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2010 Oscars Best Picture Nominee: Winter’s Bone

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

A girl in the Ozarks attempts to find her father dead or alive, even if it means risking her life. This doesn’t make for the most attention-getting of movies but this is the story in Winter’s Bone. The movie itself is a mystery bound to keep you intrigued.

It all starts when a teenage girl names Ree is told by the police that her father posted the house as bail for a drug trial and unless he shows, the family will lose it all and be split up. This is hard to do for Ree in their poor settings as she not only has to tend to her mentally ill mother but be the parent figure for her younger brother and sister. She knows her father’s in the drug trade and has been gone for a year but is determined to find him. Attempting to find him puts her own life in danger as she tries to search for him in a house that burned down from a meth explosion and faces death threats from villagers and even distant family members. Her father’s brother tells her he may be dead but she continues on. She finally gets the answer she’s after through bizarre circumstances in the end.

The biggest theme of the movie is about Ozark life and about keeping secrets. Through watching the film, you learn of the difficulties growing up in the Ozark and that the villagers have secrets to hide. The teen parents whom Ree is friends with shows how growing up in the Ozarks stars early.  Over time you witness what Hillbilly life or Ozark life is like and you’d see why Ree would best serve the role as parent for her siblings. The film is an adaptation of a 2006 novel and director/writer Debra Granik did an excellent job of showing the story and portraying Ozark life’s significance to the plot. Even the addition of Ozark country music added to the atmosphere of the story. Young Jennifer Lawrence was excellent in portraying Ree in her grittiness and inner strength. Those that saw the movie would know that her role was very physically demanding. John Hawkes was also excellent as the brother with secrets to hide, despite how much they haunt him.

This film was a hit at the 2010 Sundance and did moderately successful as an indie hit film. If you have the chance, I recommend you rent the DVD of Winter’s Bone. It’s a thriller for all its mystery and bizarreness is worth it.

2010 Oscars Best Picture Nominee: Toy Story 3

Jon The BlogcentricLeave a comment

Hi. With every Academy Awards, I usually review all the Best Picture nominees and give my feedback on them. So begins it this year. This year, we again have ten nominees for Best Picture. They range from big budget blockbusters to arthouse or filmfest pictures. From live action to animation. From timepieces to movies in current settings. From Hollywood to England.  From summer hits to the usual end-of-year serious lineup. I really can’t complain about this year’s set. With that in mind, I will start off with probably the most popular nominee of the year, Toy Story 3.

The first Toy Story, released back in 1995,  has to rank as one of the best animated pictures ever. Before the first Toy Story, there was no real 3D animation feature that was created. As Toy Story was released, that all changed. It not only was a hit but made a name for the Disney/Pixar collaboration and paved the way for many more 3D animation movies to where now 3D is the cream of the animation crop. As Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs made film history as the first ever feature-length animated film, Toy Story made history as the first ever 3D animated feature. Toy Story 2 proved that the Toy Story fever can happen again and even compete with live action. Eleven years later, we have the third and final installment of the groundbreaking series, Toy Story 3.

SPOILER WARNING: This review will have some spoilers of the movie’s plot and even the ending but I don’t think it should matter; assuming most of you have seen it already anyways.

It starts as the toys act out Andy’s toy fantasy as he plays with them while still a kid. Fast forward to the present, we see Andy’s all grown up, college-bound and hasn’t played with Woody, Buzz and friends for years. The toys face an uncertain future, unsure if they’ll be given away to those in need or trashed. Andy keeps Woody to take to college while bagging the rest for Sunnyside Daycare. The mother mistakes the bag of toys as trash and puts them to the side of the road. They manage to escape thanks to Woody and find themselves at Sunnyside. They’re first introduced to the place by Lots-O’-Huggin’-Bear, or ‘Lotso’, and it seems fine until they’re played with by, or should I say abused by, two year-olds. To make matters worse, Lotso has the place run like a toy prison and convinces all they were thrown away.

Meanwhile Woody is picked up by a toddler named Bonnie and decides she’d be best for the gang. He also finds out what happened to his friends from a clown named Chuckles and of how Lotso became the sinister toy svengali he is. Woody helps plan an escape for all the toys until Lotso cuts the escape short. He takes Woody to the dump truck with him and the toys all follow Woody to the dump where they find themselves on an incinerator leading to the furnace. Lotso attempts to help, only to trick them all into saving himself and leading them all to the furnace. All are spared a fiery demise as the squeeze toys rescue them through the claw they were fascinated by. All escape and return to Andy’s house while Lotso is strapped to the grill of a garbage truck for life.

Upon returning to Andy’s house, the toys place themselves in a box and Woody posts a note to be given to Bonnie. Andy gives all the toys except for Woody to Bonnie, but Woody does get her attention. Reluctant since Woody is his most prized childhood toy, Andy eventually does hand it over to Bonnie where he spends his last time with Woody playing with Bonnie. In the end, Woody and the gang are played with again by Bonnie and the Sunnyside tots and things work for the better as Sunnyside is no longer a prison and become beloved by the kids.

Overall this movie was excellently written and succeeds in becoming a surprise tearjerker. In animated movies, a script has to be top notch in order for it to succeed on screen and it does just that. Just as important is having top notch animation. Pixar is known for having graphics in their movies perfect to the minutest detail and they keep up their excellent work with the graphics in Toy Story 3. The voices and characters retain their original charm and the new toys are given a charm of their own. We even see a unique twist in Buzz Lightyear as he’s often reverted to Spanish mode. Overall the movie is completely enjoyable and will please Toy Story fans all over again.

Hard to believe the first two Toy Story movies were out when there was no Best Animated Feature Oscar. The first Toy Story was nominated for the 1995 Golden Globe for Best Picture – Comedy or Musical and in three Oscar categories including Best Screenplay. Director John Lasseter was even awarded a special Oscar for creating the first ever computer animated feature. Toy Story 2 scored a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and won the 1999 Golden Globe for Best Picture – Comedy or Musical. The Academy only had the heart to give it a single Best Original Song nomination for ‘When She Loved Me’. The Best Animated Feature category was introduced at the 2001 Academy Awards, two years after Toy Story 2.  A win for Toy Story 3 in the Best Animated Feature category would not only be a win for the movie itself but an excellent ‘last hurrah’ for the groundbreaking series.  Not to mention the first Toy Story movie to win an Oscar. Toy Story 3 has already won the lion’s share of Best Animated Feature awards however it was dealt a shocker at the recent Annie Awards when it lost to How To Train Your Dragon. I doubt if there will be a shocker like that at the Oscars. Disney/Pixar movies have won five of the nine Best Animated Feature Oscars and it looks like Toy Story 3 will be #6. As for Best Picture, knowing the Academy, I don’t think Toy Story 3, or frankly any animated movie ever, will get Best Picture.

If you’re one of the many who saw Toy Story 3, consider yourselves satisfied to know you saw one of the best movies of 2010. A perfect ending to arguably the best animation series in film history.