2011 Best Picture Oscar

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What gets you MoFo vote for Oscar's 2011 Best Picture?
10.53%
4 votes
BLACK SWAN
2.63%
1 votes
THE FIGHTER
13.16%
5 votes
INCEPTION
2.63%
1 votes
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
26.32%
10 votes
THE KING'S SPEECH
2.63%
1 votes
127 HOURS
28.95%
11 votes
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
2.63%
1 votes
TOY STORY 3
5.26%
2 votes
TRUE GRIT
5.26%
2 votes
WINTER'S BONE
38 votes. You may not vote on this poll




I am burdened with glorious purpose
Wow, I hadn't kept up and didn't realize that Hooper won the DGA. There is real momentum for The King's Speech at this moment. I was actually surprised when they announced it at the SAG. I was happy!

Seems the voter types are liking this film. I wonder if there is some prejudice against The Social Network's subject matter?



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
True, but one thing's for sure; since the Golden Globes, all the Guilds seem to agree that it's The King's Speech, so to me that means a helluva lot. It looks like a good movie, but I'm not sure I'll love it as much as the now official loser, The Social Network.
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I hate the fact that they decided to add so many movies last year! But for this year I'll have to pick The King's Speech
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Social Network will win this. Not only that the film is excellent but also people today are into Facebook.



Best movies of the year? Easy: Another Year and The Kids are All Right. Unfortunately, the writers are both up for Best Original Screenplay, and the Best Picture Oscar will undoubtedly go to a piece of dreck like The Social Network.




The King's Speech did win Best Picture at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards last night. However, the BAFTA isn't much of an indicator for Oscars, historically. Going back to 1980, the BAFTA and Oscar winners for Best Picture have only matched up eleven times: Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, The Last Emperor, Schindler's List, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Slumdog Millionaire and The Hurt Locker. Eleven out of thirty isn't what you'd call a reliable predictor.

Much more crucially, The King's Speech has won the Producer's Guild Award, the Director's Guild Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award. Has a movie ever swept those three industry awards then not won the Academy Award for Best Picture? The Screen Actors Guild only began handing out their Best Cast in a Motion Picture prize in 1996 (the Producers began their award in 1990), so there isn't an especially large sample size. The answer is yes, but only once.


For the films released in 1995, Ron Howard's Apollo 13 won the PGA, DGA and SAG awards, but it was Mel Gibson's Braveheart that won Oscar's top prize. However, all five of the other years that those three awards agreed, they matched up with the Academy: Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Chicago and American Beauty.


If The Social Network manages to win Best Picture in two weeks, it will definitely be against the odds.
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Yeah, at this point, I'm way more interested in what happens with Best Director. I guess this makes Hooper the favorite, but I feel like an upset (in Fincher's favor) is still pretty plausible, given that The Social Network was such a huge favorite up until the later awards (and collected a fair amount of hardware in the early going, I think).

I think that might be shaping up to be one of the most interesting major categories.



And at the end of fear, oblivion
I voted for Black Swan but i liked Inception aswell.
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Yeah, at this point, I'm way more interested in what happens with Best Director. I guess this makes Hooper the favorite, but I feel like an upset (in Fincher's favor) is still pretty plausible, given that The Social Network was such a huge favorite up until the later awards (and collected a fair amount of hardware in the early going, I think).

I think that might be shaping up to be one of the most interesting major categories.



my opinion Inception and he King's Speech



I am burdened with glorious purpose
Yeah, at this point, I'm way more interested in what happens with Best Director. I guess this makes Hooper the favorite, but I feel like an upset (in Fincher's favor) is still pretty plausible, given that The Social Network was such a huge favorite up until the later awards (and collected a fair amount of hardware in the early going, I think).

I think that might be shaping up to be one of the most interesting major categories.
Also, at the BAFTAs, Fincher beat out Hooper and it was obvious that the BAFTA crowd loved The King's Speech, giving it both Best British Film and Best Film, and giving it to Rush over Bale.

I think people really respect what Fincher did, but at the same time, when something like this happens, I often think, "so, that movie you all loved directed itself, eh?" I'm imagining a table of people celebrating their wins with Hooper not among them. He did direct a film of almost all dialogue, made it compelling, and his actors gave wonderful performances.

He will be a casualty of the split, I'm predicting...



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Up In The Air was the favourite until Hurt Locker started sweeping the latter awards.

King's Speech I think is still the winner here.
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I am burdened with glorious purpose
No, let's not. I hope it has a big night.

I just posted this in the King's Speech thread, but I'll put it here, too, just because The Prestige's post kinda irks me....

