Atonement - good but not great. People in it, good but not great. It had the feel of a movie where at every step of the production people were asking themselves, "Is this going to help us win Oscars?" That always annoys me a bit.
Juno - good but not great. Ellen Page good but not great. I enjoyed Jennifer Garner's performance, but the Academy thought differently. Juno is the next Little Miss Sunshine or Napoleon Dynamite - a lot of hype around an enjoyable film (although I did enjoy this one more than I enjoyed those movies). If you buy into the hype, there is a strong chance you will be vaguely disappointed. If you go in thinking, "I hope it's watchable," you'll emerge a happy (wo)man.
Dewey Cox - ROBBED. Once that movie comes out on DVD, repeated viewings will ensure it is quoted FREQUENTLY at 2008 tailgates.
I haven't seen many other films this season, sadly. My goal for the next 10 days is to see the other 3 Best Picture winners, since they'll all be within a 15 second walk from my office.
Apparently, the movie critic in the local college paper wrote an article proclaiming There Will Be Blood the best movie of 2007 just so he could end it by saying, "Of course, living in Iowa City I haven't been able to see the movie yet," and then trashed the local theatres. Cute, I know, but man - does anyone actually understand the movie release system this time of year? People were yelling at me about Atonement not playing in town when it was playing on 100 screens nationwide. People screamed about Juno before it hit 250 screens.
Someone asked "Why the hell don't you have There Will Be Blood?!?" during the last week of Decemeber - when it was playing on TWO screens in these United States. TWO. Both in Los Angeles.
A word of advice, friends - if you don't live in a very large metropolitan area, and you enjoy seeing Oscar-contending films this time of year, take a pill. Settle down. Relax. Your local movie house wants to play them as badly as you want to see them, and if wanting to play them was the only requirement, you'd be able to see them the first day they played anywhere. Otherwise, drive to the nearest large metropolitan area and leave the employees at your local multiplex alone.
Humorously, the movie critic from the local college paper who enjoys trashing us (while showing a glaring lack of understanding of the business he is supposed to be covering) also enjoys coming to see his movies for free at our theatre so he is able to write his reviews. He'd better bring his eight bucks from now on, because it'll make me all warm and fuzzy inside to tell him we've discontinued our policy of letting him in sans ducket. What's he gonna do? Write another article?
Take that, widely unread local college paper.
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