Oscars for Dummies: Your Guide to Viewing 2015’s Most Basic Movies

Oscar season is upon us, and the 2016 Academy Award nominees for Best Picture are:

  • The Big Short
  • Bridge of Spies
  • Brooklyn
  • Mad Max: Fury Road
  • The Martian
  • The Revenant
  • Room
  • Spotlight

The movies I saw in 2015 were:

  • Avengers: Age of Ultron
  • Inside Out
  • The Intern
  • Jurassic World
  • Pitch Perfect 2
  • Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  • Trainwreck

Clearly, I am bourgeoisie trash. I’ve never been the buffest of film buffs, especially not since I discovered the magic of binge watching TV on Netflix, but at least in 2010 I saw three of the Best Picture-nominated films, including the winner (The King’s Speech). If this trend continues, by 2020 I will no longer be taking in any current pop culture. I’ll be spending every Oscar season secluded on my couch, marathoning the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. (Remember when Return of the King won all those awards? Awesome.)

Since I can’t comment on any of the films nominated for Academy Awards, here’s what I have to say about the films I did see this year:

Avengers: Age of Ultron

This was the first movie I saw in 2015—yes, it took me five months into the year to get to a theater. Life is busy, okay? Marvel’s superhero movies tend to be higher-caliber than most and I generally find anything Joss Whedon writes and directs baseline enjoyable, so I predictably really liked the film. It wasn’t as good as The Avengers, but it provided some good lead in for future films in the Marvel universe, so it at least served its purpose of leaving me wanting more.

Should you watch it? Provided you are remotely interested in superhero films, yes.

Jurassic World

Having never seen Jurassic Park, I didn’t really care about seeing Jurassic World, but I went with a friend and we experienced just about every emotion it’s possible to feel during the movie’s two-hour and four-minute run time. Sure, there are lots of issues with some of the film’s basic premises—for example, why would they build a Jurassic World after things at the Jurassic Park went so poorly? How is Bryce Dallas Howard’s character outrunning a velociraptor in that outfit? Still, the film is super entertaining if you can suspend your disbelief, probably due mostly to Chris Pratt, who as usual delivers an insanely fun performance.

Should you watch it? Eh, why not?

Trainwreck

Amy Schumer is a gift to humanity. Trainwreck is, according to Wikipedia, a romantic comedy, but it feels misleading to label it as such, probably because this movie, unlike most romantic comedies, is actually funny. And it’s refreshing to see a woman successfully writing and starring in a comedy, a genre that’s somewhat infamous for its gender inequality. Of course, all of the other performances (Bill Hader as the love interest, Tilda Swinton as the boss, LeBron James as...LeBron James) are great and the jokes hit all the right, albeit raunchy notes. I’m excited to see more from Amy Schumer.

Should you watch it? Only if you enjoy laughter.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Technically, this is an Oscar-nominated film, but it’s nominated for Best Film Editing and Best Sound Editing. In my heart, though, it’s nominated for Best Picture, and, spoiler alert, it won. As a prior Star Wars fan, I went into this film totally prepared to hate it, and I ended up loving it. (So much so that you can read 1,000 more nerdy, spoilery words about it here.) The issue, though, is that now I’ve got Expectations. I am insanely excited for, and therefore set up to be let down for, Episode VIII.

Should you watch it? Absolutely. Even if you haven’t seen the other movies. Though as Marshall Eriksen said, “The only people in the universe who haven’t seen Star Wars are the characters in Star Wars and that’s ‘cause they lived ‘em! They lived the Star Wars!”

The Intern

Want to watch something equally sweet and funny? Kind of like a baffled baby animal in film form? Here’s the movie for you, my friend. Despite only having seen this movie a few months ago, I don’t really remember much about it, except that it was a mix of heartwarming and humorous. The premise of a senior citizen intern program at an online fashion service startup is a little weird, but it’s no goofier than, say, a boss forcing her employee to pretend to be her fiancé, or a freaking hot tub time machine.

Should you watch it? Yes, unless you’re a Hathahater.

Pitch Perfect 2

Blah, I say. Maybe I’m still sick of the first one, which was funny enough at first, but after suffering through one too many Pitch Perfect movie nights in college, the jokes started getting tired. Either way, as with many sequels, this film just isn’t as funny as the first, and the pop culture novelty of acapella as a whole has worn a little thin.

Should you watch it? It depends how bored you are. This movie is “well, there’s nothing else on”-level quality.

Inside Out

Inside Out is the closest film to a Best Picture nominated movie I’ve seen, as it’s nominated for Best Animated Feature. This movie is the latest in a string of critically-acclaimed Pixar movies, and it’s been praised for tackling a such a conceptual subject as a kid’s movie. (Though at this point, I suspect Pixar is realizing its audience is just as much adults as it is children.) While it’s definitely unlike any Pixar movie before it, I think it might have been a bit over-hyped, or perhaps the little emotions running around up in my brain just aren’t as lively as other viewers’, because I didn’t experience the intense feelings that a lot of audiences claimed to while watching. 

Should you watch it? Yeah, but it’s no Toy Story 3.

 

Post originally appeared on Firespring culture blog 02-17-16.