Oscar nominated movie reviews!

We're in our last push to see the Oscar nominated movies. We only have 2 to go til March 7th, we're only lacking The Blind Side and An Education.

In the last two weeks we saw:

The Hurt Locker
It doesn't have a ton of star power but its still a good film. It follows a unit of elite soldiers that have one of the toughest jobs in Iraq. They are in charge of disarming bombs and it is intense. The three main characters all have different, even clashing personalities when it comes to their personal lives and their professional lives. It is a good insight at the intense sacrifice and stresses our soldiers go through.
My grade: B, it was a good movie but I don't expect it to take home the statue. And I'm glad we saw the movie on video, I don't know if I would have paid full price to see it in the theater.

A Serious Man
Oh a Coen Brother movie. They always seem to snake their way in to the Oscars. Sometimes I have no idea why? When my husband went to rent this movie the Blockbuster employee told him the movie did not get good reviews and she told him that someone had even left a note in the movie when it was returned that it was "the worst movie ever seen". So we definitely did not have high hopes or expectations for the movie but we sat down to watch it anyway. I definitely felt the way I do with most Coen brother movies-good acting, good cinematography, but NO PLOT and this one was no different. But at the end, Ryan and I weren't left feeling like it was the worst movie ever, maybe it was because our expectations were so low. But it was easy to watch and I liked the general story. It follows a Jewish family in the 60's going through divorce, death, family struggles, work struggles and the son going through his coming of age bar mitzvah. During the commentary the Coen brothers did reflect that they got some of the stories from their own youth so that helped make a little more sense.
My grade: B+, but again we could be biased bc we were not expecting anything from this movie. I hope it doesn't win but I would have put it in the top 5 nominations.

Up in the Air
This movie definitely has the star power with George Clooney as the lead actor. Clooney works for a third party company that is in charge of laying people off. He is quite the loner and lives to travel for work until he is partnered up with a young, new, female colleague. The new colleague shows him how its ok to have other people in your life, especially your family. I think this movie was pretty predictable but still hit a chord probably bc of how many people have been on the other side of George Clooney's character in this economy.
My grade: B-, to me the movie is just a run of the mill movie with a predictable plot line and not even a really exciting one at that.