Oscar 2012 movies

The Artist:  Gimmicky and self-conscious. I'd seen a couple silent movies before this one and noticed the focus on expression, the 'mugging for the camera' and it seemed interesting and novel then. Extending that interest to this contrived throwback to the silent movie era was difficult. Uggie was amazing, but knowing that he was being coached throughout every scene from the sidelines detracted from the experience.  Rating 6/10

The Iron Lady:  Not really a flattering portrait of Margaret Thatcher. A union busting war-making Prime Minister. I'm afraid I didn't like the movie as much because I didn't like her. Meryl Streep is good though. Rating 6/10

Moneyball:  Better than expected considering I'm not a baseball or A's fan. Rating 7/10

Midnight in Paris:  Not so great, although Paris looks nice. Rating 5/10

The Descendants:  Wow, I really liked this movie. The acting is good. The story is good. A little laid back Hawaiian culture lesson. Plus a minor plot line about mega riches. One bummer is there are no good looking guys in this picture. Women may swoon over the popular and funny Clooney, but I find he's old and unattractive here. Rating 8/10

Love in a Cold Climate (2001) Rating: 6/10

A PBS 'Masterpiece' mini-series with Rosamund Pike playing one of three female main characters who are of matrimonial age in the years just before WWII in Britain. An interesting period piece with good acting, including Anthony Andrews who played the self-indulgent Sebastian Flyte in the original Brideshead Revisited, but who is very noticeably 20 years older here. For the most part no good looking men here though.

Dirty Girl (2010) Rating: 6/10

A lightweight movie about a somewhat slutty teenage girl who doesn't know who her father is and an overweight closeted gay teenage boy whose father is onto him. They get teamed up on a school assignment and things spiral out of control from there. Script is okay and acting serviceable.

"Selda"/The Inmate (2007) Rating: 7/10

I'm being a little generous here.  This Philippine movie has a reasonably interesting and believable plot about inmates who become intimates.  One of them might even be straight.  It's unclear.  Acting is much much better than any other Tagalog movie that I've seen to date.

Baltimore Museums, overall rating: 7/10

American Visionary Arts Museum (AVAM): Interesting but smallish.  Steep entrance fee IMO (first weekend of the month, having a BofA card is helpful).  Black Icarus is quite nice.  Many mechanical devices in the sculpture building were broken (probably from all the use), but those that did work were fascinating.  A crafts fair had popped up there. Right next to a good view of Inner Harbor from Federal Hill.  Rating: 6/10

Walters: Some nice paintings and fine (well proportioned) greek sculptures.  Bonus: it's free.  Rating: 8/10

Baltimore Museum of Art: More nice paintings than Walters including Impressionists. Matisse's Blue Nude was out on loan, but this place is also free.  Rating: 8/10

Fort McHenry: A museum/historical site about war of 1812 and origins of the Key's Star-Spangled Banner anthem. I'm sorry to say, I didn't get the fever. Despite being on the water, the site isn't picturesque. Getting there and back was easy enough by bus. But I didn't find seeing inside the ramparts worth the time and $7 NPS entrance fee.  Rating: 5/10

Baltimore has a free purple line 'Charm' bus service which goes up and down Charles Street from Inner Harbor all the way up to Penn Station (as well as lines in other directions), and the visitor center at Inner Harbor is spacious and welcoming.

The Adventures of Tintin (2011) rating: 8/10

I would think Spielberg decided to do a Tintin film after quite a lot of research into whether author Hergé was truly an anti-Semite. Or at least an conscious and overt one. Since it appears not to be the case, we get to enjoy a nice movie in a style of a comic book.

Stars of this film are beautifully rendered computer imaginations of Tintin and dog Snowy. I found Snowy particularly adorable while being amazingly dog-like. Tintin is too baby-faced to be handsome, but the character is brave enough and too surprisingly familiar with violence (guns and punching) to be an innocent boy.

Wikipedia says Tintin follows a scouting ethic. Further research.. it seems only 4 countries allow scout promises without reference to 'God': France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Israel. Hergé's Belgium now notably absent from this list.  Well, at least there are four rather than zero.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) rating: 7/10

Complex movie and plot wasn't fully explained I don't think. I was confused by the end. I guess I should have read the book. The online spoiler explained it to me, but by then it was anti-climatic.

I think I would have liked a little more hand-holding and hints in development of the 4-5 suspect characters which might have given away the ending, but at least I would have been more invested in it. I suppose the screenplay might have been constrained in attempting to follow the book and author who is still alive. Too bad.

There is a very very tiny gay interest subplot.

The Avengers (2012) rating: 6/10

The story is about the quality of say a Transformers film which I would say contains 0-1 obvious groaners (groaner: a time where I would say: "I can't believe they put that in the script"), but also close to zero true novelty or interesting plot devices.

A fair amount of eye candy of these forms: explosions, fights, high speed flying/chasing.  But none of the male leads are particularly attractive.