Maudie (2015)

This is a quirky movie based on the life of the Canadian outsider artist Maud Lewis (1903-70) tells the tale of a woman betrayed by her family, all but written off by society, who found solace in a can of paint. .  It is not what at first glance sounds like a charming, feel good story.   Maud (played by the spectacular Sally Hawkins in a believable performance), does channel her compulsion to create into a cottage industry, selling her appealingly naive postcards and decorated boards to day-tripping city sophisticates. She was celebrated in the press. President Nixon owned a piece of her work. But central to her life, and to this film  is Maud’s relationship with her family and with her husband, itinerant fish peddler Everett Lewis (an almost nonverbal Ethan Hawke). Maud has disabling arthritis and something else that has left her odd in both appearance and interactive style.  Her family are deeply ashamed of her and she is treated horribly, leaving her little choice but to live with the man who ultimately becomes her husband.  He is an orphan who has attachment issues and is differently but equally impaired.  Together they form an allegiance that just barely works, but is greater than the sum of its parts.  Strangely enjoyable.

Allied (2016)

I still have a handful (well, now I have four) movies left to watch from the 2017 Oscar season, and it seems reasonable to try to wrap that one up (for example, 2016 is not as good and 2015 is a mess) .  This one features Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard in a WWII spy movie. They are a surprisingly good couple, first as colleagues who conspire to kill an enemy of the Allies in Casablanca during WWII.  Shades of the movie of the same name, I know, but this is later in the war, when the Germans fully occupy Morocco.  Cotillard is trusted by the Germans, and her "husband is supposed to be French like her, but he is woefully under prepared for that role and she carries him over the goal line.  They inevitably fall in love and he moes her to London,w here his next assignment is.  She appears to give up the spy game to be a mother, and their love seems genuine enough, but in the end it all comes apart at the seams.  It was nominated in the area of costume, and it is my choice in the category (although I would be wrong about what the Academy chose).

City on the Hill, 1630

 The phrase was first read, in modern times, in the New Testament, and it was late co-opted by many, including President Reagan.
My forefathers are the most famous of the early Americans who adopted this concept, generally meant to signify a godly hand in the success of those who came here.  The passengers of the Arbella who left England in 1630 with their new charter had a great vision. They were to be an example for the rest of the world in rightful living. The Puritans were all about the religion, and while the phrase has been co opted by many since John Winthrop gave his inspirational speech while still on board the ship, it comes from the parable of Salt and Light that Jesus delivered in the sermon on the mount.  "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden."
I bring this up now, almost 400 years later, to remind myself that we started this whole mess that we have become with a golden vision that can still guide us as a country.  We are a country of immigrants, dominated by no one culture, and none of us is without a role is displacing someone who came before us, with the exception of those descended from slaves, who came without consent and were brought by those without a moral compass.  These are truths of history that we must grapple with and the idea that we could once again, should we vote for such representation, be a city on the hill.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

The National Book Award winner, one of the New York Times Best Five books of fiction in 2017, and most compellingly, read by Obama.  This is a compactly powerful read that will transport you to places you may not want to see, but you will not regret it.  The book will read easily and quickly, but it will stick with you.
This book demonstrates  the slow apocalypse being experienced by poor African Americans.  It is the story of a broken family living on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.  Leonie is an uneducated black woman, high school drop out, a mother at 17, hooked on drugs, married to a white man named Michael whose cousin killed her brother and who is himself completing a jail sentence. Their son Jojo acts as a bridge between grandparents Pop and Mama (the only real parents in the story) and his toddler sister Kayla.
Hearing that Michael is about to be released from prison, Leonie, her children and her equally substance-addicted white friend Misty embark on a long trip north to meet him. It’s a road journey without epic or transcendent qualities: an often amusingly banal odyssey full of gas station ennui, dodgy drug deals, kids who teeter between nausea and ravenous hunger. On the return leg, when a police officer stops their car – with its motley crew of ex-cons and crystal meth fans – it seems probable that one of them will be gunned down, but somehow they don't.  There are no overt acts of injustice here, just the ravages of centuries of prejudice and a tilted playing field coming to continued fruition.

