BEST INADVERTANT PORN TITLES:
1. Sarah Palin – You Betcha!
2. Justin Beiber: Never Say Never
3. I Don’t Know How She Does It
4. A Good Way to Die
5. Jumping the Broom
6. In the Land of Blood and Honey
7. Back Door Channels
8. Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
9. HappyThankYouMorePlease
10. I Am Number Four
11. If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle
12. Now & Later
13. Louder than a Bomb
14. Rejoice and Shout
15. Fading of the Cries
16. Kaboom
17. Deep Gold
18. Magic Trip
19. 30 Minutes or Less
20. Balls to the Wall

THE BET:
Thor vs. Captain America (Green Lantern)

I would like to revel in narrowly defeating my friend in a bet over which movie would make more money – Thor or Captain America. I let him chose Captain America, but I always would have gone with Thor. I figured, by the time Marvel started making Captain America, they would be in full “Just get us to The Avengers” mode. Sure enough, the film is 20 minutes too short and wastes Hugo Weaving’s time as what could have been a cool bad guy.


BEST EVIDENCE THAT WE SHOULDN’T COMPLAIN THAT DEMOCRATS RUN THE FILM INDUSTRY:
Atlas Shrugged Part 1

This movie got a lot of play in conservative media because Libertarians don’t necessarily realize that Ayn Rand is a shabby little fascist with a rape fetish. It’s fine. First things first, The Fountainhead is the better book. It’s got her trademark big character archetypes, a compelling vision, and it doesn’t matter who you are, you come out of reading it ready to light the world on fire. It’s less pedantic, too, which helps. Atlas Shrugged is a shitty book. The philosophy ignores basic economics, and no one has ever argued that Rand was a great prose stylist.

Regardless, worse books have become good movies. The point is, I wanted to like this movie because it would be nice to have something to balance out the steady drumbeat of tedious leftist social issues movies like Cider House Rules and John Q.

Unfortunately, this film is unlikable, and it’s galling that there will be more of it. As I said, what Rand has going for her is the soaring ego of her characters. This film should be an actors’ paradise. Instead, the filmmakers have located the most-wooden, straight-to-youtube acting troop since The Room. (I reference that only to drop this great The Room scene on you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ4KzClb1C4). With a script that reads straight from the talk radio back-up guest host playbook, we’re left to lament what might have been.

The funny thing is, Hollywood did slip in a ridiculously conservative social issues movie without realizing it: Bad Teacher. Tune out the unfortunately occasional funniness and trace the plot: this film is Waiting for Superman in the guise of a comedy. If Bad Teacher had actually succeeded in being funny and entertaining, someone else might have noticed this too. I feel like I’m that guy who played The White Album backwards and found out that Paul was dead…except for it was a The Move Greatest Hits album, and the message was “This is your brain on drugs.”

THE BANALITY OF MODERN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD:

It’s hard to argue for bourgeoisie values – the counter-culture is the culture. Perhaps a cynical, self-referential generation that was allowed to watch David Bowie freak them out in Labyrinth hopes to vaccinate their children from counter culture with the Rebecca Blacks and Selena Gomezes of the world. Unlike with real vaccines, this year in children's films may actually cause autism. I watched the Winnie the Pooh movie. Literally nothing happens. By the end, I was counting cards and obsessed with the Beatles. And I no longer liked Tigger.

When I look out into the Occupy movement, the Tea Party, and everyone in between, I have to hope that one thing unites us all…that underneath the dreadlocks on the self-proclaimed vanguard of the 99% as well as under the Axe-hair sprayed uber-douche ‘do of the elusive 1%, there is a cry welling up in all Americans, and that one day, we will all cry in unison, “No mo’ Gnomeo”

Gnomeo & Juliet
Mars Needs Moms
Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2
Hop
Soul Surfer
Hoodwinked Too: Hood Versus Evil
Mr Popper’s Penguins
Cars 2
Winnie the Pooh
Spy Kids: All the Time in the World
Dolphin Tale
Happy Feet 2
Alvin & the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

MOST UNNECESSARY SEQUEL (Non-Children’s Film ONLY)
* The Hangover 2 – For crazy party locations, all that’s left is Rio and the Moonbase. Little-known fact: Ed Helms was led to believe that Cedar Rapids was a Hangover prequel.
* Final Destination 5 x Paranormal Activity 3 = Final Paranormal Activity Destination 15.
* Harry Potter 7: 2 – OK…it was necessary; 7 Part 1 was not
Pirates of the Caribbean 4 / The Rum Diary – Johnny Depp is now permanently employed pretending to be Keith Richards and Hunter S. Thompson.
* New Year’s Eve – It’s depressing to think how many holidays we have left to ruin with an ensemble cast and a Hallmark script.

