2010: The Year that Sucked So Much It Deserved Two Blog Posts

The first post of course being about Lost. The finale of that show of course being the only highlight of 2010. The major suckage of that year has come back for vengeance in the form of last night's winners. Well, some of them. Truthfully, this is one of the very best selections of Best Picture nominees ever (since 1968 anyway). And it's feasible that I've seen more BP nominees through the years than the voters, no joke. I highly enjoyed most of these films but I am once again upset with the Academy. First off, that they'd favor a "feel-good movie" in tough economic times rather than what is artistically the best. Second off, that they're so high on themselves to think that anyone with no job and several kids would actually feel better about their lives because some British people got a golden statue of a dude with no face. In case you hadn't already guessed it, this post will be extra loooooooooooooooong with 10 nominees that I feel passionate about so grab some refreshments and prepare for the mother of all Oscar posts.

We start things off with one of my top films of the year, Black Swan. What an outstanding and disturbing picture. It's one of the few movies I've seen in recent years (and by that I mean since 2001 or so) that actually shocked me and freaked me out a little. Part of that comes from the major emotional investment you feel toward the movie almost immediately. And that is almost entirely due to Natalie Portman's incredible performance which rightfully netted her Best Actress last night. The amount of emotional depth she displayed with her facial expressions alone should have guaranteed it. There's one scene in particular where she's calling her mother to tell her she got the lead role in "Swan Lake" and all at once her face is frightened, excited, anxious, fulfilled, and in short: conflicted. She's overjoyed that she got the role she's been working toward for her entire life but she's worried she'll screw it up and disappoint her obsessive mother (who brings all new meanings to the phrase "living vicariously through your children"). That scene alone was enough to convince me that if she didn't win I'd have to Hulk out on the Academy. But I should also point out that Darren Aronofsky, a disgustingly overlooked director, does his best work in this film. Both he and Portman do the "normal person slowly going crazy" better than I've ever seen it. Because her transformation is so subtle that you almost don't notice it happening. The easiest way to pinpoint it is her changing wardrobe: early on in the movie she wears white, then she wears gray for a little bit, and then black near the end. Add to that Clint Mansell's score, a backward and disturbed version of the "Swan Lake" music, and you've got a highly impressive piece of filmmaking. It's not for the queasy or the prude but if you can sit through it without getting nightmares you'll be blown away. Even if you're probably also a little depressed.

A film I'm almost completely unenthusiastic about is The Fighter. I don't think it's a bad movie at all. I just don't think it's very good either. It's pretty much every boxing movie ever except the boxer isn't persevering for reasons you can really root for. The reasons are: "my brother was supposed to be the boxer but he's a crack addict and my mother was shrill and Boston-y enough when she yelled at me repeatedly that I need to be a fighter just to shut her up and get in Amy Adams' pants." For the record, that last bit is a totally legitimate reason for training to be a boxer. But the rest of it is in reference to the two Supporting performance winners of this year. One very deserving and the other not so much. Christian Bale steals the whole movie as the brother who went wrong, Dick Eklund. He's not in it enough (I thought) and after a whole lot of films through the years that he's completely absorbed into himself, I'm glad he was finally rewarded. But Melissa Leo basically just gets up and shrieks. The real Oscar should go to whoever used makeup and costumes to turn that gorgeous woman into a scary mother of half of Boston. You'd barely recognize her. She gave a good performance but if I hadn't been watching the movie with her nomination in mind, I wouldn't have walked away from the movie remembering her. And they completely overlooked Mark Wahlberg who was just as good as anybody else in the movie (except Bale of course) and that's saying something since Mark is usually kinda meh. Not to say the performance was worthy of recognition but neither was Adams' or Leo's. And I normally love Amy Adams but in this movie she was just annoying. So I guess you could say it was impressive that adorable and lovable Amy Adams transformed into somewhat-skanky bar chick, but then you might as well give an Oscar to most college girls. So to sum it up: take your standard boxing movie, make it slightly more realistic and a whole lot more boring and uninteresting and you've got this film.

