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Articles tagged ‘Oscars’...

Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart is one of those rarer films in which you can easily separate performances from plot. In this case, a Best Actor from a less-than-best film.

Crazy Heart is a film about a washed-up country singer and the choices and changes he makes and the challenges he faces. It’s got great atmosphere, in dark and seedy little bars, and it really takes you to the edge of a life, the life of Bad Blake, played by Jeff Bridges, but it is, in the end, really a film made up of actors and not story.

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16 Mar 2010

Crazy Heart (2009)

Author: Keith Little | Filed under: Film

The Lovely Bones

I may get some flack for saying this but please read the whole review, and maybe you’ll understand: The Lovely Bones, the latest offering from famed director Peter Jackson, is one-half a good movie. The other half I could’ve done without.

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14 Mar 2010

The Lovely Bones (2009)

Author: Keith Little | Filed under: Film

Up in the Air

My wife, Maria, described Up in the Air as a very well put-together movie. That about sums it up. And she’s totally right, of course.

Up in the Air is essentially a film about a traveling salesman. Ryan Bingham, played expertly by George Clooney, is a businessman who’s job it is to travel around the world firing people. He’s hired to fire, and he makes a living doing it. In fact, he loves doing it. Bingham loves the experience of flying, staying in hotels, eating out, and wracking up air miles. It’s his passion; living alone, isolated, is his credo. His philosophy. It’s interesting, seeing someone living their life like that. It is. Up in the Air is a movie about Ryan Bingham, and it’s very well done.

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12 Mar 2010

Up in the Air (2009)

Author: Keith Little | Filed under: Film

Well, the Oscars have come and gone again. I wouldn’t say the results were unexpected, but they were, I would say, good. I’m glad, first and foremost, to see that Avatar, the gazillion-dollar blockbuster, didn’t sweep the podium. It had the potential to, and the rumour mill was buzzing like nobody’s business leading up to Sunday. But thankfully, common sense prevailed and the Academy decided that just because a movie was twenty years in the making, costs the GDP of a small nation, and brought it ten times that amount means that it deserves an award. Avatar, after all, is a movie about Indians and the White Man and of all the Best Picture nominees this year, this genre has definitely been done to death.

So instead, the good guys prevailed: The Hurt Locker, taking almost every award possible away from Avatar. It was interesting. James Cameron just sat there, nearly the whole time, with that smug look on his face: a look of arrogant confidence. It was with that expression, that smugness in mind, that it felt so good when Kathryn Bigelow took both Best Director and Best Picture. When she won, she was beside herself and it showed, she could barely stand up to receive her first and then second award. A sharp contrast to Cameron’s demeanor. One would say, just from looking at them, that she deserved it more.

But unfortunately, the movie I would’ve picked for the best out of these three didn’t really have a chance. Precious, in my opinion, was the best film out of the front-runners. I think it was far more impactful and a much more complete film than The Hurt Locker, ditto Avatar. Why it didn’t win is anyone’s guess, but I imagine it got lost in the shuffle. This year’s Academy Awards, wrongfully so, were billed as a battle between former husband and wife. While there was some mention of an African American filmmaker, possibly for the first time, taking home Best Picture, it wasn’t the headline like the Cameron-Bigelow affair was. Sadly, I think the best picture became a casualty of war—a victim of collateral damage.

It was a pretty solid night, though. Some unexpected things, one of which was Avatar winning almost nothing but another was the severe lack of banjo. Before the show, I took a vote with the friends at our Oscar Party, the question was: when do you think Steve Martin’s banjo will make an appearance. If Avatar losing everything was a big shocker, it’s only supplanted by the shock that Martin never had a chance to play us  Camptown Races. I don’t know, but if Hugh Jackman gets to put on his dancing shoes, why doesn’t Steve Martin get to display his musical chops? After all, he does have a Grammy to his name. I would’ve bet good money on a Baldwin-Martin musical duet but instead we get, what, an opening musical number by Neil Patrick Harris? My apologies to N.P.H. fans, but I would’ve preferred to see the hosts perform.

Although the Oscars are over, I’m still getting through reviewing a few more nominated films. While we watched most of them, I couldn’t keep up with writing the reviews too—after all, I do have a day job, and it’s report card season right now. We just watched Up in the Air, The Lovely Bones, and Crazy Heart, so there are still lots more Oscar nominees coming up, stay tuned.

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9 Mar 2010

Thoughts on the 2010 Oscars

Author: Keith Little | Filed under: Film

Up

I’ll make this short and sweet. I think, perhaps, I’m just a grump but I didn’t love the new venture from Disney/Pixar, Up. To boil it down to basics, it’s a great film, a great family film and an incredible accomplishment for Disney/Pixar and animated films in general. It’s definitely the best family film I’ve seen in a long time but it’s still a family film, not too complex or complicated, nothing incredibly deep, but clean, simple and thoughtful fun. If that’s what you’re interested in, then this film’s for you.

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3 Mar 2010

Up (2009)

Author: Keith Little | Filed under: Film

Precious

Continuing our power walk to the Oscars, Maria and I watched Precious over the weekend and I’d like to share some thoughts.

My initial thought—and it was Maria’s too—was finally. Finally a movie, out of all the Best Picture picks we’ve watched so far, that truly deserves a nomination. Precious deserves the Best Picture nod. Absolutely.

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2 Mar 2010

Precious (2009)

Author: Keith Little | Filed under: Film

A Serious Man

Commercials and advertisements for this year’s Academy Awards are billing it as historic. Ten nominations for best picture, they say, because 2009 was such an incredible year for film. It’ll go down in the record books, they say. Monumental. I call shenanigans.

Like District Nine, the latest venture from the brothers Coen, A Serious Man, does not belong on the list of this year’s best films.

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1 Mar 2010

A Serious Man (2009)

Author: Keith Little | Filed under: Film