Best Picture Nominee #10 (not a moment too soon) Inglourious Basterds

For sheer entertainment factor alone, I'd put Inglourious Basterds at the top of the list of Best Picture nominees. Nerve wracking, hilarious, ridiculous and disgusting all at the same time - that's a good Quentin Tarantino film in a nutshell. (A bad one, such as Kill Bill in my opinion, is disgusting, boring, and features way too much Uma Thurman - oh wait, I already said boring).

Christoph Waltz was fantastic (and deserves to win his Oscar) and Brad Pitt was a hoot (although in the movie less than you'd imagine from the trailers).  As in all good Tarantino films, the dialogue (in four languages I might add) was practically poetic - if the poet was completely insane.

I'd give it a solid 9.  My final pick for Best Picture is a tie between Inglourious Basterds and Precious, neither of which stand a chance to win - of the two that are likely I'd rather see Hurt Locker than Avatar, because James Cameron is a tool (and his script was crap), and because it'd be the little guy (or girl) beating the big corporation.

And now - back to watching 5 month old dvd's from my Netflix queue.

Best Picture Nominee #9 - A Serious Man

I have to admit I'd never even heard of this film before it was nominated for Best Picture, although once I learned it was a Coen brothers film I figured it was worth a watch.

A friend of mine described it as "A Serious Bore" - I disagree. Yes, there wasn't much by way of an actual coherent plot - it was more of a series of vignettes based around a man whose life is going to hell - but with the usual Coen brothers dryer-than-dry gallows humor and completely unique characters, still interesting to watch. Other than that it's really too odd to describe - like most Coen brothers films, you just need to watch it.

I give it a 7.9 - almost an 8 but not quite.

Best Picture Nominees # 7 - An Education and # 8 - Avatar

I saw An Education in the crappy dirty old theater in my town (as opposed to the somewhat crappy, somewhat dirty newer theater) - I believe the temperature was set just south of Meat Locker. Therefore I spent the entire time crunched up into as tiny a ball as I could manage in a theater seat (no cup holders - that's how old this place is) attempting to retain body heat.

Anyway- despite the lingering hypothermia, what I liked best about this movie were the performances by Carey Mulligan (who deserved her Best Actress Oscar nod) and Peter Sarsgaard (who should have gotten one as well).  She was totally believable as a 16 year old - I had to look it up, she's really 24 - which would explain how she looked like an adult when dressed up as one. He struck the exact perfect chord between charming and creepy in the grand Kevin Spacey tradition. Always good to see an intelligent female teenage character - although she makes the same mistake every woman has at one time or another. I give it an 8.

And on to Avatar -I thought this film looked idiotic just from the trailer - I didn't even have it on my Netflix queue but then was forced into going when it was nominated for Best Picture. I'm a fan of sci-fi and fantasy in general, but something about the ads for this just didn't move me.

I have to admit I liked it more than I thought. The 3-D glasses were almost more distracting than anything - losing all peripheral vision is kind of freaky in a theater full of kids making random noises - where exactly are they and are they about to dump a coke on your head? I also had a welt across my nose for an hour afterwards.

Despite that, those rare moments when you could forget you were wearing the glasses really worked. All hail Weta Digital - the world they created was fascinating to look at without any story at all (which is a good thing) - although it, and the Na'vi., are a bit too reminiscent of World of Warcraft for me (coughdarnassascough).  The storyline was meh  - the female lead character (whose name was, apparently, Neytiri - had to look that up) was just annoying - and Sigourney Weaver was kind of wasted as a tree hugging scientist (she's supposed to be an ass kicking warrior, isn't she?). They could have cut about 45 minutes out and still had the same story.  I'm glad I saw it, if only to imagine what a really well written sci-fi film might look in 3-D. I give it a 7.

And the previews for Alice in Wonderland in 3D were pretty kickass. Maybe next time I'll bring my own glasses.

Best Picture Nominee #6 - The Blind Side

I'll give this a solid 6.5 - but I'm giant sap and am easily swayed. Sandra Bullock with blonde hair should  never, ever, exist in this world - but that aside, I liked it better than I thought I would.  Points for telling a true story, and points for being somewhat sappy (which is ok) without going over the line into complete obnoxiousness (except for the kid who played the younger brother - he was trying so hard to be cute I thought his head would explode). 

Does Sandra Bullock deserve Best Actress? I'm going with no - I mean, honestly, is playing a southern girl with brass balls (and brassier hair) a real stretch for her? 

Precious is still in the Best Picture lead in my book.

