Artist spoilers I guess? Double spoiler: This article is more important than spoiling the movie.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/arts/2012/02/ … nstein.php

Not too late to vote. 

Was The Help really that good? It struck me as something akin to The Blind Side, filled with White Guilt and a cheesy moral.

I assumed exactly the same thing, which is why The Help was the very last of my screener dvd's that I watched.  I was literally avoiding it. 

Although it follows the exact trope you think it does (courageous white person helps the po' minority folk!) I was surprised by how it managed to do it without the didactic gooeyness we''ve come to expect from that kinda movie.   And it's just exceedingly well acted, by a huge cast of almost entirely women.  There are maybe three male characters of any consequence, and they get about two minutes of screen time apiece.  They haven't made 'em like that since the heyday of George Cukor and Kate Hepburn.

To be fair, it also had personal relevance because the movie is about white families and their black maids in the early sixties in the South... which means it's about MY family.  Wow, was I having flashbacks while watching it.  The only difference is the movie is set in Mississippi and I was born in Nashville, which was a bit more enlightened (although by today's standards not by much).  More importantly, my dad was a civil rights attorney so I wasn't taught the institutionalized racism that was still common at the time.  But it was all around us.   So if you see The Help and think "aww, they're making up stuff to be dramatic" I assure you that nooo they aren't.   

Anyway, mileage may vary but for me I was fascinated and entertained the entire time.  It's a solid movie and absolutely deserving of a Best Picture nomination.

Scorsese already got his "Film History" Oscar... The Departed.

...which got a lot of flack at the time, but man I love the HELL out of The Departed.  I watch it every few months.  SO many things could have gone wrong with it, but it all works for me.  Performances are great all around, pace is good, tension slowly ratchets up, nice surprises that make total sense in retrospect.  It's easily in my top 5 for Scorcese, maybe top 3.

Hugo is not good, on the other hand, but it might win because of the "Film History" aspect coupled with Scorsese.

I mean, I was impressed by it, for what it was - I haven't sat in a theater and watched a feature-length silent movie since film school, I assume most people nowadays have never done it in their entire lives -  so it's great that someone can make that kind of movie and find an audience.  But Best Picture?  Really?  I'm just not feelin' it, even though all the indicators say it's gonna win.

I have yet to see War Horse or Hugo, but have seen the rest of the Best Picture nominees, and I still go with The Help, both as my own vote and my bet on the actual winner. 

That being said, if it's not The Help, then I bet The Artist gets it.  We already have precedent with the Shakespeare In Love surprise upset over Saving Private Ryan - another case of Let's Be Nostalgic About the Rich And Colorful History of Show Business snatching the Oscar out from under Let's Think Seriously For Two Hours About An Important Thing.

Also, can someone make a sequel to Real Steel that involves the theft of a movie and call it Reel Steal?  Sorry for the bad joke.