Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Ranking the 2012 Academy Award Nominees

Maybe I was grouchier this year; unlike last year, there were quite a few nominees I flat-out didn't like. Here's the combined list of Best Picture and Best Animated Feature nominees, ranked best to worst.

1. Moneyball
Jonah Hill helps Brad Pitt build a baseball team. A thoroughly enjoyable entry from the Men Solving Problems genre.

2. The Descendants
Great heart, great comedy. You leave this movie feeling like a decent person–one of many decent people in the world.

3. Chico & Rita
Jazz, romance, and a history of Cuba. More ambitious than a lot of live-action films.

4. Rango
Oddball, imaginative western critter comedy.

5. Kung Fu Panda 2
One Kung Fu Panda film should have been enough, but some very fine writers came up with some more original ideas for a surprisingly touching movie.

6. Puss in Boots
I doubted the cat from the Shrek franchise could carry a film. I shouldn't have. Very entertaining.

From here on I am a sourpuss.

7. The Tree of Life
Terrence Malick shot for the moon here. The middle section is lovely, but the outer sections don't transport.

8. The Artist
Kind of a humdrum story. I know that broad smiles and outstretched arms were supposed to make me applaud, but, sorry, my reflexes must have been off.

9. Hugo
Martin Scorsese is a blessing to the film world, but this film started with Professor Scorsese Demonstrates a Continuous Shot and ended with Professor Scorsese Insists That Preserving Old Films Is Important. The shot was crudely attention-grabbing, and film preservation is certainly a worthy cause, but I wanted to be entertained.

10. War Horse
Maybe I'm too jaded to fall for that ol' reliable manipulative movie magic.

11. Midnight in Paris
I think I understand why the characters out of the past were drawn so flatly–they arose out of the main character's limited imagination–but to understand is not to enjoy.

12. A Cat in Paris
The dog in the snow was funny. Otherwise, pretty much everything was routine or downright dumb.

13. The Help
You can tell a character is noble by how heroically she deals with insult. And because we think you're a moron, we're going to lay on a lot of insult so you get the point.

14. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Because I am a bad person, I thought the kid was thoroughly irritating. Because I live in the real world, I thought the story was thoroughly preposterous.