Movie Theater Popcorn is Unhealthy? Shocking!

This little bit of info form the NY Times will make OscarQuest slightly more challenging:

"A large tub of popcorn at Regal Cinemas, for example, holds 20 cups of popcorn and has 1,200 calories, 980 milligrams of sodium and 60 grams of saturated fat. Adding just a tablespoon of butter adds 130 calories. And do not forget that it comes with free refills."

But I dodged a bullet - there are no Regal Cinemas, AMC Theaters, or Cinemark Theaters in our usual rotation! Whew...

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/popcorn/

An Education: * * 1/2

A user reviewer on metacritic said the following about An Education:

"If the movie had been about 1 minute shorter, stopping immediately after the scene where she asked her former English teacher for help, I would have rated it more highly. The last minute wraps things up too quickly, neatly and simply, making sure we know everything turns out all right. A typical ending for an American script, not a good European one."

I couldn't agree more. I thought the film hurried through the finish, leaving a rather predictable close to the coming-of-age drama. Although the performances were great, I didn't love the script and didn't feel as if the characters really earned what was given them. Example, the English teacher at the end taking Jenny back to study for her A-levels. Seemed a bit too easy.

Becka says 2.5 stars as well.

It's Complicated: * * *

Becka took me out to Morton's tonight and then to see It's Complicated. I liked them both.

Morton's was pretty much like I expected - a bit of a mix. The entrance set the tone for the evening; a heavy wooden door lit gently by lanterns warmly welcomed you into a stale triangular entry way with whitewashed walls spotted with dusty photos and award plaques. The food was generally good; I disliked my tasteless salad and the onion-covered potato bread (think onion bagel), loved the filet and spinach/mushrooms (en beure, of course), thought the rest was fine. Stuffed when I left.

Which made the popcorn at the movie more difficult. Streep was as good as she always is; so convincing in her portrayal that Becka pointed out that you forgot she was actually acting. I liked her character arc. Baldwin was good too, if a little less believable. He got some great lines, including the one I've been using for the last three weeks whenever the occasion presents itself, "OMG I thought he'd never leave" and the one I will now use whenever possible, "I love when you smell like butter."

John Krasinski (The Office's Jim) was actually able to hold his own. I did not love, however, most of the other actors, although Steve Martin was decent in his role as the pathetic third wheel architect.

Most of the criticism for It's Complicated seems to center around the fact that Nancy Meyers keeps making movies targeted for the over-40 woman: What Women Want, Something's Gotta Give, etc. I liked both those movies, so I don't really have any problem with that. I think what made this one work was Streep and Baldwin, just like what made WWW work for me was Mel Gibson and Jack Nicholson makes every movie work for me.

Anyways, I'll cross one off the list. Another movie tomorrow, perhaps.

Why Oscar Nominees?

If you look at the AFI's Top 100 Films list or They Shoot Pictures, Don't They's 1,000 Most Acclaimed Films list, few of the top movies actually won the Best Picture award that year. In fact for the latter publication, only four of the first fifty ranked films won the most coveted Oscar.

So why are we using the Oscar Nominees instead of Metacritic scores (the amateur film critic's version of the more widely used RottenTomatoes)? Quite simply, because it worked last year.

Of the Oscar-nominated movies we saw last year, I felt like all of them except for two (WALL-E and Rachel Getting Married) were good to great:

The Wrestler 4
Doubt 4
The Dark Knight 4
Frozen River 4
The Reader 4
Slumdog Millionaire 4
Vicky Cristina Barcelona 3 1/2
Milk 3 1/2
The Visitor 3 1/2
Frost/Nixon 3
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 3
Changeling 3
Revolutionary Road 3
In Bruges 2 1/2
WALL-E 2
Rachel Getting Married 2

Did not see
Tropic Thunder (best supporting actor nomination)
Happy-Go-Lucky

So maybe our movie preferences are in line with what mainstream Hollywood/snooty America likes. We're never going to like Eagle Eye, The Proposal, or Paul Blart, Mall Cop (all in the top 15 Netflix most rented movies of 2009). Maybe we'll miss a bit. But 14/16 movies in the 2.5-4 star range was good enough for me.

Progress to date...

Upon further examination, we've actually made more progress than we thought. Using my freshman year hallmate Tommy Dickie's acclaimed DickiePicks.com as a rough guide, here's a list of Oscar hopefuls we've already seen this year:

Up in the Air
The Hurt Locker (Becka)
Avatar
Inglourious Basterds
Up
Star Trek
Where the Wild Things Are
Julie & Julia

Although it's still early and Tommy hasn't seen all the hopefuls yet, he's usually pretty spot-on. After all, the guy can tell you the day of the week that was December 18, 2001 because LOTR:Fellowship of the Ring was released to theaters the following day, a Wednesday. It's kind of freaky.

In any case, looking at the challenge, that would leave the following as movies left to be seen:
Precious
Invictus
Nine
An Education
It's Complicated
A Serious Man
Crazy Heart
A Single Man
The Blind Side (Morgan)
Hurt Locker (Morgan)
The Last Station
The Messenger
The Lovely Bones
(500) Days of Summer
Fantastic Mr Fox

14 movies in a little under 2 months doesn't sound that difficult. It's basically 2 movies a week. Maybe I need to expand the scope of the quest. Or maybe this is actually doable.

The Challenge

Oscar nominations come out February 7. The Oscars are awarded March 7. That gives us roughly a month and a half to try to see all the important Oscar-nominated movies. The goal is to see the movies nominated in the Big 5 categories: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenwriting (which actually makes for 2 categories: adapted and original), plus Supporting Actor/Actress. The challenge is that we just haven’t seen that many movies so far; Morgan was applying to business school for 5 months, basically. And that with each movie, a bucket of popcorn must be eaten.

Stay tuned as we give it our best effort.