Wave your gold statuettes in the motherfuckin air, and wave them motherfuckers like they were based on a selection process that was remotely a meritocracy rather than a labyrinthine web of politics and stupid old people bullshit! (Wait, that's not how the song goes?) FUCK IT, IT'S OSCAR TIME!!!
Last year's Oscars were largely a snore because there were two legitimately great movies (The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds), a handful of really good ones (like Precious and District 9, for one of the funnier juxtapositions in living memory), and a flaming $300 million turd (Avatar), and there was no suspense whatsoever about who was actually going to win, with the only surprise being that Katherine Bigelow actually won Best Director (which wasn't really even much of one). This year's a different story, as 2010 was one of the sneakiest good years for movies on record.
The year started out with a wet stinky fart with Avatar dominating the box office for like ever, since no one seemed to give a fuck that it was fucking retarded and that moreover the FX weren't even that cool (sorry, civilians, you can get the same experience by eating mushrooms and watching the Smurfs, for a lot less money) and then Clash of the Titans coming along being like “Hey, we can take the lead guy from Avatar and suck even more!” and civilized people generally reaching for the whiskey bottle and wondering whether the Vicodin would be better in pill form or chopped up and snorted.
Then all of a sudden in the middle of the year shit started to absolutely fucking rock. Inception, The Kids are All Right, Winter's Bone started a litany of interesting, ambitious pictures that held reasonably steady until the end of the year, by which time there was a legitimately impressive roster of releases, with some excellent performances by actors, some truly visionary directing, and some fuckin a solid writing.
This means that, unlike last year, there were actual worthy nominees who got snubbed; Chris Nolan took the most public hit, not being nominated for Best Director for Inception, whose editor Lee Smith got royally fucked, not even getting nominated for one of the most magnificent editing jobs perhaps in decades. Best Director and Best Editing are the only categories where they really messed up the nominations (well, and a couple others that we'll get to later). Best Director, in a just universe, looks like this:
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right
David Fincher, The Social Network
Debra Granik, Winter's Bone
Chris Nolan, Inception
That's your five. Fuck David Russell and a polite request to vacate the premises to Tom Hooper and the Coen Brothers (who justfuckinbarely miss the cut, I am not pissing on True Grit in any way). But, hey, them's the bricks.
Also unlike last year, there's some actual uncertainty in the acting categories. Bridges, Sandra Bullock, Christoph Waltz, and Mo'Nique had that shit on lock even before the nominations were announced. This year, they don't even need to bother announcing the other four dudes in the Best Actor category, but the other three acting categories are still kind of up for grabs (it's a shame Jennifer Lawrence ain't got a shot). This necessitates the finest in analysis, from Movies By Bowes' ™ crack staff of one crackhead. Let's start with the ones I haven't any fuckin clue about:
Best Foreign Language Film
Always the most arbitrary award, because it never goes to the one movie anyone's ever heard of. It won't be Biutiful for that reason (also it apparently kind of sucks), and it won't be Dogtooth because it was the one everyone jumped to when they went “well it won't be Biutiful because people have heard of it.” I'm rooting for the Danish picture In A Better World so one woman director gets an Oscar, since Debra Granik and Lisa Cholodenko got boned by the nominating committee.
Best Live Action Short/Best Animated Short/Best Documentary Short Subject
No fuckin idea. But hey, you don't know either, that makes two of us.
Best Documentary Feature
This category's the most fun it's been years, with three king-hell badass pictures right at the top: Exit Through The Gift Shop, which isn't going to win—alas—though not winning will actually probably be better for Banksy's career than winning, just because it's hard to be anti-establishment with an Oscar (just ask Eminem) and we fuckin need Banksy to be anti-establishment. Also, if he did some shit like accept the fuckin thing as himself it'd be like, “right, you really are just some dude from Bristol in his late 30s. Fart.”
That means it's down to Inside Job and Restrepo, which means it's a coin flip: do you go with the—former, intellectually harrowing account of how far up our ass Wall Street's dick is, or do you go with the—latter—viscerally harrowing thing about combat troops in war? Guess it all depends which side of the bed the Academy wakes up on, but it'll be one of those two.
That being said, the best movie in this category is Exit Through The Gift Shop. Hands fucking down. Banksy is a fucking god.
Best Original Score
Hans Zimmer, motherfuckers.
Best Original Song
I don't really give a fuck. Randy Newman? Sure, why not. I'll be taking a piss when this one's presented anyway. This is why we either need to take a page out of Bollywood's book and actually fucking write good songs for this category, or just change the goddamn thing to “Best Needle Drop” and give the award to the hipster who decided to score a gun battle to “Two Weeks” by Grizzly Bear.
Best Sound Editing/Best Sound Mixing
Both of these joints had best be going to Inception. I watched Inception with headphones on a train coming back from Christmas and I was like “fuck, they should call this movie Erection.” Because of the sound, you see. Well, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's suits ahem but that's not the point. Seriously, if either of these categories go to anything else, the whole thing is a fucking fraud.
Best Makeup
The Wolfman. Sure it sucked, but Rick Baker owns.
Best Costume Design
An utterly invalid category this year due to the absence of Inception. Any movie responsible for that many people calling me gay for babbling about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's tailoring should fucking win Best Costume Design. Point fucking blank.
Best Editing
No Inception = The Social Network by default. But it's fucking bullshit that Inception is not nominated in this category. Seriously, we need to find out whose wives Chris Nolan has been fucking.
Best Visual Effects
No Tron: Legacy (which should have won, not even being nominated is retarded) = Inception wins by default. “Oh, there's your consolation prize for not being nominated for editing, Inception.” Yeah, suck my dick, Oscar.
