Monday, December 15, 2008

My Awards-Bait Movie Wish List: Films I Want to See Right Now

Around this time of year, I start getting movie lust. As all the awards' bait is released, I begin making lists of films I want to see, knowing that, I likely won't get the chance to see most of them.

Why? Because I don't get to go out as frequently as I'd like to with The Spouse as finding babysitting for three kids is oftentimes tough, particularly in the holiday season, plus it's expensive.

I wind up making lists in my head after the Golden Globe and Oscar award nominations are released and get all psyched about seeing the movies, but by the time they're finally released on DVD months later when it's springtime and I'm in the middle of my kids' crazy spring sports schedules, they feel dated and my excitement has waned.

However while working on a column about Golden Globe nominations last week, I decided that this year will be different. Before the Oscar awards ceremony, I'm hoping to see:



-- Revolutionary Road with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as a disillusioned couple in the 'burbs in the 1950s (seeming very Mad Men-ish if you go by the trailer).
-- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in a fantastical tail involving a man aging backwards.
-- The Reader with Winslet starring as a former Nazi guard who had an affair with a much younger man.
-- Nothing but the Truth with Kate Beckinsale who plays a journalist who's jailed for protecting her sources.
-- Doubt with Meryl Streep coping with a scandal in a Catholic school where her character's a nun and headmistress.
-- Frost/Nixon with Frank Langella, about the famous Nixon TV interviews.

After reading about the films, I've also grown interested in reading the books from which they were adapted such as Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I read The Reader by Bernhard Schlink many years ago after it became an Oprah book club selection. However those books are going to have to take their places behind some of the Mad Men-inspired books I've wanted to peruse, like Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency and The Best of Everything.

Any of the new movies coming out at the end of the year that you really want to see?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just here via Twitter Moms!

I'd like to see The Reader and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button1

Anonymous said...

Great to hear from you Devilish Southern Belle!

Did you read either book, The Reader or Button?