My 2010 Oscar Ballot

Okay, we are back.  We took a week off last week, but over the next two weeks we'll time this perfectly now with our "catchup" period of OVP My Ballots, where I pick who I would've given the nominations to if I had run the Oscars in a given year.  We have one more to catchup on before we have these for every one of our Oscar Viewing Project retrospectives (links are at the bottom of the page if you're new and want to see some of my past ballots, as well as my thoughts on every one of the below Oscar races, as I have seen every film that was nominated in these categories from 2010), and then we'll align with the end of 2004 (afterwards we'll have one of these at the end of every year retrospective we do).  That's enough housekeeping-let's get into who I would've nominated in 2010!

Picture

Another Year

Black Swan

Blue Valentine

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

Inception

Never Let Me Go

Rabbit Hole

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

Gold: David Fincher's look at Mark Zuckerberg, such an atypical, cold approach to a biopic, feels even more resonant ten years after the fact, as we live in a world profoundly damaged by Facebook.

Silver: The (penultimate) goodbye to the Toy Story franchise may have unnecessarily added an extra coda to its story in 2019, but that doesn't take away from the heart & soul of this goodbye to childhood.

Bronze: This is my favorite films, not me trying to be super qualitative about the fanciest or most prestigious films of 2010.  That being said, I still stand behind Scott Pilgrim being a great movie, a fun comic book ode with an offbeat, gut-busting script.

Director

Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine)

David Fincher (The Social Network)

Christopher Nolan (Inception)

Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3)

Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)

Gold: David Fincher's oftentimes detached, noir approach doesn't always succeed when he's crossing genres, but with The Social Network, looking at Mark Zuckerberg's tale as a man destined for personal doom feels like the correct motif.

Silver: Edgar Wright's vision in Scott Pilgrim emerges fully-formed, a comic novel come-to-life, with each of Ramona Flowers' evil exes providing us with a new chapter in Scott Pilgrim's life.  A total joy.

Bronze: Derek Cianfrance's analysis of a marriage, both its highs and its lows, is a jewel-it shows the ways that our personal history keeps us together, oftentimes longer than we should, and how that personal history can sometimes substitute for a dwindling love.

Actor

Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)

Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)

Colin Firth (The King's Speech)

James Franco (127 Hours)

Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine)

Gold: Ryan Gosling became the go-to swoon guy long before Blue Valentine, but this is the movie where I think America's collective crush on him solidified.  He plays Dean as a sweet, kind, hapless figure, someone who fell in love but never fulfilled the other promise he might've had in his youth.

Silver: Jesse Eisenberg's incarnation of Mark Zuckerberg has to walk a fine line-he needs to ensure that we hate Mark by the end of the film, giving us hints of what he's created, while still compelled to want to understand where he'll go next, where the story will take him.  He fully lives up to the task.

Bronze: Firth likely got some of his accolades for a convincing, perfectly-realized stutter.  He makes my list though as a man who can wage an internal war, a sturdy serious figure trying to rise to an occasion that he never expected to endure.

Actress

Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right)

Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)

Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go)

Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)

Gold: Kidman's work in Rabbit Hole is a reminder of what a skilled performer she is onscreen.  She compartmentalizes-look at the way she approaches all three of her primary costars with unique tactics-giving us different pieces of her broken heart.

Silver: Michelle Williams plays internal conflict better than almost any actress of her generation.  Within her eyes, Cindy struggles along with the audience-we see the way her mind works as she ponders her life with Dean, and if she's ready to leave him behind to pursue her own future.

Bronze: Portman's terrifying transformation as Nina comes down to details.  She lilts her voice higher as the film progresses, regressing into the little girl scared of her mother & of failure...it's intricate work in a performance that could have just been to-the-rafters.

Supporting Actor

Kieran Culkin (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)

Andrew Garfield (Never Let Me Go)

Andrew Garfield (The Social Network)

Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)

Miles Teller (Rabbit Hole)

Gold: Andrew Garfield's breakout moment came in a dual punch in 2010 (see also Never Let Me Go), but this is the part that made him a star.  Someone slightly over-his-head, his Eduardo Saverin spends the movie understanding his worth...and eventually demanding it.

Silver: Mark Ruffalo specialized in this sort of off-kilter figure for a decade before inhabiting Bruce Banner, a charming Peter Pan whose handsomeness disguises the fact that he never grew up (and his Paul learns that time is a debt we all have to pay).

