The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is not the general public. That is good and bad. If we went by box office receipts to find our Oscar nominations The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and The Karate Kid would be right up there. That would be bad. On the Other hand, the box office winner would be Toy Story 3 (at almost $415 million, it is $80 million dollars over the next closest eligible movie Alice In Wonderland). That would be good. By the way, the nominations would have gone to [in order]: 1. Toy Story 3, 2. Alice In Wonderland (since Avatar, in the two spot would not qualify), 3. Iron Man 2, 4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, 5. Inception, 6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, 7. Despicable Me, 8. Shrek Ever After, 9. How To Train Your Dragon, and 10. The Karate Kid (Besides Toy Story and Inception the next nominated movie was The Social Network at 30). Notice how much of that is dominated by family movies? Now think back. When was the last time a true family film won the Best Picture Oscar? Oliver! In 1968? The Sound of Music 1965? This is the second year of the great 10 nominations experiment, but not really, way back in the 30’s and 40’s ten nominations were normal. If you take a quick look at last year’s and this year’s nominee list you might see a possible pattern emerging.
127 Hours - "The Inspiring Story That Is Freakin' Hard To Watch At Times" (See Precious)
At 94 minutes, this is the only film to come in under 100 minutes but it seemed much longer at times and gave it’s audience the most cringe-worthy moments. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, movies need to make you feel and it will definitely make you feel something.
Black Swan - "The Dark And Depressing One With Good Acting" (See The Reader)
I consider myself a worldly man, a sensitive man, a good man, but sometimes the primal lowest common denominator takes over. At first I was skeptical about having to watch this movie about a ballerina until six simple words, “Natalie” “Portman” “and” “Mila” “Kunis” “kiss”. I was intrigued. It happens sometimes (See The Reader). Yep, I’m a man, but I’m not going to apologize. Far from it, and it’s not a bad thing. One of the things I love about the movies is the fantasy that can be created, I don’t care how they get me there, if it’s a good film I am going to tell people about it. Of course that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to see it. Luckily the movie is way more then it’s parts and it held me enthralled in the story. That’s the magic of movie making.
The Fighter - "The Good Sports Story With Little Chance Of Winning" (See The Blind Side)
Boxing films are the most common sports films of all. Boxing films have even won Best Picture before. So how do you make your boxing film stand out? You need a good story and great characters. This is a good thing. It forces you to make the film about character and story instead of being able to fall back on the novelty of a sport to carry the film. That means better films. On the other hand it’s bad. There is a specific niche that it fits into and that niche is specific enough that it is hard not to compare it with its predecessors. No matter what you do you will automatically be compared to Raging Bull, or Million Dollar Baby, or Rocky, so you are not only competing against yourself, but against a whole genre.
Inception - "The Science Fictiony One That Should Win, But Won't" (See District 9)
Then there is the popularity contest aspect of it. One of the things I hate about the Major League Baseball All Star Game is the fan voting. Let’s see a show of hands, who takes their time to actually consider which player is the best regardless if he plays on your team or not? And what about the other side of the ballot, the other league? Doesn’t everyone just vote for who they knew, name recognition? An interesting thing is happening over at IMDb.com. They have an Oscar poll. Users go and pick who they want to win. Inception is currently doubling up on the amount of votes that the next movie in line The King’s Speech is getting. But is this a good thing or not? Last year Avatar would have run away with it if it was up to the fans. The Hurt Locker was a much better film and so where a few of the others. But on the other hand, Inception is an awesome film. Sometimes the fans know what they are talking about. If I were picking the winner, I would pick Inception. But I’m not picking, the Academy is, and I hate to say this, but Inception will not win. The Academy doesn’t have the mettle to pull that trigger. Above all else, most members still view movies as their art and they just simply won’t stoop to vote for a movie made for the fans. (See The Dark Knight, by far the best film of the year, but it didn’t even crack the Best Picture nominations) I know what you are probably saying, “This isn’t the People’s Choice Awards.” I get that, but a movie like Inception probably won’t get very much consideration and will more then likely fall into the “Just be glad you got nominated” category.
The Kids Are All Right - "The Filler" (See Up In The Air)
In my mind I keep trying to see this movie as anything but filler to take up a space in this new format of ten nominations. It’s a really good movie with a wonderful cast and solid performances but that is all I see, nothing special. On the one hand, a nomination will bring it an audience it might not have had before. Honestly, until the awards season started I had never even heard of this movie. On the other hand, it just seems to water down the competition, how many votes did this get that could possibly gone to Winter’s Bone or one of the two favorites The King’s Speech or The Social Network that could have changed the outcome? Back when there were only 5 nominations you always heard about this movie or that one that got “snubbed by the Academy”. Well, you don’t have that problem any more and because of that there are a few movies that don’t even stand a chance. You would hope that a movie that is nominated would stand at least a bit of a chance of getting an upset win, I don’t see that happening for this movie. There are just too many in front of it.
The King's Speech - "The Traditional Oscar Bait" (See There Will Be Blood, The Queen)
At least from the trailer this would look like traditional Oscar bait. The story of a king. Period piece. Staunch British acting. Pip pip cheerios and all that stuff. Solid acting by three actors doesn’t hurt either. Why will it beat The Social Network? Because not only is it exactly the thing Academy voters love, it is actually a very good movie that is easy to watch even if you are not to fond of the staunchy British movies. In three words…it’s not boring. A lot of the other movies styled like this one, The Queen, The Hours, The Remains Of The Day, Howard’s End, A Room With A View are boring as hell.
The Social Network - "The New Fangled Oscar Bait" (See The Hurt Locker, Milk)
And then there is the other favorite. From just about the time this came out until a few weeks ago this movie has been considered the favorite but recently you are hearing a lot of buzz about The King’s Speech. Why will it beat The King’s Speech? It is hipper, more up to date and it doesn’t stray to far from it’s center. Solid from start to finish. This boiling down is a two horse race and’ it’s gonna be close.
Toy Story 3 - "The Token Animated Movie, Thanks For Coming, You'll Have To Settle For Best Animated Movie Oscar" (See Up)
Let’s face it, it will be a long long time, if ever, before an animated film wins the Best Picture category and I will tell you why. There is a category called Best Animated Film, plain and simple. The first thing that will go through an Academy voter is that, “Hey, it’ll get it’s Oscar no need to vote for it here”. Not to even mention the total bias there is against animation. To date a total of 485 movies have been nominated for Best Picture, three of them were animated. And 2 of those nominations have come in this expansion period. Think about that. Three movies. And that is an injustice. Toy Story 3 is a gem. It deserves to at least be in contention.
True Grit - "The Token Coen Brother's Movie" (see A Simple Man)
Sometimes the Academy gets Streepitis. I think a lot of times actors get nominated more for who they are then for what they did. This is not a bad thing either because you have to have the resume to do it. I call it Streepitis for a reason. Otherwise I could call in Sandleritis, or Ferrelitis, or Cageitis. Meryl Streep keeps getting nominated because she keeps doing get work, but sometimes she does average work for her but since it is Meryl Streep, she gets the benefit of the doubt and the nomination. The same thing happens to directors, in this case the Coen brothers. True Grit was a very good film, just not great.
Winter's Bone - "The Token Little Independent Film" (See An Education)
It’s always nice to see an independent film get a nomination and the Academy always seems to do that. And there is always the possibility it might win (See Slumdog Millionaire), but that possibility is still pretty slim.
Hilarity Ensues 