Wow, it’s the time of year again it seems to come round quicker every year. I missed a couple of months of this year’s cinema offerings due to being stupidly busy and not being able to get to the cinema. I missed a few films I quite wanted to see but luckily not too many, hopefully I’ll catch them on DVD at some point. I have to say after a short break from the cinema it’s nice to be going again and I have had a great start to the year with 3 cracking films and at least a couple more I’m really looking forward to on the way soon.
First my general thoughts on last year’s cinema. When I wrote my Oscar post last year I said that I was left wondering whether we were going to see movies made just to make money but I’m pleased to say we seemed to have bounced back a little this year. Interesting to note though that most of the films that are at the top of my ratings recently have also been doing pretty well at the box office. May be it is in producers best interest to be making good films and not worrying about the return, that will come if they make a good film. The only couple of things that have annoyed me a little are 3D films, I will continue to moan about them when ever possible till they stop making them or at least make them good films! The second minor gripe is sequels, either when it’s the first film of what the studio wants to become a series (if popular) with pointless scenes at the end to set up for a sequel or the sequel itself. I don’t mind sequels if they actually have a story for it, Pixar have proved you can do it very successfully but a lot of sequels are just garbage!
On to this year’s Oscars then. I’m not going to go through the awards as usual I’m just going to write a little about some of the movies and performances that I have seen that are up for Oscars, as usual because of the way films are released I haven’t seen all the films up for Oscars, something I still think needs to be addressed.
There have been some fantastic performances across the board this year and in the actor in a leading role category there were two performances that were stunning, both James Franco and Colin Firth put in awesome performances, I have a sneaky suspicion that James Franco will get it, it was an amazing performance in 127 hours and the Oscars have always favoured American actors/actresses & films, hence why I think he will win it. Personally though I’d give it to Colin Firth, he put in an awesome performance last year in A Single Man and was pretty close to winning, this year he put in another stunning performance in A King’s Speech, arguably even better than his A Single Man performance, surely he deserves to win this year.
Although Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush also put in pretty good performances in The King’s Speech but I would give both the awards they are nominated for to The Fighter, which showed how a good character based film should be done. The best supporting actor surely has to go to Cristian Bale, his performance is genius, he total embodies the role both physical and mentally. Although I’m unsure which of the performances I preferred I think both Amy Adams and Melissa Leo put in pretty good performances and would tip one of them to win.
As certain as I am Christian Bale will win I am even more sure Natalie Portman will win best actress and if she doesn’t then she should! I’ve not seen all the films in the category but her performance in Black Swan is truly brilliant.
Best animated feature film should surely be renamed as ‘The Pixar award’, with Toy Story 3 Pixar showed it is possible to make a good sequel, I still don’t think it will have enough to take the best picture but surely Pixar will win one of those at some point if they continue to produce the quality films they are currently doing.
The big surprise of the nominations was that Christopher Nolan didn’t get nominated for best director but I am pleased to see Inception is included on the list of best picture, I don’t know who’s going to win, it’s a very diverse list with some great films in it and I think the winner is going to be a very personal choice. Personally I’d go for The King’s Speech I think it’s a brilliant piece of cinema and is very much an ‘Oscar’ film. Although in my personal list Inception isn’t too far behind it is just the wrong type of film for the Oscars.
The 83rd Acadamy Awards (Oscars 2011) are on 27th February 2011
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