In case you've forgotten, the Oscars are coming up and the nominations were just released yesterday. While 2010 isn't being considered an amazing year for motion pictures I will respectfully disagree. The coveted Best Picture award is filled with contenders (e.g.
The Fighter) as well as quite a few movies that I would consider all time favorites (
True Grit, The Social Network, Inception, Black Swan, and
Toy Story 3). A full list of nominees including my predictions for he winners is as follows:
Best animated feature film:
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3
I've got to go with
Toy Story 3 for this one. I say this not only because I was a 90's kid who grew up with the first two but because of the way Pixar was able to incorporate such adult underlying themes into such a kid friendly movie. I enjoyed
How to Train Your Dragon but it just can't compete with
Toy Story. And as far as
The Illusionist goes...come on.
Best original screenplay:
Another Year
The King's Speech
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
I'm going with
The Kids Are All Right for no real reason other than I feel it's very Academy friendly. My second pick would be
The Fighter and a close third would be
The King's Speech. I loved
Inception but I feel like the screenplay was more of a mindfuck than the movie.
Best art direction:
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech
True Grit
Inception all the way on this one. The visual appearance of each level of the dream along with the movie as a whole was impressive and aesthetically appealing.
Alice in Wonderland...I'm glad I got to see this one on campus for free, I would have been even more depressed walking out of the theater if I had paid to see this one, thankfully it's only up for three awards.
Best costume design:
Alice in Wonderland
I Am Love
The King's Speech
The Tempest
True Grit
I'm giving this one to
True Grit simply because I refuse to give it to
Alice in Wonderland.
Best foreign language film:
Biutiful
Dogtooth
In a Better World
Incendies
Outside the Law
Not a huge fan of foreign film so not much to say on this one. I'll blindly pick
Biutiful because of Javier Bardem.
Best makeup:
Barney's Version
The Way Back
The Wolfman
I've yet to see the first two but based on production photos I'm picking
The Way Back. I found the makeup in
The Wolfman to be a little cheesy and lacking, especially after having scene something as visual stimulating as
Avatar.
Best original song:
"Coming Home" from
Country Strong
"I See the Light" from
Tangled
"If I Rise" from
127 Hours
"We Belong Together" from
Toy Story 3
"We Belong Together" wins because Randy Newman is a boss. The only other one I could maybe see winning this one would be "If I Rise" because by itself it's a good song and it definitely worked well with the pace and feeling of
127 Hours.
Best sound mixing:
Inception
The King's Speech
Salt
The Social Network
True Grit
Inception wins. BWONNNNNNNNNNNG.
Best adapted screenplay:
127 Hours
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone
The Social Network
I'm choosing
127 Hours over
The Social Network. The Social Network may have taken the Critic's Choice, but I feel
127 Hours is more the Academy's pace.
Best cinematography:
Black Swan
The Social Network
Inception
The King's Speech
True Grit
This award is a toss up. In my personal opinion I'd pick
Black Swan, however,
Inception's cinematography was insane and
True Grit really managed to capture the feel of the old westerns while giving it a modern day touch.
Best editing:
Black Swan
The Fighter
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Again I'm picking
Black Swan for no real reason other than preference.
Best original score:
127 Hours
The Social Network
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
The King's Speech
I went with
The Social Network. I would be thrilled if Hans Zimmer would take this one simply because I'm a fan, but there's no denying that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross beautifully captured the feeling of
The Social Network.
Best sound editing:
Inception
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Unstoppable
TRON: Legacy
Inception wins again. BWONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG. Glad
to see
Unstoppable managed to get an Oscar nod though.
Best visual effects:
Alice in Wonderland
Iron Man 2
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
Hereafter
I pick
Inception. The cafe explosion scene, the anti-gravity fight, messing with the physics of the dream, the paradoxical architecture, the final dream collapsing, limbo...I don't see how this couldn't win honestly.
Best performance by an actress in a supporting role:
Amy Adams in
The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter in
The King's Speech
Hailee Steinfeld in
True Grit
Melissa Leo in
The Fighter
Jacki Weaver in
Animal Kingdom
As much as I would love for Hailee to win this, she's got some tough competition. She's only 14 though and a very promising young actress, she'll definitely have her chance. I'm a fan of Helena but I don't think even she can compete with Melissa Leo on this one. I'm going with Melissa Leo for best supporting actress.
Best performance by an actor in a supporting role:
Christian Bale in
The Fighter
John Hawkes in
Winter's Bone
Jeremy Renner in
The Town
Mark Ruffalo in
The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush in
The King's Speech
Geoffrey Rush gets my pick here. I'm a fan of both Bale and Renner (minus the monstrosity that is
The Hurt Locker) but Rush simply outclasses them.
Best performance by an actress in a leading role:
Annette Benning in
The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman in
The Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence in
Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman in
Black Swan
Michelle Williams in
Blue Valentine
Natalie should win this. While it's not a no-brainer
Black Swan is right up the Academy's alley and her performance was incredible.
Best performance by an actor in a leading role:
Javier Bardem in
Biutiful
Jeff Bridges in
True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg in
The Social Network
Colin Firth in
The King's Speech
James Franco in
127 Hours
I think Colin Firth will manage to take this one. Bridges and Eisenberg's performances we both good but not quite Oscar worthy. As far as the other two, I can't see the leading actor in a foreign language film taking this award and it would be awesome if Franco won this but I'd consider his performance only slightly above that of Bridges and Eisenberg's, great but not amazing.
Best achievement in directing:
Darren Aronofsky for
Black Swan
Joel and Ethan Coen for
True Grit
David Fincher for
The Social Network
Tom Hooper for
The King's Speech
David O. Russell for
The Fighter
Of these choices I'd pick Darren Aronofsky. I really would have liked to see Christopher Nolan get a chance on this one.
Best motion picture of the year:
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone
This is not in any way an easy pick but I'm giving my vote to
Black Swan. Best picture could honestly go to any of these movies though,
The Social Network being considered the movie of a generation,
The Kids Are All Right and
The King's Speech both getting huge critical acclaim,
Inception received flack for being overly confusing but seeing the Academy pick it wouldn't be entirely outrageous.
Most overrated movie:
The King's Speech. This movie isn't exactly to my liking but I predict it'll be a big winner
Most underrated movie:
True Grit. I loved this movie and would love to see it get it's fair share of awards but sadly I don't think it will.
That wraps up the Oscar nominations and predictions.
-Moviedude22
Let me first start out by saying that I'm not a fan of comics so I probably lack the background knowledge necessary to justly review this movie. With that being said...The Green Hornet is worth a rent, not the price of a 3D ticket. Without knowing much background of the Green Hornet I'll keep this review mainly focused on elements of the movie. Firstly, the 3D seemed pretty forced. It worked with a couple of the fight sequences but for the most part was unnecessary. Secondly, the movie took awhile to really get going. Other than the opening scene with James Franco, which was probably my favorite part of the movie short of the door guns, the first 40-50 minutes seemed slow. Lastly, while I liked Seth Rogan in the role, the little comedic relief and hit-or-miss (more miss than hit) one liners weren't enough to overlook some of the gaping deficits in its story.
