If you're curious about the reaction of this year's Oscar nominees from someone who has only seen two of the movies nominated in the main categories, then you came to the right place!
Best Picture:
American Hustle
Nebraska
Gravity
12 Years a Slave
Captain Phillips
Philomena
The Wolf of Wall Street
Her
Dallas Buyers Club
I have only seen Gravity and Captain Phillips. So far the former is my favorite movie of the year and the latter will most likely be on my top ten list. I would love it for Gravity to win (hey, it happened last year when my favorite movie of 2012, Argo, won), but most likely it will be 12 Years a Slave. I will most likely rent that when it comes out on DVD, but it's hard to drag myself out to a theater to watch such a brutal and horrific movie. I will also eventually see American Hustle but I am worried it will be more like The Fighter (which I didn't like so much) than Silver Linings Playbook (which I liked). I had never even heard of Philomena until it was nominated and still don't know what it's about. I will eventually see all (or most) of these, but I doubt any of them will top Gravity for my favorite movie.
Best Actor:
American Hustle: Christian Bale
Nebraska: Bruce Dern
The Wolf of Wall Street: Leonardo DiCaprio
12 Years a Slave: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Dallas Buyers Club: Matthew McConaughey
First of all, where the hell is Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips? I thought for sure he was a shoo-in for a nomination! Everyone loves Tom Hanks and he hasn't been nominated in a long time and this was the perfect opportunity to do so! I'm sure he could have easily edged out Christian Bale. Now I haven't see any of these so I don't know who is the best, but I imagine it's a dead heat between Matthew McConaughey who's been winning all the big surprises or Chiwetel Ejiofor who everyone is buzzing about. It's hard for me to live in a world where McConaughey has an Oscar (it would be just so weird, but the again, Nicolas Cage has one!) I feel like they're going to give it to Ejiofor at the last minute. Just a hunch I have.
Best Actress:
American Hustle: Amy Adams
Blue Jasmine: Cate Blanchett
Gravity: Sandra Bullock
Philomena: Judi Dench
August: Osage County: Meryl Streep
I would love for Sandra Bullock to win, not because she's the only performance from this list that I saw (well, that might be part of the reason!), but she was great and held her own. After about 30 minutes she was the only one in the movie. It's kind of a shame that she won five years ago for a decent performance in a not that great of a movie. Would she have won this year if she hadn't won for The Blind Side? I don't know, it's possible. But I think since she won so recently that may have hurt her...of course it didn't hurt Hilary Swank or Christoph Waltz! Most likely it will be Cate Blanchett. She won Best Supporting Actress in 2005 for The Aviator, but that felt more like a make-up oscar than anything else, so I feel like this will be her "real" Oscar if you know what I mean. Remember when she was first nominated in 1999 for Elizabeth and Gwyneth Paltrow won and everyone said Cate should have won? Well, not only will Cate (most likely) have two Oscars, but she's also been nominated five more times since her first time. How many times has Gwynnie the Pooh been nominated since she won? A big fat whooping ZERO! I've even read articles about Oscar votes who voted for Gwyneth who said they probably would have voted for Cate if they could redo their votes that year! I really dislike the GooP in case you haven't noticed. So while I would love Sandra to win, I would be very satisfied with a Cate win! Also, since Meryl Streep won for The Iron Lady a couple years ago, I thought they would cut back on her nominations. Wasn't the reason she was getting nominated for everything prior to 2012 was because they desperately wanted to give her that 3rd Oscar? I really haven't heard anyone rave about her performance. I have heard everyone raving about Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks (another movie I haven't seen yet but want to) so I was surprised she wasn't nominated.
Best Supporting Actor:
Captain Phillips: Barkhad Abdi
American Hustle: Bradley Cooper
12 Years a Slave: Michael Fassbender
The Wolf of Wall Street: Jonah Hill
Dallas Buyers Club: Jared Leto
I've only seen Abdi's performance and while he did a great job for his first film I can't say he was the best until I see the others. Leto seems to be the front runner for now. I've never watched My So-Called Life, but that's what I always associate him with. Unlike the other acting categories, this is the only one that doesn't have a previous winner.
Best Supporting Actress:
Blue Jasmine: Sally Hawkins
American Hustle: Jennifer Lawrence
12 Years a Slave: Lupita Nyong'o
August: Osage County: Julia Roberts
Nebraska: June Squibb
There's no way they're giving this to anyone other than Lupito, right?
Best Director:
American Hustle: David O. Russell
Gravity: Alfonso Cuarón
Nebraska: Alexander Payne
12 Years a Slave: Steve McQueen
The Wolf of Wall Street: Martin Scorsese
I would love for Cuarón to win this because he is an amazing director and I could see him winning. He did win the Golden Globe so that could be in his favor. Or it could go to Steve McQueen since his movie is most likely to win the Oscar. I really have no idea. But I'm giving the edge to Cuarón. I mean, have you seen his movies? They're so good!
Showing posts with label Oscars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oscars. Show all posts
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Post-Oscar Thoughts and Fashion Fun
Well, if you watched my Oscar predictions video, you'll note that I only got half of the big six categories right, which is pretty bad for me as I normally get all six or just miss a couple.
