Disappointing Oscar Nominees

This list includes more of the films most recently nominated for Oscars. None of which were impressive. I find better options with streaming documentaries from Netflix. Basketball playoffs have finally ended and the house painting is done, so now maybe there will be more time for movie watching, working on my Netflix queue.

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar.

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were:

Somewhere Between

Time of Fear

I Do

The Man Who Loved Women

Somewhere Between – 2011 (3.1). We know many baby girls are abandoned by their families in China, end up in orphanages and get adopted by American families, but we are not very informed about how life is for them growing up in their adoptive family and country. This moving documentary introduces us to four of these adoptees in their teenage years in different parts of America and we find them to be very appealing young women who are sensitive and honest about their feelings, which understandably include some ambivalence about how to deal with the realities of their biological roots. The absence of input from learned professionals or commentary from experts on Chinese policy is not a negative, since this movie is about the girls and they are quite good at informing us what their lives are like. We do get to see some travel to China, including one of the girls championing the adoption prospects of a young orphan with cerebral palsy who has a smile that could light up the world. I sure would like to see a documentary following her.

Time of Fear – 2005 (2.9). This short documentary was co-funded by the State of Arkansas and tells a less known aspect of the WWII internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry. Two of the camps were located in southeast Arkansas in two tiny towns which were very poor. The movie includes archival footage and comments by a few historians as expected, but when it gets to the interviews of individuals who were involved in the story, we hear some new stories. Black and white Arkansans tell of their fear of being overwhelmed by the influx of these prisoners. Internees of varying ages tell of their diverse experiences in the camps, most finding it painful, but a few saying they made lots of friends and had some good times. There is even a new angle of the famous fighters of the 442^nd, when Senator Inouye tells how his fellow residents of Hawaii who were of Japanese descent considered US mainland Japanese to be inferior, but after a training mission to one of the Arkansas camps and seeing what those prisoners had been enduring, the Hawaiians had new respect for the mainlanders and 442^nd became brothers.

The Impossible – 2012 (2.8).  Based on a true story of a Spanish tourist family in Thailand caught in the 2004 tsunami, this dramatic movie was made by Spaniards, but the family was changed to British. With minimal computer enhancements, the film created realistic tsunami scenes using real water in a huge tank. This is an exciting tale of catastrophe, separation and search in the face of great confusion and devastating disruption.

I Do: How to Get Married and Stay Single – 2006 (2.8). This French comedy about a happy bachelor who is being pressured by his widowed mother and his sisters to get married enters familiar territory when he hires the young sister of a friend to pose as his bride to be. His plan to fool his family runs into complications, as expected, but the twists are double the norm while pleasantly entertaining without being farcical, and the whole movie comes in at just under 90 minutes.

Django Unchained – 2012 (2.7). Tarnatino starts with a spaghetti western spoof and then rambles all over the place for nearly three hours in this comic book style tale of a German immigrant bounty hunter hooking up with a slave on a freedom mission. Once in a while the story takes a turn for the serious, as when his mentor has Django kill a wanted man plowing a field with his son, or when Django has to watch placidly as dogs are allowed to eat a slave alive. The enormous explosions of blood as scores of people are killed are actually funny at first, but then seem to grow insensitive as it goes on for too long. Mixing the actual horrors of slavery so casually with the caricature style depiction of most of those involved in the atrocities does injustice to an enormously serious subject. The eclectic soundtrack and spoofing homage to earlier films are standard Tarantino.

Hitchcock – 2012 (2.7). Covering the time during which he made Psycho, this drama features Anthony Hopkins playing the director at a time of insecurities in his career and marriage. Concentrating the story of this film-making icon to the time of making only one of his movies might have been more worthwhile if the script had delved deeper into the character of the man himself. If it was not going to be a full biopic, some relevant flashbacks might have enhanced the film. Though his wife was apparently an important creative asset to him, giving her personal life significant time in the movie seemed a little off, as if the film maybe should have been titled Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock.