On the other hand, in a perfect world the Best Picture would be Inception. And I know you might be thinking that I'm only saying that because I'm a total sci-fi dork, and that's somewhat true. But I'm also saying it as a person who (as you can see on the sidebar) has seen a freaking lot of movies, including a freaking lot of Oscar nominees. This film is an incredible juggling act between tons of genres, multiple storylines, and various "meanings" that it holds as a film. All the while simply being a personal story about a father who wants to see his kids again and is trying to deal with the death of his wife. I'll try not to go into too much of this, lest you venture into several dream levels yourself. To begin, let me address a criticism of the film. That being the fact that it only focuses on developing Leo's character and not the others. That's true, and it does it very well. And how is this different from a ton of other movies? How many characters are truly developed in Slumdog Millionaire? Mostly just the main guy, and to a lesser extent his brother. Even an all-time great like The Godfather mostly focuses on the development of Michael. He's the only one that really changes during the movie. And there's nothing wrong with that! As long as you believe a character can be real and that they would do what they're doing, it's fine. I think people were intrigued by the characters in Inception due to the intriguing nature of the film and simply wanted to see more of everything. Right then, let's get to it. This movie is almost perfectly paced. It doesn't waste a single scene. Every scene is giving you information and doing it in a natural way. People talk about how confusing it was but I think most people come away from it understanding it. And considering how stupid a lot of filmgoers are (some people asked me if Natalie Portman actually turned into a giant swan, no joke), I think that's saying something. It exhilirates you with every scene like an action movie does, without having needless action. Ironically, if you removed the action from the movie it might have been a contender for BP. The more gunfire a movie has, the farther down its chances go. I'm convinced that if Casino Royale was the same exact movie but without the extended chase sequences and fight scenes, it would've gotten nominated. Because all that would remain is character study. Well the character study is still there! It shouldn't be devalued by the excitement. Same goes for this movie. In addition to the pacing, the script is genius and Hans Zimmer's score is amazing. I'm really starting to ramble here, but that's just how much is packed into the movie. Don't get me started on how much Nolan was snubbed by not even being nominated, and his snubbing at not winning Screenplay. So that's all I'll say on that. Because after crafting a sci-fi/action/character study/psychological thriller that's also a movie about the nature of making movies and how we as audiences have ideas planted in our minds by the fictional things we consume on a daily basis in much the same way and also a movie that visualizes our inner emotional baggage and how it can consume our waking and working lives while also somehow including a fight scene in zero gravity you'd think A BROTHER COULD GET A NOMINATION. So that's all I'll say on that. So Academy: don't make Nolan the next Hitchcock. Because he's already getting there talent-wise, and he doesn't need the award-snubbing part. But if you take nothing else away, take this: Ellen Page is totally hot sporting the pantsuit, not sure why.

As my adrenaline levels lower I will tell you about The Kids Are All Right. I had mixed feelings about this movie. On one hand I was pleasantly surprised by this movie and sweet lordy is this only the fourth movie on the list? I've lost five pounds writing this. Anyway, on the other hand it's still a little bit too much of a stereotypical Indie picture. My good friend Kyle described another film as "trying too hard to be quirky" and that's what I'd say about this movie. It's about (married? Domestic partnered?) lesbians who each gave birth to a child from the same sperm donor. Those kids are grown up and want to meet their father so they seek him out and it's Mark Ruffalo. You can't get much quirkier than that. And so I enjoy that aspect of it, and I thought the dialogue was especially good, but then it gets kind of dark. Or perhaps I should say emotional. The one lesbian starts banging Mark Ruffalo for whatever reason and then everybody hates poor Mark. So they seeked him out and essentially forced him into their lives and then they forced him out at the end because he was "wanted to feel like a father too badly and it was needy." Umm...he didn't go looking for you. So I feel like it took what was essentially a really fun concept and what it became was a quirky Indie film inside of a serious Indie film and that doesn't flow. And where were all the whiners saying it was portraying lesbians as dysfunctional and bi-curious? I guess they were happy enough that a movie would portray a lesbian couple at all, who didn't try to kill each other or anyone else, and just went with it. Or maybe since it also has the rarity of being co-written and directed by a woman that they really didn't want to taint that. Anyway, it's an interesting film and I certainly enjoyed it for the most part but at the end of the day I'm not sure it was about much of anything other than to say "lesbians can be dysfunctional and have adventures too."