Okay, so Oscar thoughts:
-I'm not a huge fan of Family Guy, therefore I do not give a crap about Seth MacFarlane but I will admit he did have some funny lines and he was way better than when Anne Hathaway and James Franco hosted. (But to be fair, anybody would be). His skit with William Shatner went on a little too long, but I did like the bit with Sally Field and the sock puppets reenactment of Flight (which, if you've seen the movie is pretty darn accurate!)
-I loved his line about Argo being so top secretive that the Academy didn't even know who directed it. Ha, nice zinger!
-As I mentioned in my video, I did not think Christoph Waltz would win so soon again. I'm glad he won because he was the best part of Django Unchained. He needs to have supporting roles in QT's movies because so far he's two for two!
- I laughed so hard when Jennifer Lawrence tripped. That poor girl. She was so embarrased! But it was really endearing when she said, "You're all only standing up for me because I tripped and you don't want me to feel bad!" Awww.
-I loved Daniel Day-Lewis's speech and how he was supposed to play Margaret Thatcher and Steven Speilberg had Meryl Streep first in mind to play Abraham Lincoln and how he said he agreed to play Lincoln as long as they didn't make it into a musical. Sounds like a jab at Nine, haha!
-So Christoph Waltz, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Ang Lee all won Oscars and they all won Oscars 3, 5, and 7 years ago. The other people in their category had never won before or had won Oscars before them.
-I was very thrilled Ang Lee because I loved Life of Pi and he's two for two for me for winning Best Director Oscars for movies I love. (Brokeback Mountain, of course being the other). I do love that he and Anne Hathaway (who was in Brokeback Mountain as you may know) won Oscars on the same night!
-Also this is the second time when Ang Lee won Best Director, but his movie didn't win Best Picture. While I love Life of Pi, I'm okay with Argo beating it because that was my #1 and Life of Pi was my #2 movie of 2012. However, I was livid when Crash won over Brokeback Mountain in 2006!
-OMG, does Kristen Stewart not own a hairbrush? Good God, her hair looked awful!
-The Jaws music was a bit odd. It was funny the first time they did it, but then it got annoying. Yes, I understand people never shut up but maybe we should cut out those filler performances and just let people add a couple minutes to their speeches?
-No surprise, Jennifer Lawrence is the first person born in the '90s to have an Oscar (at least in the acting/directing categories...I never pay attention to the other categories) At 22 she is one of the youngest to win a Best Actress Oscar, but not the youngest. Marlee Matlin was 20 when she won hers for Children of a Lesser God in 1987.
-Also, did you know that Anne Hathaway is the second person born in the '80s to receive an Oscar (at least in the acting/directing categories!) Natalie Portman was the first.
-Did we really need to hear a song from Chicago and Dreamgirls? I thought the Les Mis number was a hot mess.
-I could care less about the James Bond franchise so I tuned out during that. Actually all I was thinking was that Halle Berry's dress was probably my favorite of the night.
-When Michelle Obama was going to read the Best Picture winner, I was worried, thinking that since the First Lady was reading the Best Picture Winner, it was surely going to be the presidential Lincoln, so I was extremely happy when she announced Argo. I'm guessing this is the first time anybody from the White House has been involved with the Oscars. Maybe?
-When Meryl Streep announced Daniel Day-Lewis as Best Actor, it looked as though she never even opened the envelop but she probably did while the clips were playing. It just cracked me up when she confidently said, "And the Oscar goes to Daniel Day-Lewis" like, "Bitch, please, I don't need to open this envelop to know who the winner is!"
-Daniel Day-Lewis is the winner of three Best Actor Oscars which has never happened before. Overall he's been nominated five times and has won 3 out of 5 times. That's more than half, so those are pretty good stats!
THE FASHION!!!
Favorite dressed:
Halle Berry in Versace - My eye was drawn to the geometric shape of the dress and I just thought it was really cool, not to mention gorgeous.
Jennifer Lawrence in Dior - Okay, so the dress was so huge that she tripped in it but it gave for a great moment and highlight of the Oscars. And it's the perfect "fairy tale" dress for winning an Oscar.
Sandra Bullock in Ellie Saab - cool intricate detail.
Jennifer Garner in Gucci - the butt bow and ruffle may have been a tad overdone (how the hell did she sit in that dress?), but I love the color and I love that it's violet, as Violet is the name of her oldest daugheter! Aww! Okay, I may be a little biased because I love me some Sydney Bristow so she could be wearing a garbage bag and I would probably still have her on my dressed list.
Jennifer Aniston in Valentino - beautiful color and nice to see her in something other than black!
Amanda Seyfriend in Alexander McQueen - So Anne Hathaway's original dress was similar to this and that's why she wore that awful pink number with the weird fit. Shame too because her original dress was gorgeous and probably would have been my best dress of the night. One thing's for sure: Amanda was better dressed than Anne!
Salma Hayek in Alexander McQueen - Ordinarily this would be a your basic boring black dress, but add the elaborate collar and you got a pretty striking gown!
The oooh, so close:
Anne Hathaway in Prada - Apparently she was supposed to wear Valentino, but she went with this one because the dress she originally had was kinda similar to Amanda Seyfriend? It sounded really pretty and I wish she had gone with that one. This one had a weird fit.
Reese Witherspoon in Louis Vuitton - I swear I've seen Reese in a dress like this before. I'm not really big on the color. Blue just seems so informal for the Oscars!
