Quick Review (Oscar Edition): Winter's Bone

At the end of this post I'll rank the Oscar Best Picture nominees, now that I've seen them all. The one I had missed, "Winter's Bone," wasn't rereleased to theaters after its nomination, so I had to rent the DVD. (Not only is it the first time I've ever rented a DVD, although way back in the day I did rent VHS tapes, I got it for $1 from a Redbox machine. It would've cost $4.99 for On Demand rental from Comcast.)

The tension-filled "Winter's Bone" mostly held my interest well. I got up just once, to get a drink. (Being able to pause the movie just isn't possible in theaters, dammit!) 17-year-old Ree (Jennifer Lawrence, nominated for Best Actress) is taking care of her mother, younger brother and sister in severe poverty in a rural area. She has to set off on a desperate quest to find her missing father, out on bond after an arrest on meth-making charges; he signed over their house as part of his bail, and if he doesn't show up for court they'll lose the house. The search won't be easy; meth labs are a big business in these areas and those who may know her father's whereabouts, including his own brother (John Hawkes, also a nominee as Best Supporting Actor), keep warning her to keep her mouth shut. I kept waiting for some typical dialogue and action and overacting that we usually get from big-budget Hollywood films. It never came. This is a quiet but rather powerful story. My grade: B-plus.

So, now that I've seen all ten Best Picture nominees, here is how I'd rank them, although my hunch is that "The King's Speech" will actually win the Oscar:

1. Toy Story 3
2. The Social Network
3. Black Swan
4. Inception
5. Winter's Bone
6. The Kids Are All Right
7. 127 Hours
8. True Grit
9. The King's Speech
10. The Fighter

Quick Review: True Grit

I'm not sure if it's good that, when someone remakes a movie, either I never saw the original or saw it so long ago that it's not fresh in my mind. So I can't compare the new version of "True Grit" to the original. I can say that it's very, very good but I can't quite put it in the "exceptional" category. There's strong acting from everyone -- Jeff Bridges as U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, Matt Damon as LaBoeuf. the Texas Ranger, Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney and young Hailee Steinfeld as 14-year-old Mattie Ross, whose father was killed by Chaney, leading her to hire Cogburn to track him down. It was just a bit slow to start, and there were a few times when I had trouble understanding what Cogburn was saying (not sure if this was something Bridges was doing or a sign of hearing loss/lack of paying attention on my part -- yikes). But there are moments when it truly rises to the occasion. Just not quite enough to raise this grade...My grade: B-plus.