Went to see the Green Book on cheapo Tuesday movies today with the wife.
The "Green Book" were a series of travel guides for blacks during segregation. They provided a list of hotels, eateries and local laws which either allowed black patrons or targeted them. I've got a couple of them in PDF form for Call of Cthulhu source material (I also have AAA guides from the 1920s through 1950s for the same reasons).
In the movie a famous black pianist hires an Italian nightclub bouncer/tough to drive him on his musical tour (a trio with 2 white players) which had a lot of stops in the SE USA. It was very well done. All of the characters had their strong and weak points. It was largely accurate and mostly did not overplay either the good or the bad points of the time.
I'm a little to young to remember legally enforced segregation and I was in an area that had segregation - but not anything like the severest forms (grew up in Western NC). I asked my oldest brother if he remembered segregation and he had some memories from childhood. I vividly remember forced busing and was in the 2nd school district in the USA for court ordered busing. Due to some weird happenstance, I and about 8 other white elementary school children picked up 35 black kids and were bussed for an hour one way to the most distant elementary school in the district. The High School had riots with the National Guard called out. They were not happy times.
The movie was based on a true story.
It was very good. This is the first movie that is an Oscar contender that I've seen in the theater in almost forever.
I love Viggo Mortensen! Aragorn forever!!! Having said that, I saw some articles on 'Green Book,' that gave it some pretty solid reviews. I was hoping it would be as good as what I had read about it. I'll catch it when it hits HBO or Netflix.
I'm finding it difficult to believe that a movie that I willingly paid money to see in the theater in 2019 won the Best Picture Oscar. :bd:
I'm surprised that it won. I guess it gives the Oscars back a touch of its legitimacy.