Amy Adams in Oscar de la Renta - There's nothing particularly wrong with this gown (although I would have gone with a different color), but I feel like we've seen this kind of dress a million times before at an event like the Oscars. In fact I think Penelope Cruz wore a dress like this, only much more dramatic and in pink the year she won....or was nominated....or just attended. LOL who knows!
Naomi Watts in Armani - would be a near perfect dress if not for the weird neckline. It looks like she could have a wardrobe malfunction at any time!
Jessica Chastian in Armani Prive - Not crazy about the color and the top looks like it could easily provide an embarrassing moment, but I certainly don't hate this dress. Actually it has a Jessica Rabbit vibe to it and I'm wondering if this is on purpose since she has red hair and her name is, well, Jessica.
Kerry Washington in Miu Miu - Like the color, don't like the top with the embellishments. It just doesn't seem to match the rest of the dress.
Helen Hunt in H&M - Yes, H&M!! WTF? That reminds me of when Sharon Stone wore something from the Gap one year! For an H&M dress, it looks pretty nice. I've never shopped at H&M, so maybe they do have nice stuff, but not Oscar nice! Nice dress, but boring.
What were they thinking?:
Renee Zellweger in Carolina Herrera - I usually a love a gold colored dress, but this might be too literal for the Oscars and it kinda reminds me of a trash bag.
Helena Bonham Carter in Vivienne Westwood - HBC's hair always looks so disheveled; it drives me crazy! Also, it looks like she's wearing a short black dress over a longer white one. Weird.
Jennifer Hudson in Roberto Cavalli - This girl has got to have the worst taste! I NEVER like anything she wears! I still have nightmares about that attrocial pink dress she wore during American Idol rounds!
Sally Field in Valentino - This dress looks really old-fashioned, like it's something Mary Todd Lincoln would wear to the Oscars if they had Oscars back then and maybe that's what Sally was going for, who knows. I hate the train on this dress and the color is kinda ugly.
Adele in Jenny Packham - Sorry, Adele, your hair and make up looked great, but this was a snoozefest of a dress. At least it was better than your Grammy dress!
Okay, so Oscar thoughts:
-I'm not a huge fan of Family Guy, therefore I do not give a crap about Seth MacFarlane but I will admit he did have some funny lines and he was way better than when Anne Hathaway and James Franco hosted. (But to be fair, anybody would be). His skit with William Shatner went on a little too long, but I did like the bit with Sally Field and the sock puppets reenactment of Flight (which, if you've seen the movie is pretty darn accurate!)
-I loved his line about Argo being so top secretive that the Academy didn't even know who directed it. Ha, nice zinger!
-As I mentioned in my video, I did not think Christoph Waltz would win so soon again. I'm glad he won because he was the best part of Django Unchained. He needs to have supporting roles in QT's movies because so far he's two for two!
- I laughed so hard when Jennifer Lawrence tripped. That poor girl. She was so embarrased! But it was really endearing when she said, "You're all only standing up for me because I tripped and you don't want me to feel bad!" Awww.
-I loved Daniel Day-Lewis's speech and how he was supposed to play Margaret Thatcher and Steven Speilberg had Meryl Streep first in mind to play Abraham Lincoln and how he said he agreed to play Lincoln as long as they didn't make it into a musical. Sounds like a jab at Nine, haha!
-So Christoph Waltz, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Ang Lee all won Oscars and they all won Oscars 3, 5, and 7 years ago. The other people in their category had never won before or had won Oscars before them.
-I was very thrilled Ang Lee because I loved Life of Pi and he's two for two for me for winning Best Director Oscars for movies I love. (Brokeback Mountain, of course being the other). I do love that he and Anne Hathaway (who was in Brokeback Mountain as you may know) won Oscars on the same night!
-Also this is the second time when Ang Lee won Best Director, but his movie didn't win Best Picture. While I love Life of Pi, I'm okay with Argo beating it because that was my #1 and Life of Pi was my #2 movie of 2012. However, I was livid when Crash won over Brokeback Mountain in 2006!
-OMG, does Kristen Stewart not own a hairbrush? Good God, her hair looked awful!
-The Jaws music was a bit odd. It was funny the first time they did it, but then it got annoying. Yes, I understand people never shut up but maybe we should cut out those filler performances and just let people add a couple minutes to their speeches?
-No surprise, Jennifer Lawrence is the first person born in the '90s to have an Oscar (at least in the acting/directing categories...I never pay attention to the other categories) At 22 she is one of the youngest to win a Best Actress Oscar, but not the youngest. Marlee Matlin was 20 when she won hers for Children of a Lesser God in 1987.
-Also, did you know that Anne Hathaway is the second person born in the '80s to receive an Oscar (at least in the acting/directing categories!) Natalie Portman was the first.
-Did we really need to hear a song from Chicago and Dreamgirls? I thought the Les Mis number was a hot mess.
-I could care less about the James Bond franchise so I tuned out during that. Actually all I was thinking was that Halle Berry's dress was probably my favorite of the night.
-When Michelle Obama was going to read the Best Picture winner, I was worried, thinking that since the First Lady was reading the Best Picture Winner, it was surely going to be the presidential Lincoln, so I was extremely happy when she announced Argo. I'm guessing this is the first time anybody from the White House has been involved with the Oscars. Maybe?