Sing, Unburied, Sing is effective as a short and poetic critique of US history. The landscapes it describes with forensic ferocity are toxic and uninhabitable.  To thrive, one must escape.

A United Kingdom (2015)

This is a really good, and also true, story that is well told, about Seretse Khama, the King of Botswana, who came to England to be educated and met the love of his life and married her in 1948.  She was a true partner to him in every way.  She loved him deeply, but she also shared his vision for his country, and together they forged their way through some very challenging waters.  A mixed marriage was not the least bit acceptable socially and politically at the time.  South Africa, another British colony, was instituting apartheid.  Interracial marriage was illegal in some parts of the United States until 1972, when the Supreme Court overturned the practice.  And it wasn't just the British who opposed it.  Seretse's own people were dead set against it.  You can sympathize with them.  He has married the occupying enemy and brought her into their camp.  So no one sees the use in this but them, and together they outfox the British, retain mineral rights on their land, and here is the important part, diamonds are discovered, which funds the infrastructure of the entire country.  Nicely played.  There is also a brief moment with Churchill, which fits into a theme related to him in films of late.

Cucumber Salad with Celery, Apricots, and Pistachios

This is another Josh McFadden salad, which features things that you can reliably get year round, so a nice winter salad.  I had to make a couple substitutions and it was quite delicious.  I especially like the emphasis on the balance between salt, sour, sweet, and bitter.  It is a Southeast Asian sensibility that translates well to dishes beyond the traditional.  The voluminous herbs can be expanded when they are at their peak in summer and fall.

1 1/2 pounds cucumbers (a mix of varieties if possible)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 medium celery stalks (leaves reserved)

1/2 cup dried apricots, quartered

1 garlic clove, smashed and peeled

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup pistachios, lightly toasted (see below) and chopped

1/2 cup lightly packed mint leaves

1/2 cup lightly packed flat-leaf parsley leaves

1/2 cup lightly packed basil leaves

1/2 cup lightly packed celery leaves (if you have them)

1/4 teaspoon dried chile flakes

Extra-virgin olive oil 

 

Peel the cucumbers if their skins are tough or waxed. Trim the ends of the cucumbers, halve lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds. Cut the halves crosswise on an angle into very thin slices.

Put the cucumbers in a colander and toss them with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Set aside for at least 20 minutes to extract their water and give them a “quick-pickled” flavor.

Meanwhile, cut the celery crosswise on an angle into very thin slices and soak in ice water for

10 minutes. Drain, pat dry, and pile into a serving bowl.

Put the apricots, garlic, and vinegar in a small bowl. Let the apricots plump for 10 minutes.

Pat the cucumbers dry and add to the celery, along with the pistachios, mint, parsley, basil, and celery leaves (if using). Remove the garlic from the apricots and discard it. Add the apricots and vinegar to the bowl, along with the chile flakes and 1/4 cup olive oil. Season with black pepper, but don’t add more salt yet because the cucumbers will have absorbed a bit. Toss, taste, and adjust the flavors with more salt, vinegar, chile flakes, or black pepper until it’s bright and zingy. Finish with another drizzle of olive oil. Serve right away.

Ferdinand (2017)

I always, or at least almost always enjoy the movies that are nominated in the Best Animated movie category and this year is no exception.  This is my dead last choice of the five nominated movies and I enjoyed it immensely.  I wouldn't even have been terribly upset had it won (which is in stark contrast to how I feel about my last choice in the Best Short Animated category winning, which is that I till feel it is the worst choice of the entire Oscar season).  This movie is charming and should definitely not be missed.
Ferdinand and his fellow young bulls have a very poor understanding of what the long term options are for bulls, and that is part of the charm of the movie.  While children might also not get from the very beginning that they are caught between a rock and a hard place (go to the meat packing plant immediately or die in the ring), the adults will, and so the movie works on a number of levels, as the best animated movies for children should.  Ferdinand is a kind bull with a gentle heart and we root for him to evade his fate and be free.

