Movie: Green Book
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing
When I fell asleep: Nope.
When it had me: Viggo's fun Italian character
When it lost me: When the main character got over all of his prejudices super easily.
What I have to say: This movie was like a benign fairy tale. If I take this movie at face value, it's a feel good tale about friendship winning out over racism. But I feel wary of believing that it actually works like this in real life. I'm concerned that white people allow ourselves to believe too many of these narratives and it helps us to feel like racism isn't a real problem as long as we are friendly to black people. We are encouraged to feel good about the actions of one person, which may or may not be the full story, so that we don't concern ourselves with the bigger picture of living with the constant benefits of a society built on racist beliefs. All of this makes me distrust the story; I resist the idea that this one Italian man was a kind of saint who was so easily swayed from his bigoted beliefs by his interactions with one talented, type-A musician. The acting was great by both Viggo Mortenson and Mahershala Ali, and yet I didn't believe in the overall narrative.
Edited to add: I spoke to my mom about this one. She and I both remember vividly the Italian relatives that remind us of Viggo's character in this film. She knew them in the 60s and remembers the complex mix of lazy racist beliefs and deep human compassion that many men of this generation paradoxically nursed within themselves. She found the narrative more believable than I did. While she is a strong believer in fierce activism she also sees the value of a story like this one that shows us that it can be just as simple as human kindness winning the day. Point taken. Thanks, mom.
Movie: BlacKKKlansman
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing
When I fell asleep: I started this one late, so about three times in the middle of the film, though not for long.
When it had me: Title card reading, "Dis joint is based on some fo' real, fo' real shit."
When it lost me: Harry Bellafonte's story is when I was nodding off.
What I have to say: This movie was also a bit like a fairy tale. The main character's childlike straightforwardness and optimism were infectious and delightful. The cartoon-ish idiocy of the white supremacists was hilarious as long as you didn't let yourself remember that people actually felt and feel that way, then it was nauseating. The outlandish look of the time period made it almost easy to laugh off all of this savage, hateful, stupid behavior as a thing in our fast-receding history. But there were moments that reminded us that we haven't come very far from those days. And in case we missed those, Spike Lee reminds us with an epilogue of an all too real look at what the Klan has been up to recently and how persistent these abhorrent views are. Through the film we get to follow along with a kind of a romp where we enjoy watching a bunch of racists get taken down a notch, sure. But Spike won't let us leave the theatre until we remember how much work there is yet to do and ultimately that makes this so much more powerful for me than Green Book.
Movie: Bohemian Rhapsody
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Film Editing
How I watched: Movie Theatre
When I fell asleep: Not this time
When it had me: I'm not sure, but I want to say Mike Myers?
When it lost me: A lot.
What I have to say: While I enjoyed the music and some of the backstory to the songs that was revealed, this movie felt remarkably empty to me. It felt as if it were glossing over some things or not diving deeply enough or trying to wow me and falling short. It wasn't terrible but I just wasn't blown away. Worst of all, I did not really connect with Rami Malek's performance. I kept thinking that I didn't know Freddy Mercury well enough but if I did, I would feel more impressed. With our interest piqued, we came home and watched the actual Live Aid performance that was memorialized in the movie. At this point it was abundantly clear to me that Malek did not even come close to capturing the charisma and power of Mercury. I'm a little baffled by the Golden Globe love that this film received and I'm interested to see how Oscar feels about it.
Edited to add: Wow! The Academy is all in on this one! I feel out of step but that's ok, I can deal with that.
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