I first saw this movie about six weeks ago, but am re-watching it on opening day January 20^th.  Movie producers and directors take a big chance debuting their allegedly Oscar-worthy movies so late in the game.  Under the rules of the Academy, movies qualify for the year (2011) if they open by December 31^st in New York and Los Angeles; this movie qualifies for 2011 under that rule, but it opened nationwide on January 20, 2012.

Such a practice is risky in my opinion because most of the competitive movies have already played to bigger audiences and Academy members thus establishing a head start on the voting game.  And it is a huge PR game to compete for awards and they all claim victory even for the most insignificant accolade, but the big prize is an Academy Award. However, a Golden Globe, SAG,  Directors Guild, and even the Grand Prize of Best Picture as annually awarded by the great and powerful Houston Film Critics Society will do until the Oscars are awarded.  Just ask the producers of “The Descendants” and “The Artist.”

The strategy for “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” to open extremely late is an incredibly bad idea.  This movie is not good enough to make the cut and now it will be lost in the vast array of other memorable and worthy films.  My award of “Second Rate” is hereby presented to Director Stephen “Billy Elliot” Daldry in spite of the backdrop of 9/11 starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.  Neither of them has much screen time.  The story is touchingly presented primarily from the perspective of an eleven year old boy who lost his father at the World Trade Center tragedy.

The movie is an insightful look into the pain and suffering resulting from the loss of a loved one.  Grief is hard.  But the boy was whiny and more of a twerp than a loveable and sympathetic little kid learning to grieve the death of his beloved father.  Daldry comes close to making this a film of empathy, but he misses the mark with characters who are not interesting and lack an invitation of understanding.   The story gets stuck in mediocrity early and never recovers.

The little boy is a character (Oskar Schell) from Jonathan Foer’s novel and is played by Thomas Horn who first gained fame by being a big winner on the TV show “Jeopardy.”  Who wouldn’t pick a “Jeopardy” winner to play this character?  I understand the lure, Mr. Daldry, but you were mistaken.   Bullock and Hanks are brilliant in their relatively small parts and Viola Davis and Max von Sydow are excellent in their supporting roles, too.  But I did not like this movie; that’s a shame.  Rock ‘n Roll.

Grade 76.  Larry H.