-When Meryl Streep announced Daniel Day-Lewis as Best Actor, it looked as though she never even opened the envelop but she probably did while the clips were playing. It just cracked me up when she confidently said, "And the Oscar goes to Daniel Day-Lewis" like, "Bitch, please, I don't need to open this envelop to know who the winner is!"
-Daniel Day-Lewis is the winner of three Best Actor Oscars which has never happened before. Overall he's been nominated five times and has won 3 out of 5 times. That's more than half, so those are pretty good stats!
THE FASHION!!!
Favorite dressed:
Halle Berry in Versace - My eye was drawn to the geometric shape of the dress and I just thought it was really cool, not to mention gorgeous.
Jennifer Lawrence in Dior - Okay, so the dress was so huge that she tripped in it but it gave for a great moment and highlight of the Oscars. And it's the perfect "fairy tale" dress for winning an Oscar.
Sandra Bullock in Ellie Saab - cool intricate detail.
Jennifer Garner in Gucci - the butt bow and ruffle may have been a tad overdone (how the hell did she sit in that dress?), but I love the color and I love that it's violet, as Violet is the name of her oldest daugheter! Aww! Okay, I may be a little biased because I love me some Sydney Bristow so she could be wearing a garbage bag and I would probably still have her on my dressed list.
Jennifer Aniston in Valentino - beautiful color and nice to see her in something other than black!
Amanda Seyfriend in Alexander McQueen - So Anne Hathaway's original dress was similar to this and that's why she wore that awful pink number with the weird fit. Shame too because her original dress was gorgeous and probably would have been my best dress of the night. One thing's for sure: Amanda was better dressed than Anne!
Salma Hayek in Alexander McQueen - Ordinarily this would be a your basic boring black dress, but add the elaborate collar and you got a pretty striking gown!
The oooh, so close:
Anne Hathaway in Prada - Apparently she was supposed to wear Valentino, but she went with this one because the dress she originally had was kinda similar to Amanda Seyfriend? It sounded really pretty and I wish she had gone with that one. This one had a weird fit.
Reese Witherspoon in Louis Vuitton - I swear I've seen Reese in a dress like this before. I'm not really big on the color. Blue just seems so informal for the Oscars!
Amy Adams in Oscar de la Renta - There's nothing particularly wrong with this gown (although I would have gone with a different color), but I feel like we've seen this kind of dress a million times before at an event like the Oscars. In fact I think Penelope Cruz wore a dress like this, only much more dramatic and in pink the year she won....or was nominated....or just attended. LOL who knows!
Naomi Watts in Armani - would be a near perfect dress if not for the weird neckline. It looks like she could have a wardrobe malfunction at any time!
Jessica Chastian in Armani Prive - Not crazy about the color and the top looks like it could easily provide an embarrassing moment, but I certainly don't hate this dress. Actually it has a Jessica Rabbit vibe to it and I'm wondering if this is on purpose since she has red hair and her name is, well, Jessica.
Kerry Washington in Miu Miu - Like the color, don't like the top with the embellishments. It just doesn't seem to match the rest of the dress.
Helen Hunt in H&M - Yes, H&M!! WTF? That reminds me of when Sharon Stone wore something from the Gap one year! For an H&M dress, it looks pretty nice. I've never shopped at H&M, so maybe they do have nice stuff, but not Oscar nice! Nice dress, but boring.
What were they thinking?:
Renee Zellweger in Carolina Herrera - I usually a love a gold colored dress, but this might be too literal for the Oscars and it kinda reminds me of a trash bag.
Helena Bonham Carter in Vivienne Westwood - HBC's hair always looks so disheveled; it drives me crazy! Also, it looks like she's wearing a short black dress over a longer white one. Weird.
Jennifer Hudson in Roberto Cavalli - This girl has got to have the worst taste! I NEVER like anything she wears! I still have nightmares about that attrocial pink dress she wore during American Idol rounds!
Sally Field in Valentino - This dress looks really old-fashioned, like it's something Mary Todd Lincoln would wear to the Oscars if they had Oscars back then and maybe that's what Sally was going for, who knows. I hate the train on this dress and the color is kinda ugly.
Adele in Jenny Packham - Sorry, Adele, your hair and make up looked great, but this was a snoozefest of a dress. At least it was better than your Grammy dress!
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Reviews of 2012 Best Picture nominees
I haven't seen all nine of them, but here are reviews of the movies up for Best Picture this year that I have seen.
