Thursday, March 03, 2016

Going to the Movies...Not

I began writing about going to the movies in 2008.  And, I think that I have written about the upcoming Academy Awards every since then. But not this year.

Wait, before you think that I joined the boycott of this year's Oscars, let me explain.

For 10 years, my husband and I have prepared to watch the Academy Awards by trying to see many of the movies nominated in the "best movie" category. And likewise, to see the movies with the best actors/ actress nominees.  It's a mad scramble, sometimes. Our local theaters don't necessarily bring in these movies.  So the first obstacle to seeing the movies is being able to see them.

This year, the nominees for best picture were: Bridge of Spies; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Revenant; Spotlight; The Martian; The Big Short; Room; Brooklyn.

And the winner is....Spotlight.  By sheer chance, that is the only movie that we saw in advance of the Academy Awards program.

Other than the paucity of our local theaters showing all these movies, we read reviews in advance, and based on our interests, decided that we wanted to see Spotlight; Bridge of Spies; and The Big Short.

So, why not the others?  Hard to say, exactly. Except...

  • no stomach for the dystopian view of the world (Mad Max: Fury Road)
  • no desire to contemplate someone being stranded on Mars;
  • no interest in protracted vengeance by a 19th century hunter; 
  • no need to see the dramatization of a novel I read about a woman held captive by a psychopath;
  • not sure about a borough in New York City.
But, we watched the annual distribution of the Oscars anyway.  I still love movies. But I must say that this year's selection of dystopian, dysfunctional, disgusting premises left me cold. 

No hurray for Hollywood for me this year. Here's hoping for a better selection in 2017.  Maybe then I can go back to my "Going to the Movies" series.

7 comments:

Anvilcloud said...

I had forgotten about your annual reviews until I came across this post. I just needed to see the title to go, "Oh yeah!"

Jonelle Prether Darr said...

Loved Spotlight. And, I loved Brooklyn-it was a wonderful, almost old fashioned movie with a terrific actress. You would enjoy it.

Climenheise said...

You might have enjoyed the Mars movie, but fully agreed -- enough with dystopia! Of course, I don't go to movies anyway, so no change in my behaviour.

NCmountainwoman said...

Once again, we did not go to the movies at all this year. But I am looking forward to the Netflix/Amazon release of "Spotlight." I'm with you on the others. Definitely not my genre.

Paddy said...

I thought you had boycotted the Oscars this time! All the movies you didn't watch are ones I watched :) Fury Road has become one of my favorite movies and had to be the leading feminist movie of the last year (As you may have guessed from the books I read I enjoy dystopian fiction). I actually think you might enjoy The Martian. I haven’t watched Brooklyn but Colm Toibin is one of my favorite writers who writes women characters exceptionally well. The Revenant was a well-made movie (not sure if it was Oscar worthy though) and they showed Hugh Glass is a more favorable manner, made it a father-son story and embellished it quite a bit.

But the movie which was not nominated was one of my favorites - "Beasts of No Nation". It was hard to watch a movie about child soldiers in Africa but it was very well made. The director had previously made Sin Nombre which is about gang violence and that was also a very well made movie.

Ginnie said...

The movies I like never seem to be the ones chosen. I used to make a point of seeing all of the ones nominated but got so discouraged that I don't even do that now.

MARY G said...

I thought Spotlight was truly a winner.