So, I was listening to a radio show discuss the upcoming 85th Academy Awards. There are so many awards your head could explode. I was paying attention to the nominees for best picture. I haven't seen any of them. Therefore, I will read a synopsis and then try to predict which one would win as well as give my review.
Amour
A French movie that has it's movie thumbnail picture being that of somebody holding an old lady's head. I already don't want to see it. So the old lady had a stroke, needed surgery, and her husband cares for her. She goes through several bouts of pain and suffers another stroke. The lady is also paralyzed on half her body. The husband gets frustrated, slaps her once or twice. When the man sees her crying hysterically in pain, he calms her down with a story from his childhood. Then he kills her. Then he dresses her up and covers her with flowers and puts a note on a pigeon. The plot on Wikipedia then says he starves himself, presumably to die. Fin. Sounds exclusively horrible to me. How can you tell if a foreign film is any good when I don't speak the language and cannot tell if they are good or bad? The only thing I know of foreign films is that when Prism used to show them, there was always boobs. I don't think strokey boobs are en vogue at this time, and this movie, again, sounds horrible.
Argo
Ben Affleck pretends to be a movie guy but is really a CIA agent and helps free 6 people who escaped a takeover by Iranian militants. It is based on a true story. I will admit, the Wikipedia plot descriptions makes it sound very boring. But one analysis I heard of the movie is that is real and close to the story that it is based on. I don't like those, because I know what will happen. I know the ending. The people escape and two years later Jimmy Carter announces the other hostages are free. However I heard the movie was very entertaining and well done, with great acting. I don't know great acting from one thing to another. Alls I know is the last couple Ben Affleck movies have been entertaining, and I would most want to see this movie. I also like when a movie says the title in the middle of the movie, and other than the French piece of crap above, is probably the only one that says the title in it. I would like to see this movie and so far after two recaps, this sounds like the leader.
Beasts of the Southern Wild
What the hell? The main characters are a girl named Hushpuppy and her father Wink. They live in a town in Louisiana called the "Bathtub" because it is surrounded by a levee. Hushpuppy has a weirdo "Miss Lippy" type teacher.
She talks about nature and how these ancient creatures live in ice caps called Auruchs will come out soon. So some hurricane or something comes and I think (?) floods the town? Wink somehow slaps Hushpuppy so Hushpuppy responds with a heart punch that severely injures her father.
The storm comes, and the salt water encroachment starts killing everything. Hushpuppy destroys the levy but the military makes the Bathtub residents leave. They fight to get back. Hushpuppy looks for her mom, but finds some waitress instead. Wink dies. Hushpuppy burns him.
Sounds like a real charmer right? If this was about the New Orleans Saints, perhaps I could potentially give a flying fuck. Sounds too artsy. Sounds like the Academy Awards strongly endorses domestic violence, too.
Django Unchained
Back in the messed up days of slavery, Django is purchased and separated from his wife, Broomhilda. The wife goes to a horrible plantation owner who has his slaves fight MMA style. Django is freed by some good white guy who buys him, teaches him how to be a bounty hunter, kills a bunch of people with bounties on them, and helps Django locate his wife. They make some deal with the plantation owner and almost gets the deal done, but Django's white friend kills the plantation owner. Django is made to work to death in a mine while his wife becomes a sex slave. Django convinces the people taking him to the mine that he can get them in on a couple bounties, and when they agree and take him back to his wife's area, he kills them. No doy! He then frees his wife and the other slaves. Django goes back into the house after the funeral for the former plantation owner and he and the slaves kill all but one - the original plantation owner's HNIC. He only shot him in the knee and then blew up the house with dynamite. The 8 paragraph plot description makes this sound like a pretty cool movie, but I am not a big fan of Quinten Tarentino. Not even sure if I spelled his name right. Nor do I really care. His movies are mostly talking and cool music. I tried watching Inglorious Basterds, but couldn't. Some people say, "Oh once it gets going it's awesome." Sorry I should only have to pay half price then. I want entertainment from the start. The Wikipedia entry sounds enticing though so I may want to give this a shot if it shows up in my red box one day. Sounds pretty good, but I would see it after Argo.
Les Miserables
The Miserables sounds horrible. Not one spoken word. Just all songs. Did they sing cough in the movie? Anne Hathaway is made to look like an elfen boy and no longer looks hot when she is soaking wet. Kim tells me she wants to see this movie, I tell her I would rather sit on my genitals. She said she read the book and it was great. Indeed the story sounds great, but when I asked her if they sung in the book she just shakes her head. That either means "no" or she will not dignify me with a response. The only thing I would want to see less than this is my own mother give birth to me.
