Oscar Bait vs Art House Charmers

We saw so few movies last year, thanks to Netflix and Tiger baseball, that we're way behind in our Oscar nominee viewing. To help remedy that and give us something to talk about at the party we saw "Last King of Scotland" yesterday.

I have been a Forest Whitaker fan since "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" so I have been pleased at this film's success for his sake but I must say after seeing it it seems like it will be consigned to that honorable if underviewed category known as Oscar bait. You know the kind-seen once, well praised, never watched again and only discussed when playing the Oscar edition of Scene It or Trivial Pursuit. Other notable examples from this heap include "Children of a Lesser God", "The Accidental Tourist" or "The Crying Game".

Whitaker's performance aside there is little to recommend this movie. It's not bad by any means but it has little or no repeatability. The gruesome torture scene (think "A Man Called Horse" goes to Uganda) was brutal but the change in tone, necessary given the story, was to me even harder to watch. There is also the matter of yet another black story with the obligatory white protaganist. I know the character is a composite of several whites who actually helped Amin and that it's based on a British novel that won the Whitbread Prize but when it's just the newest in a long line that doesn't make it go down any easier.

Far better and unfortunately destined for no awards (outside the Hamptons Film Festival at least) was today's selection, "Sweet Land". A tender story of a German mail order bride who came to the Minnesota prairie at the end of World War I as remembered by her grandson, now charged with handling her estate after her death, I can't recommend "Sweet Land" enough. Moviegoers who would like to be charmed should hurry to see it as it seems destined for short engagements. Some might call it the new "Days of Heaven" but it's more soulful and spirited than that Malick classic (during which I fell asleep-a serious loss of movie snob points there), it reminded me more of another unsung 'woman goes to the frontier' movie , "Heartland". I would watch "Sweet Land" again, especially when feeling small or that things might not really turn out okay whereas after toasting Forest Whitaker's likely win, I would never want to watch "Last King of Scotland" again.