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Straight from Cinema Blend's fiercely independent entertainment reporters.
 published: 2012-02-26For Your Consideration: The Tree Of Life Is The Best Picture Nominee With Something For Everyone The Tree of Life asks a lot of moviegoers, no doubt, asking them not just to engage in a loopy and highfalutin' narrative, but to dig into their own personal emotions as well. This doesn't work for a lot of people, and it's not wrong not to like it, or to admit you don't get it. But if you let go just a little, and wait for The Tree of Life to get to the moment that moves you, I promise it will  filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2012-02-24For Your Consideration: The Descendants Is The Best Picture That's Hollywood Drama At Its Best it's the rougher edges of The Descendants-- the Alexander Payne-ness of it, the now-ness of it-- that make it stand out. The way it engages with Matt's strange conflict in being both white and native Hawaiian, the way it depicts marriage as something that can break while nobody is watching, the way it allows Lillard's Brian Speer his own dignity even as a philanderer-- The Descendants goes down easy, but it carries tough things with it filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2012-02-22For Your Consideration: Moneyball Is Change We Can Believe In I don’t think that Moneyball is a political film. I don’t think that director Bennett Miller saw Beane as a proxy for Obama and I don’t think the movie sways to either side of the political scale. How could it? Michael Lewis wrote “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” in 2003 and the movie chronicles the Oakland Athletics’ 2002 season. But no movie released in 2011 better represents the era in which we are living filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2012-02-21For Your Consideration: Midnight In Paris Is The Best Picture Nominee That Gets Nostalgia Right Allen’s writing is every bit as charming and funny as the other light-hearted Best Picture contender, The Artist, but most importantly, MiP is a smart comedy that actually has something significant to say about tour collective problem with viewing the past through rose colored glasses filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2012-02-20For Your Consideration: The Artist Is More Than Just A Simple Crowdpleaser While The Artist is set in Hollywood's Golden Age and certainly revels in allusions to some of the era's masterworks, it hardly paints a glossy picture of its setting. Instead, Hollywood is portrayed as a fickle community that will celebrate its stars one moment and leave them in the gutter the next filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2012-02-19For Your Consideration: The Tree Of Life Is Too Messy For Best Picture Maybe there really is nothing to get. Maybe all the critics who have so vehemently backed The Tree Of Life are simply assigning value to weirdness and deeper meaning to idiotic, pretentious ramblings. Maybe the careful and well-constructed core of this Best Picture nominee is not actually buoyed by its elongated natural backdrops but instead coated in layer after layer of supernova-scented shit filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2012-02-17For Your Consideration: As A True Love Letter To Cinema, Hugo Should Be King While James Cameron may be the most prominent name when it comes to 3D filmmaking today, with Hugo it was Martin Scorsese who truly explored the potential of the new technology, but more importantly used it to make a statement about the art. By filming The Artist in the classic non-widescreen ratio and without color, Hazanavicius made homage to what things used to be like and it’s a nice gimmick, but, conversely, Scorsese actually used 3D... filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2012-02-16For Your Consideration: Why Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Deserves Best Picture The emotions earned by EL&IC are so honest, so genuine, that nitpicking them seems inconsequential. It was never about the key that Oskar found in his father’s closet. It was about closure, and Bullock’s mother found it in her troubled son filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2012-02-14For Your Consideration: The Help Is Heritage Not Defined By Hate "It's heritage, not hate." That argument doesn't really apply to The Help, which few can argue as actual hate speech, but I come back to it again in the movie's defense, trying to explain how you can be nostalgic for a period of history that's ugly and unflattering, how the intersection of white and black lives can be both fraught and sometimes terrible, but also more complicated than is easy to remember filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2011-02-25At The Oscars, Winter's Bone Is A Model For Real Indie Success Very few indie movies are going to be as good as Winter's Bone next year, but dammit, they're all going to try, and in no small part thanks to the fact that the Academy-- lover of all things baity, big, important and star-powered-- opened its arms to the badass Ozarks drama that could. filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2011-02-23Black Swan's Greatest Trick Was Convincing Oscar That It Isn't Horror There’s a formula you can follow to work your way in contention for the top prize at the Academy Awards. Heavy drama plus a few well placed laughs and two or three scenes that leave the audience choked with tears and you’ll have no problem landing among the elite ten being scrutinized for the Oscar’s best picture. But what if you’re a brilliant film that blurs the line between thriller and horror... filed under: Oscar Rant
 published: 2011-02-22Oscar Take Note: The Social Network Is Both Annie Hall And Star Wars Whereas the Star Wars and Annie Hall debate is still wrestled with today, one technically better, one more entertaining, The Social Network far surpasses all other Best Picture nominees on both measures. It’s the ideal combination of greatness and entertainment value filed under: Oscar Rant
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