Contemporary American (Film) Culture, cont'd

If Michael is inviting us to engage in movie ratings, I feel compelled to contribute.  I have a 16-year-old son who is a somewhat rabid movie fan and we take the film awards season very, very seriously around my household.  Between my older son who needs someone to drive him to & get him into R-rated art films, and my youngest daughter needs someone to drive her & sit with her through movies like the Hannah Montana 3-D Concert and Beverly Hills Chihuahua, I see a LOT of movies.  Plus, I love movies.

I agree with Michael that both craft and content being equally important in judging films.  I just saw Avatar yesterday.  That's an example of a film where the brilliance of the craft does not elevate the film to "great" status, because of lack of content.  It was a visually stunning movie; the CGI and subtle 3D effects were simply dazzling.  The movie transported you to another world for a couple of hours -- well worth the ticket price.  BUT, the story was basically Disney's Pocahontas meets Peter Jackson's The Return of the King.  I found myself wanting to leave the movie early (it's way too long) to get home & watch the Lord of the Rings  trilogy again. 

I also agree with Michael about The Hurt Locker and Precious being two of the best films of the year.  But I'd switch the order. I agree that The Hurt Locker was masterful in both craft and content.  (As an aside, it's one of the few war movies directed by a woman.  It did not have a single element of conciously portraying any sort of "woman's perspective" on the war.  I couldn't help but wonder, though, if that untraditional gender perspective might have given the movie some of the complexity and depth that gave the film its resonance.  I'm not trying to say anything like "women are more complex and deeper than men", but rather that the different perspective on such a familiar topic might have changed the focus just enough to engage the viewer more intensely.)

But Precious beats out The Hurt Locker, for me, hands down.  That film was one of the most profound artistic presentations of the complexity of the human condition that I have ever seen.  The characters in that movie displayed almost every type of behavior you could imagine on the spectrum of evil.  The unflinching acting behind those portrayals of evil was truly award-worthy.  But the message of that movie was one of the dignity of each and every human being.   The most powerful force in that story, more powerful than evil, was the power of love -- most particularly the love that a mother had for two children who came into the world under indisputably tragic circumstances.  I think that a movie that can take the viewer through an emotional journal through despair at Precious' circumstances, to the horror of how evil people could be, to end up with a feeling of hope and love, is a great movie.