Brief reviews of 7 of 10 Best Picture nominees
I was going to do this in a comment to clyde-park's Oscar post, but I am desperate for my own daily content so I'm going to do a full-fledged post here.
This year (last year) I did a pretty good job of watching Oscar movies before the Oscars, and I've seen seven of the ten Best Picture nominees. Here's what I thought of them, in alphabetical order:
Black Swan - You're not going to catch me giving a bad review to a movie that features a (fantasized) sex scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, but I wouldn't call this a "great" movie. Really, it's a typical psycho-sexual thriller that is elevated to "art" by virtue of being set in the ballet world and having a quirky director who is obsessed with psychological breakdowns. Natalie is very good in a role that is difficult physically and emotionally, so she probably deserves the Best Actress award she is likely to win. My IMDb rating: 7
The Fighter - Your standard rags-to-riches (or, for one of the leads, rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches) sports tale, but the major difference is that the characters, perhaps with the exception of the titular Fighter himself, are really fascinating. Great acting all around, but Christian Bale's performance, in particular, is a revelation. His Dicky Eklund is wicked awesome, equal parts pathetic and heroic, and he completely inhabits the role of a recovering(?) crack addict. It's hard to believe he's a classy British actor, not a good-natured homeless man from Boston. I loved him (give him the Supporting Actor in a landslide), and liked the movie a lot. Rating: 8 (close to 9)
Inception - I think this movie, like The Matrix, appeals more to people who want to think they're smart than to people who actually are smart. Visually it was magnificent, and the concept was definitely interesting, but I think the multi-level story tried a little too hard to be "complicated" when it would have been better off trying to make a little more sense. Some of you are probably thinking, "Oh, halphasian is just bitter because he didn't understand the movie," but maybe that's only half-true: I'm not bitter and I liked the movie, but... yeah, maybe I didn't fully "get" it. Rating: 7
The King's Speech - The front-runner for just about every award, I honestly found this one a tad... boring. Colin Firth is as great as you've heard, but I thought that his character was borderline unlikeable. Firth worked hard to perfect King Bertie's voice, but I found the high-pitched whining and the stuttering (which was the point of the movie, I know) very annoying. I wanted him to fail. The acting was great, yet the story was a bit "small" for a period piece set in England. Rating: 7
The Social Network - When I first saw the trailer for this, I thought it was going to SUUUUUCK. The fact that it didn't was a major triumph, but when I was watching it (this was a while ago) I had no idea it would ever be considered an "Oscar" movie. Aaron Sorkin's writing seems better suited to TV (or the stage), and a lot of the drama in TSN, though enjoyable to watch while in the moment, felt very manufactured. The true story of how Facebook was invented probably wouldn't make a good movie though. Rating: 7
Toy Story 3 - I saw this a long time ago so I can't remember it as clearly as I would like to, but Pixar movies are always good and this was no exception. I would place it behind some other Pixar movies (notably Up, and probably both of the other Toy Story movies) because I didn't feel as much of an emotional connection - even though this one was specifically engineered to emotionally connect to men my age. Maybe I was just tired when I watched it. Rating: 8
True Grit - Let me start by saying that Hailee Steinfeld was absolutely fantastic in this, and deserves every award available. It is a bit bittersweet that her studio nominated her for Best Supporting Actress (which she can win) instead of Best Actress (which was destined to be a two-woman race), as she is on screen, and commanding it, in almost literally every scene. Dame Judi Dench famously won a Best Supporting Actress for her 8 minutes of work in Shakespeare in Love - Hailee could get the same award for 100 minutes. NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE! Anyway, the young actress is the very best part of the movie, but the older, more familiar actors carry their weight as well, and the story charges along until the bad guy gets shot. From that point, unfortunately, there is a "coda" with snakes and snow and a long walk that to me seemed unnecessary and felt like it was part of a different movie. (Yeah, I'm sure it was in the book, but I would have cut it.) So up until the climax this was getting a 9-10 from me, but it ended up with Rating: 8
To sum this all up, I would have to say that my favorite movie of all of the nominees was probably - surprisingly - The Fighter. If I actually had a vote, I might cast it for True Grit because it seems like more of an "Oscar" movie. Toy Story 3 would be my dark horse, and the two presumptive real-life front-runners, The King's Speech and The Social Network, would not factor into my decision at all!
