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Recently on Facebook I was complaining about my dislike for Winter’s Bone and the topic came up of what I think a movie needs to be “Best Picture” material. This whole thing is nothing more than opinion and people are entitled to like whatever they want to like, but when I dislike things, I have a tendency to do so pretty strongly. For a quick overview that you may be able to draw your own conclusion from here are the past ten years Best Picture winners with what I would’ve chosen if it were solely up to me in parenthesis:

2009: The Hurt Locker (Inglourious Basterds)

2008: Slumdog Millionaire (Same)

2007: No Country For Old Men (Same)

2006: The Departed (Same)

2005: Crash (Same)

2004: Million Dollar Baby (Finding Neverland)

2003: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Same)

2002: Chicago (Same)

2001: A Beautiful Mind (Moulin Rouge)

2000: Gladiator (Same)

So the majority of the time (70%) I actually do agree with the way the Academy swings in the end. The problem is where we agree in what should be nominated. Until recently when they bumped the nominations up to 10, I rarely had any issue with the Top 5. Over a ten year period the only movies I didn’t think should have been nominated were Master and Commander, Sideways, and Michael Clayton, then I thought none of the Lord of the Rings movies should have been nominated until the trilogy was completed since they’re all essentially one fantastic film.

In the past two years that they’ve had 10 nominees, there are already 7 movies I don’t think are Best Picture material at all (Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Kids Are All Right, Winter’s Bone and, some may crucify me but: The Hurt Locker). A few here and there absolutely deserve acting nominations, but “Best Picture” nominations for these just seems silly to me which leads back to the original question: What’s my problem?/What do I look for?

For me, a Best Picture nominee needs to have qualifications in the majority of other categories, but noticeably Directing (obviously), Acting, Cinematography, and Screenplay. Sound/Music/Design/Editing are all welcome bonuses. So with that in mind, here are my thoughts on the 2010 nominees in order of favorite to least favorite, spoiler free.

1.       The King’s Speech: Colin Firth’s performance is a lock-in for Best Actor. Geoffrey Rush gave a performance that’s very steadily in competition with the year’s other best supporting performances, and even if it’s not a particularly stand-out role, nothing bad can be said about Helena Bonham Carter either. Obviously the director is doing his job. The screenplay is absolutely brilliant as they find a way to turn a movie about voice lessons for a speech impediment absolutely fascinating, and to top everything off the story is especially uplifting as the troubled title character must overcome his weakness to rule a nation during one of the planet’s most difficult political eras.

2.       The Social Network: “Muh muh muh Facebook stupid”. If this is the reason you’re brushing this movie off, then go watch it again and try to take note of how minimal of a role Facebook itself plays. This is a movie about jealousy and genius in much the same vein as 1984’s incredible Amadeus. Yes it takes place in modern times, but the pacing makes for a 3 hour movie squeezed into 2 hours with flawless dialogue spoken at break-neck speeds by one of the most perfectly combined young casts in the history of film. Most people’s issue with the film seems to be that they don’t think it has legs on it due to how current the alleged topic is, but again the topic you’re talking about plays second fiddle to the same topics that made a movie that takes place in 1700’s just as relevant to today’s audience as it was to its audience in 1984. Mark my words, The Social Network will be just as good in 2030 as it is today.

3.       True Grit: The Coen Brother’s are amazing. The Big Lebowski, Fargo, No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading… all of them could probably crack my top 300 movies of all time. True Grit has revived westerns through outstanding performances (two nominations, and I happily would’ve made Matt Damon a third for best supporting), gorgeous cinematography, and witty dialogue to keep what could just as easily have been a horribly boring story fascinating (young girl searches for something on her family’s behalf – see Winter’s Bone for an example of what not to do with this plot).

4.       Inception: Chris Nolan should have gotten a Best Director nomination. I’m not even one of the people that lost their heads when The Dark Knight got shafted in the 2008 awards (it’s a comic book movie and is going to get shafted for decades until it proves itself the way animation finally has). Inception proved 100% original content can become a blockbuster and still be mind-blowing enough to cause arguments for weeks after viewing. The man took a concept from the ground up, from writing to directing, and the final result was presumably exactly what he had always hoped and even if it wasn’t, who thinks they could’ve done it better? I’m not going to complain about any of the actors getting ignored since this is one of the few movies in history where the story and concept were SO great that it still completely eclipsed the best performances anyone could’ve expected from the characters. I honestly have trouble wrapping my head around the amount of talent that it would take to make this movie. The only thing keeping it from ranking higher is that the story does overshadow the actors, and acting is one of the biggest components I expect out of the Best Picture winner.

