Lent and The Oscars!

Oh, hi, internet!

I have a couple of things to rant about. First, this year I decided to watch all nine of the films nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars so I will be better informed for the show. Secondly, in a few short weeks, the season of Lent will be upon us! Oh, noes!

For those who don’t know, I’ve participated in Lent every year since high school. I usually give up sweets, junk food, or both. This year I’m doing both again. I don’t do Lent for religious reasons, obviously. I do it because:

1.     My diet this time of year is always terrible, for some reason. Example: earlier this week, I inhaled an entire bag of frosted animal cookies by myself.

Worth it.

2.     I think exercises in self-discipline are important.

3.     Religious affiliates of mine consistently fail, and I thoroughly enjoy being the little heretic who beats the self-righteous devout at their own game.

I’m not too proud of the last one, but hey, I’m an honest bitch. Anyway, Lent is always extremely challenging. I go through a mini version of withdrawal and spend 40 days trying to regulate my depleted endorphins (God help The Boyfriend.) But despite the agony each year, it is totally worth it.

And now to the Oscars! I watched them last year despite having seen none of the movies up for nomination. It was still fun to watch, but this year I wanted to be informed As of this post, I’ve watched six nominations with three to go. Some of the movies I’ve seen are amazing. Others make me wonder how the hell they got a nomination at all.

Heads up for spoilers, but here’s what I think of the films I’ve seen so far:

Captain Phillips

      I honestly think Captain Phillips is in the running for Best Picture because Tom Hanks has some kind of mafia hold on the Oscars which forces them to nominate any movie he happens to be in that year. There was nothing particularly special or “Oscary” about it.  Barkhad Abdi’s performance was fantastic, but other than that, it was a pretty basic hostage movie with some not-so-subtle military FUCK yeah, ‘Merica! undertones happening. I don’t know. I’ve never been a huge Tom Hanks fan. His method of acting just seems to be “Tom Hanks + an obviously fake accent.” I admired his performance at the very end, when he was in shock, but overall, my reaction to the film as a whole was “meh.”

Her

      Her was actually a surprisingly excellent film. I went into it with a lot of preconceived notions about how it was going to turn out, and for the most part, it really veered off the beaten path. I think what I liked most about it was how casually the relationship between Theodore and Samantha was received by the vast majority of the characters. Samantha’s operating system was a brand new technology at the start of the film, so the world was learning about it together, in real time with the movie. Theodore and Samantha weren’t the only human-computer relationship that occurred; it happened on a global scale. Some characters we saw were fine with it, others criticized it, but it was never a huge controversy. The focus of the film wasn’t an ethical commentary. It was about the relationship. And overall, it was beautiful. I really connected with these characters. The ending is hard hitting, and I’m not really sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it was slowly built up through the movie and I enjoy well-established plot payoffs, but on the other hand, it reeked of a My work here is done-type ending, like Clarence the angel, or The Odd Life of Timothy Green, or the Shake Weight from Southpark’s Crème Fraiche episode. It seemed hokey, yet it made perfect sense with the rest of the film. I definitely recommend seeing this movie, though you do spend a lot of time zoomed right the fuck in on Theodore’s face. It gets especially awkward during the sex scenes. Watching Joaquin Phoenix have phone sex with pretty much Siri was certainly not on my bucket list.

The Wolf of Wall Street

      Oh, dear God, I did not like this movie. Forgive me, Leo. Broken down, The Wolf of Wall Street is, essentially:

      2 hours of Scorsese desperately trying to recreate Goodfellas.

      40 minutes of legitimate acting and engaging story.

      A clunky, hollow, abrupt ending because it had nowhere else to go.

      I adore both Scorsese and DiCaprio, but damn, this movie was painful. It’s not that I hate movies about sociopathic criminals. Goodfellas, the film this one tried so hard to mimic, is one of my favourite movies, and it’s about an unrepentant criminal even worse than Jordan Belfort. The problem with The Wolf of Wall Street is the lack of satire, which was such an essential factor in Goodfellas (and Scarface.) In this movie, Scorsese stuck too close to the source material and failed to inject any external insight.

