This is clusterflick season -- when studios jam the multiplexes mining for Oscar gold. Theoretically I could be going to a new movie nearly every night. Yet in the past two weeks I found myself preferring to go to revival houses -- three times.
I am not delivering a screed about how they stopped making good movies in 1980; in fact, two of the three movies were 2011 releases I had missed on the big screen. But I
am weary of Oscar season, our meager reward for enduring another summer of ever-worse remakes and sequels. (
Eight of 2011's top eleven grossing titles so far were sequels -- the other two were
Thor and
Captain America -- and
Mission Impossible 4 is still climbing into that list.)
Last night I had a lively debate with an erudite couple who had the polar opposite reaction to me on two Oscar contenders:
Young Adult (they liked, I hated) and
The Help (I liked, they hated). That's what makes this a ballgame, I guess, but I wonder if in a year or two we will even remember which movies were nominated.
 |
| 2011's most romantic scene? |
I have enjoyed some of this year's crop -- most thoroughly
The Artist [left] -- but I can't argue with people who didn't like it, and also have been wildly disappointed by several
