January and February are the cruelest months for movie lovers. Still on the high from December’s mad crush of creative excellence due to the studio’s late release of treasures for Oscar consideration, we make the mistake of thinking that it will continue to be safe going to the local Cineplex just because a Best Picture nominee is showing there. But beware of the movie house in January and February. Great dangers lurk. For these are the dark days when the studios roll out their duds, the really bad, the worst of the worst. People are snowed in, rained out, cash poor from the holidays, and the studios know not to throw good money after bad, so if they’ve got a good product, they will save it for the boon audience-going months of summer or the critical appraisal months of fall. So, basically, the stuff that’s out there now, if it’s not remnants from Oscar season, it’s pretty much crap.

So I have learned that January is the month to catch up on my DVD watching. And I have been doing just that. I did make it to the theatre once to catch a movie I’ve been meaning to see for a while now, and I managed to find it playing in just two theatres in all of Los Angeles, even though it is the favorite to win Best Foreign Film at the Oscars next month. And yet The Tooth Fairy is playing just two blocks away from my house. You gotta love this time of year.

Here are my mini-reviews of my self-imposed January multiplex exile:

In the (independent and hard-to-find) theatre:

THE WHITE RIBBON—This German film, the favorite to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, is slow and calculating, emotionless and absolutely riveting. Its stark, bold imagery and setting (a small town in Germany just before World War I) sets a tone for the story, a story that is haunting and all too chilling. The White Ribbon is about a small town filled with secrets and about people who will do anything to protect those secrets. But, mostly, the film is about so many deeper things, about good and evil, about the things we are capable of doing to each other, about guilt and innocence, violence and hate, and individuality—-or the lack thereof. There is no way to watch this film without thinking of the larger themes—-what the filmmaker is saying about Germans as a people, about the seeds of fascism, about the young characters who could grow up to be Nazis. But what is so good about The White Ribbon is that none of these are what the film is about. Even though these elements are lurking underneath, simmering in your mind, they are not a part of the film itself, and it stands well enough on its own as a snapshot of a place and time whose questions and answers may just be enough on their own, without any wider or greater implications. Either way, The White Ribbon delves deeply into the human soul and exposes some stark contrasts, and the black-and-white film it is shot in serves it well. I, of course, was drawn to this because this is a German film (being partial to all things German), but I recommend this film to anyone who likes well-made films with depth, theme, resonance and a lot to chew on.

In My Living Room (DVD/Blu-ray):

THE HURT LOCKER—There aren’t many films that I willingly see twice, unless they are cheesy romantic comedies, but as soon as The Hurt Locker came out on Blu-Ray, I knew I had to see it again. The first time I saw it, back in June, I was so blown away (no pun intended) by it that I’ve been talking about it ever since, talking it up to anyone who will listen. Sadly, most people hadn’t even heard of it, as evidenced by the paltry $12 million it took in at the box office. But now it is nominated for 9 Oscars, including Best Picture, so it seems like a lot of other people felt the same way I did, even though word never got out to the general public. Well, now that it’s on DVD and Blu-ray, there’s another chance for this little masterpiece to be appreciated and it holds up just as well on the small screen as it does on the big one. Director Kathryn Bigelow’s taut direction and Jeremy Renner’s pitch-perfect performance still held me captive upon my second viewing and I was able to pay closer attention to some of the details, the shot selections, the editing, the soundtrack, cinematography and art direction, all of which are exceptional. You may have missed it in the theatre, but now you have the chance to catch this perfect little movie and I’m telling you—-you won’t regret it.

JULIA—-Critics exist for a reason. If critics didn’t exist, The Hurt Locker would probably be on a shelf somewhere. It is because of the critics that The Hurt Locker, and Slumdog Millionaire, for that matter, got any attention at all, and anyone went to see them. The critics are the ones who go to see all the movies and are the ones who find the little gems (like Hurt Locker and Slumdog) and bring them to our attention when we might otherwise never know about them. And we are forever grateful. However, the critics sometimes are wrong. Very wrong. Roger Ebert went on a personal crusade to get Tilda Swinton nominated for Best Actress for a film that I had never even heard of called Julia. Now I love Tilda Swinton and I wondered “why have I not even heard of this movie?!” But he kept going on and on and on about this performance, and I love Tilda Swinton, and, most of all, I trust Roger Ebert, so I rented the movie.

