In my most recent post I went through what I believe are the 14 contenders for being nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. I concluded that Another Year, Blue Valentine, Rabbit Hole and The Town would get left out while the following would be nominated:
- The Kids Are All Right
- The Social Network
- The King’s Speech
- Winter’s Bone
- Black Swan
- Toy Story 3
- The Fighter
- 127 Hours
- Inception
- True Grit
But, here’s the thing… or the start of a list of things:
The Kids Are All Right should not be on the list. It’s a comedy with little depth. It has some good performances, but nothing spectacular. Moore and Bening are probably getting more credit for playing lesbians than for any particularly notable work they put on the screen here. This might have been one of the more intelligent comedies of the year, which garners some attention, but this film is not worthy of a Best Picture nod. If the nominations were 5 again instead of 10, it would far too easy to forget that The Kids Are All Right was on or even close to the list.
The King’s Speech and the Fighter are both crowd-pleasers, but they also don’t provide much originality (and not just because they are based on real events and people). The King’s Speech has an awesome performance in Colin Firth’s king, and he may very well win Best Actor for it, and Geoffrey Rush does a great supporting job, sure. Even Helena Bonham Carter does a fine job, though she is working with less. The problem with The King’s Speech is there are no surprises; not sure if it was because reality just fit the obvious story structure or the someone stuck it into that structure but it fits it perfectly. The Fighter suffers from this as well, and has the detriment (not benefit) of being based on real people and events; specifically, while Bale does a great job with his character (and may get Supporting Actor for it), his character’s drug problems never really get in the way of the momentum of the story, never really seem like something that will keep Wahlberg’s character from not making it. The plot is a by-the-numbers Boxing film, that just happens to include some amusing characters (the sisters, the mother, even Amy Adams’ character, at least in that porch scene where she finally gets to do something, and the aforementioned Bale of course). The end product is far less than its various parts, and some of its parts—notably, Wahlberg—aren’t much in the first place. The King’s Speech is predictable but well made enough to be an understandable candidate for Best Picture. The Fighter should be left behind.
True Grit has great writing, great directing, some good performances, but in retrospect I’m not sure the chemistry between Steinfeld and Bridges earns the big dramatic ride in the end or the jump forward in time ending that follows, not to mention the ride itself coming off as fairly fake visually. So, let’s strike True Grit from the list.
So, I’d slide Blue Valentine and Another Year and The Town onto the list of ten. Except The Town, while a good picture, especially for its genre also doesn’t hold many surprises (especially if one has ever seen Heat (even though, apparently, The Town is based on a book, but maybe the author of that book has seen Heat one too many times). It’s well directed in my opinion and there are good performances, but we have to be picky here. So, slide The Town right back off the list.
Now, I wouldn’t slide Rabbit Hole in. And, I would grab some dark horse like, say, Get Low and move it into the conversation. Instead, I’d pull back from 10 nominations. My personal favorites for the year, in no particular order: Black Swan, The Social Network, 127 Hours, Inception, Toy Story 3… and there’s five.
I actually have yet to find fault with Blue Valentine, but Best Picture should be about more than just favorites. There has to be some objectivity, some value to bigger pictures, the ones that involve larger crews, grander visuals. Of course, the Independent Spirit Award nominations are out and Blue Valentine isn’t up for Best Picture there either. Black Swan is, and 127 Hours is, so the crossover is confusing…
Plus, to contradict what I just said, Best Picture should be about more than just who can spend more money or employ more people. There should be an emphasis on the combination of writing, acting, directing, everything that goes into movies. A big period piece or war movie with a lot of costumes shouldn’t automatically have an advantage over something like Blue Valentine, which doesn’t even seem to have costumes per se but just the clothes that Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling happened to wear (not sure if this is actually the case, but it certainly seems like it could be). Inception is a well made film that juggles its ensemble cast quite well, but in the end the spectacle holds up better than the story…
So, how do we measure it? Some years it’s obvious. Regardless of what one might of thought subjectively of, say Titanic, that film did things no film had ever done before. Nowadays, more is done digitally so when (again James Cameron) puts together something as visually stunning as Avatar (but arguably so dependent on archetypes as to be weak in its characterization) that it doesn’t take the Oscar so easily. There is no big movie dominating the scene this year. If anything, that would be Inception, but no one’s predicting Inception as the winner. The momentum right now is with The Social Network and has recently been with The King’s Speech. Both of these are more dependent on acting and writing than any awesome visuals. Black Swan, on the other hand, has the awesome visuals, but it is also has some imagery (both in the disturbing and the sexual) that would put off some audiences… so must a Best Picture be eminently watchable? Or should it push boundaries, dare to disturb an audience? Why can’t the winner be depressing? Why must it be an audience-pleaser? Of course, last year’s winner, The Hurt Locker, isn’t much of a feel-good movie. But, then Slumdog Millionaire, the previous winner, is. The Oscars are nothing if not inconsistent.
I loved Blue Valentine, but it shouldn’t win the Oscar for Best Picture. I loved Black Swan, and while it is very deserving of maybe Director, it should not win Best Picture. 127 Hours takes a risk, putting everything it has into on the shoulders of one actor, but James Franco manages to carry it (and could be a serious contender against Colin Firth… or more likely just a fellow nominee for Firth to mention when he’s accepting his statue). But, if a movie is so small, is that the “Best” use of cinema?
And so, it comes down (though I may have skipped past a few) to The Social Network. Ensemble cast, but not so large as to be unwieldy. Great writing, with Sorkin’s high-energy dialogue delivered successfully by the assorted cast members. Fincher directs a fairly static storyline (with a lot of scenes of people just sitting (or standing) around talking, with a great energy to match the script but with the help of Reznor’s music sets a very dark sort of mood that almost goes too far for the tone of the story… but, then again, the protagonist is either an asshole or a guy trying to be one, a guy who may or may not have screwed over not just some arrogant jocks but also his best friend, yet still comes across, much to the benefit of Jesse Eisenberg, as somewhat… not likable, per se (though I liked him), but not as someone the audience rejects outright. So, what’s wrong with The Social Network? Perhaps the ending doesn’t make most of the audience feel good. Perhaps that musical interlude in the race scene goes on a little too long. Or maybe there isn’t anything “wrong” with The Social Network. Which is why it will win on Oscar day.
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