Todd’s Movie Blog

I didn’t do toobad this year with my Oscar predictions, here is thhe list of predictions I made:

Best Picture–The Hurt Locker

Best Actor–Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart

Best Actress–Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor–Christopher Waltz in Inglorious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress–Mo’Nique in Precious

Best Director–Katheryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

Best Animated Film–The Princess and the Frog

Best Documentary–Food, Inc.

Best Song–Almost There from The Princess and the Frog

Best Score–James Horner for Avatar

Best Screen Play–Mark Boal for The Hurt Locker

Best Adapted Screen Play–Geoffrey Fletcher for Precious

Not too bad,  I only missed four, Animated Film, Song, Score and Documentary.  I really underestimated the nolstalgia factor when it came to Disney animation.  As for the rest, those were gimme picks this year.  Picking the major Oscar winners was like playing poker with all the cards face up.

A funny thing happened the next day, while at work I heard someone constantly complain that Avatar should have won.  Reminded me of a friend who to this day still complains about Star Wars not winning best picture back in the seventies, or as he likes to put it, “Annie Freakin’ Hall!?!?!?”

Remember how I said I was done with Hulu because they changed their parameters and you needed to update your Flash Drive to watch their programs?  And me being a techno non geek I was not going to do it,  after all there was YouTube.  Joke’s on me, YouTube did the same thing.  So after agonizing over it for a couple of weeks, I caved and asked my wife to help me upload a new Flash Drive.  Here’s the funny part,  she turned on my computer, opened a box that contained new updates I was unaware existed, clicked one button and it was done.

Spoiler Alert!  If you haven’t seen Shutter Island ( or have not read the book) and don’t wnat to know what happened at the end, skip this rant.

There has been a lot of back and forth over the twist ending the Shutter Island, many, like Roger Ebert, think it is brilliant and fits well with the dark tone of the film, while others dislike it’s coming completely out of left field.

Personally it pissed me off.  I don’t mind a twist ending that you don’t see coming, like in The Sixth Sense, Memento or The Book of Eli, but it does have to play fair to a certain extent, and having it revealed at the end that everything you saw before wasn’t real, like in Jacob’s Ladder, is a cheat.  Now I know that some of you out there will argue that if you go back over what happened in Shutter Island, the clues are there.

Maybe, but I don’t feel like rehashing such a depressing and aggravating film.  For me, when you invest time and interest in a film you want a better resolution than the one given here.