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My reactions to the 2013 Oscar Nominations

Posted in Academy Awards, movies, Oscars with tags Academy Awards, movies, Oscars on January 11, 2013 by Paxton

The Academy released the 2013 Oscar nominations for this year. Being the big movie fan/Oscar dork that I am I usually like to take a look at the most popular categories and give you some of my thoughts on the decisions. I’ve done this sort of recap since 2007 (for the 2006 movie year). To see my previous reactions to the Oscar nominations go to the Oscars Wild archive page.

Now, let’s take a look at the “money” categories and judge how the Academy did this year.

Argo
Best Picture
Argo – This movie is excellent. I’m actually somewhat pissed at myself for not including it on my favorite movies of 2012 list, but it completely slipped my mind while I was writing. Ben Affleck is 3-for-3 when directing movies. And this one is the best one of the three.
Django Unchained – This, however, did make my favorite movies list. It’s awesome and fun and 100% Tarantino.
Les Miserables – I like broadway shows. However I have little to no desire to watch this despite the amazing cast. The story looks depressing.
Life of Pi – Again, I have no desire to watch this. The visuals look amazing but from the clips I’ve seen the movie looks too dreamy and weird.
Amour – There’s always one of these. Literally never heard of this movie until today when they were making the announcements. It’s about two married retired music teachers, one of which has a stroke and their love is tested……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Lincoln – This looks amazing. I need to see it ASAP.
Silver Linings Playbook – This has been on my radar for a while, and the fact that it’s getting all these noms bumps it up higher on my priorities.
Zero Dark Thirty – I’m not a military/war movie guy. I just don’t like them, but this looks pretty good.
Beasts of the Southern Wild – Now there are two of these. Never heard of this. No desire to see it. Sounds like a documentary on Neo Geo.

<RANT>I’m a little pissed that Marvel’s The Avengers didn’t make it into these Best Picture nominations. You can’t tell me that Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour aren’t a giant F**K YOU to Whedon and Marvel. The Avengers received 1 nomination. For Visual Effects. Just THREE YEARS AGO f**king Avatar (special effects heavy, tent pole studio release similar to The Avengers) received NINE Oscar nominations including an appearance in Best Picture. But the Academy has historically proven that they enjoy licking James Cameron’s hairy bean bag whenever they get a chance.</RANT>

Flight
Actor in a Leading Role
Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook – I am a fan of “The Cooper”. And I mentioned earlier that this movie has crawled itself into my “must see” list.
Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln – Day-Lewis is intense and always great. I don’t always love his movies but I nearly always love watching the man perform his characters.
Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables – Good thing Hugh got this one in because I’m thinking he won’t be here next year for The Wolverine.
Joaquin Phoenix in The Master – Not a fan of Joaquin the man, or the actor. I liked him in Walk the Line as Johnny Cash and as Commodus in Gladiator. Other than that, I pretty much dislike everything he does.
Denzel Washington in Flight – Man, I really wanted to see this movie. I’ve have been digging everything Denzel has been doing for the last 10 years or so. And this movie looks GREAT. Good to see Zemekis may have a hit on his hands.

Actress in a Leading Role
Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty – Like I said, I don’t like military/war movies but this looks good and she looks good in it.
Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook – I really like Jennifer Lawrence and pairing her with Bradley Cooper is win-win. For everyone.
Emmanuelle Riva in Amour – Whatever.
Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of Southern Wild – It’s impressive that at 9 years old she’s getting nominated.
Naomi Watts in The Impossible – And the “tsunami movie” gets a nom. I’m surprised it didn’t also make it into best picture. The Academy loves nominating these natural disaster movies especially if they portray real events. See United 93.

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Movie Board: My Favorite Movies of 2011

Posted in Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, reviews with tags Movie Board, movies on February 9, 2012 by Paxton

Finally, my thrilling year end aggregation of all of my favorite movies from 2011. Every year, I keep a white board at my desk of all the movies I see that are released in 2011. Hence the name, Movie Board. Here is that board.

This year, I’m going to do something different. I’m going to split the list into two groups. Group 1 will be my 5 favorite movies that were released during 2011. Group 2 will be my 5 other favorite movies I saw in 2011 that weren’t released in that year. Then I’ll give my usual honorable mentions.

So let’s get started with my 5 favorite movies from 2011 in no particular order.

X-Men: First Class – How great was this movie. It was better than every X-Men movie before it. I really hope this cast continues on with more movies. I don’t even care if they try to stick with the established movie timeline. I just want more of this cast and this type of storytelling.

Captain America – We really had a banner year for super hero movies. This movie was amazing and the perfect setup for The Avengers this summer. And Chris Evans. I’ve been a fan of him ever since I saw him in Not Another Teen Movie in 2001 and Cellular in 2004. Not to mention his nearly perfect turn as Johnny Storm in both Fantastic Four movies. I can’t wait for The Avengers and Captain America 2.

