Oscar season is one of my favorite times of the year. There’s something about the event that just welcomes debate and opinion. For whatever reason, the Oscars are the only award ceremony that holds any credibility anymore. As much as I will complain about how the Academy is just a bunch of old men who refuse to recognize anything that attempts to be creative and function outside the box, they are able to do so and still remain relevant. The Grammys can’t say that. The Emmys can’t say that. I don’t know that the Tonys ever could. Maybe film is just more timeless. Or maybe what makes a film good hasn’t changed much over the years. I’m not really sure; I just know that although I don’t always agree with who gets the awards, there is an argument there. So with that said let’s start the arguments. Here’s my breakdown of the 83rd Academy Awards…
Best Documentary Feature
Nominations: Exit Through The Gift Shop, Gasland, Inside Job, Restrepo, Waste Land
My Pick: Exit Through The Gift Shop
Who I Think Will Win: Restrepo
I covered a lot of this in my Top 5 Documentaries of 2010 list. But, given another day to think about things, I feel like I gave Restrepo the shaft in that post. It should have appeared on there somewhere, if not in the top 5, at least in the honorable mentions. What makes Restrepo so good is that it is a true documentary. The filmmakers turned on the cameras and presented to the audience what it was like serving in Afghanistan. There is no bias or politics present at all. In a day and age where most documentaries are just propaganda films this was very refreshing. Still, I loved Exit Through The Gift Shop. It might be one of my Top 5 favorite movies all year. So I give my Oscar to Exit, but I think the Academy will be giving theirs to Restrepo, which doesn’t offend me at all.
Best Director
Nominations: Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell, Tom Hooper, David Fincher, Joel and Ethan Coen
My Pick: Joel and Ethan Coen
Who I Think Will Win: David Fincher
This is a tough call for me because I love Fincher. He’s got eight director credits and only one of them is less then above average, Alien 3, which I’m willing to give him a pass on since it was his first movie. I think the man is a genius and I really liked Social Network. Going in, I felt like the plot was out of his wheelhouse, but after watching it that couldn’t have been further from the truth. He did a great job getting the best out of the actor’s performances and kept the movie fast paced and intriguing, when it could have easily become dull. Unfortunately he ran up against another Coen brother gem. True Grit wasn’t one of my favorite movies of the year, but I can’t take away from how wonderfully these two can tell a story. Their subtle use of humor, their deep understanding of character, their amazing control of tone all comes together beautifully. This movie in anyone else’s hands would not have been half as good and because of that I think they deserve the award. As far as the Academy goes, I think they are going to hand it to Fincher. I have a feeling they are going to give The King’s Speech the Best Picture nod and then hand this award to Fincher as a consolation prize.
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominations: Amy Adams, Helena Bonham Carter, Melissa Leo, Hailee Steinfeld, Jacki Weaver
My Pick: Jacki Weaver
Who I Think Will Win: Melissa Leo
This is a loaded category this year. There are lots of great performances, but also a few questions. Question one is, how the hell is Hailee Steinfeld considered a supporting actress? True Grit is about her character. She’s in every scene. It doesn’t make any sense and is kind of unfair to the other nominees, not to mention shorting the young actress of the full credit she deserves. Question two and three are, why is there all this hype about Amy Adams and Melissa Leo? I don’t get it at all. I didn’t feel Amy Adams made any impact on The Fighter at all and put in a very pedestrian performance. I feel like any actress in Hollywood could have jumped into that role and you wouldn’t have noticed. If I was responsible for the nominations I would have left Amy Adams out and put in Mila Kunis. Kunis was great in Black Swan and deserves some recognition for it. I would have also made Hailee Steinfeld a Best Actress nominee and put in Chloe Moretz from Kick-Ass in this category. I think Moretz being left out has a lot to do with timing. This summer her performance was all anybody was talking about, but by the time award season came around it seems that everyone forgot. Melissa Leo, although I wasn’t crazy about her performance, makes a little more sense, but compare her conniving somewhat evil mother to Jacki Weaver’s and there is no contest. Very few people, I’m sure, saw Animal Kingdom, an amazing film out of Australia, so they missed what is by far one of the best and creepiest performances of the year. Jacki Weaver was brilliant In my mind there is no doubt the award should go to Weaver, but all the press and momentum is with Leo, so I think the Academy will hand it to her.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Nominations: Christian Bale, John Hawkes, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Geoffrey Rush.
