Best Picture Noms 2012

It's that time of year again!  Oscar movie-watching frenzy is in full-force.  I haven't seen as many of the nominated pictures this year as last, but I've put a dent in the list.  And yesterday I went to Day 1 of the AMC Best Picture Showcase.  We saw 4 of the Best Picture Noms and next week we'll see 5 (although, I've previously seen 2 of those).  Yesterday was so fun and I absolutely loved 3 of the movies.  I was surprised that there were already so many that I loved as much as I did.  Here's my personal synopsis :

War Horse -- I went into this with little expectations.  I thought it might be okay.  I'm not a History buff - at all - so I wasn't sure I'd be too interested in the story.  I am also not big on animal movies - it's very hard for me to become emotionally attached to an animal in a movie.  I was so wrong though.  It is a great, albeit sad, story and I really loved that horse by the end of the movie.  Really loved this!

Moneyball -- I went in expecting to like this movie and I really, really did!  It's another feel-good sports movie where you can't help but to get excited and into it.  I'm not sure it's your typical Oscar nom, but I really loved this story.  I also loved the song the daughter plays on her guitar in this movie...I found it online..."The Show" by Lenka.  I'm listening to it now and think I'll add it here (I really need to change-up the song on this blog anyway...been far too long!!)

Tree of Life -- this was the low-point of the day.  I heard from more than one person that this was terrible and it was worse than I could have even imagined.  I guess if you're really into computer graphics, you might enjoy it?  Although, I'm not even sure why.  The plot is lacking.  The story is quite simple, I think, but it's laid out in a way that it ends up being confusing.  And towards the beginning there is a 10-20 minute scene that has no acting and is computer graphics showing the Creation story (at least, that's what we decided was going on).  It was weird, weird, weird and didn't really fit in with the rest of the story.  Honestly, I might have liked the movie okay if they hadn't put that scene in there, but by the time it was over I was so annoyed and turned-off, there was no way they were getting me back.  Perhaps the most exciting part of this film is that it was filmed all over Texas and since I was with 3 of my friends who are also Texas-Transplants, we had fun picking out the cities we recognized.  We saw both the Houston and Dallas skylines, but a lot seemed to be filmed in Waco!  We were like "Great.  Just one more weird thing to associate with Waco!"

The Descendants -- another winner!!  I loved this movie!  Again, it's sad, but it was so so so good!!

So there you go!  Three amazing movies in one day...so fun!