Bronze: Kieran Culkin may have finally stepped out of his brother's shadow with Succession, but don't forget he's been stealing scenes for decades now.  Case in point-the way he commits grand theft auto with Scott's (gay) roommate Wallace Wells.

Supporting Actress

Dale Dickey (Winter's Bone)

Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

Lesley Manville (Another Year)

Kristin Scott Thomas (Nowhere Boy)

Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

Gold: Jacki Weaver completely owns the screen as Smurf, a cruel, calculating mother with a cartoonish grin.  She plays her like a viper, always ready to strike, but one who comes dressed as a rabbit, so when it happens...you're caught unawares.

Silver: Lesley Manville's role in Another Year punches you in the stomach it's so hard to grasp.  She brings a thorough soul to a woman that we look past on the screens, and Manville doesn't provide us respite or easy answers in the way that Mary's tale will turn out.

Bronze: Melissa Leo's work in The Fighter is the peak of her career for a reason.  Her Alice is so good at manipulating a room, a mother who has had to fight, turning on the charm at the exact right moments to always get her way.

Adapted Screenplay

Incendies

Never Let Me Go

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

Gold: The Social Network is a perfect screenplay, leaving layer-after-layer, each scene filling us with more insight into the kinds of men (good or bad) that we're leaving behind in each scene as these men become their fates.  Aaron Sorkin has never been so good on the big-screen.

Silver: Brimming with wordplay (some of it not even spoken..."Julie Powers has issues"), Scott Pilgrim is endlessly quotable & hilariously funny.  In a different year this would've been an easy call for the gold medal.

Bronze: Toy Story 3 is also filled with wonderful dialogue, continuing to find inventive ways to toy with (had to do the pun once) its premise of inanimate objects come to life.  But it's in the final moments, as the toys fulfill their journey, that we really see the payoff of three movie's worth of memories.

Original Screenplay

Another Year

Blue Valentine

Easy A

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

Gold: Mike Leigh's unflinching look at a year in the life of several friends is extraordinary, playing in some ways like a mystery-who will be gifted happiness, contentment...and who will this be pulled away from?  That staggering ending only works because of the exquisite work he'd done beforehand.

Silver: Derek Cianfrance also knows how to find an enigma in less traditional circumstances, giving us a wonderful two-act play in the life of two young lovers brought together through fate, and pulled apart by their own shifting hearts.

Bronze: Domesticity seems to be the theme here, as I'm going with Kids Are All Right to round out this trio.  I loved the way that Lisa Cholodenko gives us such a rich history into the relationship between Nic and Jules, not just the bad times but also the good, as the movie heads toward its close.

Animated Feature Film

How to Train Your Dragon

The Illusionist

Toy Story 3

Gold: The capper of the Pixar renaissance, Toy Story 3 uses all of the tools in its arsenal to sell the picture-vibrant colors, flashy visual gags, and most crucially, fifteen years worth of nostalgia to underscore its ending.

Silver: How to Train Your Dragon was the moment when everyone (briefly) started taking Dreamworks animation seriously in terms of the Oscar race.  A giant, whirling adventure for the big-screen (that looked terrific in 3-D).

Bronze: The Illusionist is a gorgeous, subtle ode to the work of Jacques Tati that has a beautiful animation palette (soft & pastel), and is bitter as often as sweet, giving us a tough look at how aging (and what it does to our dreams) isn't always fair.

Sound Mixing

Black Swan

Inception

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

Gold: You don't normally care about the sound mixing in a biopic.  Of course, you don't usually have sound mixing as reflective of the characters as The Social Network.  Think of a scene like Mark shouting his deepest insecurities in a club...and still having no one care.  The sound mixing is in on the message of not being heard even when you have everyone listening.

Silver: The score in Inception works so well (not always the case with Hans Zimmer's louder-than-life music), and the film plays with silence better than pretty much every Nolan film seen since (and you can hear the dialogue!).

Bronze: Scott Pilgrim has such a robust song score to play with, and every single tune fits the scene like a glove.  I also loved the way that the sound feels like an official narrator, playing with volume control from scene-to-scene.

