Oscar Prep

We're having a fun Oscar Sunday thus far. Our friends Mike and Jo (from Nairobi days) are up from Toronto with their family for last night and Oscar watching tonight. We played a little outdoor hockey this morning, our kids are all napping right now and I'm attempting to bake my first ever pie from scratch (results unconfirmed - but it's the Dinosaur BBQ's sweet potato pecan pie, so what could possibly go wrong?).

Here's my list of favourite movies of the year:
- Haven't seen Blue Valentine, Biutiful or the other foreign film nominees. Have seen all the best picture nominees and all the other films nominated for major awards. We didn't see many really good non-nominated movies this year so I could well be missing out on some good ones that dipped under the radar.

1. True Grit - the only movie I saw all year that I wanted to watch again as soon as the credits rolled. Dialogue was vintage Coen brothers (who can hit and miss like nobody) and loved the kickass young heroine.
2. Winter's Bone - grittiest, realest movie of the year. I wish the setting could be up for an award

... then a significant drop-off to #3 to #9
3.The Fighter - loved all the performances, especially Bale's.
4. Black Swan - always on the look out for reasons to not put my kids in ballet and this confirmed it. I really liked Portman (although am hugely biased).
5. Social Network - I think this captures an era, is a fascinating story, and Sorkin's writing is great.
6. Kid's Are Alright. Saw this a long time ago and thought it was really funny and real.
7. King's Speech. Kate loved it but I thought it was trying to hard to follow the Oscar-winning-formula of biopic with dude overcoming affliction. Won't mind if Firth or Rush win though.
8. The Town - not a best picture movie but this is exactly what Hollywood is supposed to do well, and this is the rare occasion that they pulled it off.
9. 127 Hours - didn't expect to enjoy it. After all, we know how it ends, but they keep it taut for the whole film.

Others
- Toy Story 3 was a lot of fun, but it's just a sequel kid's movie. Give it the animated award and let's move on.
- Rabbit Hole - overwrought and Kidman plays her normal icy, one-note performance
- Inception - saw it way back when it was released and thought, that was kind of cool but DiCaprio overacts as usual - definitely not award-worthy
- Animal Kingdom - nothing special