Oscar the grouch

I've seen four movies nominated for Oscars this year, and a bit of a fifth, which is about one more than my average at the time the nominations come out. Moderate pleasure at the ones I saw.

BlacKkKlansman. Curiosity as to the strange plot - African American cop investigates the local KKK chapter by impersonating a racist over the phone - led me to rent this, and I'm glad I did. It's got tension, righteousness v. evil, a good buddy relationship between the two cops, and a little humor, though not as much as the trailer would lead you to expect. I was slightly incredulous at the way the cops expected the Klan not to notice that the guy who showed up in person (because he had to be white) was different from the guy they talked to on the phone, even though that was the way the true story worked. At the very end, the cinematography suddenly turns into some kind of cheap-rent blaxploitation film. I suppose this was done for some reason that white people just don't get, because I certainly didn't.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Is it redundant to say "weird" if it's a Coen Brothers movie? What interested me about the sequence of Western tales that made this up is that, though they were all grim stories about death, the mode of storytelling varied greatly. Nos. 1-2 - despite their topic - were light and sort of goofy, a la Raising Arizona, and were the only part of the movie I wanted to see a second time. Nos. 3-4 are just grim. No. 5 is startlingly realistic in terms of its storytelling, startlingly because it's the only one of them like that. That also makes it the only real gut-puncher. No. 6 seems to be merely symbolic, a la Barton Fink, which is not a compliment.

The Incredibles 2. Though I'd rather enjoyed #1, I only saw this animated superhero film because B. rented it. I love the characters, but the plot was dreadful.

First Man. Perhaps it deserves all the technical awards it's nominated for, but it's not a good movie. The biography of Neil Armstrong it's based on went overboard on specifics - it even tells you how all the Apollo 11 astronauts took their coffee. But the movie is just murky and vague. Half the characters are never identified, so you don't know who they are; and evidently you're expected to read the contents of Armstrong's mind by just looking at the actor's face, because nothing else is provided.

Roma. Began to watch this on Netflix. Even the opening credits bored me to tears, and nothing that happened in the next five minutes changed my mind, so I turned it off.

Nominated movie I haven't seen but most want to is Can You Ever Forgive Me? which I missed on its brief run in the theater. Possibly considering First Reformed, though afraid it will be as crappy as There Will Be Blood. Reviews left me dubious about The Favourite and Vice, although their topics as historical films interested me, but they've both received so many nominations (6 major-category nods each, more than anything else this year) that maybe I'll give them a try. A Star Is Born? If someone puts it in front of me, I'll watch it; otherwise probably not.

Movies not nominated for anything, but that I most want to see, are also historicals of recent coverage: The Front Runner and On the Basis of Sex.