Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen shine in Green Book, a by-the-numbers film about a Black pianist and his white valet on a tour through the Deep South. Oscar-bait through and through, what the movie lacks in innovation it makes up for in execution. Director Peter Farrelly deftly handles the film’s sensitive subject matter, making the movie feel cliché at points, but never heavy-handed or forced. Green Book is character-driven from the start, opening with a scene that has no relevance to the plot but sets up Mortensen’s Tony Lip as the stereotypical Italian-American New Yorker of the 1960s. When this rough-talking, hot dog-guzzling club bouncer is hired to drive and protect Black pianist Dr. Don Shirley on hi...

 Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma has the potential to become the first ever foreign-language film to win Best Picture. Its simple yet touching story, skilled camera work, and sound design set it apart from its competitors, boasting the kind of pedigree the Academy craves. It thoughtfully caters to an intellectual audience while remaining digestible enough for anybody to enjoy.  And perhaps these are the qualities, along with its release on Netflix in addition to the big screen, that have allowed Roma to break the curse that sometimes inhibits foreign language films from receiving Best Picture nominations, as they tend to be unfairly overlooked or pigeonholed into a single category. With a whopping ten nominations, Roma...

A music-packed ode to Freddie Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody is, unfortunately, more style than substance. While the score is sure to entertain any Queen fans, the biopic is far from true to its source material and lacks coherence and a consistent story thread. The movie is scattered from the opening. Within the span of a few minutes, the focus quickly switches from scenes of Mercury’s home life to a musical performance, to his introduction to his future band-mates, and finally to his first meeting with his future wife. The beginning chaotically sets up up various elements of the plot that never quite come together. Instead, the film jumps from song to song for the majority of its runtime — which isn’t actually a bad ...

Lauren Elwood is a College sophomore from Bangor, Maine, who’s making her Oberlin mainstage debut as choreographer of —and a dancer in — the acclaimed musical Cabaret. Elwood, a Dance and Theater double major, also performed in Oberlin Musical Theater Association’s Heathers last year as a member of the ensemble. Cabaret is based off a book by Joe Master. The music for the show was written by John Kander, OC ’51, with lyrics by Fred Ebb. Cabaret centers on the relationship between Cliff...