30 Day Movie Challenge - Day 07

The Oscars were announced this morning. I caught enough of the radio chatter (before hitting snooze) to hear that The Social Network was leading (at the time) with nominations over The King's Speech. Then I get to work and find out that The King's Speech is the clear lead with number of nominations, followed by True Grit. I'm not really surprised. True Grit has a Coen Brothers' pedigree, and is a tiny movie few people have seen, so, naturally, it comes out ahead at Oscar time, regardless of what those other, lesser awards shows think. I haven't seen The Social Network, but I assume the fact that it stars mostly young guys in a modern age dealing with the trials and travails of college and the internet weighed against its being taken seriously by the Academy. Who are apparently all old white dudes who still resent the replacement of the typewriter and the telegraph by the intertubes.

Bah. My predictions right now? Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, and Melissa Leo will win for acting, with only a slight chance of upset by Annette Benning and, possibly, that girl from True Grit. But Firth and Bale are pretty much locks. Given the surprising rise of True Grit and the fact that the Academy likes to regularly blow the Coen Brothers, I could see that as the upset win over The King's Speech. Toy Story 3 is a lock on Best Animated, no surprises there.

Back to meme-ing now, something I know slightly more about.

30 Day Movie Challenge
Day 07 - A movie that makes you happy
This was a no-brainer. I love Wall-E. I would have put it down as my favorite movie of all time, but Sleeping Beauty was there first. I also would never, ever be able to pick out one of three Pixar movies--The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Wall-E--is my favorite without feeling like I was cheating on the other two. The Incredibles is such a smart look at a normal marriage/family issues, all the more startling for being about a family of superheroes. I loved that Mr. Incredible was able to admit his mistakes and change in favor of supporting his family over nursing his midlife crisis. I've hardly seen such a mature resolution to middle-aged malaise in any live action movies. (Most movies about midlife crises feature a slow spiral into doom or a fizzling out into further resentment.)

Finding Nemo was the first time that a Pixar movie actually moved me. Toy Story is a great movie, but it was just fun for me. Finding Nemo was a revelation. It helped that, at the time, I was just getting into diving. But there's a great story there, great performances all around, some message-driven points to be made but nothing obnoxious. I really loved Ellen Degeneres as Dory, more so for her being included in the Marlin-Nemo family without it being a romance. I hate that there has to be a romance in movies all the goddamned time.

Which is going to sound really contradictory when I say that I consider Wall-E to be one of the best romances in film history, and that's pretty much why I love it to death. It never, ever fails to reduce me to a giggly, cooing mess. It's so obvious why both Wall-E and Eve are amazing characters with whom you fall in love and who fall in love with each other. Unlike romantic comedies of the past decade or so, there's lots of there there to each of their characters. And they are so goddamned adorable. Every time--every goddamned time--I watch the movie and get to the end, I'm near unto tears when Wall-E gets hurt, then repaired, and doesn't recognize Eve. Then he does and he's so, so alarmed and excited and pleased that she's holding his hand and AAAAAAHHHHHH I'm squealing at work.

Previous entries:
Day 01
Day 02
Day 03 - 06