Sound Editing

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

How to Train Your Dragon

Inception

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Toy Story 3

Gold: The sound editing in Inception is so impressive not just because it's pristine & clear (you can hear the city folding in on itself, every crunch), but also because it's adding to the story.  Think of the howling wind during Mar's attempted jump...if the filmmakers are going to get into our minds, we have to hear it.

Silver: Few films try to capture the adventure of flight & magical creatures in the same way as How to Train Your Dragon.  The dragons are so distinctive, as is the whirling speed of the Vikings in flight...I loved the way this movie totally underscored how fun it is through its sound design.

Bronze: Scott Pilgrim leans heavy into that zooming comic book style, with us hearing the etched words in every corner (a joke in every frame), as well as using common video game aural clues to hint as Scott Pilgrim moves to the next level-a winning combination.

Score

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

Inception

Never Let Me Go

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

Gold: A decade before Reznor & Ross were double nominees at the Oscars, they were making their first big-scale play for Oscar with the sharp staccatos & synthesized feel of The Social Network, perfectly encapsulating the tech beat of Mark Zuckerberg's world.

Silver: Hans Zimmer's best work relies upon big moments, a film that can match his huge crescendoes & loud musical cues.  Inception is that film, a movie that needs a composer of his skill-set to match its ambitions.

Bronze: Rachel Portman's layered work in Never Let Me Go gives us a bit of melancholia, an old-timey, wistful memory as we watch the picture's life flash before our eyes.

Original Song

"I See the Light," (Tangled)

"Mother Knows Best," (Tangled)

"Never Let Me Go," (Never Let Me Go)

"Ramona," (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)

"You Haven't Seen the Last of Me," (Burlesque)

Gold: It's hard to pinpoint a best song in Scott Pilgrim (and also, some of the best songs aren't eligible), but Beck's "Ramona" hits multiple highs throughout the film, getting the longing for the girl you first loved (and how you'll always remember her).

Silver: Say what you will about Burlesque & the cinematic trappings of Diane Warren, but "You Haven't Seen the Last Me" is a perfect fit for the movie, and sung with astounding devotion by the ageless Cher.

Bronze: One of my favorite things in films of the nature of Never Let Me Go is when they choose not to clean out the piano bench for an old tune that'll fit this motif, but instead add a new one.  "Never Let Me Go" is at once modern & bitterly nostalgic, just like the picture it houses.

Art Direction

Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

I Am Love

Inception

Shutter Island

Gold: It's not just about Paris folding in on itself (though it is-that scene still holds up a decade later), but it's also about the way that the art directors of Inception continually find new ways to morph our dreams, and the worlds within them.  Splendid stuff.

Silver: Shutter Island has a difficult task to encounter when it comes to the art direction-how do we make this world feel real & yet not-entirely-right.  Dante Ferretti dives right into that task, giving us giant, articulate sets (with just a touch of madness lurking underneath).

Bronze: Weirdly Oscar skipped I Am Love in this category despite citing it for Costume, as the sun-drenched Italian villas & ornate, stiff furniture of the movie reek of money in a way that the script could never impress upon the viewers.

Cinematography

I Am Love

Inception

Never Let Me Go

The Social Network

True Grit

Gold: Roger Deakins paints the west with light in the gorgeous True Grit.  The giant, extensive shots in the film recall some of the work of Freddie Young-playing with shadow & dusk, Deakins gives the film a beauty that the script (unfortunately) could never match.

Silver: If the first thing you think of when you think of The Social Network is the weather (the crew team in the rain, the grey haze that seems to follow Sean Parker from scene-to-scene), you should be paying your respects to Jeff Cronenweth, who sets the mood of every frame of The Social Network.

Bronze: Luca Guadagnino's films always have their own aesthetic, and that's again the case with I Am Love, which plays with light & shadow, to give us a glowing look at the upper set of Italy (and of course, Tilda Swinton makes a fabulous subject for any cinematographer).

Costume Design

Black Swan

I Am Love

Never Let Me Go

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

The Tempest

Gold: I Am Love is so reliant upon the singular, money-drenched lifestyle of its main characters that the costumes have a lot to live up to.  Antonella Cannarozzi knows how to find that though, giving us gowns that feel clean, flawless...and way out of your price range.

Silver: Whomever ends up getting the credit (there was a brouhaha at the time about who was the designer which resulted in a surprise Oscar snub), the work in Black Swan deserves its shout-out.  The plays on black-and-white in both Nina & Lily's costumes are exceptional, and deserve recognition.

