Oscars
Oscar nominated films? Wuh?
Not a lot of posts since the film festival, huh? December and January were pretty busy months and the blog got somewhat left behind. It’s not like I haven’t seen many films recently but… truth be told, they’ve mostly been pretty good films. Which is unusual.
Chopping Mall was never meant to be exclusively about bad films, b-movies and grindhouse classics but it certainly wasn’t meant to be focused on all the Oscar hopefuls either. As it is, I’ve seen several of the nominees over the last few months, as well as a handful of other classy films that hardly belong here. I’ll gloss over them quickly and then it’ll be time to resume normal service.
Scorsese’s Hugo was a treat. There wasn’t a huge lot of depth to it really - it’s basically just a sweet story about acceptance and family that draws on cinema history - but it did everything it set out to do with style. An absolutely stellar cast meant that this was about revisiting cinema history in more ways than one - Christopher Lee as a librarian was a welcome figure - and, as you’d expect, it looked beautiful.
My Week With Marilyn had an equally stellar cast, was equally obsessed with cinema history and was even more slight. There was nothing wrong with it, exactly, but it wasn’t exactly a memorable experience. The film is little more than what the title describes - a fairly pleasant rich guy spends a fairly pleasant week with Marilyn Monroe who, it turns out, is fairly pleasant. The best thing I can really say for it was that it prompted a watch of Some Like It Hot, with the real Marilyn Monroe boozing her way through prohibition era comedy.
The Artist continued the journey through the current trend of cinema about cinema. Why the current vogue for films about film history? It’s a neatly self-contained self-obsession and there’s plenty of stories to be (re)told but… how much is too much? I hardly need to say anything about The Artist - it’s already had more than enough written about it - but I may as well briefly add my voice to all the others. It’s charming. It’s fun. It’s heart-warming. And pleasant. And nice. And lovely. Oh, it doesn’t put a foot wrong and there’s not a word you can say against it but… some of the praise has probably been overstated.
My final big Oscar film was A Separation, which is a beautifully told but fairly slow tale of divorce, family-ties, pride and lies from Iran. It’s not cheerful stuff but as both a view of Iranian life and a sensitively told story of very human sadness it’s certainly worth a watch.
I think that’s about the lot. Phew. Done with all these classy new films. Back to the cult trash, James Bond and vampire flick. Those were separate, of course. As far as I’m aware no-one has yet made a cult trash James Bond and vampire flick. I’ll be first in line when they do…
One Day Later...
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
The Oscars results are quite astonishingly, gloriously, exquisitely DULL!
Best Picture - T** K***’s S*****
Best Director - T** K***’s S*****
Best Actor - T** K***’s S*****
Best Original Screenplay - T** K***’s S*****
Best Title - T** K***’s S*****
Best Coffee On Set - T** K***’s S*****
Best Taste in Shoes -T** K***’s S*****
Best Idea - T** K***’s S*****
Best friend - T** K***’s S*****
Best best - T** K***’s S*****
Best ever - T** K***’s S*****
Best cute Brits - T** K***’s S*****
Oh and the Social Network, The Fighter and Inception got some for nice sound and/or supporting people. Or for making films that we’ve basically seen before. Thanks.
Last Minute Oscars Choices
[CC Licenced image by Dave_B_]
Ok, ok, so they’re about to give out some supposedly important film awards very soon.
I haven’t seen loads of the films that are nominated. Does this matter? Psshhh, nah! Where’s the fun in making informed, reasonable choices. These are made on hearsay, fragments of knowledge and instinct alone!
Here’s the list, we’ll see tomorrow if the real people got it right and matched me.
Best Picture
“Black Swan,” - Nah. It’s good but… not really all that.
“The Fighter” Nah, not seen this.
“Inception,” If we make it open-ended, will people think it’s half-assed or will they think it’s genius? Apparently, the latter.
“The Kids Are All Right,” Wha’?
“The King’s Speech,” Seriously. I never want to hear these three words again.
“127 Hours,” James Franco chews his own arm off. Well done.
“The Social Network,” No. I don’t want to watch this. Go away.
“Toy Story 3” Has deserved winner stamped all over it.
“True Grit” Fabulous. Better than Toy Story? Probably not.
“Winter’s Bone” …Same as with True Grit. Love it, but it doesn’t beat Toy Story.
Actor in a Leading Role
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful” I like Javier Bardem. Haven’t seen this though.
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit” Yes.
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network” RraaaRRrrGGHH, Go away.
Colin Firth in “T** K***’s S*****” Stop it! Stop it!
James Franco in “127 Hours” But he’s the Green Goblin…
Actor in a Supporting Role
“T** K***’s S*****” again? Make it stop! This one clearly goes to:
John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone”
Actress in a Leading Role
Loads of good choices here. Both these are good:
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
but we have a winner:
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine” She was brilliant.
Actress in a Supporting Role
I’ve seen almost none of these.
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
wins by default. “T** K***’s S*****” can go take a hike.
Animated Feature Film
I really want to see
“The Illusionist” Sylvain Chomet
but if I made Toy Story my Best Film, it’d peobably better take this prize as well.
“Toy Story 3” Lee Unkrich
Art Direction
I don’t really know what this award means
Cinematography
“True Grit,” by Roger Deakins, was beautiful
Director
Either
“Black Swan,” Darren Aronofsky which was amazingly well put together.
or
“True Grit,” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Not “T** K***’s S*****”
Aaaaaaand I think I’ll stop there. The other categories can sort themselves out. The Documentaries award should be interesting and I plan on watching most of them but… as I’ve basically seen none of the shorts listed, it seems a little pointless even to speculate.
The one massively embarrassing thing to admit is that I’ve not seen a single one of the foreign film selection. How has that been allowed to happen? Best sort this out soon!
Just for the record, they are:**
Foreign Language Film**
“Biutiful,” Mexico
“Dogtooth,” Greece
“In a Better World,” Denmark
“Incendies,” Canada
“Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi),” Algeria