5.       The Fighter: Okay, so Mark Wahlberg is only a good actor when he’s playing himself in different occupations, but good is still good and Christian Bale’s performance pretty much guaranteed a vicegrip on Best Supporting Actor.  Amy Adams and Melissa Leo were great enough to earn two well deserved Best Supporting Actress nominations. To top it all off, we’ve got three simultaneously uplifting stories about rising from mediocrity as Wahlberg’s character fights for his town’s reputation, Bale battles crack addiction, and Adams lifts an otherwise helpless Wahlberg to be the best he can be. Whether he wins or loses the big fight at the end is irrelevant to everything else the story accomplishes, but makes for a beautiful climax either way it swings.

6.       Toy Story 3: This one is a little harder to defend because I feel like it’s cheating my emotions a bit since the previous 3 hours of this series have made me incredibly tied to these characters that bleed all the way into my childhood (I was 8 when the original Toy Story came out, then 14, then 23). Pixar has always had striking animation on a level that makes me support it for just about every technical award that exists (cinematography, sound editing/mixing, editing, visual effects), but the one place I will concede a little more easily is that it wouldn’t be fair to put digital characters against flesh and blood in an acting category. Then again, being  a bit of an animationphile (not a word), I’d take the side of the animators as acting THROUGH the images to the point I don’t take any points off in the acting category either. The biggest argument against this getting nominated is that the story has been the same in all three movies (Toys get separated from Andy), but since the Best Animated category didn’t exist when the first two were released, I’m 100% fine with Toy Story 3 getting a nomination on behalf of the entire trilogy the same way I was fine with Return of the King repping the entire Lord of the Rings. If there were only 5 nominees, the fact that it’s a sequel is the only thing that would prevent me from putting this over The Fighter.

7.       127 Hours: Danny Boyle won me over with 28 Days Later and finally got his due with the equally great Slumdog Millionaire in 2009. James Franco gave one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in the one-man show of 127 Hours and the only thing that’s keeping him from the Best Actor win is that Colin Firth has almost 20 years on him which means the Academy probably thinks Franco has plenty of time left (see just about any DiCaprio nomination for other examples of young actors getting jumped over in favor of older talent). To top of a flawless performance, the story is one of the more uplifting of all nominees as it expresses the lengths people will go for survival that leaves you with a great appreciation for being alive. The way the screenplay turns a story about a man trapped under a rock for 127 hours into an edge-of-your-seat drama that never lets up is equally as remarkable to all the other components.

8.       Black Swan: Darren Aronofsky isn’t my favorite director. I really enjoy The Wrestler as a great performance piece for Mickey Rourke, but Aronofsky is a downer and I don’t enjoy movies that leave me depressed. I also think he has a tendency to get a little too artsy for anyone’s good (see: The Fountain) and loves his own ideas a little too much to make a purely entertaining movie that just happens to use his talent to maximize all the best elements (acting, editing, cinematography) and leave the self-masturbatory art side at the door. Then to top it off, Black Swan takes a shock-gore stance to keep you on the edge of your seat for no reason other than that cuticle torture is f*cking disgusting. Was I terrified during the entire movie? Yes, but for all the wrong reasons. Uwe Boll could keep me on the edge of my seat too if he made a movie where a character occasionally cracks a nail down to the skin. I’m not awarding points for that or admitting that a director “controlled my emotions” when such cheap tactics are used. Natalie Portman gives an amazing performance that she WILL win Best Actress for and the story of a dedicated artist going insane for the love of her art is a story I knew the Academy could get off to, but aside from that and occasionally beautiful cinematography this movie and Darren Aronofsy can go f*ck themselves.

9.       The Kids Are All Right: Here’s an example of a movie that’s just on here because the Academy needed an ultra low-budget indie Dramady to round out their top ten. Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo would all be welcomed acting nominees, but that’s it. It’s super-indie-ness rules it out of any technical award categories, and the story didn’t accomplish anything as all the characters actually REGRESS as the story continues. (Spoilers follow) Basically the moral of the story is 1) All lesbians are actually bi-sexual at best and 2) Nothing good will come of meeting your donor if you were born with any kind of artificial insemination/surrogacy.

