It’s established that I love a good movie. I haven’t been to the movie theatre for far more than a year, having seen only one film in the theatre in 2020 (“1917”). We’ve done a few high dollar rentals over the year but mostly have found things worth watching on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and Prime.

One item on my “21 things in 2021” list is to watch 21 movies from “best of” lists. Mostly movies I have missed but one or two that I want to see again. This April and May friend Jenny and I have started a Film Festival, which I thought we should call COVID Film Festival, but I have just named it the Couch Film Festival. We miss the Rochester International Film Festival, so we are going to look for great international films or Academy Award nominated films to watch, hopefully each week.

We started out the Film Fest with a fun romp that is neither international nor award nominated, but was just loads of goofy fun – “Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar.” It is over-the-top and surprising but there were big laughs! Those women are geniuses! I now own the digital copy so if you want to see it, come on over!

We watched “Minari,” the subtitled American film nominated for Best Picture, which is about a Korean family’s search for the American Dream in 1980s Arkansas. We rented the theatrical release on Prime and I think it was worth it. I would have wanted to see it in a “normal” year, and I’m glad it was available to us this year. Often the little great films don’t come around for long, so it is really nice to be able to find them and pop your own popcorn.

Tonight we watched a nominee for Best International Film, “Another Round” (Denmark). It is billed as a comedy, but there were moments that definitely weren’t funny. In the end I hope they all got their Joy for Life back. That’s what I’ll choose for them.

What’ll be next? Who knows… What is your favorite International Film?

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM nominees:

ANOTHER ROUND

Denmark

BETTER DAYS

Hong Kong

COLLECTIVE

Romania

THE MAN WHO SOLD HIS SKIN

Tunisia

QUO VADIS, AIDA?

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Best Picture NOMINEES

THE FATHER

David Parfitt, Jean-Louis Livi and Philippe Carcassonne, Producers

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH

Shaka King, Charles D. King and Ryan Coogler, Producers

MANK

Ceán Chaffin, Eric Roth and Douglas Urbanski, Producers

MINARI

Christina Oh, Producer

NOMADLAND

Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey and Chloé Zhao, Producers

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell and Josey McNamara, Producers

SOUND OF METAL

Bert Hamelinck and Sacha Ben Harroche, Producers

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7

Marc Platt and Stuart Besser, Producers