This year I decided to watch all the movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars (and Césars but I expect no one here cares about that). I'm not sure why I did it, it's not like I believe the Oscars are an actual representation of the best movies have to offer, but it's nice to be able to follow the conversation. A brief summary (in order of how good they - objectively of coure - are). Apologies in advance for the wall of text.
1. The Grand Budapest Hotel. Man that was a fun movie, one I anticipate rewatching, which is not something I usually do. It's very funny, moves along at a breakneck pace and looks gorgeous. If the word "whimsy" doesn't bother you, you should absolutely see this. Definitely the most fun movie of the year (GOTG comes close but drags at times).
2. Boyhood. I had the chance to see this back in the summer when it hadn't been hyped to death. It's really great. It is perhaps a tiny little bit too long, but the actors are great (even the kids), the story is deeply relatable and I love the choice made to skip past the "big" moments and focus more on everyday life, in a way. That makes it sound boring I suppose, but it really isn't. Don't expect to be blown away though, it's not really that kind of movie, and I feel a lot of the backlash it's received was by people who were mislead by the hype.
3. Whiplash. I honestly wasn't entirely convinced about that one before the final scene, which is just amazing and significantly elevated the whole thing for me. It's an incredibly intense movie, and I don't think you have to particularly enjoy jazz or drumming to like it. Don't expect a "fun time" per se though, as I said it's very intense and fairly dark.
4. Selma. I like the trend of biopics focusing on a specific part of the person's life, and this does it very well, going pretty deep on the amount of strategizing that went into planning the Selma march. I don't think the movie is great as its attempts to make me care about MLK's relationship with his wife completely failed (not that I ddn't want to, I just think the movie only does it half-heartedly), but it's definitely worth watching.
5. The Theory of Everything. I fully expected to be bored to tears because I don't generally enjoy biopics, but this worked for me. Its nothing special and there's certainly nothing new, but the performance by Eddie Redmayne (who plays Stephen Hawking) is amazing and makes the whole movie work and kept me engaged throughout.
6. The Imitation Game. This is what I mean when I say I don't generally enjoy biopics. I don't really have a specific criticism to make about te movie, but I was bored, very bored. On paper it should have been much more thrilling that The Theory of Everything, with Enigma serving as an actual story to be told rather than just the Turing's life, but nope. I also completely disagree about a moment the movie tries to play as heroic but that actually is incredibly pretentious on the main character's part.
7. Birdman. Now this is an interesting movie, no doubt about that. The visual aspect of it, how it looks like it's shot in one take and the music are both amazing. However it's all an empty shell. The movie tried to be both a satire and a glorification of Hollywood, you never quite know if the actors are doing self-parody or if you're actually supposed to take them seriously, and that's because te movie quite simply has nothing to say about anything, despite being very pretentious about it. It looks like it's likely to win too, which pisses me off a bit.
8. American Sniper. I don't really buy the controversy about it glorifying the Irak War, because I just don't think this movie aims to pick any side. On anything. It's basically an action movie that seems like it also wants to talk about PTSD for a minute, until it decides PTSD isn't really that big a deal and that real Americans just decide to get better one day. Even the actions scenes are sometimes a little ridiculous. The only good thing about it is Bradley Cooper's performance, but that's it.
