I'm baaaaack! Yes, I've been gone for about 9 months and never got to finish writing my post about what I thought of the Oscars broadcast. I started typing something up but two days after the broadcast my grandmother's pancreatic cancer took a turn for the worse and as she deteriorated over the next 6 weeks writing about movies didn't seem so important. And that was just the start of a difficult year in which my family lost 9 members including my dear Mawmaw and my father-in law. In short, 2014 was the worst. So, as the title of this post states, it's time to say so long to the year from hell and start fresh in 2015 with a new Oscar season.
For the record, I really loved last year's Oscars. I thought Ellen was a fantastic host and believe I tweeted that she should host all the Academy Awards; a modern day Bob Hope. I thought she had the perfect balance of silly fun and reverence for the history of the Awards. Ordering pizza with the audience and seeing the glamorous stars passing it around to one another was hilarious. Also I predicted 21 of 24 winners! My best predictions yet!
In light of the kind of year I had in 2014, a lot of my movie viewing habits were different from the norm. Basically, I let my husband pick a few more of the movies and saw a lot of bad comedies that I typically wouldn't have seen in the theatre. Including, A Million Ways to Die in the West (all the jokes were in the trailer and it was written by Seth MacFarlane), The Other Woman (not enough editing and incredibly predictable) and Blended (this movie was clearly just an excuse for Adam Sandler to take his family and friends on vacation to Africa). However, there were some good comedies in there as well, like 22 Jump Street and Neighbors. Both were very funny and found new ways to surprise the audience in genres that have been done to death; the over blown sequel and the frat movie respectively.
I won't take you through every movie I saw in the last 9 months, but my 3 favorites were The Grand Budapest Hotel, Nightcrawler and Guardians of the Galaxy. The Grand Budapest Hotel is Wes Anderson at his best and Wes Andersoniest. I love his attention to detail and the way he balances giddy fun and melancholy. The partly animated chase scene through the snowy mountains also made me want another animated movie directed by him (Fantastic Mr. Fox is amazing). I really hope Anderson gets his first Best Director nomination this year as well as a Best Picture nomination. Nightcrawler is a great dark thriller and I mean dark. Jake Gyllenhaal gives a super creepy, electric performance as the morally hollow Lou Bloom who exploits any human suffering he can catch on camera. Rene Russo is also amazing as the almost as morally corrupt TV station news director who buys his exploitative videos. I think Gyllenhaal should get a Best Actor nomination and hopefully the movie will get some other nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress though it's more likely to get love for it's nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards. Finally, Guardians of the Galaxy is just a great all around movie. I laughed, I cried (the first 10 mins had me crying almost as hard as the first 10 mins of Up) and just had a really good time seeing it. All three times I saw it in the theatre. The cast is fun, the script is more so and the soundtrack is absolutely kickass! I really want this to get nominated for Best Picture like Star Wars did for the 1978 (airing) Academy Awards, especially since I consider Guardians to be the Star Wars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I know it won't happen but, a girl can dream.
Well, that's enough for tonight. It's good to be writing again. Only 10 days until the Oscar Nominations are announced!
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