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

Despite a lengthy driving vacation that included absolutely no reading in the car, I managed to get some reading accomplished, and this is one of the books.  It was long listed for the Booker Prize and while it was not the winner, it was a very good read.
The thing to love about this book is not so much the story but the telling of it (as is really so often the case with the Booker Prize long list).  It opens with a young girl gone missing, but the book isn't really about that so much as the ripple effect that such a thing has across a community.  The tighter knit the community the greater the effect.  Tragedy is the one thing that is easier to overcome collectively if we in fact don't much care for each other.  This book is incredibly subtle in the way that the loss of this child hits each and every character in the book in an ongoing way, regardless of their connection to the girl herself.  It is beautifully written, easy to read, and will be a little haunting in the days that follow finishing it, something coming up in the back of your mind in a very good way.

Celery Salad With Dates, Almonds and Parmigiano

Josh McFadden's new book Six Seasons is simply spectacular.  I have made six things out of it (sheer coincidence), and when I could not renew it from the library, I knew that I could not wait for my turn to come around again and had to buy it.  This salad is one of many that I will be posting in the weeks ahead.

• 8 celery stalks (leaves separated and reserved), tough fibers peeled off, sliced on an angle into 1/4-inch-thick pieces
• 4 Medjool dates, pitted and roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup roughly chopped toasted almonds (see below)
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon dried chile flakes
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, shaved into shards with a vegetable peeler
• Extra-virgin olive oil

1. Put the celery in a bowl of ice water and soak for about 20 minutes to heighten the crispness. Drain and pat dry, then pile into a medium bowl.
2. Add the celery leaves, dates, almonds, lemon juice, and chile flakes and toss together. Season generously with salt and black pepper. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Add the Parmigiano and 1/4 cup olive oil and toss gently. Taste again and adjust the seasoning so you have a lovely salty, tart, sweet balance.

Serve cool.

You can toast nuts and seeds a number of ways — in the oven, in a dry skillet, with high heat or low heat (or brined and roasted) — but your goal is to go from raw, bland, and soft to fragrant and crunchy. The color should be just a few shades darker than the raw nut or seed and should be even, not simply dark around the edges.
Quantity is up to you

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Spread the nuts on a pan in a single layer. For a small quantity, a pie plate is good; for more, use a rimmed baking sheet.
3. Bake until you smell the nuttiness and the color is deepening slightly, 6 to 8 minutes for most whole nuts.
4. When the nuts are done, transfer them to a plate so they don’t keep cooking on the hot baking pan.

Determining doneness can be tricky because the final texture won’t develop until they’re cool, so at this stage, you’re mostly concerned with color and flavor. To be safe, take them from the oven, let cool, taste one, and if not done enough, pop them back into the oven.

Paddington 2 (2018)

The second version of this story is much like the first, an unexpected breath of fresh air. It is a delightful mixture of earnestness, slapstick and unabashedly using word play, it manages to charm viewers of all ages while also offering an incisive statement about the importance of being kind to others who may seem foreign or different.  The allegory about immigration it offers is both timely and necessary in the post-Brexit, post-Trump world in which we live.
I am going to remain more or less silent of the plot, other that to say that there is a  pop-up book  that plays a central role in the story, and pay particularly close attention when it is in play.  The sequences in which we see it are the highlight of a film filled with dazzling special effects. Paddington’s fur is vividly tactile, and his immersion in this live-action world is absolutely seamless. When the pages of the pop-up book come to life through a variety of animated styles—and Paddington finds himself wandering through them as he tells the story of Aunt Lucy’s love for London—it’s transporting both visually and emotionally.  A real uplifting movie that left me wondering if I really had to wait another three years for the next one.

