We Don't Need No Stinkin' Titles

This morning when Penn's alarm went off the DJ on the morning show he listens to was blabbing about the Oscars this weekend. While Penn was showering I was lounging in bed half-asleep listening to the DJ talking about Heath Ledger and Kate Winslet and I thought to myself, "Wow, I am really, really unenthusiastic about this year's crop of movies." I've felt like that for awhile now, actually. This decade just hasn't been particularly great for movies. Or, at any rate, the movies being lauded by the Academy just haven't really done it for me. I'm looking at the list of Best Picture winners from 2000 on right now and, eh:

• The Gladiator: Seriously? I don't even remember that this won, but do you know how many times I've wanted to re-watch this movie since I saw it the first time? Zero. It was fine, but very lackluster in the grand scheme of things.
  
• A Beautiful Mind: Good. Just good. Another one that I'm glad I saw but have no burning desire to watch again and again.
  
• Chicago: I actually did like this movie a lot in 2002, enough that I bought it (and I rarely like movies enough to buy them; I own a grand total of 20 DVDs). I think it's one of the best done movie musicals. But it hasn't held up for me really.
• The Lord of the Rings: Ugh, no. Given, this is just not my preferred genre, but...no.
• Million Dollar Baby: I was not impressed. In this film's defense, though, I didn't see it until about a year after it had come out, and by that time so. many. damn. people. had told me "Oh, see Million Dollar Baby, you HAVE to see it, it's AMAZING." It was overhyped beyond belief. I was not amazed.
• Crash: Talk about over-hyped. I am still completely astonished that this movie won Best Picture. This movie beats you over the head with its message. I hate that in a film or a play. I don't care if it's a good message and one that I agree with, I don't need blatant didacticism in my entertainment. In my mind it just shows a lack of finesse on the part of the director.
• The Departed: Okay, this one I actually really like. I saw it for the first time last year and have watched it probably 3 times since then, somehow, and I've enjoyed it every time. But in the grand scheme of things it's just another mafia movie, lacking a bit in creativity.
• No Country for Old Men: I feel pretty much the same way about this movie as I do about The Departed. A really good example of a particular genre of movie.

Maybe I'm just getting jaded as I get older. I feel like there's not much new happening in movies these days, which means it's up the actors to make the same old things particularly interesting, and a lot of times that just doesn't happen.
So this morning I was thinking about this year's crop of critically acclaimed movies, and I just feel ambivalent about almost all of them. I originally thought I wasn't going to get the chance to see most of this year's nominees before the Oscars, but Penn and I recently rediscovered our appreciation for websites that let us illegally stream movies, and last weekend we watched an inordinate amount of them. Although not all of them were movies that actually came out this year. Friday night we watched Choke (which I thought was enjoyable but not as good as Fight Club, and the older I get the less Palahniuk's tendency to do things just for shock value appeals to me...I still like his stories, just not as much as I did ten years ago). On Valentine's Day we stayed in and I made a pasta bake that I was quite proud of--it involved making my own meat sauce from scratch, even!--and drank a bottle of wine and ate strawberries and chocolate pudding (also homemade by yours truly!) and then we watched Religulous and Blood Diamond. I know. It was Valentine's Day and we watched the two least-romantic movies you can possibly think of: a documentary about religious faith (or lack thereof) and a movie about the people that are exploited to provide us Westerners with our diamond engagement rings. Ha. Both were interesting, though, and I liked Blood Diamond way more than I was expecting too, even though we only watched half of it before going to bed and as we were lying in bed talking I predicted to Penn exactly how the movie was going to end and I was 100% correct. On Sunday night Penn forced me to watch Super Size Me because he's on a mission to convince me that McDonald's is the devil. But all he managed to do was convince me not to eat McDonald's all day every day, and I've never done that anyway. My mantra is "everything in moderation," and I feel like this movie proved that the 500 calories in a burger and small fries aren't exactly good for me but if I indulge only once a month or so it's not going to kill me. Then we watched Doubt, and on Monday night we watched The Reader.
So it turns out I've now seen quite a few of the Oscar nominated movies for this year, and I doubt that you really care, but here are some of my opinions:

