A new year, a new sub-category on the Thursday Movie Picks feature. This series is hosted by Wandering through the Shelves and offers you a weekly prompt to post some movie recommendations/talking points according to the theme. Usually, you are supposed to post about 3-5 examples, which I find a very manageable amount.
This week is part of the Oscar Winner Edition, which will pop up every now and then during the year and will let us focus on movies that received the Academy Award. I have a confession to make here and it is that I often skip the critically acclaimed stuff and rather watch my unknown indies or the super mainstream stuff, but let’s try and see what I can talk about in terms of Best Picture winners anyway.
Parasite
This movie made history for a reason. I watched it with part of my family and I am pretty sure that the majority did not enjoy it and it was a bit violent for me too at times, but the subject matter and execution were still 100% worthy of the four awards. I can still remember almost everything about it so clearly and the subtitles were no issue at all. Get over those, people!
The King’s Speech
I had this super strong obsession with Madonna’s movie W./E., which is about the brother King George took over for. It was lovely to see the other side of the story and especially his struggles with his stutter and how he overcame it in the King’s Speech. Also, Colin Firth is always very enjoyable to watch.
Slumdog Millionaire
Not saying this movie is perfect in terms of representation at all, but I watched this on the plane home from the US when I was 15. I was both excited to see my parents again, but also deeply sad that I had to go back home. It was such an odd mix of emotions and with the flight seeming endless, this movie actually managed to occupy my brain quite well. For that, I appreciate it a lot.
Nominees Who Would Have (Also) Deserved the Win
The Academy can obviously vote however they like, but here are some movies I also liked (this does not mean they always should have won instead of the actual winner, but are stuff I enjoyed):
- Little Women
- Jojo Rabbit
- Black Panther
- Lady Bird
- Get Out
- Arrival
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Life and Other Disasters 
King’s Speech, Slumdog Millionaire, JoJo Rabbit, Black Panther, and Get Out are all great films!
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Yeah, I couldn’t really narrow it down to only the winners.
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Get Out is such a great movie. Peele mixes social commentary with Twilight Zone-esque plot twists (in the case of US, quite literally inspired by a Zone episode). Get Out does not have a wasted moment in it, and for SF fans, Richard Herd’s cameo is wonderful. I bought the annotated Get Out screenplay last year (it’s printed to look like a 1970s mass-market paperback, complete with black & white photos!) which explains Peele’s thought processes in every scene; it’s a fascinating read, if you can find it!
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Thanks for letting me know about that! I have a couple scripts from shows such as Normal People and Fleabag, but they aren’t really annotated, they’re just the scripts printed out. This sounds super interesting.
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My favorite part of the screenplay is the stage direction introducing Bradley Whitford’s character. “He has a bad case of Dad Humor, and is the kind of person who pronounces garbage, gar-baahj.” As a teller of terrible Dad Jokes myself, I feel seen!!
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I still have not seen The King’s Speech but anything with Colin Firth is usually brilliant!
We match with Parasite which just blew me away, even though all the entries that year were amazing.
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It’s definitely worth a watch if it’s on TV again or something like that. 🙂 (meaning King’s Speech)
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I love Parasite but the other two are meh… I’ve seen them, I remember them but there’s nothing I’d go back for.
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I just struggled finding winners I have watched at all ahaha none of these movies are true favourites of mine. Mostly I just have fond memories of the circumstances under which I watched them, but not the actual film.
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An excellent selection once again! Parasite was such a mind-blowing movie on an international level. I was amazed by how some could downplay its greatness because of its foreign language and the necessity of subtitles.. I don’t even remember the last time I didn’t leave subtitles on a movie myself!!!
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Thank you! If anyone denies the importance and greatness of Parasite, I will fight them haha I do have to say that I don’t like subtitles very much. My eye is always drawn to it and depending on the cinematography, I find it really distracting and sometimes I miss the subtleties of the performances when I inevitably look at the letters instead of the faces even though I understand everything. Obviously, I understand that certain people need it and even prefer it and that’s totally cool. I watch enough international content to need translations, but I do not like them when I know the language. I try to avoid them.
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