Oscars 2012

BEST PICTURE NOMINEES

The Artist

As the era of silent films draws to a close, two actors find their careers and their relationship influenced by the coming of talking pictures.  While popular screen star George Valentin resists the transition to sound, young Peppy Miller embodies a modern age that is leaving Valentin behind.

The Descendants

The complexities of life, death and family relations challenge a man faced with losing his wife.  When Elizabeth King is left comatose following an accident, her husband Matt finds himself thrust into the unfamiliar role of caregiver to their two daughters, while at the same time facing a difficult financial decision that may put him at odds with other family members.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

A young boy who may have Asperger’s syndrome must deal with the loss of his father on September 11.  When eleven-year-old Oskar discovers a key among his father’s possessions, he becomes convinced that finding the lock it opens will help him understand the tragedy of his father’s death.

The Help

In the racially charged climate of Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963, a young white Southerner convinces a group of African-American maids to relate their experiences working in white households.  The stories they share reflect the devastating social inequality governing every aspect of life in Jackson, and place the women at risk of reprisals from their employers.

Hugo

Hugo Cabret is a young Parisian orphan who lives hidden away in the vast Gare Montparnasse train station.  When he is not eluding the station’s watchful inspector, secretly keeping its many clocks running, or tinkering with a mechanical figure that belonged to his father, Hugo observes the lives of the people who work in the station…including an irascible toy shop owner named Georges Méliès.

Midnight In Paris

On a trip to Paris with his fiancée, a screenwriter is filled with nostalgia for the Paris of the 1920s, when artists and writers flocked to the City of Light in a celebrated period of creativity.  For Gil, the romance of that bygone era exerts a pull that places him increasingly at odds with his impatient, unimaginative future wife.

Moneyball

Following a devastating loss to the New York Yankees in the 2001 playoffs, Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane and his assistant, Peter Brand, devise a statistics-based formula for choosing potential players.  Uncertain of his chances of success and following a plan that flouts conventional baseball wisdom, Beane sets out to rebuild his team.

The Tree Of Life

A middle-aged man’s contemplation of the pattern and meaning of his life is interwoven with moments from his childhood in a small Texas town.  As Jack O’Brien and his two younger brothers grow up, they are shaped by both the nurturing love of their mother and their demanding father’s strict discipline and unyielding expectations.

War Horse

The horrors of war are seen through the eyes of a valiant horse whose young owner must relinquish him to the army at the start of World War I.  Separated from the farmer’s son who has raised and trained him, Joey enters the war as a cavalry horse and is soon plunged into the nightmarish heart of the conflict.