My Obstreperous Reaction to Oscar Picks...

There was something this year, that more than before, urged me to feel the need to watch all the top oscar movies this year. I had somewhat of a crazy spring semester though, falling behind a bit even on my TV shows (thank you HULU!), and so I've been working at it over the last few weeks more intensely than before.

I've gotten several under my belt now including, "Up in the Air," "An Education," "Hurt Locker," "The Blind Side," "Princess and the Frog," "Precious," "Julie and Julia," "Up," and many more on their way to me through the local library :-)

I will work back in another post to comment a bit on those, but my most recent view was "The Lovely Bones."

Now, I don't wanna come across like a film critic here or ruin the movie for ya, but I do have some comments to share.

I hadn't heard much about the movie before watching it, which I think was good. The only influence I had was my friend who grabbed it and watched it a few days ago and she said she thought it was creepy and she didn't recommend it. But when she tried to elaborate on the plot or why she didn't like it, I stopped her because I really wanted an open mind.

Long story short, the movie is based on a book and surrounds a 14 year old girl, Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), who was stalked, lured, and murdered by a man who lived down the street. The rising action of the movie includes Susie's father (Mark Wahlberg) feverishly trying to find the killer, Susie in another "dimension" watching events unfold and discovering her circumstance, and the murderer, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), both planning his next murder and avoiding glares and attention in regards to the previous.

I will start by saying this... the first 30 minutes or so HAD me. Legit. I was involved, concerned, attached etc etc. As they presented to us who this little girl was, set up her lifestyle and thinking, and worked up to the murder, I felt it was very well done both in ways of storytelling and in the artistic sense.

As for the action following the murder, it got a little trippy. Like, "Across the Universe" trippy. I kinda felt like they were tapping into Narnia or a Harry Potter movie or something as they created this "temporary" dimension or state that Susie was in. It's like she was waiting to move on to a more permanent place, but was stuck in the middle, forced to be thrown around watching events of the past and her family in real time. Thematically- cool idea. Artistically- maybe a little much. Like I said, I was involved in a thriller type movie, allowing all of my feminine emotion and my inquisitive investigatory mindset to mesh as I watched events unfold. It when the sky swirled, ground crumbled under her, and objects were flying around in technicolor and such that I kinda was distracted from the seriousness as I was anticipating Mr. Tumnus jumping out from behind a lamp post to give her scholarly advice or something.

Anyway- the movie did definitely keep me on edge though as there were a few parts when I think I went a few minutes without breathing. (I.E.=The father going into the cornfields after him, the sister breaking into the house etc) So well done on that for sure.

As for theatrical performances... Stanley Tucci- Dang boy- you are a freakin' creepster! It wasn't just the oily comb-over, awkwardly thick glasses, or mad crazy "I-can't-look-into-your-eyes"contacts... the performance was definitely commendable. I feel his characterization, even the smallest intricacies in regards to hand gestures, eye movement and such, was right on and so well done. Not that I know many murderers (let's HOPE), but I think we can all identify genuinely sketch people... Tucci was on it!!

Although I have to admit I love his mousey-criminal portrayal of that snarky man Vernon in Beethoven who just can't seem to do anything right, I have to give him great accolades for the growth I've seen in him. This has to be the performance of his career. At least of anything I can think of. Oscar nominated, yes. Should he have won the best supporting actor award? hmmm... I'm still working on watching the other nominees' performances. It was definitely DESERVING... I'll get back to you on my overall opinion.

Gotta give a shout out to Mark Wahlberg as well. Being honest, I usually can't watch him without being focused on his ridiculous hottness. Even in "Fear" with Reese Witherspoon when he was a psycho-maniac I stilllll kinda wanted to flirt with him and give him the benefit of the doubt :-) He was very believable as the infuriated and overwhelmed father and gave a performance where I could focus on the character, and not just the gorgeous-ness... but yah, there is no denying though, he looked GOOD in that 70's flyaway hair :-)

Finally the lead girl, Saoirse Ronan... how cute is she? So girl-next-door, Dakota-Fanning-esque adorable. I was really impressed with her performance in such a heavy role. Usually I am horribly, almost insensitively critical of kid performances, but she definitely fell on the positive side of things for me. I'm excited to see what she does next.

Let's see... should I give stars? Rank? Tomatoes?
I don't know if I want to standardize it just yet... I wanna feel it out.

BUT- for now I will give this 7 PA-CHOWS (outta 10) with a recommendation for ya'll to check this out if you can appreciate a thought-provoking, artistically focused flick.