Star Pick with Kurt Angle

Taking the world by storm, 1955's Marty, a simple, heartfelt, honest, and poignant story of one man’s Saturday night (and the following Sunday), won both the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (the first year the award was named thusly) and Best Picture at the Academy Awards – the first, and to date, only motion picture to win both coveted prizes (though Billy Wilder’s 1946 film noir The Lost Weekend also won the two top prizes, though at that time, the Cannes Award was known as the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film). It was also a major box office sensation. Following thirty-four year old butcher Marty Piletti (Ernest Borgnine – acting since 1951, he had his first big break in 1953's From Here to Eternity), he is an everyman – a warm, caring, short man who is a little heavy round the middle. . . in his mid thirties, he is the last in his large Italian-American family to remain unmarried.

Arguably one of the greatest adaptations of all-time, 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird is a masterclass in writing (Horton Foote won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay), direction (Robert Mulligan), cinematography (Russell Harlan), and, something not always talked about, casting. You would think that one of the most iconic films to have ever come out of Hollywood would have had an easy time being made. . . yet, Universal really had no interest in making the movie (lacking action, a love story and a typical Hollywood ending, they felt it may feel bland on the screen) – that is, until Gregory Peck fell in love with the piece and signed on to do it (oh, how star power changes a studio’s perspective on things).

Alfonso Cuarón’s most personal film to date (even more so than Y Tu Mamá También), 2018's Roma seeps to the screen from the filmmaker’s own memories. . . a love letter to his beloved housekeeper who helped raise him in the neighbourhood of Roma in Mexico City all those years ago. His first Netflix feature, the streaming service gave Cuarón the freedom to create his vision his way. . . with a near limitless shoot time, the man not only directed, but also wrote, produced, co-edited, handled cinematography, and even shot the motion picture. Filmed in striking black and white, it is like seeing the most picturesque of monochrome postcards, but eerily intimate ones.

In my recollection, there has never been an Academy Award Best Picture nominee as contentious as this year’s Bohemian Rhapsody. With issues arising from the onset (supposed disputes during production leading to the film’s director, Bryan Singer, being replaced – Dexter Fletcher took over about two thirds of the way through, though Singer still holds the credit of director), it has since received mixed reviews from critics (with a measly 62% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes – extremely low for a Best Picture nominee), yet has been a huge box office success (already having earned over 800 million dollars, most fans have loved it, though there are a vocal group of naysayers). . . the most recent twist – the movie surprisingly took home Best Motion Picture - Drama at the Golden Globes, placing it in a rather intriguing position leading into the upcoming Oscars. A last note, a scene from the film with rather excessive editing has been spreading around the internet (look it up to get an idea of some peoples’ thoughts). The tale of the iconic rock band Queen, the narrative begins all the way back in 1970, wrapping at the band’s Live Aid performance in 1985. The biopic delves into all of the areas one would expect. . . the formation of the group, consisting of singer Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee), bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello), and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), their unique and unified way of making music, their dealings with their manager, John Reid (Aiden Gillen), lawyer, Jim Beach (Tom Hollander), record executive (Mike Myers – a nice casting touch, considering the classic Bohemian Rhapsody scene found in Wayne’s World), as well as groupies, their meteoric rise, subsequent trials and tribulations, and of course, the love that grows and fades, as well as the hate and disdain that builds up over the years (after all, what do you expect when rock star egos are involved?).

A film that gives you an excellent idea of how partying has changed, and not, 1932's Hot Saturday, directed by William A. Seiter, is an American pre-Code motion picture that pushed the moral boundaries of the time, or as the tagline put it, “They called me ‘BAD’_ So I tried to live up to my name!”. Following Ruth Brock (Nancy Carroll) , she is a young bank teller, a working girl and morally-minded flirt – loving daughter of a cigar smoking ne-er-do-well (William Collier Sr.) and a taskmaster of a mother (Jane Darwell). Living in the little locale of Maryville, it is an example of gossipy, small-town America.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” – Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss. A classic tale from the one and only, a positive story often gifted to those who are on their way after graduating. . . but, what happens if you take the wrong path, or as the master word twister so cheekily put it, “You can get so confused that you’ll start in a race down long wiggled roads at a break-neck pace and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space, head, I fear, toward a most useless place. . .”, or, as the title of today’s short film puts it, I Will Crush You and Go to Hell (2016). Co-written and directed by the team of Fabio Soares and Célia Paysan, the twenty-two minute short is actually, in essence, a back door pilot used as a teaser in order to make a feature length film (full warning, no ending as of yet).