The Academy Awards are less than one week away. All the glitz, the glamour, the live-tweeting (#YMCOscars, @kitten_arms) and who's-wearing-what you can handle! For us busy mums and dads, we may not have had a chance to see all the Best Picture contenders, but fear not! With my easy guide, you can pick your last one or two grabs at the bag before the big show on Sunday.
The Must-Sees
A few years ago, the Oscars increased the number of films that could be nominated under the Best Picture category, so there is a lot more to see. Even I haven't seen every single movie (going to try for Beasts of the Southern Wild this week). But from what I have seen, I would highly recommend you get in either Django Unchained or Silver Linings Playbook. These movies are both exceptional for very different reasons. Django is probably Tarantino's best work to date and the story, acting (especially by Christoph Waltz and Leo Dicaprio) is fantastic. SLP, on the other hand, is sad, romantic, family-driven and well rounded with probably my favourite performance of Bradley Cooper's ever. I know everyone's been talking about Jennifer Lawrence and she's really been sweeping up the awards, but B-Coop really is in a class above in this film. De Niro is also phenomenal.
The Nice-to-Sees
For me, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo and Life of Pi all fall into this category. Well-crafted films, each has something great, but each, for me, wasn't spectacular. ZDT was intense and gritty, and I definitely enjoyed it, but it was far from my favourite film of the year. Argo, while well-filmed, superbly acted and excellently directed was totally historically wrong which is a real slap in the face to those of us who know the true history of the Canadian government's involvement in the Iran Hostage Crisis. I also found the depiction of Iranians and the false-hoods around the Revolution presented in the movie to be troublesome...but it is Hollywood. Life of Pi looked lovely, was filmed beautifully, but was just missing something for me. But, it doesn't mean any of these movies are bad. Not at all. I just didn't love them enough to think they are must-see-pre-Oscars fare.
The Everyone's-Already-Seen
Les Mis & Lincoln are the two biggies this year that pretty much everyone's seen, so if you haven't seen them yet, well, you're like me! I know. But to be fair, I'm pretty positive Lincoln is pretty flawless especially DDL's performance, and I need enough time alone to be able to go see Les Mis since this is one the hubby definitely won't see.
The Wish-We'd-Seen
The last two films on the Best Picture list are both smaller, independent films: Amour and the above mentioned Beasts of the Southern Wild. The nomination of these two films surprised a lot of people and had a lot of reporters scratching their heads. These movies weren't even really on mainstream media's radar until they were nominated! They are probably both fantastic little works of art, but because they don't have any huge names, they may not get any love from either the Academy or the general public. Who knows, though, maybe one of these little Art House movies will win and everyone associated with the film will become a huge name?
I'll be getting organized this week for my annual Oscars fondue party, and trying to squeeze in a few more films. Which ones are you most interested in seeing?
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