Elmet by Fiona Mozley

This Booker-long listed debut is an elemental, contemporary rural noir steeped in the literature and legend of the Yorkshire landscape and its medieval history. It is the British version of the film "Winter's Bone", a book of rural poverty and living off the grid that starts of well enough and quickly goes downhill from there.
Doncaster is the nearest orienting location, the geographic heart of the ancient kingdom from which the novel takes its name.  Daniel and his sister Cathy live in a house they and their father John have built with their bare hands near the main East Coast rail line. The thing that is missing from their efforts at happiness is that they do not actually own the land.  They are squatting in the woods of a vast estate, but the owner wants something from John that he does not want to give, and worse yet, the two sons, used to getting exactly what they want and when they want it, start to eye Cathy.  Much like a number of movies that I have seen, the voice in my head yelling "Get Out" was not far astray from what could have averted the disaster ahead.  Beautifully written and tragically ended.

Tortilla Soup with Chicken and Corn

We love all of the ingredients in this soup, and we love soup, but for some reason we rarely make tortilla soup.  For a recent family dinner at our house, we made this version, which has some shredded chicken in it, but that could be eliminated for a vegetarian version of this soup without it suffering at all.

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4  garlic cloves, minced
• 1 medium jalapeno pepper, chopped
• ¹⁄₂ medium red or green pepper, whichever
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cups frozen corn
• ¹⁄₂ cup water
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 teaspoon  chili powder
• ¹⁄₄ teaspoon cayenne
• 6 c. broth
• 2 (14 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
• 2 cups tomato juice
• Top with fried tortilla strips, fresh onion, sliced avocado, fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Sauté onion, garlic, jalapeño and green pepper with olive oil in a large pot until soft.
2. Add all the rest of the ingredients to the large pot and bring to a boil.
3. After about 15 minutes, remove the chicken breasts and shred.
4. (Two forks work well to pull the chicken apart!).
5. Return shredded chicken to the pot and simmer an additional 45 minutes.
6. Serve, topped with various toppings as desired.

Marshall (2018)

This movie is nominated in the category of Best Song this year, and like another nominee in the category, Mudbound, the song does not appear until the credits start to roll.  Interesting, but ultimately a trivial point.  Chadwick Boseman does a very respectable job portraying Thurgood Marshall and Josh Gad is his able assistant.  Gad was also in Beauty and the Beast, also in the role of side kick.  There is an interesting connection this year with several actors and actresses being in two Oscar nominated movies, but not as nominated actors themselves.  Again, I digress.
The case is one that occurred early in Marshall's career.  He is a young attorney being deployed around the nation by the NAACP to defend black people who are being wrongly accused and because of their race, being considered guilty before they even go to trial.  This case was in Connecticut and it was significant not because their were segregation or civil rights issues at stake.  It was a case of a black man left with little choices when a white woman seduced him then proceeded to lie about it and accuse him of rape.  She was a victim of domestic violence and while doing a despicable thing, she too was trapped.  It wasn't until Marshall saw that aspect of the case that he uncovered what in fact had actually happened.  It is a great story, and I would love to see this as a mini series, with more of Marshall's cases brought to life.

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

This is a linked novel with the author's previous novel "My Name is Lucy Barton".  The story focuses on the town that Lucy grew up in and the people in her childhood life, only now largely from their point of view.  It is somewhere between a novel and linked short stories.
Though some characters, including Lucy herself,  have moved away, most of the characters still hail from Amgash, Illinois, a town of corn, soybean, and dairy farms, where everyone knows everyone else’s business.
The damage that parents do to their children weaves through the stories. Two female characters form a friendship by bonding over the shared trauma of mothers who left their families. The sister of one of them is so haunted by “the terrifying and abiding image of her mother alone and ostracized” that she tolerates and even abets her husband’s deviancy. The Barton children reminisce over the awful things their mother did to them and while Lucy got away, her siblings did not.  Nor did many of those who were more fortunate than she, which is the cautionary tale part of the story.  Like a number of the movies that I watched over the run-up to the Oscar's this year, the thought "Get Out" ran through my head throughout the story.

