Academy Awards: Best Picture Thoughts (1)

So the five films nominated for best picture this year are The Departed, Babel, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen, and Letters from Iwo Jima. I have just today finished seeing all five, having seen Babel and Iwo Jima in the last week. Although I certainly had views before seeing all the movies, I now have pretty confident feelings about the movies. Before I get to my own opinions on the five movies, I want to discuss some movies that weren't nominated.

First, I was extraordinarily pleased that Dreamgirls was not nominated for Best Picture. I had vowed that if it had won I would boycott watching the Oscars for three years, and indeed it now won't. I would have enjoyed explaining why this movie didn't deserve to win but I'm happy to say I don't need that opportunity.

Second, there are several movies I think should have been up there that weren't. The number one movie in this respect was Thank You For Smoking, a really really great movie. This picture got hugely snubbed in the Oscars (should have at minimum received something for the screenplay). Other movies that potentially deserved a best picture nod or at least consideration are An Inconvenient Truth, The Prestige, Casino Royale, The Illusionist, Inside Man, and maybe Children of Men. Although these movies were not the Best Picture, I think all of them are better than certainly two of the nominees.

My own personal rankings of the five movies are as follows, with a short explanation for each to follow.
1. Little Miss Sunshine
T2. The Departed/Letters from Iwo Jima (slight edge to Departed probably)
4. Babel
5. The Queen

5. The Queen: Even though I really don't think this film had any business being so acclaimed and nominated, it had a couple of things going for it. Primarily, the story itself was excellent and an interesting, unseen twist on an event most of us remember vividly. Many times throughout the movie I remember being really interested and impressed with the story. In addition, the parts of the movie that were documentary footage were excellent additions. The only other good part of the movie was some (but not all) of the acting done by the queen character and the Tony Blair character.
However, otherwise I thought the movie pretty much sucked. My primary rationale for thinking this was that by far the most interesting parts of the movie were the documentary footage. Each part of the movie that was originally written or acted was worse than the stock footage. Also, extraordinarily little happens in the movie. Although that is kind of the point I realize, it doesn't make for too great a movie...there's only so many times you can see and hear the queen doing nothing. Finally, the stag-metaphor plot line. If you haven't seen the movie, imagine the most over extended and nonsensical metaphor you've ever come across and then quadruple it. This entire addition was a total waste of time.