10.   Winter’s Bone: Here’s the one that started this whole discussion because I absolutely cannot fathom why this got nominated for Best Picture when the ONLY stand-out factor of the entire film is that the young lead actress gives a pretty good performance that still isn’t good enough to actually WIN Best Actress. The plot involves a girl looking for her father’s body to prove he’s dead so that her family doesn’t lose their house. This is accomplished through 95 minutes of dreadfully boring dialogue and approximately 19 five-minute scenes that each contain about one sentence of plot-relevant information. The argument that was used in the movies defense was that it was a snapshot of reality and while that can be used to justify any number of undeserving past nominees, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we stretch reality just a smidge by AT LEAST having interesting dialogue. For example, The King’s Speech, The Fighter, 127 Hours and The Social Network are all based on actual true stories and stretched to lengths to be entertaining. Winter’s Bone is based on something that could probably happen but may or may not happen exactly the way it’s told on screen and it’s STILL mind-numbingly boring. I’d take a completely absurd, unrealistic story over that any day.

The Walking Dead

My cable that comes with the apartment is fuzzy and unwatchable so I have to resort to Amazon On Demand if I want to watch a show weekly. Last night, Laura and I finally got to watch The Walking Dead pilot. I know it’s been about 5 or 6 months since the last time this blog was updated, but last night I saw something that I love so much there was no possible way to contain it to a one minute video review and have it be entertaining since I’m at a lost for jokes and overflowing with praise for this particular topic. Plus, if anyone else watched this I’d like to actually have a conversation about it, and that’s not going to happen on YouTube.

Halloween night, a new show debuted on AMC called The Walking Dead. The show is based on a comic book that I’ve never read despite being a pretty big comic book geek up to my college days (when I read every single tie-in issue of Marvel’s enormous and brilliant 80+ issue Civil War series). The series is produced by Frank Darabont, the director of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, which both fall on my Top 100 films of all time list somewhere towards the front end. This was promising news. The fact that it was going to be on AMC, a basic cable channel was considerably less promising.

Zombie movies are Rated R. This is just a rule. From serious takes like Dawn of the Dead or Day of the Dead to comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland to non-zombie-zombie-esque takes like 28 Days Later, these movies are violent, gory and scary. The main antagonists are ex-humans with rotting flesh that can only be killed by removing the head or destroying the brain by any means necessary. The idea of trying to capture the zombie feel on cable TV just didn’t seem possible with censors and tight-assed fundamentalists poised to complain, and I was scared this was going to be a waste of all the talent involved.

Fortunately, my fears were unnecessary. Maybe there are some broadcasting laws I don’t know about or maybe there’s some loophole that allows you to kill a zombie however you want to under the guise that they’re not human, but this was by FAR the goriest TV show I’ve ever watched. Literally, a PG-13 movie could not have gotten away with this level of violence. I don’t want to spoil too much of the show, but lets just say within the first ten minutes, a little girl zombie gets shot right between the eyes – blood splatter and all. And she isn’t the last kill like that. Granted, we watched the show from Amazon On Demand and I guess it’s possible that the versions AMC is releasing to iTunes and Amazon are pumped-up, unrated versions, but the file still said it was TV-14, so I don’t think that’s the case. (Can anyone that watched it live verify how violent the one that aired was?)

Frank Darabont is a goddamn genius, so I don’t know why I ever doubted him, but The Walking Dead’s hour long pilot episode alone might literally be the best zombie movie I’ve ever seen. There’s little in the way of comic relief, and the tone is terrifying. The production value is absolutely gorgeous to the extent that I can’t believe this is a TV show or at the VERY least that it isn’t an HBO/Showtime show. The show also doesn’t hold back even a little bit. It knows the zombie rules. This isn’t a modernized zombie for ADD America (ala Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake), this is a terrifyingly real take on Romero’s original creations from the REAL Dawn of the Dead. The kind of zombies where the situation the characters have found themselves in is felt on an emotional level that few other horror genres are capable of achieving. These are characters that have lost things on a level outweighed by the worst of wars, and yet the threat still looms that they could lose even more.

The actors all fit their roles perfectly. Some of the cast members find the show guilty of model casting similar to the pit that Lost and 24 fall into where EVERY cast member looks like they’d be well practiced in walking down a catwalk, but the world they’re surrounded by is such a sharp contrast and their performances are excellent enough that it still works. I’m crossing my fingers they’ll introduce more characters as series goes on that fit the casting model used in The Office where the best kind of characters are the kinds that look like people you deal with every day, but as long as the acting is solid this is a fairly empty complaint.