The Disaster Artist (2017)

This is about a movie called "The Room", which is vying for the title "Worst Movie Ever Made".  I believe there is a lot of competition at the bottom of that pile, but that particular movie certainly is in the running, and this movie basically chronicles the making of a bad movie.  There is almost nowhere to go but up from there.
One review I read stated that just like Meryl Streep in Florence Foster Jenkins, James Franco hits all the wrong notes right.  The end of the movie shows clips from the movie they are chronicling and it is uncanny how pitch perfect the Franco brothers manage to get it.  That, however, is just not enough for me.  Not nearly enough.  The movie was nominated only in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay, and it did not win.  If there is one movie that I would recommend skipping in this Oscar year, it might be this one--the one hesitation that I have is that "The Room" gathers crowds to this day, and watching this movie would be a less painful way to access that cultural phenomenon than watching the original.  That would be my guess, at least.

The Greatest Showman (2017)

This was nominated for Best Song, which might seem like a less important nomination, but much like Beauty and the Beast and it's nomination in Costume and Make Up, a nomination in any category does reflect a certain quality to the film.  And this film is a musical, after all, and so having good music is important.
The story is a telling of the Barnum story, the beginning of one of the most successful entertainment enterprises of its time and the man behind the big ideas.  I am always surprised and impressed when I see Hugh Jackman sing and dance.  The other movie that I saw him in this past year, Logan, exploited, shall we say, other aspects of his acting talents. 
There is a lot of walking a thin line between the historical context of the 1920's and the sensibilities of the 21st century.  There are those who will see this as a rose-colored-glasses view of what was a pretty exploitive situation. But in a 19th and early 20th century context, the circus and then vaudeville were welcoming places where those who had skills or who were rejected by society could find a home. Barnum put "misfit toys" onstage, saying, in essence, "Aren't they amazing?”  rather that "Let's point and stare."  The tone is set by Jackman's inclusive delight at the parade of humanity before him. It's a moment when ignored people are for the first time really seen.

Star Wars: The Last jedi (2017)

Oh my goodness, this is really not a very good movie.  I watched it now because of the Oscars, and it was nominated in four categories, but I certainly would have gotten around to it in any case, but while it brings back some classic characters (with not much time to spare in one case), it highlights that perhaps this was never that strong on plot, writing, or character development.
Adam Driver is Han Solo's legacy and while I like him in a number of roles I have seen him in, he does not bring a lot of nuance to the bad guy role.  To be fair, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker leaves something to be desired in that category as well.  The high drama is wearing a bit thin, here in the umpteenth permutation of good versus evil, and all the nuances that come in between,  but then again, in the arena of special effects and such, it is a contender.  As one of my kids correctly pointed out, it was better than the most recent Transformers movie.  When put in that context, it was more or less fine.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)

It is odd to see an actor of Denzel Washington's statue act a little on the bumbling side.  He plays an age congruent role as a lawyer who has been in practice for decades solely as someone who prepared the legal case for court cases that his partner litigates.  He has absolutely no court room experience, he is literally dwelling in the Black Panther 1960's mentality, and functioning at a very basic level professionally, and subsisting on a salary that is surely lower than what they paid their secretary.  Then comes the death of his partner and he is cast out and unwanted.  It is painful to watch from start to finish, which includes a middle and end where a shark like lawyer, played to a tee by Colin Farrell, plays him long and hard.  This is yet another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and so remarkably different from the role his was nominated for last year in Fences that you might miss that it was the very same actor if you did not know it to be so.