This is one of my favorite books (I read it in 2006) and Ang Lee is one of my favorite directors - I really love Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and now you can add Life of Pi! I really loved this movie - it's my second favorite movie of the year at the moment. It's about an Indian family who own a zoo and move to Canada for a better life. They take a ship to, ahem, ship all the animals. There's a horrible storm and Pi, the sixteen year old protagonist finds himself alone on a life raft after he's lost his entire family and everyone else who was on the ship. He's not exactly alone, though. A zebra, hyena, and orangutang are also on the boat. And, unbeknownst to Pi for quite a while, the full-grown Siberian tiger named Richard Parker (the tiger's name got confused with the name of the guy who sold it to them) is under the half of the boat that is covered by a tarp. I would have been scared you-know-what-less if I had been in Pi's position. There's a scene where the hyena starts attacking the zebra (who was wounded in the storm) and Pi starts hitting it with an oar. I wouldn't want the zebra to be killed by the hyena (which it was and amazingly the carcass was dumped into the ocean pretty early (not shown) - you think Pi would keep it around so the tiger could eat it instead of thinking about going after him!), but I also would have felt bad if I had to toss the hyena into the ocean (if I could). But let's be honest: if I was in this situation (or anyone, probably), I would be dead within five minutes. It's not long before all the animals are killed by another animal and the tiger and Pi are the only ones left. Pi makes a smaller liferaft that he attaches to the boat and steals the cans of food under the tarp whenever Richard Parker is sleeping and he has the chance. It's been awhile since I've read the book, but I thought the movie did a good job of following the book and I remembered certain things, the island for one. As the movie progresses, Pi is able to get into the boat with Richard Parker. The tiger (not a real one for obvious reasons, but looks very real) becomes an emotional part of the story and you start to root for him to have a happy ending as well as Pi. The movie ends with an interesting question when Pi tells what happened when he is rescued. He tells the authorities what happened and they don't believe he was in a boat with a tiger and the other animals, so he tells them that he was instead with his mother and two other people who we meet on the ship, so it's up to the audience to interpret what really happened. I saw this movie in 2-D because I hate 3-D, but now I kinda wish I had seen it in 3-D. The movie was atheistically stunning and pleasing to the eye. It is by far the most gorgeous movie of this year; it is truly a work of art!
You know when you see a movie that totally moves you, mesmerizes you, and just captures you in awe and it becomes one of your favorite movies for the rest of your life and when it comes up in conversations, you tell everyone how much you love that movie and they need to see it and when they do, they thank you for suggesting that they watch it because it moved and mesmerized them and captured their heart as well? You know what I'm talking about, right? We all have a few movies that do this to us. Les Mis....is not one of those movies! Sorry to get your hopes up if you did like this movie! I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I had never read the book or seen the musical and knew nothing about the story (besides it was obviously depressing), but I was so bored throughout most of it. Everyone did a great job with the singing and the cinematography was gorgeous - I loved when Notre Dame was in the background. The only scenes I really liked were Helena Bonham Carter and Sasha Baron Cohen singing "Master of the House" - that was definitely the most liveliest song!; any scene with the little kid - I thought he was a hoot (to bad he died...) and Anne Hathaway singing "I Dreamed a Dream" Dreadfully boring song, but I gotta give her props..she was singing and acting at the same time and she is amazing. She has snot running down her nose, her face is blotched, and she has this hideous short cropped hair, and she brings it! If she wins the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, I would not be disappointed. If Les Mis won the Best Picture Oscar, I would be very disappointed. With an exception of a couple songs, I found most of the songs to be not that memorable. I knew this was a musical going in (duh), but I thought it was the kind of musical where they talk, sing a song, talk, sing a song - you know, like Chicago. But not in this movie! No, they sing every single line. EVERY SINGLE LINE! EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. LINE. And this movie is two and a half hours. And this movie moves at a S-L-OOOOO-W pace. It was excruciating for me to watch. I haven't seen Lincoln, Amour, or Beasts of the Southern Wild yet (I'll check those out on DVD), but I'm pretty confident when I do see them, Les Mis will be my least favorite Best Picture nominee!
If I were to watch a Quentin Tarantino movie without knowing it was a Quentin Tarantino movie, I'm pretty confident I would be able to tell it was directed by him because he has such a distinct way of directing his films. I think that's what makes his films so much fun to watch - they give a little nod and wink to the audience. The way he uses different camera shots, the way he pays homage to other movies, and even the way his credits are - it's all very Tarantino-esque. Oh, and you can always tell by the language and amount of violence! This movie is pretty heavy in both aspects. There is A LOT of blood in this movie. By people getting shot, by people beating the crap out of each other, and one guy gets mauled by dogs, but mostly by people getting shot. It seems Tarantino has lately been interested in playing around with world history. His last movie, Inglorious Basterds, was set during World War II and he sort of changed the way Hitler died - just a tad! This movie is set during pre-Civil War when slavery was abound in the South. Jamie Foxx plays Django (the D is silent!), a slave who is given his freedom with the help of a German dentist/bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (played by Austrian actor, Christoph Waltz). They set out to rescue Django's wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) who knows German, so it's easy to track her down since she's the only slave woman who knows German. She works for Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), the villain of the film. Samuel L. Jackson rounds out the cast as Calvin Candie's best confident and he plays an older man and he is absolutely great. He provides a lot of humor and yet he's very sinister. Even though I haven't seen all the Best Picture nominees, this movie is most definitely the most violent out of all of them...and probably the funniest! I laughed quite a bit at some scenes. The KKK scene was hilarious. Only Tarantino could make a scene involving the KKK hilarious. I loved the scene where Django and King visit Don Johnson's character, Big Daddy (they call him "Big Daddy" because he's big!) and after he learns that Djanog is a free man, he tells one of his female servants, "Make you you don't treat Django like a slave now!" and she says,"Should I treat him like a white man!" and he goes, "No!" and she says, "Well, how am I suppose to treat him, then?" It was just really funny how it was done and I found myself laughing quite a few times during the film. It's a very gorgeous film as well and I can see why it's nominated for Best Cinematography. The use of the landscape is beautiful, especially when they were on a plantation in Tennessee. I'm not a tree expert, so I don't know what they were, but there were these huge trees with hanging foliage (not weeping willows) that were really pretty. Christoph Waltz steals this movie (and is the best part along with Sam Jackson) and although he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, he was more co-leads with Foxx. He is not in the last third of the movie and I noticed that once he was gone the movie dragged on a bit. Of course, the movie, which is about 2 hours and 40 minutes, could have easily been trimmed down by 30 minutes. There's a scene with Quentin Tarantino and it was just really random. It almost felt like he was filling in for another actor who was suppose to play that part that didn't show up on the set that day - it was just so out of place! Plus he has an Australian accent which makes it even more weird. Quentin Tarantino asked Will Smith to be Django, but he declined and I wish he hadn't because I think he would have made a way better Django than Jamie Foxx, who is fine, but I think Will would have been very dynamic...I would have loved to see what he would do with the role.
