2010 Oscar Watch

This is the 2nd year of having 10 nominees and I really don't like it.  Yeah, it allows some cool movies to get in that may or may not have been included otherwise.  If the nominees were kept to 5 it would probably be The King's Speech, The Social Network, True Grit, Black Swan and The Fighter.  It's nice that The Kids Are All Right, Inception and Toy Story 3 were able to sneak in here but they have no chance of winning.  They opened up the field to include more films but the category is still always gonna come down to 1 or 2 movies.
You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

Best Picture

10. The Fighter - This is a true life story about a boxer and his family.  Mark Wahlberg stars as a boxer who lives in the shadow of his older brother.  His older brother is addicted to crack.  Wahlberg finds a woman who believes in him and helps him stand up to his mother and become a champion.  It's not a bad movie but it feels so old fashioned.  This movie may work for some but I've seen so many better movies about boxers and boxing that I just couldn't be bothered.

9. Winter's Bone - This small independent drama almost assuredly wouldn't be here if they didn't expand the category.  Jennifer Lawrence stars as a young woman who is raising her siblings in the absence of her father.  The law comes looking for her father, he has a court date and if he doesn't appear the law is going to seize the house.  She has to go looking for him in a world of meth addicts.  This is a side of America that we don't see too often in films and I think that's why it got so much acclaim.  For me, the story dragged.  It's a fine film but not something I would include in this lineup.

8. 127 Hours - James Franco stars in the true life story of Aaron Ralston, a hiker who got his arm stuck under a boulder and was forced to amputate with a dull pocket knife.  The movie is directed by Danny Boyle who keeps the movie interesting even though it mainly takes place in one location.  The problem with this movie is that if you know anything about the movie you probably know how it ends.  As soon as you see James Franco get trapped you know what he's going to eventually have to do so it's almost like torture porn to watch him struggle.  Still, it's inventively made and the actual amputation scene is still thrilling, it just didn't need to be included here.

7. The Kids Are All Right - This is another instance of telling a story that we don't see too often.  This movie is about a married lesbian couple.  They have teenage children and their son wants to know his biological father.  He finds the sperm donor and then their relationship gets complicated.  It shouldn't be refreshing to see stories from other people's perspectives but it is.  Most movies featuring LGBT characters center around homophobia or social issues.  This movie treats every relationship as normal and exactly the same as any other relationship.  The ending of the film posits the theory that marriage is hard, not that gay marriage is hard, just all relationships.

6. Inception - This is the most well made movie where I don't know what the hell is going on.  Leonardo DiCaprio works at a company that goes inside people's dreams to steal secrets.  You're never quite sure what's a dream and what's reality.  Are we in the real world or is our real world the dream world?  I definitely respect the artistry but (and this is just my own personal hangups) I don't like movies with alternate dimensions.  I'm kind of paranoid about that stuff.  I know it's a ridiculous fear but sometimes I wonder if I'm trapped between worlds, it's stupid, I know, but movies like this just feed into my delusions.  I definitely respect the artistry though, I just don't like Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor, so that's another reason the movie doesn't work for me.

5. The Social Network - This is the story of how Facebook was invented and if you thought a movie about the creation of Facebook was going to be thrilling, then I don't know why you would have thought that.  They did everything they could to make this interesting, they got Aaron Sorkin to write, David Fincher to direct and Trent Reznor to score.  The result is a pretty good film, not a great one, but an enjoyable flick.  No matter how you dress up a biopic, it's still a biopic.  Some people really love this movie and think it should have won.  I don't understand why, unless you're a huge Fincher fan and think he's overdue for a win.  This wouldn't be a terrible winner but it was the weakest film of the movies I liked.

4. True Grit - The Coen Brothers remake this classic John Wayne western.  Theirs follows the book more closely and tells the story more realistically rather than through a Hollywood lens.  Jeff Bridges is great as the drunk and grizzled Rooster Cogburn and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld holds the film together with her performance.  For those unfamiliar, a little girl's father is murdered and she hires a drunk, old and out of shape marshal to track down his killers.  If you like westerns and you like the Coen Brothers then this is the perfect film for you.

3. Black Swan - I've seen this movie several times and I'm never quite sure how I feel about it.  It is weird, bizarre, uneasy and off-putting but it's also incredibly engaging.  Natalie Portman stars as a ballet dancer who gets the lead in Swan Lake.  She is perfect for the role of the innocent white swan but she also has to play the more dark and sensual black swan.  Her struggles to find the part start to mess with her mind giving her twisted nightmares.  It's directed by Darren Aronofsky who fills the film with dazzling visuals.  The plot didn't engage me as much as the imagery but I was still engrossed by this film.

