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Writing on Oscar Movies
This was the year of Scorsese, even if only two people say so — the three-Oscar-winning writer-director-producer of the four-Oscar-winning Parasite, Bong Joon-ho — and me. Tarantino should have swept the Awards, but the Academy still desperately hopes that a sufficient number of sufficiently clever and sentimental auteurs will save cinema from the twin evils of Disney, perpetually snubbed, and Netflix, perpetually snubbed despite throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at winning a Best Picture Oscar.
Recent victorious auteurs include the insightful, but irresponsible enemy of liberalism Jordan Peele, the uninspired, sentimental Guillermo del Toro, his more insightful friend who’s absolutely clueless about the world we live in, Alejandro Inarritu — to say nothing of the other moralistic winners based on the hope that finally Hollywood will fix America’s race problems: Green Book, Moonlight, 12 years of slave…
There’s a future, I believe for cinema — for American cinema in America, but it’s not going to be the silly individualism plus metaphors that liberal Academy voters prefer. It’s not Disney either, nor Netflix. Something new in keeping with the traditions of cinema and other forms of storytelling in America before that. Maybe better to say, in keeping with their purposes.
But since this is the end of an era, let’s see the influence of the era of Scorsese, of American neo-realism plus pop music plus the perpetual conflict, ethnic histories vs. American History, tradition vs. modernization, religion vs. modern skepticism… Here are my writings on the big nominees.
- Joker. A movie about how therapeutic liberalism might create a monster. Everyone knows it’s an imitation of two Scorsese movies–nobody seems to realize, it works the other way around, too: Scorsese is revealed in his epigone, Todd Philips.
- Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood. Tarantino’s best effort of summing up America. I had a lot to say here. First, let’s understand that Tarantino is anti-woke. Effectively, right-wing at this point! Secondly, let’s look at why he’s turning reactionary politically, or at least morally. And then, a few last words along with some thoughts on the other American manliness movies of 2019 (Ford/Ferrari, Richard Jewell, Midway), which conservatives should praise and help to some success once they hit the online streaming world.
- I disliked one winner more than all others, the latest Toy Story, a depressive, deranged way to go from the basic insight of the tragedy of American parenting.
The two best movies I saw in 2020 were They Shall Not Grow Old and the Tarantino film (which I saw twice in the theater and would gladly see again). Watching it the second time around I realized that while Brad Pitt had the flashier part, DiCaprio was really outstanding. I saw it the first time with my son-in-law and the second time with my son and it was interesting the different perspectives we brought to the film and the discussions we had afterwards (they both really liked it) since I still have vivid memories of those events and their impact while they hadn’t yet been born.
So what did they think about these two old-timey guys? Did they get a better sense of the age from you?
They really enjoyed the movie in and of itself and got the characters but the cathartic feeling it induced in me they didn’t get until I explained the full background. Definitely the most righteous film I’ve seen in a while.
Damn skippy!