Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2018

The Contenders:

Melissa McCarthy: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Olivia Colman: The Favourite (winner)
Yalitza Aparicio: Roma
Lady Gaga: A Star is Born
Glenn Close: The Wife

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2018

The Contenders:

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
BlacKkKlansman (winner)
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star is Born

Thomas Wise's Natural Child

Film: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

Anyone who has done any sort of acting will tell you that comedy is harder than drama. There’s a reason that a lot of dramatic actors fail terribly as comedian on film and why so many comedians are capable of turning in powerful and profound performances in dramas. The history of film is replete with comedic actors who have wowed audiences with a dramatic turn. Recently, Steve Carrell getting Oscar nominated for Foxcatcher was surprising. It’s more surprising that he genuinely earned that nomination, and just as surprising that everyone was so surprised by it. Well, it’s Melissa McCarthy’s turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and the same things apply. It’s surprising she was nominated, surprising just how good she is, and surprising at how much that shocks me.

Before I dive into Can You Ever Forgive Me? there is something I want to talk about. Around the middle of my MA, I took a class in literary research and bibliography. One of the projects we had to undertake was a bibliography of a bibliographer. My pick was a guy named Thomas Wise. It turns out that Wise was one of the most famous literary forgers in history, which explains the title of this review. If you’ve got a few minutes, look him up on Wikipedia (which is fine for this sort of casual research). His biography seems like it could have easily inspired this movie, had this movie not already been based on a real story.