As many of you know based on my relentless oversharing, one of my 101 goals is to watch all of one year’s Academy-Award Best Picture Nominees. I decided to bite the bullet and watch all the 2010 Nominees. This has been a really fun process, and I’m hoping to do the same for the next few years! Now, I’ve ranked my “winners” into two lists, since that’s how we do movie club. For those of you not privy to the joys of Movie Club (but always 100% welcome to join us!!):
Enjoyability rates how much we…well, enjoyed a particular movie. It doesn’t have to have had particular meaning or profoundness, but I think that, inevitably, it will reflect to a certain degree an individual’s tastes… for me, it’s really just how much I liked the movie.
Meaningfulness (obviously) rates how much the movie meant to us. Did it have particular poignancy or relevance? Did it press onto an important issue, debate, or dissonance that tugs at our heartstrings?
Note, a movie can be miserable to watch but full of meaning (I won’t spoil my list below, but let’s just say a particular nominee was extremely critically acclaimed but an almost miserable viewing experience… I had to drink 2 cactus margaritas to ‘wash it down’..). A movie can also be wildly entertaining but totally stupid. I tend to use the example of Ice Age, but I think that’s totally stupid and not really that entertaining. I should find a new example. Ideas?
Without further adiu, here are my lists! Please feel free to reply, debate, enlighten, or e-smack me. These are my choices!
Enjoyability
- District 9
- The Blind Side
- Avatar
- Precious
- Up In the Air
- Up
- Inglourious Basterds
- A Serious Man
- An Education
- The Hurt Locker
Meaningfulness*
- Precious
- The Blind Side
- District 9
- Up In The Air
- The Hurt Locker
- A Serious Man
- Avatar
- Up
- An Education
- Inglourious Basterds
*Please note that my “meaningfulness” choices reflect my personal interests race relations, social psychology, environmentalism, human nature/sin, war, etc. in the order to which I was inspired/enlightened by the films. Also note that I didn’t find any of the movies meaningless, it’s just that some have to be closer to the bottom than others and I just didn’t retain much long-term meaning. On the other hand, I did find some fairly void of enjoyability… enjoyableness… er, joy.