Best Picture Nominee or Description of My Nine-Year-Old?
By: E. R. Catalano
Tags: Academy Awards, Parenthood, Children, Oscars, Humor

The Academy Awards are tonight, so that means it’s time for my annual roundup of all the movies nominated for Best Picture. As always, and in the interests of full transparency, I report my movies-seen to movies-nominated ratio, and this year I saw two of the nine movies, which is my “Oscars par” since I’ve been doing this, and which makes me eminently qualified to predict how the show will end: with me asleep on the couch.

So now it’s time to sum up this year’s movies and how they reflect life with my nine-year-old daughter.

Joker: Let’s say you know a person who seems harmless but also puts out serious ticking time bomb vibes. Let’s say they also think they’re funnier than they are. And if they are confronted with reality, there may be an eruption of violence at worst, or, at best, the performance of a weird dance that makes all observers uncomfortable. Would this be their mother’s fault? I think not.

Ford v Ferrari: A cutthroat competition. Fast-paced action. Testing the limits of physics. A strong chance of catastrophe. The observer’s just along for the ride. This checks all the boxes of spending a day with Zoe. So let’s just ignore the fact that we live in Brooklyn and we don’t own a car.

1 out of 10 scientists find their handsomeness boring.

1917: Wartime: There are impossible orders to follow and it’s a race against time or there will be terrible consequences for many. One camera tracks the action. . . . 2020: Dinnertime: There are impossible orders to follow, the consequences if I fail will be listening to complaints followed by a refusal to eat a perfectly healthy meal. It’s a race against time, bedtime, after which I can finally rest. One long tracking shot, viewed from my sad face.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Described by one reviewer as “bold, beautiful, and brutal,” conjuring nostalgia for the past, where things seemed better, but in reality featured a main character prone to epic tantrums. Add in a lot of purposeless hanging out which eventually ends in violence. Still, I would like to have a stunt double.

2 out of 10 scientists get 2 other handsome actors confused with these 2.

The Irishman: The similarities astound! First of all, this movie spent some years in development hell — an apt description for pregnancy! Zoe’s early years were characterized by an incipient criminal enterprise, alternately pointing the finger at others or refusing to incriminate herself, and an aborted attempt to bring down the Cuban government. Among her set, I suspect finger-painting is a euphemism for murder. And at the end of a day, I could use some de-aging software, cause three hours sometimes feels like forever.

Parasite: Do I even need to say anything?

Marriage Story: This is a deep dive into the slow painful dissolution of a marriage with complicated emotions and no easy answers. Supposed to be brilliant, but also, y’know: BUMMER. I think the point is how having a child can destroy a marriage. But I disagree. I think anyone who has a child knows the opposite is true. Children keep you together because nothing unites people like having a common enemy.

9 out of 10 scientists came up with an equation: unusual looks + good actor = handsome?

Jojo Rabbit: If, when Zoe was smaller, she had an imaginary friend, is it out of the question it would’ve been Hitler? Would she have been capable of butchering a tiny cute rabbit without any remorse? One thing I know is, she’s not above spreading propaganda when it suits her.

Little Women: Along with Joker, this was one of the ones I saw. I took Zoe, in fact. I thought Zoe might be upset by the death of Beth (spoiler alert! but not really, because everyone should know that), because her death bothered me as a kid. When Beth died I thought that meant only the good died young, as in, that was why she died, so it was maybe better to not be so nice, like conceited Amy. As a Catholic child, I felt conflicted. Anyway, I shouldn’t have worried. Zoe took Beth’s death in stride, not having related to her gentle kindness at all. She did relate to Jo, which was nice, except Zoe didn’t understand why Jo broke things off with Laurie. Laurie was funny, and the actor Timothee Chalamet is “cute.”

1 out of 1 middle-aged white mothers who write this blog want to smack him in the face.

Her mother has a different viewpoint, and at my age, though I do still relate to Jo, I relate more to Marmee, and though Laurie may be cute, it’s more in the pejorative sense of the word, as in, You think you’re real cute, don’t you, Laurie? Or maybe I relate more to Aunt March, especially as played by Meryl Streep. Who wouldn’t want to have enough money and maturity not to care as you delivered barbed comments to your dependents. #FutureGoals. I also wouldn’t mind being Meryl Streep. Especially at Oscar time. #Winning.

This post originally appeared on Zoe vs. the Universe.