Moneyball – I’m not the biggest baseball fan, but I love this movie. It’s only peripherally a baseball movie, it’s more about Billy Beane and his attempt to rethink the evaluation of baseball talent. This movie is written by two of my favorite writers, Steve Zaillian (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, American Gangster) and Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network, A Few Good Men). Just a really good behind the scenes look at baseball. Brad Pitt is great as Billy Beane and so is Jonah Hill as Peter Brand. Definitely check this out.

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The Cavalcade review of the 2011 Oscar Nominees

Posted in Academy Awards, movies, Oscars with tags Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, Oscars Wild on January 26, 2012 by Paxton

Well, the academy released the Oscar nominations for this year’s Academy Awards. Again, some surprises, some not so surprising. I usually like to take a look at the most popular categories and give you some of my thoughts on the decisions. Looking back, I see I’ve done this recap since 2007 (for the 2006 movie year). Here are those articles:

2010
2009
2008
2007
2006

Normally, by now, I’ve posted my Movie Board articles telling you guys what my favorite/least favorite movies of the year are. However, I’m still catching up on Oscar eligible movies, so I’ll have those up in a few weeks. I have my preliminary list, but there are some good ones I need to see just to be sure.

Anyway, back to the Oscar nominees for this year. You can find the full list of nominees at Oscars.org. Now, let’s take a look at the “money” categories and judge how the Academy did this year.

Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir in “A Better Life” – What? Who?
George Clooney in “The Descendants” – Man, Clooney no longer does the “one for you, one for me” formula. He pretty much just does whatever the hell he wants to do. How else do you explain The American or Men Who Stare At Goats? I miss the Clooney from Ocean’s 11, Goodnight and Good Luck and Intolerable Cruelty. I’m not having as much fun with the current version.
Jean Dujardin in “The Artist” – This movie actually doesn’t sound that bad, but I have yet to see it.
Gary Oldman in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” – Looks amazing. Really want to see this movie. Oldman is great in pretty much everything.
Brad Pitt in “Moneyball” – Again, I really want to see this but have not yet had the opportunity.

Actor in a Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh in “My Week with Marilyn” – This movie doesn’t look great.
Jonah Hill in “Moneyball” – Props to Jonah for dipping his toes into the dramatic pool.
Nick Nolte in “Warrior” – I hear this movie is great, but I can’t support a Nolte nomination. For anything.
Christopher Plummer in “Beginners” – Meh.
Max von Sydow in “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” – This movie looks amazing. But I’m reluctant to see it because as a new dad, I feel the heavy father-son relationship at the center of this plot will completely undo the macho-man hold on my emotions and cause me to bawl like my wife at cheesy cell phone commercials.

Actress in a Leading Role
Glenn Close in “Albert Nobbs” – Close may be fantastic in this, but it just “feels” tailor made for the Oscars. Like they were trying to get Close a nomination. Julie Andrews did gender bending first in Victor/Victoria. Close’s makeup in this just looks like posturing for an Oscar. See also Nicole Kidman’s makeup in The Hours and Charlize Theron’s in Monster.
Viola Davis in “The Help” – Better movie than I expected and Viola was great in it.
Rooney Mara in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” – Really, really good movie. Hard to watch, but very good. Rooney Mara is also great in it.
Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady” – I imagine this is good. I want to see it.
Michelle Williams in “My Week with Marilyn” – Not a fan of Michelle Williams.

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The Cavalcade takes a look at the 2010 Oscar Nominations

Posted in Academy Awards, movies, Oscars with tags Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, Oscars Wild on February 1, 2011 by Paxton

This is what I wait all year for. The reason I saw 50+ movies last year. The Oscar nominations.

I’ve been doing this review of the Oscar nominations for about 5 years now. Check out my Oscar nomination reviews from 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007. I’ve clearly shown that I know more than the Academy. So let’s see what I think of the nominations this year. I’m only going to look at the “money” categories because no one really cares about sound mixing unless they are actually a sound mixer.

Best Actor
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful” (Roadside Attractions) – Dammit. Where the f**k did this movie come from? I saw 50+ movies last year and I’ve never heard of this.
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit” (Paramount) – Yes. Agreed. Well done.
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network” (Sony Pictures Releasing) – Just watched this. It deserves all the praise it’s getting.
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech” (The Weinstein Company) – This is one of those I know I should see and my wife will want to see, but I’m like…”I’ll pass.”
James Franco in “127 Hours” (Fox Searchlight) – Apparently this movie is NOT a prequel to the 1993 Renny Harlin classic, Cliffhanger, starring Sylvester Stallone. And Franco does NOT play a younger version of Sly’s Gabe “Mountain” Walker. I don’t know about you, but that adjusts my expectations to somewhere below…zero.

