The Oscars

So it's almost time for the 2008 (or is it the 2007?) Oscars.

As I've done for quite a few years now, I make it a personal goal to see all the Best Picture Nominees before the Oscars, so I can have a movie to root for, or at least be in the know when Oscar night rolls around.

Last year and the year before, the movie I selected as being my favorite of the bunch, won the Oscar for best picture. I'm seeing if I can go for the tri-fecta this year.

Here is my ranking of the 5 movies:

No Country for Old Men. I know a lot of people thought the ending of this movie was odd, and left them feeling like the movie was trying to be too smart for it's own good, but I like it a lot. I thought the acting was fantastic, the writing was great, and the directing was very good. I walked out of the theater knowing that it would be one of my favorite of the year, and it was.



Michael Clayton. I have to say, I liked this movie a lot. I was a little torn between picking this or No Country as my first choice. The acting, again, was top notch, and the last scene in the movie was one of the best movie scenes I've watched. For some reason, this movie didn't do so hot when it initially came out, but it's definitely a must-see on DVD.



Juno. I didn't like Juno as much as everyone else seemed to. I actually didn't think it was the best pregnancy movie of the year (I thought Knocked Up was better). While people thought No Country was trying to be too smart, I felt that way about this movie. The dialogue didn't seem realistic, and the main character seemed a bit too witty, which lost some points for me.



There Will be Blood. The acting in this movie was fantastic. Daniel Day-Lewis was great, as is expected, but I was blown away by Paul Dano, who plays a young preacher who, to some degree, is the nemesis of Daniel Day-Lewis' character. What bothered me about this movie was the middle. It dragged a little, and anyone who knows me, knows I don't like long movies that drag. It was nearly 3 hours long, and I think it could have been told in less than 2. I wanted to like this movie more, but was a little disappointed by it.

Atonement. I don't know why this movie was nominated for Best Picture (how it won the Golden Globe is beyond me). The first 45 minutes was very good, and then, it seems, another movie takes place. A sluggish movie, that never gets going, and left me asking what the point of some scenes were supposed to be about. The ending has a nice twist, but the middle hour left me checking the time, wondering when it would end.


Unfortunately, I didn't have time to see many other movies that came out in 2007. I'm sure there are some out there that I would have liked more than any of these 5, but given what the Academy has decided, one math teacher has spoken...