<p>What are some good Oscar-nominated movies to watch. I’m about to see Biutiful, a best foreign film and best actor nominee (Javier Bardem). Thoughts on that?</p>
<p>Winter’s Bone, the best movie I’ve seen in a long time.</p>
<p>The King’s Speech & True Grit…big thumbs up.</p>
<p>The Kids are All Right…puhleese! If this is the best movie of the year…it was a sorry year.
Blue Valentine: good acting…but blah for story…way too long.</p>
<p>And I don’t normally think of myself as a prude…but enough of the graphic hetero and homo sex and oral sex. (The Kids and Blue Val). Yeah, we get it…but geez, I’m not sure the camera could have been any closer in the Blue Val. Did not add anything (other than being irritating) that a little more discretion could not have accomplished.<br>
Yeah, these two films deserved at least their R rating. By comparison, the King’s Speech should have been given a Disney rating (instead of the R for saying the F word 5 times…)</p>
<p>Gosmom-you should def avoid Black Swan. Whoa.
I agree on The King’s Speech and True Grit, and also (unexpectedly) liked The Fighter.</p>
<p>b960, yes, just today got the low down (bad pun) on Black Swan, which I’d been on the fence about seeing. Guess I’ll get to others on my list.
And, have also heard many positives about the Fighter–seeing tomorrow night!</p>
<p>True Grit was so good…and sadly that is the only one that we’ve seen, ha!</p>
<p>Both DH and I loved The Fighter and The King’s Speech. We thought The Social Network was very good but didn’t have the emotional pull of The Fighter and King’s Speech. The Kids are Alright was OK but didn’t compare to the others, surprised it got nominated. No desire to see The Black Swan. Will see True Grit this weekend. Really wanted to see Winter’s Bone but it never played in our local theaters. I’m surprised it hasn’t had a wide spread release since being nominated.</p>
<p>Loved The Fighter, really really liked The Social Network, enjoyed the Kids are All Right (not Oscar caliber, but entertaining), and was bored by Winter’s Bone, which I found to be ponderous and slow. Didn’t see the others.</p>
<p>Biutiful=contrived and unnecessarily sad but it has great acting.</p>
<p>I thought True Grit was excellent. (I’m a huge fan of the novel.) I knew I’d be critical of it, though, and since it was a re-make, I was expecting perfection. I did find a few minor things to gripe about. First of all, why couldn’t they film it where the story takes place (Arkansas & Oklahoma) so the landscape, trees, etc. look right? I know Hollywood thinks it doesn’t matter–who knows what this region looks like anyway? Well, they got it wrong a second time! (Not quite as wrong as the first time, but disappointing.) The falling snow looked totally fake–no excuse for that. The opening lines: Hailee Steinfeld read them way too fast, tone/accent was wrong–ruined the opening, imo. (She was great, otherwise). Jeff Bridges was good, (better than JW) but he mumbled too much and was hard to understand at times. Ending song–jarring and annoying–should’ve been instrumental. </p>
<p>Winter’s Bone: I know not many folks will see this movie. We lived in the Ozarks for 11 years–including 7 years near where the book’s author lives, so we just had to see it. H and I found it incredibly realistic and well done for a small film. Not a pleasant story, but an interesting one. Great characters. Certainly will not help tourism in the region.</p>
<p>Plan to see The King’s Speech. We have stutterers in the family and two kids who’ve been in speech therapy. S saw it and said “must see.” He also really liked The Social Network.</p>
<p>gosmom–I’m with you on the graphic sex. In the old days, they didn’t have to show anything, and all the grownups could figure out what was going on. In real life we don’t (well, most of us don’t. . .) watch others doing it. If we happened to walk in on a roommate, (or our parents!) we wouldn’t sit there and take notes–we’d cover our eyes, turn around and leave immediately. That’s how I feel when I’m watching a movie, even if they are just actors–it seems unnatural to invade a couple’s privacy like that, and it makes me very uncomfortable.</p>
<p>I thought 127 Hours was wonderful.</p>
<p>Like many, I adored The King’s Speech. I thought The Kids Are All Right and The Social Network were okay.</p>
<p>Didn’t care much for Black Swan.</p>
<p>Haven’t seen True Grit or The Fighter yet, but would like to.</p>
<p>I’m still bummed that Christopher Nolan didn’t get a Best Director nomination for Inception, which means it probably has no chance to win - and it isn’t the best picture, but what was the Academy thinking to nominate Darren Aronofsky instead? I guess I’m glad I saw Black Swan, though I disliked the movie - it was interesting to see how fine performances can make a silly script work. The sex scenes didn’t bother me half as much as all the shots of the back of Natalie Portman’s head.</p>