WINNER: Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Out of nowhere, the first film was shockingly good. Since then, Disney has stripped the movies of all of their joy and wit. Part 3 should have ended it; nearly 3 hours of movie for nothing but to get to the concept fight in the whirlpool. Instead, I was snookered into believing that a few years off and the very welcome additions of the dude from Deadwood and Penelope Cruz might change course. No such luck; everything is there – the actors, the music, the set-up. There’s just no creativity left. You can’t get to Bond level of serialization with around 5 consecutive hours of dud and counting. FREE JOHNNY DEPP!

BEST TWIST:
The Lincoln Lawyer
Unknown
WINNER: Unknown – So all along, you knew it was Liam Neeson, you just didn’t know how.

WORST TWIST:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – I hadn’t read the book, but everyone knew Stellan Skarsgard was a bad guy.

THE HELEN MIRREN AWARD FOR MOST RIDICULOUS ASS KICKER
Hanna
Your Highness
Sucker Punch
WINNER: Your Highness

This one was tough…Sucker Punch is a dream sequence. Hanna has the explanation of having been trained all her life as a killer, but there’s a scene with a few cuts where she’s twirling a 200 pound security guard in full riot gear like he’s a gnatty beach towel. Nevertheless, I pick Your Highness. Natalie Portman still has that Black Swan-pallid “maintenance purge” sheen that makes you uncomfortable to look at her for fear that esophageal corrosion or osteoporosis will become contagious.


NARRATIVE STYLES I CAN DO WITHOUT:
Hyper-link Narrative - Contagion

If ever there was a subject that deserved hyper-link narrative, it was this. And yet, it doesn’t work here either. The reason is simple: Hyperlink prevents you from connecting with any of the characters. If the movie were all Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet, I could be convinced to care when Kate Winslet dies. Instead, she’s got about 10 minutes of face time before she’s dying.

Contagion goes on to make several specific mistakes, one in chasing a globalists’ wet dream too hard and the other in not doing so hard enough. For, at the end of the movie, we learn that the killer bug that Gwenyth Paltrow, evil, adultress corporate exec that she is, catches was in fact created by Ms. Paltrow’s own corporation because it cleared some rainforest, which led the bat to fly to the pig farm, blah blah blah. So, instead of leaving us with a public health message of “hey, this shit might happen, it’s random, scary, and there’s nothing to be done about it,” we instead get, “Well, the problem is really the corporations.” Yawn.

Then again, the movie makes the classic Independence Day error of setting everything in the United States. If you’re going to use the globalist’s preferred narrative style, you can’t set almost everything in the US when the disease is killing all over the globe.

BEST POORLY EXECUTED IDEA MOST IN NEED OF A PROFESSIONAL:
* Red Riding Hood – Tim Burton. There are a lot of movies Tim Burton should make. Phantom of the Opera for example - he's Edward Scissorhands with music.
* Limitless – An Editor. A writer with writer's bloc dreams up a drug to fix it and writes his movie about that; this clever hook turns into a wandering plot that spirals out of control as he carries this on to a stream of consciousness conclusion that makes no sense.
* Thor & Captain America – The hungrier Marvel of 5 years ago
* Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – Whoever wrote the first movie
* Harry Potter 7: 2 – The final battle is graffitied with anti-climactic moments, the worst of which is the end of Helena Bonham Carter in what amounts to wand-borne patty-cake on a table.
* Cowboys & Aliens – Someone with a sense of humor
* The Muppets – Someone to realize that we just wanted the Muppet Show, not 2 hours of build-up. Someone to realize that we wanted this to springboard the re-launch of the TV show. Barber shop quarter Nirvana – brilliant.

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT FOR WHY THE TERRORISTS HATE US:
* Sucker Punch – This movie came out around the time the Arab Spring started…something had to give. Between the relentless din of Helen Mirren Award nominees kicking nazi/monster/etc. ass, this movie makes the unconscionable decision of trying to go ultra-serious. The result is about 20 minutes of extremely uncomfortable sex slave drama spliced with an hour plus of action shooter video game footage which, and I swear I’m not making this up, is supposed to symbolize the place a girl goes when she’s forced to dance for lecherous old men. Even serial killers would find this movie bizarre.

