The Oscars: Final thoughts

Hollywood's big night is here! It's time I give my final thoughts on the biggest categories before we find out who the winners are.

BEST PICTURE
Overall, I found this year's Best Picture Nominees to be weaker than last years. Last year I truly loved 7 of the 10 nominees and really liked the other 3. I couldn't choose which one was my favorite, because each was as good as the next. This year I have an easier time choosing. The Artist really stands out amongst the nominees. It is this year's frontrunner and deserves to be.

BEST DIRECTOR
Even though he's up against some heavy hitters, I think this is Michel Hazanavicious's to lose. It was his vision that brought The Artist to life.

BEST ACTOR
Will it be Jean Dujardin or George Clooney? My vote goes for Dujardin. I will agree that The Descendants was one of Clooney's best performances ever, but Dujardin is really what made The Artist for me. Without his charisma, the film would not have been the same. If he doesn't win, I would like to see it go to Brad Pitt. He was excellent in Moneyball and is worthy of some recognition.

BEST ACTRESS
Another race with only 2 contenders, Viola Davis and Meryl Streep. I haven't seen The Iron Lady, so I really can't judge this race properly. I think Viola Davis will get it because everyone seems to get stuck on the idea that Streep gets nominated for everything. They seem to forget that even though she's always nominated, she's only won twice. This will never happen, but I would like to see Rooney Mara take the prize. She really owned the role of Lizbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christopher Plummer is the predetermined winner here. I have not seen Beginners yet, so again, I can't really judge. Of the three performances that I have seen, I would say that Nick Nolte in Warrior was the most deserving. Sure, Jonah Hill did a good job in Moneyball, but I'm not going to give him an award for playing against type. Max Von Sydow gave a good performance in Extremely Loud, but his purpose in the film was a little questionable. I think that something must have gotten lost in the translation from the book.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Another race that has already been decided with Octavia Spencer coming out on top. She was excellent in The Help. How could she not be considering she was Kathyrn Stockett's inspiration for the character in the book? Even though Jessica Chastain is going to lose out to her The Help co-star, I think she is definitely someone to keep an eye on in the future. Last year, she appeared in 6 different movies and each performance was completely different. A winning performance is definitely in her future.

So that's it! Just a few more hours until show time. And I just want to end this blog with saying that I'm glad that Billy Crystal is hosting again. He definitely knows how to do it right. I was disappointed when they originally picked Eddie Murphy. I am not a fan. Here's hoping that the show opens with something as memorable as this.

A look back at the other nominees...

After sharing my thoughts of the Best Picture Nominees as I saw them, it wouldn't be right if I didn't mention the ones that I had seen before this blog was conceived.

Moneyball

While I don't really like sports, I'm a sucker for sports movies. I always love an underdog story. Moneyball manages to take something that should be incredibly boring, baseball statistics, and makes it into an engaging movie. It has a smart script that is really sold by Brad Pitt's charisma. And the movie does the impossible, it makes me almost like Jonah Hill.

The Help

Last summer, I listened to my first non-biographical audio book and it was Kathryn Stockett's The Help. I really enjoyed it and had a hard time putting my headphones down. I think the movie really did the book justice without changing too much. The cast is fantastic with too many wonderful actresses for me to list here. While this may not be new subject matter, it is really carried by a number of award worthy performances. The balance humor and drama help make this a sincere and entertaining film.

The Final Nominee...

Today I finally saw the last of the Best Picture Nominees with a few days to spare before the big show.

Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen sends us on a trip to the Twilight Zone with the story of a writer who finds himself transported back to the 1920's each night as he wonders the streets Paris. Here we are treated to a who's who of writers, artists and musicians from Paris's "Golden Age". I thought this was an enchanting film with a great cast of characters. I'm not always a fan of Owen Wilson, but I enjoyed his performance here. Marion Cotillard is fabulous as always. After watching the last few nominees, it was a nice change of pace to watch something light hearted.



 
So that's it! I've now seen all of the Best Picture nominees. There were a few other movies that I would have liked to have seen for the acting performances (My Week With Marilyn and The Iron Lady), but those will have to wait. 

Eight down, one more to go...