I was just over at Awards Daily (formerly Oscarwatch) and I am reminded about why I'm so happy I don't post there anymore...there has always been this rather snobbish attitude over there about the Best Picture of the year. To them, the age old argument that Citizen Kane should have won in 1941 over that sentimental Ford movie, How Green was My Valley, forms their self-righteous agony over the winners every year. To them, when the critics back a film, that is the film that SHOULD win, and if a film happens to win over a critics’ darling – 1990 comes to mind when the sentimental and popular film, Dances With Wolves beat the critics’ darling, Goodfellas – then it is time to bitch and complain about the state of the Academy Awards and decide those voters are nothing but a bunch of idiots.

This year, they are incredibly bothered that a film like The King’s Speech would beat The Social Network.

They keep forgetting this is a popularity contest and that popularity contest is no greater than in the Best Picture race. Heart is always part of the equation. The largest part.

I think The Social Network deserves every accolade it has gotten. Fincher did an amazing job as did Sorkin and everyone else involved in this film. Unfortunately, it is the Goodfellas of this year and will most likely lose to the sentimental and popular film. And tomorrow, all those Oscarwatcher types will bitch and complain about how the wrong film won.

Which leads to me to this – if The King’s Speech wins, and I predict it will, then I happen to think it is the right film, just like I thought Dances With Wolves was the right film, and blasphemy, it may even be that How Green Was My Valley was also the right film at the time. We can argue for days and days about how brilliant Citizen Kane is, but I'd wager not a lot of people would say that film got to them right in the gut. The film has always struck me as very very cold. John Ford won four Academy Awards. He made films with heart.

Let’s face facts – what cinephine doesn’t have a top ten list where a few of the films there would not be considered a “best” film by a score of critics? I’d wager there are a few films listed there that are personal favorites. And how does a film become a favorite? It makes the list because we love the movie.

The King’s Speech is that kind of film. It is not an accident that Colin Firth is winning all those awards. We root for Bertie, we like Bertie, we cry when he is able to face his fears. He is us… every one of us who has ever been afraid, shy, or unsure. Even more surprising is that he is playing a King – not exactly your run of the mill character and certainly not someone most of us would root for. Firth is flat out amazing and is why we love the movie. It is also the reason why the film will win.

It certainly helps that Tom Hooper was able to set just the right tone in this film and make all those dialogue scenes interesting. He even made the walls interesting. This is one of those rare films that is not what you think it will be. No, there is not one chase scene, nor is there any action, and in the end, you didn’t even notice. You may have thought the film would be a bore. You were wrong, so pleasantly wrong.

It matters that a film like this has found an audience and is on the cusp of winning an Academy Award. When I lament the loss of subtlety and drama in this age of cleverness and chases, a movie like this comes along and reminds me that all is not lost.




I will add that both The King's Speech and The Social Network are films built on dialogue and character. But, we love the King and dislike the accidental billionaire. And that is what makes one a Best Picture winner and the other not.



Nice post. I haven't seen The King's Speech so I can only go on other people's opinions, and most of the people I know with tastes similar to my own feel it's a nice, "safe" film, but nothing particularly bold or exceptional. But I'm looking forward to seeing it all the same, of course.

I really like the comparison to Citizen Kane, because I think there's a good chance this ends up looking a bit like that down the line. Not in that The Social Network or Black Swan will end up quite as heralded, but that I think there's a much better chance people are still talking about those films 20 years from now (particularly the latter). I think something very ironic may have happened, where voters are loathe to pick The Social Network for fear it will look like an odd, dated choice a couple of decades from now, and opting for the "safer" option instead. But I think the opposite is probably true, and that choosing the "safer" film will probably stick out like a sore thumb down the line.

But, of course, trying to figure out what filmic opinion is going to look like so far out is pretty tough. Still fun to think and talk about, though.





I very much want The Social Network to win, and I think it is the best of the ten nominees. That having been said, if The King's Speech does, in fact, win Best Picture, I don't think it is among the worst offenses in Oscar history. King's Speech is not a bad movie, nor do I think it would be anywhere near the bottom ten or fifteen of the worst Best Picture winners. Damn sure isn't going to be in the top tier either, but far from an embarrassment. I wouldn't go Citizen Kane and How Green Was My Valley, but maybe Raging Bull and Ordinary People. Redford's movie is not a bad film, it's just clearly less of a film than Scorsese's. Feel the same way about the two front runners this year. The Best Picture winning tag attached to Ordinary People elevates it a bit in Hollywood history, but thirty years later is there anyone other than maybe Timothy Hutton who would seriously argue that it is a better movie than Raging Bull?

Oscar is full of these kinds of choices.



I guess, I'm just a jerk, because I am completely the other way. Not only do I think that The Social Network is a forgettable film. I think The King's Speech is really quite wonderful and fun to watch. God forbid, a film that is easy to watch wins the major award once in awhile. I believe that only reason The Social Network is even getting so much attention is due in large part to the rather mediocre fare from last year.

But whatever, what do I know? I think Citizen Kane is one of the hardest movies in the world to watch and would rather watch How Green Was My Valley any day of the week over it. So, I guess I'm just on the other side of the fence.
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