Since a lot of these are pretty fresh or may get new legs with DVD releases, I'm going to go light on plots and just give you my go/no go recommendation. It will be faster for all of us, I promise.
12/13/19 Marriage Story, 2019, not yet nominated
12/13/19 Marriage Story, 2019, not yet nominated
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson star as a married couple that is getting unmarried; their initial attempt is to do it without lawyers, but it doesn't quite go as intended. The movie is bi-coastal as Driver's Charlie is building his reputation and career as a stage director in New York City, while Johansson's Nicole wants to break away from his shadow and re-establish her acting career in Los Angeles. Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, the story follows the ebbs and flows, highs and lows of a disintegrating marriage, including the low blows, dirty pool and spewing of venom that might have slipped out or might have been intentional. Unfortunately, there's a child in the middle, and that's the cause of the fights and anguish. The performances are spot on, the feelings are palpable, even on my teeny iPad mini. Laura Dern as Nicole's lawyer, Nora, has gotten lot of rave reviews, but I couldn't stand it, and maybe that was kind of the desired result, but, it seemed way over the top to me. Alan Alda took a brief turn as Charlie's lawyer, Bert, and he never disappoints; his delivery and cadence always keep my attention. I don't know if you have to see this movie, I don't feel like I had to, except it's probably going to get nominated for something, so, then I have to. A couple friends have seen it and really liked it.
12/20/19 Apollo 11, not yet nominated 2019
My biggest regret about this documentary on the moon landing with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin is that I didn't see it on the big screen. Damn it. The movie is made up of archival footage, including film taken by the astronauts while in space and on the moon and film of the control center. There is no voiceover or commentary, whatever audio is from the participants. It really captures the excitement that took over the whole world, and this is before social media and twenty-four hour news cycles. We board the space capsule/rocket with the crew of three (Michael Collins was the third man); hear and watch the takeoff; watch the orbit of the rocket and hear conversations between the crew and mission control; it's crazy. Even if you don't have any interest in the space program, you should watch it. I defy you to not get goosebumps. If you have kids, you should watch it with them and revel in the scientific and human achievements. There may be a nomination for best documentary, maybe editing.
12/21/19 A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, not yet nominated, 2019
This was not what I thought it was going to be. I saw the documentary on Mister Rogers when it came out over a year and a half ago, so I was not sure that any feature film could really do him justice. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood isn't a bio-pic, exactly, and it's not really fiction, and it's not really about Mister Rogers. It's about the people he influenced, specifically one person, Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a feature writer for Esquire magazine. Lloyd has some unresolved anger issues, mainly directed at his absent father, played by Chris Cooper, and his wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson) is caught somewhat in the middle. His editor assigns him the task of writing a brief article on Mister Rogers. Lloyd is suspicious and doesn't believe that Fred Rogers is real, and looks for an angle to expose. Director Marielle Heller really slows the pace of the film, at least it seems that way to me, and it kind of fits Mister Rogers' pace of life, and forces Lloyd to slow down a little. I think the writers were wise to take a different tack when telling Fred Rogers' story, because the documentary is still in the air, if you will, and it would have been too much comparing going in if this film followed the regular biographical line. By introducing Lloyd (who is based on writer Tom Junod), it lets viewers see Mister Rogers from a different perspective, and lets Mister Rogers tell his story (or not, because he can be quite evasive). Tom Hanks is uncanny as Mister Rogers, the look, the mannerisms, speech patterns. I don't think you have to see this on the big screen, but I do recommend watching it (and then watching the documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor).