WORST REMAKE OF AN IDEA-LESS HOLLYWOOD:
The Smurfs
Conan the Barbarian
Footloose
The Thing
The Three Musketeers
Fright Night

WINNER: Conan the Barbarian. The Smurfs never had any ideas to begin with. Nor did Footloose. Horror remakes are nigh on obligatory, and may have led Russian scientists into digging a several mile ice hole. That leaves the Three Musketeers and Conan. The Three Musketeers seems like something Hollywood does reflexively – “Hey, it’s been like 5 years, shouldn’t we make another Musketeers movie?”

But Conan? No excuse. The first Conan was a movie with real ideas, a star like nothing you’d seen before (roided out Arnold), ridiculous nudity, perhaps the greatest film score of all time, and Mongol Darth Vader as the bad guy. In short, it is awesome in every way. So to remake it, they took out all the ideas, found somebody who is only slightly more imposing than Paul Bettany, dialed down the nudity to Ashcroftian FBI levels, ditched the music and the uber-villain. What’s left is a less-cinematic version of The Immortals.

The difference can summed up as follows:
Best line from the real Conan: "Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life? Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."
2011 Version: Conan: "I live, I love, I slay, and I am content."

THE NICHOLAS CAGE AWARD FOR EGREGIOUS SELLOUT
Nic Cage - Season of the Witch
Nic Cage – Drive Angry
Anthony Hopkins – The Rite
Winner: Nic Cage – Season of the Witch. The Return of the King! Apparently the green paper god to which Mr. Cage must burn money in tribute was especially feisty this year. Drive Angry was understandable. Season of the Witch? Even the title doesn’t pass the laugh test…it sounds like Star Wars Episode 7.

ARE WE DONE HERE?
Clint Eastwood – J. Edgar
Adam Sandler – Everything
WINNER: Adam Sandler. Too lazy to ever be funny again. I swear he’s just making movies to hang out with hot chicks. He can’t possibly need the money. Besides, Clint told everyone to get off America’s lawn at half time. It’s still there somewhere. America needs a Dirty Harry coda.

WE’RE DONE HERE:
Robert Redford - The Conspirator
Kevin Costner – Company Men

Robert Redford is no Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood tells Robert Redford to get off his lawn and stop cluttering it with weird “sympathy for Lincoln’s assassins” movies. Costner has a 20% chance that he will someday swallow his pride and take a role in someone else’s project that turns out to be good and briefly revitalizes his career. Redford’s too old for that.

DID WE EVER GET STARTED?
Ryan Reynolds
Jennifer Aniston
WINNER: Jennifer Aniston. After the British Isles launched an invasion of Colins in the late 90’s, America turned to a young stable of Ryans to face the Hollywood cookie-cutter machine guns: Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Gosling, and Ryan Phillipe. Of those, Reynolds is the one we’re all supposed to pretend is A-List without ever having done anything good. By now, everyone should be well aware that Ryan Reynolds has managed to become a famous movie star without any actual hits or necessarily any talent beyond his abs. Given the success of Jersey Shore, he may well have been better served creating a funny nickname for his abs and leaving it at that. Really we all should. I’m thinking I’ll go with “The Crescendo.”

Anyhow, Jennifer Aniston does not make sense. She should have been Clooney, the best thing on some popularly forgettable network drivel turned into a movie icon. She started with Office Space and then…she’s failed to launch. I guess she was trying to be funny as a Horrible Boss but, let’s face it, A-list stars don’t take roles where they get turned down by Charlie from Always Sunny. I still think Brad made the wrong choice but, seriously, John Mayer does nothing for my argument. Check her out, as she insists, in “Just Go With It.” She actually has a bikini showdown with Brooklyn Decker and might have won. (That last sentence is what I meant when I said Adam Sandler seems to be making movies as an excuse to hang out with hot chicks.) She’s lost, she might have to go back to TV.

MOST UNNECESSARY ARTISTIC EXCURSION
Everything Must Go – Will Farrell. No explanation needed.

Day 3 of Oscars Preview: Valentine's Day


THE YEAR IN FORMULA ROM-COM:
Hollywood mercifully eased off this pedal this year. It may be that they’ve run out of ideas, or it may be that they have run out of dated catch phrases like “Friends With Benefits” on which to hang another sorority sister, focus-tested script. For this, we can thank texting shorthand…no one has the balls to title their movie “Sexting” or “LOL BFF.” Yet. We’ll get there about the time texting gets replaced by something else.

I have to be honest – it took 15 minutes of internet research to establish that No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits were, indeed, two different movies. I thought one was the tagline for the other.