There’s a reason I’ve never heard of it.

Tilda Swinton is a great actress, but she really needs to fire her agent. Julia is a terrible movie. All these reviews I’m reading about it being a great film—-I’m absolutely DUMBSTRUCK. It is TERRIBLE. Julia is a movie (over two hours long, mind you) that is about a selfish drunk sex-aholic who gets caught up in a kidnapping scheme that eventually lands her in Tijuana mixed up with a Mexican gang who want to trade her kidnapping victim for money and oh god it just gets worse and worse. It is a mess. It is insulting, vulgar, offensive, stupid, pointless and ultimately a complete letdown. I kept wondering what Roger saw in it and what the other reviewers saw in it and it got me to wondering what I was missing—-but then I just had to let it go. And that’s the beauty about movies. Everyone has an opinion and everyone is entitled to it. Julia just wasn’t for me. And I just have to say it probably won’t be for you, either. You can listen to Roger Ebert if you want, but, on this one, I’d go with me.

MOON—If there is a happy discovery film of the year, other than The Hurt Locker, Moon has to be it. Yes, I had heard all the critics raving about it, but after my disastrous experience with Julia, I wasn’t going to trust anything. I had heard this movie was strange and slow and could be an acquired taste, not always a good way to sell a movie. Worse than that, I knew it had only one actor in the whole movie. Great. A slow, strange movie with one actor. Sign me up. But, willing to give the critics ONE more shot, I decided to see Moon. And boy did the critics redeem themselves. Moon is an amazing experience of a film. It is exactly the kind of film that I just eat up: thought-provoking, deep, passionate, well-acted, great to look at and a story to wrap your head around. And around and around. I absolutely refuse to give anything away, so I will amend my review and stop here and not say anything else about the film itself except to say that Sam Rockwell delivers his most significant performance of his career and this is a film that is absolutely a MUST-SEE. It is science-fiction, yes. It is a little odd, yes. It is a little slow, yes. But it will grab hold of your head, your heart and your spirit, I promise you. And you won’t stop thinking about it for days.

WHIP IT—-Thinking I had had about enough meat and potatoes, I thought I’d finish up my recent movie binge with a little dessert. Whip It, Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, is probably just what you would expect: a no-frills, simple, frothy, back-to-the basics crowd-pleaser. There were many missed opportunities and so many paint-by-numbers moments, but, overall, you really couldn’t expect anything more. It’s a movie about women’s roller derby, do you really want or need anything more than action sequences with hot chicks in tight outfits rolling around a rink elbowing each other? The most fun I had with this picture were the clever names of the teams and the characters. If they had only given as much thought to the screenplay as they did with coming up with those names, this film could have been so much more. As it is, it’s nothing more than a decent way to ride out a rainy Friday night.

So that was my January. February is not looking much better for the theatre, as illustrious fare such as Dear John and Cop Out are the big movies playing now, so I might continue to catch up on my Netflix queue. Looking at what’s waiting for me: This Is It (yes, I’m giving in…), Gran Torino and Mulholland Drive, the film that topped many critics’ list of the best films of last decade. So stay tuned.

Is it March yet?

My thoughts on today’s Oscar nominations and how I did on my fearless predictions:

First and foremost, I am THRILLED that The Hurt Locker, the film that I consider to be the best film of the year, and only took in $13 million at the box office, got the same number of nominations (9) as the $2 billion (and counting) behemoth, Avatar. Which one will win Best Picture is still too close to call and will make March 7 a thrilling night to watch.

