Historical movies

I didn't really watch the Oscars on Sunday, but I caught a few minutes during a break at work, and I got to see the Hidden Figures cast bring out Katherine Johnson to a standing ovation. It was great that such an important film was recognized; sadly they didn't win any Oscars, so they'll have to settle for the considerable box office success. Still, I was very pleased later this week to hear about the new Lego Women of NASA set, featuring Katherine Johnson and other STEM women.

As for the rest of the Oscar kerfuffle, I only checked the winners online, in that short minute between the initial announcement of Best Picture and the correction of Best Picture, so I was shocked by the reversal too. Though I've not seen either Moonlight or La La Land, I'm glad that Moonlight won. Prior to the Oscars, all the hype building about a La La Land sweep annoyed me, because I'm tired of Hollywood being obsessed with itself and tongue-bathing any movie about show business. As Honest Trailers called it, it was a Hollywood hand-job, so I'm glad that they looked beyond themselves and rewarded diversity instead.

As for diverse movies, this weekend I'm going to finally see A United Kingdom with David Oyelowo. This film was very slow to arrive here in DFW, much less move out beyond the specialty art theatres that are so inconvenient to me. I'm excited to learn about a historical romance I never heard of before, and in my favorite African country of Botswana. (It was the setting of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.)