I’m still skeptical. Here are the elevator pitches for both:

“While trying to avoid the clichés of Hollywood romantic comedies, Dylan and Jamie soon discover however that adding the act of sex to their friendship does lead to complications.”

“A guy and girl try to keep their relationship strictly physical, but it's not long before they learn that they want something more.”

I rest my case.

MOST TOLERABLE ROMCOM:
Crazy Stupid Love

This movie is legitimately funny and entertaining for an hour plus, then throws in a plot twist so implausible that disbelief gets the Pete Rose ban. But it doesn’t matter, because it goes right back to being funny.


KING OF QUEENS AWARD FOR MOST UNREALISTIC MOVIE RELATIONSHIP:
Rio – Cartoon lame-parrot and Cartoon Hannah Parrot
Zookeeper – The King Himself & Rosario Dawson & Leslie Bibb
Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Shia LeBeouf & Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (AFTER Megan Fox)
Horrible Bosses – Charlie Day & Jennifer Aniston

WINNER: Shia LeBeouf – Transformers 3.

As I’ve perhaps carped on in the past, modern advertising is based on the notion that all women are hot and brilliant, and that all guys are goofy shlubs that these hot, brilliant women somehow manage to tolerate. Since it’s Valentine’s Day, we’ll just assume this is true. If nothing else, it confirms both gender’s world view. It’s what brings unfairly hot women to George Costanza’s doorstep. It’s what sells paper towels for hot, brilliant house wives to clean up after their idiot husbands. It’s what made Denise Richards a nuclear scientist named Christmas in a Bond flick. Even Chris Farley in Tommy Boy went to this well.

No form of entertainment better captured this than The King of Queens. Indeed, the King of Queens continues to dial this up, pretending to have dated both Leslie Bibb and Rosario Dawson in Zookeeper. But he can’t win because Rosario Dawson is a serial offender on this front; at a certain point you have to wonder if she’s hot. Jennifer Aniston and Charlie Day never seal the deal, because ultimately Aniston is crazy…in the movie. And anything can happen in a cartoon. We’re left to believe that Shia LeBoof moves from Megan Fox to Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Michael Bay just can’t help himself.

KIM JONG IL KIDNAPPED ME AND MADE ME DO THIS MOVIE:
Reece Witherspoon – Water for Elephants
Tom Hanks - Larry Crowne
Julia Roberts – Larry Crowne

WINNER: Larry Crowne. Every year there’s a movie that makes you wonder, “Why would those people do this film? Some lunatic dictator had to have kidnapped them and forced them to do it against their will.” I honestly can’t decide whether Julia Roberts or Tom Hanks was more misguided in tackling this turkey. I lean towards Roberts because her character’s name is actually Mercedes Tainot. I guess it sounds better than it looks. Other characters names include “Dell Gordo,” which may be an item on Taco Bell’s menu. I think Kim Jong’s original text named Larry Crowne “Joe the Plumber.” Never has a preview so clearly advertised that a movie was going to suck. In this, it succeeded in its task, not as much a preview as a forewarning. Thankfully it tanked so fast and had a title so non-descript that it may be forgotten this was supposed to be a summer BLOCKBUSTER.

The script has been quarantined by FEMA to prevent further outbreaks. Go read the plot synopsis on IMDB; I defy you to find anyone on earth who would buy that concept. In practice, it seems like one of those high school creative writing assignments where two bad writers with different styles alternate writing off in their own direction. Half the movie is a comedy that’s not funny. The rest is a love story with no heart. At some point a script doctor must have been brought in to tie the two together, but one can only assume it was Dr. Nick Riviera. Perhaps his most noteworthy handiwork: a bizarre break up scene in which Julia Roberts’ husband repeatedly declares his innocence based on his love of big tits. I don’t know, maybe they cut that part from Sleepless in Seattle?

Special points for bizarreness goes to Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s character, an ethnically ambiguous attractive female who randomly befriends Hanks' character, because hottie co-eds tend to just be dying to hang out with the creepy old man in class. Throughout the film, she continues to show up in several scenes and have a major speaking part without managing to serve any narrative function. She isn’t funny, she doesn’t advance the plot, she does not serve some symbolic purpose. She could be removed entirely from the film, and should, preferably in favor of more of the only amusing element: George Takei’s economics professor. It landed him on Celebrity Apprentice, so at least someone got a bounce from this splat.

THE JACK BLACK AWARD FOR ALARMINGLY UNFUNNY COMEDY:
The Dilemma
Just Go With It
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Jack & Jill

This was a wretched year for Adam Sandler. I’m going to say “Jack&Jill” because I couldn’t bring myself to spend two hours on a Saturday Night Live sketch that would have been overlong at 8 minutes. I would like to put Adam Sandler on a David Chappelle timeout and have Chappelle come churn out 2 comedies a year. I think we’d all be better off.