Winter by Ali Smith

No, I have not reached the end of my Oscar watching extravaganza reviews.  There are more movies than days it turns out, but it is time to take a very short break from movies in order to say something about a book.  This is the second of Ali Smith's seasonal series, and while there are lots of similarities with Autumn in terms of fragments of the story told finally coming together into a coherent end, there is also an underlying bitter narrative of the current state of the Western world, it having taken a giant step backwards in the past couple of years.  Having a successful and popular black president apparently upsets the apple cart.
It’s Sophia Cleves, a very successful retired businesswoman in her sixties, who owns the sixteen bedroom baronial mansion, Chei Bre (Cornish for “house of the mind”). It’s the “dead of winter,” the season characterized as “an exercise in remembering how to still yourself then how to come pliantly back to life again.” Sophia invites her twentyish-year-old son, Arthur, and his girlfriend, Charlotte, for dinner and an overnight stay to celebrate the holiday. The only problem is that, unbeknownst to Sophia, Arthur and Charlotte are estranged and he has hired a 21-year-old Croatian, Lux, to pose as his girlfriend for $1000.  Lux is a stroke of genius for Art.
Sophia is also dealing with a long estrangement from her older sister, Iris, a radical activist. When Arthur and Lux conspire to invite Iris to the family gathering, the “doors of reminiscence” creak, squeak, open and shut in a series of calamitous clashes of class, culture, and recriminations which culminate in a series of bombshell revelations of family secrets.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

This was definitely a movie that I would not have seen if it hadn't been nominated for an Academy Award, but in the end, it was very engrossing.  And the CGI technology, which is the category that it was nominated in, was spectacular.  Again, as I have said about other nominees this year, while this movie was not my pick in this category, I really enjoyed it, much to my surprise.
The story line for monster movies is not really the point of course, but in this it is acceptable.  The movie introduces Kong after less than half an hour, then keeps him (and lots of other big, scary creatures) front and center throughout the film’s  running time. There’s even a moment where another character tells a story about Kong battling creatures and the movie cuts to images of Kong battling the creatures, in case you weren’t getting your fill of monster-on-monster action.  This is not subtle in its rendering of the problems on Skull Island, and does have the subtext of a bunch of guys come in and screw things up unknowingly because they have zero understanding of the terrain, and wow, when have we ever done that?  Pretty much consistently.  The revealing of Kong as hero is well done, and it is well worth seeing.

The Eleven O'Clock (2017)

This short live action movie is a bit of fun.  It is nominated in the category of Live Action Shorts, which is a great category to watch--if you haven't gone to see them before, do so next year.  Or better yet, get the package on Amazon and watch it. 
There is always one in the bunch (sometimes two), and this one is this year's pick.  It is a cute play on a one act farce.  There is a psychiatrist and a patient who believes that he is a psychiatrist.  Which is which.  The secretary is a temporary one, which adds to the believability of the possible mix up, and the tone is just perfect.  It is bright and quick paced and funny, laugh out loud funny, and ever so short.  It is probably my last choice in this category, but it is well worth the short time that it takes to watch it.  And if it won, I wouldn't be at all disappointed.

Watu Wote (2017)

This live action short film that was nominated this year is a recreation of a real event, which is something that several of them share.  It was not my pick, but I very much liked it.
The movie gives audiences a personal look at the events that occurred on December 21st, 2015, when a bus with filled with Kenyan Muslim and Christian passengers was attacked by a group of Al-Shabaab terrorists.
It’s early morning, just before daybreak, as a young woman named Jua (Adelyne Wairimu)  makes her way to a small stall and purchases a bus ticket to Mandera. She asks the ticketing agent a question and is assured that there will be a police escort. Eventually the bus, filled with men, women and children, heads out on its 31-hour journey. Jua is not a likable character, but it becomes clear why.  Her whole family was killed by Muslim terrorists and it has left her with a visceral aversion to all Muslims.  She softens a little as the predominantly Muslim passengers speak with her.  When the police escort fails to appear, and terrorists demand that the Christians be identified, her fellow passengers refuse to give her up.  It is a film that shows us the best humanity has to offer; bravery in the face of terror.

Lou (2017)

While this was definitely not my pick for Best Short Animated movie, I would like to pause and acknowledge what Pixar has done for the art form itself.  Some might say that big studio dollars give them an unfair advantage and therefore they by virtue of that dominate the field.  That is a fair point, but there is more to it than that.  They have raised the visibility of the short animated movie in the modern era, which is for the good of all.  I have loved this category for years, and this year is no exception.  The heart of the story is a bully getting a dose of his own medicine and when he looks in the mirror he does not like what he sees.  It is cute and funny and ultimately uplifting, if a little magical and therefore unrealistic as a solution to a very real problem.  Enjoy it none the less for that.

