The USA’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is about to host the annual Oscar Awards. These are the movies that I watched and can comment on.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once (9★★★★★★★★★): the best film overall. Fun and provocative. The Chinese actors are AMAZING. I would vote for Best Leading Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. Not to mention visual effects and wardrobe. The amount of different outfits that only blinked on the screen is staggering.
2. Triangle of Sadness (8★★★★★★★★): my favorite movie from Oscars’ 2023. Yet, I know it has zero chance of winning anything. It’s a harsh social satire that will definitively make you scratch your head. It’s a running joke in my family about the taste for scatology and this movie delivers.
3. Top Gun: Maverick (7★★★★★★★): a fun sequel that leverages the original movie. Great visuals, and a good story.
4. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (7★★★★★★★): lovely adaptation. It’s a bit dry in the storytelling department, with abrupt story deviation (mostly due to the source material), but I liked it.
5. Elvis (7★★★★★★★): Austin Butler, the actor playing Elvis delivers a top-notch performance. Tom Hank’s character, in counterpart, is kinda annoying. The movie has a strong first half and a sluggish second one. It’s one step of being a documentary, but enjoyable nonetheless.
6. All Quiet on the Western Front (7★★★★★★★): the opening scenes showing the boys eager to participate in the war contrasting with the first moments in the field are real lessons. But the movie is a series of misfortune tales merged.
7. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (7★★★★★★★): it was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. I’m now curious about the original text. It might be good. Again, it’s still a zoo of characters with a boring detective.

Also, let’s check what will be said about the Will Smith “incident” from last year.

Every year I try to compile a list of games, books, and movies I experienced. For the complete list, check the Ratings. Here we go (sorted by rating)!

Slow year, I assume.

1. CODA (10★★★★★★★★★★): a heart-melting story about a girl that wants to be a singer. Her parents, however, are all deaf and need her to manage work and fit in. It was my favorite movie for the 2022 Oscars.
2. Being Ricardos (8★★★★★★★★): very interesting movie about the production of the “I Love Lucy” TV show that I did not know. Both Nicole and Javier are superb, deserving acting award nominations.
3. Dune (Frank Herbert) (8★★★★★★★★): I read Dune to prepare myself as I did with Foundation. But unlike Asimov’s weird adaptation, this Frank Herbert novel movie is phenomenal. It’s just part 1, which leaves several subplots opened, still: gorgeous, fun, and well-written and acted.
4. Marighella (7★★★★★★★): the first black leader against the military dictatorship in Brazilian history.
5. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (7★★★★★★★): lighthearted MCU movie. Funny characters and a fun story. One of the best comic MCU movies. Yet, it’s not my cup of tea.
6. King Richard (7★★★★★★★): the story of Serena and Venus Williams’ father and their beginnings in the tennis world. Nice performance of Will Smith (not my pick for the best actor performance, like at the Oscar), but the character is so annoying that I got annoyed.
7. The Menu (6★★★★★★): my first movie at the theater. Nice thriller.
8. The Matrix Resurrections (4★★★★): meta meta meta. And boring. Despite the very first movie, the Matrix franchise is a big disappointment.

Documentaries

No one this year :(

Animations

1. Forky Asks A Question (10★★★★★★★★★★): holy molly… I laughed out loud at this Pixar mini-series.

TV Shows

1. Ted Lasso (S2) (9★★★★★★★★★): showrunners tried to innovate the formula by telling whole episodes from the perspective of secondary characters. Not all that great. Still, among our favorites.
2. Bad Sisters (S1) (9★★★★★★★★★): A Rotten Tomatoes recommendation, it was a blast. The Prick is a prick. Recommend.
3. This is Us (S1) (8★★★★★★★★): great premise and lovable characters. Themes of adoption, family bonds, and personal differences. I cried in several episodes. Great start.
4. Sandman (S1) (8★★★★★★★★): I loved the comics. I read exactly the amount of the source material that was used in this season, so I knew the references. Very well produced. The side stories are odd at first but then we get the overall arch, just like the comics.
5. Succession (S3) (7★★★★★★★): the worst season so far. It tries to give at least one full episode for each main character, but many episodes are fillers. Also, the number of cataclysmic events that are just ignored in the next episode is getting old. Unlike “Game of Thrones”, no one will die. One day the audience will not care because nothing is really at the stake. Kendall is too annoying for my taste.
6. The Devil's Hour (S1) (6★★★★★★): Thriller about a woman and her boy having some kind of paranormal abilities. Murders and police investigations are in the mix. A Rotten Tomatoes highly rated that did not click for me.
7. The Foundation (S1) (4★★★★): I loved the book, but this adaptation drifted from the source material to the point is unrecognizable. I could not pass the 4th episode.

