I like your movie blog, megan.

Thanks, Zen. Right now it's pretty much all movies all the time but it occasionally becomes opera blog. It used to be a much better mix of books, film, and music. I need to get back to that at some point.

Just back from 1917. It was incredible. The w Two leads are subtle and compelling. Andrew Scott gave an amazingly rich and lived-in feel to his character during his short screen time. Roger Deakins is BRILLIANT.

Really enjoyed Little Women. I would like several of the capes, particularly Amy's

Finally saw Ford v Ferrari and quite enjoyed it. Really good structure, well paced, with terrific acting all around. Plus, it's always nice to see a good sports film that's not about baseball or boxing. I actually left it with a better appreciation of what high-level racing takes. It doesn't quite crack my top ten but I can see why it got the nominations it did.

Really good structure, well paced, with terrific acting all around.

Yep. It's just a solid, well-made and well-acted film, and I enjoyed it thoroughly even though I don't give two hoots about car racing.

Last night was Producer's Guild Award and 1917 won it for Best Picture, which is a good barometer for its Oscar chances. On a related note, Hahaha I love Rian Johnson.

Right now, my Oscar winner predictions go something like this:

Best Picture: 1917
Best Director: Bong Joon Ho (vs. Quentin Tarantino)
Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix
Best Actress: Renee Zellweger
Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt
Best Supporting Actress: Laura Dern
Best Original Screenplay: QT for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (vs Noah Baumbach for Marriage Story)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Greta Gerwig for Little Women
Best International Feature: Parasite
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 4
Best Documentary: American Factory
Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins for 1917
Best Editing: Parasite
Best Production Design: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Sound Editing/Mixing: 1917 or Ford v Ferrari, maybe they'll split them since there are 2 awards
Original Score: Thomas Newman for 1917
Make up and Hair: Bombshell
Costume Design: Little Women (vs OUATIH)

OK, that's a complete shut-out for The Irishman, which doesn't sound quite right. Not sure which of my picks I'd push out to make room for it though.

I gotta admit, I haven't watched American Factory yet but I mostly want it to win for Best Doc so that Barack and Michelle Obama (who are producers for the film) could go up on the stage and give a rousing acceptance speech.

I follow Rian Johnson on Twitter (he's a fun follow if you ignore the occasional d-bags that still yell at him in his mentions for ruining Star Wars > 2 years later) and he just posted a photo of the gift he received from Danica McKellar (!) for mentioning her in Knives Out: [link]

That made me smile really wide. I *have* watched some of McKellar's TV movies -- haven't seen any thrillers, but she makes for a plucky and likable rom-com heroine. Also, happy as a clam that both Johnson and Daniel Craig are planning for a second Benoit Blanc movie!

On an unrelated note, NYT has an interview/oral history with the cast and crew on the making of Linklater's Before trilogy, which are some of my favourite films ever made: [link]

Talk about romantic poetry for Gen-Xers everywhere. Trying to imagine Michael Vartan (who was apparently the second choice) as Jesse breaks my brain a little. Who knows if he'd have had the same magical chemistry Hawke had with Delpy? We might not have had the 2nd and 3rd films.

I follow Rian Johnson on Twitter (he's a fun follow if you ignore the occasional d-bags that still yell at him in his mentions for ruining Star Wars > 2 years later) and he just posted a photo of the gift he received from Danica McKellar (!) for mentioning her in Knives Out: [link]

That is fantastic.

I saw a news item - it may have been originally from The Onion - but seemingly an older, devout Catholic lady had a saint's statue set up in a shrine in her home and she's pray to it. Turns out the saint was Elrond ....

Not the Onion. [link]

That is beautiful. I didn't see anything in the article about how effective prayers to St. Elrond were. Would he be the saint of fathers whose daughters make unexpected choices?