SEEING THEM ALL...(wherein I ramble, sometimes coherently, about the Best Picture nominees...)

So, every year, Steve has this thing about seeing ALL of the nominees for Best Picture. Obviously, with the increase in the number of possible nominees in recent years, this has become more difficult. At the same time, it is a fun challenge that means you see some of the best that Hollywood has to offer. It also means that you go into the Oscars as, one might say, a "well educated voter". There might be a movie that you go "They nominated THAT?!". Or you might have one favorite above all others. Or you might want every movie that you saw to go home with at least something.

This year, of the NINE nominated films, Steve and I managed to see seven, which I personally think, with our crazy lives, is pretty impressive. While I go into the Oscars not having a FULL appreciation of what is happening, I hope I am going in with a good idea. With that in mind, here are MY thoughts on the Best Picture nominees I have seen, rambling as they may be...

Argo: You know how it ends; it doesn't matter if you lived through it or heard your parents talk about it or have read about it in the history books, you know what happens. Doesn't matter. You get to the last 30 minutes of that movie and I DARE you not to be on the edge of your seat, gripping your arm rests, your heart pounding in your chest. Ben Affleck has created a tight, funny, touching, exciting look at a pretty dark time in our history, and takes you on a thrill ride that doesn't stop. On top of that, an excellent supporting cast, from Alan Arkin to John Goodman to Brian Cranston to Victor Garber to Kyle Chandler fills out the story that pulls you into the fact that THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED!

Beasts of the Southern Wild: One might call this the underdog of the Oscars: the little "independent film" that snuck in there with all the blockbusters and fancy foreign language entries, and while it probably won't win, it deserves to be in this category. There is a raw feeling to the whole film, about people with nothing living for everything. The two leads have little (to NO) previous acting experience and they break you heart. The "father" owned a bakery/deli across the street from the studio where film company set up, and has lived through at least two of the hurricanes that have devastated Louisiana, including Katrina. His passionate stubbornness to NOT leave his home, no matter what the cost is both wonderfully noble and face-palmingly stupid.

Then there is Quvenzhane Wallis. She may have gotten the role because she had a great scream and could burp on command (both of which were used in the film) but oh my goodness does this little girl have a BIG screen presence. She brings you into her world and lets you see the world through the imaginative eyes of a young child. There is a raw, innocent (but NOT naive) beauty to the film that she embodies. I really hope I get to see more of her as she grows up. The girl has chops!

Les Miserables: OK, so, when I was 7 years old, I saw this for the first time with my Aunt Janet, who, you may or may not know, passed away rather suddenly this past summer. Therefore, this musical holds a very special place in my heart. As a child of Children's Theatre, I grew up on this musical. The girls dreamed of belting out about tigers in the night or a heart full of love or of pavements shinning like silver (we were all smart enough to learn very early on that castles on clouds got tuned out very fast by casting directors). The boys dreamed of stars in their multitude or asking "who am I". And let's face it, any excuse to belt out "bastard" was met with utter joy by a bunch of pre-teens.

So, yes, Russell Crowe looks and sounds terrified. Yes, Sacha Baron Cohen needs to be locked in a dark dungeon and never let out again (you wanna know what "Master of the House" should be like go find the 10th Anniversary concert on youtube; Colm Wilkinson should have to wait for a good 2 or 3 minutes because 1) the audience is still hollering and, 2) he has to get the smile wiped off his OWN face).

But then there is Anne Hathaway, bearing her soul for all the dreams she has lost. There is Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne, shocking me with the fact that not only can they both act, they can both sing, AND they can make the love story honest and not completely sappy. Think about Enroljas, and Gavroche, and all the other members of the ABC's. Think about Samantha Barks singing the song that every girl who as ever felt even the SLIGHTEST bit of unrequited love knows by heart, and then making you feel every little fall of rain. Think about Colm Wilkinson passing those silver candlesticks off to Hugh Jackman, and watching Wolverine take up the torch and carry it to the end. Think of the spectacle, and the intensity, and the absolute grandeur of watching the barricade got up and of hearing the people sing.