MOVIE I MAY HAVE APPEARED IN:
Tower Heist – Wandering the edge of Central Park on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I kept wondering, “Why is there a low-rent version of the Macy’s Day parade 2 days later?” Tower Heist was the answer. Look for a pasty white guy who doesn’t look paid to be excited.

2012 Oscars Preview and Year in Movie Review

Two weeks to go, check back (semi-)daily for updates as I countdown to my preview.

ZOMBIE STRIPPERS AWARD FOR FILM TITLE PROBABLY BETTER IN YOUR IMAGINATION THAN IN PRACTICE:
1. Bonny & Clyde Vs. Dracula – I love this concept: what could possibly bring these three into conflict?
2. Hobo with a Shotgun
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (ZING!)
4. Suing the Devil
5. The Black Power Mix Tape
6. White Irish Drinkers
7. Evil-Bong 3D
8. The Imperialists Are Still Alive!
9. There Be Dragons
10. Redneck Carnage
11. Machine Gun Preacher
12. The Worst Movie EVER!


WHAT’S THE OPPOSITE OF BLAXPLOITATION? TYLER PERRY’S BLOREDOM
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son


MOST BIZARRE PHENOMENON OF THE YEAR: The Paul Bettany Action Star Experiment
The Eagle
The Priest
The economics of the film industry are such that there is greater demand for action and sci-fi than there are legitimate action stars. This is how Ryan Reynolds becomes the Green Lantern. However, sometime Ryan Reynolds is unavailable, Keanu Reeves is contemplating retirement, or your script doesn’t have the kind of gravitas that, say, a Rock or Jason Statham have come to expect. In that case, you could go fishing in the casting department and see if you can find a no-name who can take some punches and look tough.

Or you can pretend that everyone knows who Paul Bettany is and that he can be an action star. Apparently the film industry chooses the latter. Paul Bettany, as of course no one ought to know, is the British character actor best known as John Nash’s imaginary friend in A Beautiful Mind, and as something akin to Charles Darwin in Master & Commander. He also played a tennis pro opposite Kirsten Dunst; it’s hard to say who seems less athletic. In other words, he’s a skinny English guy who plays nerds. Inexplicably, he was asked to play an action hero not once, but twice, in one year, including taking a role as a sword & sandal Roman soldier. Now, I’m sure that Paul Bettany can hire a nutritionist, hit the ‘roids, get a gym membership and pretend to look the part. But no one is buying. This is embarrassing. When you come to the point that no one wants to play your action hero but Paul Bettany, that’s when you admit you have script problems. If you still believe, give one of the thousands of wanna-be’s a chance.

The real question is: when is Congress going to demand PED testing for actors? Paul Bettany playing an action hero twice, even mildly convincingly, is no less galling than Brady Anderson hitting 50 homeruns.

MOST INTERESTING SUB-PLOT:
Is it possible that the Harry Potter / Twilight teen actor most likely to sustain a career through the rest of this decade is Draco Malfoy? While all of the other leads are chasing lead roles in flops, Draco had the good sense to take a bit part in a good movie (Rise of the Planet of the Apes). Perhaps he's smart enough to know he should play the same role for 10 years while everyone else flames out or takes their money and retires.


WHY YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE SUCKS: THE MOVIE EVERYONE ELSE LIKED THAT I DIDN’T
Drive

I was told that the tagline for this movie was, “Every guy will be hard, every girl will be wet.” It tried too hard; sometimes you just have to relax and let it happen. This was the year that everyone came around on Ryan Gosling. Not unfairly; Crazy Stupid Love, Drive, and Ides of March is a respectable career, not just a year. But, like A.C. Slater, Drive just wants to be cool so much that it’s not that cool. It drags in the middle; I started to sympathize with the woman who sued because there wasn’t enough driving in the movie. It doesn’t have nearly enough of Christina Hendricks. They keep setting up some epic race car, “have to win to make money and live” drag race that never happens. But the cardinal sin? The bad guys are lame. Ron Pearl and Albert Brooks? It’s like this movie rolled Gosling up to the line, and the guys gunning their engines to race him are in a Chevy Volt and a Prius.

