The five 2011 Oscar nominations for “Best short film (live action)”

Movie: The five 2011 Oscar nominations for “Best short film (live action)”:

"The Confession": Two young boys are preparing for their first Catholic confession.  A practical joke goes tragically wrong.  For one of the boys, things goes from bad to worse as he struggles to decide just what he is going to confess to when he has his confession.  Starts out pretty funny and then gets really serious in a shockingly short time. Pretty well done.

"The Crush": A third grader has a crush on his school teacher.  He takes his feelings REALLY seriously.  A lot of surprises and a lot of humor – some a bit dark.  I thought this was the best of the bunch.

"God of Love": A singer receives a mysterious package of darts.  Sticking someone with one of the darts makes the person more susceptible to love – with the next person to come along.  A pretty funny film as the singer learns that he has a real knack for picking couples.  The surprise comes when we learn who sent the package.

"Na Wewe": Takes place during the civil war between the Tutsis and Hutus in 1994 Burundi.  A bus containing a diverse group of people is stopped by Hutu soldiers who demand that everyone in the bus identify themselves.  The plan is to execute any Tutsis. This film left me kind of flat – my least favorite.

"Wish 143": David is a terminally ill teenager whose wish (number 143) is to lose his virginity before he dies.  The film follows his efforts – and the efforts of a priest to dissuade him – to accomplish his wish.  This was myt second favorite of the five.  I thought this was a really sweet film with a pretty decent ending.  There is a scene where he is actually in bed with someone (I don’t want to give everything away).  When I heard what he really wanted, it almost made me cry.

[41]

The five 2011 Oscar nominations for “Best short film (animated)”

Movie: The five 2011 Oscar nominations for “Best short film (animated)”:

"Day & Night": “Night” and “Day” are ghost shaped entities who discover each other and have to figure out how to co-exist.

“The Gruffalo": A mouse on a quest for nuts runs a gauntlet of a fox, a snake and an owl out to get him.

"Let's Pollute": A satirical piece urging everyone to pollute, pollute, pollute.

"The Lost Thing": Someone finds a really big strange “thing” on the beach and tries to find it a home.

"Madagascar, carnet de voyage" A tourist in Madagascar is invited to watch a burial ceremony.

My two cents: Overall, I was quite disappointed by this year’s nominees.  “Day & Night” was moderately amusing.  I thought “The Gruffalo” was far and away the cream of the crop – it was absolutely brilliant.  The other three ranged from boring to just plain bad.  I would love to know what it was about these three that got them nominated.

[40]

Gnomeo & Juliet 3D

Movie: Gnomeo & Juliet 3D

Genre: animated

Synopsis: The Red gnomes live in a yard on one side of an alley and the Blue gnomes live in a yard on the other side.  Naturally, they are mortal enemies.  The leader of the Reds is the widower Lord Redbrick (Michael Caine).  His head fighter is Tybalt (Jason Statham).  Lord Redbrick’s beautiful daughter is Juliet (Emily Blunt). The Blues are lead by the widow Lady Blueberry.  Her son is Gnomeo (James McAvoy).

The two sides are continually setting traps for each other and engage in minor skirmishes.  One of the primary ways they compete is racing lawnmowers down the alley.  Finally things go too far and the Blues decide to make a night-time excursion into the Red yard.  That is where Gnomeo meets Juliet and, of course, fall in love.

They spend the rest of the movie figuring out they are in love and then trying to get the fighting of the families to stop.

My two cents: This was a cute movie and I quite enjoyed it.  There was a lot of humor based on Shakespeare.  For example, the street address of the Reds was 2D with a circle around it.  The street address of the Blues was 2D with a cirle around it along with a diagonal line through the circle – “To be or not to be…”  I got a real kick out of it.  The 3D effects were pretty decent.  The character (and voice) that I thought stole the show was the 500 horsepower lawnmower knows as the Terrafirminator V.O. (Hulk Hogan).

Bottom line: this movie would be fun for the kids and the adults should get a kick out of it if they pay attention.

