The two that don't belong

Long, long ago I posted that I was going to write on each of the ten nominees for best picture at the Oscars. Then I didn't post. I also haven't ever posted a ten best list for 2009.

When I do ten best lists, the eligibibility is based around where I live, not New York and LA. To make my list, it has to play in the Dayton area for the first time during the calendar year. Amazingly, all ten of the nominees did that this year. And when I write about the best of 2009, I will do it in the format I have always done: the top ten, ranked, and the second ten, alphabetized.

Eight of the ten nominees will be on my list of the 20 best of 2009, so will get mentioned then. Those eight deserved their nominations, in my humble opinion. This post is to address the other two films.

The only nominee that I've watched only once is The Blind Side. It's a nice movie, a good movie even. I'll stop short of great. To get to great the film needs to give me some insight. While an entertaining portayal of Leigh Anne Twohy, the film never never seems to understand what makes Michael Oher tick. And I still don't know why the daughter seemed to disappear from the film at times.

Bullock is good, but she would not have gotten my vote for the best actress vote. For the record I would have voted best actress to Carey Mulligan, and also prefer Meryl Streep and Gabourney Sidibe. But Bullock is a fine actress, and there have been far worse wins.

But I understand the love for The Blind Side. It is a feel good film. It is well made. But I think it start a bit short of great.

Starting well short of great is Inglourious Basterds. Seeing it a second time, the flaws were more apparent. Let's start with the good. Both Melanie Laurent and Chritoph Waltz give fantastic performances. Waltz deserved his Oscar and Laurent should have been nominated. Unfortunately, they are not the leads.

The title characters are poorly drawn, to say the least. Who are they? Well, there's the leader, who's most famous trait is that he is played by Brad Pitt. Then there's that guy with a baseball bat, the guy who can't speak Italian, the guy they busted out of prison. Anyone know the names of these characters? Yeah, me neither.

I'm sorry, their scenes don't work. And it is frustrating, because the stuff with Walt and Laurent is so well done, and so compelling, that I just wanted the Baterds off my screen and to get back to the heroine whose story intrigued me, and the villain I despised, but was entertaining at the same time.

That stuff is worth the price of admission, But the Basterds' torturing of Germans or struggling with accents is frustrating the first time and grating the second. That's a huge whopping big flaw in a film being nominated as one of the year's best. Too big for me to nominate it. Hell, I can barely recommend it.