Best Picture nominees-Movies 1&2

One of Evan's New Year's resolutions was to watch more movies this year. Should be pretty easy but last year we watched hardly any since Brody was a terrible sleeper and would wake up a few times a night. Well those times thankfully seem to be in the rear view mirror and we are working in movies on a fairly regular basis.

Our friends Mike and Erinn have a goal every year to see every movie that is nominated for an Oscar. I don't know if they have been successful every time or not since there are a lot of categories with movies that are hard to find etc. For the past few years we've had Oscar film viewing night where we view 2 or 3 of the movies together in one night. We had this planned for this past weekend and were viewing "The Fighter" and "True Grit". At some point prior to this past weekend Evan and I decided to try and see most if not all of the Best Picture nominees. (for the record Evan has already said he will not see 127 Hours) So as of this evening I have seen 7 out of the 10 Best Picture Nominees and here are my thoughts (without giving much away story-wise). In order to make this entry not feel never ending I will be writing about 2 movies at a time.


Brief plot info on "Black Swan" from IMDB- A ballet dancer wins the lead in "Swan Lake" and is perfect for the role of the delicate White Swan - Princess Odette - but slowly loses her mind as she becomes more and more like Odile the Black Swan, daughter of an evil magician.
So far this has been my favorite movie. It sucked me in from the beginning and I was riveted to the screen. Natalie Portman does a great job and should be a shoo-in for Best Actress-when you see it you will see why. ;) Any movie about ballerinas that can grab your attention like that has to be good. Guys will love just looking at Portman and Mila Kunis--trust me on that. I think it's "Best Picture" based on the ones I have seen but I know the current favorite is the next movie we saw. Oh and it also wins points from me since it was 108 minutes long. I hate it when I see a drama (or any movie for that matter) that is 2.5 hours long and should have been 2 hours tops.


Brief plot info on "The Social Network" from IMDB- A chronicle of the founding of Facebook, the social-networking Web site.
Of course anyone that uses Facebook on a daily basis like I do is at least interested in seeing this movie. I didn't know much about the back story but I was eager to see it unfold. The movie as a whole was good and interesting to see them think up things like tagging people in pictures etc. but the constant chatting of the main character Zuckerberg drove me crazy. He talked fast and monotone like--I caught myself tuning him out--a lot. I'm sure he was just acting like the real life Zuckerberg but it was annoying. After the movie was over I did find myself googling the various people to see what else I could find out about them--kind of a "where re they now". It's a must watch for anyone that uses Facebook and a decent movie. It is the current front runner for the Oscar according to a few sources including "Entertainment Weekly".