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Hacksaw Ridge (2016) - This is just the wrong movie at the wrong time for me.

It's an American simpleton with wide-eyed beliefs based on nonsense. I'm a little on overload with those lately. It's a celebration of religion. I have no respect for that.

I didn't like the love plot - kinda made me wanna barf a few times. Didn't like the girl.

But okay, the guy does some heroic stuff in the end no doubt. He betrays the spirit of his beliefs a couple times but whatever. He saves lives. He shouldn't have been there and he got lucky and it was Hollywooded up - but I guess the basics of it happened and he richly deserved the decorations he received.

But this movie is not for me.

I'll go 4.4

Here's a picture

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Manchester by the Sea (2016) - This is a really good movie. As far as being a Best Picture nominee, it doesn't seem to be about enough. It's human drama - and the crappy crap that can happen to humans - and the way humans deal with it. Relationships. Not exactly ground-breaking. But it's intelligent and there are a few fresh takes along the way that I enjoyed.

Hell, it's a really good movie.

Casey Affleck is the huge favorite to win Best Actor right now and that will be deserving. (If they ever gave that award to Ryan frickin' Gosling I would have to freak out on everybody's head. I like him fine but he's NOT THAT GREAT OF AN ACTOR PEOPLE!!!) But no, a lot of Manchester is about showing things through acting rather than spelling things out with dialogue - and it is extremely well done.

So yap, things are proceeding in a suitable way as far as that category of the Oscars. As far as support, Michelle Williams is always welcome in my field of vision.

Anyway, I watched it yesterday and I am still processing it today - and I feel like that might go on for a while. That's a good sign.

For now I'm going to give it the same rating as Arrival at the top of the Best Pics nominees I have seen - and I will continue to cogitate on the matter.

8.2 out of 10


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Manchester by the Sea (2016) -
For now I'm going to give it the same rating as Arrival at the top of the Best Pics nominees I have seen - and I will continue to cogitate on the matter.

8.2 out of 10


Yeah, no, with a quiet day at work today, some cogitating was done.

Manchester by the Sea - rating going up

Arrival - rating going down


also

La La Land - rating was originally up but dipped a bit - but is on the rise again
 
Hidden Figures (2016) - For some reason I went into this thinking I wasn't going to like it but it was good.

It tries to straddle the line between legitimate award contender and popcorny people-pleaser. For me, it's ultimately a little too people-pleasy to be a serious award contender, but it's completely watchable. The time flies by. A few little eyerolls in there for me - clumsy messagey contrivances - but I'm sure it's off-the-scale inspirational to some demographics of viewers.

Hey it's inspirational to me. It's good. It's nice. I'm not even sure what I feared. I guess I thought it might be uncomfortably condescending. Like, hey, remember the space race? Well it was black people - women no less - who were totally responsible for winning that for the USA - so let's pat them on the head. But no, it wasn't that. It was three real black women who did real stuff at NASA (with their accomplishments spiffed up a bit no doubt.)

Anyway I liked it.

7.4 out of 10

Being good at math ---> it's cool.


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