Best Picture thoughts, 2017 edition

[dougo]

When the Oscar nominations were announced, I had already seen five of the nine Best Picture contenders, which is a new record for me by far! So I made sure to see the rest of them, and I figured I ought to write up my impressions of them like I did two years ago. Again, these are in the order I saw them; my faves were Get Out ( I predicted it would

Comments

[crayonbeam]

Thanks for writing these up!

The only one I've seen is Get Out. Usually I see more, but many of them didn't appeal to me and the others just hit at the wrong time for me. Mostly when I see a film at the theatre it's because I have an 11 year old with me. So we've seen Star Wars and Black Panther, and have A Wrinkle in Time and Ready Player One queued up. (He read R.P.O. before I did and insisted that I read it and he was right.)

This is the year I'm committing to challenging the phrase "Oscar worthy" film and similar phrase. I think it's a gatekeeper phrase - like "professional hair" is code for "white person hair." Not that I don't get what you mean. I guess I'm growing tired of dying on the hill of "you guys is not gender inclusive" and need a new fight.

[dougo]

To be clearer for those who don't get what I mean, when I say "Oscar quality" I'm more thinking of what the Oscar voters tend to vote for, not what I actually think should win. Dunkirk just didn't seem like the kind of movie that the Academy rewards, since it didn't quite transcend its genre, but I enjoyed it and I'd have been happy if it had won.

[chris_warrior]

ditto on the thanks for writing about about these :). i'd only seen The Post, and enjoyed it (though i agree with much of what you said, and never could escape watching Tom Hanks play someone instead of forgetting it was Tom Hanks, the way i did with Sully). but now i may want to finally see Get Out. i knew i wanted to see The Shape of Water, eventually, and maybe Darkest Hour.

[chris_warrior]

(i'm emphatically NOT a horror fan)

[dougo]

I'm not a horror fan either; had a bad experience with Invasion of the Body Snatchers when I was 9 (and Alien the year after that). Get Out had lots of tension and wondering what's behind the creepiness going on, and then some amount of slasher/gore, but it didn't cross the line for me. The comedy helped with that too.

[dougo]

Oops heh I just realized I already said I'm not a horror fan in the original post. Sorry for repeating myself...