Oscar Movie #3: Ides of March

Solid all around and Clooney has potential as a director. I know I’m going to get flack from lots of ladies for saying this, but the thing that stood out most was Gosling’s terrible accent: why? No need for one.

I’m usually pretty good with my Eastern seaboard regionals. It might be a small thing, but it stuck out. Not Morgan-Freeman-in-Invictus-distracting, but at least that was necessary.

Full disclosure: While watching “Rescue Dawn” I noticed Christian Bale had a tinge of Lower East Side with his German- American. Turns out the guy he was playing stowed away to lower Manhattan when he turned 18 (yeah, I looked it up), so I’m thinking on that kind of level.

I know, I know: “nerd” doesn’t quite capture it.

Also, I know my reviews are calling out kind of specific things so far: that’s because the movies have been solid, good even (well not so much with Young Adult), but not extraordinary. Except in very specific ways. To a clearly specific critic (virtual air quotes!).

Oscar Movie #2: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The English-y-est Englishness to ever come out of England. If the BBC and WestEnd and Trench Coats and tea and mushy peas and stiff upper lips and Pimms (….) were to have a baby, it might be as English as this movie. That said, it was pretty good.

Like this, but not as refreshing...

Oldman’s great and it’s cool to see a very porn-movie-esque Bane (Thomas Hardy) as a “scalp collector,” but not a whole lot of tension or suspense. Which I would consider key in a cat-and-mouse Cold War espionage thriller. I couldn’t help but think: what if David Fincher directed this? They’d have been pulling my nails out of the arm rests.

Me and my lousy expectations.

Oscar Movie #1: Young Adult

The screeners are in kiddies, and there are several films to get through, and a wide variety at that. Wait. Since Transformers III: Dark Side of the Moon is included in this list and putting up a lot of things “For Your Consideration,” let me correct myself: there are several movies to get through.

The first is Young Adult with Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt, written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman.

I don’t have much to say about this one. Theron’s good. She’s usually good. And she seems better because she does that she’s-so-beautiful-yet-she-plays-such-ugly-people thing. I’m not hating on the woman, I think she’s fantastic, but her role wasn’t.

Cody is over-rated, Reitman has clearly seen a LOT of John Hughes movies in is time (who can blame him?) and I will just state for the record that I do not get Patrick Wilson. To me, the most remarkable thing about the guy is that he gets so much play and he’s so patently generic. Well, other than kind of reminding me of a lobotomized Chris Pratt, who is patently awesome on Parks and Recreation.

The most promising thing about the movie is Oswalt. I thought he was good- doing a lot with so little and making a real character out of it. I hope he gets more serious roles.

Overall: pretty uneventful. Sorry, kids.