Storyline: Members of the Osage tribe in the United States are murdered under mysterious circumstances in the 1920s, sparking a major F.B.I. investigation involving J. Edgar Hoover.

     Over the past few years the pendulum has swung back towards long run times at the movies.  Some of these films have been fantastic (Oppenheimer, No Yine To Die).  Others have been mediocre but fun to see (Dune, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning part 1).  Others just awful (Taylor Swift-The Eras Tour).  Killers of the Flower Moon checks on at three and a half hours of incredibleness.  

     This is a powerful film based on a shameful slice of history, only a hundred years old.  The sad reality is there are many things we have not learned in the hundred years, since the events of the story, to better the world as a whole. 

    Killers of the Flower Moon is well cast.  Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone (First Cow, Certain Women) shined as the two leads of the film.  Robert Deniro is the stand out in his supporting performance. This his is tenth collaboration with director Martin Scorsese.  After ten films over four decades though there is a working relationship in place. 

    The film has all the ingredients for awards attention: intedivke story, well acted ensemble, greatly directed movie, and well done technical aspects such as cinematography and sets. My problem with its Oscar ambitions is it is co distributed by a streaming service. Typically streaming services do the minimum theatrical output to qualify for the Oscars and bypass a massive theatrical exhibition before going straight to streaming. Movies are meant to be shared with an audience and I personally believe this model hurts movie theaters and should disqualify streaming service films from Oscar contention, no matter how good the film is. 

    This raises the question if Killers of the Flowers Moon was not co financed by a non streaming service would its silver screen run be limited to a small awards contention run instead of a nation wide release?

      Until next time I will see you at the movies!