It was a pretty good year for movies considering there is no money in Hollywood. I think The Hurt Locker was the best movie of the year, followed by An Education. Jeff Bridges did a great job in Crazy Heart (and the music by T-Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham was terrific) but overall I felt like that movie was creepy. Perhaps Jeff Bridges did too good of a job portraying a washed-up-drunk-country-singer turned babysitter. Up in the Air was too sad for me. I don’t like traveling as much as I used to, and I saw that movie while on the road. It had it’s moments, though.
I walked out on Avatar. I thought it was a good movie, actually, I was just home for Christmas and made the mistake of going to see the 10:30PM showing. I walked out when the bad men were cutting down the giant tree. Don’t tell me what happened because I’ll probably rent it at some point. The part that I saw was a spectacle, to be sure, and I felt like I was on a ride at Disney.
Christoph Waltz was remarkable in Inglorius Basterds. He made everybody else in that movie look bad, I believe. He deserves an award for sure. And the screenplay was great, also. Nothing like gloating over the death of a few Nazi’s.
Like I said before, the surprise for me was the movie An Education. If Carey Mulligan gets the best actress award, I’ll have a little more respect for hollywood. Peter Sarsgaard, I thought, played the role of self-delusional serial crusher quite well. That and the film was literary and managed to go at it’s own pace with slight story-questions that only kept you interested because you liked the characters, especially Mulligan’s honest desire for romance. The movie is also a look at the expectations on young females in the 60′s, with a terrific subplot involving the lead characters father.
I chose The Hurt Locker as the best movie of the year because it pulled me in more than any of the other movies. The documentary-like drama keeps you on the edge of your seat while showing you the addiction certain characters have to war, specifically to disarming bombs. As films go, it might be our best look at what war is going to look like for the next few decades. If you’ve not seen it, I recommend giving it a try.
I should say I have not seen Precious. I would like to. I understand it is terrific and I picked Mo’Nique because I think she is going to win and I needed a mark in the win column. It’s cheating, I know, but you’ve done it too, haven’t you? Haven’t you? Here is another sentence so this paragraph looks okay next to the image on the left.
There are about twice as many nominations for best picture this year because the Academy is hoping to level the playing field. Nearly 40% of the ballots go to actors, who tend to chose smaller-budget films based on acting prowess. The greater number of nominees actually benefits Avatar’s chances at best picture. Some of the nominations are, in my opinion, ill-chosen. Up in the Air should not be in the running, I don’t think. So here are my picks (Click to make them huge!). If you go here, you can make your own picks using Yahoo. Have fun watching the Academy Awards!
