Weekend Oscar Watches: Another Round, News of the World, Wolfwalkers

If you are headed into a long weekend, perhaps you're in need of some entertainment. Behold, I've watched more movies that are nominated for Oscars in random categories that may pique your interest!

Another Round: Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, this movie snagged Denmark a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, and then surprisingly, snagged a Best Director nomination. After I watched the whole thing, I was terribly conflicted as to how I felt about it. This movie seems to be such a critical darling, but my takeaway was that it reflected the overly white male voting body of the Director's Guild, because who else would fall so hard for this film? It's about four teachers at a Danish school who are going through mid-life crises and are bored with their lives. At a 40th birthday party (so on the nose) they discuss a theory by the psychiatrist Finn Skarderud that humans should maintain a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.05 to be at their best. So Martin (played by the fab Mads Mikkelsen, who is certainly the best part of this movie) decides to take this advice and starts to day drink. The rest of the group follow and soon they are delighting in how wonderful it is to be slightly tipsy all the time and what an improvement it has made in their lives.

However, boys being boys, they can't just stop at a BAC of 0.05, and as they push the boundaries of their little experiment, things quickly go haywire. Ultimately, this is a beautifully shot movie that made me long for pre-pandemic fun times at bars, but the actual story left me a bit cold. This very much feels like a movie about men and their inability to deal with their feelings when they get older, and as a lady, my reaction was YAWN. It is definitely an entertaining, darkly comic film, and a wonderful escape during lockdown. But do I think this movie deserved this much awards buzz? No. 

News of the World: Given that this movie stars Tom Hanks and was directed by Paul Greengrass, I was surprised it didn't get more love from the Academy. Then I watched it and understood why it only snagged nominations in more technical categories. This is a gorgeous movie, and fully deserves recognition for Best Production Design and Best Cinematography. The sweeping vistas were stunning, and a lot of care went into recreating the American South in 1870. But I simply could not find myself to care too much about this film's story, which is based on the novel by Paulette Jiles. 

Hanks stars as Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, an ex-Confederate Army soldier from Texas (i.e. he was on the losing side but has gotten over it better than most) who now roves across the country to read out newspapers to folks and tell them what's going on in all the distant reaches of the land (like Pennsylvania!). On his travels, he stumbles across a young girl named Johanna (Helena Zengel) who has had the misfortune of being orphaned twice - her parents were German immigrants and were killed by a band of Kiowa Indians who then took Johanna in and raised her; but then the Kiowa were killed by soldiers and she lost her adopted family too. Now she only speaks Kiowa and Kidd cannot communicate with her, but he discovers she has some surviving relations and decides to take her to them. Along the way, they have many adventures with miscreants and ruffians, there are gunfights galore, and it all just felt very repetitive. Hanks and Zengel are delivering great performances, but ultimately nothing kept me compelled. Maybe on the big screen I would have been captivated by the scenes of them riding across the desert, or camping at night, or encountering a vicious sandstorm. But this story plodded along and I was not that invested.

It's a perfectly fine movie, but ultimately forgettable. And given the current focus on diversity in Hollywood, it is truly a shame that the only people speaking Native American languages in this movie are white. Meanwhile, all the hostility about Reconstruction and white Southerners feeling injured after the War felt a bit too real given our current political climate. As well as what a difference it makes when they get some news from the North instead of a steady diet of whatever Southern news has been fed to them. Apparently things haven't gotten much better for us since 1870. Sigh. 

Wolfwalkers: Nominated for Best Animated Feature, this movie is a treat for your eyeballs. Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, it tells the story of Robyn Goodfellowe, a young English girl who has moved up to Kilkenny, Ireland in 1650 with her father, who is a wolf hunter. He has been summoned by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, to rid the local forest of a pack of wolves, but when Robyn slips off on an adventure, she encounters Mebh, a young girl who is a wolfwalker, and can control these wolves. Despite initial misunderstandings, the two become friends, but of course, Robyn cannot get her father to understand the non-violent methods he could employ to get rid of the wolf pack. There's lots of family drama, and plenty of villainy from Cromwell, who wants all these wolves dead no matter what.

Every scene of this movie is exquisite, whether it's the beauty in the backgrounds, or the visceral gorgeousness of Mebh's wild red hair. The voice actors are all wonderful, though at times you may need subtitles to cut through some of the more heavily Irish dialogue, but this is a fun and captivating movie that will keep you guessing till the end. There are a ton of fake-outs, and you are constantly making bets as to who is going to die when, but at the end, you will likely be satisfied with the outcome. It also features a lovely soundtrack, so your ears will get as much of a treat as your eyes. Overall, this is a worthy weekend watch and a perfect diversion for those days when you really need to escape the present.