Road to the Oscars

Mom and I decided to watch every Oscar-nominated movie before the Oscars happen for all the major categories. If you know me you know I literally never do this. Movies are not super my things. Not that I don’t like them, I love movies, but I’m never caught up on new ones and it takes me forever to see ones that people are clamoring for. Also, award shows are dumb and don’t mean anything. So anyway, mom brought it up that she wants to watch all the movies and I said okay gurl then we watching all of them INCLUDING Borat. She was hesitant but we decided to go for it. Let’s go!

The Trial of the Chicago 7

We decided to start with this movie because after watching the trailers for all the movies for best picture this one was the one that made us cry the least, didn’t stress us out, or wasn’t Mank (more on that shade later). I think it was a good first choice.

It’s intense, makes you think, and also is a pretty good story. I think the best part of this movie is the conversations we paused it to have. Like the fact that this country hasn’t really changed in 50 some odd years.

I think the other moment that was beautiful was at some point towards the point where Bobby Seale was bound and gagged and forced to sit there and listen to the racist judge, I looked over and I saw Momma Ann’s eyes welling with tears. When I asked her what was wrong she said “I can’t believe my whole life I’ve been existing and not realizing all the terrible things that have been happening around me. I grew up in this white bubble.” Then my eyes started to water and we talked about how we can be better allies and more proactive and educate people. Mind you, we were already doing this, but obviously, the work isn’t over and we need to always stay vigilant. Thank you Trial of the Chicago 7 for reminding us that we are part of the problem and always need to be better.

Promising Young Woman

Ann and I decided to do this movie second cause honestly both of us are a little bit of a mess rn and thought this was the least sad since we didn’t want to cry. In the words of Tatianna, one of my fave drag queens, “Choices”. This movie was fucking intense right off the bat. I was texting a friend when we started it and literally was like “Men are disgusting this guy is taking off her panties while she is passed out wasted. Wow. Go die bro.” Honestly, that was just the tip of the iceberg. This movie goes in hard and just doesn’t fucking stop and you know what? I’m glad it didn’t stop because it’s so fucking real. Also, slow fucking clap for Carrie Mulligan. Cause yo, she fucking did a great job.

And that ending? I’m not going to ruin it for anyone here. But JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THAT AND I HAD MY MOUTH WIDE OPEN FOR LIKE TEN STRAIGHT MINUTES.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Our third movie choice was Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. So off the bat, I knew I was going to have a hard time with this movie. PURELY for the fact that non-musical plays turned into movies is my least favorite form of adaptation. If it was meant to be a movie it would have been written that way. That being said, I loved the story, and much like the previous movie, I was NOT prepared for the ending.

But Viola and Chadwick? Chef’s fucking kiss. They were amazing! And honestly, I had a hard time with watching this knowing that Chadwick was so sick while filming. Ugh, that was rough. There was one moment in the film (and I wish I could remember exactly what but I’d taken a gummy at this point) where my mom was like “wow, nothing has changed in almost 100 fucking years.” And I think that’s kind of the running theme is that America is terrible and if you watch these movies and you don’t see how much we HAVEN’T changed since then, then you might need to do some introspective work.

All in all, I think the battle for Best Actor / Actress is going to be a hard one. Because Carey Mulligan also did a fucking phenomenal job! So we’ll see!

Below is a google sheet of our progress. As we get further we’ll start making guesses as to who will win the category based on what we’ve seen thus far. Keep tuning in to see how our guesses change!

Tata for now! Off to tell white people they’re fucking terrible!