I don't know if I walked into this movie with high expectations because it is so special to me or if it was so special to me they could have blown it completely and I STILL would have loved it. All I know is, I bawled like a little baby and walked out of there humming the songs of my childhood.

Life of Pi: Ang Lee has been mostly hit with me. "Brokeback Mountain" was good, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is lovely, and "Sense and Sensibility" was great. "The Hulk"...well, even Pixar has an off day.  But this is another hit. I would say it isn't the best of the bunch, but the pictures that Lee paints on the screen will leave you breathless. There is such a simple message that the movie tells, but it is a powerful and beautiful one. The young unknown playing Pi carries a good portion of that movie on his shoulders, and carries it well.

And there is a Bengal Tiger in the movie. Come on guys. Look at the title of the blog. How am I NOT going to like this movie?

Lincoln: Once again, a true story of a not so good time in our nation's history, but also one of our shinning moments. You go into this movie thinking that back room political maneuvering cannot be exciting, especially political maneuvering that you know the end point of. And yet, as with "Argo", you watch, rapt in the back room dealing and the speeches and the plotting and the planning, watching as politics happen. It moves tightly, like a play, and keeps you wanting the next scene. I lay this on the shoulders of Mr. Tony Kushner. Considering the man already has two Tony's under his belt, and the fact that the sure hands of Steven Spielberg are at the reigns, you already have a pretty good chance of a good film.

Now add Daniel Day Lewis, who disappears into this role. You can tell that he worked VERY hard to find Lincoln's voice (literally and figuratively) and it pays off in spades. It is a quiet power that Lewis exudes, and it draws you in. It makes you feel his pain and frustration when time start to run out. It makes you feel his joy when things start to work. It makes you want to scream at the screen as he leaves the White House for Ford's Theatre.

If that wasn't enough, you add a fantastic supporting cast. David Strathairn IS William Seward, and you see the deep friendship that existed between these two men and how they worked together SO well. Sally Field, playing Mary Todd Lincoln, bounces back and forth between broken heart and spine of steel. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt does very well as the eldest son Robert Todd Lincoln. Chaffing against the protectiveness of a father who just wants to spare him from the horror of the battlefield, he sees what is happening and still wants to be a part of it, despite the danger.

There are other smaller roles that get a moment or two: Gloria Reuben as Mary Todd Lincoln's confidante Elizabeth Keckley; Jackie Earle Haley as Alexander H. Stephens (who has a fantastic moment while being escorted to the treaty negotiations); Bruce McGill as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (“NOT ANOTHER STORY”); Jared Harris as an excellent U.S. Grant (nice to see Moriarity again); Hal Holbrook (who has himself portrayed Lincoln in the past) as Francis Preston Blair; S. Empatha Merkeson as Lydia Smith (“You can’t take your housekeeper to the House); Walter Goggins as Wells A. Hutchins (“Ah hell! Let them hang me!); Lee Pace as New York Rep. Fernando Wood  (who knew elves could be so mean…and the peanut gallery can shut up); the triple team of James Spader, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Hawkes as (respectively) William N. Bilbo, Richard Schell, and Colonel Robert Latham (I want a movie about JUST these three and their adventures).

Each of these players give something to the movie, and once they have had their moment(s), you expect the focus to shift back to Daniel Day Lewis: the movie is about his character, so no big surprise there. But the one who NEARLY steals the movie away from its titular character is Tommy Lee Jones as Thadeus Stevens. You are riveted from the first moment he appears on screen. Biting, sarcastic, and persuasive, this is a man who, when he sees a goal in site, goes after it uncompromisingly. He slowly comes to realize that such an attitude may cost him that goal. The scene between Stevens and Lincoln in the kitchen is amazing, and when he finally realizes that, sometimes, you have to bite your tongue and temper your steps to make change happen, you want to shout for joy not because you see a man compromising his principles, but finding a way to make change happen, even if it is slow (it is a very Burke vs. Rousseau argument, but I will leave that to Loyola Honors College 2^nd semester students to work through). He leaves an impression on you long after you see him for the last time on the screen, and is my personal vote for Best Supporting Actor.