Who am I rooting for personally this year?
The Hurt Locker for Best Picture
Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director
Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor
Mo’Nique for Best Supporting Actress
The White Ribbon for Best Foreign Film
The Cove for Best Documentary

The Oscar can right some past wrongs (Shakespeare in Love, Crash, to name two), if they do the right thing with those. We’ll see on March 7.

In the meantime, here are the Nominees:

BEST PICTURE
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

The Blind Side is in, Invictus is out. Both are mediocre films, but The Blind Side has more momentum right now, so I should have seen this coming. Invictus does not deserve to make the cut, so this is a good call by the Academy. I was afraid that District 9 or A Serious Man would be cut to make room for The Blind Side, and I couldn’t be happier that both made it in. Overall, a pretty good final 10. I went 9-for-10.

BEST DIRECTOR
James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

No surprises here. It should be loudly and proudly noted that, of this five, there is a woman, for only the fourth time in history, and not only a black man (for only the second time), but an openly gay black man (Lee Daniels), among the contenders, in a category normally dominated by white, straight males. This alone is something to cheer about. Just wait until you hear the Kodak Theatre explode on March 7 when they announce Kathryn Bigelow’s name and the first woman ever to take home Best Director takes the podium. It truly will be a goosebump moment. I went 5-for-5.

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Again, no surprises, although there was a chance that Morgan Freeman may have gotten bumped here. But he is an Academy favorite and can do no wrong. And playing Nelson Mandela? Come on. Jeff Bridges has this one locked up though. I went 5-for-5 here as well.

BEST ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

I again went 5-for-5 in another pre-determined category. Now the only question is, will Sandra Bullock continue her hot streak and keep the seemingly perfect Meryl in her Oscar dry spell? It’s been 27 years since she last won…

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

In a category that could’ve thrown in a few surprises, I went 5-for-5 and I’m happy to see Stanley Tucci and Matt Damon make the cut. They are both popular with their peers and both delivered strong performances in weak films.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo’Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

The only real surprise of the day, for me, was the exclusion of Julianne Moore, who’s performance in A Single Man should have been recognized. However, Penelope Cruz was terrific in Nine, as was Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart, and I am happy for both of them as well. This was the category with the most surprises, as I went only 3-for-5. Mo’Nique should walk away easily with the Oscar.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, In The Loop
Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell, District 9
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

I went 4-for-5 here, In the Loop replaced Crazy Heart, and even though I haven’t seen In the Loop yet, I can’t say I’m surprised by its nomination. Wasn’t too impressed with Crazy Heart’s screenplay, and was surprised to see it getting such love. In the Loop is supposed to be quite cutting edge. Glad to see the Academy recognizing such innovative work.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, A Serious Man
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Up

(500) Days of Summer got knocked out of this category by The Messenger, leaving me 4-for-5 here as well, and I can’t say I’m surprised, with all the love The Messenger has been getting in the indie circles. Glad to see it as well.

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs was knocked out by a film I’ve never even of HEARD of, The Secret of Kells, which left me 4-for-5 in this category. Leave it to the animators to pull one of their hat. Up and Pixar will add another golden statue to their mantle on March 7. First film ever to be nominated for Best Animated Film and Best Feature Film in the same year.

And the rest of the nominees for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards:

ART DIRECTION
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

COSTUME DESIGN
Bright Star
Coco before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon
Which Way Home

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan, Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Music by Prudence
Rabbit à la Berlin

FILM EDITING
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Ajami, Israel
El Secreto de Sus Ojos, Argentina
The Milk of Sorrow, Peru
Un Prophete, France
The White Ribbon, Germany

MAKEUP
Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

ORIGINAL SCORE
Avatar, James Horner
Fantastic Mr. Fox, Alexandre Desplat
The Hurt Locker, Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
Sherlock Holmes, Hans Zimmer
Up, Michael Giacchino

ORIGINAL SONG
“Almost There” from The Princess and the Frog, Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
“Down in New Orleans” from The Princess and the Frog, Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
“Loin de Paname” from Paris 36, Music by Reinhardt Wagner, Lyric by Frank Thomas
“Take It All” from Nine, Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
“The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from Crazy Heart, Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
Logorama
A Matter of Loaf and Death

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
The New Tenants

SOUND EDITING
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

SOUND MIXING
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

I’ve been dabbling. Well, ok, I’ve been immersing. Movies, movies, movies. It all came so fast and furiously over the holidays…movies, DVDs, Blu-rays…some I devoted full reviews to (Avatar, Nine, A Single Man, Up in the Air), but the rest….