The last time a TV pilot grabbed me this hard was back in 2004 when I saw Lost for the first time. To say I’m excited about where this could go is an understatement. My only hope is that buying the episodes on Amazon On Demand counts towards the views/ratings somehow so I feel like I’m doing my part to keep it on the air. Based on the first episode, this show is going to be incredible. Cross your fingers the other directors will be able to match up to what Darabont did with the pilot.

Everything Is Illuminated (2005)

Basic plot: A young American man goes to Ukraine to uncover the story of his Jewish heritage.

After an abnormally long absence, movie trade-offs with my good friend Lauren have finally returned. This go-round I made her watch Away We Go, my favorite film of 2009. In return, I had to watch 2005’s Everything Is Illuminated, an independent dramady starring Elijah Wood and directed by Liev Schreiber. Everything Is Illuminated had caught my eye before on Blockbuster shelves and Netflix recommendations alike for the last five years, but I never bothered to give it a chance of my own accord so this was a welcome selection.

When the movie kicked off, I was a little concerned about what I had gotten myself into as the the first five to ten minute are mostly silent as they try to wordlessly tell a quirky story about a kid who collects things. The set-up didn’t make sense to me at the time, but it would go on to weave into the story quite nicely as the boys collection hobby pushes towards his journey to Ukraine as an adult. My fears were quickly silenced by the NEXT ten minutes that revolved around introducing us to an amusing Ukrainian family that quickly had me laughing out loud at their various absurdities. First there was the dance-enthusiast Alex that would become the Collector’s broken-English speaking translator with a curiosity for American culture and love for LL Cool J’s Kangol clothing style. Next is his grandfather, the Anti-Semitic old man that wears sunglasses because he believes he is blind even though he serves as the tour’s driver. Finishing off the circle-quirk is the grandfather’s “seeing eye bitch” – a mutt with violent tendencies that the grandfather believes to be his seeing eye dog.

With the compilation of weird-but-not-too-weird-to-be-serious-sometimes characters complete, the story follows the three men as they tour Ukraine searching for Trachimbrod, a township that was leveled by Nazis during World War 2. This proves more difficult than one might think considering the entire country seems to have forgotten it ever existed which allows for a variety of funny encounters before the film slowly becomes a serious drama about the Holocaust.The story takes one turn at the end that I didn’t like, but aside from that it handled the sudden shift from comedy to drama quite well even if it is a bit jarring at first. All of the actors were excellent in their various roles with Eugene Hutz constantly stealing scenes as Alex.

The cinematography of the film is borderline awesome, and I was incredibly impressed that the guy who played Sabretooth in the Wolverine movie was capable of directing and writing something like this. A couple plot points required me to check the Wikipedia/IMDB afterwards to make sure I understood them later, but overall it flows pretty nicely. I would totally grab it out of a bargain bin to add to the collection.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

Basic plot: A shapeshifter (not to be confused with werewolf) falls in love with a girl who is in love with a super-human (not to be confused with vampire) that happens to drink blood.

Laura LOVES the Twilight books just like every other girl in America. Since I have never and will never read them, I can’t fault her or anyone else for their love of the books, but thankfully Laura isn’t a fan of the movies. Sadly, this can’t be said for the rest of the female population, and while Laura was merciful enough to wait for the DVD, every other girl in the country helped make New Moon the seventh highest grossing movie of 2009.

This review isn’t going to be quite as angry as my review of Twilight since it’s been over year and I’ve mostly gotten over the fact that the series has no idea what vampires are. (Glowing “vampires” is still one of the worst things that ever happened to classic mythology and if you want to read more about my thoughts on that, you can check the original review) This one really may not even qualify as a review by the time I’m done because there really isn’t anything to review. Just a rant.

I like werewolf movies, but I really don’t care as much about them to be horribly upset by breaking the rules. These aren’t werewolves at all; they’re just shapeshifters, but so long as they don’t turn into orchids under the moonlight, I’ll let you get away with calling them werewolves all you want.

New Moon is a thousand times better than Twilight, yet it’s STILL a bad movie. It doesn’t get to carry the torch as one of the worst movies of all time the way Twilight will, but it’s still absolutely nothing worth watching to anyone that isn’t a fan of the books.

