In anticipation of this year’s 90th Academy Awards, we asked parents with young kids to review some of this year’s nominated films:
The Shape of Water
This movie features water and stunning visuals that are typical of Guillermo del Toro’s directing style. At least that is what it seems like based on the preview. It’s hard to actually go see a movie when your babysitter calls in sick thirty minutes before you plan to leave. –Mark in Portland
Get Out
A movie that has some sort of big twist that everyone was talking about. I don’t want to ruin it for you, so I won’t tell you the twist. Okay, I don’t know the twist because I still haven’t seen it. You’d think someone would have time to watch a movie that came out an entire year ago, but once you have at least one kid who is awake from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. every day you start to max out on being able to watch things longer than twenty minutes. Word on the street is it’s some sort of a horror movie but also has Marnie from Girls in it. But what is the twist? A dream? A murder? Or something more shocking like when you see The Force Awakens a year after it comes out and Kylo Ren pulls off his mask and turns out to be Adam from Girls? – Emily in Grand Rapids
Darkest Hour
Clearly, it’s midnight on December 21st at the North Pole, or when your two-year-old is awake for two hours in the middle of the night every night for a month. But seriously, I can tell you that this movie has very good opening credits, because that is all I got to see of it before my baby started crying and I had to leave the theater. – Quinn in San Francisco
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
The latest movie in the Star Wars franchise provided an interesting backstory for the first Star Wars movie but has some dark elements. You probably already know what the shocking ending is if you listen to a certain parenting podcast that gave it away just three months after it came out. The sound mixing is pretty impressive, so it makes sense that it was nominated for that award this year. Oh wait, it looks like that was actually last year. Sorry. Sometimes I just lose all track of time. – Maria in Cheyenne
Lady Bird
I’m still waiting for this movie to come out on DVD so I can actually watch it, but I have seen some tweets about how great it is, so I can just imagine why. It’s likely an important movie about a bird that turns into a lady, or vice versa. Or perhaps there is no actual bird in it and it’s about a First Lady. Judging from the movie poster, the lady does not seem to have actual wings, and if it had an animated bird in it I probably would have seen it twenty times already. – Chris in Pittsburgh
The Post
It’s either about the postal service or The Washington Post or a really charming piece of timber battling to keep its spot on a farm that a corporate avocado toast factory is trying to take over. I look forward to finding out when I get to see it in five years. – Jen in Atlanta
Ferdinand
This is a charming movie adaptation of the popular children’s book that you might actually see because you can watch it with kids. It has a lot of great messages about friendship, helping others, and avoiding the chop house. Your kids may have some questions after viewing it like, “Do bulls ever really talk?” and “Bullfights are just pretend, right?” There are some action-packed scenes that might be scary for some kids, and you might find yourself brought to tears when you realize this is the only movie you actually saw in a theater this year. – Annie in New York City
