Bookshelf Battle

This was a year where I had seen many of the movies nominated for best picture and to my surprise, I liked most of them.  They were hits that really drew the viewer in and overall were supremely watchable.  Movies like Ford vs. Ferrari, Knives Out, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Naturally, the award went to Korean foreign language film Parasite and my first reaction was “Oh, yeah, the Academy always has to award the movie no one has seen” but I’m going to reserve judgment till I see it.  It was made by the same director who made Snowpiercer so it may very well be a great movie.  I will check it out and let you 3.5 readers know what I think.

I have to say, the guild is off the lily for the Oscars, at least it is for me anyway.  These shows got so “woke” that they can’t even have a host anymore.  No, literally no one wants the job.  Can you imagine that?  In an entertainment industry where performers are vying to be seen, no one wants to get that much airtime…because maybe you made some off the cuff remark ten years ago and it will all come back to haunt you thanks to social media.

I tuned in for a moment and Steve Martin and Chris Rock were joking about a lack of diversity about the Oscars.  There was a joke about how the actress who played Harriet Tubman hid black people so well that the Academy hired her to hide black people from the nominations.

Funny but also uh…why not just nominate her?  They made a joke about Eddie Murphy being hidden but again, why not nominate him?  I didn’t see Harriet so I can’t tell you if it’s a good movie or not.  I did see Dolemite and I thought that was a good movie with a lot of heart, basically a big underdog story about a man with an impossible dream, a washed up entertainer in his fifties, everyone telling him to give up on ever being in the movies but he puts all his money on the line and to make a movie and succeeds.

When I saw it I thought if Eddie was ever going to get an Oscar, it would be for this, but of course, Dolemite was also a comedy so we can’t have that.  Not at the Oscars ever.

I tuned out and tuned back in one more time to see Brad Pitt win for best supporting actor.  Maybe it’s just me but it bugged me that here’s this guy who has been acting for so many years, has been in some of the biggest movies ever in some of the greatest roles every yet he has never won an Oscar for acting.  And sadly, he felt the need to share part of his brief speech time to complain about John Bolton.  If he feels that Bolton should have testified, I suppose it’s his right to say it, but Bolton just comes across as a charlatan and huckster out there promoting himself, trying to promote his book.  To me, it felt like Brad crapped on his own long awaited acting award speech but if that’s what he wanted to do then that’s what he wanted to do.’

Ultimately, these awards are less about the movies and more about promoting Hollywood’s pet projects, though admittedly, they did have some decent movies in the running this year.

I also wondered if Avengers: Endgame shouldn’t have gotten a little recognition – the culmination of a decade long experiment where a studio was able to make all these movies that weaved together, where none of the actors had hissy fits and were all willing to share the spotlight.

End of rant.