Nominated for: Best Picture, Acting
How I watched: With friends
When I fell asleep: This is a good one! My friend and I kept nodding off right from the start. After 45 minutes of fighting sleep, we decided we needed to stop. I checked the progress bar and we still had 2 hours left! What? We didn't even feel like the movie had started yet! On night 2, we picked up where we left off and the movie finally got started. I probably dozed a few times during night 2 but it wasn't as much of a fight.
Thoughts: Unlike Darkest Hour, this movie did not surprise me. I was worried about another long historical piece from Spielberg and I was right to be. How does it take the film 45 minutes to get started? Why is it so hard to understand the relationship between the two main actors (who are both so damn talented)? This movie was so over directed! There were lots of stylish shots and moving cameras but none of it felt like it was serving the story. Why am I looking at a distorted reflection in a phone for soooo long? It's always a bad sign when I switch from "viewer mode" to "editor mode" and start thinking about ways that I would eliminate some scenes, restructure the film and make it shorter! This was a total miss for me.