2. The King's Speech - I shouldn't like this movie.  I hate almost every other movie like this.  It's based on a true story, it's a costume drama, it's a period piece, it's British.  I got sucked in, mostly due to the incredible performances from Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush and their delightful chemistry between each other.  Firth plays King George VI who has a stammer.  Before he's king he tries to overcome it the only way doctor's knew how to do things back in those days.  He smokes and gargles and does a bunch of stuff that doesn't help.  Then his wife sets him up with a speech therapist played by Rush.  The future king needs to learn some humility so the therapist can work with him and through their relationship he overcomes his stammer and eventually delivers a radio broadcast declaring war on Germany.  It's a wonderful and uplifting film that hooked me completely.

1. Toy Story 3 - This is the satisfying climax (maybe, but probably not) to Pixar's first and probably best feature film.  Woody and the gang are seeing their boy Andy go off to college and they know that they aren't coming with him.  They end up in a daycare run by an evil teddy bear and have to rescue themselves.  This movie had me crying like a little bitch.  The first time I saw it I cried, the second time I saw it I cried, I choke up a little bit thinking about it now.

So, The King's Speech wins which is a decision I agree with.  It was one of my favorite films of the year, mostly because of how surprised I was that I actually liked it, much less loved it.  Looking back on the decision...it does seem a little lame.  The movie is pure Oscar bait and exactly the type of movie I always say the Oscars shouldn't keep honoring.  It's really good Oscar bait though, so it's impossible for me to complain.  This isn't something like Howard's End or Out Of Africa, this is a movie that makes you feel good.  It would definitely have been cooler if something like Inception or Black Swan won, but I just loved this movie so much.  I'm actually voting for Toy Story 3 because my vote doesn't matter at all anyway and that's my favorite film from the nominees.  It's my favorite of the 3 Toy Story films too, but it was going to win in the Best Animated Feature category so there is no way it should win here nor it really could win.  Who's really gonna vote for the same film twice?

Oscar Winner: The King's Speech

My Vote: Toy Story 3

GABBY Winner: The King's Speech

Best Actor

 

5. Javier Bardem - Biutiful - Foreign performances always land in the 5th spot.  I've explained my reasoning many times.  Also, Bardem just won an Oscar for a performance that may go down as one of the best Oscar winning performances ever.  He kind of has to top it to win a 2nd.

4. Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network - Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg and he does a really good Jesse Eisenberg impression while doing so.  This is a performance that a lot of people saw something more to but I saw him doing the same thing he does in every movie it just happened to fit with this character.  He does talk at a rapid fire pace which makes the Aaron Sorkin dialogue pop but other than that there wasn't much special here.  I don't see any difference between his Mark Zuckerberg and his Lex Luthor.

3. James Franco - 127 Hours - It's always impressive when somebody holds a movie together all by themselves and it's usually a surefire way to get an Oscar nomination.  Not a lot of actors can pull of the man stranded alone routine.  Think about Tom Hanks in Cast Away and Matt Damon in The Martian.  So much of this movie relies on wanting to spend an hour and a half alone with James Franco.  He succeeds in keeping the movie alive but I can think of a couple other actors who could have done just as well in this part.

2. Jeff Bridges - True Grit - Starting with his Oscar winning role in Crazy Heart the year before this, Bridges apparently decided that he was never going to shave his beard for another movie and just give in to the fact that he is a grizzled character actor now.  Bridges plays Rooster Cogburn, the drunk, fat and old marshal and he's a pure delight.  He takes the character and tweaks it just enough that you completely forget that John Wayne won an Oscar for the same part in 1969.

1. Colin Firth - The King's Speech - Firth plays King George VI and this is just an incredible performance.  This is one where my mind was made up as soon as I saw the film as to who my winner was going to be.  Firth nails the stammer of his character but he never lets any of his tics get in the way of conveying the character's soul.  Some times when actors play characters with disabilities they tend to let the disability take the forefront.  Firth's George is a man with a stammer, he's not a stammering man.  He also nails the bourgeois of his character.  He's a fragile man but he can't appear weak, because he's king.

My rankings don't really matter because there was never anybody I considered voting for other than Colin Firth.  He completely nails this character, embodies all of his tics and still makes him a real human being.  This also makes up for all the people who say he was robbed last year.  Looking at the category there really isn't any competition.  Bardem is out because I don't vote for foreign films, Franco and Eisenberg give good performances but I really don't like them that much in any other film, so I don't want to give them an Oscar and then Eisenberg makes Batman V. Superman and Franco makes Oz The Great And Powerful.  That leaves just Bridges and Firth and Bridges won last year.

