Monday, February 20, 2012

The Descendants, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

If you're curious about this year's Oscar nominated films you can check out my reviews on Examiner, I'm writing up all nine one by one:

The Descendants

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close



One I ended up liking very much (after the second viewing), the other had a few problems, many of which I wasn't even able to categorize successfully until I started watching Moneyball yesterday. By about the third minute in (and I'm not a baseball person, at all) I found myself immediately thinking, "I don't care what happens in this film but I already know I don't want it to end." I had to shut it off to go to work, which damned near killed me, because I was so engaged in watching. I think that, more than anything else is a requirement for a Best Picture nominee----things don't have to be peachy and sunshiny all the time, clearly, but the film has to make us think, I don't want this to end.

Look for my review of Moneyball later tonight, if you want.

(Moneyball)

5 comments:

Donald said...

I read and enjoyed your reviews, but I doubt I'll see any of these movies, because I just have no interest. Moneyball maybe, because I kind of like movies about Baseball, but the other two just look and sound like they aren't for me.

Anna said...

Thanks. This one a day thing is killing me; normally I have all the time in the world to formulate anything halfway competent . . .

And I know it's not going to win, but so far, Moneyball has been my favorite film of any nominated.

Justin Garrett Blum said...

Ironically, it sounds as though baseball fans are the ones who hated Moneyball. I remember reading the comments on some website...Slate, maybe, where everybody was just complaining about dumb trivial shit, like that the film combined two real people into one character for dramatic purposes.

Anna said...

Still my favorite, 5 in, but I saw just enough of MIDNIGHT IN PARIS last night to see that it's about a stubborn writer . . . which thrills me more than just about anything.

Justin Garrett Blum said...

My wife and I rented Midnight in Paris a few weeks ago, and we both really enjoyed it. I don't really consider myself a Woody Allen fan, so to speak--though I have loved at least one of his movies, and I'm fond of a few others--but the guy definitely has a distinctive directorial voice.

It's actually kind of amazing to me it took him this long to latch onto Owen Wilson, since he fits into the role of a Woody Allen protagonist so well.

HOME