With five days until the event that we all love to have mixed feelings about, the Academy Awards need to be addressed. Each day for the next five days I will post a brief review of a movie that is nominated for best picture and some for movies I wish had been nominated. Here we go with installment #1:
Oscar Nominee: The Departed
This movie worked. I found myself honestly engaged in the two competing plotlines (even when the coincidences stretched the limits of believability). Martin Scorsese deserves his Oscar for direction not because this is his greatest film, but that he was able to take six lead actors (Jack, Leo, Matt, Alec, Marky Mark, and Martin (Sheen, not Lawrence)) and set each at the correct level. What could have been a contest of scenery chewing resulted in a truly successful macho movie for the ages.
Oscar Overlooked: United 93
This film deserves recognition for both its courage and sense of decency. This was a movie that no one wanted to see but did wonders for those who did. Taking the events of September 11th and placing them on film could (should) have been a disaster. All of us cynics expected the film to exude a repulsive mix of sentimentality and jingoism. The actual film is pitch perfect. Director Paul Greengrass’ cinema verite choices create a truly honest depiction of these infamous events. At one point the camera settles on a young soldier who found herself working that morning. While reporting to her superior she begins to break down. This one moment, with its utter lack of melodrama, hit me on a deeper level than anything I have seen on film in years. Greengrass had the courage to make this film, it is a shame that the academy didn’t have the courage to honor this achievement.
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