I was so delighted this morning that my son was fascinated by the Academy Award nominations, and watched with rapt attention as the nominees were announced by Monique. We don't watch TV here at my house in the evenings, we watch movies. I am proud to say I am raising two movie enthusiasts.
If you want to see the entire list of nominees, look here. I have not seen most of these movies and I bet you haven't either. (I have only seen one of the heavily nominated films, True Grit, and it was awesome. Everyone in that cast should win an Oscar.)
I am really only interested in Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Picture. The rest of them, bleh, who cares already?!
So in the interest of mere fun, I am giving my knee-jerk reactions to the Best Picture nominees here. I may update when it gets closer to Oscar time, after I have actually seen more of the films, hopefully.
Best Picture
"Black Swan" -- I refuse to see a film about crazy ballet dancers. Eat a sandwich and get some therapy already.
"The Fighter"-- This looks like a Rocky retread, and that doesn't interest me. I also don't think much about Mark Wahlberg as an actor. He has a nice bod but a high-pitched voice and a face like an Irish potato. He's a bleh actor. Christian Bale is really interesting as an actor but he plays a junkie, which is just a bunch of mannerisms, IMHO, and not much of a stretch for an actor. However, in all fairness, I will go see The Fighter just because it's been well-reviewed by everyone and seeing Amy Adams attempt a Boston accent is worth the money. [Also, Christian Bale won a Golden Globe for his performance so that tells me it's worth seeing.]
"Inception" -- Unlike everyone else in my family and all my friends, I didn't fall in love with Inception. I will soon feel compelled to rent it and watch it 2-3 more times in order to actually FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL is going on in it, and I resent that. I resent movies that I want to take notes in.. I like a smart movie that tackles big subjects, like Charlie Wilson's War, but this Inception thing is like the worst brain-teaser question slash videogame plotted nightmare ever.
"The Kids Are All Right" -- I snuck away one afternoon and saw this without my kids. Really fascinating movie. Terrific performances by everyone involved, particularly Annette Bening. Well-written and surprising. It's like the opposite of Inception - it's about real people with real issues. To me, it's a much better film. You don't need 500 million dollars to make an interesting movie. You need intelligence and honesty. I could've done without the graphic sex scenes, for sure, but I have to admit I admire this film. Also, and I'm not going to hit this too hard but it should be mentioned - there are all kinds of families in the world and they deserve respect and consideration as much as a traditional family.
"The King's Speech" -- A period piece with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. Colin is ten kinds of hunkalicious and Geoffrey is the person I want to sit next to at a party. I DESPERATELY WANT to see The King's Speech. I think the premise is a little thin, but I must see this movie, and soon. I doubt I can talk the kids into seeing it, though - nothing blows up, apparently. I will have to send them to something else while I see this one.
Interesting side note: Colin Firth came into a business owned by some friends of mine recently. They reported he was extremely nice and a terrific tipper. // He also speaks Italian. That makes him nearly perfect, in my eyes.
"The Social Network" -- I need to see this movie but I don't want to, in all honesty. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's about college kids and I find them very uninteresting at the moment. Or perhaps it's because Facebook is sort of a weird phenomenon - nowadays hanging out with friends often means curling up with a laptop or an iPad, alone in your room, witch bothers me in a Ray Bradbury sort of way. Dunno. Stay tuned for more on this one.
"127 Hours" This one I had to look up. According to IMDB it's about a mountain climber who gets trapped and has to cut off his arm to survive. I am the parent of a child whose hand had to be amputated in part because his always-drunk birthmom refused to take him to the hospital when he had severe frostbite. So rest assured, no matter how many Oscar nods this film gets, I will NEVER EVER see it. Too painful. Too close to home.
"Toy Story 3" I saw the first one and that was ENOUGH. Talking toys. Again. Yawn.
"True Grit" -- LOVED this movie. Go see it NOW if you haven't already. Jeff Bridges rocks. As one wag put it so cleverly, it's like Marshall Cogburn is The Dude's rascally great grandfather. Too funny. Yep, and it's a wicked good flick for so many reasons other than that, too.
"Winter's Bone" -- I had seriously never heard of this one until I saw the page on IMDB. The trailer is about gritty and mean people being cruel to a teenaged girl that looks a bit like my daughter. Don't think I can see this one, not now anyway.
Interesting Side note -- I was pleased to see that one of the supporting parts was played by Dale Dickey. Years ago in Knoxville I was in a dinner theatre production of Hello Dolly with Dale. She was a freshman at UT, and I was a senior in high school. Dale is a truly good person, and a fine actress. I wish her great success. I hope this movie propels her career forward. A good interview with her is here.