Oscar Winner: Colin Firth

My Vote: Colin Firth

GABBY Winner: Colin Firth

Best Actress

 

5. Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone - This was when we were first introduced to J-Law.  I was never really impressed.  This is a very natural and raw debut performance but my problem with her performances is they all seem the same.  She has a natural  charm in front of the camera but I don't see any real acting skill behind that.  Here she plays a girl hunting for her dad so he will appear in court or they will lose their house.  I have no problem with the nomination but I usually don't vote for people in their first film, it's my Jennifer Hudson rule.  If you were to tell me in 2010 that Jennifer Lawrence would quickly become an Oscar darling, I would not have believed you.

4. Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole - This is a sad and depressing film about a couple dealing with the loss of their son.  Kidman plays the mother and she's very good.  She has a great chemistry with Aaron Eckhart, who plays her husband.  I kinda wish he would have gotten that Best Actor slot taken by Javier Bardem.  No matter how great she is though, I can't bring myself to consider voting for her because they already gave her a win for a movie I hated.  When considering giving someone a second Oscar you have to take a lot of things into account.  Is this performance better than the one she won for?  In this case, yes, but the one she won for was so unwarranted that it needs to be the obvious best in the category and it isn't, so we can move on.

3. Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right - The academy seems to really want to give Annette Bening an Oscar because they keep nominating her for generic performances.  Or maybe they just like screwing her over.  I'm not sure why she was nominated for this because I think Julianne Moore gave the better performance in the film.  Bening and Moore play a lesbian couple with kids who have been married for a long time.  Their son wants to meet his biological father and Moore ends up sleeping with him.  Moore has the more interesting character in the film, all Bening really has is a scene where she cries when she finds out about the affair and a good scene where she tells off the guy.  But since she does continuously deliver good performances and she's never won and she's lost twice to the same actress she warrants consideration every time she's nominated.

2. Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine - I'll be honest, I never in a million years thought that the girl from Dawson's Creek would become one of my favorite film actresses.  I absolutely love Michelle Williams in everything she's done since graduating from the WB network's teen drama.  This is a very interesting film.  It shows a relationship at the beginning and the end at the same time.  It doesn't romanticize it at all either.  We see Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams falling in love and happy and then cut to a scene of them trying to put the spark back in their love life.  The point of the film is just to show that movie romances are a sham.  When you watch a romantic comedy and the young lovers walk into the sunset at the end you never imagine what life will be like for them in 20 years, this movie shows you that there's a difference between fantasy and reality.  Williams is fantastic in the film and she has amazing chemistry with Gosling.

1. Natalie Portman - Black Swan - There was a lot of talk this year about Christian Bale's incredible physical transformation in The Fighter but I was more impressed by Natalie Portman.  Real ballerinas train their whole lives to get into the shape that Portman did in several months.  There was also a lot of talk about how Portman did all of her own dancing and then there was other talk about how body doubles and digital effects were used in most of the shots and then even more talk about how Portman did most of her own dancing and a body double was only used sparingly.  Things like that don't bother me, I know I'm watching a movie so when I see Superman flying through the air I understand it's on a green screen in a studio.  Just focusing on the performance I though that Portman was the perfect person to take us on this journey and she quickly went from an actress who I never understood the appeal of to one of my favorites.

Well, I can't vote for Lawrence since it's her first film and I can't vote for Kidman because she's won before.  I also can't vote for Bening because I liked someone from the same film better.  That leaves Williams and Portman and I want both of these women to get Oscars.  I would be happy if either of them won but I gotta vote for one.  I'm giving the edge to Portman because she almost single handedly carries her film.  Williams relies on her chemistry with Gosling so I'll use that as the reasoning.  So I'm voting for Portman but, damn, I want Michelle Williams to win an Oscar.

Oscar Winner: Natalie Portman

My Vote: Natalie Portman

GABBY Winner: Natalie Portman

Best Supporting Actor

 

5. Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech - The only reason Rush places 5th this year is because he's the only guy who's won before and this category is filled with character actors I really like.  Based on performance, I think he's my favorite.  So often the academy awards performances that are all tics or flashy weight gain and weight loss when I'm more fascinated by a guy creating a character simply by inhabiting them.  Rush plays Lionel Logue, a speech therapist who helps King George VI with his stammer.  He's the most interesting character in the film as he has to hold power of the king even though he knows that he really has no power.  He's also dryly hilarious which gives the movie a fun pace.

