Micro-review x 2

[howeird]

Tonight's entertainment was the last remake of War of the Worlds, which I ejected from the player after about 35 minutes which seemed like 6 hours. Total fail. The script kept the tripods and threw out everything else. Poor cinematography, cheesy special effects, directing so poor that Dakota Fanning comes across as less talented than Tom Cruise. Iffy score, uneven audio, let's not even talk about the dialog. If it wasn't from Netflix, I'd have shredded the disc, though it is not worth wasting landfill space on.

Since I had some extra time, I popped in Slumdog Millionaire. An above-average indie film, but no way did this deserve to be a Best Picture nominee, let alone winner. In fact, I don't think it was Oscar quality in any category except one it did not get nominated for - Makeup. And maybe Anil Kapoor as the smarmy TV host Prem could have been nominated for best supporting actor. Maybe. It was not well written, and I think its screenplay nomination was a sop to the fact that there is no "best story" award. The multiple stories which make up the explanations for how he knew the answers deserved some sort of special award, but not for screenwriting.