(Movies discussed in this post: Martha Marcy May Marlene, Bellflower, Red State, Higher Ground, Take Shelter.)
“We all go a little mad sometimes,” a very famous movie character said. He was not nominated for an Oscar, but he should have been.

It was Anthony Perkins in Psycho, a little mad indeed. (Okay, that’s an understatement.) And while Oscar didn’t favor that film — too shocking and gruesome for its day — movie characters have been going more than a little mad, more than sometimes, ever since. That’s because, if we didn’t have insane antiheroes, we would barely need the Academy Awards at all. Craziness and gold go hand-in-hand. Just ask Angelina Jolie in Girl Interrupted, Kathy Bates in Misery, Natalie Portman in Black Swan, and Heath Ledger’s Joker. A lot more than one have flown over the cuckoo’s nest — oftentimes, with an Oscar in hand.

Whee!

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