TRH Movie - The Queen

My week off of work was supposed to be punctuated by seeing a lot of movies, but I was felled by a damn cold, and so the only day I did actually make it to the theatre was yesterday when Tara and I went to see The Queen. The last of the Oscar films I'll actually get to go and see before the Awards tomorrow night, I have to say that I enjoyed it very much, and was impressed by the performances, both by Michael Sheen (love him) and Helen Mirren (goes without saying that she'll win).

But on the whole, other than The Departed, I'm really uninspired by this year's crop of Best Picture nominees. I haven't seen Letters from Iwo Jima, but I have now seen the other three, and I still think that Scorsese's picture is the best out of all of them. And two movies I've seen since, The Children of Men and Half Nelson, are better pictures than the other nominees. But I'm not on the voting committee and I don't share the lovefest over Babel, so who knows. I also think that Little Children should have had more nominations, and that Jackie Earle Haley should win in his catagory, even though my vote will probably go to Eddie Murphy.

But it does make me think that with all the money Hollywood spends to make money, I'm surprised that better movies simply don't come out. Or maybe I've just watched the wrong ones lately. We did watch The Prestige yesterday, and it was really good, better than Dreamgirls, better than Flags of Our Fathers, better than (shhh) Babel, and still nothing in the way of recognition.

I'm guessing that my radar is really off the mark in terms of what Hollywood finds to be good and I what I think truly is exceptional. But isn't that always the case?