The controversial 2018 film "Green Book" that just won the Academy Award for Best Picture has it all: a white-savior narrative, cheesy New York Italian-American accents, and a series of cringeworthy tone-deaf scenes that aim to solve racism, but end up being more racist themselves in the end.
Farrelly brother Peter directed this unfunny Oscar-bait that apparently either warmed the hearts of all the old white Academy members or was just the perfect anti-Netflix movie to pick so "Roma" wouldn't win. Often compared to "Driving Miss Daisy," it's actually more like "The Bodyguard," "The Odd Couple" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles."
Very not-Italian-looking Viggo Mortensen plays Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga, an almost-illiterate, mobbed-up thug who uses violence to solve all of his problems. This movie paints him as a loving family man who will do anything to support them, when in reality he's an awful racist grifter who would never change his attitudes on a dime just because he hung out with one black person for a few weeks.
Mahershala Ali plays Dr. Don Shirley (in a role he won an Best Supporting Actor Oscar for), a lonely genius pianist who hires Tony Lip as his bodyguard/driver so he doesn't get messed with while on tour in the 1962 Jim Crow American South. Though every time Tony saves him from trouble, he flips out like a baby for no reason.
Linda Cardellini plays Dolores Vallelonga, the doting wife stock character who seems to be the only non-racist member of her entire family.
There’s even supporting characters played by cheesy standup comedian Sebastian Maniscalco and the guy who played Donna's dad on "That '70s Show."
Join us as we wonder how many times Nick Vallelonga (the main character’s real-life son) watched "GoodFellas" while writing this movie, as we make fun of Steven Spielberg's recent anti-streaming services comments, as we talk about how Paul Walker doesn't get enough grief for dating a 15 year old, and as we wonder if Mahershala Ali is secretly embarrassed this movie won him a second Oscar.
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This episode is sponsored by Michelob Ultra Pathetic.
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