[39]

Every Day

Movie: Every Day

Genre: drama

Synopsis: Ned (Liev Schreiber) and Jeannie (Helen Hunt) are a moderately happily married New York couple with two sons: Jonah (Ezra Miller) and Ethan (Skyler Fortgang).  Jonah is 16-ish and announced six months ago that he is gay.  His mother has accepted this, his father is still struggling with it.  Jeannie’s father (Ernie – played by Brian Dennehy) is very sick and wheelchair-bound.  Jeannie has just managed the sale of Ernie’s home in the Midwest and moved him into Ethan’s room.  Ernie is severely depressed and takes it out on everyone. Jeannie seems to have to spend every waking minute taking her father from doctor to doctor and is not handling the stress well.  Liev is a screenwriter in a pressure-cooker of a job.  The stress of his job added to the stress at home leads him to become a bit too close to one of his fellow writers – Robin Carla Gugino).

The movie tracks how Jeannie and Ned manage the stress of Jeannie’s dying father, her struggle with her relationship to him, Ned’s struggles at work, Jonah’s struggle with being gay, Ned’s struggle to accept that his son is gay, and Ernie trying to come to terms with his life and his relationship with his daughter.

 My two cents: A real gem of a movie.  I had never heard of it until I came across it in the movie listings.  This is the kind of film that makes sitting through the not-so-good art-house movies worthwhile.  I am a fan of Liev Schreiber and Helen Hunt and a bigger fan of Carla Gugino.  I have been a fan of Brian Dennehy since I first saw him - in the series premiere of “Dallas” in 1978.  All four really delivered. I am used to seeing Brian Dennehy playing the big gruff larger-than-life big-hearted tough guy.  It was odd to see him playing a frail sickly dying man struggling with depression.  I thought two other performances stood out.  One was Skyler Fortgang (Ethan) trying to fit into the world as a gay teenager. The other was Helen Hunt absolutely nailing the guilt-ridden daughter trying to keep her family running while attempting to cope with a dying father who is a virtual invalid.  Her character just oozes her desperation as she realizes that she just cannot do it.  Not to neglect Carla Gugino – she is a beautiful as ever and was great as the vixen temptress who leads whatt seems to Ned to be the perfect life.

Bottom line: a great movie that covers a variety of story lines and does it extremely well with some commendable acting performances.

[38]

Sanctum 3D

Movie: Sanctum 3D

Cast:    Richard Roxburgh      (Frank)

            Rhys Wakefield          (Josh)

            Ioan Gruffudd             (Carl)

            Alice Parkinson           (Victoria)

Genre: Suspense/thriller

Synopsis: Frank is a world-renowned cave explorer.  His latest project is the largest cave system known.  It is locate on a South Pacific Island.  The project is financed by a billionaire – Carl.  Carl is part of the exploration team.  Frank’s son – who seems to hate him – is also part of the team.  Frank and several members of the team are deep into the cave system in a part that can only be reached with scuba gear when While deep in the cave system, a monsoon hits.  The subsequent flood seals off the section of the cave with Frank and several members of the team.  Their only recourse is to try and find and find where the flooding waters are exiting the cavern system.

My two cents: After getting off to kind of a slow start, this movie really provided some great action and suspense.  Getting trapped in a cave has always been high on my list of things to avoid.  This movie sure validated that high ranking.  As if being trapped with only battery-fed lights is not bad enough – these people had to contend with repeated underwater swims with a limited supply of air in the tanks.  My only real beef was with a character, Victoria, who was supposed to be a seasoned mountain climber.  She had no wet suit.  When someone dies while wearing a wet suit, Victoria opts to deal with the cold water rather than wear something taken from a dead person.  Does a mountain climber not understand hypothermia?

The 3D effects were better than average.

Bottom line: A thriller that actually delivers the thrills with a good dose of suspense thrown in.

Definitely worth seeing.

[37]

The Roommate

Movie: The Roommate

Cast:    Minka Kelly                (Sara Matthews)

Leighton Meester        (Rebecca)

            Alyson Michalka         (Tracy)

Genre: drama

Synopsis: Sara is just starting her freshman year in college.  Her roommate, Rebecca, seems at first to be very nice.  As time goes on, Rebecca becomes more and more possessive about Sara.  It soon becomes apparent that Rebecca is a full-on psycho who is not above killing for her roommate.

My two cents: Mostly a forgettable movie.  I found nothing to set this apart from other movies dealing with obsessive friends or roommates.  I did find Leighton Meester (Rebecca) to be interesting.  A couple of weeks ago I saw her playing the spunky up-and-coming singer in “Country Strong”.  I really liked her in both roles – and these roles are about as far apart as you can get.  I guess that’s why they call it acting.

Bottom line: wait for it to hit the small screen.

[36]