Sunday, 26 February 2012

The Descendants: dir. Alexander Payne; Carnage: dir. Roman Polanski

In honour of Oscar's day I thought I'd briefly review a couple of films I've seen recently. The Descendants, starring George Clooney is up for a number of Oscars. Clooney plays a husband and father of two girls, who is forced to re-examine his life when his wife suffers a boating accident. A decent film but to be honest I didn't really see it as an Oscar contender.

I thought Carnage was the better film, it is very much like a play, all the action takes place in the living room of an apartment.  Two supposed liberal couples, whose son's have a fight at school, decide to react in a mature fashion and sort out the problem. However they gradually descend into argument as, first the couples start to fight, and then, as alliances shift and problems within the realtionships come out, squabbles break out between the couples which is all quite amusing. There is a nice ending as well as the adults fight the two boys, who have not been seen before, are shown together at school having obviously just sorted the problem out as children do.

As for the Oscars I think The Artist will become the first silent film to win since 1929. Personally I would go for Gary Oldman as best actor for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy although I suspect George Clooney will win and Meryl Streep best actress for The Iron Lady (which I would've included on the best movie shortlist but for some reason the Academy didn't ask me).

For what it's worth the six films I enjoyed most in the last year (my Oscar shortlist) were:

1. The Rum Diary
2. Midnight in Paris
3. Hugo
4. The Iron Lady
5. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

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