Los Oscars

I'm not one of those people who goes to Oscar parties, or even watches the Oscars. But this year I'm actually mildly interested in them Every year, until they make the nominations public, Anne and I vow to watch all of the Best Picture nominees. Then it's "Oh ... Master and Commander ..." and we end up only seeing the one or two we'd seen anyway. This year was different because all five nominees were movies we'd at least considered seeing, even if we wouldn't have seen a couple of them of our own volition. Just last weekend, we finished off the list with Munich, and although I make no pretense at handicapping the actual outcome, here are my quick impressions of the five:

Crash: Wow, did you hear that racial issues are complicated? And that people carry with them unexplored issues with racism? Fascinating.

Capote: I've liked Philip Seymour Hoffman for years, and he's been great in every movie I've seen him in. This movie was no exception. That said, I couldn't get that into the story. I thought it was a well-made movie, and the acting was great, but that's about all I can say about it. Oh, and I had no idea that Harper Lee and Truman Capote were friends, so it was cool to learn that.

Good Night, and Good Luck: I really liked this movie, I think in large part because it conformed to my liberal biases. It was, to drop a term that Anne likes to use, a good "little movie." I liked its style and the story, and I thought the idea of having McCarthy play himself was great.

Munich: I was really surprised by this one. I wasn't really that enthusiastic about it, and probably wouldn't have gone without the nomination and the fact that it was playing at the Parkway. It was a lot better than I'd expected. I think I was feeling a little burned by the lack of nuance in Crash, and was thinking that Spielberg's penchant for schmaltz along with the inherent risk of making a movie about the Palestinian situation would steer the movie away from complexity. But I thought the story was interesting, the metaphors weren't overwrought, and although it was pretty violent, the violence wasn't gratuitous. This was probably the only one of the first four I've mentioned that I was still thinking about a couple days later.

Brokeback Mountain: This is another one I was surprised by. I'm not a big fan of the dramatic romance genre. I often leave those kind of movies feeling like I just saw a good film, but without particularly enjoying it (see Iris, the most depressing movie ever). That and there was a big risk of them overemphasizing the "this is a gay cowboy movie" angle and making it really heavy-handed. Luckily, neither of those things happened. I thought the characters were believable and the story was compelling. I'd have to say this one was my favorite of the bunch.

So who knows how closely my opinions will hew to those of the academy. They'll probably just pat themselves on their collective back and give the award to Crash because it deals with "issues." But I'm going to watch the show anyway. After all, Jon Stewart is hosting, so you can't go wrong. (I hope I'm not tempting fate.)