Baker's heartbeat

It was a Monday morning, the last week in January, when I decided to see every "Best Picture" nominated film in the 2018 Academy Awards. It took until March 4 to get that done. I only wanted to attend the movies during daytime hours, and that's pretty easy because the Davenport theatres are about 10 minutes from my home. But the showings disappeared for a few weeks, and that made the project harder. I saw "Dunkirk" and "Get Out" on Blueray discs at home; the other films were at Cinemark, Davenport, and I saw "Phantom Thread" at Regal Cinemas, Moline. Impressions, now that the Oscars are over: Overall, there were two coming-of-age films among the nominees; "Call Me By Your Name" involved a teen-age boy; "Ladybird" a teen-age girl. In addition, two of the films concerned 1940, in British history: "Darkest Hour," and "Dunkirk." Curiously, we did not have a riveting World War 1 movie in the mix this yea...

When the beautiful teen-age daughter of Mildred, played by Frances McDormand, stormed out of her rural Ebbing, Mo., home after an argument with her mother, she headed to a girlfriend's house. She never reached her destination, being waylaid by a criminal who raped her, killed her and set her body on fire. After local police failed to find the killer, the fiery Mildred show full passion as a mother. She paid to erect three billboards calling for police action. This is the basis for the movie, "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," my choice for Best Picture in the Academy Awards tonight. I base this choice on the outstanding performances by McDormand, Sam Rockwell, and  Woody Harrelson. In addition, the story by Martin McDonagh itself is superb (he said online he got the idea after driving through the southeast United States and looking at billboards, among other things.) The film's ending is, simply, classic. Runner-up for Best Picture is "Get Out,...