A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (2019)

Tom Hanks received his first Oscar nomination in 19 years today for his role in this movie. Having had no previous exposure to Ted Rogers, watching it was a bit like sitting through The Theory of Everything never having heard of Stephen Hawking.

And not being innately inclined from childhood to regard this man as unimpeachably beatific, as well as finding both puppeteers and predicadores inherently rather creepy, I did find my internal Jimmy Saville klaxon was sounding a few times during its running time. 

Anyway, for the uninitiated it perhaps helps that Hanks is not actually playing the lead here, rather Welsh actor Matthew Rhys as a fictionalised version of journalist Tom Junod, who wrote this profile piece of Rogers for Esquire. 

The action is set over two decades ago in 1998, yet we found ourselves being reminded of this only once a piece of technology had entered a scene. There has to be something culturally significant about this. 

Back then, if you made a movie about the 70s, the period would be an ubiquitous presence. Ditto a movie about the 50s, made in the 70s.