We've seen a few films recently which were highly regarded by either critics or the Oscars:

There Will be Blood
No Country for Old Men
Brokeback Mountain.

They all fell into the 'well photographed but rather slow' category.

There Will be Blood started off rather strangely. No dialogue for the first part of the film, with eerie music which reminded me of the 'moon monolith' sequence of 2001. The oil rig fire sequence was visually spectacular. The ending was a bit odd.

No Country for Old Men looked like it would be a more straightforward film, with a more of an actual story. It was well acted, with Tommy Lee Jones settling into a similar role to the one he played in "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada". The ending was somewhat unexpected.

Brokeback Mountain wasn't an easy film to watch. Not really because of the homosexuality, but due to the amount of mumbling which made it difficult to hear what people were saying.