Bronze: I mean, the movie that houses the looks of The Tempest is absolutely bonkers (and a total mess), but don't hold that against Sandy Powell.  We see Helen Mirren swathed in a sea of warm colors (blue, teal, green), while the men's clothes (Powell's specialty) look just as decadent & within the rockstar motif that Julie Taymor is aspiring.

Film Editing

Black Swan

Incendies

The Social Network

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Winter's Bone

Gold: The Social Network starts with a minor character cutting apart our central figure so accurately you spend the next two hours second-guessing, assuming she must be wrong.  That she isn't, and that the film unfolds so splendidly, whirling from experience-to-experience without ever providing satisfaction for Mark, is a testament to terrific editing.

Silver: A horror film lives or dies in the editing room, and that's what Black Swan turns out to be.  The movie's slow march into Nina's madness works so well because the editors know how to time the descent, ensuring we're kept guessing until it's too late.

Bronze: Scott Pilgrim runs a tightrope.  It needs to remain wholly original, while skating through the world of comic books, a world even in 2010 that had been played to most degrees.  The editors keep the visual humor coming, though, landing every single punchline & nod to the genre.

Makeup & Hairstyling

Black Swan

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

The Wolf Man

Gold: The makeup work within Black Swan is instantly iconic.  You shouldn't win an Oscar just for a look, but man is it tempting to give it to Nina's alabaster face for the final sequence.  Even without that though, some of the grooming & transformation scenes (the wings in her back!) are all the makeup department's doing.

Silver: The first thing you think of is, of course, Ramona Flowers' shifting hair colors when it comes to Scott Pilgrim, but it's really everyone whose makeup/hair stand out-the looks of all of the characters are carefully represented, preened perfectly to capture that glossy, manufactured aesthetic that you can only aspire for when you're in your early twenties.

Bronze: Remember when Cate Blanchett said "gross" while presenting the Oscar to The Wolf Man (still one of my favorite moments of presenter editorializing)?  She's not wrong, but that doesn't mean that the big, flashy effects that Rick Baker is bringing here don't add to the story & are totally believable (if, well, gross).

Visual Effects

Black Swan

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

Inception

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Tron: Legacy

Gold: Iconic effects films that are skewered within an inch of their life by later, lesser films are usually doing something right.  That's the case of the wall-of-CGI (literally) crashing into Inception, a sumptuous feast for the eyes that still holds up a decade later because it uses the effects to actually tell the story (not just astound...though it obviously is achieving both).

Silver: Harry Potter still has some magic up his sleeve with his penultimate adventure, here highlighting new heights with a decrepit white dragon trapped within the confines of Gringott's bank, and a gigantic glowing shield hovering over the iconic Hogwarts.

Bronze: Visual effects should not only be groundbreaking-they also need to aide the story.  Scott Pilgrim isn't a Grand Teton of effects like Inception, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it uses its effects so well, here playing with color & video game aesthetic to enrich the humor.

Also in 2010: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2010

Other My Oscar Ballots: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

Burlesque (2010)

Film: Burlesque (2010)
Stars: Cher, Christina Aguilera, Stanley Tucci, Cam Gigandet, Kristen Bell, Eric Dane
Director: Steven Antin
Oscar History: I know you're laughing at the thought, but the film actually won the Best Original Song Golden Globe and may well have gotten Diane Warren her first Oscar had it made it through, but it sadly was skipped over for "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me"
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

It's Pride this weekend, and also we all need at least something to stop the madness in our lives right now (really-I cannot remember a year this volatile, and it's not even half over yet), so I am going to do a film review of a movie that I suspect no one out there can look at the photo of without both A) smiling and B) thinking "that's pretty gay," and that would be Burlesque, which I caught for the first time this week.  Sadly excused from our OVP for 2010 (more on that in a second), the film didn't do as badly as one would have expected (it bombed domestically but did well enough overseas to more than recoup its surprisingly large budget), and it's a lot more fun than you'd expect even if the broad brushstrokes of the picture are all laughably cliched.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Ali (Aguilera), a waitress with big city dreams who wants to go to LA to make it big, who stumbles across a burlesque show in Los Angeles that is down on its feet despite the denials of owner Tess (Cher).  There she meets a ridiculously hot (though conveniently straight) bartender name Jack (Gigandet-remember back when he was a thing post-Twilight...come to think of it remember when all of those actors on Twilight save the two stars & Kendrick were a thing...when is their Oprah: Where Are They Now coming up?), and eventually becomes his roommate despite him having a fiance.  After begging to be in the show, Tess eventually relents when one of the girls gets pregnant, and during a sabotage from her arch-rival Nikki (Bell), Ali gets a chance to sing and as she's Christina Aguilera she doesn't skip out on the "on-pitch foghorn" thing she's so famous for (I mean that as a compliment), and suddenly the entire film transforms as she deals with being a star and what comes from such a situation.

