During the year my friend Kristie and I try to see the movies
that have been nominated for Best Picture of the Academy Awards, as well as
other major movies nominated for other awards. Seeing most, if not all, of the
major movies gives us a reason to have a little party the night of the
Oscar presentations. This year is no exception.
Most years there is at least one, sometimes two, movies that
I’d avoid, even if they had been nominated, because they were too bloody or too boring or too arduous. This year
the movies in these categories that I didn’t see were Jack
Reacher and Les Miserables. I wasn't going to see Django Unchained, the western staring Jamie Foxx, but Kristie talked me into it. I covered my eyes during the gorier parts and wound up loving the flick.
As you can tell from my sparse movie reviews (http://antoniasreviews.blogspot.com/), it was lackluster viewing for most of the year
and I had little to rave about. Are we running out of movies to make? Doesn’t
it seem the infamous pipeline of what movies get made got a lot narrower in
2012? Or perhaps it was that combined with casting. I mean, if you’ve ever read
any Lee Childs’ books on Jack Reacher, Tom Cruise is the antithesis of the Jack
Reacher character. Perhaps we tired of Tolstoy’s sweeping Anna Karenina story
so that we had to show it in such a distracting stylized way of a movie within a
stage play format?
There was, however, one picture that was the BEST film I’ve
seen in years. It’s “The Intouchables” but it didn't make the cut for the French entry for the Best Foreign Film category. This
wonderful movie depicts a true story of a man confined to a wheelchair and his
infamous aide. It is funny, irreverent, touching and the acting is superb.
Check out http://antoniasreviews.blogspot.com/2012/11/first-movie-review.html to see the complete review.
This movie has left the theaters but be sure to see it when it comes out on
video. I’ve seen it four times already.
While I’m not a television producer by any means, I think
there should be some changes made in the televised Oscar event.