Beasts of the Southern Wild

Tali: Beasts of the Southern Wild tells the story of Hushpuppy, a head-strong young girl who lives in an isolated Gulf Coast community that is fraught with storms, strife and survivalism. Told with brilliant imagery and expressed through complex emotions, BOSW explores the passions of hardships of growing up too fast. There are so many good moments in this film, so many reasons to make you feel proud of strong female characters, of down-and-out communities banding together, and of "sticking it to the man" if you will. Quvenzhané Wallis is brilliant beyond her years and it will be exciting to see how her career goes from here. I don't think she is an Oscar contender, however - though her performance was pretty great (yes she was five when she filmed it), there is a lot to be said about the other characters in the film who bring complicated imperfections to life.  Unfortunately, feminist icon bell hooks has a lot of negative things to say about the film, which is clouding my judgement of it several weeks later.

Leo: I thought Beasts of the Southern Wild was an incredibly different type of film from what we're used to seeing at the oscars and it's only natural that some people don't know how to react. Like Tarantino movies, we are not used to seeing so politically off-beat movies. I personally think it is refreshing to see a movie that pulls no punches for political reasons. People are how they are and this movie at least feels like it is delivering us the unfiltered version of the world from the view of Hushpuppy, the small girl in which this movie is based around. It does not follow the basic plot scheme we are used to, being the rise, climax, then fall of action. It acts as more of a documentary in the sense that it feels as though we are getting a report about the way things are in the Bathtub. Even with this documentary-style narrative, there are so many amazing scenes in this movie, particularly with the dialogue and the acting. I don't know if it's right or not but it made me crave seafood (especially deep fried seafood). I'm hopeful that the movie robs Zero Dark Thirty of best picture because I don't even think the two compare in involvement.