The film, as you may imagine, is filled with cliche.  Every single scene you can see coming a mile away-there is no surprise here, except that Cher and Christina never actually do a duet on-stage, which felt like a missed opportunity.  Ali's journey to being a headliner at Tess' club is obvious from the beginning of the movie (and not just because we know Christina can sing), but it's a film that does most of these scenes with relative charm.  It helps that you cast Cher and Stanley Tucci, both very game and fun performers (every scene between the two of them is a blast) and then don't ask some of the rest of the cast to do much.  Aguilera is actually better than you'd expect (this is no Crossroads situation), though she's not about to outdo, say, what Anna Kendrick would have done in this role-she has timing, and though she's occasionally over-eager in her delivery, it's a pity this film wasn't better-received by critics as she actually has some presence onscreen (Cam Gigandet doesn't, but his role here is really just to be obnoxiously good-looking, and in that he's successful).  No one would ever confuse this with being a "good" movie, but it's also certainly not a bad one, and it's pretty fun, quite frankly.  It goes to show that the Golden Raspberry Awards are intensely sexist and (in particular) decidedly homophobic that they thought it would be funny for Cher to be nominated for Worst Supporting Actress here, since she's way too good onscreen in this picture to ever be considered a "worst supporting actress."

The film should have been Oscar-nominated in Best Original Song, however, and that's a fact.  We discussed this race over here (please click if you're newer to the blog and aren't familiar with our now hundreds of Oscar Viewing Project write-ups), but this would have been the perfect time to give Diane Warren an Oscar.  "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" is genuinely a good song, and comes in a critical moment in the film (unlike some nominees in this category in the past), and plus it's way better than anything the Academy came up with, which is admittedly not often the case for Diane Warren.  Honestly-it would have been the perfect time to honor a longtime celebrated songwriter without having to sacrifice the category, and she'd just won the Globe (and there weren't even five nominees in 2010-you wouldn't have had to bump anyone, and it's not like Randy Newman needed a second makeup Oscar).  All-in-all, one of the bigger blunders Oscar has made in recent years.

Those are my thoughts on Burlesque, a cheeky, occasionally ridiculous, but very watchable camp film. What are your thoughts?  Do you think Christina Aguilera will ever make another picture, or do you think her actress-appeal might be too limited?  How about getting Cher back in front of the camera?  And who else thinks this was Diane Warren's Oscar and AMPAS screwed it up?  Share your thoughts below!

OVP: Picture (2010)

OVP: Best Picture (2010)

The Nominees Were...

Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver, and Scott Franklin, Black Swan

David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, and Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter

Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Inception

Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, and Celine Rattray, The Kids Are All Right

Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, and Garet Unwin, The King's Speech

Christian Colson, Danny Boyle, and John Smithson, 127 Hours

Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael de Luca, and Cean Chaffin, The Social Network

Darla K. Anderson, Toy Story 3

Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen, and Joel Coen, True Grit

Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Winter's Bone

My Thoughts: Looking at the above photos, you'd almost be forgiven for thinking this was a great lineup of Best Picture nominees.  Put together, when you see the iconic images of movie stars, soon-to-be classic scenes, and your favorites mixed amongst the ones you were relatively indifferent toward, you think "wow, what a year for pictures."  But 2010 was just an okay year for Best Pictures, in my opinion, and some of the best films of the year got overlooked (as always happens) in favor of some of the fine or mediocre.  

