A friend suggested that the reason he saw more of the Oscar nominated films for 2006 than in previous years was because the '06 nominees were more thoughtful films. This prompted me to reply:
I haven¹t seen any of them, but that¹s not because I didn¹t want to.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, CAPOTE, CRASH, GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, MUNICH. These are all films that I intend to rent in the next two years. They all seem like they could be excellent and, Munich withstanding, they seem not to have that BlockBuster tinge. Last year's list, not so much. "The Aviator", "Finding Neverland", "Million Dollar Baby", "Ray", "Sideways".
Ray was just ok, but it was too fake in many places, too Hollywood. I find Taylor Hackford to be a put-on as a director. His films almost always have a tinge of fake to them.
Million Dollar Baby was unwatchable. I couldn't get further than 25 minutes. (this is my fault, as I was newly opened up to Asian film. While watching Baby I kept thinking, what would Miike have done with this script? )... And it's not that I don't like Eastwood. I don't care for westerns and I loved Unforgiven. I just find that Eastwood's work since the mid 90s has been almost entirely fake crap. Before that, half his directed films were very good. Firefox, A Perfect World, Bird. But at some point in almost all his films he is too broad.
The Aviator is huge blockbuster stuff, so I'll probably skip it. Finding Neverland is on my list of films to see, and Sideways was excellent. Sideways should have won last year and I believe it acted as a leg up to the films that got nominated this year. Please, G-d, hear me... Make the entire population of the planet vote with their feet, and then have them walk to more substantive films. Amen.
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