Veep (Season One) – 2012 (2.7). Julia Louis-Dreyfuss won an Emmy for her portrayal of the Vice President of the United States in this comedy series about a former Senator whose failed run for President resulted in settling for the number two spot under a President who avoids talking to her. Striving to appear important and manage her political career in the face of continuous political turmoil, she has to rely on her eclectic staff of quirky people. Being on HBO, everyone is obliged to speak in excessively vulgar language, which seems totally out of line. The cynicism, nastiness and malfunctioning of government is frenetically displayed, without any quiet time to get into the characters on a more personal level – the one exception being the college age daughter of the Veep who seems to see it all as the terrible mess that it is, but who only appeared in one episode. The second season has just started, but I doubt I will watch it, because the humor is mostly limited to mutual put downs, and if the high status of the Veep office is going to be the basis of a comedy, it should be more sophisticated.

Zero Dark Thirty – 2012 (2.7). This drama about the hunt for Usama bin Laden is based on what is known, what is speculated and what makes for a good movie. Following the young female CIA agent as she eventually figures out that by tracking his trusted courier that UBL is hiding in a compound in Pakistan, we see “enhanced interrogation techniques” which are indicated to be effective, when combined with clever fooling of the detainee into thinking that he has already given up information. The heroine runs into the expected bureaucratic impediments, becomes a target of assassins and perseveres in the face of all adversities, until the decision is finally made to act on her lead and raid the compound. By this point we are beyond the time when a movie should be comfortably concluded, but only now are we shifting to the second part of the movie, the actual raid. Abruptly we are interfacing with the Navy Seals, without time to meet them, see how they prepare for the mission and get any sense of who they are as men rather than stereotypes. A replica of the compound was meticulously constructed in Jordan and the choreography of the nighttime raid was followed as closely as the details are known. The Seals had night vision goggles to see what they were doing, but the entire raid was filmed with extremely low lighting so that we could barely tell what was going on; As long as we were allowed to see the laser targeting by the guns (which is actually visible only through the googles), we should have been shown the entire raid as if we were also wearing the goggles. Unfortunately the last part of the story is not shown, the confirmation process that the body is that of UBL and the decision for its burial at sea followed by the actual deep sixing. This fascinating story deserved a more balanced and shorter script.

Soundtrack for a Revolution – 2009 (2.7). The role music played in the 1960s civil rights struggle in America is the subject of this documentary, but much of the movie is about the struggle itself, told through interviews of participants and archival footage, while the music seems more incidental to the film. Granted the story of what was accomplished through non-violence and the sit-ins, the Montgomery bus boycott, the freedom riders, voter registration drives and attempts to end school desegregation are very important, but this film was supposed to be more about the music. There are performances of the songs by current recording artists and some archival clips show performances by artists back at the time, but it would have been better to include more complete coverage of the archival music.

The Man Who Loved Women – 1977 (2.7). Francois Truffaut directed this story of a middle aged man obsessed with women and quite successful in hooking up with them for short periods of time. He remembers his mother as promiscuous and cold toward him and he struggles with figuring out what he really wants from a woman beyond certain physical attributes. He is not particularly good looking, but women are still attracted to something about him, perhaps the fact that he obviously loves women, is honest about not committing, does not expect anything of them and in general makes the time they do spend with him enjoyable. The film holds it age quite well, there is no pandering to prurient interest, the women are beautiful and the French cars are as ugly as can be. Ultimately we realize the man’s life is hollow, even though he is fondly remembered by so many women.

Moonrise Kingdom -2012 (2.4). I have avoided the movies of Wes Anderson because I don’t like comic book style caricatures of people in quirky situations. Giving this one a try was a mistake. He may do a good job of making the kind of films he makes, like this one about young teenage lovers running away from home, but his eccentric style does nothing for me. The fact that it was nominated for a best writing Oscar indicates the sad state of writing for movies nowadays.

The Master – 2012 (1.5). Turn the M in the title upside down and you get a better name for this movie which wastes some good acting talent on an overlong and boring script that does not tell us any more about the characters at the end of the movie than we knew when we first met them. A mental case WWII Navy vet crosses paths with a cultish guru who makes it up as he goes along and his enigmatic wife who enables his quirks and produces his babies. The full frontal nudity scenes must have been intended as a commentary or satire, because they are some of the least exciting I have ever seen.