Here’s a summary of my extracurricular viewing activities from the past month or so.

In the theatre:

THE BLIND SIDE
I thoroughly enjoyed this mainstream piece of predictable fluff, mainly because—-you guessed it—-Sandra Bullock hits it out of the park. She is so engaging and likeable that she single-handedly turns a movie-of-the-week into a bonafide Oscar contender. The Blind Side has humor, heart and heft and never dumbs it down. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone that it raked it in at the box office.

INVICTUS
I never thought I would find myself bored during a rugby film directed by Clint Eastwood, but I was. The problem is, Invictus is not a rugby film. Or is it? I don’t think it knows what it is. It’s half political drama, and half character study, with some rugby thrown in. But none of these gears grind together enough to make a well-oiled machine. The parts move too slowly and the film only picks up when Matt Damon walks into it with his tight shorts and nifty accent. Not that Morgan Freeman doesn’t play Nelson Mandela well (he does), it’s just that he’s not given much to do except be Nelson Mandela. There’s not a lot that Mandela does and that’s the problem. The action of this film doesn’t come until the last 20 minutes (when the tight shorts get to playing) and that’s a long time to wait, through talking and voiceovers and scenic panning shots. It might help if we actually learn who people are and why they are doing what they are doing, but we don’t. This is one of those films where we are told things instead of shown things. I hate those kinds of movies. And I really didn’t like Invictus.

CRAZY HEART
Let’s get this out of the way. Washed-up old white guy trying to hold onto his glory days, life is a mess, meets a younger woman who breathes a new sense of life and purpose (and hope) into him….didn’t we see this last year? Well, Crazy Heart is not The Wrestler and Jeff Bridges is not Mickey Rourke. There may be similarities, and they are hard to ignore, that is true, but The Wrestler was about a guy who can’t let go and Crazy Heart is about a guy who is just trying to find a way to hold on. What I love about Crazy Heart is the lack of desperation in Bridges’ performance. He plays his character, a drunk, once-famous musician, with a gentle knowing confidence, but, at the same time, he is utterly aware of his now-defunct place in the world. He doesn’t hate himself until he is forced to, but we never hate him, in fact we find a way to really like this country singer who is a universe unto himself, even though he makes a lot of wrong choices. The supporting performances are equally excellent, as Maggie Gyllenhaal holds her own with Bridges as his love interest and a surprisingly interesting casting choice of Colin Farrell as a country superstar is intriguing and ends up being quite effective. Bridges should take home the Oscar for this performance and it would be well deserved. And even I, an avowed un-fan of country, really enjoyed the music. That’s high praise indeed.

In My Living Room (DVD/Blu-ray):