A movie that should be differently placed in an alphabetical list but Wikipedia feels like being weird is 127 Hours. Now this is a pretty great movie. And James Franco quite literally carries almost the entire thing by himself. Most of its 94 minutes are spent with him pinned to a rock but its somehow enthralling. And I love Colin Firth but this was the Best Actor of the year. And I don't love Tom Hooper but this is how you make a movie with few set pieces and characters interesting as a director. Although I didn't totally love Danny Boyle's directing in this movie it's still very good. Some of the colors are a little distracting at times but overall it's very well-shot. I had a very interesting experience watching the movie in that the whole time I was thinking, "well James Franco is doing a great job but...meh. I already know he cuts his arm off so...meh." And then at the moment when his soon-to-be-rescuers are walking away from him and he uses what's left of his energy to cry out for help, I just lost it. I loved the whole rest of the movie because of that scene and how it transformed everything you'd just been through. Because his character (who is also a real person of course) has to regain the will to live throughout the film. It probably occurred to him way earlier to cut off his arm, but he kind of wanted to die. He had lived his life as a daredevil because he wanted to feel something but he never did. Then he realized everything his life could be and that he was in a prison of his own making (both emotionally and physically) so he wanted to cut out the part of him that was holding him back and keep the rest. So when he cries out for help at the end, it was so emotional because he was proclaiming to the world that he wanted to live. He was acknowledging his own weakness and mortality. And ever since then he's been living his life to the fullest, with every cliché that entails. But they never put it in those words. They show it to you. That's the difference between crap filmmakers/screenwriters and great ones. It's certainly not a movie for the faint and definitely not for the claustrophobic but if you can stomach it then you'll have a pretty great experience.

The movie that I thought could prevent the crowning of the King is The Social Network. Easily my second favorite of the nominees (tied with Black Swan) this film is an outstanding example of how to balance current relevance with lasting relevance. Because on its surface it's about Facebook. Something that will either A) fly too close to the sun and destroy itself in a few years or B) become so ingrained in the culture that it will no longer fascinate people. It's probably already at that second point, so if it was simply "the story of the founding of Facebook" then it'd be mildly entertaining. But the script is incredible, even by Aaron Sorkin's high standards, and mercifully won Adapted Screenplay. As soon as the opening scene started up, I became depressed. Because I can't write like that. No human being should be able to write that well. It's funny, it's sad, and it sets up the main character perfectly. What follows is an entire movie's worth of amazing dialogue and sadly overlooked directing from David Fincher. Even the British gave their award to David Fincher! When the British ignore the British director of the British movie about the British King and give an award to David Fincher that's when you know the Academy dropped the freaking ball. But anyway, what elevates this movie to the level of "lasting relevance" is the subtext. This is how you successfully fictionalize reality. Making real people into characters without going overboard. Because even though Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed as a genius who's also a jerk, at the end of the day he's just a guy who had his heart broken and wanted to feel relevant. His intelligence made him an outcast and so he invented a website that made everyone part of something. But he can never get his girlfriend back, so none of that really matters. Then there are the twins whose idea he "stole." Mark himself articulates the fact that they're really just upset that after a lifetime of having everything go their way they had finally hit a snag. When they decide to sue him they don't say "let's get our idea back" or even "let's get the money we deserve" they say "let's gut the nerd." They're upset because they're jocks (albeit rowing jocks) and they've been upstaged by the very type of person they'd been taking advantage of since kindergarten. Suddenly the source of their self-worth was gone. Perhaps the most tragic character of the piece though is Mark's best friend Eduardo. It was his money and his emotional support that made Facebook possible. For all intents and purposes, their relationship is like an abusive couple. Eduardo gives Mark everything and puts up with his crap and Mark just uses him. Andrew Garfield's excellent and sadly un-nominated performance as Eduardo is the emotional core of the movie. With all of the big business storylines and tort law flying about, he reminds us that the driving force of the film is a toxic friendship. Something that far too many of us can recognize. And yet with all that subtext and all that zeitgeist and all that dialogue I guess there weren't enough disabled people or World War outbreaks to get the film anywhere.