Best Cinematography
A good field of nominees. Can't really go wrong with any of them except The King's Speech, which isn't even that bad, it's just the weakest of the five. General consensus is it's Roger Deakins' year for True Grit; I was amazed that he hasn't won yet, and that shit was gorgeous, so it's not even a consolation prize.
Best Animated Feature
Fuck knows. Don't care. I hear How To Train Your Dragon is good, but as part of the .0001 “Fuck Pixar” % of humanity, I just don't want it to be Toy Story even though it will be. I'm sorry, Pixar movies are so emotionally manipulative it's scary: what happens when Disney decides to use those skills for evil? HUH???
And now . . . the biggies:
Best Adapted Screenplay
Aaron Sorkin and a cast of thousands, and could very well end up being The Social Network's token Oscar, if the Academy indeed makes the howlingly retarded decision to fuck David Fincher. Unfortunately, this means Debra Granik goes home empty-handed, but hopefully she cleans up at the Spirit Awards.
Best Original Screenplay
Chris Nolan should win, but they're probably giving it to The King's Speech, which annoys me because not only does it wantonly fuck Chris Nolan over it's also an insult to Lisa Cholodenko, which is just like goddamn it man. Fuck the Oscars are annoying sometimes. Anyway, in a just world this is a coin flip between Inception and The Kids Are All Right, because you cannot compare those pictures. But this is not a just world.
Best Supporting Actress
Anybody's guess. Most likely are Melissa Leo for The Fighter or Hallee Steinfeld for True Grit, but more likely Melissa Leo.
Best Supporting Actor
A two-man race between Christian Bale and Geoffrey Rush. Bale's not as much of a favorite as people seem to think, but he still probably takes it so the Academy never has to vote for him again for anything (people really don't like that cat for whatever reason).
Best Actress
Another two-way race, this one between Annette Bening and Natalie Portman. I don't know why everyone's so convinced Natalie Portman has this one in the bag, because I'm goddamn near positive Annette Bening's winning it. First of all, this is another instance where you can't compare the performance. Natalie Portman in Black Swan gives one of those high-wire act, teetering on the brink of madness performances that are really flashy and everything but really, bizarrely, aren't as reliant on talent as they are a willingness to push oneself. It still, obviously, takes talent to do it that well.
Annette Bening, on the other hand, gives a much subtler performance in The Kids Are All Right. Her character is a bit of a control freak, and extremely uptight, and in a lesser movie with a lesser actress could have just been the most annoying fucking person on the planet. In Annette's hands, the character becomes enormously compelling, human, and the kind of person the audience can actually relate to. That, clearly, is not a substitute for artistic achievement, but Annette's attention to detail takes surgical skill (and I'm not just phrasing it that way because she plays a surgeon, but holy shit, how bout that, huh?)
You can't compare the two performances, but I personally am taking Annette, and I'm taking her to win because of the Hilary Swank losses in '99 and '04. Politics are a way bigger part of this than anyone wants to admit, but in this case, it'd be a deserved win.
Best Actor
Colin Firth. The biggest lock the entire night. It ain't a race, it's a coronation. But oh . . . what about his speech? Bahahahahahaha TIP YOUR WAITRESS MUTHAFUCKAAAAAAAA
Best Director
Okay. Even if they hadn't fucked up the nominations in this category and Nolan was still in, it'd be a coin flip between David Fincher and Debra Granik, if we were doing this on straight quality, with no politics or box office or anything thrown in. So, post-fuckup, it should be David Fincher finally getting some recognition for being fucking David Fincher (and The Social Network was a worthy picture to win for). But lo and behold, there's this absurd tantrum the old people are throwing where they're pretending that The King's Speech is this legendary, earth-shattering thing. It's a good movie, but come the fuck on, man. And Tom Hooper's just sort of there. Best Director means Best Fucking Director. That means David Fincher, of these five.
The probability at this point is probably 60/40 for Tom Hooper to win, but don't be surprised if Fincher wins. The fact that he's the underdog is absolutely fucking ridiculous, though.
Best Picture
It's The King's Speech. It's been The King's Speech since the old people threw their coup d'etat and decided The Social Network never existed. It's not an apocalyptic disaster if The King's Speech wins (it is good), but it's a sign that critics are being more completely marginalized. Critics, the people who actually study movies, were all in agreement: The Social Network was by far the best movie of the year. Then all of a sudden the guilds with all the old people give out their awards and suddenly The King's Speech is the only movie that came out in 2010? Child please. The old people are just pissed because a movie about all that computer shit that they're still convinced is a fad—AFTER ALMOST 20 YEARS OF THE FUCKING INTERNET—had all these damn critics all in a tizzy. Again, The King's Speech is a good movie. And yes, The Social Network is, at best, a parable, and at worst near-total fiction. But for fuck's sake, it's a brilliantly made movie. It's the best Hollywood movie in years. The choice between a good movie, that's nice and makes you feel good, and a great movie, that's a work of genius and makes you think is not a fucking choice. Great is better than good. But people prefer to feel than to think, so it's The King's Speech.
This isn't even taking into account the other movies that were better than The King's Speech this year: Black Swan, Winter's Bone, The Kids Are All Right, Inception, True Grit (Dabangg, Endhiran, Tees Maar Khan . . .) But, in spite of all my ranting, the fact that there are this many pictures that were better than the (admittedly good) heir apparent to the Best Picture statue is a sign that 2010 was a pretty fuckin good year for movies.
The other, more general, good news is, to use one classic example, Citizen Kane is Citizen Kane and me and maybe other four people under the age of 60 have seen How Green Was My Valley. I'd say Fight Club has more enduring relevance than American Beauty, but that'd just make me mad about David Fincher inevitably getting banjaxed this year. But the point I started to make, with Kane, is that the good news is, it's just the Oscars. History has a better voting record than the Academy.
No comments:
Post a Comment