This is an unconventional romantic comedy. Bradley Coooper (who would have ever thought that good ol' Will Tippin would ever be nominated for an Oscar?) is Pat, a guy who has just been released from being in a mental institution for almost a year after he caught his high-school teacher wife with another teacher in the shower and beat him up. His wife divorced him and has put a restraining order on him and has moved and Pat is working to get her back because he wants to prove to her that he's changed. Jennifer Lawrence plays Tiffany, the sister-in-law of one of Pat's friends. Her husband was killed in an accident and she got fired from her job. Pat and Tiffany meet when they both have dinner at Pat's friend's house and from there they begin an interesting relationship. Since Tiffany's sister knows Pat's ex-wife, she tells him that if she writes a letter, she could find a way to give it to her, but says if she does this, she wants something in return and wants Pat to join a dance competition with her, something she's always wanted to do with her husband. It's a very charming movie and Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver are great as Pat's parents. (And I just realized that this is the second time Cooper and De Niro have worked together - they were also in Limitless).
Zero Dark Thirty (viewed in theaters January 28, 2013)
Director - Kathryn Bigelow
Oscar nominations:
Best Picture
Best Actress - Jessica Chastain
Best Original Screenplay - Mark Boal
Best Editing
Best Sound Editing
This is about the search and capture of Osama Bin Laden. The movie starts in 2003 (after a little prologue of 9/11) and ends at his capture which I'm sure we all remember that Sunday night in May of 2011 when Obama came on our TVs for a special report. Jessica Chastain plays Maya, the CIA agent who had a big hand in finding the compound Bin Laden was hiding at in Pakistan. As she told the CIA director (played by James Gandolfini) who asked her who she was, she replied with, "I'm the mother****er who found that place." She's very bad-ass, but not in a Sarah Connor/Lara Croft kind of way. She's badass in a realistic way and I would love to see Chastain win the Oscar. Bigelow was definitely snubbed of a directing Oscar - I liked this movie more than The Hurt Locker, which she won for. It's interesting that this is up for an Original Screenplay when it's based on true events. I guess they didn't use a book to write this, but used other sources? I really liked the guy who played Dan, Maya's partner during the first half of the film. I had never seen him in anything before and it turns out he's Australian in real life. There are a few torture scenes in the movie (being an avid fan of 24, I'm used to watching them - the things they did on 24 were worse than what they do in this movie!) At first Maya is very uncomfortable watching them, but then as the years pass, she is not shy to use it as a tactic to get information. Jennifer Ehle plays another CIA agent who works with Maya and she has found a huge lead with someone she thinks can lead them to Bin Laden. She and some others are supposed to meet him and you just know things are not going to end well. I kept gripping my seat waiting for a bomb to explode. Even though I knew what happens in the end and that they get the bad guy, I still felt a little jumpy when the Seal Team 6 invaded the compound they had reason to believe Bin Laden was at. They had no visual confirmation that he was there, but they strongly believed it could be him because there was a male that never left the compound at all. They had no way to see if it was him because they didn't want to spook him in running to a new location. Chris Pratt plays one of the Seal Team 6 members and it was a bit humorous to think of Andy from Parks and Rec going to kill Osama Bin Laden. The movie is two and a half hours - it's exactly the same length as Les Miserables, 157 minutes. But while Les Mis was excruciatingly long - it felt like it would never end!, Zero Dark Thirty did not feel like that at all - it went by pretty quickly. If you can make a two and a half hour movie and make it not feel long, then more power to you! It does a good job of keeping you interested and has a nice flow.
And here is my review of Argo.
Life of Pi (viewed in theaters December 10, 2012)
Director - Ang Lee
This review does contain spoilers.
