My favorite movie of 2018

Rating: 9/10 (21 February 2019)

The critics review's of Green Book naturally zero in on artistic merit and other factors but I review movies based on how much I enjoyed them and artistic merit is factored in later. Green Book was the movie I enoyed the most this past year. It kept me engrossed from start to finish and at the end I felt that was two hours well spent. Acting was superb, store was fasinating, and it was fairly accurate as biographies go. Even though I came of age during the time period of the movie I had never heard of Don Shirley. His musical style does combine jazz, pop, and classical touches and it played well on the big screen in 7.1 Dolby. A great sound track of his music as well as other popular music of that era. Yes, the movie was somewhat formulaic but so what? It was both funny and dramatic and captured the spirit, good and bad, of the times. I especially liked the way the movie opened with recreated scenes of the famous Cocacabana night club in New York, and ending with the extended family Christmas dinner in the Bronx. The two leads should both get Oscars as should the original screenplay. My overall feeling is the movie somewhat downplayed the racial issues in the south, even though they were disturbing to watch. I have a feeling it was even worse that we northeners could imagine. But maybe that is what made the movie enjoyable - it wasn't a downer by any means, but reflected the good in people for the most part. Go see it. It is a great story with great actors.