Loving Vincent (2017)

This is a lush vibrant telling of the story of what might have happened around the death of Vincent Van Gogh.  The characters are drawn from his own paintings of them, and the landscape of Auvers where he lived and ultimately died.  The style is so spot on Van Gogh that it is a visual wonder to behold, so boldly colorful that my son, who watched it with me, felt overwhelmed.  Like what people say ab out Florence, that the art is so intense and so beautiful that you  have to take a break from it so as to not be consumed by it.  Van Gogh is such a sad story of a prolific artist who painted no matter what.  He had no money, he bankrupted his brother for supplies, he was just so driven to produce his work that he could not contain himself, it poured out of him at times, especially when he lived in Southern France, a place that created the backdrops that he so masterfully captured.  It is not my choice in the Best Animated film category, nor is it my second choice, but it is so worthy of being seen.  Do not miss it, a visual feast.

All the Money in the World (2017)

The problem with this movie is that for a person as thoroughly unlikable as J. Paul Getty (played by Christopher Plummer in an Academy Award Nominated role) is that the movie really needs to be an hour and a half.  Nobody should have to sit through a story involving a character this dreadful should not have to do so for two hours.  His grandson was kidnapped and held for a ransom that was the amount he made on a daily basis.  If he had just done what most people would do, the movie could have been fifteen minutes.  Instead he haggles with the kidnappers, refusing to discuss it with them, and essentially allows a relative he professes to love suffer irreversible emotional and physical damage.
Getty was the richest man in the world, but he is obnoxiously self satisfied and arrogant about it.  This recapitulates the  data we have about plutocrats, that they believe they are truly better than the rest of us.  He is also an emotionally stunted and perhaps mentally ill person with access to billions who allowed a blood relative to suffer just so that he can save a few bucks.  If the assertion that he say himself as Hadrian reincarnate has any merit, he was also delusional.  In other words, it’s not the money, it’s him. It is the affront to his power and control, and by god, he wasn't having any of it.  The consequences be damned.  Plummer does an excellent job of being a thoroughly disgusting man with no redeeming qualities, made all the more remarkable by the fact that he was not originally in the movie.  He was brought in when Kevin Spacey left under a cloud of scandal, and did it all being splice in.  It did however made me regret going to the museum that bears his name.

Faces Places (2017)

There is so much to feel good about when watching this movie.  It is not possible to leave the theater and not feel the power of art to raise the spirits of all people, regardless of background or education.  JR and Agnes Varda, two photographers from different generations, drive his specialized truck around France.  The truck has a photo booth and then produces gargantuan prints of the photo immediately.  Each place they stop, places that are neither wealthy nor quaint, they look around, talk to people who live there. device a project and a spot to put it and then enlist volunteers from those around them, paste up the art on walls and barns and trains and water towers, wait around a bit to enjoy the response their project has on the locals, and go on to the next.  The film has a subtext that celebrates Agnes' life as an artist, her relationships with others who are well known names in film and photography as a fitting homage to her.  I loved watching it and I love thinking about it.  I am also wondering if I should have something on the side of my garage like this.

A Fantastic Woman (2017)

This is a Chilean movie that centers on a transgendered woman.  In many ways, that sums it up, but it is so much richer than the sum of its parts.  The movie starts off with scenes of Marina, a beautiful and talented woman enjoying life with her much older boyfriend, Orlando, who then unexpectedly dies.
His death marks a rapid and unsettling unraveling of her life.  Orlando, not expecting to have what appears to be a cerebral aneurysm, has not made plans for Marina in the event of his death.  Nor, I suspect, does Orlando understand the depth of his friends and family's loathing and fear of Marina and what she represents.  She is one moment living the dream, and the next waking up in a nightmare, where she is accused of having something to do with Orlando's death, kicked out of his apartment by a brother who can't wait to collect his inheritance, banned from the funeral, kidnapped and tortured by the brother's compatriots, and basically being vilified for living as a woman.  While this is not my pick to win in this category, there is an awful lot to be said for it, and I would cheer loud and long if it took home the prize.

