Microblogging My Oscar Predictions
We all know Facebook is great for telling the world how cute your cat is being or how tasty your lunch was, but when was the last time you offered up some real, original content for your legions of online followers? We all have something interesting to say and with the character limit now over 60,000 characters, Facebook can be your own online publication/TV channel/radio station with a built-in audience as big as your friends list.
February is a fun time at the Peirce household. As a filmmaker and enthusiast, I’m always excited when the Academy Award nominations come out, and my wife and I race to see all the Best Picture nominees before the envelopes are opened. This year, I’ve brought our picture perusal public and adopted a “microblogging” approach with my status updates. With each film we’ve seen, I’ve offered up a 2-3 sentence capsule review along with a cumulative ranking of what we’ve seen so far.
My reviews and rankings for all 9 Best Picture nominees are as follows (reviews presented in viewing order):
Moneyball: Cracklin’ dialogue and the ever-likable Brad Pitt make it a way more nuanced movie than it had any right being. Best line: “Big spoon or little spoon?” Only Sorkin writes stuff like that.
The Descendants: A little less “story” than I usually like, but really great, fully-realized characters and performance and storytelling that makes you feel it!
The Help: A compelling story with some beautiful photography but pretty 1-dimensional characters and far more melodrama than necessary. I was more interested in the story-within-the-story than the story itself.
Tree of Life: You remember that scene from American Beauty where the bag blows around in the wind? Now imagine that’s the whole movie.
The Artist: Clever. Cute. Entertaining. But it felt a little like a 2-hour short. Still hard-pressed to pick a Best Picture from this group.
Midnight in Paris: Fun story, great photography, made me want to learn more about the ’20s. Woody Allen manages to be even more indulgent than usual by having someone else play him.
Hugo: Some stiff acting/dialogue by the kids doesn’t detract from Scorcese’s love letter to the art of film. The Academy will love it, and so did we. Side Note: If this doesn’t win for Cinematography, there is something seriously, seriously wrong!
War Horse: Drove to Danvers, MA tonight to see the 2nd-to-last Best Picture nominee. I quite enjoyed the audiobook we listened to on the way there.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: Expertly manipulates emotions and story beats like pieces on a chess board. Subtle when it needs to be and powerful when it counts. Looks like we saved the best for last.
Road to Oscar 2012 Rankings:
- 1. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
- 2. Hugo
- 3. The Descendants
- 4. The Artist
- 5. Moneyball
- 6. Midnight in Paris
- 7. The Help
- 8. Tree of Life
- 9. War Horse
Will my critical analysis grant me an interview on the red carpet? Probably not. Will my picks reflect those of the Academy? We’ll find out. But was it a good use of my Facebook feed? I’d like think so. It’s been a fun exercise for me, and each post generates some good conversation among my friends & followers. Who knows – maybe people just want to see funny pictures of my dogs. If so, I promise a return to regularly-scheduled programming when the curtain closes on Sunday night.
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Ksullivan76
