Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock, you probably already know that the nominees for the 79th Annual Academy Awards were announced yesterday. This disturbs me. I’m not disturbed that the announcements were made, mind you; I’m disturbed that I haven’t seen any of the movies listed. Okay, wait. That’s a lie. I’ve seen some. Just, you know, not as many as I usually would have seen by now. Why not? I’m poor. Woe is me. Due to my ever-deteriorating financial situation, I’ve only seen: Borat, Children of Men, United 93, The Queen, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Departed, Babel, Volver and The Devil Wears Prada. (By comparison, when the nominations were made in previous years, usually, I would have seen all of the nominees for best doc, best pic *and* best foreign film.)
So, what have I missed? I haven’t yet seen Little Miss Sunshine, Blood Diamond, Half Nelson, The Last King of Scotland, An Inconvenient Truth, Water and Two Letters from Iwo Jima. There are others, but these are the ones that I want to see the most. Have you seen any of these films? Just for gits and shiggles, I’ll treat myself to a cheap matinee of the film of your choosing. Here’s how this is going to work . . . Use the comment section to vote for one of the nominated films that I haven’t seen. Then, sometime over the next seven days, I’ll see the film that gets the most votes and I’ll blog about it. Ooh, ooh, ooh . . . To keep everyone guessing, I reserve the right to attend the film that either: (a) gets the most votes; (b) gets the least votes {the underdog}; or (c) gets the most passionately convincing plea from a reader. Ready? Okay. Time to vote. Which of the following films do you recommend (you can vote for more than one if you’d like): Little Miss Sunshine, Blood Diamond, Half Nelson, The Last King of Scotland, An Inconvenient Truth, Water or Two Letters from Iwo Jima?
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
FBC – glad you’ve got this thread!!! you should definitely see An Inconvenient Truth – it’s a great film and it makes my heart glad that our former VP is an now Oscar Nominee for putting out a film that outlines the basic tenets of how we can save our world locally and globally. Huzzah!
As an African-American woman i want to like Dreamgirls as much as everyone else out here does, but for me, the movie was pretty much Eddie Murphy’s opening number, Jennifer Hudson signing “And I’m Telling You…”, and the pictures on the walls of Curtis Taylor’s house changing faces (semi-spoiler).
the film that BLEW ME AWAY was The Departed – how does Scorsese do it?!? I mean, homie is NOT kidding. And Leonardo was off. the. chain. Note to self – strive for THAT kind of mastery in what you choose to do.
I also loved Children of Men – I’m disappointed it wasn’t up for Best Pic and that Mr. Bleak Near Future Hottie McTottie Clive Owen wasn’t nominated, but the Academy will tolerate only so much British bleakness (i.e., The Queen).
Ugh I haven’t seen ANY of them either thanks to being a broke student again! Maybe I’ll decide using these poll results too! I’m eyeing Little Miss Sunshine and Blood Diamond as well though.
so many movies, so many i havent seen.
But my vote goes for Letters from iwo Jima…..havent seenit but comon ….at least it looks good from the poster :P
Tough call. I vote for An Inconvenient Truth if you want to think and want to see something extremely important and significant. See Little Miss Sunshine if you just want to laugh and feel good for an hour and a half.
Really, I think you should see both. :-)
Hey Funky let me make your life a little easier, you can rent Little Miss Sunshine, An Inconvenient Truth, and Water on dvd now. If you want to be devious/financially frugal, you can even use a free one month trial from Blockbuster online. If you love the movies, you can even report them missing in the mail and keep them :O
Now of the remaining 4 – I really want to see the Last King of Scotland – Forest Whitaker seems to have delivered an amazing performance as Idi Amin.
ooooh… tough one. so many great movies, but i think i’ll take the last king of scotland. i saw the trailer last night before babel came on (great movie by the way, i can see why everyone’s in a craze when it comes to inarritu) and i second distar: forest whitaker’s performance promises to be pretty amazing. next to that, the movie’s about idi amin… and he’s a major part a piece of history that’s never really been ‘looked at’, so yeah, i’d pick the last king of scotland.
It’s a tie for me between Little Miss Sunshine and The Last King of Scotland. See either one and I will be pleased with you. :)
last.king.of.scotland. :)
I’m voting Blood Diamond because Leo is H-O-T.