The Tree of Life

Last night I finally watched the copy of The Tree of Life that has been sitting on my entertainment center for over 2 weeks now. I kept putting it off, waiting until I'd be in the right mindset to watch it. Then I realized that there is probably no such thing as being in the right mindset for a movie like this, so I put it on.

What does one even say about a movie like this. There are those that think this movie is a masterpiece, a grand accomplishment of film making. Others find it to be pretentious nonsense, worst movie ever made. I can recognize this film for it's artistic accomplishments. It has gorgeous cinematography and excellent acting performances by Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. This impressionistic narrative surly is ambitious.

With that being said, I did not enjoy this film. I had a difficult time finding a connection with what was going on. I kept flashing back to all of the art films that I had to endure in my college art history classes. While I love the art of film making, I prefer when art is used to enhance a film, rather than when film is used to enhance art. Like all pieces of art, it is not going to reach everyone. Without that connection, one is just left sitting in the dark wondering 'Why am I still watching this?'

So is this movie a masterpiece? Possibly, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.



I'm in the final stretch. One week left until the Oscars and only one more Best Picture Nominee to see.

AMC Best Picture Showcase

AMC Best Picture Showcase

I just want to give a shout out to AMC Theaters for providing a great Oscars experience. For the sixth year in a row, they are runnning a marathon of all the Best Picture Nominees before the Oscars. With the expanded number of nominees, you have the option of viewing all of the movies over 2 days.

Saturday February 18
War Horse
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
The Descendants

Saturday February 25
Hugo
The Help
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Artist
Midnight in Paris

If you are really bold, some locations are showing all 9 nominees in a 24 hour marathon on Saturday, February 25.

I've never been able to attend the showcase because I have to work on Saturdays, but I've always appreciated the opportunity that AMC provides to movie goers. It's a great chance to see the best films of the year on the big screen. Watch the movies back to back and see how they really stand up to each other.

Two more down

This past week, I finally had a chance to see the last of the Best Picture nominees that I needed to see in theaters. Oddly enough, both stories center around a boy hoping that mysterious a key would reveal a message from his deceased father.

Hugo

I will start off by saying that this movie is visually stunning. I have only bothered to see a few films in 3D and for the most part I've been disappointed. Avatar was an exceptional use of the technology, but everything else was just a waste of money. The only reason that I saw Hugo in 3D was because that was all that was still playing. And I have to say, it was not a waste of money. Scorsese's use of the technology truly lives up to what Avatar showed us was possible. I was fully immersed in this world and it's wonderful aesthetic.

The trailer for this film is pretty unappealing. Just trying to watch it again now, I couldn't get all the way through it. It's no wonder that it wasn't really successful at the box office. I don't blame them for not knowing how to sell this movie because even after seeing it, I would have no idea how to do it either. It is a film that starts in one place and then ends completely somewhere else. It is the story of an orphan that lives in a train station, who is in search of a key that he believes will deliver him a message from his deceased father. Somehow his journey ends up being a nostalgic love letter to the history of film. This movie is disguised as a kids movie, but I hardly see the story being appealing to children. The film is pretty dialog heavy and I don't know any kids that are really interested in the the early pioneers of French cinema. That being said, I am not a kid. I enjoyed the film, although I wasn't as enamoured with it as many were. Even though it unexpectedly ends up being about silent films, I found the plot progression to be pretty predictable. But even though the story lacked a little, it was a visual feast and I ate it up.


Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

This movie was probably the biggest 'huh' of the Oscar nominees. Overall, it is pretty poorly reviewed and criticized for being exploitative and emotionally manipulative. The 9/11 fictional film centers around a boy, Oskar, who believes a key will reveal a secret message from his father who died in the World Trade Center. I felt that this story could have been told if the father had died in a number of different ways and wasn't just a victim of 9/11. It's really just an observation, not a criticism. I can see why some people might see it as exploitative, but even though it wasn't necessary for the story, I think it was told tastefully. There were parts of the story that were lacking. It's a bit contrived. I wish that we got more out of the people that Oskar meets on his journey. I wonder if they were perhaps given more attention in the novel. Originally, the trailer for the film made me more interested in reading the book than seeing the movie. I intended to read before ever seeing the film, but since it is a Best Picture nominee, I had to see it sooner rather than later. Now that I've seen the film, I think I've mostly lost interest in the book. I wouldn't say that this was a bad movie, but it is just okay at best. It has some nice acting performances, but I think there were a lot of other movies that were far more deserving on a nomination over this one.