Just a list of movies that I’ve seen this pandemic year.

1. Be Kind Rewind
2. Best in Show
3. Borat
4. Borat Subsequent Movie
5. Bridesmaids
6. Coming 2 America
7. Cruela
8. Don’t Look Up
9. Enola Holmes
10. I Care a Log
11. I’m Thinking of Ending Things
12. Incendies
13. Judas and the Black Messiah
14. Lady and the Tramp
15. Last Knights
16. Live Twice, Love Once
17. Mank
18. Minari
19. News of the World
20. Okja
21. Radioactive
22. Roma
23. Shadow
24. Sound of Metal
25. Sound of Silence
26. The Chamber
27. The Dig
28. The Father
29. The Informer
30. The King
31. The Midnight Sky
32. The Trial of the Chicago 7
33. Us
34. Wasp Network
35. White Tiger

Documentary

1. American Factory
2. Honeyland

Animations

1. A Cat in Paris
2. Luca
3. Soul
4. Your name

Shows

1. Loki (S1)
2. Mandalorian (S1, S2)
3. Morning Show (S1)
4. Queen’s Gambit (S1)
5. Ted Lasso (S1 S2)
6. The Spy (S1)
7. This is Us (S1)
8. Tiger King (S1)

I was wandering in the giant wasteland of TV shows, changing channels every 15 seconds, when I noticed that animation Sing was about to start. I decided to give it a try, but I had no expectations about it. For me, it would be another cashing animation movie.

When it ended I felt super surprised about how good it is. I was crying like a baby, but it is something I do often. 😛

The movie is about a theater owner that dreamed about having a great and successful show but got failure after failure. Deeply in debt, he decided to create a singing competition. It attracted hundreds of contestants, which one with a unique style. The narrative is very predictable, but nevertheless very emotional one. The main theme is believing in your dreams. But there is a bit of father-son relationship for some characters. They don’t run away from the typical stereotypes. And there a very few surprises along the way.

Visually stunning, the song selection is very nice (could be great, however) and the characters are very well realized. My personal favorite is the chameleon assistant. 😛 The cast is very good here, with solid performances. Some of them I did not notice who as whom. I don’t know if the actors actually sang for the movie, but I doubt it.

Very good pop corn time movie to watch with the family.

Just after watching a fun and light comedy with Sing, another channel started to show Queen of Katwe. I heard good comments when it was in theaters, so I decided to keep up the marathon.

It tells the story of Phiona Mutesi, a real life girl from the village of Katwe, in Uganda, that end up being a very good chess player. It is a very typical against-all-odds and follow-your-dream kinda story. The poor girl has to face all the prejudice for being women and poor (but not about being black, because the whole movie is basically on Uganda, which such thing is nonsense) to get a place under the sun.

Her unexpected success transformed the lives of her family and of the many people of her village. She became a celebrity at very young age, which influenced her personality. Year after year, she started to behave as a spoiled kid, believing that she was invincible. With the family support, she realizes the most valuable things in life in the end.

The acting of the protagonist, from Madina Nalwanga, is excellent. The entire media focused the attention to the beautiful Lupita Nyong’o that plays Phiona’s mother, but the real star here is Madina. Phiona is portrayed as a timid, introspective girl, but Madina played in a way that it still makes the character very, very likable. You cheer for her. Even being in a chess match!

The other kids are also surprisingly good. It is always a challenge to work with children.

My main complaint with the story is the sub-plot of her older sister. I don’t know if the book that was based on uses this character to a greater purpose, but in this motion picture this subplot, while gives hints about the whole situation of Phiona and her mother, does not go anywhere relevant.

The visuals are great. The poverty is displayed in a way that brings emotions but is not there to provoke shock. The African colors and styles gives it a very distinctive and beautiful look.