5 Best Picture Nominees in 5 minutes

For the past few years, I've had a slightly OCD habit of trying to see all the Oscar nominees for Best Picture before the actual Oscars. Until this year, it worked out perfectly - 5 films, 5 weeks to potentially go see them after the nominations were announced and before the ceremony.

So this year really f'ed with my perfectly organized schedule. Ten nominees, still five weeks, whatifIhavetogoseetwomoviesinoneweekendohmahGAH... you get the picture. I have no idea why I'm against going to movies on weeknights - except for most of the Oscar nominees, I end up going by myself because nobody will go with me and that's just slightly less pathetic on a Saturday afternoon than a Thursday night.  I attempted to go to some in advance this year, and it paid off although I guessed wrong on a couple - turns out I've seen five of the ten. Which gives me the usual amount of time to attempt to see the rest.

Anyhoo, here are my brief reviews of the five I've already seen:

District 9 - I'll give it a 6.5 out of 10. I went into it with big expectations, which it didn't quite live up to. The South African accents were interesting, the plot was potentially interesting, but like so many sci-fi type films it started well and then just sort of fizzled into one long chase/shooting scene. I predicted the ending long before we got there, which is always irritating.

Up - 7 out of 10.  It was good, but didn't totally blow me away as an animated film the way Toy Story did the first time I saw it.  I saw this on DVD in a very distracting room full of people which might not have helped. Points for having Captain Von Trapp himself as one of the voices. Loved the Cone of Shame.

Precious - 9 out of 10.  Brilliant and brutal at the same time. I'm pretty sure all the little old biddies who went down to that nice independent theater to get some culture on a Saturday afternoon and ended up seeing this film with us did not expect what they got.  It's not one of those films you'll watch over and over again, but I guarantee you'll never forget it. Who knew Mo'nique could act like that? Not to mention Best Actress nominee Gabourey Sidibe - wow. And nice to figure out halfway through the film that the cute hospital orderly was Lenny Kravitz .


The Hurt Locker - 7.5 out of 10.  A war movie which actually held my interest, which gets it points right off the bat. Ok,  it wasn't the normal endless shoot-em-up scenes of a regular war movie (although there was some of that), so that might have helped - it also didn't have the blood-and-guts shock factor of a Platoon or Saving Private Ryan. Yay.  However I have to say that I wasn't particularly emotionally invested in the characters. They were interesting enough, but I didn't like or dislike any of them enough to make me particularly care if they got blown up or not.

Up in the Air - 8 out of 10 - Interesting, witty, smug, self satisfied and very slightly annoying, much like George Clooney himself. Anna Kendrick (the only actress who actually acted in New Moon) stole the show for sure. I also figured out several parts of this before they were actually revealed - I hate it when I can see exactly where a story is going.

So far I'd say Precious is in the lead. I think of a Best Picture nominee as something I've never seen before - Slumdog Millionare fit the bill last year for sure. Out of all of those, Precious is the most original and best told story.  5 more to go...

Dear Everyone That Performed at the Grammys Who Isn't Pink;

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PWNED.

That is all.

(well, except for this - Celine Dion in 3D  is like a piece of paper in 3D - what's the point?)


(not that I own my own 3D glasses, I don't. I'm just guessing.)

Thanks J.D.

As someone who makes lots of apparently meaningless comments about writing a book someday, what I look for most in books (and movies and tv for that matter) are characters. I'm addicted to good characters - the ones who are real in every possible way - except for the fact that they don't exist. The ones who walk off the page (or screen) and make you love them, hate them, or care in some way about them.  The brilliant and sad dichotomy of Tyrion Lannister. The sweet and generous soul of Samwise Gamgee. The joyous, energetic, fascinating  - and unimaginably lonely - Doctor. (look 'em up if you don't know. And ok, I like fantasy/sci fi. So sue me.)

Stephen King has written before about how his characters seem to have a life of their own and show him what happens next - and for my money Uncle Steve writes some of the best characters in the business. If you believe in the characters you can believe the rest of the story. That's what makes his books work (and I will say here I am not a fan of horror at all - but I'll read anything he writes, just to get to know the people in them).  I think half of my writing fear is that I won't be able to tap into wherever great characters come from and write someone real. It's a gift that not all writers have, that's for sure.

Having said all that, if any of you teenagers over the age of 17 out there (as if teenagers, or anyone else for that matter, are reading this) haven't read at least The Catcher in the Rye, go out there and read it. Trust me. And if any adults out there haven't read it, shame on you. Sixty-odd years later, Holden is, and always will be, as alive as you or I.