Life of Pi
And suddenly I realized something - I saw this movie! I started this column over the weekend, but then saw Life of Pi Monday night. It was actually a pretty fascinating movie. Boy in India's family has a zoo, sells it, and the family and animals move to America. The boat goes down and only Pi and some animals escape on a boat. A hyena comes out of nowhere, laughing/crying for food, and eventually eats an injured zebra. There is an orangutang on the boat that seems to stick up for Pi and the zebra. When it has had enough, the monkey screams at the hyena, only to have the hyena kill the orangutang. Then goddamn tiger shoots out from under the canvas and kills the hyena. Pi and the tiger, who he knew at the zoo as "Richard Parker", have a tenuous relationship. It is weeks upon months stranded at sea when Pi lives on a raft tied to the lifeboat. He eventually realizes he must befriend the tiger to live. He shows his dominance to the tiger and they can share the boat. They make it back to land after some time in what was truly a miracle. As Pi, malnourished and passing out, looks up at the land, he sees Richard Parker staring at the Mexican jungle, and disappears into it without looking back. Meanwhile, Pi is telling the story to some weird white guy who has writer's block. When Pi is at the hospital recovering and the Japanese insurance company is trying to get his story, they don't believe any of it. They ask him for a "more believable" story. He then proceeds to tell a similar story, only with his family and a boat crew member onboard the lifeboat. He tells tales of murder and death. He was the tiger all along. He had to overcome whatever fear that represented blah blah blah. Then it would have just been "Castaway" if he told that story from the beginning. I liked it until the ending with the reveal of the real story. But, I must say, the visuals of sea, the animals, the night scenes, the mystic island they made it to before hitting the mainland, it was tremendous. The best scene was from night. Pi was sleeping on his raft and all this glow in the dark fish/plankton activity was going on. Then this whale launches itself up in the air, covered in glow in the dark animals and knocking over all his food into the ocean. It was cool. I still would rather see Argo, though.
Lincoln
Did you know Lincoln was really 27 years old and that he just had horrible genetics that made him look older than Moses would today? True fact. This tells the tale of Lincoln struggling with his country to free the slaves and make blacks equals. His wife then nags him to take her to the movies and he gets shot. The end. Sorry, but like Argo, I already know the ending. You can't write anything different. You can't come up with a different or more compelling narrative. And I'm sure that there was a lot of use of the words "ye", "yore," "score," "bequeathed," and "bequizzle." I don't like those period piece type things. Maybe when Rocco is old enough to learn about the Presidents we can watch it one day. I have actual some mild interest, just because of the hype it receives. Perhaps if Kim ever changes her opinion on going to musicals live and in person, I will play the last 2 minutes of this movie to remind her of what can happen.
Silver Linings Playbook
Bradley cooper is an Eagles fan. I am an Eagles fan. I read this plot, and it starts out simple. Man loses mind when he finds his wife cheating on him. He is mental, and when released from the hospital tries to get his life back on track while wanting to get his wife back. He meets a girl who wants to help him get his wife back if he helps her win a dance competition. Bradley Cooper's fake dad makes some bets on the Eagles and goes to the game as family. The Eagles lose and Cooper is in a fight, the new girl gets mad, and the dad loses all his money. Some cockamamie bet is worked out again for Cooper's fake dad to bet on an Eagles game AND the dance competition. (Not) Surprisingly, Cooper's wife is at the competition too, and after he hears his score wins his father the bet, he speaks to his wife. The new girl runs out, only for Cooper to track her down and say he loves her. They kiss. Father opens a restaurant. Silver Linings Playbook. It started simple, then became more complex than the possibility of the quadruple helix DNA structure. It is a "romantic-comedy-drama", or a romeda. It looked like it would be funny, but if the Hangover 2 was any indication, Bradley Cooper really isn't funny. Kim's mom met Bradley Cooper down the street from her house with Rocco during filming. She said he was short and would've given me a run for my money. She actually tripped over him. Interest in this movie, on a scale of 1 to 10 is a 5, on a scale of 1 to 100, is a 50, and so on. The only appealing aspect of this is seeing some older Eagle's footage to relive my waxing days as an Eagles fan.
Zero Dark Thirty
Osama Bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011. In one year's time, there was a movie made that depicts the drama of a CIA agent who led US forces to the compound he was hiding in and eventually killed him. Was the script made the next day? I don't understand. The CIA hides so many things from the world, and things we can speculate but never know. They are used to "protect us" and have done things like black flag operations to operatives that capture or kill the world's biggest scumbags. Perhaps a necessary evil I guess? It is so odd to me though that when most movies take up to two years, this one was done so quickly and well that it is up for an Academy Award for one year after the event the movie is based on? I'm not trying to blow the conspiracy theory whistle here, but it is hard not to ask questions about things. It sounds like a really good, intense movie, though. My interest in it is just a notch below to see Argo, oddly enough another based on true events involving CIA operatives.
That said, who will win? I hear a lot of favoritism among pundits that Argo should take it. I bet that stupid movie about heart punching and hurricanes wins, cause that's how the Academy rolls.
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