I’ve had a number of discussions with girls about this series, and one of the main points that’s always bothered me is the excuse that it was just meant to be a physical form of what every girl has been reading the past five years. In that sense, I suppose it succeeds, but if that’s all that’s expected, it’s basically become the McDonald’s of film. It’s capitalism at it’s best – quality is out the window and you only have to put the bare minimum into feeding people’s demand.

The difference is that most people that eat at McDonald’s aren’t super proud about it. If you make a movie based on the book, and it’s so nonsensical that the ONLY people that like it are the people that already loved the books, you have failed at film-making.

Within it’s two hour time limit, the first film failed to give one single reason why the two lead characters cared about each other at all. Not one. It just announces that they’re “irrevocably in love” and you’re just supposed to believe it. The first film tries to carry the weight of the ENTIRE movie on this non-existent relationship, and Twilight’s success is an illogical phenomenon for surviving this.

From what I understand, it’s much better explained in the books so the book readers can watch it with knowledge most other people can’t. The thing that bothers me is that it is NOT impossible to sell a believable relationship in two hours and the Twilight series miserably fails on every imaginable level with it’s ONE story arc (a love story).

Two hours is ample time to do just about anything. Hundreds of respectable movies originate as books from Jurassic Park to The Notebook. It’s not THAT difficult to at least give someone that’s never touched the book an idea of why the book was such a huge hit. Twilight doesn’t even try to. It puts the characters on the screen and makes them do things for two hours that nobody but the people that have read the book is going to get or care about.

New Moon at least showed Bella and Jacob interacting in a way that it would kind of make sense if they liked each other, yet the resolution still has her going back to Edward for who-the-fuck-knows-why. The best “reason” is stated to be that they’re still madly in love even though after a total of four hours the viewer has never been given one single reason why.

As films, these movies are destined to be awful by default of being rooted in a horrible set-up.  Let’s say I’m trying to build a chair, but for the first two hours I just dick around with my saw instead of making any legs. If immediately jump from dicking around with my saw to building the seat without ever even worrying about the legs, it’s going to be a shitty chair. Even if the seat is the best, most comfortable seat in the world, it doesn’t have any leg’s so what’s the point?

That’s what New Moon is. Except instead of being the best, most comfortable seat in the world, it’s just sanded piece of plywood with a pillow on top. It’s better than the absolute nothing that came from wobbling your saw around, but it still sucks.

The special effects and cinematography are actually almost good this time around. The story is still a series of uninteresting events, but at least characters interact with each other and there seems to be some semblance of a goal. Since I’ve spent the past 800 words on a diatribe mostly bitching about the original Twilight (yet again), here are the top five things that bothered me this go-round:

1) Robert Pattinson is one of the worst actors of this new generation. He barely talked in the first one so we mostly got to watch him be a bad actor with his stupid staring, but this time around they decided to grace us with a few painful speeches. If you’re not going to explain to the audience why one character loves another character the least you could do is make it sound as if the characters themselves actually know.

2) Bella is the dumbest goddamn character ever written. Seriously. Nothing she does, says or thinks makes ANY sense. I don’t HATE Kristen Stewart just because I thought she was decent in Into the Wild and Adventureland, but I certainly don’t understand why anyone with a brain would want to play this awful, horrible character. Bella whines and cries and has absolutely NO redeeming qualities except that Edward can’t read her mind. Basically Edward has been shafted with the absolute bottom of the girl-barrel because he’s a mind reader. Learn to control your goddamn power, buddy. You’ve had 100 years to practice. Bella’s complete awfulness makes Jacob’s infatuation even more retarded, but at least they talk like they’re friends when Bella isn’t being a total bitch.

3) Jacob’s abs. I get that this was in there for the ladies, but are you f*cking kidding me? This kid is like sixteen years old and has a 9-pack. The guy doesn’t even turn into an actual werewolf that’s half-man, half-wolf so that it makes sense for him to be ripped. He turns into a wolf the size of a bus. Last time I checked, Balto doesn’t do curl-ups, so I’m not sure where Captain Crunch gets off. It’s also mildly disturbing how many grown women wanna jump this guy. The dude was like 16 when this was filmed you damn perverts.

4) Slow-mo. Slow motion is great when used properly like for watching Spartans murder four thousand Persians or bending the Matrix or taking twelve arrows to the chest while defending hobbits (okay, even then it gets silly). Slow-mo used to watch the emo-goth blonde vampire freak out over a paper cut or watch Bella run through a forest while sparkling is not cool. The first shot of Edward is probably one of the worst things I’ve ever witnessed.