Hey there, I rented “An Inconvenient Truth” last weekend and it was da bomb. How anyone can deny global warming surely must have their fingers in their ears going “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA”.
I sure do wish Al Gore would run again.
On that note, I still haven’t seen the rest either.
I didn’t really love Little Miss Sunshine, and I find that 75% of the praise is just hype. An “Inconvenient Truth” however… a must see, maybe not tomorrow, but certainly worth the 2 hours. (Blood Diamond I didn’t see, but there is so much information available online about the blood diamond issue taking place in Africa, that’d i suggest just finding an article. I’m sure that’ll give you the gist of the problem w/o the cliche fictional background story involving a male protagonist chasing a helpless women, in a situation where he saves a girl, and all while making the less “privileged” wiser, at least that’s what i assume the movies about.)
Forget all of those other movies and just see Children of Men again so you can look at Clive Owen.
But while I’m on that note my vote is for either Half Nelson (b/c Ryan Gosling is usually cute) or An Inconvenient Truth (b/c I think Al Gore is cute, too and global warming is def. happening)
I really want to see Last King though b/c I’m glad to see Forest W. doing his thing and I really like Kerry Washington.
I’m def. with distar on the Blockbuster thing and I might have to try that…
Well I liked Little Miss Sunshine, didn’t think The Devil Wears Prada was that great to be honest. I’d only go see The Last King of Scotland because James McAvoy is in it and he made me cry when I watched Inside I’m Dancing(rent it!). Ooh now I’m in the mood for a film!
susan: Thanks for getting us started off with the voting. :) So, that’s one vote for An Inconvenient Truth. And, yeah, The Departed was **GREAT**!! Scorsese better win an Oscar.
Darwin: Running total: Inconvenient Truth (1), Little Miss Sunshine (1) and Blood Diamond (1)
Papigiulio: One vote for Letters from Iwo Jima.
stefanie: And, we’re got another for An Inconvenient Truth & Little Miss Sunshine; they take the lead with 2 votes each. :)
distar: Tie for Inconvenient Truth & Little Miss Sunshine in the lead.
Firefly: Yeah, Last King of Scotland looks like it will be really interesting. And, Forrest Whitaker rocks! :)
Donna: Little Miss Sunshine takes the lead with four votes!
Bro: OOOH!!! We have a new tie: Little Miss Sunshine & Last King of Scotland.
MamaChristy: Yeah, baby grew up GOOD! Leo looks nice now that he looks like more of a man.
tonito bandito: Three-way tie: Inconvenient Truth, Little Miss Sunshine and Last King of Scotland. I love 3-ways. :)
ed: Inconvenient Truth takes the lead. :) GOOD suggestion about reading up on Idi Amin.
cici: Clive is crazy sexy cute. :) And, now, Inconvenient Truth leads with 6 votes.
Nics: And, we have a tie again: Inconvenient Truth and Last King of Scotland. With the votes as the now stand, these two are the winners. The underdogs? Letters from Iwo Jima and Half Nelson.
Voting closed. I’ll let you know which movie I’ve picked next week; stay tuned!!! :-)
Didn’t see most of those you hadn’t either. I hated Babel. Like Crash, only slightly less likely… and more predictable. A goodlooking Brad does not a movie make…
Children of Men is one of my favorite movies in the past 5 years. Weird, makes you think, leaves you with questions etc. Similarly I felt both Gattaca w. Ethan Hawke and ‘The Island’ with Scarlett Johansson are under-appreciated for their social commentary.
Note: an inconvenient truth, *was* available in full online here:
http://del.icio.us/ThrowawayyourTV/Full.Length.Doc
It has since been removed but other good DOCs are still there.
(I love http://throwawayyourtv.com/ )
Depending on your taste in movies and ethical boundaries (or lack thereof) you may want to take a gander at http://thepiratebay.org/ My excuse: rarely some obscure Euro stuff not sold in US DVD formats appears there
Weet je waar ik een copie van Ajax, Daar Hoorden Zij Engelen Zingen kan vinden? Het staat niet op Netflix. :(
BTW, Universal just bought the rights to the next great soccer film. Keep your eyes peeled for this story. Other links? The original article from the New York Times.
I’ve missed the cutoff – but I still have to vote for Little Miss Sunshine anyway. Seriously one of the funniest films I’ve seen in years! But then I’m a little warped….
I’m going to see “the movie” today; I’ll write about it sometime this week.