The only thing that made me cry more than last night's results was Toy Story 3. One of only three (that I can think of) final installments of a trilogy to be nominated for Best Picture. And it's in good company. Along with the first two movies, this once again proves the power and potential of the animated film. I long for the day when an animated movie wins Best Picture. Because it'll be when people realize that it takes just as much, if not more, of the exact same skills to put together a movie of this magnitude. And lumping all animated films together into one is completely unfair. Would you put Pearl Harbor and Inglourious Basterds in the same league because they're both about World War II? If you answered yes then please keep it to yourself. Toys dealing with their increasing irrelevancy is just as relatable as people dealing with it. The first movie was about Andy's god-like relationship toward his toys and Woody's questions of irrelevancy. The second movie establishes the question of what will happen to the toys when their owner grows up. And the third movie finally delivers on all of that buildup. All three have very striking stories and imagery, even disturbing at times. The villains are also pretty messed up. The first villain was a foil for Andy: an evil boy named Sid who tortured his toys. That's pretty messed up. If the toys are sentient then Sid basically did Nazi experiments on his toys. The second villain was a toy who had been rejected by his owners and became bitter. He believed that their gods didn't really love them and that they had to take hold of their own destiny. The third villain is a similar story, but he's reached the end of the line. He's a verifiable mob boss who runs the show at a daycare center. There's a lot of interesting afterlife imagery in the third installment of the series. Some toys get to go play with the kids that treat them well and some are tortured and slobbered on by destructive toddlers. In describing the villain, Milton's quote that "it's better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven" comes to mind. Of course, the movie is also really funny and really charming and has Flamenco Buzz Lightyear. And in addition to the afterlife overtones, it's also a prison escape movie in a lot of ways. Our heroes have hit rock bottom and it's their last chance to see their owner again. So there's way more emotional pull than most movies with real people. And the main villain's story is truly tragic. He even has a bit of a Vader-y turnaround at one point. All of this builds up to a sad but hopeful ending where the toys discover that even though Andy has moved on from playing with them, it doesn't mean he never loved them. I'm getting choked up just writing about it. I still haven't re-watched it even though I own it, because it'll turn me into an emotional mess. This is some serious stuff, so I'm glad the "genre" is rising in legitimacy.

On the other side of things, I was kind of underwhelmed by True Grit. I really liked it and I'll probably buy it. But it's not among the best Coen brothers movies, and not among the best Westerns either. When I was watching it I felt like it was interesting and definitely enjoyable and well-done but it didn't really do anything new. But none of this is really an insult, I'm simply surprised by how overwhelming the praise was when it came out. So I wish I had watched it before it got the rave reviews. The dialogue was really good, as per the Coens' usual standard, and the acting was also great. Hailee Steinfeld was especially amazing, and should've taken home the Supporting Actress award. Imagine if you're 13 years old and your first big acting job is in a Coen brothers movie and you're acting alongside Jeff Bridges (fresh off an Oscar win), Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin. That's pretty freaking intimidating. But she must be every bit as feisty and confident as her character because she totally nailed it. Anybody holding their own against Jeff Bridges deserves recognition, especially a 13-year-old girl in her first real role. But I guess the Academy figured she has plenty of years left to win. Which means that she, along with Nolan and James Franco, will probably win for something crappy when they're in their 60s to apologize for when they didn't win. On that note, this is sacrilege but I think Jeff Bridges was better than John Wayne. DISCLAIMER: I have not seen the original movie in its entirety. But anybody will tell you that Wayne's win that year was a bit of a "lifetime achievement" award. And Wayne was a larger-than-life type of guy, but the story is a little more on the funny side and I don't find John Wayne that funny. Mostly because I think John Wayne never found anything funny. He was a serious dude and he totally owned that. But for comedy I feel like it was almost demeaning because Wayne wasn't a comedic actor. Anyway, I recommend either film but I'd say that the new one is just a bit better. I'll have a more legit opinion when I watch the original in its entirety.