4. John Hawkes - Winter's Bone - This was a surprise nomination as most people were expecting either Matt Damon, Armie Hammer or Justin Timberlake to take this spot.  I think the academy made the right decision as here is another guy who isn't flashy at all, he just shows up, does his job and creates a memorable character.  He plays Jennifer Lawrence's uncle who at first tells her not to go putting her nose where it doesn't belong before reluctantly helping her track down his brother.  I'm really glad he got nominated but I can't vote for him mainly because, despite being a working actor for 20 years to this point, this was still his breakout film role.

3. Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right - Ruffalo has a way of bringing a laid back and easy going attitude to every role he plays.  Even when he's playing The Incredible Hulk he seems like he just woke up but is still eager to assist you.  That attitude fits the character he plays here perfectly.  He's a guy who just found out that the sperm he donated years ago to make a quick $50 resulted in children.  He's never had any inclination to start a family, he'd rather drink, smoke and bang chicks all day.  But as soon as he sees the other side he thinks that he may want that instead.  That lackadaisical attitude is precisely what draws Julianne Moore to him.  My favorite moment in the film is when Moore comes to tell him that her wife has found out about them and Ruffalo's reaction is to go for it only to have Moore tell him that there's no way they could have a relationship and what they had wasn't what he thought it was at all.

2. Jeremy Renner - The Town - Oh man, do I hate Boston accents in movies.  They always sound so fake and unnecessary.  The Town is a movie that does it right, the guys who do accents nail them and the guys who can't don't try.  Jon Hamm is in the movie as a guy born in Boston but he doesn't attempt an accent he can't handle he just sounds like Jon Hamm.  That way he doesn't distract from the movie ala Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting.  Renner does the accent but really nails it.  That's not the only reason his performance works by any means.  The Town is about a group of bank robbers.  The feds are on to them and one of them accidentally starts dating a key witness who can identity them.  Renner is the loose cannon of the group.  He's a crazy, unrepentant and hardened criminal but he's their crazy, unrepentant and hardened criminal.  He's the guy you want to have on your side because if you can't control him you'd rather he be working for you.

1. Christian Bale - The Fighter - Bale plays Dicky Eklund, a former boxing champion who now trains his brother.  He's also addicted to crack and spends most of his time drugged out of his mind.  A documentary crew is following him around.  He thinks that they are filming his comeback but in reality they are making a movie designed to warn kids about the dangers of drugs.  Bale completely transforms himself to play a strung out, emaciated, shell of a man.  This is a quality that has become expected from a Bale performance and that's my only issue with it.  When an actor drastically loses weight or goes all method with a performance I find myself focusing on that aspect more than I do the performance itself.  Compare this to John Hawkes, who also plays a drug addict in his film, Bale is full of tics and mannerisms and Hawkes plays his part more sincerely.  Still, it's a fascinating portrayal and amazed me in 2010.

My favorite performance of the bunch was Geoffrey Rush, but he's already won before so that makes this choice easy.  You give this to Christian Bale so we don't have to worry about giving him one later.  I would much rather him win for this than something like The Big Short or American Hustle.  This is a no-lose category though as any of these guys would be a good winner.  Bale definitely has the flashiest performance but Renner, Ruffalo, Hawkes and even a 2nd Oscar for Rush wouldn't look bad historically.

Oscar Winner: Christian Bale

My Vote: Christian Bale

GABBY Winner: Geoffrey Rush

Best Supporting Actress

 

5. Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech - Sometimes they give a nomination to a respected actor who happens to be in the Best Picture winner.  That's the only reason I can figure for why Helena Bonham Carter came along for the ride.  She plays King George VI's supportive wife and there's just not much to this role.  She's perfectly fine in the stand by your man part but she just doesn't do much of anything.

4. Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit - Hailee Steinfeld definitely deserved a nomination for playing young Mattie Ross, the girl who goes along with an old marshal seeking vengeance for the murder of her father in True Grit.  There is no way I can vote for her, for 2 reasons.  1, this is her first film so I have to enact my Jennifer Hudson rule on giving wins to untested talent and 2, this is so clearly a lead role.  They put her in the supporting category just like they did with Tatum O'Neal in 1973 so she could more easily score a nomination.  I absolutely love her in the film but this is category fraud.

3. Amy Adams - The Fighter - I was recently watching SNL and they had a character played by Heidi Gardner named Angel, every boxer's girlfriend from every movie about boxing, ever.  That's a direct parody of Amy Adams in The Fighter.  She's the supportive girlfriend who will threaten to leave but never really will leave.  She doesn't actually do a whole lot in the film other than stand by her man.  Still, I love Amy Adams and don't mind seeing her in the mix even if she doesn't really need to be here.

2. Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom - I wasn't a huge fan of this film, it's an Australian crime drama about a family of gangsters, but I did really like Jacki Weaver's performance.  She plays the mother of this crime family but she plays the character like a very supportive grandmother.  She'll give you hugs and make you eggs but also order a hit on you if you get in her way.  She's easily the best part of the film.

1. Melissa Leo - The Fighter - Leo is the fiery and foul mouthed mother of Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale.  I was not a fan of The Fighter but if there was a reason to watch it, it's because of Bale and Leo.  This is an incredibly lived-in character that I believed every second of.  To contrast her performance to Christian Bale's, Bale sticks out from the movie due to how method he is.  Leo fits in with the world much better and feels like a real human being, even if she is slightly over the top.

This is a weaker category that Best Supporting Actor but it's also a can't lose category.  None of these performances scream "Oscar winner" to me but at the same time I love all of these actresses so I wouldn't be upset if any of them won.  Leo and Weaver deserve to win based on performance the most but my love for Amy Adams makes me want to vote for her.  Even though Steinfeld is young and in the wrong category, I wouldn't be upset if she won.  Even if Helena Bonham Carter won for her nothing of a performance, she's still Helena Bonham Carter and has earned an Oscar through strength of career.  Choosing between Leo and Weaver I'm gonna vote Leo just because she was a little more established, having received an Oscar nomination already.  But pull a name out of a hat and I'll say it was a good idea.

Oscar Winner: Melissa Leo

My Vote: Melissa Leo

GABBY Winner: Ann Guilbert for Please Give

Best Director
I loved The King's Speech but I loved it despite all of its faults.  It's not a very well made movie but it succeeds because of the strength of script and performances.  Director Tom Hooper sometimes seems more interested in filming the sets than he does his actors.  I completely support the Best Picture win but really wish that someone else would have won this category.  You have Darren Aronofsky for the head trippy Black Swan and David Fincher for the stylish biopic The Social Network.  There's also The Coen Brothers who have already won and David O. Russell who really didn't need to be here for The Fighter.  I would have voted for Aronofsky of Fincher who had the better directorial achievements.

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay
It seems weird that The King's Speech is an original screenplay.  The movie feels so literary that you would almost assume it was based on a book or a play.  It was clearly the best choice in the category, followed by The Kids Are All Right.  Aaron Sorkin wins Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network which crams more words per minute into it than any other movie.  It's a toss up between it, True Grit and Toy Story 3 as to which one I would vote for.

Best Animated Feature
There's no reason to even count the votes.  If Toy Story 3 is good enough to get a Best Picture and a Best Screenplay nomination it should be good enough to win this category over How To Train Your Dragon and The Illusionist.

Best Documentary Feature
Inside Job is a fast moving and entertaining documentary about the financial crisis the United States was in at the time but I really wish they would have given this to Exit Through The Gift Shop just so we could see the illusive and anonymous graffiti artist Banksy accept an Oscar.

Best Original Score/Original Song
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross win for scoring The Social Network.  While watching the film I kept feeling that they were trying to hard to make it exciting and one of the reasons for feeling that was the ever present score.  It's good though and there was nothing nominated that I felt deserved it more.  Randy Newman wins an extremely weak Best Song category for the fairly fun song 'We Belong Together' from Toy Story 3.  It's biggest competition was the love song from Tangled.  The forgettable songs from 127 Hours and Country Strong didn't need to show up.

Best Sound Editing/Sound Mixing
No musicals nominated this year so the sound category will go to an action movie and they're usually gonna give it to the movie they liked the best.  Inception wins both categories.

Best Art Direction/Costume Design
The fairly dreadful Tim Burton adaptation of Alice In Wonderland wins two technical Oscars.  These both seemed like categories that The King's Speech was designed to win.

Best Cinematography
Roger Deakins loses another Oscar.  This year for his exemplary work on True Grit.  Instead Inception wins in one of those cases where it's hard to decipher what's good cinematography and what's good visual effects.

Best Makeup
You gotta love the Best Makeup category.  It makes Oscar winners out of some truly terrible movies.  This year The Wolfman joins the ranks of Suicide Sqaud, How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Quest For Fire.

Best Film Editing
The way The Social Network seamlessly turns Armie Hammer into twins does warrant praise but I would have voted for the way Black Swan jumps from fantasy to reality.

Best Visual Effects
No reason why Inception shouldn't have won this category over Alice In Wonderland, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Part 1, Iron Man 2 and, for some reason, Hereafter.

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