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Mark Schweickart
I am wondering how our Oscar predictions are lining up this year. I’ve seen most of the nominees for best picture, which are:
- “The Father” on Amazon Prime Video.
- “Judas and the Black Messiah” on Amazon Prime Video.
- “Mank” on Netflix.
- “Minari” on Amazon Prime Video.
- “Nomadland” Stream on Hulu.
- “Promising Young Woman” on Amazon Prime Video.
- “Sound of Metal” on Amazon Prime Video.
- “The Trial of the Chicago 7” on Netflix
I haven’t seen “The Father” or “Promising Young Woman,” but have seen the rest. I am impressed that three of the nominees appear to be fairly low-budget, independent-type films, “Nomadland,” “Minari,” and “Sound of Metal,” and I loved all three of these very much – especially “Sound of Metal.” I was not expecting to like this given the false impression I had that this was about some sort of Heavy Metal band. Instead it is a fascinating study of a drummer fated to lose his hearing, and adjusting to the life of being a deaf person. It was quite moving, informative, and always subtle about where it would end.
I decided to pass on “The Father,” dealing with an elderly man’s dementia. No thanks. Too close for comfort.
The biggest disappointment for me in this list was “Mank,” a film by David Fincher about the writer, Herman Mankiewicz, struggling with the writing of "Citizen Kane.” Aside from the topic that sounded fascinating, the really cool thing that excited me was that this film was written by Fincher’s father. I was expecting this could be something I could point to when harassing my filmmaker son Derek about taking up one of my writing projects, but alas, ‘Mank” turned out to be, in my opinion, frightfully boring. Oh well.
"Judas and the Black Messiah” is an important piece of history, but such an infuriating and sad story that it was hard to take pleasure in watching it.
Similarly historically poignant, but much easier to watch was “The Trial of the Chicago Seven,” which will be my pick for best picture. What can I say I’m a huge Aaron Sorkin fan.
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