The underwhelming continues with Winter's Bone. I can't even call it underwhelming actually. Because I only use that term for movies that I still think hold merit. This movie has almost no merit. Aside from the fact that it stars Jennifer Lawrence, who does do a great job, and she's my new celebrity crush. She's also playing Mystique in X-Men: First Class, which I expect will be a sensory overload of gorgeous. January Jones as Emma Frost and Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique in the same movie? I won't be able to handle it without imbibing some sort of depressant beforehand. If it seems like I'm avoiding talking about this movie it's because I am. The entire movie could have been an interesting episode of CSI. Or an unusually well-put-together anti-drug commercial. It sounded really interesting to me when I read about it. The story revolves around a teenage girl in the Ozarks, which is apparently deep Meth lab territory, trying to find her father. She's fairly certain that he's dead but she needs to find out for sure because the court is repossessing their house due to her father skipping out on his court date. So she needs to either A) find him and force him to go to court or B) confirm he's dead and make the court date moot. Sounds pretty interesting right? A feisty and hot girl in her late teens braving the elements and staring down drug dealers for the sake of her family. Sounds like the beginning of a story that ends with, "and then Domenic prosecuted those responsible and married that girl." But it was just so...boring. "Braving the elements" actually entailed walking around town and asking, "where's my dad?" for an hour and thirty minutes. Then in the last ten minutes someone finally says, "I've been lying this whole time, I know right where he is and I'll take you to him." Umm...okay...so what was the point of all that? It wasn't like she put a legitimate push on her father's unsavory associates. She pretty much just annoyed them enough by asking ceaseless questions that they broke. I really wanted to like this movie, but I was also expecting something different. So maybe I'll re-watch it someday and see if I like it more. But for now, in a year mostly full of awesome and original films it was the year's most meh.

And now we at last reach this year's very VERY meh winner, The King's Speech. Really? Really Academy? I agreed with every single one of your last...15 winners. You were on such a good run. 15 years of excellent and original filmmaking and you give Best Picture to a freaking stage play. Don't get me wrong, if I saw this exact version on stage it'd be the best thing I've ever seen on stage in my life. Colin Firth does indeed do an excellent job, although Geoffrey Rush outdoes him I think, and it is a good movie. It really is. It's a nice little movie that's full of hope and promise and yadda yadda. But it's not about anything. He stutters and then he doesn't. That's the whole movie. Did Tom Hooper direct it about as well as it could have been directed with the script he was given? Certainly. But if we're giving out Oscars now based on "how well you do with what you have" standards then next year I want to see The Hangover II take it home. I mean, what more could you do with it? So give them an award! Oh wait, that's not what Best Director is supposed to be...and it won Screenplay too! 10 years of work on an exquisite screenplay got Nolan nothing. But apparently reading a story from a history book and giving it some dialogue is impressive. And I've always felt that screenplays based on real life should be counted as Adapted anyway. Because it's based on material already in existence. Life wrote it the first time, you're re-writing it. And Helena Bonham-Carter as the loving wife? Not that she did a bad job but when I see her I just think of the gazillion crazies that she's played. Perfect example of how someone can do a fine job but still be a bad choice for a role. Because it wasn't a demanding role so it should've been done by someone who hasn't actually baked people into pies and murdered Sirius Black. So there's nothing that's really wrong with this movie, but it gives you exactly what you expected. There were no lines where I said, "hmm that was an interesting thought." There was no scene where I was blown away by a performance or a shot choice or a piece of music. If this had come out in, say, 2005 or 2001 or something I'd say okay. But with the plethora of truly excellent films that were also nominated and bring SO much more to the table, this is just Hollywood being Hollywood. And I think people are getting sick of it. It wasn't just me who was using cynicism to predict it as the winner. Everyone else pointed out its combination of: handicapped character, biography, period piece, and World War II as being an Oscar grand slam. And an Academy that exists to reward creativity shouldn't be that predictable. So I can definitely recommend the movie, it's well done to be sure, but I am severely disappointed at the Academy. Especially over the Director nominees and winner this year. I think if they don't watch it they might find themselves on the wrong side of the daycare because we won't feel like playing with them anymore.

Well I hope you're as exhausted from reading this as I am writing it. It took me about three and a half hours, and I've spent it watching a truly absurd 1967 nominee. The whole situation is like a very unenjoyable dream. It's cloudy outside, I'm tired, I keep writing, and for some reason everyone in this movie is talking to animals. I was going to tip my hat to Inception today by watching it again but that might not be the best choice since I already feel like I'm dreaming. So I already made my snide jokes about the next blog entry, and all I know is it'll be much shorter and less exhausting than this one.