5) Sparkling. This movie actually had way more of it than the first one did and it was stupid every single time. It didn’t grate my nerves nearly as bad since I was expecting it, but it’s a tragedy I’ll never forgive Stephanie Meyer for inventing.

Slightly improved special effects and cinematography can’t save a crap movie series. I’m sticking with the chair metaphor.

In case the formatting looks familiar, yes, this list was stolen from Doug’s post. Thanks, Doug! It’s my birthday, so I don’t have a lot of time to go into detail, so here’s my simple chart:

Italics means I think it should win. Bold means I think it will win.

Underline means it wasn’t actually nominated but I think it should have been.

Strike through means it shouldn’t have even been nominated.

General disclaimer: I did NOT cream my pants over The Hurt Locker the way everyone else seems to be. It had good cinematography and sound, but that’s all that stood out for me.

Ready? Go.

Best Picture

The nominees are:

Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

(500) Days of Summer

Away We Go

Best Director

The nominees are:

James Cameron, “Avatar”
Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
Lee Daniels, “Precious”
Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air”

Marc Webb, (500) Days of Summer

Best Actor in a Leading Role

The nominees are:

Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
George Clooney, “Up in the Air”
Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
Morgan Freeman, “Invictus”
Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “(500) Days of Summer”

Best Actress in a Leading Role

The nominees are:

Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”
Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”
Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

The nominees are:

Matt Damon, “Invictus”
Woody Harrelon, “The Messenger”
Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”
Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”
Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

The nominees are:

Penelope Cruz, “Nine”
Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”
Maggie Gyllenhaal, “Crazy Heart”
Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”
Mo’Nique, “Precious”

Best Adapted Screenplay

The nominees are:

“District 9”
“An Education”
“In the Loop”
“Precious”
“Up in the Air”

Best Original Screenplay

The nominees are:

“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“The Messenger”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”

Best Animated Feature Film

The nominees are:

“Coraline”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“The Secret of Kells”
“Up”

Ponyo

Best Film Editing

The nominees are:

“Avatar”
“District 9”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Precious”

Best Cinematography

The nominees are:

“Avatar”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”
“The Hurt Locker”
“The White Ribbon”

Best Art Direction

The nominees are:

“Avatar”
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
“Nine”
“Sherlock Holmes”
“The Young Victoria”

Best Costume Design

The nominees are:

“Bright Star”
“Coco Before Chanel”
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
“Nine”
“The Young Victoria”

I haven’t seen any of these, and don’t really care.

Best Makeup

The nominees are:

“Il Divo”
“Star Trek”
“The Young Victoria”

Best Music: Original Score

The nominees are:

James Horner, “Avatar”
Alexandre Desplat, “Fantastic Mr. Fox”
Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders, “The Hurt Locker”
Hans Zimmer, “Sherlock Holmes”
Michael Giacchino, “Up”

Best Music: Original Song

The nominees are:

“Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog”
“Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog”
“Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36?
“Take it All” from “Nine”
“The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”

Best Sound Editing

The nominees are:

“Avatar”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Star Trek”
“Up”

Best Sound Mixing

The nominees are:

“Avatar”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Star Trek”
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”

Best Visual Effects

The nominees are:

“Avatar”
“District 9”
“Star Trek”

Best Foreign Language Film

The nominees are:

“Ajami” (Israel)
“The Milk of Sorrow” (Peru)
“A Prophet” (France)
“The Secret in Their Eyes” (Argentina)
“The White Ribbon” (Germany)

Again, what? Let’s go with the country I would most like to visit.

Best Documentary Feature

The nominees are:

“Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country”
“The Cove”
“Food, Inc.”
“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”
“Which Way Home”

This is solely based on what I’ve heard. I haven’t seen any of these.

Best Documentary Short

The nominees are:

“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province”
“The Last Campaign of Booth Gardener”
“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant”
“Music by Prudence”
“Rabbit a la Berlin”

Huh? Uhh… longest title! Go!

Best Short Film: Live Action

The nominees are:

“The Door”
“Instead of Abracadabra”
“Kavi”
“Miracle Fish”
“The New Tenants”

And… shortest title! GO!!

Best Short Film: Animated

The nominees are:

“French Roast”
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty”
“The Lady and the Reaper”
“Logorama”
“A Matter of Loaf and Death”

Which one sounds the most delicious?

