The Cinematic Highlights of February 2014

This wasn’t the best films for movie-watching that I’ve had. Due to a surprisingly huge amount of school work and other personal issues, I was only able to watch 14 films in total (10 first-timers, 4 rewatches), I guess I could have watched more films since I also watched the last eight episodes of American Horror Story: Coven, Downton Abbey: Season Four, and five episodes of the new season of House of Cards. For these same reason, I was not able to devote any time to writing my weekly mini-reviews. Even so, I liked most of the films I saw, and even the ones I didn’t like weren’t too bad. So, this time around, I’ll only do a top 5, and the usual shenanigans.

The Decade in Review: The Best and Worst Oscar Winners (Per Category)

Now that we know who came out victorious at the 82nd annual Academy Awards, I thought it was a perfect time to make the list of the best and worst Oscar winners of the decade per category. It wasn’t hard coming up with them since the Academy tends to reward lesss-than-worhty features all time, which makes it easier for the good ones to stick out.

In each category I’ve listed what I think are the best and the worst choices the Academy made, and a reason why they are on the list. I skipped the Documentary and the short categories and I have not seen enough to make a judgement.

Without further ado, here are my pick for the best and worst Oscar winners of the decade.

Short Reviews: Angels & Demons, Orphan

Angels & Demons | Ron Howard, 2009

I liked The DaVinci Code, so I was mildly interested in this one. I finally watched it and I will say that I was entertained. I found the plot to be interesting despite the fact that the screenplay sucked. Ron Howard, although he is not a visually interesting director, is able to make the best out of the crappy screenplay he is working with and manages to make an entertaining and sometimes thrilling movie. I do, however, question some of his casting choices because based on that I was able to know the twist just by looking at the cover of the DVD. Tom Hanks gives a better performance here than in DaVinci.