Seven down, two to go. I've had Tree of Life sitting on my entertainment center for over a week now, waiting for me to be in a proper mood to see it. I may have to watch Midnight in Paris on demand because Blockbuster's poor availability probably won't have it by Feb 26. I'm bummed right now because it was only $.99 on Amazon last week and now it's up to $3.99.

The Walking Dead Returns

I am more than ready for the return of AMC's The Walking Dead tomorrow night. My Sunday nights have not been the same without it. Although the first half of the second season has been very slow paced, I still have faith in the show. I love the mix of horror and human drama. I will be interested to see how the show continues without Frank Darabont.

Anyone who has not watched the show can catch up tonight. Starting at 8pm, AMC is airing all of season 1. Tomorrow, starting at 1:30pm they will run all of the season 2 episodes up to the premiere of the newest episode at 9pm.

If I didn't have to work tonight and tomorrow, I would definitely be watching them all again.

Blockbuster vs. Netflix

I feel like I've been trapped in a love triangle between Blockbuster and Netflix for the past 5 years. They both offer similar services, but with some differences. Neither service is perfect, which has prevented me from fully committing to one or the other. I always had some loyalty to Blockbuster, being a former employee. I used them for years before I even considered switching. Sure, there were some things about them that weren't perfect, but I looked past them. How could I ever get mad at someone who provides me with movies? And then one day, everything changed. I finally had resolved some internet connectivity issues that had prevented me from getting internet access on my TV, opening me to a world of new possibilities. Now all of the sudden, Netflix and their instant streaming service was looking too good to resist. I took the plunge and was prepared to never look back.

At first, Netflix looked like it was too good to be true. They were offering me unlimited streaming of movies. So maybe they weren't all the best titles, but I never had a lack of anything to watch. I didn't need them to have all of the newest movies streaming because that's what their movies in the mail service is for. Everything was covered. Unfortunately, good things can't last forever. My first problem came when I started to notice that they weren't getting all new releases right away. A lot of films weren't being made available until 30 days after their street date. That was truly frustrating for me. Sometimes, I can be rather impatient when it comes to movies I want to see, especially if it something I really wanted to see in the theater and couldn't make it happen. Then Blockbuster added video games to their service. I had tried out Gamefly for a brief period, but I don't play enough to make it worth the monthly fees. Being able to get an occasional game instead of a movie from my queue was pretty enticing. Since Blockbuster was still getting new releases on street date and now offered games, I considered switching back to them. But they still didn't have streaming and that was a deal breaker. I did briefly consider using both services, but it wasn't worth the extra $6 a month it would have cost me.

Of course that brings us to last summer when it happened. Netflix announced their infamous 60% price increase. The prices for Instant and DVDs in the mail were now being separated. I wasn't happy with the price change, but it didn't really anger me as it did many of their customers. As a person that watches a lot of movies, I feel like I get a lot of value out of their services. Did I want to pay more? No, but I was willing to. Many of their customers felt the need to choose between one service and the other. For me, there was no way to choose. There were so many things in my Instant queue that I still wanted to watch and I needed to be able to see new releases. And that's when I realized that with the extra $2 that I was already paying to upgrade my DVDs to Blu-Ray, there was no longer a cost difference if I kept Instant and switched back to Blockbuster for my movies-by-mail. So that's what I did. And I made the switch before the whole Qwikster debacle. When that was announced, it made my decision seem all the more right.