With 2011, the punching bag that I felt the worst about was The Artist, primarily because it's not a film I wanted to persistently rag upon-it's just that I didn't think any of its nominations were really justified.  This year's Artist easily became True Grit, a film that is better than I've been saying it is, but has to surpass a higher bar when it comes down to being counted amongst the year's ten best films, which it doesn't really do outside of its cinematography.  With ten nominations, I've discussed the film from almost every angle, but the reality is the film just doesn't have enough going for it.  Even films like Inception, which try hard and fail on plot execution, at least shot for great and fell.  True Grit doesn't even get to that point.  This is fine for just being a movie-not every film can be (or should be) No Country for Old Men, and there's something for keeping the tradition of the western (as I get older, one of my favorite genres) alive, but the Duke's films are largely interchangeable with some rare exceptions, and this movie proves that that doesn't alter when you cast Jeff Bridges.

Winter's Bone is the film that has grown on me the most since I've seen it of these ten.  Some of these movies I instantly loved, some I disliked fairly strongly when I first saw them, but Winter's Bone is the one film that I have gained a lot more appreciation for the more distance I gain from it.  I think it may be the nuances of Lawrence's performance come into a different light the more you think about the people surrounding her.  I love the complicated relationships that develop with Dale Dickey and John Hawkes throughout the film, how we never really get to understand their actions properly, but we get a hint of why they are the way they are.  Movies like Winter's Bone run a tight line between giving the audience too much (killing some of the remaining mystery of the film) and being too ambiguous (therefore leaving us alienated).  It helps that Granik keeps the focus almost entirely on Ree (I'm trying to remember if there's a scene she's not in, and I don't believe there is), therefore making her eyes our eyes, and giving us only what she would know as a character.  This helps keep the chill real, since we have our doppelganger on-screen, and have to rely on her for our journey through the movie.

Toy Story 3, as I've mentioned before, is a film that relies heavily on its predecessors, and I don't recall where I read it (if you know who you are, take your credit), but I remember a critic saying that if they ever make a Toy Story 4 they should just take back all of the awards given to this film, and I 100% agree.  This film only works as the closing of a chapter.  The film would lose something if we saw more of the toys journey without Andy, because he is the anchor of this film.  The movies are all about getting older, growing up, and finding that you cannot stay the person you used to be.  It's a message that resonates with everyone, because as you get older, you either have to close doors or realize that some doors aren't open anymore (I've been going through this crisis a bit as my thirties come charging out at me like a gun and I'm not ready to give up my twenties quite yet, and this is proof that this story hearkens to all ages).  If we get to restart, it takes away the linear aspects of the film, and makes it less relatable-the movie works because we are Andy, and have to say goodbye in the end.  The toys get to stay the same age forever, but we do not.  There's a lot more to the film (some great action sequences, terrific vocal work from Ned Beatty, Tom Hanks, and Michael Keaton), but it's the final scene that clinches the entire movie-after fifteen years, we are forced to say goodbye to these characters, and if Pixar understands what makes them special, it will be a permanent goodbye.

Since we've already tackled True Grit, it makes sense to also throw out the other film that took a (slightly less intense) beating throughout these proceedings, The King's Speech.  I've carped on and on about how this feels like a TV movie, and I don't want to mean that as an insult.  Television, and even TV movies, can hit emotional heights that only the finest of art can go toward.  I know I spend most of my television time on this blog focusing on the shows of Ryan Murphy, but I do love shows that are less divisive and ones I can defend more universally.  Lost, Mad Men, Game of Thrones-I would put these up against almost any films of the past ten years in terms of grandeur and content.

The reality is though that television and movies are very different things.  Television, when it's meant to be artistic and not some soul-sucking drivel like Two and a Half Men or 99.9% of cable reality shows, is about developing characters over time.  It's about forming a long-term bond with a character and over the years letting them into your life in a personal way.  Look at a show like Lost-you cheer on John Locke in a way that you could never cheer on a movie character, because you've spent years with him, and like it or not, when you truly love a show, you truly cheer on a character in the same way you'd cheer on a real-life friend (and let's be honest, with our favorite shows, we spend as much time with these characters as we do with our actual friends).

Film, on the other hand, is supposed to tell a finite, short tale, and is supposed to be a compact story, and should therefore find a shorter, higher arc.  The King's Speech would work better as a miniseries or a short series because it tends to gloss over too many of the scenes.  We take for granted Bertie's struggle, how difficult it is for him to ask for help, and Hooper gives us history as a crutch, but it's missing the big arcs you want from a movie, and needs more time to grow with us as an audience (think of the montages they use to keep the film a-pace).  Hooper understands television, obviously, as that is where he has been most successful, but with a film he's better off with something finite like Les Miserables, a play that has already compressed what he needs to present, rather than something larger that could go the way of television or a movie.

