Ok, only one more Best Picture nominee to go... Juno. I've watched the other 4 and so far haven't been impressed.

In fact, I thought Atonement was a complete bore, There WIll Be Blood pretentious and completely pointless, No Country for Old Men highly over-rated and Michael Clayton was just "OK" but nothing to write home about.

I'm really confused about the last one I just saw, There WIll Be Blood. Here's the biggest question I have after seeing it... What was I supposed to like about it?

The acting was phenomenal, some good cinematography, occasional bits of good score, but the story? The plot? Huge mess. The guys who cut the thing together could also have trimmed at least 45 minutes.

So far I'm wondering how any of these movies were nominated for "Best Picture" - was 2007 a giant April Fool's joke?

I thought No Country was brilliant. The casting and acting was superb, the cinematography was perfect, and the story was very high tension. One of the very few modern-day "westerns" that worked, IMHO.

What did you dislike about it?

The others I haven't seen, but intend to. Have you seen Pan's Labyrinth? If not, add it to your list.

Sorry, Bruno, but I disagree with you on these. I've seen all but Atonement and I've liked them all.

But...

I was talking about No Country and There Will Be Blood with my uncle. We came to the same conclusion: they were both incredible films with great work done in every aspect of their creation. But they aren't movies that we'll watch again.

I greatly appreciated There Will Be Blood, but I can't say I enjoyed it. But that's not the objective of the film and I know that.

Michael Clayton was probably the weakest of the four nominees I saw, but that's only relative to the other superlative films. The acting was fantastic (Tom Wilkinson's monologue at the beginning blew me away), and the direction and cinematography was really good too.

So yeah, I disagree, Bruno. Let us know what you think of Juno. That was my favorite one emotionally, mainly because it was so refreshing in a year of downer movies

The only one of the nominees I've seen was "Juno" and I thought it was brilliant.

I don't expect it to win Best Picture because it's a quirky indie-style seriocomedy, but would certainly cheer if it *did* win.

I suppose there's at least *some* precedent for that kind of thing happening. Anyone remember what Annie Hall was up against?

Uh, the Oscars were like six weeks ago.

Annie Hall won over The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, and The Turning Point. Not exactly super-strong competition.

Shows you how much I pay attention to them.

I totally agree with you that "There Will Be Blood" was a big disappointment. Excellent acting and cinematography can't cover up for the film's many flaws. The plot went absolutely nowhere for the first two hours, which were just a long, meandering buildup for the action in the final 20 minutes, which was entertaining, but nothing special. 158 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Juno, on the other hand, was outstanding. The only thing I didn't like about it was the soundtrack, which actually got in the way of enjoying the film in several places. But the acting, plot, dialogue, etc. were all very well done.

Bingo. You can't just throw together a bunch of segments, regardless of how superbly they're acted or produced, and expect any kind of quality story or movie. It doesn't happen automatically. It appears as if it was a movie created by committee, except each person contributing a piece didn't talk to any other person and they just joined together all the bits and pieces at the end.

The thing as a whole was a giant disjointed and mostly uninteresting heaping pile of crap. For the first 15 minutes I was wondering if there was even going to be any dialog in the movie.

With regards to No Country for Old Men, the movie just didn't come close to the hype. Not even close. I mean, if you've watched Fargo (also by the same writers/directors), this pales in comparison. Yes, it had, compared to There Will Be Blood, a much more cohesive story, but I still felt it was lacking in a big way and just didn't get enough closure at the end. I will probably watch this one again though. I also didn't find it suspenseful at all, nor particularly riveting. In fact I found my mind wandering a couple of times.

When I see a nomination for Best Picture I expect that the movie will be well-rounded with regards to story, production, direction, acting, scoring, etc. Everything about it should be great, not just 2 or 3 of those.

Compared to Atonement, it would have made more sense to have nominated Superbad for Best Picture.