In my continuing quest to see Academy-Award contenders, I watched Moneyball. Brad Pitt plays the Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane. He has to figure out how to make a winning baseball team on a small budget. With the help of Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill), he scouts players that have been overlooked for different reasons. I was intrigued throughout the movie. Pitt’s acting was awesome, and Hill brought some comedy to the movie that I wasn’t expecting. Overall it was a really good movie, and I can see why it was nominated for the Academy Awards.
The next movie I watched was Super 8. I really liked this movie because it was interesting and produced by Steven Spielberg. Dakota Fanning’s younger sister Elle Fanning plays the main female character in this movie, which I thought was interesting for two reasons. One, I didn’t know Dakota Fanning had a sister and two, I didn’t know she was also a good actor. The story revolves around a boy who is the make-up artist for a young group of movie makers, each with their own part in the process. It has a twist and keeps you glued to the screen. In a way, you could classify this movie as a horror film, but I really didn’t think it was all that horrifying. Blood is shown and curse words are used, but it’s generally a really good movie.
Now, there were two other movies that I wanted to watch to give you my opinion, but here in West Texas, it is impossible to get these either on the large screen or the small screen in time. The movies being nominated for the Oscars must have been watched by someone, otherwise it would be ridiculous for them to have been nominated at all. Since I can’t even watch these movies until the Awards are probably over, I guess I can give you a review over how good I think the movie might be.
One of the movies that I really wanted to watch was Hugo. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the resources to watch that movie in time since it was out of the theater and not on DVD yet. I did some research on it instead, and it seems like a really great movie. It’s based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Hugo, played by Asa Butterfield, who is as cute as his name, is living in Paris and is abandoned by his uncle, having to fend for himself, which he does by stealing. He meets a clock maker and befriends the clock maker’s niece Isabelle, played by Chloe Moretz. Isabelle has been forbidden from seeing movies but goes to see them with Hugo anyway. I don’t want to give away too much, so I will stop there. Hugo was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, so I think it’s safe to say it’s a pretty good movie.
Another movie that wasn’t available to us and that I was hoping to see is The Artist. This is a silent film in black and white. I know what you’re thinking. Who in their right mind would want to watch a movie exactly like the ones made in the Jurassic period? I certainly didn’t, at first. Then I researched it a bit more and found that it is a comedy-drama and that it had been nominated for many awards and that many people thought it was a really great movie. I think this movie would actually be really good, and I truly hope to see it before the millennia ends.
Suffice it to say that the nominees this year are varied. There seems to be no common thread running between any of them which makes this year’s Academy Awards very interesting indeed.
