Every year Chelsee and I (try to) go see all of the movies that are nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Chelsee always succeeds. I have failed every year. Except this year! This year, for the first time, thanks in large part to Jay's parents for babysitting and Jay staying home to watch the girls, I actually saw all nine movies nominated for the Best Picture category! Hooray for finally reaching this goal!
In trying to figure out which one I liked the most, I thought I'd blog a little blurb about each one. Up till now I've been ranking them in order of which ones I'd most like to watch again, and that's not going to work out anymore. Some of them are so beautiful and feel so personal that I don't think I'd watch them again, but I still love them.
In the order that I watched them, here are some of my thoughts on the movies:
Moneyball: I thought this movie was really interesting. It's a baseball movie that doesn't show any baseball games. It plays out more like a documentary. It's a documentary on how the little guy in baseball, the Oakland A's, took a gamble in order to keep up with the bigger teams in baseball that have so much more money. Brad Pitt paired with Jonah Hill made the movie witty and thoughtful. They have a dynamic that was so much fun to watch. I loved any scene they were in together. I'm a sucker for a happy ending, and this movie is one I'd definitely watch again.
Midnight in Paris: Directed by Woody Allen, this movie wasn't one I was really looking forward to. And, it could be argued, it's not one I was able to watch in its entirety because the night before we watched it Reagan woke up with a stomach bug and I stayed up with her during the night. Thus making me fall asleep for several (short! I promise!) times during the movie. But, I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. It's one I wanted to keep thinking about, to try and figure out. And how cool of an idea that a man can go at night and meet his literary idols! I loved that! Every movie had a character in it that I just loved, and in this movie it would be Zelda Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
Tree of Life: I've heard that the audience for the Tree of Life during screenings has been polarized. Some clapped when it ended, and some booed. It was polarized when we watched it, too. I LOVED it. I feel like the filmmaker got into my head, and put on a screen the things I think about when thinking about loss and death. I was able to follow where they led, even when they started showing dinosaurs. Jay, on the other hand, needs to plot things out in his mind. The movie needed to have a timeline, needed to answer some questions, needed to be plotted on the map. So he hated it. He thinks it was too "ADD" for him. But we all know I have no talent for maps. I thought the movie was daring and beautiful and unlike anything else I've ever seen. The closest thing I could compare it to would be "The Fountain." It takes a certain kind of person to "get" this movie. But I feel like I did.
The Help: What I will always remember about watching "The Help" for the first time is that there's a moment at the end when Aibleen says something to her employer, the mother of a little girl that is constantly ignored and belittled. When she said the line it struck me in a way I hadn't prepared for. I don't know why it became so personal to me, but there I was on the couch, trying to fight it back. And nope, it broke through anyway. The ugly cry. The sobbing out loud, throat-so-tight-it's-almost-a-scream cry where everyone else stops watching the movie to look over at you and figure out what your problem is. It was like watching "The Cure" all over again. Before Allison took me aside and said, "Let me teach you how to cry during movies..." So the movie has been overshadowed by a bit of embarrassment. Luckily I was only home with Jay and Chelsee! So.....good movie overall!
The Descendants: In this movie, George Clooney is a man forced into a situation where he needs to be the supporting, stand-alone parent when up until now he had only been the "back-up" parent. It was about him trying to connect with someone when he had let that connection lapse. The awkward moments when you should know things about someone, but you don't. And how to get it back. In the movie his daughter becomes his confidant and co-conspirator and they support each other while learning to trust each other again. Her character made the movie for me. Even though the movie seems to be one blow of bad luck after another, I like that it always feels hopeful.
The Artist: If "The Artist" wins best picture it will be the first time a black and white movie has won an Oscar since "Schindler's List" in 1993, and the first time a silent movie has won since 1927. I wasn't very excited to see it, and it turned out to be better than I expected. They did some interesting things with the bits of sound they did use, making you appreciate the sounds the same way "Pleasantville" makes you appreciate color. And some of the sets were genius, like when the two main characters are talking on the stairs and you can see the floor above and the floor below, one character ascending while the other is on their way down. But in my opinion, if the Academy wants to reward a movie for taking chances, I hope they go with "Tree of Life."
War Horse: If there was a movie I would've missed this year, it would've been this one. Chelsee and I went to a late showing on a weeknight, and it wasn't one I really wanted to see anyway. A movie about a horse? In a war? Really Spielberg? It turned out both better and worse than I thought it would be, and I can't decide if it was a good movie with bad parts, or a bad movie with good parts. Which is more like a zebra than a horse! (Ba dum dum CH!)
Hugo: Scorsese making a kids movie. I had my doubts. Was I the only one who watched "The Departed"? Did a Scorsese kid movie just have a smaller body count? And though the movie was good, I feel like it was just a kid version of "The Artist." I can see that the Academy would love the message about the history of films and how important they are and how transforming they can be. But if Hugo wins it will be disappointing. I wouldn't want other, more daring and beautiful films to miss out because the Academy wants people to remember how much they love movies. Isn't that a bit of preaching to the choir?
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Going in, this movie already had some things going for it. It is a movie based on a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, who is an author I love. The casting is genius with Tom Hanks as the father, and Sandra Bullock as the mother. But I had read the book. I knew how this movie was going to turn out. Plus it's a movie about a boy dealing with his father's death after 9/11. Sitting in the theatre after the lights had gone out but before the movie had started, I had the feeling in my stomach that you get sitting in a roller coaster before the roller coaster starts jerking and trudging up that first hill. Even the movie trailer made me cry, so I was nervous. But not nervous enough. Where the book was heartbreaking, the movie drove all of it home with the images, the sounds, the facial expressions of the boy and his mother. I've heard that this movie doesn't have a good chance of winning best picture, but I think that's a mistake. I think this movie is so personal and beautiful. In my theatre when the movie ended the audience sat in silence for a few minutes. A respectful silence. It was one where, walking out to the car, Chelsee and I couldn't even talk about it yet. That's a good movie.
