Ahhhh . . . . January. This is typically the month we get all the Oscar buzz. (Okay, December, when all the movies that open in NY & LA, wanting to be in the run (aside from those rare ones released earlier in the year), starts the chatter, but the real talk gets going this month.) Of course, very often, it's the Golden Globe awards that really get the buzz going. But this year, with the writers' strike, we didn't have the big ta-doo for the Globes. Still, we had a winner for the categories, and that at least sets up a general idea of who's in the running.
For the last couple of years, I've made an effort to see the movies in contending for Best Picture. How else can I know what show I want to win if I haven't seen them all? And this year, I've started the quest. With my goals for the better me, though, I have to work hard to make sure everything can happen.
Friday afternoon at work, I was finishing up class prep for next week when a colleague who found himself without plans asked if I wanted to join him for a movie. Well, of course! Oooh---but I had a 5:30 spin class. He said that was no problem; the movie wasn't until 7:30.
Immediate mind calculations began: first, it was less than two hours until my spin class, so it was too late to cancel without incurring a $10 fee. Hmmmm. Do I blow off the class? NO! Do I decline the invitation. NO! But could I possibly go to a 5:30 spin class, shower, and make it to the movies by 7:20? (the actual time to meet) I decided I could---no, that I would do it. The race was on.
The spin class, I must say, was fabulous. By Friday, after working out all week, Friday's spin class these last two weeks has kicked my be-hind. But still, what a fabulous work out. We finished barely before 6:30, and I rushed home to shower. Rush, rush, ready, then I was off to downtown. All was great. And then I hit the parking garage. What I had not calculated was there being a basketball game downtown and that creating crazy parking.
One of my pet peeves is getting to the movies late. But my colleagues there were fine, I rushed to get a ticket, and got into the theater as the opening scene began.
What does this have to do with Oscar buzz and my quest to see the movies? Well, No Country for Old Men was the movie. It's a Coen Bros. film, but not their typical work. It's dark. It's violent. It was, though, pretty good.
And this was one of the movies up for best drama for the Golden Globes, so just maybe, it'll be up for an Oscar too.
Yes, it was good, but is it Oscar-worthy? Not having seen the other contenders, that's hard to say. I personally loved the nontraditional mode of story-telling that was used, even if one colleague felt cheated. See, what I enjoyed so much was seeing this type of movie with someone who wanted to talk about it--from an intellectual and movie-appreciation standpoint, afterwards. After the movie, we grabbed a beer at the nearby pub (me, sticking to light beer, of course), and dissected the flick. Our takes on the symbolism of the closing parts was interesting to share--especially right after seeing the movie.
(Spoiler Alert! (if you don't want insight into things about the movie, skip to next paragraph)) How did my friend feel cheated? Well, the movie has so much violence throughout, that at the end, we didn't have the traditional big confrontational scene. Instead, the big confrontation you expect occurs in a very different manner, and that's even mostly off screen. For me, though, the best confrontation comes with the leading character's wife, and it's purely intellectual; you must deduce what happened by the psychopath's behavior when he leaves her house (which one colleague missed) as he checked the bottom of his boots for blood.
It was certainly entertaining, in a dark sense. And in no way did I feel like I too freely gave away two hours of my time; they were well spent. Where it stacks up against other movies of the year, though, well, that remains to be seen. I'll keep you posted.
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