Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 2012

The Contenders:

Amour
Django Unchained (winner)
Flight
Moonrise Kingdom
Zero Dark Thirty

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 2012

The Contenders:

Michael Haneke: Amour
Benh Zeitlin: Beasts of the Southern Wild
Ang Lee: Life of Pi (winner)
Steven Spielberg: Lincoln
David O. Russell: Silver Linings Playbook

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2012

The Contenders:

Emmanuelle Riva: Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis: Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts: The Impossible
Jennifer Lawrence: Silver Linings Playbook (winner)
Jessica Chastain: Zero Dark Thirty

Oscar Got It Wrong! Best Picture 2012

The Contenders:

Amour
Argo (winner)
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

No Truer Title

Film: Amour
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

I’m doing this to myself two days in a row. Yesterday, I got all weepy over an animated film for children because it ended in the most bittersweet way I could imagine. Today, I’m weepy for the exact same reason, but Amour is no film for kids. It is, as the title suggests, a film about love—about real, true, and deep love.

I want to be clear on this. Amour is not about movie love, the kind that makes someone do something embarrassing and foolish to win the girl of his dreams or chase someone halfway across the world because of an infatuation. This is about the real thing, the pain, the sacrifice, what it really means to truly love someone and love them more than you love your own life. It’s about the terrible (in its original sense) power that love can hold over us and what love will cause us to do when it is all that matters to us.