Up In The Air vs. The Blind Side

I've now seen eight of the ten nominees for Best Picture, and of the last two (Precious and A Serious Man, which I have been reading as A Single Man for a long time now, and explains why people look at me weird when I talk about "the best picture nom with Colin Firth in it) I am only vaguely interested in seeing A Serious Man. I've discussed my thoughts on Avatar pretty freely, y'all know how I feel about District 9 (it should win), and I did a pretty in-depth review of The Hurt Locker. An Education was a thoughtful coming-of-age story and Carey Mulligan was charming in it; I really, really, did not enjoy Inglorious Basterds, and Up, while wonderful and whimsical, will have a better chance in the Best Animated slot than this one.

So. To the last two nominees, both of which I had a chance to see quite recently.

Up In The Air was, quite simply, fabulous. Clooney, who is really playing himself here, bounces his wittily written dialogue off his two formidable supporting actresses with aplomb, both of whom hold their own with the leading man in a really interesting way. Anna Kendrick, fresh off the Twilight stage, is an absolute find here - her anal retentive, idealistic Natalie is both refreshingly real and irritatingly superior. She knows what her life is supposed to be like, dammit, and God help you if you get in her way.

Vera Farmiga is the perfect counter-point to Natalie's youth and naivete, and I felt that the weakest scene the film had was due to the writers and the director getting confused about her character. Alex is a sexy, strong, intelligent philanderer and the movie falters when it tries to steer Farmiga away from that; it is best when it lets her and Clooney do what they do naturally (or, you know, what I assume to be natural) without a lot of directorial interference.

I do wonder if the story will age well; it is SO severely topical that it is a great movie for our age, but if when the economy does get better and unemployment is no longer quite such an issue, will it seem as poignant? I hope so - I'd like to think that Clooney's odyssey of self-discovery against the backdrop of such a hopeless, bleak environment is really quite stunning.

Now. Let's all ask ourselves the important question: why the HELL The Blind Side even got nominated.

I saw this, I enjoyed it - I like Sandra Bullock, and she was quite charismatic as the Southern housewife-turned-personal activist. Goodness knows I love uplifting sports movies. The problem was that there was hardly anything TOO The Blind Side. There was no tension; I was never afraid bad things would actually happen to any of the characters, no matter how much the film wanted to make me think so. Part of that is because it's a true story, so you know how it ends, but it isn't as though this is the first time someone has turned a true story into a film. I also thought that one of the central "conflicts" was COMPLETELY ludicrous: a woman from the NCAA tries her damndest to make me think that it could possibly be a bad thing for rich, privileged people to help impoverished, troubled minorities, because SOMEHOW this makes it UNFAIR for universities because they might send talented athletes to their alma maters.

Make sense to you? Me, neither.

I've been thinking about it, and I think that The Blind Side got nominated because the Academy didn't want to double-dip in genres. Star Trek was out because Avatar and District 9 amply fulfill the science fiction quota. The Messenger is out because of The Hurt Locker. (500) Days of Summer was beat by the other indie darling, An Education. It's a place filler; a bad one, but a place filler nonetheless. I don't like it much, but since there are only three real contenders here anyway (no matter what Tarantino wants you to think) I'm not sure how much it matters.

Which in and of itself is a pretty sad thought, in the grand scheme of cinema.