It's Oscar Season - one of my favorite times of year. The nominations come out in 3 days, and the Oscars will be presented in 36 days giving me more than enough time to catch the 33 or so movies I want to see by that time. My initial list was compiled from the Golden Globe nominations - but I expect there may be one or two more that need to be added.
Of the movies I've seen so far, the stunner has been 50/50. Anna Kendrick and Joseph Gordon were great as psychotherapist and cancer patient/ client. Seth Rogen was an annoying foil for the seriousness of the subject matter, but his greater purpose was revealed in a touching, but decidedly un-sappy scene. The music for this movie was beautiful, too.
There are always parallels between the movies for any given year and they are already in evidence: 50/50 and A Dangerous Method ( with psychotherapy references), The Artist and Midnight in Paris share references to the roaring twenties. And, Moneyball and Margin Call ( look, they even rhyme!) are about sports stats analysis, and the beginning of the end on Wall Street. Both involve the use of data to do some type of 'handicapping' : in one case, for a baseball team...and in the other - the crippling of the financial markets. Yes, many parallels - and I'm sure the more I see, the more I'll see.