• Even though I like everything else Clint Eastwood has directed, the previews for The Changeling didn't make me want to see it. Although I think Angelina Jolie has the potential to do good work, so I may put this one on my list to watch eventually.
• I wasn't really interested in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button either, and I keep hearing about how dull it is, so even though it seems to have gotten tons of nominations, I'm not going to watch it unless someone can convince me it's worth sitting through.
• Penn and I shelled out the money to watch The Dark Knight on the big screen, one of only a handful of movies I actually saw in a theater this year (I used to love going to movies, but now since it's eight freakin' dollars for a matinee here, I have to feel pretty confident that the movie is going to be worth it before I'll pay the money). I liked it a lot, although, again, it's not a genre I fully appreciate and I thought it was an hour longer than it needed to be. And Heath Ledger? He was very good as The Joker, and I'm guessing he'll win posthumously in his category, but I'm not fully convinced that that role was as difficult to play as people seem to think it was. It's not like I have a ton of acting or directing experience, but from my relatively limited experience I actually feel like a lot of times the total batshit crazy roles are the easiest to play. Exhausting, yes, especially if you decided to get all Method with it, which is what it sounds like Ledger did, but...I don't know. We don't give enough credit for subtle performances, which, in my opinion, are much harder to pull off (see my rant about Crash, above).
• Doubt was good. I love Philip Seymour Hoffman in everything, and in this movie I think he did a fantastic job of creating a character that really did leave you with, well, doubts. The women were good, too, but overall I felt like the movie was lacking something. The more I think about it, the more I think this probably functioned much more powerfully as the play that it was originally, because I think it needs the sense of intimacy that would exist in a small live theater performance but was missing with Penn and I just watching it on a laptop on the couch.
• I like period pieces and wanted to see The Duchess but never got around to it. I'll put that on my list with The Changeling, I guess.
• I can't convince Penn that Frost/Nixon would be interesting, so I guess if I'm going to watch that one it's going to have to be on my own. Actually, I probably won't be able to convince him to watch The Duchess, either.
  
• In the animated category, Cas and Jay and I watched Kung Fu Panda when I was visiting them this summer, and it was actually really cute. When I tried to watch Wall-E with my sister over Christmas break, we both fell asleep on the couch.
• Milk is on my to-see list, as is Rachel Getting Married (both of which Penn also probably isn't overly enthusiastic about watching with me...maybe that's what I'll do when he's on the ski trip with his guy friends next weekend, just lounge around with movies)
• The Reader was okay, but I thought the pace was too slow. I hope Kate Winslet wins her category, though. She's consistently good. She's one of the few actresses whose movies I will watch solely because she's in them. So even though I don't think this is her best work ever and I'm sort of tired of people getting Oscars partially because a makeup artist ages them or uglies them up well, she's an actress who deserves a Best Actress Academy Award.
• I think I'd rather read Revolutionary Road than see the movie.
• Slumdog Millionaire is another one that I actually watched in the movie theater. I enjoyed it very much and it made me feel good and I appreciate its insight into India, which is not something we get to see a lot of in movies here in the states, but, like all the movies I've seen this year, am I rushing to the store to own it when it comes out on DVD so I can watch it again and again? Probably not.
• Should I see The Wrestler or not? It sounds like another movie that is Not My Genre, but people whose opinions I respect have said it was great.

So yeah, that's what I think. Overall, some things that I'm glad I saw, but nothing that I feel like raving about and watching dozens of times. Basically, I don't care. There really is nothing new under the sun, it seems, and if I'm going to pay $10.50, I want to be blown away by novelty and technique. Better luck next year, Hollywood.

And now I'm off to pack. Penn and I are going to New York for the weekend to hang out with my friend Jen and her boyfriend. They're both travel nurses and they just moved to Boston* for the next few months so we thought New York would be a fun place that we could both get to fairly easily so we can catch up. Jen and I were good friends in college but it has been two years since we last saw each other in person and neither of us have met the other's boyfriend, so this is basically going to be a really extended double date. I hope it's fun!

*What is the deal with Boston? It seems to have a magnetic pull on everyone I know. Even though I grew up and went to college in a state 2,000 miles from there, sometimes it feels like everyone I know has moved to Boston. I have more friends in Boston now than I do in my hometown! And Penn has talked about wanting to move near there one of these days when we're both done with our obligations here. Is everyone in the country just really fascinated by Boston, or do I just happen to attract Boston People? I mean, I like what I've experienced of Boston, it's just kind of weird that so many people I know keep ending up there.