Best Picture Synopsis Duned, We're Duned I Tell You...

 

The Oscars are coming this weekend, my favorite holiday of the year.  Of all the ten movies nominated for best picture this year, I noticed a common thread—family.  Here's my pin-head synopsis of the films going for the big prize.

Belfast – family and what are you going to do when the neighbors want you to support their war against neighbors who happen to be of a different religion and you’re nine years old and have your first crush on a girl from the other side of the tracks, and you don’t understand why everyone wants to kill everybody

Dune – family and what are you going to do when the Emperor sends your family packing to another planet to rule over a peaceful desert tribe that wants nothing to do with you, but your destiny is pre-determined and you can’t hop the next shuttle out of Dodge because your mom’s a “witch” and you’re having visions of the tribal “princess” getting up close and personal and shanking you.

West Side Story – family in the 50’s, but not the Ozzie and Harriet variety, who come from different cultures, and stubbornly hang onto their racist notions that because you’re different, you can’t play nice in the sandbox so you have to have a rumble about who owns the sandbox. (see above)

CODA – family and what you would do to protect them from losing their livelihood, in this case fishing, while trying to pursue a career in the arts, when you’re the only member of the family who can hear and you’re in your teens with a dilemma the size of buick

Licorice Pizza – family who thinks you’re wasting your time getting involved with a child actor who thinks he’s going to marry you and gets you to buy into some pretty hair-brained schemes to make money and it helps that you can drive, are old enough to buy booze, and you have little to no self-confidence

King Richard – Based on the story of how Serena and Venus Williams became top-seeded tennis players from Compton due to their dad’s 78 step plan to make them into the top-seeded tennis players – the ultimate in stage dad/manager

Drive My Car – Family, grief, and how a director/actor and his driver come to terms with death in both of their lives

Nightmare Alley – Family, murder, and carnival tricks, murdering your family, and big whopping heaps of mayhem.

Don’t Look Up – Family torn apart by a large planet killing asteroid, which somehow brings family together, but not for long 

Power of the Dog - Dysfunctional family 101 - home on the range with a bucking bronco...what's for dinner?  Hasenpfeffer and a little bit of the hair of the dog that bit you.  Mother, mother, may I have some more la petite marshmallows in my cocoa?