In honor of Steve Jobs’ passing, I thought I’d provide a ranked list of what I believe to be the most lasting impact he’s had: Pixar’s films. Long after Wozniak’s PC or Ive’s iPod are forgotten dinosaurs, we’ll still have a growing library of films that range from above average to great. From worst to first.
12. Cars 2.
11. A Bug’s Life.
10. Cars.
9. Monster’s Inc.
8. Toy Story 2.
7. The Incredibles.
6. Wall-E.
5. Toy Story 3.
4. Ratatouille.
3. Toy Story.
2. Finding Nemo.
1. Up! I’m probably the only person who picks this movie, but I have to go with my heart.

DAY 5: GIMMICKLESS OSCARS PREVIEW CONCLUSION

No preview would be complete without discussing the Aniston for every Jolie. I still think Brad's with the wrong girl by the way.

- BIGGEST SNUBS
* Christopher Nolan – Director – Inception involved zero gravity fighting and four simultaneous plots. The King’s Speech involved a guy stuttering.
* Easy A – Fantastically written, this generation’s Clueless, this movie was everything that the expansion of the Oscar’s was meant to address. Maybe there was no room in a crowded best actress field, but either best film or best screenplay is more than deserved.
* Julianne Moore – The only thing propping up The Kids Are All Right was the acting. Moore is the best thing in the movie, as she frequently is. She’s reached auto-nod status in my book. I have a soft spot for all Lebowski alumni. "Don't be fatuous Jeffrey."
* Tron’s Art – The most visually memorable film since Avatar…got no nominations for technical or artistic achievement.
* Waiting for Superman – If not the biggest snub then certainly the most expected. At this point, almost all “documentaries” are at best termed “advocacy” films. A cynic might call them “propaganda” or worse, “for-profit campaign lit.” Regardless, I believe in a no bullshit world – if this is the award for the best hard left “advocacy” film, then they should just call it that up front.
WINNER: Christopher Nolan

- WORST NOMINATION
* Mark Ruffalo – A friend of mine met Fabio once and described him as having “anti-personality” in the same sense as physicists speculate there must be anti-matter to balance all of their equations. Ruffalo is on my short list of actors who have “anti-screen presence,” a trait skillfully employed in The Kids Are All-Right as a sub-plot of its own: Will Mr. Ruffalo’s lack of talent spontaneously combust on screen. Go watch his role in Shutter Island…I say role because “performance” would be inaccurate. He seems serially unaware of what’s going on in the scene around him…silently reviewing his line in his head until it’s his turn to talk.
* The Illusionist – Sitting on one remaining animated film nomination, and looking at worthwhile entries like Despicable Me, Tangled, and Megamind, the academy instead turns to an unknown European film which may or may not involve Edward Norton being a magician.
* The Kids Are All Right – I have always wondered why people write films with no likeable characters. The kids are abysmal, the “father” is a cad, one mother is a bitter alcoholic and the other is a flake. I was pulling for the gardener...who gets fired for having a goofy look on his face.
* David Russell – The Fighter – This was not a noteworthy directorial performance, and the nomination is made all the stranger by, and I cannot stress this enough, the absolutely indefensible choice not to include the Gatti-Ward boxing matches. It’s like making a Holocaust movie with no death camp: the point is missed and the movie is just a miserable train ride.
* Kick Ass’s Writer – This movie was great fun and had plenty of catchy one liners. Fully deserving of attention.

WINNER: Mark Ruffalo

THE YEAR’S REAL TOP 10 REGARDLESS OF GENRE:
1. Black Swan
2. Easy A
3. Inception
4. Kick Ass
5. Waiting for Superman
6. The Town
7. The Book of Eli
8. The Social Network
9. The A-Team
10. The Last Exorcism
HONORABLE MENTION: Cop Out, Despicable Me, JackAss 3D, The Other Guys, True Grit

