2011 Foreign Language Oscar movies Update

This year I had in mind to watch the entire cadre of Oscar nominated foreign language films. Admittedly, I have only seen one so far. I have had them on my Netflix queue for months but keep pushing the down in the order. Watching a foreign language film takes a little more of my brain power than I have lately, especially after a long day of hanging out with middle school students. I thought I was going to get the original Upstairs, Downstairs, but for some crazy reason, there is a long wait for that. Really America? People are going nuts for Upstairs, Downstairs these days – and not even the new one. Anyway, I finally ended up with I am Love, the Italian nominated film with Tilda Swinton, speaking Italian. It’s a doozy! It begins with a formal family dinner with the mega-rich Reccci family where cracks in the beautiful family demeanor become apparent. The cracks become chasms as the film progresses. The way the movie is filmed is interesting. Long, languorous shots of empty rooms or bees buzzing over flowers, for example. It also a lot about passion and love as the title suggests, but it all seems very chaste, until whoza, a very revealing sex scene, which seemed out of place, I thought. It’s a pretty fascinating film, overall, and it’s good to watch a movie that pushes the boundaries of what you think film should do. So, I’ll get working on the rest of the list (see below) I believe Biutiful is next.

2011 Oscar Nominees for best Foreign Language Film

I am Love, Italy
Dogtooth, Greece
Biutiful, Mexico
In A Better World, Denmark
Incendies, Canada,
Outside the Law, Algeria

The King's Speech and Oscar Best Pic Check

Despite being a bit slow in parts, I really liked The King’s Speech. I’ve been listening to some talk about how some critics don’t think it’s worthy of being nominated for best picture – some find it a bland biopic and not edgy enough to be cool. It is probably one of the safer choices for best picture, but I think it’s a worthy choice. The King’s Speech portrays King George VI (Colin Firth) whose brother abdicated to marry his love, the divorcee Wallis Simpson. The King, or Bertie, as he is called, suffers from a stuttering problem and his wife (known as the Queen Mum or Queen Elizabeth’s mother) searches for a new answer to his speech problems encountering Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist, who challenges the king by not only making him recite tongue twisters but by forcing him to face some of his past childhood indignities. I liked Geoffrey Rush’s Logue, but I though Colin Firth is so moving in this story. The scene where he breaks down in front of his wife is heartbreaking.

Oscar season is upon on us and while the Oscars is very imperfect awards show, I, dork that I am, assiduously follow all the buzz surrounding it. I think it’s dumb that there are now TEN nominated Oscar Best Pictures, but that doesn’t make me want to see ALL or most of them any less. The winner is usually a Best a serious film with big emotions and big stories. – we do big things – I must be channeling Obama. Anyway . . . Here’s my quick look at the other nominated pictures:

Black Swan – saw it, thought it was trying too hard
The Fighter – hope to see
Inception – action flick – so don’t want to see but maybe should get over it
The King’s Speech (see above)
The Kids Are All Right – saw it, loved it, don’t think it will win best picture, a little too snappy and cutsey (in parts)
127 Hours – want to see it, but yikes, do I really want to watch a guy getting his arm severed for two hours?
The Social Network – saw it, liked it a lot, best picture material? Not sure- I think it’s too snappy like Kids Are All Right but more serious
Toy Story 3 – won’t see it, heard it’s great, but animation is not my thing
True Grit – want to see it
Winter’s Bone – saw it, liked it for the great acting by the young new star Jennifer Lawrence and a spooky John Hawkes