Har har Oscars
I'm a movie-goer, especially as of late, so I'm a bit interested to see which movies will actually get the Oscars this year. For new movies, I've recently watched (from what I can remember) Click, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Dead Man's Chest, Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Babel.
Click - This is a fun little family movie. I really enjoyed it, but of course, I wouldn't consider this an Oscar type of movie. I actually really don't like Adam Sandler movies, but this one's one of the few I actually like, so it gets some credit there, even if not Oscar credit.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Dead Man's Chest - I actually don't remember much about this movie besides the funny scenes. Story-wise, I don't remember at all. This is just a fun eye-candy sort of movie. Nothing particularly spectacular about it besides the good-looking cast and some of the funny scenes. Definitely not an Oscar type of movie in my opinion.
Children of Men - I think this movie deserves a nomination at least, though I don't see a lot of hype about it for some reason. It has an interesting story, although I admit some of the characters could be better. Anyway, I think it derserves an Oscar just for an original storyline.
Pan's Labyrinth - I didn't get the point of the movie besides possibly telling about how a kid escapes the harsh reality into a fantasy world of make-believe (yes, I think that the girl was just imagining everything since she likes fairytales so much). There was too much blood and gore that it seemed excessive. The characters were pretty good though. I'd give the movie props for that, especially with the maid--she rocked. Other than that, I'm not sure what the big deal is about. Maybe I just don't know enough to understand it.
Letters from Iwo Jima - When my friends invited me along to go watch it, I went grudgingly. I'm not a war movie fan, and Letters from Iwo Jima sounded boring. However, when I left, I loved it. Rather than focusing on the political stuff or overloading the viewer with scenes of gore, it focused on the human aspects of the characters and each of their personal story. The internal dialogue from letter writing was also a nice effect to show their thoughts and defined who or what they value most. Well, maybe all war movies are like that, but since I don't watch many (or maybe any), I found it to be really well written. Some of the acting could have improvements, but not bad overall. The main character's even that guy from Stand Up!! XD Anyway, I think the one thing struck me most was the realism. No one really acted like a hero. In fact, many of them did pretty stupid things for "honor." So it's not one of those war movies with a bunch of heroes rescuing one another or doing some glory act. They were just a bunch of normal men trying to fight a hopeless war, following [sometimes bad] commands, and well, trying to survive. Even without all the glory, it deserves an Oscar.
Babel - The one disadvantage of this movie is probably the similarity between it and Crash. Because it was similar to Crash, it was expected to meet the standards of Crash, which is not an easy feat. I can't help but compare it to Crash, and when I do, it definitely falls short. Even when it's looked at independently, there are still quite a few flaws within the movie such as a lack of theme and connection. As far as I could tell, there's no real central theme. And despite the cool title of Babel, it didn't make use of this symbol of Babel, the city of language confusion, to dig deep at issues. There also was a lack of a strong connection between the four stories. Sure, it's easy to see how they're related in the minor sense such as through a character or through an object, but so what? The stories essentially worked independently of one other and are weakly bound by a single thing. While I liked some of the characters and stories, there was no real point to it. I read the back of the DVD cover and it said "Pain is universal... but so is hope" What hope? I saw a lot of pain, but very few hope. Maybe there's hope for the Japanese and American families, but it certainly didn't seem like it with the other two. So if hope was the theme, it certainly didn't convey that well. Despite a lot of nitpicking about this movie, I do think it deserves at least an Oscar nomination. It was a good effort, but maybe not enough for a win.
It's probably obvious from the length and content of each entry, but my favorite pick for an Oscar win this year would be Letters from Iwo Jima. I hope it'll win the foreign language film at least. Then again, there are some other Oscar favorite movies I haven't seen yet. Either way, from this batch, my favorite would have to be Letters from Iwo Jima. Second would be Children of Men, but it doesn't look like that will be happening. Third, surprisingly, would be, yes, Babel.
Click - This is a fun little family movie. I really enjoyed it, but of course, I wouldn't consider this an Oscar type of movie. I actually really don't like Adam Sandler movies, but this one's one of the few I actually like, so it gets some credit there, even if not Oscar credit.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Dead Man's Chest - I actually don't remember much about this movie besides the funny scenes. Story-wise, I don't remember at all. This is just a fun eye-candy sort of movie. Nothing particularly spectacular about it besides the good-looking cast and some of the funny scenes. Definitely not an Oscar type of movie in my opinion.
Children of Men - I think this movie deserves a nomination at least, though I don't see a lot of hype about it for some reason. It has an interesting story, although I admit some of the characters could be better. Anyway, I think it derserves an Oscar just for an original storyline.
Pan's Labyrinth - I didn't get the point of the movie besides possibly telling about how a kid escapes the harsh reality into a fantasy world of make-believe (yes, I think that the girl was just imagining everything since she likes fairytales so much). There was too much blood and gore that it seemed excessive. The characters were pretty good though. I'd give the movie props for that, especially with the maid--she rocked. Other than that, I'm not sure what the big deal is about. Maybe I just don't know enough to understand it.
Letters from Iwo Jima - When my friends invited me along to go watch it, I went grudgingly. I'm not a war movie fan, and Letters from Iwo Jima sounded boring. However, when I left, I loved it. Rather than focusing on the political stuff or overloading the viewer with scenes of gore, it focused on the human aspects of the characters and each of their personal story. The internal dialogue from letter writing was also a nice effect to show their thoughts and defined who or what they value most. Well, maybe all war movies are like that, but since I don't watch many (or maybe any), I found it to be really well written. Some of the acting could have improvements, but not bad overall. The main character's even that guy from Stand Up!! XD Anyway, I think the one thing struck me most was the realism. No one really acted like a hero. In fact, many of them did pretty stupid things for "honor." So it's not one of those war movies with a bunch of heroes rescuing one another or doing some glory act. They were just a bunch of normal men trying to fight a hopeless war, following [sometimes bad] commands, and well, trying to survive. Even without all the glory, it deserves an Oscar.
Babel - The one disadvantage of this movie is probably the similarity between it and Crash. Because it was similar to Crash, it was expected to meet the standards of Crash, which is not an easy feat. I can't help but compare it to Crash, and when I do, it definitely falls short. Even when it's looked at independently, there are still quite a few flaws within the movie such as a lack of theme and connection. As far as I could tell, there's no real central theme. And despite the cool title of Babel, it didn't make use of this symbol of Babel, the city of language confusion, to dig deep at issues. There also was a lack of a strong connection between the four stories. Sure, it's easy to see how they're related in the minor sense such as through a character or through an object, but so what? The stories essentially worked independently of one other and are weakly bound by a single thing. While I liked some of the characters and stories, there was no real point to it. I read the back of the DVD cover and it said "Pain is universal... but so is hope" What hope? I saw a lot of pain, but very few hope. Maybe there's hope for the Japanese and American families, but it certainly didn't seem like it with the other two. So if hope was the theme, it certainly didn't convey that well. Despite a lot of nitpicking about this movie, I do think it deserves at least an Oscar nomination. It was a good effort, but maybe not enough for a win.
It's probably obvious from the length and content of each entry, but my favorite pick for an Oscar win this year would be Letters from Iwo Jima. I hope it'll win the foreign language film at least. Then again, there are some other Oscar favorite movies I haven't seen yet. Either way, from this batch, my favorite would have to be Letters from Iwo Jima. Second would be Children of Men, but it doesn't look like that will be happening. Third, surprisingly, would be, yes, Babel.