Shutter Island (2010)

Basic plot: Two detectives investigate the disappearance of a patient at a major mental ward/prison for the dangerously psychotic.

I’ve been excited about Shutter Island ever since I first saw the trailer. Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the best actors working today, and Martin Scorsese is a highly acclaimed director for very good reason. Originally, the film was scheduled to be released last October, and I was blindly positive it was going to be a major runner for the Academy Awards based solely on its pedigree. Once it was pushed back to February 2010, completely taking it out of the Oscar race, I feared the worst and – still dying to see it – went to the theater with stifled expectations.

Because the film is advertised heavily as a horror movie, full of jumps scenes and shock value, it wasn’t until the hour and twenty minute mark that I finally realized it absolutely was not going to be. The movie has some intense elements and equally disturbing imagery, but at its core it’s still a dramatic thriller. There are no cheap stings; there are no “Isn’t this GROSS?” moments. Everything fits the story and never forgets the plot is what should be front and center. Still don’t go see the movie if you don’t do well with violence, as the film is far from devoid of it, but what violence does exist ONLY serves the story – which is fairly grim in itself.

DiCaprio is as awesome as ever in his role as the lead detective, and Mark Ruffalo plays second fiddle just as well. Ben Kingsley makes for the perfect villain as the unorthodox  psychiatrist and his back-up doctors provide just as much support as Ruffalo; as do the unknown actors playing the prison’s other patients. The closest thing to a weakness the acting has is Michelle Williams performance as the murdered wife in flashbacks and even her performance is perfectly satisfactory. The cinematography and set design might as well be considered supporting actors as well given how nicely they sell the events on screen.

Much of the film is honestly quite confusing as the line between who can and can’t be trusted is constantly blurred, and some of it might not make any sense at all until the last fifteen minutes, but when the movie pulls to a close it does so rather brilliantly. It’s the first movie I’ve seen in some time where I felt like I absolutely felt like I needed to see it a second time just because it seems like it would be a completely different experience knowing how everything turns out.

I wish it were about twenty minutes shorter so I could say I know I’ll have time to watch it more once I pick it up on DVD, but the two hour fifteen minute runtime puts it in the same categories as a dozen other movies I know I’ll end up grabbing off the shelf long before Shutter Island has a chance in the rare event I feel like I have time to rewatch a 140 minute movie (Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, and Scorsese’s own The Departed all come to mind as higher choices for that runtime).

It’s still an excellent movie, and the best so far of this year’s new releases but I doubt it will get any mention at all once 2010’s Oscar season roles back around. Highly recommended either way.

Up In the Air (2009)

Basic plot: A guy fires people for a living.

When I first heard the concept of Up in the Air, I was a little bit hesitant – bordering on disinterested. I love a good drama, but the thought of watching a movie about a guy that cuts people loose sounded a little too dark for my tastes – particularly given the current economy. Regardless, I knew I’d have to see it.

Director Jason Reitman has a great track record. First he gave us the dark comedy Thank You For Smoking and later had an even bigger taste of indie fame with the teen pregnancy flick Juno, which brought him his first Oscar nomination. Likewise, George Clooney has been in some pretty awesome movies, both serious and funny. It was easy to imagine their two styles meshing quite well, but it turns out that was an understatement.

George Clooney delivers the dry humor flawlessly and the slightly more colorful characters that surround him provide an excellent contrast. Jason Bateman works great as Clooney’s boss and Anna Kendrick proved that being in Twilight doesn’t automatically make you a shitty actress as she stepped up to try her hardest to steal the spotlight. Vera Farmiga hit her second home run for me this year as Clooney’s leading lady. After The Departed, Orphan, and this she’s definitely becoming an actress to follow.

Despite all the great performances, the star of the movie is the script. The balance between comedy and drama found in Up In the Air is just about perfect. To my own surprise, they found some very humorous moments to wrap around various firings of random employees throughout the movie though it takes a somber turn nearly as often. The real beauty of the film is watching Clooney’s character grow throughout without ever getting too predictable.

From the beginning, he seems to be the only character with a grasp on how monumental of an effect his job has on other people. He’s perfected the art of firing people with a hint of heart albeit completely constructed out of lies and both the scripts fantastic dialogue and Clooney’s performance sell every aspect of this lifestyle I could only imagine without a second thought. Watching this contradictory, relationship hating, life-loving old man learn about what makes life truly worth loving is fantastic.