GIMMICKLESS OSCAR PREVIEW 2010-11: DAY 4 - THE BIG AWARDS

Best Picture
• “Black Swan” – This movie is like the ballet version of Raging Bull – claustrophobic to watch, brilliant…One of the best movies I’ve seen. I never want to see it again.
• “The Fighter” – 2 hours better spent re-watching Gatti-Ward I.
• “Inception” – If this had been released as a holiday awards contender rather than a summer blockbuster, it might actually be in the conversation to win. If it has a weakness, it was some of the acting. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page have that ‘permanent teenager’ look that belongs in Scream 4, not high-level action.
• “The Kids Are All Right” – A Lifetime movie dressed up by the presence of real actors and passed through to this round as the token LGBT nomination.
• “The King's Speech” – Something tells me that the royal family is secretly funding all of these sympathetic portrayals of the current royal line to cover up their collusion in controlling the world drug trade. Maybe that something is a Lyndon Larouche pamphlet.
• “127 Hours” – The lesson is…update your facebook status before you go camping.
• “The Social Network” – If this were an award for best preview, this is the movie of the decade. Perfectly enjoyable, I doubt this is a film that has much staying power as anything other than how we see Mark Zuckerberg for the rest of his obscenely wealthy life.
• “Toy Story 3” – I’m that guy that didn’t love this movie. Pixar’s genius comes from its boundless creativity. I’m impressed that they’ve squeezed so much juice out of this orange, but I prefer their more exotic flavors.
• “True Grit” – I am bound to thoroughly enjoy any Coen Brothers movie, so I’ll focus on my criticisms. I found this one jumped around too much in tone between their silly movies and their serious movies. It also seemed to have been trimmed too close – some of the actors deserved more screen time and there aren’t enough of their trademark set-pieces in the back half of the film. Also it ends on an unnecessarily flat note that I can’t be convinced to like - their third consecutive abrupt and unsatisfying ending and the one with the least artistic purpose behind it.
• “Winter's Bone" – I guess we have to keep nominating dramas or no one will ever make any. A good solid film but nothing more.

SHOULD WIN: Black Swan
WILL WIN: The Social Network – I’m going for the dark horse candidate because I just have to hope that somehow Hollywood’s destructive addiction to British period drama cannot long endure.

Directing
• “Black Swan” Darren Aronofsky
• “The Fighter” David O. Russell
• “The King's Speech” Tom Hooper
• “The Social Network” David Fincher
• “True Grit” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

SHOULD WIN: Christopher Nolan. Inception was directorial origami. Of these 5, I’d say Aronofsky deserves to win.
WILL WIN: David Fincher – I’m a fan, he’s due.

The Daniel Day Lewis Actor in a Leading Role Award
• Javier Bardem in “Biutiful” is Hispanic and brooding in that foreign language film no one saw. This nomination screams, “token diversity nomination.” Someone get Denzel out of his latest train-related film and into a real role. Mr. Bardem already won for No Country and he’s married to Penelope Cruz so I can’t imagine he’ll be heartbroken when he loses.
• Jeff Bridges in “True Grit” is the John Wayne Dude. No matter where he goes or who he plays, no matter how layered up with scotch and grit, Jeff Bridges will always be The Dude.
• Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network” is the snarky kid from Zombieland…and about to be the richest man in the world. This is a script-derived nomination, you can’t tell if this guy is acting. I have no clue where he will be in 10 years – he’s one of those people you can never picture as a grown man even though he’s probably 30 already. He should be in Scream 4 too.
• LL Col Firth in “The King's Speech” is an unstoppable freight-train of Oscarness – English, royalty, disability. Bonus points for being named Colin. I do not understand why all of my female friends are in love with Colin Firth. To me, he looks a lot like a young Michael Caine and I expect the same career arc.
• James Franco in “127 Hours” is a man trapped under a rock…left on screen, alone for roughly an hour, Franco carries an unsellable concept. I have to be honest, I thought he was career-killing abysmal in the Spider Man movies. I was wrong - he's kind of cool and likable.

SHOULD WIN: James Franco
WILL WIN: Colin Firth

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Christian Bale in “The Fighter” is the lead as a cracked out boxer with a regional accent, but gets called the supporting actor because the movie was technically about Markie Mark’s character.
• John Hawkes in “Winter's Bone” is a much less famous actor also playing a cracked out man with a regional accent.
• Jeremy Renner in “The Town” may or may not be cracked out, has a regional accent, and robs banks.
• Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right” is wandering around in a post-cracked-out daze when he discovers his sperm was used to inseminate two lesbians. Queue emotional diarrhea and confused looks that could be interpreted to be a California accent.
• Geoffrey Rush in “The King's Speech” is not cracked out, but is Australian, so he kind of acts like it.

SHOULD WIN: Christian Bale
WILL WIN: Geoffrey Rush – I figure Christian Bale is generally disliked.

The Meryl Streep Actress in a Leading Role Award
• Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right” is unnervingly convincing as the…more masculine member of a lesbian couple. I’m not up on what the allowable term is. Bull-lesbian? Blesbian? Anyways, if I’m Warren Beatty, I have to be wondering.
• Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole” is someone that old academy voters want to see show up in a dress.
• Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter's Bone” is affecting as a tough girl in a rough place.
• Natalie Portman in “Black Swan” is deeply affecting as a soft girl in a rough place.
• Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine” is in this year’s well-regarded love story movie.

