So Gini and I made good progress on our Annual Oscar Hunt this weekend, completing our viewing of all the films in the Best Picture and Best Actor categories. (Alas, I have no interest in seeking out the barely-played Vera Drake or Being Julia, and I'm not sure we have the strength of character to endure the running sobfest that is Maria, Full of Grace.)

But since you folks liked it the last time, here are quickie reviews of all the movies I've seen recently:

Finding Neverland. I wasn't looking forward to this movie because I was expecting another sentimentalized load of Hollywood feel-good claptrap about how Childhood is a Magical Thing – the sort of role that Robin Williams beat to death with a club years ago. (And I like Robin Williams.) Instead, what I got was a surprisingly nuanced script that understands that both childhood and adulthood are tools, needed for different psychological developments, and that being grown up is necessary even if it's not always as fun. I was impressed.

Though I know Jamie Foxx will take the Oscar for Best Actor, I'm actually rooting for Johnny Depp; whereas Jamie became Ray, he never made me feel for Ray. It was an uncanny caricature, but I didn't grasp the heart of Ray Charles from watching Jamie. Whereas Johnny Depp maneuvers his way through a surprisingly subtle role with grace and style, putting emotion and tenderness into an expressionless, reserved character. In other words, I forgot that Jamie Foxx was playing a role but I didn't care about the guy on-screen, whereas I never forgot that it was Johnny Depp but I cared deeply for the guy he was playing. So go, Johnny.

Hotel Rwanda. There was a comic book writer in the late 1980s named Peter B. Gillis, who specialized in the worst and most morbid plot twists you could ever imagine. He first came to my attention writing Strikeforce: Morituri, a series wherein the superheroes got cool powers, but overloaded and melted into horrible flesh-piles within a year of going active. (Thanks to stevietee for reminding me of the name of the series.)

I remember picking up Peter's books because no matter how bad things got, somehow in the next issue he'd top himself with something even worse. And yet it was never a bad thing that came from nowhere… the new horrible plot twist followed logically from everything that had come before, and yet over the course of two years nothing good ever happened.

I thought this might just be Strikeforce, which was inherently given to tragedy… but I followed him to other series, and in every issue the ghastliest thing would occur. I don't know how he did it.

Hotel Rwanda must have been written by this guy. It's like holding your breath for ninety minutes, because it starts out with a guy in a hotel in Africa – he has a nice life, great wife, kids and family – and then there's a revolution and everyone he knows is getting killed. From that point forward, every five minutes something happens where you are absolutely certain everyone he knows will die. You don't know how he'll get out of it and thank God he did and oh Jesus here's another one.

A frighteningly good film, and soberingly real. Put it on the shelf with Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer, Schindler's List, and Requiem for a Dream as "a movie I'm glad I saw since I needed to know what it was like, but that's enough for me thank you."

Ray. Just like "Lord of the Rings" was proof that you can have an Oscar-worthy movie without an Oscar-worthy performance in it, here's proof that you can have an Oscar-worthy performance in a movie that's not Oscar-worthy.

Everything interesting you need to know about Ray is revealed in the trailer. Other than that, the movie is a long, tedious journey of a man who finds success and more success and drugs and more drugs. It's well-directed, but as one wag noted, "two hours into it, it was still only 1965. I began to wonder if it was being filmed in real time."

Million Dollar Baby. Everyone talks about the "surprising plot twist" in this movie, which isn't really surprising at all if you know that it's Oscar-nominated. Once it is an Oscar nominee, you have to look at it and ask, "What does the Academy Awards value about all else?" And the answer is, of course, self-evident.

That said, it's the usual Clint fare; cleanly acted, sparsely-directed, sentiment-free but moving. It made boxing interesting and strategic and yet kept it at a realistic, ring-level view without turning every fight into a Rocky III-style comic-book slugfest. Worth watching, if you don't mind the crushing nihilism that Clint loves directing.

Saved. Surprisingly cute. I'm a total sucker for any film with Disparate People Falling In Love, as long as they don't overplay the "I can't go out with you" card. And the nice thing about Saved! is that everyone is flawed; the heroes are way too mean and vindictive at times, and the "bad" Christians have some very good qualities about them. Nobody's a villain, just some people are less tolerant in areas where it's important to other people. I liked that.

M. Some films are notable for being groundbreaking and still viewable, whereas others are notable for being groundbreaking but they're so awkward in their first steps that they're not worth watching now that others have refined the formula. I give full credit: M pioneered the idea of the "suspense builds while we hunt for the serial killer," but the hunt is impersonal, like a documentary, and the climax is that sort of talky contrived psycho-therapy stuff that never happens anywhere but in bad black-and-white flicks. A classic movie, to be sure – classically bad.

Bend It Like Beckham. There are movies where you can predict the next plot twist merely by asking, "What would be the most awkward thing that could happen next?" And lo and behold, every time I asked that question while watching Bend It Like Beckham, that exact thing happened. It was cute, but suffered an overload of plot twists.

The Station Agent. A note to independent film: "Quirky," "Brooding," and "Funny" are three adjectives that don't mix. You can choose only two and have it work. The critics told me this was a funny and quirky movie, and since it involved a midget I believed them… but actually, it's a brooding quirky movie wherein Damaged People Help Each Other To Feel Normal. That, I didn't need.

Sling Blade. I read the script for this a long time ago, and it was brilliant. Ten minutes of Billy Bob Thornton's grating "Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm" retarded guy performance, and I had to shut off the television before I clawed my eardrums out. Perhaps the most annoying voice transformation in movie history.

The French Connection. Yes, that was a very exciting car chase. And a pretty cool "hunting down the drugs in the car" scene. The rest of the movie is discardable, like the wrapper around a fast-food burger.

Bad Taste. Yes, Peter, you can have a lot of gore in your movie. As much as you want. Alas, this early film is nothing but makeup blood, as opposed to later films like Heavenly Creatures and Dead Alive, which at least made stabs (so to speak) at characterization.

(59 shouts of denial | Tell me I'm full of it)