The style of the editing is slick and the cinematography is modern and to-the-point. Nothing ever gets too fancy or artsy as you’re constantly presented with all the information you need in a format just clean enough to keep you interested visually. The lead character’s life on the go has a fascinating monotony to it as it displays a man who holds himself about the rest of society for not being “tied down” to anything, when the reality is that his life is just as practiced and scheduled as those he considers himself better than.

Up In the Air is one of the best movies of 2009, and seeing how most of my favorite movies are getting completely shafted for Oscar buzz (Away We Go, 500 Days of Summer), I’m probably going to be rooting for Up in the Air once the Academy Awards role around as if it was the Baltimore Ravens at the Super Bowl. I loved it and I’ll definitely be picking up the DVD.

On the twelfth day of Christmas I fell asleep during…

Elf (2003)

Basic plot: Will Ferrell is an elf.

I didn’t start watching this until way late on Christmas day and ended up falling asleep. I hate leaving things unfinished, so I’m just going to post last year’s review and call it a wrap.

Christmasyness: 10

Buddy the elf probably loves Christmas more than all the Who’s in Whoville and Muppets combined. He knows all the rules of Christmas, what the North Pole is really like, and generally acts like a child in his regards to the holiday the entire time. He even wears his elf uniform for at least half the movie.

Comedy: 10

I’m a huge fan of Will Ferrell. I think Anchorman is one of the funniest movies of all time and the childishness of Step Brothers made me laugh til my sides hurt. Elf is considerably cleaner than the majority of his work, but it still has that goofy-beyond-believability, make-it-up-as-you-go feel to it that I love. I’ve only been watching it a time or two per year since it came out five years ago, but it still hasn’t worn out on me. I laugh out loud every single time. Will Ferrell’s performance makes this movie what it is. I don’t think anyone else could have pulled this off.

Cheese: 8

Most of the movie is cheese-free until the last fifteen minutes come along and beat you over the head with Christmas good-tidings. It’s almost too corny for my tastes and I feel like it’s really out of place in such a goofball comedy, but the rest of the movie is so hilarious that I’ll forgive it.

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Overall: I love it.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love watched with me…

Home Alone (1990)

Basic plot: A kid is accidentally left at home when his family goes on holiday vacation.

Here’s last year’s full review: http://www.bullshish.com/blog/?p=436

It’s Christmas morning, and I’m just sitting around waiting for everyone else to wake up, so this is going to be brief. Home Alone is my top three Christmas movies ever. John Hughes is awesome. 20th Century Fox is a YouTube nazi. Here are my top five quotes, without video clips thanks to the yuletide murderer known as Fox.

5. “You’re such a disease!”

This one has mostly to do with tone. Siblings can be so mean.

4. “Look what ya did, ya little jerk!”

This one is sweetened by the fact that it’s coming from Kevin’s uncle of all people. Plus, the film gives you two different versions of it to throw into conversation as you see fit.

3. “I am upstairs, dummy.”

Every time I watch Home Alone this line makes me laugh out loud. If you don’t know which line I’m talking about, Kevin just ruined dinner so his mom takes him to the second floor and tells him to go upstairs (referring to the attic). This is Kevin’s response.

2. “Keep the change, you filthy animal.”

1. “I’m gonna give you to the count of ten to get your ugly, yellow, no-good keister off my property before I pump your guts full o’ lead. One, two, TEN!”

Are #2 and #1 cheating? Yes. But they can be used very different in the art of quoting films so I’m counting it.

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love watched with me…

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (1970)

Basic plot: The origin story of Santa Claus.

When we finally got back from a day-long trip to Raleigh after waking up at 6AM, we didn’t quite have it in us to watch a feature film, so we defaulted to yet another television special from The Original Christmas Classics box set (highly recommended). This time around it was actually one I had never seen before.

Overall, I would honestly have to say this is the best Christmas TV special of the bunch when it comes to both creativity and keeping my interest. While I personally refuse to believe Santa Claus was a red-head, the overall story and the way that all the individual Santa Claus myths are covered is really amusing. Why does he have a beard? Why does he go down the chimney? Where does the name Kris Kringle come from? All of these and more are answered with mediocre stop-motion animation in a way that keeps things just interesting enough.

There are a few scenes where Santa comes off a LITTLE creepy (one of the songs is about how the only cost for a toy is a kiss?), but maybe that was way more acceptable back in 1970. Either way, this is still a great Christmas special to watch this time of year.