My Pick: Christian Bale
Who I Think Will Win: Christian Bale
We don’t have to spend a lot of time on this one. Christian Bale was amazing and should get the award. I’ve struggled trying to figure out what everyone else found so amazing about The Fighter, but with this performance I totally agree. I would love to see John Hawkes win, I thought he was great in Winter’s Bone, and I’ve loved him in pretty much everything he’s done, he deserves the recognition, but I just don’t see anyway Bale doesn’t win the prize. The problem I have in this category is Mark Ruffalo. I like the guy and the work he does, but there is no way its award worth. Mark Ruffalo plays Mark Ruffalo in everything he does and there was nothing about this performance that was any different then any other performance he’s put in. Matt Damon should have been nominated instead for his work in True Grit.
Best Actress
Nominations: Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams
My Pick: Natalie Portman
Who I Think Will Win: Natalie Portman
Let’s start with the bad. Annette Bening being nominated is the biggest example of Academy politics in with this year’s awards. Part of me wouldn’t be surprised if she wins in one of those life time achievement moves the Academy is so fond of. There was nothing special about her performance at all. If I was going to pick a performance from The Kids Are All Right to highlight it would have been Julianne Moore. I don’t understand the hype around the movie at all, let alone Bening’s performance in it. That being said, I see this as a two horse race. Both Jennifer Lawrence and Natalie Portman were fantastic in their roles and both are worthy of an award. Because Portman has been around longer and is more familiar with the voters, I give her the edge.
Best Actor
Nominations: Javier Bardem, Jeff Bridges, Jesse Eisenberg, Colin Firth, James Franco
My Pick: James Franco
Who I Think Will Win: Colin Firth
Full discloser, Biutiful is the one major movie I have not seen, so anything I say here does not weigh in Bardem’s performance because I didn’t see it.
This category brings up one of my biggest problems with the Academy awards. They always reward actors who play real people or people with some type of disorder or, like this year, both. I argue that these performances are not as worth as one would think. I think a good actor is someone who can create a character that has depth and is able to hold an audience’s attention. When portraying a person everyone is already familiar with or that has some type of disorder you aren’t creating anything, you’re just mimicking. I am much more impressed with an actor that can take a normal person that a writer created off the page and give them life and make them intriguing. Colin Firth had a crutch he could lean on, a speech impediment. Jesse Eisenberg didn’t have to make up an interesting persona, he just had to watch video of the already interesting Mark Zuckerberg. To me, the hands down winner in this category is James Franco. Yes, I know he was playing a real person, but he did something else that doesn’t seem to get enough credit with the Academy, he kept an audience entertained for an hour and a half with no one else to play off of. The majority of 127 Hours is Franco trapped in a canyon all alone and the movie is not dull for one second. That is a great performance. The only performance I can think of that compares was Tom Hanks in Castaway, another one that was not celebrated by the Academy. So, if you look back on history and figure in how the Academy tends to vote and which way the press momentum is going, Colin Firth is pretty much a shoe-in, but I still have my fingers crossed that Franco can pull it out.
Best Picture
Nominations: Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone
My Pick: 127 Hours
Who I Think Will Win: The King’s Speech
Let’s start with who doesn’t belong in this group. As I mentioned above, The Kids Are All Right is just not an award worth movie. It was entertaining and totally worth seeing, but nothing about it screamed award worthy. I felt that the performances were overrated and there was nothing special about the writing or directing. Also, you may have gathered from my writings about the other categories that I am not big on The Fighter. I didn’t see what everyone loved about it. It was an OK movie that had a few great moments and one great performance but was otherwise flat. In the place of these two movies I would have nominated Animal Kingdom and Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. Animal Kingdom is an Australian film about a young kid who is forced to live with his criminal uncles after his mom dies. It is a great movie that got no press here in the States. If you haven’t seen it, put it in your Netflix queue now. Scott Pilgrim is exactly the type of movie the new ten nomination format was supposed to help promote. It is creative, funny, well written, well acted and totally different then anything the Academy has recognized before. We should be promoting filmmakers like Edgar Wright to make more creative interesting films not the same old thing like The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter and The King’s Speech.
Yes, I know The King’s Speech is everyone’s favorite movie this year and I like it as well, but one can’t deny that there is nothing different about the film. It uses the same old formula and adds in some great acting to make it award worthy. I can’t imagine it not winning Best Picture; it has everything the Academy seems to vote for and a ton of press behind it. My pick is 127 Hours for many of the reasons I’ve already talked about. I am extremely impressed by any movie that can keep me entertained for hours with limited setting and limited cast. One of my all time favorite movies is Lifeboat, a little known Hitchcock film that takes place solely on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. Add themes like the triumph of the human spirit and the overcoming of one’s ego to a great acting performance and wonderful directing and you have a fantastic movie worthy of a Best Picture nod.
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