Oscars

Last night was that ultimate celebration of cheekbones, collaboration and luck that we call the Oscars.

Everybody's favorite movies met at the top and Parasite was declared the winner. At least one of my friends disagrred with the win as he said that he would never watch a movie in which he has to read the words. I told him that he was missing a whole lot, namely everynon-English speaking  film ever made which includes Bergman, Fellinni, Almodavar, Rashoman, Truffault, Bunuel, Wertmuller, and so many, many others that his decision renders him nearly cinematically illiterate.

Last night did bring up a conundrum, however. If a movie is nominated for best foreign film as well as best film would it be possible for that film to win best film and lose best foreign film? For instance, Pain and Glory wins best foreign film and then Parasite wins best film then what the hell is Pain and Glory?

In terms of individual performances, rarely have the choices been so clear. Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweiger by miles. Even though Phoenix is a tour de force and title character in Joker, he doesn't blow away the rest of the movie which Rene does as the title charactrer in Judy. This is why I prefer the Joker over Judy as a film as we will discuss later.

Furthermore, DeNiro should have been nominated for his supporting actor role in Joker. It's a much smaller role than the rold Brad had in Hollywood and therefore closer to my idea of supporting actor as opposed to co-star/leading man. When we have a bromance like the Tarantino film, it's pretty hard to determine which bro is the lead bro whereas in Joker, no doubt it's Joaquin.

The Irishman ends up underrated because most of us saw it on teevee and the reverse aging of the characters remains kind of a scary gimmick that we better get used to and it flopped with Will Smith. My appreciation for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood decreased when I watched it for the second time. I'm looking forward to watching the Irishamn for the second time and I'm pretty sure I will like it MORE the second time than I did the first and I loved it the first time.