I’m gonna make an effort to post a few words about each film I see through the awards season. Here’s the first.

The first of Clint Eastwood’s dual award contenders this year is the Angelina Jolie starring, Changeling. Jolie plays a rollerskating, phone-operating mother who loses her shit when her son is kidnapped. But things get really intense when a boy other than her son is returned to her a few months later and the corrupt LAPD forces her to pretend it is her son and then throws her in a horrific mental hospital when she goes public with the story. Jolie does a very fine job with the juicy role and I have no problem seeing her nab a nom (though I like last year’s heavily overlooked A Mighty Heart more). Eastwood has got the intense drama thing down, and though it occasionally borders on melodramatic, the superb acting keeps it from going off the deep end. The setting of 1920s LA was fascinating and Eastwood and his prod. designer excelled in its depiction. The drama is at its best when the Jolie character (and the audience) questions her own sanity, though these moments are fleeting. I felt the plot spun out a bit in the third act (like so many prestige pics do) with the courtroom and criminal aspects. I would have been happier if 20 minutes were sliced out of all that – but it wasn’t enough to sway me to the negative. A final word of praise for bad cop Jeffrey Donovan whose performance I especially enjoyed.

Oliver Stone’s W. is an insider look at the rise of our 43rd president. I was a bit worried I would find the story frustrating in a “how did we let this guy into the White House” kinda way. But days of Bush frustration are over and Stone does a good job of not drudging them back up. Instead we get a quite interesting character piece lead very well by Josh Brolin. Plot wise, I liked the device used to jump back and forth between present (well presidency at least) and past and the story is frankly, a fascinating one. The handheld, over saturated camera worked for me as well. This film is not an outright condemnation of Bush like it could have been – it is simply an in depth look at a pretty darn interesting story. Maybe not quite awards material, but worth watching if you find this kind of thing appealing.