Oscar Night 2020

[Janice Glesser]

For the last 3 years I've made an effort to watch the best picture nominees and best actor or supporting actor movies. Except for "Little Women" I made my goal this year. It makes watching the Oscars so much better. I enjoyed all the movies and no Oscar surprises for me this year except for Best Picture. I was sure either "1917" or "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" would win. But...the Korean film "Parasite" took home the honors. I wasn't disappointed ... just surprised. I'm not use to watching sub-titled movies but "Parasite" was so gripping I didn't mind.

"The Irishman" should have been a mini-series. A three and a half hour movie was a bit much. Thank goodness it was on NetFlix and I could pause it and take a break. However it was a treat to watch De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci do their thing as actors. They are the best of the best. The de-aging special effects were amazing.

[Osi Osgood]

I must say that I was stunned that "1917" (one of the Oscar favorites of this year ... OK but nothing to write home about), won best special effects of the latest Star Wars film. I wonder if this is because we are so used to the Star wars franchise that we just take for granted that the special effects will be special and we just overlook them as, quite frankly, "1917" was really all that hot, especially with the special effects.

[Janice Glesser]

I somewhat agree with you Osi on SFX. There were a lot of effects in the movie, butother than the plane crash 1917...which was pretty impressive...the main special effect was the single-take look. I remember the same effect in "Birdman"...but 1917 took it to a whole new level. I'm not a war movie buff... but I basically liked the movie. The SFX nominees in the other movies were also awesome and hard to know what the academy was judging on.

I did like that they gave the makeup Oscar to "Bombshell." Not my favorite movie...but I was into watching the movie at least 20 mins. before I realized the actor playing Roger Ailes was John Lithgow. I finally recognized his voice...the makeup was that good.

[Larry Arpin]

I had heard about Parasite and thought it was a sci-fi film. But I read on imdb that it wasn't but was intrigued by some of the reviews calling it a masterpiece. So I watched it and I thought it was just an OK movie and shocked it won best picture.

Osi-Did you catch all the transitions in 1917? Some were obvious going in and out of black but some were almost invisible. I thought it was a great film. Much better than Parasite. Ford v Ferrari was really good too even if you aren't into cars.

[Mark Silvester]

Hi all

I think 1917 was a fabulous movie - intelligent, moving an excellent cinematic piece.

Mark

[Douglas Meltzer]

I feel Parasite completely deserved the best picture award. The script, acting and direction were of the highest caliber. Speaking of caliber(!), I liked 1917, however to me the fake single shot motif is a gimmick and there were times I thought the film would have been better served to cut away to other shots.
I was rooting for either Parasite or Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood to take the top honor.

Doug

[Brian Fretwell]

I had heard about Parasite and thought it was a sci-fi film.

Yes, when I heard the title I thought of this 1982 film with the same title.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084472/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3

[Tom Photiou]

Unfortunatly i stopped watching the oscars and baftas when actors and actresses started to use there speeches to pass on there political views. I saw on the news that this year was no exception. It seems that awards must be given to people because they are either a woman or of colour. I thought wards were given on merit.
Ricky Gervais's intro was dpot on when he told them all they had no no idea of how the public live and not to politics. Even funnier when he said most of the film actors etc had spent less time in school than Greta Thunburg.