Is Rachel Getting Oscar Nominations?

I was lucky enough to catch a showing of "Rachel Getting Married" yesterday. It was a good movie. One of the better ones I've seen in awhile. The thing that stood out in the movie was the acting. If Anne Hathaway hadn't been making good movies before then this would be her career making role. As it stands this is likely to be looked upon from movie fans as Oscar winner Jonathan Demme's big comeback movie. Early reviews are great. People are saying it's his best film since "Silence of the Lambs" (though to some credit, he took a four year hiatus from movies to make some concert films). People say that the movie should receive Oscar nominations outing of Hathaway's potential nomination. I say people are jumping the gun a bit. Don't get me wrong: It's a good movie.

In my review I'll give it a solid three and a half stars. Heck, it may even get bumped to four. The bottom line is though that when you get down to it, when you really digest the film, it's about a screwed up character. Movies about screwed up characters took a beating with "American Beauty," and few have been nominated since ("A Beautiful Mind" comes to mind though). That said I see where people are coming from. This is a very good film that was being undermined before we saw it. Now we've seen it and it's impressed us. "Appaloosa" wowed us in the trailers and then gave us a solid rental. In the long run the Academy tends to vote for movies that they didn't expect much out of but genuinely fell in love with. Nobody expected much from "Little Miss Sunshine," "Juno," "Sideways," "In The Bedroom," "The Full Monty," "Babe," "Good Will Hunting," etc, etc...you get the picture.

And yet all these movies received Best Picture nominations. What's more, some of them came close to winning the top prize (and if they didn't they picked up some major awards anyway). So for now "Rachel Getting Married" is on my list for potential nominees. And if "Australia" and/or "The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons" turn out to be epic disasters...well, then I think this film is in.