Oscar nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - Ang Lee
Best Adapted Screenplay - David Magee
Best Cinematography
Best Editing
Best Score - Mychael Danna
Best Song - "Pi's Lullaby"
Best Visual Effects
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Best Production Design
This is one of my favorite books (I read it in 2006) and Ang Lee is one of my favorite directors - I really love Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and now you can add Life of Pi! I really loved this movie - it's my second favorite movie of the year at the moment. It's about an Indian family who own a zoo and move to Canada for a better life. They take a ship to, ahem, ship all the animals. There's a horrible storm and Pi, the sixteen year old protagonist finds himself alone on a life raft after he's lost his entire family and everyone else who was on the ship. He's not exactly alone, though. A zebra, hyena, and orangutang are also on the boat. And, unbeknownst to Pi for quite a while, the full-grown Siberian tiger named Richard Parker (the tiger's name got confused with the name of the guy who sold it to them) is under the half of the boat that is covered by a tarp. I would have been scared you-know-what-less if I had been in Pi's position. There's a scene where the hyena starts attacking the zebra (who was wounded in the storm) and Pi starts hitting it with an oar. I wouldn't want the zebra to be killed by the hyena (which it was and amazingly the carcass was dumped into the ocean pretty early (not shown) - you think Pi would keep it around so the tiger could eat it instead of thinking about going after him!), but I also would have felt bad if I had to toss the hyena into the ocean (if I could). But let's be honest: if I was in this situation (or anyone, probably), I would be dead within five minutes. It's not long before all the animals are killed by another animal and the tiger and Pi are the only ones left. Pi makes a smaller liferaft that he attaches to the boat and steals the cans of food under the tarp whenever Richard Parker is sleeping and he has the chance. It's been awhile since I've read the book, but I thought the movie did a good job of following the book and I remembered certain things, the island for one. As the movie progresses, Pi is able to get into the boat with Richard Parker. The tiger (not a real one for obvious reasons, but looks very real) becomes an emotional part of the story and you start to root for him to have a happy ending as well as Pi. The movie ends with an interesting question when Pi tells what happened when he is rescued. He tells the authorities what happened and they don't believe he was in a boat with a tiger and the other animals, so he tells them that he was instead with his mother and two other people who we meet on the ship, so it's up to the audience to interpret what really happened. I saw this movie in 2-D because I hate 3-D, but now I kinda wish I had seen it in 3-D. The movie was atheistically stunning and pleasing to the eye. It is by far the most gorgeous movie of this year; it is truly a work of art!
Les Miserables (viewed in theaters December 29, 2012)
Director - Tom Hooper
Oscar nominations:
Best Picture
Best Actor - Hugh Jackman
Best Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway
Best Costume Design
Best Make -Up
Best Original Song - "Suddenly"
Best Production Design
Best Sound Mixing
You know when you see a movie that totally moves you, mesmerizes you, and just captures you in awe and it becomes one of your favorite movies for the rest of your life and when it comes up in conversations, you tell everyone how much you love that movie and they need to see it and when they do, they thank you for suggesting that they watch it because it moved and mesmerized them and captured their heart as well? You know what I'm talking about, right? We all have a few movies that do this to us. Les Mis....is not one of those movies! Sorry to get your hopes up if you did like this movie! I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I had never read the book or seen the musical and knew nothing about the story (besides it was obviously depressing), but I was so bored throughout most of it. Everyone did a great job with the singing and the cinematography was gorgeous - I loved when Notre Dame was in the background. The only scenes I really liked were Helena Bonham Carter and Sasha Baron Cohen singing "Master of the House" - that was definitely the most liveliest song!; any scene with the little kid - I thought he was a hoot (to bad he died...) and Anne Hathaway singing "I Dreamed a Dream" Dreadfully boring song, but I gotta give her props..she was singing and acting at the same time and she is amazing. She has snot running down her nose, her face is blotched, and she has this hideous short cropped hair, and she brings it! If she wins the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, I would not be disappointed. If Les Mis won the Best Picture Oscar, I would be very disappointed. With an exception of a couple songs, I found most of the songs to be not that memorable. I knew this was a musical going in (duh), but I thought it was the kind of musical where they talk, sing a song, talk, sing a song - you know, like Chicago. But not in this movie! No, they sing every single line. EVERY SINGLE LINE! EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. LINE. And this movie is two and a half hours. And this movie moves at a S-L-OOOOO-W pace. It was excruciating for me to watch. I haven't seen Lincoln, Amour, or Beasts of the Southern Wild yet (I'll check those out on DVD), but I'm pretty confident when I do see them, Les Mis will be my least favorite Best Picture nominee!
Django Unchained (viewed in theaters January 14, 2013)
Director - Quentin Tarantino
Oscar nominations:
Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz
Best Original Screenplay - Quentin Tarantino
Best Cinematography
Best Sound Editing
Very slight spoilers!
If I were to watch a Quentin Tarantino movie without knowing it was a Quentin Tarantino movie, I'm pretty confident I would be able to tell it was directed by him because he has such a distinct way of directing his films. I think that's what makes his films so much fun to watch - they give a little nod and wink to the audience. The way he uses different camera shots, the way he pays homage to other movies, and even the way his credits are - it's all very Tarantino-esque. Oh, and you can always tell by the language and amount of violence! This movie is pretty heavy in both aspects. There is A LOT of blood in this movie. By people getting shot, by people beating the crap out of each other, and one guy gets mauled by dogs, but mostly by people getting shot. It seems Tarantino has lately been interested in playing around with world history. His last movie, Inglorious Basterds, was set during World War II and he sort of changed the way Hitler died - just a tad! This movie is set during pre-Civil War when slavery was abound in the South. Jamie Foxx plays Django (the D is silent!), a slave who is given his freedom with the help of a German dentist/bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (played by Austrian actor, Christoph Waltz). They set out to rescue Django's wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) who knows German, so it's easy to track her down since she's the only slave woman who knows German. She works for Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), the villain of the film. Samuel L. Jackson rounds out the cast as Calvin Candie's best confident and he plays an older man and he is absolutely great. He provides a lot of humor and yet he's very sinister. Even though I haven't seen all the Best Picture nominees, this movie is most definitely the most violent out of all of them...and probably the funniest! I laughed quite a bit at some scenes. The KKK scene was hilarious. Only Tarantino could make a scene involving the KKK hilarious. I loved the scene where Django and King visit Don Johnson's character, Big Daddy (they call him "Big Daddy" because he's big!) and after he learns that Djanog is a free man, he tells one of his female servants, "Make you you don't treat Django like a slave now!" and she says,"Should I treat him like a white man!" and he goes, "No!" and she says, "Well, how am I suppose to treat him, then?" It was just really funny how it was done and I found myself laughing quite a few times during the film. It's a very gorgeous film as well and I can see why it's nominated for Best Cinematography. The use of the landscape is beautiful, especially when they were on a plantation in Tennessee. I'm not a tree expert, so I don't know what they were, but there were these huge trees with hanging foliage (not weeping willows) that were really pretty. Christoph Waltz steals this movie (and is the best part along with Sam Jackson) and although he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, he was more co-leads with Foxx. He is not in the last third of the movie and I noticed that once he was gone the movie dragged on a bit. Of course, the movie, which is about 2 hours and 40 minutes, could have easily been trimmed down by 30 minutes. There's a scene with Quentin Tarantino and it was just really random. It almost felt like he was filling in for another actor who was suppose to play that part that didn't show up on the set that day - it was just so out of place! Plus he has an Australian accent which makes it even more weird. Quentin Tarantino asked Will Smith to be Django, but he declined and I wish he hadn't because I think he would have made a way better Django than Jamie Foxx, who is fine, but I think Will would have been very dynamic...I would have loved to see what he would do with the role.