The Shape of Water (2017)

This is it.  This is my pick for Best Picture in this year's Oscar field.  The director is Guillermo del Toro, and this is my favorite of his movies, even better than Pan's Labyrinth. 
The Shape of Water is a film only del Toro could have made. It’s the world as he sees it - full of injustice, but also, crucially, decency. Where others see pain, he sees hope, where others see fear, he sees compassion, where others see monsters, he sees friends. Every frame of every scene bleeds a passion for the absurd that only he has. From the downright romantic way in which he shoots the monster to the classic Hollywood movie tone he appropriates, he is all about making the horrible sympathetic and revealing the dark underbelly of those who wield power.
Its central characters are a mute woman, an elderly gay man, a black woman, and someone who isn’t a human at all. That sounds historic but it doesn't feel that way. And none of that matters, because of the empathy del Toro has for each of them. He has given them the voice that they normally wouldn’t have.  Sally Hawkins gives a magnificent performance, as does Michael Shannon as the sadistic government henchman.  Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins each garner another nomination as well.  This is really great on so many levels.

My Nephew Emmett (2017)

This is a really interesting short film on Emmett Till.  It is one of two Oscar nominated films that takes a hard look at lynching, which probably still happens in some parts of the rural South and certainly happened in 1955 when this occurred.  Emmett Till was a 14 year old boy visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta from Chicago where he lived.  He was not versed in the humility that was absolutely demanded of African Americans, and it cost him his life.  He said something that the owner of a store he went to felt was disrespectful toward her, and he was kidnapped, beaten, tortured and ultimately shot and put in the river.
When his body was recovered, rather than quietly covering it up, his Chicago family yelled from the rooftops, had an open casket, and published photographs of his mutilated body in Jet magazine.  The deep South was being outed as a place where blacks got no justice and were held in virtual indentured servitude to whites. Poverty is emasculating, and bred sadism as a way to have power.  This film and Mudbound remind us very viscerally of that.

The Florida Project (2017)

Willem Defoe is nominated in this movie for Best Supporting Actor, and in truth, he is at the center of the movie, there is no real story here.  It is more about the decaying of our country, the new projects that exist and the people who live in them.
It’s hard to describe this movie in a way that conveys its greatness without making it sound maudlin and Defoe's role as sentimental. There is some of that, but it is more than the sum of its parts.  It is one of those films that defies its plot description through its execution. It is a film of small notes that combine to form something major, the kind of movie that sneaks up on you and sticks with you.
DeFoe is the on site manager of a cheap hotel on an Orlando strip that includes gun shops, tourist trinket discount shops, and the people who live amidst the squalor.  The motels are modern projects but without kitchens.  Mooey is a kid who is essentially without supervision much of the day.  Her mother, Halley, alternates between ignoring her and inappropriately treating her like a friend, complete with the bad language and the the poor social skills that landed her where she is.  As the movie meanders to an end, Halley spirals downward, alienating ever more people and selling herself without managing to make enough to pay the rent.  It is not the window you want to look through into life in America, but it is one that is increasingly common.

Knife Skills (2017)

This is the second of the Oscar nominated short documentaries to deal with widespread drug use and the consequences of that.  While Heroin(e) focused on the opiate epidemic full on, this film deals with the act of giving people purpose and options when they get out of prison.  In Cleveland, Ohio a restaurant called Edwin's opened with a French chef and a professional sous chef, but the rest of the staff were recently released from prison.  Many of them had limited cooking skills and not one of the featured ex-cons was familiar with traditional French cuisine.  The program at Edwin's, six months in length, is aimed at making them highly trained restaurant workers who can work in a high end restaurant.  They do not all make it through.  Not even a majority of them make it, but those that do have made great strides back to having a meaningful life and a skill they can use.  The restaurant continues to be open, and it is all about what can be done to make a difference.  And the background is that drugs were a part of the picture for a majority of those who were behind bars.  Excellent short documentary streaming on The New Yorker website.