Ladies and gentlemen, the aesthetic paragraph break.

What we have is a one-sided film where we see through the eyes of a sociopath. This means that every single other character we run in to (except, arguably, Donnie Azoff) is shallow and one note, since Belfort only sees people by the purpose they serve for him. In real life, Belfort’s wife was probably a multi-dimensional human being. In the movie, told through his perspective, she’s shoved into the background unless sex is involved. The film also utterly glorifies his lifestyle, to the point where I had to remind myself that they were committing crimes and conning people. The film is so buried in drugs and interchangeable hookers that it almost forgets to mention that little detail. We don’t see anyone that his company scams, and the only cops we interact with show blatant envy for Belfort’s apparently ideal life. I’m not saying that we had to see some sort of fall from grace or grand come-uppance. I just wish the movie would have been more multi-dimensional, or at least focused longer on the actual conflicts that occurred (the 40 aforementioned good minutes). Instead, we’re watching a self-aggrandizing memoir of a very dull narcissist. The movie doesn’t come across as intelligent or satirical. It comes across as beating off all over itself, like The Boondock Saints did. (Shut up, I’ll get to that at a later date.) Other than a few good moments with Hill and DiCaprio, I don’t think this movie is worth checking out.

Dallas Buyers Club

I actually don’t have too much to say about this movie because it really didn’t grab and hold my interest. I give kudos to Matthew McConaughey (totally had to google his last name to spell it) for legitimizing his spotty career with some truly good acting, and of course I loved Jared Leto in his role, but honestly, I couldn’t even tell you their characters’ names. Dallas Buyers Club just didn’t hold me. I was just kind of buying my time, waiting for the credits to roll. I’d say check it out and see if it grabs you. It’s like Rent without the pretentious hipster theme or the shitty songs. The focus is on the disease and how it was handled during the “epidemic,” if that’s the right word. You know, what Rent probably should have been.

…I’m done bashing Rent. On this post, at least.

Philomena

I went into this movie with absolutely no idea what it was about and I was very surprised when it emotionally knocked me on my ass. It’s the story of an Irishwoman looking for her long lost son, and it is heartbreaking. I don’t’ want to give away much, but I will say that I desperately wanted those fucking nuns to be brought to justice, and I will definitely be reading the book on which this movie was based. Also, it was very, very disconcerting to see Judi Dench in such a meek, passive role. She did a wonderful job, but it was very weird. Definitely see this one.

12 Years a Slave

This one is my choice for the Oscar so far, without a doubt, there is no contest. 12 Years a Slave is beautifully written, performed, and shot. It showed slavery as it was in one of the most realistic lights seen in film. Sure, it was still really heavy-handed in its message (SLAVERY IS BAD!!) and I would’ve loved to have seen at least one black slave owner* to blur the colour line that history has such a strong focus on, but that’s asking a bit too much, unfortunately, and the film is still amazing. I’ve actually watched it multiple times because there’s just so much to be seen. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s performance just seizes you and doesn’t let go until long after the credits roll. The tragedy of Patsy is by far my favourite story in this movie. If Jennifer Lawrence beats out Lupita Nyong’o for Best Supporting Actress just because she’s so popular right now, I will be livid. See this movie. It’s amazing. Literally, my biggest critique of this film is Benedict Cumberbatch’s struggle to do a Southern accent, and that was extremely entertaining.

Also, Brad Pitt is the only man alive who can make a moustache-less Amish style beard look good.

Those are the ones I’ve seen so far. I have Nebraska, Gravity, and American Hustle left to see. The Oscars are coming up March 2^nd, and I’m pretty excited to see how everything plays out. I definitely think I’ll be making this an annual tradition.

Anyway, sorry for the somewhat dull post. See you all next week!

*Fun fact: “Free persons of colour” regularly owned and sold slaves themselves, especially in New Orleans.