After switching back to to Blockbuster, things were great at first. But then I started to remember the things that were lacking with their service. Speed. Normally, I would get my movies as fast as I did with Netflix. They would send them out one day, I'd get them the next. I'd mail it back and the next day my next movie would ship. Then suddenly things would slow down. Sometimes it would take an extra day or two for them to ship something out. It has always felt like if you are renting 'too much' they intentionally slow down your service. I can't say for certain that this is true, but I can say that I never felt like this was happening with Netflix. Accuracy. Most of the time, they will send you the next movie that is available in your queue. But every so often, they will randomly send something that is ranked #20 or higher in your queue. In fact, the last two movies that they sent me were ranked higher than 20 in my queue. But to be fair, the majority of the movies currently in my top 20 are not currently available. But there are about 5 things that say they are available ahead of the last two movies they sent out. This brings me to my last complaint. Availability. It takes forever for new releases to become available. The first 17 movies in my queue currently are new and recent releases. If you can't time your next rental to ship out on the day they are released, you will be in for a long wait. Most of the time, I don't mind if I can't get a new movie right away. There is always something else to rent and if there is something that I really want to see, I can always do an in-store exchange, which is a pretty handy part of the service. But there is a point where things just become ridiculous. Fast Five has been in my queue since it came out in October. It has said that it is available for a few weeks now, but they keep sending me movies ranked lower instead. I am beginning to wonder if sending lower ranked movies is another tactic to slow down your renting. If they send you something that isn't at the top of your list, you may be less inclined to watch it right away.

One thing positive thing that I can say about Blockbuster is that their customer service is pretty good. I recently had done an in-store exchange and I returned the movie on a Thursday morning. They didn't send out my next movie until Monday! I thought part of the point of doing in-store exchanges was that you wouldn't have to wait for your movie to ship back before they send the next one. They were very easy to contact. When I stopped my DVD plan from Netflix, they stopped sending me Blu-Rays for my last couple of rentals. Since they charge you extra for that and I had already paid for it, I was kinda annoyed. I wanted to send them an email, but there is no way to email them. All they have on their website is a phone number and it really wasn't worth my time to call them. But with Blockbuster, they have and email address, phone number and live chat available. I sent them a complaint about the service and they sent me a free store rental coupon.

Despite it's short comings, I had every intentions of sticking with Blockbuster. But in this past week, everything has changed. I found out that my two remaining local Blockbuster stores are closing. Aside from the fact that my free rental coupon is now useless, I will no longer be able to do in-store exchanges. Without in-store exchanges, their rental availability just isn't good enough. What good is it that they have movies on release date if it can take up to 5 months for them to be available? Netflix's 30 day wait doesn't seem so bad anymore. So there really is no question anymore. I will be switching back to Netflix as soon as my current billing period is up.

Submitted for your approval...

I just loaded up my DVD player with the first five discs of the first season of The Twilight Zone. I picked up the Complete Definitive Collection a while back and have not yet had the chance to dive in. While the viewing of this show is usually reserved for New Year's Eve marathons (and an occasional July 4th marathon), it's time to give this show the full attention that it deserves. I'm ready for Rod Serling to take me on a journey to the fifth dimension. No other show can compare to its twists and turns and just downright fantastic story telling. I'm excited to not only re-watch my favorites, but to discover the many episodes that I have never seen before.

It's better than a glass of instant smile.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course....

War Horse

...unless that horse is Joey, the 'miraculous' war horse. I had some reservations about seeing this movie and it definitely fell under the category of 'something I'll probably rent someday'. Of course, with it's Oscar nomination, it got moved to the 'need to see now' list. I could never quite put my finger on where this movie was losing it's appeal to me, but the best I can say is that the story of a boy and horse looked emotionally manipulative and perhaps a little cheesy. The beginning felt a little longer than it should have been and could have been from any 'a boy and his [insert animal here]' story. There was a goose that I'm pretty sure must have gotten lost from the set of a Disney movie. Once the story got going, it definitely improved. I think telling a story of World War I from a horse's eyes provides an interesting perspective. There were a few moments that made the animal lover in me cringe. I probably would have been happier to have kept my ignorance of the ways horses were treated in WWI. If nothing else, Spielberg knows how to film war scenes. This time he managed to depict the horror of war, but kept the blood and gore to a minimum. The scenes in No Man's Land really stood out. The story itself was pretty predictable. I will admit that I did get a little misty eyed towards the end. The cinematography was beautiful. I do think my initial reservations were pretty accurate, but overall, I would say that I did enjoy the movie. It wasn't great, but entertaining enough.