The nominees for Best Picture this year are (as if you didn’t know)

The Fighter

Black Swan

Inception

Winter’s Bone

The Kids Are Alright

The King’s Speech

127 Hours

The Social Network

True Grit

Toy Story 3

I’ve seen TS3, True Grit, Social Network, King’s Speech, Inception, Black Swan and the opening of The Fighter.

To me Social Network doesn’t belong amongst such fine films, filmmakers and actors. It was a pathetic, frustrating portrayal of a bunch of selfish, self-righteous nerds (one of whom keeps screwing with my privacy settings to the point of making me want to abandon his possibly-ill-gotten business entirely) and there was no one to root for. That brings me to my first problem with it, Black Swan and Inception.

1. Sympathetic Characters

This is Storytelling 101, people! We have to have someone to root for, someone to identify with in some way, someone who draws us in to care about what is happening in the story.

In NETWORK, we have a guy who’s summed up best by what his girlfriend says to him within the first 10 minutes of the film:

Erica Albright: You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.

And he was an asshole. Why do I care if he gets what he wants in this film? I’d call him an antihero but what’s the quest? Facebook is the Holy Grail? C’mon. Just because it’s topical doesn’t mean it’s Oscar worthy.

In BLACK SWAN, we have this frigid girl who looks at all times constipated, confused, desperate and lost. It takes her, literally, until the finale of the film to finally “get it”, to loosen up and she’s only really able to do that on stage, not in her real life. So the entire film I’m sitting there wondering when is she going to get it? IS she going to get it? Do I even care? Show some more dancing already! But instead I was tortured with her constipation and hallucinations until she finally died, thank God. (Let’s not forget Winona Ryder - repeating her early 90s hairstyle for no apparent reason - in a role that could have hearkened back to Girl, Interrupted but instead she opted for that uncomfortable, twitchy, wide-eyed thing she does in every other film)

“I was perfect” she says in the end. Are we supposed to care? Is this a triumph? She’s been a horrible person to everyone around her. She’s cared only about herself, not the company, not the ballet, and only cared enough even about herself to be all pouty and “poor me” and, I’m sorry but it really is the best word for it, emotionally constipated. Why am I supposed to care if she becomes a great Black Swan? By the time the ballet was in full swing, all I cared about was it coming to an end.

In INCEPTION, we have a guy who’s too stupid to get his kids back legally and who screwed with his wife’s mind so that she committed suicide. He selfishly refuses to get rid of her in his own subconscious so that she’s constantly nearly killing everyone - everyone who is there, by the way, to, for all intents and purposes, help him get his kids back.

Somehow we’re supposed to care that this selfish prig is in a bunch of levels of dreams - which pose very little real danger and lose all their tension once we’re told that the people he’s fighting are just in Cillian’s mind - in order to extract information for a business take over between a couple of companies we’re told so little about by the one guy in the film who can barely speak English. C’mon, Nolan. I wish the plot had been as intricate as it was purported to be but my mind was not blown. It was annoyed. The tops keeps spinning or it doesn’t keep spinning, it’s all a contrivance anyway! We’re not talking about the mysteries and unknowns of MEMENTO here. And considering Nolan did that one, you’d think he’d have some perspective. You’d think Inception would be better than Memento. But no.

Instead, the only sympathetic character was Mal and that was due to our “hero” being such a selfish ass to her that she (or at least the version of her in his mind) is this poor trapped, otherworldly soul. Cotilliard’s performance outdoes anything anyone did in this and the previous two films I’ve mentioned.

2. Plot

I’ve already touched on it but these three films’ plots were either so thin as to be non-existent or didn’t matter.

A love-scorned boy seeks revenge and stumbles upon a supposedly great idea which he mostly steals.

An uptight, one-dimensional ballerina makes pathetic, torturous attempt after pathetic, torturous attempt to not be an uptight, one-dimensional ballerina which drives her to lesbian hallucinations and fantasies.

A selfish man whose illegal and not-really-that-complicated ideas lose him his kids and his wife, risks the lives of everyone else he knows in order to complete a job for a corporate big wig by going into a guy’s dreams.*

‘Nuff said.

When it comes to BLACK SWAN, I was extra disappointed. I was expecting much more dancing, more featuring of the ballet company although that was somewhat rectified in the ballet itself at the end. I think Portman’s performance was, while different from her recent works, not very good. She just grimaced the whole time - grimaced while dancing, grimaced while talking to her mom, grimaced while failing to masturbate properly or at all. The ONLY time she was any good in my opinion was during the final ballet. I think that’s really the only part of the film worth watching. Maybe the spooky scene in the pedestrian walkway. But that’s it. And that gets you nominated? You can just look like you have to take a dump for an hour but if you act your tights off (ballet pun!) in the last 15 minutes, then you’re an award-winning and nominated actress? I have got to get myself together. This whole thing is easier than I thought. Although, I don’t have a speech impediment…hope that doesn’t work against me.

I would really like to see True Grit take home Best Picture. It had everything right - rich, sympathetic characters we could laugh and cry with (even hate and then fall in love with), incredible photography and locations, a clear story that had high stakes, risks, disaster and triumph and that meant something in the end that you could care about. Themes of revenge, love, character, the freaking meaning of life and destiny. I mean, that’s it right there. That’s everything!

While I loved Toy Story 3 and have debated about its validity in this category given that it’s up for Best Animated as well, I don’t think it should win. True Grit has everything plus live action and all things being equal, I think live action should trump animation because, while you can replicate you can’t duplicate a real, live actor’s emotional performances. Still, Toy Story 3 was definitely better than most live action films I’ve seen in recent memory. When the toys were in that chipper thing going down towards the fire, I was crying. That’s love. That’s friendship. We all want that. We all want one or more people we can love and trust to be there that if we’re faced with the unthinkable, they will hold our hands and we will brave it. THAT’S what movies ought to be about. Oscar nominated ones, anyway.

I enjoyed The King’s Speech and I thought the cinematography, especially that foggy scene, was incredible. So were the costuming, all the sets. And who doesn’t love Michael Gambon. However, there was something flat about it and I can’t quite put my finger on it (surprising, I know).  But it was a great film and Geoffrey Rush is a master.

The Fighter looks to fall in line with True Grit - clear goals, high stakes, high emotions, rich sympathetic characters. I mean, you can get all that from the previews! And I think Winter’s Bone is probably in that category as well, from what I can see.

I do wish I’d seen all the films. And obviously, you can tell I have a bias toward strong story telling rather than a film relying on hype, horror or technology.

I can absolutely see how those first three films would have made it into the running. And I’m not going to make a wager as to who will win (please not any of those three pleasepleaseplease) because I think it will probably be one of those three just because the Academy seems to be pandering a bit this year with its choices.

For me, I want to walk away from a movie feeling good, feeling excited, feeling positive. What’s the point in spending 50 dollars on tickets and snacks to sit in mostly uncomfortable chairs for 3 hours, getting a bladder infection from holding your pee in, if you’re going to leave feeling let down, confused, uncomfortable, horrified, creeped out and/or angry? If I wanted some sort of weird experience like that, I’d go to a video art install or watch some obscure Fellini. 

As Joseph Turner White, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, said in the film State and Main,

The movies…they should be socially uplifting.

*I’m available to write the logline for your next film and my rate is very reasonable.