Silver Linings Playbook (viewed in theaters January 21, 2013)
Director - David O. Russell
Oscar nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - David O. Russell
Best Actor - Bradley Cooper
Best Actress - Jennifer Lawrence
Best Supporting Actor - Robert De Niro
Best Supporting Actress - Jackie Weaver
Best Adapted Screenplay - David O. Russell
Best Editing
This is an unconventional romantic comedy. Bradley Coooper (who would have ever thought that good ol' Will Tippin would ever be nominated for an Oscar?) is Pat, a guy who has just been released from being in a mental institution for almost a year after he caught his high-school teacher wife with another teacher in the shower and beat him up. His wife divorced him and has put a restraining order on him and has moved and Pat is working to get her back because he wants to prove to her that he's changed. Jennifer Lawrence plays Tiffany, the sister-in-law of one of Pat's friends. Her husband was killed in an accident and she got fired from her job. Pat and Tiffany meet when they both have dinner at Pat's friend's house and from there they begin an interesting relationship. Since Tiffany's sister knows Pat's ex-wife, she tells him that if she writes a letter, she could find a way to give it to her, but says if she does this, she wants something in return and wants Pat to join a dance competition with her, something she's always wanted to do with her husband. It's a very charming movie and Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver are great as Pat's parents. (And I just realized that this is the second time Cooper and De Niro have worked together - they were also in Limitless). Zero Dark Thirty (viewed in theaters January 28, 2013)
Director - Kathryn Bigelow
Oscar nominations:
Best Picture
Best Actress - Jessica Chastain
Best Original Screenplay - Mark Boal
Best Editing
Best Sound Editing
This is about the search and capture of Osama Bin Laden. The movie starts in 2003 (after a little prologue of 9/11) and ends at his capture which I'm sure we all remember that Sunday night in May of 2011 when Obama came on our TVs for a special report. Jessica Chastain plays Maya, the CIA agent who had a big hand in finding the compound Bin Laden was hiding at in Pakistan. As she told the CIA director (played by James Gandolfini) who asked her who she was, she replied with, "I'm the mother****er who found that place." She's very bad-ass, but not in a Sarah Connor/Lara Croft kind of way. She's badass in a realistic way and I would love to see Chastain win the Oscar. Bigelow was definitely snubbed of a directing Oscar - I liked this movie more than The Hurt Locker, which she won for. It's interesting that this is up for an Original Screenplay when it's based on true events. I guess they didn't use a book to write this, but used other sources? I really liked the guy who played Dan, Maya's partner during the first half of the film. I had never seen him in anything before and it turns out he's Australian in real life. There are a few torture scenes in the movie (being an avid fan of 24, I'm used to watching them - the things they did on 24 were worse than what they do in this movie!) At first Maya is very uncomfortable watching them, but then as the years pass, she is not shy to use it as a tactic to get information. Jennifer Ehle plays another CIA agent who works with Maya and she has found a huge lead with someone she thinks can lead them to Bin Laden. She and some others are supposed to meet him and you just know things are not going to end well. I kept gripping my seat waiting for a bomb to explode. Even though I knew what happens in the end and that they get the bad guy, I still felt a little jumpy when the Seal Team 6 invaded the compound they had reason to believe Bin Laden was at. They had no visual confirmation that he was there, but they strongly believed it could be him because there was a male that never left the compound at all. They had no way to see if it was him because they didn't want to spook him in running to a new location. Chris Pratt plays one of the Seal Team 6 members and it was a bit humorous to think of Andy from Parks and Rec going to kill Osama Bin Laden. The movie is two and a half hours - it's exactly the same length as Les Miserables, 157 minutes. But while Les Mis was excruciatingly long - it felt like it would never end!, Zero Dark Thirty did not feel like that at all - it went by pretty quickly. If you can make a two and a half hour movie and make it not feel long, then more power to you! It does a good job of keeping you interested and has a nice flow.And here is my review of Argo.
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