You can compare The King's Speech to The Kids Are All Right in this regard to get a sense of a movie that also could have worked as a television series, but clearly doesn't because the director knows completely what medium she's working in and has the good sense not to lose focus on that.  In a television series, we'd get to know a lot more about Paul, and in a TV series, quite frankly, the ending wouldn't work-we'd have spent too much time with these character not to see a happy ending for all of them (yes, spoiler alerts should be issued, but I suspect you've seen this movie by now, and would have skipped the paragraph if you hadn't).  Cholodenko knows to keep the focus on the affair, and the turmoil that invades Nic and Jules stagnant marriage, and not meander or try to gloss through certain scenes because there's a time limit.  In the end, when Paul is evicted from their lives, we realize that not everyone was required a happy ending here, and the focus was truly on the core family, and not the guy who was thrown into it.

Inception was one of the biggest movies of 2010, and probably the most-discussed film, and was a bit of the inverse of Winter's Bone for me.  I remember adoring it the first time I saw it, impressed by the beautiful visuals and the insane amount of twists and turns.  It, however, doesn't hold up as sturdily on second viewing, and is instead an artful, but flawed summer film.  Without a great performance like Heath Ledger's to anchor the movie, Nolan becomes a bit too in love with his concepts, and while they work on some levels (the entire entering your dream aspect is a doozy), the concept is too big and too full of holes to hold up when you take a closer examination of it.  Nolan would have gained from trimming a bit of the fat (cutting a couple of twists), and spending more time on, say, Mar, who is the most fascinating character in the film.  In fact, in a land of a thousand sequels, it might have made more sense to have the Mar story told beforehand, as it's a bit more intriguing than the remaining film.  The movie is still impressive, and this isn't the screenplay category, so I have to not just base my vote on the plot but also on the visual effects, the cinematography, and how they valuably contribute to the end result, but that's not enough to save it and get it Best Picture.

Danny Boyle's adventures in filmmaking are not without their risks, and I will say that this isn't my least favorite of his films (let's all brace ourselves for the shellacking Slumdog Millionaire is going to take in 2008).  The film is ambitious, I'll give it that, but it just doesn't work for me.  High concept movies should be applauded, but they should be celebrated when they actually succeed, which this one largely doesn't.  The film lives and dies on whether we want to stare at James Franco for two hours, which works (this would have been downright terrible without a star as intriguing as Franco at the helm), but the film seems more intent on us thinking about how we'd react in a scene than how the character is reacting.  It says something that the hipster Franco has so much growing to do, when in reality he seemed relatively enlightened at the beginning of the film, and the guy who randomly helps two girls in the desert without a second thought doesn't meld with the guy who didn't tell anyone where he was going.  Again, I really want to like this movie, but the stylistic choices (why does he have to do those odd Slumdog closeups in a film that's so different from it) and lack of proper character development don't add up to anything I can get behind.

If Winter's Bone is the film that grew on me the most and Inception the one that waned after a while, Black Swan is the film I forgot how much I loved.  Looking through my many awards notes from that year and leading up to writing the OVP entries, I realized how highly I had rated the film, and after re-watching scenes from the movie, I recalled how tightly wound this film was, and how it ended up in my personal Top 10 for the year.  The thing people forget about the film is that it's so much more than Portman's girly, mad-hatter performance.  People see that Best Actress trophy, and forget about the great deal of symbolism and easter eggs throughout the taut script and the "is she insane or is she being destroyed" aspects of the plot.  Think of how brilliant Winona Ryder and Barbara Hershey are in their short, tortured roles, and how we slowly begin to question if everything in Nina's world is illusion or just a twisted version of her reality.  This is a movie that stands up years later because it doesn't rely on the "twist ending" aspect as much as it relies on genuine, psychological scares and the fear of what we don't know.

