Best Picture Show

In select locations the AMC theatre has started to offer a marathon of the movies up for best picture at the Oscars.  Since there are 10 movies up this year they offered it over two Saturdays (there were some locations that actually offered it as a 24 hour deal).  Since Craig and Amy were in town last weekend I wasn't able to attend the first Saturday.  It ended up being alright since I had already seen 3 of the 5 showing last weekend. 

The first movie started at 10:30 AM and the last one for the day started at 8:00 PM.  There were five of us that were there together and I actually ran into someone I knew there too.  Did I mention the free, bottomless, popcorn???  YUMMY!  If you buy a large drink it's free refills all day too.  We got about a 15-20 minute break between most of the movie.  They would do movie trivia and give up prizes.  Tamara won the soundtrack to A Serious Man.

Here's my take on the 5 movies we watched (in the order we watched them):

• Up - This is a Disney animated movie.  I had actually already seen this with Sean (he loves animated movies) but I watched it again.  It really is a great movie and I enjoyed it even more the second time.  Their eye on all the detail is amazing; all the way down to one of the characters with his tag sticking out of his shirt.  This movie took you through all the emotions - and that was just in the first 10 minutes!  The premise of the movie is an older man trying to live out his deceased wife's dream and becomes friends with some unlikely things.  In the adventure he sees his childhood idol for what he really was.  My favorite part was when the old man was looking through the Adventure Book his wife created and learned even though making it to Paradise Falls was her childhood dream she ended up living her real dream and that was spending her life with him.  On Netflix I gave this one a 5 star!
• A Serious Man - This is a Coen Brothers movie - that should say it all right there.  The premise of the movie is a Jewish man that seems to have the worst luck ever that was past to him from his ancestors.  It was extremely slow and almost awkward.  My favorite part of the movie was the end.  This was because it was over and because that was actually the best part of the movie - the last 10 seconds.  On Netflix I gave this one a 2 star (bumped it up from a 1 just because of the ending).
• The Hurt Locker - This one was spoken so highly of that I was excited to see it even though I don't like war movies.  It was based on the Iraq war and the unit that disarms bombs.  There was absolutely no plot to the movie and the camera action actually started to make me sick a couple of times.  I could appreciate the movie but didn't enjoy it.  It was literally the same scene like 5 times over in different locations.  I didn't have a favorite part to this movie except maybe the end because it was over.  I gave this a 1 star on Netflix.
• An Education - This was based in 1960's England and was a high school girl getting an eduction scholastically and the pressures of her father to excel and an eduction in boys.  My favorite part of this movie was when she realized the guy wasn't what she thought.  I guess that really just hit home for me.  We've all had that guy in our life that we wanted to be the one so bad we made up excuses and glossed over the sure signs only to come to our senses later.  We then put our focus on the right stuff (school and career) and in the end have the really right one come out of no where but we try not to accept it.  Oh I digress.  I ended up giving this one 4 stars on Netflix.
• District 9 - This was a sci-fi movie which are usually hit-or-miss with me.  The premise was that a bunch of aliens landed above Johannesburg, South Africa.  They were all moved from the mother ship to what was essentially a slum called District 9.  They had been there so long and were multiplying that they tried to evict them.  There was a lot of blood and gore in this movie so don't go see it if you have a weak stomach.  My favorite part was when an alien robot thing put up this force field and caught all the bullets being shot at it and then turned them all around and shot them back at the people.  Of the 5 of us that went together Tamara and I were the only ones that made it all the way through this movie.  If the others had waited about 10 more minutes they would have gotten into it and liked it I'm sure.  It probably took 30 minutes before you weren't just sitting there going "what is up with this movie".  It was shot in a documentary style.  I gave it 4 stars on Netflix.

It was so much fun and I will definitely do it again next year.  Who knows, maybe if they have 10 movies next year and Dallas offers the 24 hour marathon I'll do that!  Now the only two movies I won't have seen up for Best Picture are Precious and The Blind Side (both are in my Netflix queue but haven't come out on DVD yet).

Don't forget, the Oscars are tonight!!!