The time is nigh - 2nd Annual Good/Bads

Just a little over a year go, I saw the movie Bicycle Thieves, in my History of Motion Pictures, pt. II class. It changed my life. I intentionally absorbed all of the special features, and the bits on neorealism and Zavattini (the screenwriter) had me starving for more. Here was a movement where the political ramifications of every day action and a mixture of high and low art came together, offering a unique and all-to-brief glimpse into a world that could be.

Sunday marks the 81st Academy Awards and the Second Annual Cody Must Watch All Available Films to Applaud The Academy For Good Choices and Scold For Poor Ones. I'm just going to call them the Good/Bads. Last year, for instance, it was good that There Will Be Blood was nominated, and bad that No Country For Old Men took the prize. Fine film, but epic like TWBB, I think not. This year I've already unfortunately missed ample opportunity to see Milk, which, from a simple synopsis point-of-view, seemed excellent. I've seen The Wrestler, The Reader, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire, Wall-E, The Visitor, Dark Knight, Changeling, Tropic Thunder (are they serious nominating Robert Downey Jr. for this??), Australia, Hellboy II, and Kung-Fu panda.

Being a foreign movie fanatic, I'm saddened that none of them came to Eugene, which seems a pretty internationalized smaller city. Waltz With Bashir looked amazing and will probably be easily available on DVD (us North Americans love our cartoons) and Revanche (Revenge, Austrian) will be coming out on a Criterion disc at some point, whether it wins or not.

I plan on seeing Bolt, Doubt, and Frost/Nixon this weekend.

Some early thoughts:
Last year a nomination for Best Animated Feature, Persepolis, unveiled another facet of what a cartoon can do - namely, make a devastating biography into something transcendant and beautiful - and lost. This year, quite possibly the best cartoon ever made will not suffer the same fate. Kung Fu Panda, which was a great cartoon, will lose to Wall-E, which follows more in the tradition of the darkhorse Persepolis than last year's labelmate and winner, Ratatouille.
The darkness and political illuminations of last year's Best Picture and Best Director nominees comes wrapped in the fluffy innocence of a lifelike robot. A spoonful of sugar indeed.

Atonement really bothered me as a nominee last year. Not only did it personally abhor me that anything around Keira Knightley was nominated for a best picture, but the story itself was sentimental dreck. This year, the sentimentality seems to have taken the backseat to story, which is a great thing. Slumdog Millionaire, Ben Button, and The Reader (the three BP noms I've seen) contain strong themes, and I can't see Milk or Frost/Nixon as any less story-driven. Milk, which may contain more sweetness than the others (more lactose if you will!) still has the message of a minority being subjugated, especially in the wake of the anti-freedom Prop 8 in California.

Although I found the story of Slumdog Millionaire more original and more fun, The Reader was a devastating and brutal take on memory, and with less punch, so was Ben Button. All very good stuff.