This year (last year) I did a pretty good job of watching Oscar movies before the Oscars, and I've seen seven of the ten Best Picture nominees. Here's what I thought of them, in alphabetical order:
Black Swan - You're not going to catch me giving a bad review to a movie that features a (fantasized) sex scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, but I wouldn't call this a "great" movie. Really, it's a typical psycho-sexual thriller that is elevated to "art" by virtue of being set in the ballet world and having a quirky director who is obsessed with psychological breakdowns. Natalie is very good in a role that is difficult physically and emotionally, so she probably deserves the Best Actress award she is likely to win. My IMDb rating: 7
The Fighter - Your standard rags-to-riches (or, for one of the leads, rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches) sports tale, but the major difference is that the characters, perhaps with the exception of the titular Fighter himself, are really fascinating. Great acting all around, but Christian Bale's performance, in particular, is a revelation. His Dicky Eklund is wicked awesome, equal parts pathetic and heroic, and he completely inhabits the role of a recovering(?) crack addict. It's hard to believe he's a classy British actor, not a good-natured homeless man from Boston. I loved him (give him the Supporting Actor in a landslide), and liked the movie a lot. Rating: 8 (close to 9)
Inception - I think this movie, like The Matrix, appeals more to people who want to think they're smart than to people who actually are smart. Visually it was magnificent, and the concept was definitely interesting, but I think the multi-level story tried a little too hard to be "complicated" when it would have been better off trying to make a little more sense. Some of you are probably thinking, "Oh, halphasian is just bitter because he didn't understand the movie," but maybe that's only half-true: I'm not bitter and I liked the movie, but... yeah, maybe I didn't fully "get" it. Rating: 7
The King's Speech - The front-runner for just about every award, I honestly found this one a tad... boring. Colin Firth is as great as you've heard, but I thought that his character was borderline unlikeable. Firth worked hard to perfect King Bertie's voice, but I found the high-pitched whining and the stuttering (which was the point of the movie, I know) very annoying. I wanted him to fail. The acting was great, yet the story was a bit "small" for a period piece set in England. Rating: 7
The Social Network - When I first saw the trailer for this, I thought it was going to SUUUUUCK. The fact that it didn't was a major triumph, but when I was watching it (this was a while ago) I had no idea it would ever be considered an "Oscar" movie. Aaron Sorkin's writing seems better suited to TV (or the stage), and a lot of the drama in TSN, though enjoyable to watch while in the moment, felt very manufactured. The true story of how Facebook was invented probably wouldn't make a good movie though. Rating: 7
Toy Story 3 - I saw this a long time ago so I can't remember it as clearly as I would like to, but Pixar movies are always good and this was no exception. I would place it behind some other Pixar movies (notably Up, and probably both of the other Toy Story movies) because I didn't feel as much of an emotional connection - even though this one was specifically engineered to emotionally connect to men my age. Maybe I was just tired when I watched it. Rating: 8
True Grit - Let me start by saying that Hailee Steinfeld was absolutely fantastic in this, and deserves every award available. It is a bit bittersweet that her studio nominated her for Best Supporting Actress (which she can win) instead of Best Actress (which was destined to be a two-woman race), as she is on screen, and commanding it, in almost literally every scene. Dame Judi Dench famously won a Best Supporting Actress for her 8 minutes of work in Shakespeare in Love - Hailee could get the same award for 100 minutes. NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE! Anyway, the young actress is the very best part of the movie, but the older, more familiar actors carry their weight as well, and the story charges along until the bad guy gets shot. From that point, unfortunately, there is a "coda" with snakes and snow and a long walk that to me seemed unnecessary and felt like it was part of a different movie. (Yeah, I'm sure it was in the book, but I would have cut it.) So up until the climax this was getting a 9-10 from me, but it ended up with Rating: 8
To sum this all up, I would have to say that my favorite movie of all of the nominees was probably - surprisingly - The Fighter. If I actually had a vote, I might cast it for True Grit because it seems like more of an "Oscar" movie. Toy Story 3 would be my dark horse, and the two presumptive real-life front-runners, The King's Speech and The Social Network, would not factor into my decision at all!