Down the Home Stretch-
Movies from Last Week
It's less than a week to the Academy Awards and my daughter and I have almost completed our annual Oscar Quest. We saw one more of the nominees- and one that should have been- this past weekend. First, the one that is nominated.

Babel
Nominations: Picture, Director, Supporting Actress-Adriana Barraza, Supporting Actress- Rinko Kikuchi, Original Screenplay, Editing, Original Score.

I liked it. My daughter (a fan of Inarritu) did not.

We agreed that it was about 25 minutes too long as he lets the camera linger too long on a helicopter flying or a painful disco scene. My daughter got bored with it. I accepted it as his going over the top to make a point.

She didn't like the very contrived story line that he used to make his point. After watching a fantasy like Pan's Labyrinth or a movie where they break into song like Dreamgirls I understood that he was contriving it to make a point.

We both were hooked at the beginning. I stayed that way as I simply enjoyed watching the movie making skills being shown. Of course, that may very well get in the way of it truly being a "best picture" since it takes away from the storyline. But the four (oddly) interwoven stories did capture me as if they were four separate movies within one. It made little difference to me that they were connected. Each gave a different view of cultures and life and hopes and dreams- or their absence. Overall it was a movie of worldwide scope and contrast and how little things can affect us all. I don't think it is the best picture this year, but it does belong in this year's pantheon of greatness.

And so does this one belong in the list, but it isn't there:
Dreamgirls
Nominations: Supporting Actor- Eddie Murphy, Supporting Actress- Jennifer Hudson, Sound Mixing, Costume, Original Song- Listen, Original Song- Love You I Do, Original Song- Patience.

Okay, I was surprised. I shouldn't have been, of course, since lots of critics thought this should have been nominated for Best Picture. Somehow I had forgotten how powerful a good musical can be. They aren't just about the music, they also have a story. (How could I forget great musicals like A Chorus Line- which became a bad movie; or Chicago- which became a great movie?) Nominated for thirteen Tonys, it won six. Nominated for ten Drama Desk awards it won three. It was Michael Bennet's swan song as a producer. In other words, it was a great musical 25 years ago.

Now it is a great movie, easily up there with Chicago, Sound of Music, and Cabaret and well beyond the movie versions of A Chorus Line and Fiddler on the Roof. It does tackle significant issues about race and music in the 50s and 60s but it moves beyond that to talk about the human problems of power and greed and love. The two nominated actors are superb. Beyonce Knowles does an even better job of pulling back on her own incredible musical talent so that Jennifer Hudson's character can do what she's supposed to do. It's too bad there are 3 songs nominated. The whole soundtrack should get an Oscar (and probably a Grammy next year?)

The mark of a good movie for me is if it grabs you, never loses you, and takes you somewhere new in power. If I walk out of the theater feeling challenged, it has been great. This is a great movie. It moves you both musically and in the story. This one does both of what actor extraordinaire Sir Laurence Olivier said:

the office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears.

Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations, compiled by James B. Simpson.
Copyright © 1988 by James B. Simpson. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company.
All rights reserved.
--Bartleby.com