little women | the m0vie blog

168. Little Women – This Just In (#—)

Posted on February 5, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with guests Charlene Lydon, Rioghnach Ní Ghrioghair and Aoife Barry, The 250 is a fortnightly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.

Receiving an urgent telegram summoning her home, Jo March reflects on the life that she has lived. As memories come flooding back, Jo contemplates friendship and family against the backdrop of her New Hampshire upbringing.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: aoife barry, best picture, charlene lydon, film, Greta Gerwig, little women, Movie, oscar, Rioghnach Ní Ghrioghair, saoirse ronan | Leave a comment »

Hindsight is 2020: In Defense of the Best Picture Nominations…

Posted on February 5, 2020 by Darren

It’s a strange position to be in, to mount a radical argument that the Best Picture race is actually fairly solid this year.

To be fair, there are legitimate grievances to be had. The Academy went with old favourites in several of the acting categories, overlooking amazing work. The Best Actress category would be stronger if the voters opted for Lupita Nyong’o for Us over than Charlize Theron for Bombshell. The Best Supporting Actress race would have been more interesting had Kathy Bates for Richard Jewell been replaced by Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers. The all-male Best Director category is also frustrating, considering the fine work done by directors like Olivia Wilde, Lulu Wang, Céline Sciamma, Lorene Scafaria, and more over the past year.

However, there is also something inevitable about the tone of the debate over the Best Picture race. The Academy Awards is never going to actually please everybody. There are several hundred films released every year that meet the criteria for eligibility. Taste is inherently subjective. Everybody likes different things. More than that, the Academy is a large body comprised of a variety of different voices, especially after recent diversity pushes to modernise the membership. Even if there was a list of (up to) ten films that would satisfy everybody, the Academy would never be the body to produce it. And that is okay.

Instead, the Best Picture nominees this year offer a snapshot of cinema as it was in 2019. They offer a glimpse of the breadth and the depth of mainstream movie-watching, a list of nine very distinct films that offer nine very distinct perspectives on where the medium is and where it might be going. The beauty of the Best Picture nominees this year is that there’s something for everyone, but nobody gets everything. This seems fair, even if the impulse is to want an entire slate that reflects personal taste.