Supporting Actor
Christian Bale in “The Fighter” (Paramount) – I didn’t like this the first time when it was called The Wrestler.
John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone” (Roadside Attractions) – I totally thought this was porn when I first read the title. I was like, “Go Academy!” Nope. It’s about a small girl who searches for her druggie dad who put the family trailer up for his bail. Sounds all lovely and depressing. My friend Dr Mike’s wife will love it.
Jeremy Renner in “The Town” (Warner Bros.) – Yes, I couldn’t agree more. This movie is great and Renner is fantastic in it.
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right” (Focus Features) – So both Hawkeye (Renner) and The Incredible Hulk (Ruffalo) from the upcoming Avengers movie are nominated for Supporting Actor awards. That’s pretty awesome. Oh, and Batman. Forgot Bale was up there too.
Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech” (The Weinstein Company) – This movie got a lot of nominations. I know my wife is going to want to watch it.

Best Actress
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right” (Focus Features) – Lesbian couple, raising teenagers, Oscar noms, blah, blah, blah.
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole” (Lionsgate) – A couple’s son dies, they drift apart. The Academy loves these depressing dramas.
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone” (Roadside Attractions) – Kid searches for trailer park druggie dad. Not porn. Touching.
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan” (Fox Searchlight) – Lots of angry lesbian sex between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. Of course I want to see this. Too bad it was filmed by Darren Arnofsky who totally ruined similar sex scenes with Jennifer Connelly in Requiem for a Dream.
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine” (The Weinstein Company) – Supposedly a very sexy picture. However, I don’t think I would agree because Michelle Williams is not sexy.

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Cavalcade of Awesome looks at the 2009 Oscar Nominations

Posted in Academy Awards, movies, Oscars with tags Academy Awards, movies, Oscars, Oscars Wild on February 3, 2010 by Paxton

The Academy Awards are almost upon us. This year the Oscars will be broadcast on Sun, March 7 at 8pm EST. The ceremony will be co-hosted by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.

The Oscar nominations for this year were released on Tuesday, Feb 2. I do this every year, I go through the nominations for the biggest categories and see how much I agree with the Academy. More often than not, I don’t agree at all.

See my thoughts on last year’s Oscar nominations here.

See the Oscar noms for 2007 here.

You can see all the nominations on the official Oscar website. So, without further ado, here are the nominations.

BEST PICTURE
Avatar – I can see this in Visual Effects, but not Best Picture. It’s a good movie, it’s just not a great movie. And by that I mean it’s not the best written movie in the world and it’s AT LEAST 30 minutes too long. The mineral the corporation is mining in the movie is called Unobtainium. They actually say it in the movie. COME ON!
The Blind Side – Think about this: The Blind Side has a shot at being the BEST PICTURE OF 2009. Don’t get me wrong, I like this movie, but BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR?! No.
District 9 – On my list of top 5 movies of 2009. Of course, there’s no way in Hell this is going to win, but it’s good to see it here.
An Education – Yeah, didn’t see it. Nor have I heard of it. Well, played, Academy. Well. Played.
The Hurt Locker – I don’t normally like war movies. I hear great things about this, so I may have to suck it up and give it a watch.
Inglourious Basterds – An exception to my war movie rule. In my top 5 movies of 2009.
Precious – I see why this is nominated. I really do. I just never want to watch it.
A Serious Man – The Coen’s are weird, dude. I’ve only enjoyed 3 of their movies. EVER. And I’ve only watched one of those three movies more than once. I’m not exactly itching to see this.
Up – I really did enjoy this movie, but, again, I’m not sure it deserved a BEST PICTURE OF 2009 nomination.
Up In The Air – I love George Clooney. I knew this was going to be high on Academy voters’ lists. And I still have no desire to watch it.

District 9 Inglorious Basterds

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, CRAZY HEART – Bridges wasn’t nominated for The Men Who Stare At Goats? RIGGED! I’m kidding. Of course, I’ve never even heard of this movie.
George Clooney, UP IN THE AIR – Another missed opportunity for The Men Who Stare At Goats.
Colin Firth, A SINGLE MAN – Love Colin Firth. Unless this is a sequel to Love Actually, then I’m not interested.
Morgan Freeman, INVICTUS – I have a man-crush on Matt Damon and I love Morgan Freeman. That still does not make me want to see a movie about rugby…and apartheid.
Jeremy Renner, THE HURT LOCKER – Again, I hear Renner is great in this.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Damon, INVICTUS – Yay, Matt! I’m still not going to see this movie.
Woody Harrelson, THE MESSENGER – WTF is The Messenger?! Harrelson should have been nominated for Zombieland. There, I said it.
Christopher Plummer, THE LAST STATION – What?
Stanley Tucci, THE LOVELY BONES – Nice nom for Tucci. He was good in this sequel to What Dreams May Come.
Christoph Waltz, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS – Waltz better win this. From what I see here, he PWNS this category.