12/24/19 Judy, not yet nominated, 2019
Wow. Just wow. As much as Tom Hanks became Fred Rogers, Renee Zellweger became Judy Garland. I grew up listening to "Judy Live at Carnegie Hall" and of course watching The Wizard of Oz and I recently finished reading a biography of her, so I feel like I'm in a good place to review Judy. The movie focuses on the very end of her career when she had become so unreliable due to her drug use and drinking, that she was almost left no choice but to go to London for a series of concerts. The movie uses flashbacks to her early days under Louis B. Mayer and a studio system that treated actors, even stars, like cattle. It sets the table for many of the issues that Judy struggled with her entire life. The real Judy Garland had definite facial expressions and characteristics, and it seemed to me that Zellweger nailed them. Zellweger did her own singing as well, which is a gutsy move, and I she was tremendous. Garland was a complex woman, who was tiny but had a big voice, however her self-esteem often disappeared when she was off the stage. We get glimpses into Garland's personal life, with her bitter divorce from Sid Luft (Rufus Sewell) and the battle for her two youngest children, Joey and Lorna; there is the briefest of appearances by Liza Minnelli (Gemma-Leah Devereaux), her eldest child, but it only serves as an introduction to Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), Judy's last husband. I don't know if I would say that Judy is an entirely uplifting, feel good movie; there are definitely moments that made me feel good, but I would say I felt more melancholy and sad at the loss and waste of talent, and sadness at her loneliness. Don't let that deter you from seeing it. I will be very disappointed if Zellweger doesn't receive a Best Actress nomination; there may also be a Best Costume Design and Best Hair and Makeup.
12/25/19 Bombshell, not yet nominated, 2019
I cannot remember the last time I needed a hot shower after watching a movie, but I absolutely felt that way after seeing Bombshell; John Lithgow is creepy good as Roger Ailes, make your skin crawl creepy. Bombshell tells the story of the sexual harassment charges that were brought forward by former Fox talk show host (and Minnesota native) Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and later corroborated by several other women at the network or formerly at the network. There are three main female protagonists, Carlson, Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and Kayla Pospisil ( (Margot Robbie); and they are each in different phases of their relationship with Ailes; Carlson at the end, disgusted and angry; Kelly, whose career is really taking off, but she is seeing and hearing things that are making her question; Kayla (who is not a real person, as far as I can tell) is in the very beginning of her professional career and very naïve. How this all unfolds is really what the movie is about, so you are now on your own as far as that goes. We're in the Fox newsroom, so there are plenty of Fox on air personalities in the background, and making appearances walking across the screen; at times, I found that as disturbing as Roger Ailes. Some actors/characters required a lot of makeup to look like their real life counterparts, and some of the make up was really good and spot on; other times, I found it really distracting, like the poor actress, Anne Ramsay, who played Greta Van Susteren. I don't know what intern did that make up, but it was terrible; she's not even listed in the cast list on Wikipedia, and she had more screen time than others who did get listed. The performances by the three lead actresses were really good, but I think Robbie was particularly good, playing an eager conservative producer, first on Gretchen Carlson's show and then moving up (?) to Bill O'Reilly's show. She has aspirations of being on air and meeting Roger Ailes. In a smaller support role, Kate McKinnon is Jess, another producer on The O'Reilly Factor, who befriends Kayla and tries to give her pointers on the show. I should also mention Connie Britton was frightening as Beth Ailes, Roger Ailes's wife who had blind faith in her husband's behavior (it was nice (?) to see her in an atypical role). There is a lot going on here, some of which you probably heard about on the news when the scandal was breaking, some parts that were not common knowledge, and maybe some things that were totally fictionalized, and I'm not an expert on it, so I don't know. Director Jay Roach (Trumbo, Meet the Parents) kept the pace pretty fast, packing a lot of action in less than two hours. It just occurred to me that for the most part, the women in the film were restrained, occasionally understated, as if they had to keep all of their emotions in check, whereas the lead men, mainly Ailes/Lithgow, were allowed to explode and vomit verbally whenever the mood struck, which was often. Aside from needing a shower when the movie was over, I wasn't sure if I loved or liked it. I think right now, I liked it; I loved Robbie's performance; and I liked Theron's and Kidman's performances. I think there may be some nominations for technical Oscars, like editing and makeup and hair; I'm not sure how the acting nominations will play out, a possible Best Supporting Actor for Lithgow, but I don't know how you really break out the performances of Robbie, Theron and Kidman.
That's all for a while. Check my travel blog for some fun stuff in the coming days.
