A Few Awards Potentials

The Town - You'll hear this a lot from my reviews, it was just alright. The Town was just alright. It's basically a hard nose, violent story about the criminal with a heart. It's supposed to seem like a new take on the genre and it's supposed to feel fresh, but frankly the film was really stale. The film was built on convenience and cliche. They showed you what you needed to see and that's it. We never saw the real FBI tracker's character, he was just Jon Hamm acting like an FBI bank robber catcher. In fact, he was basically playing Keanu Reeves from Point Break, only without the Valley accent. In fact, if I didn't know Jon Hamm from Mad Men I would think he was a horrific actor based on this film alone. He brought nothing to the character, no flaws or quirks or depth, and apparently none was provided for him by the director. And that's what was so typical of the film, you were sort of told about things and shown things when the time was right, like how the character of this neighborhood was, but really you never saw it.

What happens sometimes with films is that it exceeds expectations. Who would have thought Ben Afleck could make a decent movie? He did, so it got lauded. But compare this to The Departed or something with some heart and depth and it's nothing. The Town...pretty good. It gets a B+.

The Kids Are All Right - And that's what it was. It was just alright. I admire their creativity in mapping out a unique story, but when you actually look at the story, it's so basic and childish that you imagine some kids came up with the plot points. Except it's not kids that came up with it, it's a lesbian woman who wanted to make a story about her life experiences. So okay, we have a unique situation, which is a great starting off point, but then it just kind of dribbles along and then what you think is going to happen, happens. Why didn't the story stay with the kids? They were the interesting ones. But no, they had to show the lesbian start having sex with a man, and that becomes the plot. Who cares about them, the kids...why aren't we spending more time with them? Anyway. That's not my problem with the film, actually I don't have a problem with it, like I said, it was just alright.

My actual problem is that people are thinking it's so great and Annette Benning got the GG for her role, and I thought she was the worst part of the film. Her acting, and Julianne Moore's acting and the guy who is always horrible, Mark Ruffalo's acting. It was all horrible. The only good actors were the kids. But they're doing all right, so we can stop worrying about them. I honestly was thinking during the first half of the film that they must not have had a script, it just seemed like the director was just telling Benning and Moore to just improvise a scene and act like a gay married couple. The timing was off, it wasn't funny, they weren't saying anything interesting. These are two amazing actresses and they were just floundering around, and everyone thinks they're so good; they're like a real gay couple, blah blah...No. The film needed to be either A. funnier, B. have a plot that focused on some real problems, or C. Stick with the kids, the only thing interesting going on.

Winter's Bone - The Best buzz worthy film I've seen on DVD. (I saw Social Network in the theatre.) Now this is a film with real drama, with some real heart, with something real to say. And it actually isn't getting the year end buzz it deserves. It follows the story of a girl who has to make sure her father gets to his court date or they'll lose the house which was put up for bail. It takes place in rural Missouri, and I mean rural. From the start, it's almost like they're in a third world country, except you know it's America. The Mother is almost brain dead, so the teenage girl has to take care of her little siblings. It's heartbreaking, but so empowering seeing this girl take control of the dire situation she's in. From top to bottom she's determined, from making sure the kids get fed and to going deeper and deeper into finding her father.

It seemed for a while that the film was just going to be her going from place to place saying, "Have you seen my dad?", but slowly the story unravels. Honestly, a lot of the details and nuances of the relationships are lost because it's hard to pay 100% attention for the whole time, but you get the idea by the end. 

Great film. It's raw and deliberate and shows a side of America that is so overlooked, even by the reality shows.