A Movie Liker's Guide to the Oscars

I as a music lover (you couldn't tell?). I am a movie liker. I might watch 30-40 a year, mostly on VOD or DVD, and maybe a half-dozen in the theater. I don't put a lot of stock in the Oscars, but since that particular set of award nominations does help to focus the mind, I'll use it as a jumping-off point for my views - not my "picks," my views.

Best Picture of 2008 has to be Slumdog Millionaire. It was one of the most original, creative and energizing things I've seen on screen in a long time. Superior cinematography, sharp and edgy direction and editing, and a knockout score that will bring overdue attention to A.R. Rahman and ultimately to other Bollywood composers. I found the story a little too contrived, but that didn't get in the way of what I considered to be the best movie experience of the past year.

As for Milk - superior performances by Sean Penn and Josh Brolin, but this was a by-the-numbers bioflick that, had I not known the story (which is quite moving), probably wouldn't have grabbed me. As for the performances, I felt Penn's pain, but I felt Brolin's, too, as a working-class Irish-Catholic pol who just didn't know how to handle change. Between this film and No Country for Old Men, I think Brolin has put some of the best work up on the screen in the last two years. Brolin is nominated in the same Supporting Actor category with at least two extraordinary performances - Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and, in one of the bravest and funniest performances I've seen in a long time, Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder - a movie I wanted to hate but couldn't. (Come to think of it, Downey has put up two of the best performances of the last two years, too - he was great in Iron Man, which had me right up to the final fight scene that looked like a parody of the dumbest action picture ever).

I hope to see Frost/Nixon next week. I will wait for Benjamin Button and The Reader on VOD. Having not yet seen those three, I will still puzzle over why The Dark Knight and WALL-E didn't get Best Picture nominations. WALL-E deserves to walk away with Best Animated Feature. I'm surprised that The Wrestler was passed over - that's on my VOD list, too.

We'll probably hear a lot of lamenting that this was not a great year for the movies. That's OK - the year gave us 30 Rock, The Office, Mad Men, and Flight of the Conchords on cable and broadcast, which was plenty to keep me entertained when I wasn't watching UConn basketball.