ADVENTURELAND
Today’s answer to St. Elmo’s Fire, Adventureland is an homage to the aimless generation, lost between college and career, crushes and marriage, searching to find themselves in the world. Good thing Adventureland is not nearly that deep. It’s just a solid, down-to-earth comedy-drama with a lot of cringe-worthy moments as well as fall-off-your-chair moments. But, mostly, it’s sweet and sincere and worth your time if you’re looking for a break from the insipid and insulting teen comedies that Hollywood churns out every five minutes.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
As I slowly work my way through my Netflix queue, which contains all the classic movies I have yet to see (there are, sadly, still so many more to go), A Clockwork Orange arrived in my mailbox. I knew of it and I knew about it, but I didn’t know much else. Like everyone else, I had seen a couple of scenes, and I, of course, knew this was Malcolm McDowell’s star-making role. But it was time to see for myself what many critics consider to be Stanley Kubrick’s best work and among the top films of all time. It certainly didn’t take me long to understand. And, by the end of the film, I was so captivated, riveted, haunted and consumed by what the film had to say that all I wanted to do was grab the closest person and engage them in a philosophical debate. But that’s not even the most affecting part of it. Kubrick was a true artist, and in every frame his brilliance can be seen, every shot a perfectly crafted surrealistic painting. But it is the story, the acting (oh, the magnificently ravenous performance by McDowell that certainly must have haunted anyone who saw this on the big screen) and the direction that makes this film an absolute masterpiece. Just like every other Kubrick film, there is no way to capture it with words…you just have to see it. And as soon as you do, come find me—-I’ll want to talk to you about it.

THE COVE
There have been few films in my life that have affected me as much as this one. The Cove is a documentary about the systematic and regular slaughter of dolphins in a small town in Japan. It is, obviously, a traumatic subject, but the drama of the documentary comes from the fact that this dolphin slaughter is not something that is publicly known. It is kept secret, in a secluded cove, away from prying eyes and the documentary covers the journey of a team of activists as they plan and carry out a mission to secretly film the slaughter. Even as the film is building to its climax, as the team gets closer and closer to being able to capture the gruesome activities in the cove, the documentary is eloquent and educational in its approach, documenting Japan’s history in the whaling industry and past history of dolphin slaughter, providing the viewer perspective and background to what they are watching and why. But, of course, it all leads up to one of the most horrifying and stomach-turning scenes ever put on film—-one that needs no explanation or words. Sometimes, reality is stranger—-and harder to comprehend—-than fiction. Even though this was difficult to watch, The Cove has a message that needs to get out and I recommend this film to everyone, and I hope it continues to be the favorite to take home the Oscar for Best Documentary.

SUGAR
First there was Bull Durham, now there’s Sugar. There are two sides to every story. Sugar is about a Dominican baseball prodigy who is coming up in the minor leagues and his fish-out-of-water tale is at once amusing and heartbreaking, but, mostly, it is interesting. If we think it’s hard to go after our dreams in our ordinary lives, imagine throwing in barriers of race, culture, language and distance. Just like The Blind Side is not just a football movie, Sugar isn’t just a baseball movie, but I think I got a lot more out of it because I am a baseball fan. Word is it is very accurate to the Dominican baseball player’s experience coming up through the minor league system, which makes this film all the more fascinating. While it is slow at times and it’s not the most exciting movie in the world, if you like baseball, you can’t help but be interested in Sugar.

Coming up next, waiting patiently next to my Blu-ray player, courtesy of Netflix: The Hurt Locker (have to see it again) and Moon, the movie that I’ve heard so much about featuring what is supposed to be the best performance of Sam Rockwell’s career. So stay tuned….

Here are the 10 movies, released between 2000 and 2009, that, in my opinion, were the best of the decade:

1. WALL-E (2008)

2. Donnie Darko (2001)

3. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

4. In Bruges (2008)

5. Gladiator (2000)

6. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)

7. Memento (2000)

8. Batman Begins (2005)

9. The Hurt Locker (2009)

10. Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

There are the movies I respect for their art, and then there are the ones that are on my shelf (in DVD and Blu-ray), that I like to curl up with on a cold night that I can watch over and over (and have!).

My 10 favorite films of the decade:

1. Almost Famous (2000)

2. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

3. Monsters, Inc. (2001)

4. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

5. Best in Show (2000)

6. 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)

7. Rock Star (2001)

8. About A Boy (2002)

9. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

10. Amelie (2001)

I may not have seen everything yet, but I’ve seen enough. My top 10 of the year:

1. The Hurt Locker

2. District 9

3. A Single Man

4. The Hangover

5. A Serious Man

6. Duplicity

7. (500) Days of Summer

8. The Cove

9. Inglourious Basterds

10. Precious