SHOULD WIN: Natalie Portman
WILL WIN: Natalie Portman.

Actress in a Supporting Role
• Amy Adams in “The Fighter” is unnervingly convincing as a semi-trashy bartendress. I’m impressed, definitely not Enchanted.
• Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech” imbues an aimless depiction of a dull queen with her limitless screen presence.
• Melissa Leo in “The Fighter” is understandably convincing as a semi-trashy mom.
• Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit” is inexplicably named a supporting actress in a movie that’s about her. Anyways, a sharp performance in a year full of strong female performances.
• Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom” is supposed to be good in the movie that Netflix didn’t deliver in time.

SHOULD WIN: Steinfeld.
WILL WIN: Jacki Weaver. Has that indie buzz, plus she’s English.

GIMMICKLESS OSCAR PREVIEW 2010-11: DAY 3

The Other Awards (i.e. why the broadcast takes so long). On the subject, has anyone thought that this thing might better be made a 3 day affair. Technical awards day 1, these awards that no one cares about day 2, big names day 3. We'd all get to bed at a more reasonable hour. Except for the writers, who deserve garlands thrown at their feet.

Animated Feature Film
• “How to Train Your Dragon” Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
• “The Illusionist” Sylvain Chomet
• “Toy Story 3” Lee Unkrich
SHOULD WIN: Despicable Me
WILL WIN: Toy Story 3
COMMENT: Every year Pixar makes an animated film it gets nominated for best picture. No other animated film gets nominated. The result is that there is little reason not to announce the winner in advance. That said, I never dug the Toy Story films. Despicable Me was more fun and funnier. In fact, I sort of preferred Tangled to all these films as well.

Art Direction
• “Alice in Wonderland”
• “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1”
• “Inception”
• “The King's Speech”
• “True Grit”
SHOULD WIN: Tron Legacy – I'm not an art expert, but I know what I like. No one can honestly say that any of the nominated films have the same iconic imagery that Tron Legacy will be remembered for. I should also send some love out to Tangled's lantern scene...I'd use the word magical...but I'm a grown man.
WILL WIN: The King’s Speech – An English period piece. They just can’t help themselves.

Cinematography
• “Black Swan” Matthew Libatique
• “Inception” Wally Pfister
• “The King's Speech” Danny Cohen
• “The Social Network” Jeff Cronenweth
• “True Grit” Roger Deakins
SHOULD WIN: The Book of Eli - Terrific use of color and the attention to detail in masking the twist was award-worthy. Also, The American could also use a bit of nomination-love.
WILL WIN: The King’s Speech

Costume Design
• “Alice in Wonderland” Colleen Atwood
• “I Am Love” Antonella Cannarozzi
• “The King's Speech” Jenny Beavan
• “The Tempest” Sandy Powell
• “True Grit” Mary Zophres
SHOULD WIN: I confess I neither know nor care. As anyone who has seen my wardrobe can attest, the answer is, “Not Justin.”
WILL WIN: The King’s Speech

Documentary (Feature)
• “Exit through the Gift Shop” Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz
• “Gasland” Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
• “Inside Job” Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
• “Restrepo” Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
• “Waste Land” Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley
SHOULD WIN: Waiting for Superman. Hollywood is a huge union town, so there was no way the year's obvious winner was going to get nominated for calling out the teacher's union for holding back meaningful educational reform even if it was made by an arts community dynasty (Guggenheims).
WILL WIN: Inside Job. Hollywood is not as big of a Wall Street town

Visual Effects
• “Alice in Wonderland”
• “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1”
• “Hereafter”
• “Inception”
• “Iron Man 2”
SHOULD WIN: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I know that the words would choke in the presenter's mouth, but again, this isn't an award for best script.
WILL WIN: Inception - The only blockbuster to live up to the hype this year has to win at least one token award.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
• “127 Hours” Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
• “The Social Network” Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
• “Toy Story 3” Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
• “True Grit” Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• “Winter's Bone” Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini
SHOULD WIN: Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network
WILL WIN: Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network
COMMENT: Sorkin's a big name and there was plenty of sharp dialog to earn him his trophy.

Writing (Original Screenplay)
• “Another Year” Written by Mike Leigh
• “The Fighter” Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson;
Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
• “Inception” Written by Christopher Nolan
• “The Kids Are All Right” Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
• “The King's Speech” Screenplay by David Seidler
SHOULD WIN: Christopher Nolan - Inception
WILL WIN: Christopher Nolan – Inception – It’s such a clever idea, so well executed. It would be a shame if it got lost in the King’s stuttering Speech.