Movies |
Before the Oscars: 5 better 2018 films you can see at home right now
By
Published: Feb 20, 2019
Category:
Drama
So there’s this moment in “Green Book. ” Tony — a white, dees-and-dems New Yorker — is driving Don — a black, gay, classical pianist — to a series of concerts in the segregated South. Get this: Don has never eaten fried chicken. It seems Don has never even seen someone eat fried chicken.
A week before the Academy Awards, that moment was discussed on “Saturday Night Live.”
Kenan Thompson, who is black, is interviewing Chris Redd, who is playing the white director of “Green Book.”
Thompson: “I got a question about that last scene in your movie where the white guy teaches the black guy how to eat fried chicken.”
Redd: “That wasn’t the last scene.”
Thompson: “It was for me.”
Me, too. Also: I heard “The Favourite” is dreadful, so I took a pass. I couldn’t get past the halfway mark in “Roma,” which is predicted to be the biggest winner at the Oscars. I saw “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the screen of the guy next to me on Jet Blue, without sound, and kind of liked it as a silent movie. I skipped “Vice” because I don’t care how talented the actor is, I’m not wasting one more minute of my life on Dick Cheney. And as for the deeper problems with “Green Book,” read Wesley Morris’s analysis of the film in the Times.
It’s not just that this is a blah Oscar field. For me, it’s that I saw several better films that either didn’t get nominated or, if they did, are destined to lose. Before or after the Oscars, you might consider watching them. Caution: It’s always annoying when you, excited by a film to the point of needing to talk about it and the only people you can talk to haven’t seen it and don’t want to.
SHOPLIFTERS
Like “Roma,” which has been heavily promoted and is said to be the best foreign film, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film is about a family… sort of. If I told you the plot, it wouldn’t help, because it doesn’t feel as if you’re watching a story about the family of shoplifters taking in a crying little kid and what happens next. It’s more like you’re watching these people live. And, with each scene, you see a little more how they are with one another and what the relationships mean. And then…. there’s something that you might have picked up along the way, but you didn’t, and suddenly there’s a reframing of the story. With one shot — a woman’s face, seeing someone for what she knows will be the last time — I’ll never forget. I saw “Shoplifters” with an audience that was 99% Japanese. Their rapt attention told me we were seeing the same movie: a masterpiece. [To buy the DVD or stream the film from Amazon, click here.]
LEAVE NO TRACE
I’m President of the Debra Granik Fan Club. Her first films were industrial videos for trade unions in the Boston area. The subject: people doing their jobs. Good training. Now she makes films about a few unforgettable characters in a concise story about work, money, location and grit: Jennifer Lawrence’s debut in Winter’s Bone and now the father-and-daughter in “Leave No Trace.” Thomasin McKenzie gives an Oscar-worthy performance. Granik, once again choosing a story about outsiders, was robbed of a nomination. Later, we’ll look back and understand our connection to the PTSD-afflicted vet who has chosen to flee our current national nightmare — and get how good a film this is. [To buy the DVD or stream the film from Amazon, click here.]
BLACKkKLANSMAN
If there is justice, Spike Lee wins an Oscar. It’s politically provative, screamingy full, and mostly true. How does a black cop in Colorado convince his chief to let him infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan? Why, with a white partner. Possibly the funniest line of the year: “With the right white man, you can do anything.” [To buy the DVD or stream the film from Amazon, click here.]
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME
A terrific, ripped from the headlines premise: a down-on-her-heels writer becomes a successful forger. The sharpest script, knowing and unromantic, and cynical and hopeful as New York. Melissa McCarthy in a breakout performance. Richard E. Grant should win Best Supporting Actor. [To buy the DVD or stream the film from Amazon, click here.]
AT ETERNITY’S GATE
Did the world need another movie about Vincent Van Gogh? No. But as it turns out, it needed this one, from Julian Schnabel who is possibly even better a director — The Diving Bell and the Butterfly — than he is a painter. Schnabel sees Van Gogh his way, from inside. And, for the first time, you feel the urgency — the necessity — of self-express. Willem Dafoe is transporting. The Times: “not just an exquisite film but an argument for art.” Me: I saw it twice. [To buy the DVD or stream the film from Amazon, click here.]
But ok… GREEN BOOK.
[To buy the DVD or stream the film from Amazon, click here.]
And there is one film, still in a few theaters, worth driving miles and miles to see….
NEVER LOOK AWAY
Three hours long. In German. Starting just before World War II, ending around the time of the Berlin Wall. Again, about a painter (loosely inspired by the life and art of Gerhard Richter). Could this possibly be less appealing to you? Well, I saw it with a theater of toffs, and those jaded New Yorkers did not breathe for three hours. Because what they were watching is a universal story: how you discover what you’re supposed to do, how you make your life matter. There’s a terrific New Yorker piece about the connection between the director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, and the making of the film. Click here to read it.
