It is time to begin part 2 of my epic 2-part rundown of the 2009 Oscars. Unfortunately for me, the setup is usually better than the delivery. Take Star Trek: TNG as an example. Season three finale: Picard gets captured by the Borg, becomes Borg, and Riker is forced to fire an ultimate weapon at the Borg cube and if it works Picard will be dead. The end of the season: "Mr. Worf, fire." That was awesome. Season 4 premiere: the weapon doesn't do anything and they rescue Picard and find some screwy sci-fi way to save him. Not nearly as cool.
Well now that I've lowered your expectations, it's time to talk about the toughest movie to watch: Precious. This is appropriate because a large reason for why I enjoyed the film was my low expectations. I thought it was going to be melodrama on top of more melodrama. But that's not what it was at all (and let me put a sidenote that I refuse to put the whole title of the movie, which includes the novel title, because that's just ridiculous). The film is more about the performances than anything else, and I must admit that Mo'nique did an incredible job as the abusive mother of Precious. You'd think that given her previous roles she wouldn't have been too good, but she was incredible. She makes you hate her for the whole movie and then in the last five minutes she humanizes the character and makes you feel sympathy for her. The movie itself is well-done and well-written but it's the performances that really stand out. It surprised me the most of any of the films, because I thought I wouldn't enjoy it at all. Let me point out: me saying I was wrong about this film illustrates that I do admit when I'm wrong. This further shows I'm not wrong very often, so there.
Another strange addition was A Serious Man, probably chosen for the list due to the fact that it's a Coen brothers movie. Which also points to how good the movie is, although it's certainly not for everybody. It's about as dark of a comedy as you can find, but it's also hilarious. It actually reminds me of my own life a bit too much. When I was watching the main character's wife divorcing him for no given reason and the debacle with his student (who bribes him for an A, he refuses the bribe, the student sneaks the money into his desk and then threatens legal action for accepting a bribe. So he blackmails him for giving in to blackmail, even though he didn't. That's awesome) I couldn't help but think of my dearly-departed fish tank, my unfortunately overlooked graduation speech, and my tire-smashed car. The film shows that the guy's family is just cursed, no two ways about it. But it also shows that given the circumstances, you can either laugh at it or let it bother you. So I say that if laughing is the only power over it you can have, go for it. With these themes in mind, it's not an award-worthy film but it's quite an enjoyable one.
People may scoff, but one of the best movies of the year was Up. Pixar is fricking amazing. Every time they have a trailer for a movie I say to myself, "meh, that doesn't look too interesting. But it's Pixar so I'll see it." And every single time they pretty much make me cry. I cried like three times during this movie. It's so touching and tragic and inspiring and all kinds of good things. All of these factors are heavily influenced by Michael Giacchino's excellent music score, for which he won an Oscar. And it's about time I say, I've been a fan since like 2001. I'm frankly tired of people treating animated or CG films as though they aren't real movies. A director has to put together shots the same way any other director would, voice-acting is just as challenging (and in some ways more challenging) as regular acting, and the script is most certainly put together in the same way. Go ahead and watch Toy Story and tell me it's not a fascinating tale about existence and identity. So I was glad to see some props given to an animated film, because it's long overdue.
The final film to discuss before getting to the actual winner is Up in the Air. The word that I'd say most describes the film is: cute. And I know that sounds kind of belittling, but that's what it is. It's well-written, well-acted, it makes you laugh, and it makes you cry. It does everything right, but it also does nothing differently. George Clooney plays a classy middle-aged man, Anna Kendrick is adorable, and Vera Farmiga is a tough chick. So no one really exerts themselves. All of that being said, I really enjoyed the movie but since it told a small-scale story and did it to perfection, the word in my mind when it finished was: cute. It did what it set out to do, no more and no less. So I give the filmmakers credit, but it's more of a Golden Globe type movie than an Oscar. It also reminded me quite a bit of Thank You For Smoking except that I thought Up in the Air wasn't quite as good (tough to top a movie that involves a father going to his son's classroom on career day and saying, "I lobby for cigarettes!").
And with that, we are brought to The Hurt Locker, which I felt was well-deserving of the award. Though my heart was with Tarantino, I knew that he was too out-there for the Academy to recognize. This movie was easily the second most deserving in my mind. First off, it was refreshing to see a war movie wherein the setting of the war didn't particularly matter. It takes place in Iraq, but it could've just as easily taken place during Vietnam, World War II, or even the frigging Wars of the Roses (except that no bombs were around to be defused back then). Because the crux of the movie wasn't the fighting or even the bomb defusing, the point was how war changes people forever. The main character grew so accustomed to war that he didn't feel secure anywhere else. This idea can be applied to many different settings: extreme sports people only feel alive when they're risking their lives. Many criminals only feel alive when they're breaking the rules. Truthfully, I feel more at rest when random nonsense happens to me and I complain about it. Because I've grown used to it. So the movie is really an in-depth study of human nature, against the backdrop of war. The directing is very atmospheric, the acting is solid, and the realism is untouched by any other war movie since Saving Private Ryan. And as a mitigating factor, Kathryn Bigelow is probably the most well-aged woman of all time. She's 58, but when I saw her I thought that she was a woman who was in her forties but looked good for her age. Not that this is relevant to anything. I'm just saying, she's pretty hot.
Well, that's my 2009 roundup of Best Picture nominees. There will be many many many more of these to come, if for no other reason than for my own purposes of being able to look back and remember what I thought of certain films. Because honestly, with all of the fiction swimming around in my mind it's tough to remember what made certain things good or bad. The next entry will be 2008: the year Batman was scorned. And though before I'd only suspected he'd been unfairly screwed, now that I've seen the five actual nominees I know it for a fact. So tune in next time, and no I won't make the obvious reference you're all expecting.
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