I’m still pretty far behind on recent Oscar winning films. I barely watched anything during the various lockdowns as I much preferred something lighter and sillier during that period. Thankfully they’re all becoming widely available now, which makes catching up really easy. The other day I remembered that this was on Disney+ and decided it finally was time to watch it. Yes, I’m extremely late to the party but let’s not worry about that too much. What matters is that I’m watching it at all.
Did you hear about the drama at the Oscars? Yes, I know. Kristen Stewart dared to wear shorts! I swear the only stories not about the thing were about her shorts. To be fair, they were short shorts but I still fail to see why it was such big news. Oscars fashion is always kind of questionable and compared to many people Stewart looked normal. I think she looked phenomenal. What I didn’t know is whether her nomination was worth it. Was she as good as everyone says or did she just happen to be playing a beloved figure?
So, last night’s Oscars ceremony was pretty memorable, right? It’s a shame that Chris Rock’s bad and offensive joke is the thing that people will remember more than anything. I know most people are focusing on Will Smith’s reaction, and it’s not something I’m dismissing. However, the conversation should really be about why that joke was even made in the first place. You might think I’m a little oversensitive as a fellow alopecia sufferer but that doesn’t make Rock’s joke any less misogynistic, disrespectful and totally unnecessary. Why bring her into it? Why make a joke about an illness that she can’t do anything about? Fuck, Chris Rock.
Thanks to my birthday this weekend, I didn’t have a lot of time to watch a film for my review. So, I ended up doing what I always used to do. Going to whichever streaming service I saw first and finding the shortest film that didn’t sound awful. I figured this based on a true story film would be just the thing. Intense enough to keep me interested but not too long to be too complicated. The fact that this also contained Benedict Cumberbatch’s face was just an added bonus.
I like to think that I’m a musical theatre geek but, the truth is, I don’t actually watch a lot of musical theatre. I’m not just talking about during the Pandemic but in general. I know the classics but there are so many modern examples that I know very little about. Aside from Hamilton, I’ve not kept up with contemporary musicals. Add that to the fact that I’d not watched the BBC3 documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16 and you can see that I wasn’t really rushing to watch the film adaptation of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. But, I also think it should be celebrated for putting drag culture further into the public domain and, you know, Richard E Grant is everything. So, I settled down this weekend to watch it.
I’d started reading The Mystery of Love in February for LGBTQ+ history month. Although, I didn’t really get very far. I just wasn’t in the mood for it and I had plenty of other books to finish first. So, I decided that Pride month was the perfect time to finish it. I ended up listening to the audiobook on my lunchbreaks so it took a few days to actually get to the end but I managed it just in time for the end of June. I actually think getting the audiobook made a big difference to how easy this was to read. Whether it was the narrator, the book or both, The Mystery of Love was the perfect thing to listen to.
After finishing Mr Wilder & Me, I was hoping to start reading Jonathan Coe’s Brexit novel Middle England. However, I knew that if I did that, I would never finish it in time for today’s review. Instead, I went to my Audible library to find a quick read that I’d been putting off. I guess the melding of fact and fiction in Mr Wilder & Me made a bit of an impact on me because I went with this Julian Barnes book. I don’t know as much as I should about classical music and I don’t know as much as I’d like about Russian history. I did know enough about the Stalin’s Russia to have been excited about this one. Could I have done with knowing more about Shostakovich before I went in? Possibly but, then again, wouldn’t I find out everything I needed to know?
When we were younger, my sisters and I really loved the 1993 film Homeward Bound. We watched it over and over again. The film had such an impact on my whole family that we all still quote things from it now. It helps that Michael J. Fox is absolutely amazing in the role of Chance but, really, we just love a good animal story. Especially about a group of them defying the odds. So, when writer Tony Lee Moral got in touch with me about his new children’s book, I definitely wanted to read it. After all, what’s better than the story of an animal defying the odds? The story of an animal defying the odds that is based on real-life.
This week it was announced that, in honour of Chadwick Boseman’s death, his film 42 would be released in cinemas again. As cynical as I might be about the move, it is a wonderful way to celebrate his work as an actor. It was also a great excuse for me to watch it for this review. I have to be honest, I’m no fan of sports movies. Well, aside from The Mighty Ducks, Little Giants and Space Jam. It’s mostly because I don’t really care about sports. I can think of thousands of things that I’d rather be doing than sitting down and watching people kick/throw/hit a ball around a pitch. It’s not so surprising that one of those things isn’t sitting down and watching a formulaic film about people kicking/throwing/hitting a ball around a pitch. And I don’t know anything about baseball. It’s just complicated rounders. However, it felt like the right thing to do.
It’s only my third month of being part of a virtual book club but it’s already given me an excuse to read books that I’ve always wanted to. This month’s selection is another that I’ve been interested in but would never have read off my own back. Mostly because I always thought it would be a letdown. When this was suggested as a possible book, it was picked by someone who had seen the film. Now, I enjoyed Spike Lee’s adaptation of the book as much as the next person but I also knew that a lot of the plot had been made up. The bomb plot, for example, was not part of Ron Stallworth’s story but had been added for the film. I suspected that the person who put it forward was under the impression that the film was accurate. After all, she had described it as “shocking content (of the film was anything to go by)”. When it came to the vote, I went with another choice but was outvoted. I’m not complaining, merely stating a fact. I got my copy of the book and started to read. Boy, was it a bit of a slog.
Yipee ki-yay, motherbooker 