👍 (Oscar 2019 reviews #1) A instant Christmas classic you must have on your Blue Ray shelf.

Rating: 9/10 (12 June 2019)

Green Book is officially this year's winner of the Best Picture prize in the 90th Academy Awards. When I checked the winners online and saw this, I was very surprised. This movie was relatively less well received compared to the other movies (though it is certified fresh with a 78% on RT) so that might have been part of the surprise, but the biggest surprise was the movie it beat; Roma. Count me in as one of the people who were mad that Roma was snubbed. However, after watching this last night my perspective on this whole movie changed. Now this without question is my favorite among the Best Picture nominees this year.
As many point out, the acting in this movie is fantastic. Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali have great charisma and chemistry on screen making their characters very likable. It is the type of performance you just can't forget and want to see again. The reason why this can be a feel good movie is because of their performances and how the characters were designed in a way we can care for, so definitely the acting deserved Oscar recognition.The looks of the film in general is very good and as they say in the movie you will be "knocked out by how beautiful this country is." As you can assume from the set up with a white driver driving a black pianist to the deep south, this film heavily focuses on segregation. But what this film does really well is it never gets off track. Instead of trying to be politically correct and preach political correctness to the audience, Green Book takes it's segregation to it's advantage to deepen the friendship of out 2 leads. I was very pleased to see a heart warming tale about friendship instead of a # Black Lives Matter propaganda. However, this doesn't mean the movie ignores all the important politics of this modern world. A quote that stoop out to me was the quote by Dr. Shirley "If I'm not black enough and If I'm not black enough, tell me exactly who am I ?" In this era where political injection to a certain race is common (eg. if you are black, you need to be liberal), this quote personally reminded me that we should judge people not by race but actually who they are. While not being preachy on political correctness, I think this movie became a important reminder on our modern political climate at the same time. All politics aside this is just a movie that makes you feel so good, and who knew this was a Christmas movie? I am not going to spoil it, but as soon as you finish the movie I can guarantee you will go buy this on blue ray and watch it every Christmas with your family.
As wonderful as this movie is and how much I want to give this a 10/10, there are some issues I need to point out. Though this is not a boring film at all it does some times feel a bit repetitive. The entire second act though it did a very good job building the friendship of the 2 leads felt like a repetition of this: Doc gets in trouble, Tony saves him, Doc teaches him how to write letters. Also the music kind of seemed to be over used a bit too much though the performance scenes were all very good. But the second act is still very good and though it is a bit repetitive you will never get bored. These are very minor issues compared to the positive aspects which definitely out weight the negative.
Overall this is a fantastic movie that will probably be on my blue ray shelf by tomorrow. I think this will be a instant Christmas classic where every family will watch it on Christmas eve as soon as their children turn 13. Though Roma (which I gave a very positive review) might be a better movie if I was to rank all the Best Picture nominees, I think Green Book would hands down be my personal favorite and the one I will re watch the most. I rate it a 9/10 and I suggest you don't just watch it but buy it.