The Not-Oscars 2012

(Originally posted at FabApp.)

It’s that time of year again, folks! What I like to call “movie Christmas.” And like an actual holiday, the Academy Awards often end up as more of a disappointment than anything else — any Oscars handed out to not-so-great nominated films like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and The Iron Lady can be chalked up to the cinematic equivalent of “ugly sweaters from grandma we’ll throw in the back of the closet and never speak of again.” But it’s really the excitement leading up to the big show and the discussions of film it creates that make it all worthwhile.

So here’s where I like to make up for the Academy’s occasional lapses in good taste by recognizing the movies and performances that are really worthy of celebration. Because what has a group of thousands of filmmakers with decades of experience in the entertainment industry got on me?

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The Tens: Best Of Film 2011

Ah, 2011. You were a strange bird.

Is it me, or were movies more united by theme this year than is usual? Nostalgia was the big one, with several titles capitalizing not just on our nostalgia of a past era, but of movies from a past era — from silent films to Spielberg blockbusters and everything in between. People have been in an awfully romantic mood of late — perhaps because the recession made the present so unappealing. Cinema has always been about escapism, and this year more than ever, it’s taking us backward rather than forward.

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Hard 8: Best Of Film 2011

Ah, 2011. You were a strange bird.

Is it me, or were movies more united by theme this year than is usual? Nostalgia was the big one, with several titles capitalizing not just on our nostalgia of a past era, but of movies from a past era — from silent films to Spielberg blockbusters and everything in between. People have been in an awfully romantic mood of late — perhaps because the recession made the present so unappealing. Movies have always been about escapism, and this year more than ever, they’re taking us backward rather than forward.

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Martha Marcy May Michael Shannon: Movie Madness 2011

(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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