Monday, January 9, 2012

And now we're back!

Just in time for this year's Oscars we've finally got around to the review of the Nominated Best Pics from last year! We'll be back to one a week from here on out (fingers crossed) - at least until I start the PhD next year!

So as a blast from the past, here are Mat's reviews from our movie marathon weekend in February last year!

The King's Speech (2010)

 
The Best Picture winner is a heart-warming story of King George V trying to overcome his terrible stutter and his rocky rise to the throne. The writing and cast make this a pleasure to watch, but at times it is cruelly painful as well with Colin Firth struggling and gasping to even get a single word out. He really works for that Best Actor trophy, a powerhouse performance.

Helena-Bonham Carter is excellent and understated as the Queen (quite a departure from Bellatrix Lestrange), and so is Geoffrey Rush as the Aussie vocal coach.

The King's Speech is one of those movies that you can't really say a bad word against – it does everything wonderfully well. You laugh and cry and feel great at the end. The predictability is probably the only flaw – you know exactly what you're going to get, and you get it.

It was probably this lack of surprise that saw The King's Speech with (comparatively) lower numbers than other great films. Lyn, Mike and I all scored it 86 while Danielle gave it 93.

* * *

Inception (2010)


Danielle and I had seen Inception at the movies, but Mum and Dad hadn't so we added this Best Picture-nominee to the feast.

Inception is Christopher Nolan's dreamscape heist epic. Leonardo Di Caprio heads a very talented cast through layers of dreams within dreams. Called the thinking man's action movie, there are car chases, gun fights and enough slo-mo explosions to keep any action junkie happy, but it is more about philosophy and the nature of reality than violence. Like Black Swan, Inception forces you to think and question what you see, and analyse how it's coloured by who's telling the story.
Inception's winding plot is notoriously tricky to follow, so here's an infographic (spoiler alert) to help keeping track of the different levels.
http://www.cinemablend.com/images/news/19643/_1280109452.jpg

This role didn't ask as much of Leo as some of his previous roles (like The Departed or Shutter Island, which could be seen as a companion piece to Inception), and a frown is etched on his face throughout.

Despite missing out on Best Picture, Inception collected numerous Academy Awards including Best Cinematography, Visual Effects and Sound Editing.

Christopher Nolan can only seem to make excellent films, and like it's spiritual predecessor The Matrix, Inception will be informing action movies for at least the next decade.

Inception scored thusly: Lyn 69, Michael 72, Mat 90 and Danielle 86.

* * *

Toy Story 3 (2010)


We put up a review of Toy Story 3 back when we first saw it, but despite it's obvious quality we were surprised that it recieved a Best Picture nomination. The last time an animated film was nominated was 'Beauty & the Beast' way back in 1991.
Mum and Dad enjoyed their visit to Woody and Buzz's grown up toy land.

Mum was a little reluctant to award any marks for acting, given that there were no flesh-and-actors on screen, but I made an impassioned plea about the quality of the performances the animators and voice actors brought to these little 3D models.

I'm a self-confessed Pixar zealot, so I was always going to score this well, but it's good to see Danielle's score matching mine. Perhaps I'm not as biased as I thought.

The scores for Toy Story 3 were: Lyn 72, Mike 84, Mat & Danielle 93.

Looking at both the scores we awarded to the four Best Picture nominees and the discussion afterwards, Black Swan was clearly our pick for Best Picture. We all commented that The King's Speech was a worthy winner, though, as it is an excellent film. It was a pity that so many great movies were all competing against each other. It was great fun comparing the nominees, and it made watching the Oscars much more interesting because we'd seen most of the films that were nominated for the big awards.

I think we'll try and do this again next year! (as it turns out - that will be next month or so)!