I thought maybe this year I will skip the whole Oscars fiasco. I mean, haven’t you seen the best picture selections?
This year Hollywood even went back to the roots of filmmaking with the silent movie “The Artist” as it has received 11 nominations already.
Nothing is unique about this year’s film choices. Indeed they are even a bit boring. Overdone themes and story-lines dont even begin to cover my disappointment.
Lets break this down a bit; Best Picture nominees:
The Artist–a silent film by Michel Hazanavicius, full of hommage of the beginning stages of filmmaking. Brings us back to the Lumiere brothers, the roaring twenties, the black and white, acting and actors fear of change with the coming of “talkies”. It is charming indeed. But society is so spoiled with car chases, fires and computer generated images, how are they going to settle for this as the best picture of the year?
Hugo–a computer enhanced cinematography. A story about a little boy who lives inside a clock at a train station. His opt desire to uncover a secret leads him of uncovering Georges Melies and his hit film “A trip to the Moon”. Martin Scorsese once again outdoes himself with his cinematic ability to portray a well preserved memory and hommage of one of the first filmmakers and visionaris of his time, Mellies.
Midnight in Paris–A surprising and stunning story by Woody Allen. Owen Wilson an uninspired writer travels with his fiancee to Paris. There he endures a magical transformation. Thrown into the past amongst world renowned poets, writers, singers and filmmakers, such as Cole Porter, the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway and other iconic figures, fascinated and inspired he is able to recreate the past by writing again. An inspirational story with quite interesting performance.
The Tree Of life–is another riveting film following the usual themes of life, love and death. A story about the relationship between a father and son set in the 1950′s. Terrance Mallick paints and incredible picture of the raw truth about life.
War Horse– from Broadway to the big screens, Steven Spielberg adopts this touching story of the 1940′s, about a boy and his love of a horse who is then taken away from him and sent to war.
The Descendents- from the guy that brought to you “Sideways” Alexandar Payne, here comes a drama of a family in Hawaii. As the beginning of the film states; It doesn’t matter where in the world you live, we all die from the same cancer. It boggles my mind of why we-humans like the watch the pain of others and place it on such high stool of expectation.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close– for starters this film has a great title, however the worst possible reviews at rotten tomatoes. Are we NOT Tom Hanks fans anymore? This film appears to have failed to portray the eye opening in viewers as intended. Or maybe the viewers just did not get on the same mind page with Stephen Daldry and his intentions of a touching and riveting work of art.
The Help– is an adaptation of a famous novel written by Kathryn Stockett. Tate Taylor directs a story set in the 1960′s of 3 extraordinary women in the Mississippi who build an unlikely friendship over a secret writing project that breaks societal rules and puts them all at risk.
Moneyball– is a story about a baseball team with no success of winning. Based on a true story and directed by Bennett Miller, this film undergoes transformation and hope for those lost in their dreams that might seem to never become a reality.
In other words, all these films appear to share the same theme– the Past– seen from different angles, we are trying to recreate what was unique in the past, as if butchering our ancestor’s creativity.
This year’s Oscar will go to the one who might have gone to greater lengths deeper into the psyche of that ancestor, that visionary, that original thought and re-created it better.
Fellas, stay glued to your big screen TV’s for another Oscars presentation Sunday February 27th and wait… and see … the hommage of all hommages.










