The other day the list of nominees to the Academy Awards was announced. As usual, I haven't seen most of the nominated films; I expect to work on that in the forthcoming weekends. Nevertheless, I have seen two of the nominated films, and I would like to use this brief post to recommend them to you.
First, please do see Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It's a good movie, with interesting characters and a clever story. Nothing excessively outstanding, but in any case the movie is superior to most of the usual crap around. The movie's main characters are two American girls, played by Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall. They go to Barcelona during the summer and things happen. Those who have been in Barcelona (not my case) would have an extra motivation to see the movie, I guess. I have to admit that my main motivation to see the movie was Scarlett's performance (I had liked her role in 2005's Match Point, also with Woody) but I was very surprised with Hall's performance as Vicky. I think her acting was extremely convincing. Penelope Cruz also appears, in a role that in my humble opinion wasn't worth nominating for best actress in a supporting role.
The second suggestion is not a film, but a documentary, an animated one: Waltz with Bashir. It tells the story of a number of former Israeli soldiers who were sent to the Lebanon in the early 80s. In particular, the movie describes the steps the director (Ari Folman) follows so as to trace his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The animation is excellent so is the music and the way of describing Folman's memories/traumas from war. I think that even if you're not interested in politics you'll like this film, one of the nominated to best foreign language film.
To conclude, it must be said that I am most glad to see that Richard Jenkins was nominated to best actor, for his marvelous performance in The Visitor, a great movie I had already reviewed here.
No comments:
Post a Comment