the Church is an institution ... made of men. It's passing. My faith is in the eternal. I try to separate the two

This time around, I went for Oscar nominees. That's a good way of seeing what everyone else is seeing - right?

Parasite (2019) - "Greed and class discrimination threaten the newly formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan."

Source: I borrowed the Blu-ray from the public library
I watched it because: it won loads of awards, and I'm a fan of Korean cinema
IMDB: 8.6/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 98% Audience: 90%

notable quote: "'Rich people are naïve. No resentments. No creases on them.'

    'It all gets ironed out. Money is an iron. Those creases all get smoothed out by money.'"
story: a series of complicated circumstances lead the Kim and Park families to become entwined
visuals: stunning
costumes, hair & makeup: extremely effective in showing class and cultural differences
acting: Woo-sik Choi (Ki Woo) is fantastic

intangibles: this is a crazy rollercoaster of a movie. I liked it a lot but was left bewildered about what I'd just seen, too. That may be a healthy response.
Academy Award winner:
• Best Picture (becoming the first foreign language film to win this award)

• Best Director—Bong Joon Ho

• Best Original Screenplay

• Best International Feature Film (i.e. Best Foreign Film), South Korea
Academy Award nominee:
• Best Production Design

• Best Film Editing
overall: recommended

Spotlight (2015) - "The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core."
Source: I borrowed the Blu-ray from the public library
I watched it because: it was up for a bunch of awards
IMDB: 8.1/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 97% Audience: 93%

notable quote: "90 fuckin' priests?! In Boston?!"
story: it's about the power and conscience of the press, which is something that has interested me a lot, ever since my mass communications days in college
visuals: so well done that it was easy to forget that I was watching a movie. I was drawn in.
acting: Brian d'Arcy James' Matt Carroll was the embodiment of the personal effect of a public job. Michael Keaton's Walter "Robby" Robinson was all about the similarities and significant differences between the old guard and the new media. And Stanley Tucci's Mitchell Garabedian was a beautiful, gruff, I-don't-have-time-for-this-shit marshmallow with a huge intellect and a pure heart.

intangibles: I generally dislike Mark Ruffalo (Mike Rezendes), who I've seen on chat shows behaving badly. However, there's no denying that he, and the rest of this cast, made this film brilliantly, accessibly watchable. It is "an important movie" that doesn't lose its entertainment value - that's really something.
Academy Award winner:
• Best Picture

• Best Writing, Original Screenplay
Academy Award nominee:
• Best Supporting Actor—Ruffalo

• Best Supporting Actress—Rachel McAdams (Sacha Pfeiffer)

• Best Director—Tom McCarthy

• Best Film Editing
overall: most highly recommended

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - "A writer encounters the owner of an aging high-class hotel, who tells him of his early years serving as a lobby boy in the hotel's glorious years under an exceptional concierge."
Source: I borrowed the Blu-ray from the public library
I watched it because: it won a bunch of awards
IMDB: 8.1/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 92% Audience: 86%

notable quote: "'Me and the boys talked it over. We think you're a really straight fellow.'

    'Well, I've never been accused of that before, but I appreciate the sentiment.'"
story: typical Wes Anderson, this is about nothing until the end where you realize, all at once, that it's almost too big to understand. 
visuals: Anderson makes such bright, beautiful, colorful, elaborate pictures
costumes, hair & makeup: flashy, bizarre, and distracting at times
acting: Ralph Fiennes (M. Gustave) and Tony Revolori (Zero Mustafa), who hold nearly the entire picture, were marvelous

intangibles: it's a weird one, even by Anderson's terms. He's made a couple that I've loved (see, e.g., The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited), some that just confused me, and a couple that I strongly disliked. This one is somewhere in the middle.
Academy Award winner:
• Best Costume Design

• Best Makeup and Hairstyling

• Best Music, Original Score

• Best Production Design/Set Decoration
Academy Award nominee:
• Best Picture

• Best Director—Anderson

• Best Cinematography

• Best Film Editing

• Best Writing, Original Screenplay
overall: recommended with reservations

Birdman, or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (2014) - "A washed-up superhero actor attempts to revive his fading career by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway production."
Source: I borrowed the Blu-ray from the public library
I watched it because: it was up for a bunch of awards, and the director also directed The Revenant (which I loved)
IMDB: 7.7/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 91% Audience: 77%

notable quote: "People, they love blood. They love action. Not this talky, depressing, philosophical bullshit."
visuals: spectacular, flashy, bright
acting: some all right, some not so bad, and some awful. This helped me realize something that's been sneaking up on me for a while: I don't like Emma Stone at all. She - like so many actors of her era - substitutes sardonic expression and deadpan delivery for emotion and connection. 

intangibles: crazy. Bewildering, stressful, and strange. No likey.
Academy Award winner:
• Best Picture

• Best Director—Alejandro Iñárritu

• Best Writing, Original Screenplay

• Best Cinematography
Academy Award nominee:
• Best Actor—Michael Keaton (Riggan Thomson)

• Best Supporting Actor—Edward Norton (Mike Shiner)

• Best Supporting Actress—Emma Stone (Sam Thomson)

• Best Sound Mixing

• Best Sound Editing
overall: not recommended 

Patton (1970) - "The World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton."
Source: streamed
I watched it because: I was on a date and it was agreeable
AFI: 100 Years ... 100 Movies (original list 1998) #89

IMDB: 7.9/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 94% Audience: 93%

notable quote: "Gentlemen, from this moment, any soldier without leggings, without a helmet, without a tie, any man with unshined shoes or a soiled uniform... is going to be skinned."
visuals: expansive and well-shot
acting: George C. Scott is brilliant in this film. He walks the line between 'admirable' and 'deplorable' just right, portraying Patton as a relic of a bygone era rather than just a singular jackass.

intangibles: this film is a sort of right of passage for history nerds, like it or not. Watch it for the scope, the epic nature of the undertaking, the coordination of efforts, the cinematography... and for the story of the way things used to be, in a simpler (and less "evolved") time.
Academy Award winner:
• Best Picture

• Best Actor—Scott (he refused to accept the nomination and the award)

• Best Director—Franklin J. Schaffner 

• Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material not Previously Published—Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North

• Best Art Direction - Set Decoration

• Best Sound

• Best Film Editing
Academy Award nominee:
• Best Cinematography

• Best Effects, Special Visual Effects

• Best Music, Original Score
overall: recommended

[the title quotation is from Spotlight]