The post-Oscars frustration...

It was my goal to watch ALL the nominees for Best Picture in this year's Academy Awards before Awards night itself. And I did. In the order of when I saw them...

1. Letters From Iwo Jima (in a special premier last November)
2. Little Miss Sunshine (DVD)
3. The Departed (DVD)
4. Babel (DVD)
5. The Queen (in the theater last Saturday)

Here's what I'll have to say about the whole deal with Best Picture on last Sunday's Academy Awards:

<rant>

I saw The Departed on DVD two weekends ago. And it wasn't a good movie. Given, I'd seen Infernal Affairs before already so I was a bit spoiled, still...I can't believe The Departed won Best Picture and Best Director. It was such a macho-ized, American-ized, Scorsese-ized Infernal Affairs. It was basically the same movie, but worse. Why didn't they just show Infernal Affairs on the big screen here?
  
Even if I hadn't watched Infernal Affairs beforehand, I don't think The Departed is that great of a movie.  I have no idea why only one out of the four Academy Award winners for the movie, the scriptwriter (and for good reason), acknowledged Infernal Affairs.

</rant>

Letters From Iwo Jima was my choice for Best Picture. Compared to the other contenders in the category, I thought Iwo Jima had REALLY good chances.

Best Picture because (aside from Nino being there ^^), seriously, it really is a good movie. The cinematography, the story, the characters...everything played a huge part in the movie. Another Eastwood classic. It definitely satiated my tastes in a movie, so in the Jean Awards, Iwo Jima would win Best Picture. I'll bet you, years from now, we won't be talking about The Departed. We'll be talking about Infernal Affairs which The Departed was based on. We'll be talking about Letters From Iwo Jima which was the superior movie over The Departed. I'm sorry, I just couldn't stand the fact that that movie won an Oscar. I feel like Infernal Affairs should've won an Oscar, too.

All right...despite my annoyance with the butchering of Infernal Affairs by the movie The Departed--I will admit it's tied with second as my pick for Best Picture. The other movies were just--not good enough for Best Picture. I think if Iwo Jima was more hyped up and shown in more theaters before Oscars night, it would've gotten top prize. However, that's where The Departed ultimately won--not in the quality of the movie, but how much it appealed to audiences. And yeah, maybe because they said either: "I think we've given Eastwood and Spielberg too much already," or "Ahh, fuck it, give Scorsese an Oscar already."

Tied with The Departed as my second pick for Best Picture would be Little Miss Sunshine. An awesome movie that's enough to make you laugh and cry. It had that indie feel, didn't it? A very good movie that reminded me of Stranger Than Fiction (surprised this movie didn't receive an Oscar nod). The little girl was amazing. She really did deserve that nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

The Queen was my personal third. It was simple, yet quite interesting. It wasn't dragging and we see a speculative look at how the Royal Family dealt with Princess Diana's death. And I love the Welsh Corgis. Who can't love a movie with Welsh Corgis?

Babel was my least favorite of all. Such a weird movie, even for me. Too deep to understand. I'm the type to critique on a movie (similar to literary criticism) rather than just watch for entertainment. I like it when there's symbolism and symmetry to movies. I guess Babel had that kind of audience in mind--but really--I got lost watching the movie. It was an ambitious production tying up different people, etc. Honestly--it was confusing, dragging, and lacked cohesiveness.