PopGap #02 Recap: Oscar Nominees

So concludes our February 2015 project of watching 20 movies we had missed or forgotten from Flickchart's filter of "Academy Award Nominated" movies. 10 of them were brand new to me, and 10 were movies I had seen 20+ years ago (denoted with an *) and couldn't remember well enough to rank. Here's a recap what we thought of them:

My favorites:

• To Kill a Mockingbird* (1962)
• The Maltese Falcon* (1941)
• Fanny and Alexander (1982)

The ones I enjoyed & admired:

• The Third Man* (1949)
• Sunset Blvd.* (1950)
• Anatomy of a Murder* (1959)
• Double Indemnity* (1944)
• The Virgin Spring (1960)
• The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
• Laura (1944)

Just decent or OK:

• Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
• A Streetcar Named Desire* (1951)
• Stagecoach (1939)
• Ace in the Hole (1951)
• The Philadelphia Story* (1940)
• The Battle of Algiers (1966)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood* (1938)

The dregs:

• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• Amélie (2001)
• The Green Mile (1999)

What did I learn this month?

• It turns out I like film noir more than I thought I did.
• Even though by the end of the month I started to get worn out on older movies, I despised the two most recent movies on the list.
• I can't stand smugness in a protagonist.
• I'm allergic to Frank Darabont and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I find almost all their movies insipid.
• Sticking an impromptu 10-day road-trip in the middle of the shortest month made it really hard to complete this list.
• Contrived sentimentality is extremely popular but it makes me angry.

That's it for the former Oscar Nominess that I missed. In the next few days I'll be posting about next month's theme.