So I finally was able to watch one of the Oscar films; 12 Years A Slave. If the film win any Academy Awards it will be mainly because of two singular reasons, of which Sigmund Freud would only nod his head. The two reasons are; Sex & Violence. The cinematography was excellent, and Hans Zimmer did a fine job with the music, but the writing wasn't that great, the performances were genuine, but all it seemed to be most of the time were pure raw emotions like hate, passion, anguish, and desire. The film was very brutal in its portrayal of slavery and left the audience feeling similar to it's protagonist; hopeless, even at the end of the film I felt like "blah." Michael Fassbender played quite the villain; I think that Magneto looks like an angel in comparison to this character. Even Benedict Cumberbatch's character was somewhat villainous, but an excellent performance nonetheless. Chiwetel Ejiofor (the main character Solomon Northup) did well for his character, but I really wish the writers had come up with far superior dialog for him to work with than what was there; didn't seem to do his talent much justice. Lupita Nyong'o (Patsey) has been nominated for an Oscar for her role, which seemed rather small to me, but whatever. She cried a lot, begged a lot, screamed a lot, and was also naked a lot, so she'll probably get the award. Her character didn't really get that much closure at the end of the film. In all, the film has been nominated for 9 Academy awards, and I have a feeling that it might just dominate unfortunately; if it isn't obvious yet, I didn't like the film, nor do I think that I could ever watch it again. There was an epilogue of sorts at the end of the film, and I think based off what happened after the real life story of Solomon Northup would have made for a better film than what they actually adapted from the book. Very depressing, dramatically dark, disturbing, and downright unpleasurable to watch. I wouldn't recommend it, even to see, unless you go for that type of thing. There was all sorts of bad news going on over the past few days and today. It snowed once again; yuck! I hate winter. Then of course President Obama made another "red line" and Putin crossed it and sent troops into Ukraine to "help" the ousted president regain control; big surprise. And now Ukraine is so destabilized that who knows how that will affect the rest of Europe; and who was it that said Russia isn't the US's biggest geopolitical foe? It wasn't Mitt Romney. The current Ukraine situation I could yack about for a while, but that is for another type of blog. It's interesting to note how many countries have been destabilizing over the past couple of years and how that seems likely to be the continuing trend. Regardless, the people of Ukraine are the ones caught in the middle of a power play, and so I think some prayers and positive thoughts would he helpful for them at the moment. Finished the 2nd season of Homeland this evening and I was actually impressed this time with how the season ended this time around; there was actually some good writing that was put into the show finally, and the two main characters suddenly became much more likable. We'll see if they can keep it up for the 3rd season. Academy Awards tomorrow night, unless they get drowned out by rain, which would be oh so funny.12 Years A Slave trailer
Homeland season 3 trailer