Silver Linings Playbook: The romantic comedy of the group, David O. Russell's movie based on the book of the same name is a touching look at coming back from an incredibly dark place. Another fantastic ensemble cast is full of Characters...and that is with a capital "C". While the two main characters are the ones that have the "mental" issues, each of the supporting ensemble could have their own entry in the DSM. Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver play the obsessive compulsive and the enabler perfectly, and at the same time you want to smack them both you want to hug them for all the love they have for their family and each other. Julia Stiles and John Ortiz play Type-A and utterly whipped husband to a T who have just as many issues (if not more) than our leading man and his ex-wife. I have NO idea what is going on with Chris Tucker, but it is fantastic. The sanest one in the group is Anupam Kher as Pat Jr's therapist, a center of sweet, funny calm in the storm of madness.

When it comes to our two leads, it is a thrilling journey to watch. These are two VERY damaged people putting their life back together any way they can. Bradley Cooper has grown up nicely, and was intriguing to watch. It can't be easy to break the mold that "The Hangover" placed him in, but this role allowed Cooper to not smash it completely, but to slowly chip and crack off pieces in a way that makes me hope more "adult" roles are in the future. Jennifer Lawrence grabs onto her character and makes it her own. With one Academy Award nomination under her belt, the 23-year old plays older than her summers and just made me love her in all her insanity. She and Cooper also make lovely dance partners!

Zero Dark Thirty- The story of one of the greatest manhunts in the history of the United States: another true story that we know the end of, and another one where that fact really doesn’t matter.

There is a difference, however, between this movie and Argo and Lincoln. I would almost say that ZDT is the child of those two, taking the real life spying of Argo and the revelation of what goes on behind the scenes (the maneuvering, the paper work, the research) of Lincoln. The problem is that it doesn’t do either of these things as quite well as those films.  Argo had you on the edge of your seat with the tension of if they would pull the escape off. Lincoln had you wanting to see the cabinet meetings, the clandestine plotting sessions of the lobbyists, the secret meetings in kitchens. ZDT did, at times, feel a bit slow.

You soon realize that you are not bored, but experiencing the real story. Since this is RECENT history, Katheryn Bigelow hooks you from the moment the movie starts, bringing this to a personal level. This is a long story: a lot happened, and the important thing to remember is that not all of it was sneaking through customs and snap decisions. It was hard, piecemeal, inch-by-inch work. You remember hearing about London, the Islamabad Marriott, Camp Chapman on the news. You don’t realize until it happens how the simplest research can lead to the biggest break. You don’t realize how close they are until the camera pulls back just slightly and shows the compound we all became so familiar with for a few days in May, 2011.  When the end comes, it is not a massive, climactic firefight, but a real life build that is slow, tense, edge of your seat…and then over in a second. That’s it. It’s done. The brilliance of the movie is the fact that Ms. Bigelow takes you on this journey from almost day one; she makes you feel how long and arduous it was, and when it is over, there is a strange mixture of relief that it is over…but also wanting to know: what now?

Your avatar for this journey is Jessica Chastain, who is becoming one of my favorite actresses. She is quickly proving, in my opinion, to be one of the most versatile actresses in Hollywood, and this film only helps. She does not start as an innocent, but there is a difference between being wise in the ways of your chosen profession and seeing them in action. By the end, she is driven, exhausted, and frustrated, and she makes you feel all of these things with her. She is supported in this by an excellent cast of both “known” and “unknown": actors: Harold Perrineau, Jennifer Ehle (the face-palm when I finally realized it was her might have echoed through the theatre), Kyle Chandler (his second film this year involving espionage in the Middle East, see Argo), Stephen Dillane, Tony Soprano, Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke, Fares Fares, Edgar Ramirez, Mark Strong.  

So, final notes: My HEART says Les Miserables, my HEAD says Argo, and my GUT says Lincoln.