<p>For me the interesting Oscar races this year are for Actor and Actress. I admire all the performers but think it might come down to James Franco in 127 Hours and Colin Firth in The King’s Speech for Best Actor. And for Best Actress - I’d like to see Annette Bening win for a great body of work as well as a terrific performance in The Kids Are Alright. But I was hugely impressed by Natalie Portman’s skill and power in Black Swan, and I’ve never liked her in anything before. I feel she brought sense and structure to a script that didn’t have much of either on the page.</p>
<p>Seeing Winter’s Bone this weekend so maybe I’ll change my mind about everything. :)</p>
<p>Packmom and others- Winter’s Bone is already available on DVD. I got it from Netflix.</p>
<p>Loved,loved,loved “The Kings Speech”.</p>
<p>I need a movie to watch upstairs tomorrow while H watches his beloved Packers win the superbowl. (He thinks I’m bad luck for the Pack and I don’t watch football anyway).Am thinking “Social Network” or “Kids are Alright”.</p>
<p>We watched The Social Network last night and thought it was very well done - much better than we expected. I watched The Kids are All Right a couple of weeks ago, and while Annette Bening’s performance was excellent, I wasn’t very impressed with the movie overall. It’s the story of a marriage, only the couple happens to be lesbian. Ho hum.</p>
<p>I agree about The King’s Speech - a wonderful movie.</p>
<p>My daughter was positively irate that “The Kids Are All Right”, about a lesbian couple, contained a graphic male/female sex scene. She has a point. I just thought it was boring.</p>
<p>I thought “Black Swan” just took a list of symptoms of borderline personality disorder and threw them all in. Natalie Portman was excellent, but if I want to watch a movie about a ballerina dancing herself to death, I’ll just watch “The Red Shoes”.</p>
<p>I love The King’s Speech, liked True Grit very much and enjoyed* Inception*, but thought it ultimately didn’t make much sense.</p>
<p>No desire whatsover to see oral sex or boxing.</p>
<p>mathmom, thematically, The Fighter is actually a movie about a family, not about boxing. (The fight scenes don’t take up that much of the running time, in fact.) You should see it for Melissa Leo’s and Christian Bale’s performances alone. They’re amazing.</p>
<p>I forgot that Inception was nominated–boy, did I hate that movie! Also forgot about Toy Story 3, which I loved–laughed my head off and blubbered like a baby at the end. </p>
<p>All in all, it was very good year for the movies, wasn’t it?</p>
<p>We adored The King’s Speech. Really really liked The Social Network which we did not expect to enjoy as much as we did. In fact, after seeing it last night (On Demand), we spent time over breakfast discussing many aspects of the movie. We enjoyed The Kids Are All Right but agree with many others that while Annette Bening’s performance was, as usual, excellent, it certainly doesn’t rise to The Best Picture level. I also really enjoyed True Grit as well, and felt the Coen Brothers rendering was outstanding. So far, for us, The King’s Speech is the winner, both for Picture and Actor. However, still haven’t seen James Franco in 127 Hours…</p>
<p>To me The King’s Speech is the movie of the year. It was well acted, beautifully made and directed. I enjoyed The Fighter which is very well acted, filmed and directed and I do recommend even if not interested in seeing the fight scenes which are actually a small part of the movie. I enjoyed The Social Network more than I thought I would-it is well done. My older d was at Brandeis when Facebook was developed at Harvard and one of my friend’s son’s was another of Zuckerberg’s roommate’s freshman year and I haven’t had a chance to see what they have to say about how all this developed and how accurate the portrayal is. I was aware that he had left school to stay on in California at the time it happened. 127 Hours was to me a bit disappointing as a film but James Franco was outstanding. I didn’t enjoy all the split screen and the deafening soundtrack. I saw The Kids are All Right on a flight to Paris and while I enjoyed it, I don’t think it was exceptional. Annette Bening is great, so she always is great and she may win for her overall body of work but I also thought Julianne Moore was good and she is overdue for a nomination. Have not see either True Grit or The Black Swan or The Winter’s Bone.</p>