Thursday, March 20, 2008

Oscar Update

I’ve watched two of the Oscar movies thus far. The first was In the Valley of Elah. Reading the description I was fearful it might turn into another Cinderella Man or Blood Diamond. Luckily this was not the case. The movie is long, but isn’t slow. It’s kind of like an episode of "Law and Order" actually. A man’s soldier son is killed soon after he returns from overseas deployment. When the military doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to solve the crime, the father takes it upon himself to find out what happened. With the help of a detective he collects evidence and figures out who dunnit. It’s at times violent, there’s some blood and guts, but mostly it’s just sad and disturbing because it’s based on real events.

The second one down was Gone Baby Gone. While Evan sympathized with me for having to watch this movie, it wasn’t the worst one I’ve ever seen. Or tried to see. I found it predictable yet still confusing at times. There was entirely too much profanity just for the sake of using profanity. The story itself was interesting enough – a little girl is kidnapped and some private detectives are hired by her aunt to find her after. Similar to the last one really – the victim’s family thinks the cops in charge aren’t doing their best so they outsource. Hmm. Anywho, add in a child molester, a druglord, and some dirty cops and you’ve got some good plot potential. I did what I could to ignore the fact that Casey Affleck is funny-looking. Ed Harris was good as a badass cop, I will say that. Generally an non-extraordinary cop thriller.

Next up is Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I didn’t see the original Elizabeth. Will this affect my viewing of the sequel or will general knowledge of English history see me through?

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