David O. Russell's film I actually recalled liking better than most people, and it was due to two things, both of which we've discussed at length, but for the completist in me, I've got to recount again.  The first, as I've mentioned are the fight sequences.  I've been trying to pinpoint the reasons for this, and the biggest thing for me is that I honestly didn't know how this was going to end (despite it being a true story).  The film has the atmosphere of being about a family who just happen to love boxing, and not focused solely on the actual fighting.  Of course, they wouldn't have made the movie if he wasn't somewhat successful, but the boxing is secondary, and after a while, you feel that it could be that Mickey's dream is about to be crushed, and that he had a brief date with fame but failed.  That's an interesting story, and one intriguing enough to be made into a movie, and therefore the suspense works.

The second aspect is of course the brilliant work by Melissa Leo.  While I've discussed why Bale doesn't work for me, Leo just soars in every scene she's in in the movie.  Great films don't always house great performances, but they do know when they have one, and with Leo, they just let her attack the scenes, focusing solely on her despite her lack of star stature.  I loved the way that she moves through all of her children-that she doesn't react to her daughters as a giant set of SAG extras, but instead has different reactions for all of them and clearly knows what motivates her, and who her favorites are.  It's a great piece of work that bared mention again as we close out our discussion of this movie.

The final film is of course The King's Speech's chief rival, The Social Network.  After spending at least two hours yesterday in a social media spiral (by the end of the weekend I'll have my LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr's all up-to-date, and I'll wonder what the hell I did that for when I could have cleaned my apartment or jumped on the treadmill), I can tell you that this film captured a slice of our lives.  The primary reason that it didn't succeed in winning the Best Picture is that it spoke (surface-level) to a very young subset of our culture.  The film resonated with Gen Y audiences in a way that it likely didn't for other audiences because of its tech pop culture references and the way that Facebook unfolded for those born between 1982-1987.

But the film is universal in the bulk of its messages, which is why the lack of knowledge about the technology is acknowledged, but not forgiven if you dismissed this movie out-of-hand.  The tale of a man who goes from having a simple life to throwing away his friends, his morals, his humanity all in the pursuit of an ambition that he's not even sure he desires is a tale that can speak to all of us.  Mark, Eduardo, and Sean may represent real people, but they show a universal message of how wealth can corrupt some and enhance others, and we only know what we want when we reflect and realize what we missed.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Globes, as always, split their trophies between Drama and Comedy, and as eight of the Best Picture nominees are Dramas, there wasn't room for 127 Hours, Winter's Bone, and True Grit (in proof that the HFPA doesn't always predict the Oscars, The Social Network emerged victorious).  Toy Story 3 missed in the Comedy category (are animated films even eligible here anymore since they have their own category?), but The Kids Are All Right emerged victorious over Red, The Tourist, Burlesque, and Alice in Wonderland.  The Producers Guild Awards gave their trophy to The King's Speech, and with ten contenders, they only cut Winter's Bone for the clear eleventh place The Town.  And the BAFTA's, in a five-wide field, gave their trophy to The King's Speech, having it beat out Black Swan, True Grit, Inception, and The Social Network

Films I Would Have Nominated: If there's nothing else that you should realize from these write-ups, it's that if you haven't already seen it, it's time to go out and rent Scott Pilgrim.  The film, three years later, seems as fresh as possible, and will likely enjoy midnight movie showings for decades, but it doesn't lose anything by being watched at home and cheering on either Scott or your favorite evil ex.  Blue Valentine also plays beautifully years later, and I love the way that Gosling's fame since the film has only enhanced his sullen, broken man in the movie.  Both of these films could have toppled all but two of the nominees and I would have been fine with it.

Oscar's Choice: Much to the chagrin of the blogosphere, The King's Speech, the far more traditional choice for Best Picture, triumphed over second place The Social Network and likely third place True Grit.

My Choice: I will admit that at the time, it was a much more difficult choice for me between Toy Story 3 and The Social Network, but upon reflection it's an easy win for The Social Network, followed by Pixar.  Rounding out the contenders are Black Swan, Inception, Winter's Bone, The Kids Are All Right, The Fighter, The King's Speech, True Grit, and 127 Hours.

And we've now reached the end of 2010 and our OVP countdown.  I only have two films left in 2012 and six left in 2009, so we'll be encountering both rather soon, but I wanted to know your thoughts on the movies-what'd you think of the Best Picture lineup of 2010?  Were you in The King's Speech or The Social Network camp (or were you cheering for one of the remaining eight and wondering why your film wasn't being discussed)?  And what did you favor as the true best film of 2010?

Also in 2010: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2010

Past Best Picture Contests: 2011