Oscar - Movie Reviews - 2008

I recently agreed to review some of the Best Picture Oscar nominees for my firm's inhouse newsletter. I accepted this assignment with no little trepidation. After all, I'm more of a Batman woman – BTW, the trailer for The Dark Knight is awesome! Anyway, I was cautiously pleased to read the online descriptions and see that my choices this year were mostly appealing.
First, I went to see "There Will Be Blood" with my mother. I can't speak for her, but this movie was the least attractive choice for me. In fact, I attempted to read the online description twice and lost interest both times. The movie, based on Upton Sinclair's "Oil," takes place in the early 1900s and follows an out of luck miner's transformation into an oil tycoon. Unfortunately for those around him, he also transforms into a greedy murderer. I thought this was a good movie (although my mother would disagree). That being said, I probably wouldn't watch it again. The main character, played excellently by Daniel Day Lewis, lacked all sense of human value and by the end of the movie was decidedly unbalanced. Lewis, though, did a wonderful job of playing this mercurial man who goes from murdering someone to crying over a dead brother he never knew. I could easily see him winning the Best Actor Oscar.
My next movie was "Michael Clayton." I chose this movie for a couple of reasons. First, I remember George Clooney from his days on "The Facts of Life" and to be honest, I've just never seen what the big deal was. Second, it's a lawyer movie, and I've been a sucker for legal stuff ever since I read my first Perry Mason book. Clooney plays the title character, a "fixer" at the most prestigious law firm in the country. We are given the impression that Clayton is the go-to guy for the firm, willing to do whatever dirty work is needed to get the job done. I was not impressed by this skill as we saw only a couple of examples, and he wasn't all that successful in fixing them. The movie starts with an attempt on Clayton's life and the next 2/3s of the movie is a flashback explaining how he got to this point. Back in the present, Clayton is faced with the decision of whether to take the easy fix or do the right thing. Whereas "There Will Be Blood" followed a man's descent into moral decay, "Michael Clayton" follows a man with presumably low moral standards as he finds a chance to ascend. I won't tell you which choice he makes, but I was pleased with the ending. As for Clooney, my jury is still out. For one thing, I had a hard time not fixating on his resemblance to Taylor Hicks! Oh, that dour expression on his face in the movie poster? That was his expression throughout the entire movie. Sigh.
I would have stopped at two movies, but I still hoped for movie that spoke to me. I decided to give "Atonement" a try. After all, it won something, right? This movie starts out in pre-WWII England. The main character, Briony, is a 13 year old girl who has a crush on the housekeeper's son, Robbie. Robbie has a thing going on with Briony's older sister. I didn't get the sense that she does it maliciously, but Briony wrongfully accuses Robbie of assaulting her cousin and he is sent to jail. The movie then switches to five years later. England is in the war and Robbie is given the choice to either stay in prison or join the army, so he ends up in France. The older sister, Cecilia, played by a beautiful, yet excruciatingly thin Keira Knightly, has left home after the whole "episode" and is working as a nurse in London. An older, more mature Briony comes to the realization that her accusations against Robbie were wrong and starts to take steps to remedy them. I can't go too much further without giving away the ending, but I will say I wasn't quite satisfied with it. As for the movie in general, it was difficult to figure out in the beginning because you would see a scene from Briony's point of view and then you'd see it again from someone else's. This made the movie sort of choppy in my opinion, but once you figured out what was going on, you dealt with it. I did have a MAJOR problem with one of the big plot points. Part of the reason that Briony accused Robbie of the attack was that she had previously read a note he'd written to the sister, and the note involved the use of the C-word, twice. My problem here is that this event happened in the late 1930s when Briony was 13! I didn't know what the C-word when I was 13 and that was in the 80's! I just do not believe that it was just bandied about all that much during that era, especially among the upper/middle class. I don't think Briony should have had any clue as to its meaning. Anyway, one final thing I have to share is that as I was leaving the theater, mulling over the movie to gather my thoughts, these two older ladies are walking behind me. One of them says that she was disappointed, and then she mumbled something. The other lady then said, quite clearly, "Well, then you certainly DON'T want to go see Michael Clayton!" Too funny!
To sum up, "There Will Be Blood" left me speechless. "Michael Clayton" left me feeling sort of icky. And "Atonement" left me sort of disappointed. So I went home and watched the "Simpsons." Good luck, Oscar.