Brad Pitt finally won his Oscar playing a role which in true life was based on Burt Reynold’s stunt man Hal Needham. Pitt won his first Oscar playing this role of Cliff Booth in Quinton Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ which is Tarantino’s classic piece depicting what old Hollywood was leading up to the point of the Charles Manson murders.
I’m happy for Brad Pitt and I know like me he thinks the GOP senators are cowards, but I don’t want to put ‘that’ speech up today because the Oscars should be that one night we don’t talk about Donald Trump. It’s a night we should honor the craft of storytelling. So here’s Brad Pitt giving his speech at the SAG awards leaving off the part where James Lankford and Jim Inhofe are still in search of their better angels.
I only pay attention to seven awards. These were my seven picks.
Best Picture: I had Parasite and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in a virtual tie on my sheet. I’m okay with Parasite in that it was one helluva story told under the genre of a foreign language film with subtitles. Yet this movie grabbed me from the opening scene to the climatic ending. Great screen play.
Best Actor: I had Joaquin Phoenix for his performance in The Joker in another impact film which Bradley Cooper produced. If ever a producer picked the right actor in a film it was this time. Just a stunning performance by Phoenix in this movie. I have no idea whatsoever his rambling acceptance speech meant, but that doesn’t matter. He nailed the performance.
Best Actress: I had Charlize Theron playing Megyn Kelly in Bombshell. More should have been made of this movie which depicts the Roger Ailes era at Fox Network. The only problem with this movie is half of the country thinks the story is fake news propagated by the birthers Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.
Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. He was great and I loved his female pitt bull Brandy who won my Best Performance Dog category. The dog almost stole the show from Brad Pitt and Leonardo. Almost.
Best Supporting Actress: Nicole Kidman was very solid as well for her role as Gretchen Carlson in Bombshell. Obviously not very many people in Oklahoma watched this movie because we all know this could never have happened at Fox with Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly. Deep state fake news…and of course that’s why the network itself paid out millions upon millions to settle out of court and fired Ailes and initially took O’Reilly off the air. But still…fake news.
Best Director: Bong Joon-ho,Parasite
Best Screenplay: Bong Joon-ho, Parasite
My five favorite movies of the year went in this order: 1 Parasite, 2 Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, 3 Two Popes, 4 (1917), and 5 The Irishman.
For the most part…I think the Academy got it right…I just would have gone harder on the female performances in Bombshell.
Get your mind off Trump and enjoy a good movie now and again.