Movie Monday: Oscar Night!

The 82nd Academy Awards were held last night and for the first time since the 1940's there were ten films nominated for the top prize of Best Picture. The nominations were:

• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
  
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

The Hurt Locker took home the Oscar for Best Picture and for the first time in the history of the Oscar's a female director, Kathryn Bigelow, won the award for Best Director.

If you haven't had the opportunity to see The Hurt Locker yet I strongly recommend you do. The film is a very honest and personal portrayal of the war and the ups and downs of the soldiering life.

Much to my shame I've only seen 3 of the films that were nominated this year (The Hurt Locker, District 9 and Inglourious Basterds) and other than Inglourious Basterds I didn't particularly care to see these films. I was really hoping to see Precious and An Education first but alas, they remain on my to-do list. Instead, I saw The Hurt Locker and District 9 and I'm really glad I did. District 9 turns a sharp eye on humanity and how much our intolerance seems to come more from a place of fear rather than logic. The Hurt Locker I've already lauded above. They were both excellent films I highly recommend.

Inglorious Basterds was somehow everything and nothing I expected from a Tarantino movie. The dialogue was air-tight (expected) and the acting was very good (also, expected) but the improvised approach to history was both surprising and delightful (and certainly more satisfying).

I was honestly surprised to see The Blind Side receive so many nominations from so many awards organizations considering the previews made it look like a Lifetime movie. Lesson learned, never judge a book by its cover.

I might be the only person left on the planet who hasn't thrown my green into the Avatar money pool yet but James Cameron gives me a tiny case of the icks and I feel a wee bit principled about
seeing his movies. But, since his ex smoked him (deservedly) in awards last night maybe I'll see his movie.

That leaves A Serious Man, Up and Up in the Air and despite the fact that I haven't seen any of them yet, I would still like to. I've heard some mixed reviews about Up in the Air (aka: my mother didn't like it. "I don't see what all the fuss is about.") but I generally like George Clooney in all his Clooney-ness and Anna Kendrick seems like a promising young actress.

I skipped Up initially because I couldn't imagine anything in CGI from Disney-Pixar not being a cheesy mess. Apparently it's good. A Serious Man looked awesome in the clips they showed last night but I kept confusing it with A Single Man which I also want to see. Tom Ford is the cat's meow.

That's about it for now, look out for our new pictorial movie reviews, hopefully coming your way next week.

Ciao!