News of the World (2020)

Nominated for 4 Oscars
- 5 wins & 80 nominations total

Trivia
Paul Greengrass said in an interview in the New York Times on 12/30/2020 how this movie "is the first film I made with a child actor at the heart of it" and he thought that it would be very difficult to cast the role of Johanna but when he saw Helena Zengel's audition, he said she "was the only person I really had to look at" and that it "was the easiest decision in the film".

Goofs
John Calley calls the Central Texas area "Kiowa country" when he splits from Kidd and Johanna. However, in 1870 that area was unquestionably Comanche territory ("Comanchería"). The Kiowa roamed further north.

Quotes
Captain Kidd: See all those words printed in a line one after the other? Put 'em all together and you have a story.

Connections
Featured in The Graham Norton Show: Tom Hanks/Jessica Chastain/Emily Blunt/Jamie Dornan/Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall/Nish Kumar/Sophie Ellis-Baxtor (2020)

Soundtracks
Prairie Dog Song
Traditional

I didn't really love this film. I think it is competently made and you can tell the director knew what he was doing, i just think it was pretty average.

The story is very slow, it is almost a road movie. You can see the ending coming from a mile off. I just don't know if this was a story that needed to be told.

The script was pretty beige to me too. It wasn't gripping. It wasn't really passionate either. It just felt like a movie script from a western from 2006 that we have all forgot and you may have rented from blockbuster once but you don't really remember it. It just wasn't fresh.

I do think the set pieces were pretty good. They looked really nice and in turn provided some lovely shots. I didn't love the colour of this film. It was very muted. I get that it was a western but it just looked really grey and washed out. Maybe this was a choice i just didn't love it.

The acting was pretty good especially from the two leads. Some of the other acting was a bit over the top and out of place. Some of the antagonists seemed like pantomime villains and i also think when they were on screen the script also sagged. It turned into Saturday mourning cartoons a little bit.

I do think some of the action scenes were engaging however. I think they were pretty tense and enjoyable to watch.

I think you could watch this, just keep in mind it is slow. Do i think it should win any awards. No. But you could definitely check it out.