OK, so trying to handicap this thing.
There are two clear favorites, could go either way, really...and eight other films just taking up space.
Winter's Bone has about as much realistic chance of winning as the other four hundred or so films that weren't nominated this year. The screenwriting and two acting noms plus this essentially honorary title of Best Picture nominee are well earned and should have it Netflixed all over, getting a whole new swath of people to discover this dark, gritty little flick. Good on them, even with no shot at Picture.
The Best Picture nomination has done for
127 Hours exactly what every producer and studio hopes for. The movie was well reviewed but underseen, stalling at about $11-million after over two months of limited release, maxing out at eighty some screens, it was just about to completely disappear from first run theaters when, *BAM*, Oscar noms! The theater count is swelling dramatically this weekend, and it may come close to matching its two month total in a single weekend. That is the business perk of an Oscar nomination, and don't kid yourself: this is the main, if not only, reason for the industry expanding the list from five to ten. With only five spots this year,
127 Hours likely doesn't get the Best Picture nom (though it probably would have still gotten the Actor and Screenplay nods), and the re-roll out into quick cash-making release would have been much less impactful. So this movie doesn't "need" to win, it has already gained its reward, being more money at the boxoffice. As a bonus,
127 Hours also happens to be a good movie, so it's a win-win.
Inception has already made a zillion bucks and been released on DVD and BluRay for over a month, so the financial reward for this Best Picture nomination is negligible, if anything. Can't believe there is anybody even slightly interested in seeing it who hasn't yet done so. However many people will be at their local video store this weekend (if they even still have one) or filling their Netflix que will say, 'Oh, yeah, that didn't look like my thing...but it
was nominated for Best Picture' and give it a look, the Studio made exponentially more at the first Sunday matinee on its second month of release. So this is the other "benefit" of the expansion to ten: throwing the genre blockbuster they would never dream of naming Best Picture a prestigious bone. And yes, that "dream of" there was intentional.
We've already gone over
Toy Story 3 and why it has zero chance of winning in what may come to be the obligatory honorary spot for the obvious Best Animated Feature winner. It was
Up last year,
Toy Story 3 this year, it'll probably turn out to be whatever Disney or PIXAR has on slate for this summer in 2012 and on and on and on. Oh, well. I guess the poor PIXAR team will have to console themselves with the other sure Oscar they're
going to win and the literally one-
BILLION dollar worldwide box office take (plus whatever mint they've already made on BluRay and DVD sales). I sincerely hope they can recover.
The Kids Are All Right isn't going to win either. Not for any political reasons, but because of things like the fact that the director, Lisa Cholodenko, isn't nominated. The last time a movie was named Best Picture without its captain even getting a Best Director nomination? The was
Driving Miss Daisy, twenty-one years ago. Before that? 1932, at the fifth Oscar ceremony (
Grand Hotel was Best Picture, but Edmund Goulding wasn't nominated). Of course that was largely because there were only three Best Director nominees at the time. So in the modern era of the Academy Awards there has been exactly one time when the Picture didn't have its director nominated. It
could happen again. Chances that it's going to be
The Kids Are All Right in 2011? Teeny-weeny.
The remaining Picture nominees match up with the Director nominees, so that historical caveat is eliminated. But three of them won't come close to making it for other reasons. The Academy sure does like boxing movies. Lots of nominations have come from narratives focused on the sweet science, most obviously Best Picture winners
Rocky and
Million Dollar Baby, but also
Raging Bull, Ali, Body and Soul, Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Champ, The Great White Hope, Cinderella Man, The Hurricaine, Fat City and probably something else I'm forgetting.
The Fighter joins that list with seven nominations, and while Melissa Leo is a minor favorite for Supporting Actress and Christian Bale an overwhelming favorite for Supporting Actor, the Best Picture nomination is the equivalent of a contender's stepping stone against a fighter that has a twenty pound and seven-inch-reach advantage. It's a TKO before the first bell even rings.
This is the fourth Coen Brothers movie to be nominated for Best Picture, having won a few years ago for
No Country for Old Men. I love that the unlikely re-make of
True Grit has gotten so many nominations, including Best Picture, but it will
not be joining
Unforgiven, Dances with Wolves and 1931's
Cimarron as the only Westerns to win Best Picture. It does join a list of only eight others even nominated for Picture:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, How the West Was Won, Shane, Giant, High Noon, The Ox-Bow Incident, Stagecoach and
In Old Arizona. I
love Westerns, so I'm glad to see another from the genre make the cut. And from Joel and Ethan Coen, of all people!
Black Swan is a stylized cinematic ride that audiences either go with or don't. Those who do already consider it some sort of masterpiece, and even its detractors can agree Natalie Portman is pretty amazing. The buzz about the movie, pre-awards, was enough to fuel it to a very impressive $85-million domestic take so far, so it is already more financially successful than anyone involved in making it could have realistically hoped. Portman
will win her Oscar, but winning Best Picture simply isn't on the program.
And that leaves the two legitimate odds-on contenders:
The King's Speech and
The Social Network.
The King's Speech has similarities to past winner
Shakespeare in Love and nominee
The Queen in that it is an easy to digest British import with seriocomic tones and glimpses of Royalty. The trailers would have you believe it is a light comedy about an eccentric speech therapist and a stammering King, and while that is the centerpiece and supplies most of the film's laughs it does also look at the death of a monarch, the scandalous renunciation of the throne over an infamous affair, and the beginnings of World War II. That it really mattered in the course of history whether or not the King's radio addresses were inspiring or not is a question even the film cannot answer confidently, but it is an enjoyable trifle. It is not especially deep and doesn't seem overly relevant or timeless, but it is well made and easy to like, for what it is. Whether that kind of breezy good feeling that doesn't challenge a viewer translates into lots of votes for Best Picture, we'll know in a month. It's not any lighter than
Shakespeare in Love, probably deals with big issues with no less depth than
Driving Miss Daisy, but surely isn't nearly as toe-tapping as
My Fair Lady. That those Best Pictures are among what could objectively be called the shallower end of the Oscar pool certainly doesn't mean that
The King's Speech might not join them up to its metaphorical shins anyway.
The Social Network is very well made, and in spite of David Fincher's slick style (muted, but still slick) it is very much an old fashioned movie. Old fashioned in the sense that there really isn't any gimmicky high concept (as with his previous nominated film,
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), just friendship, creation, betrayal, envy, success, the corrupting influence of fame and money, regret and lawsuits. In this very specific tale of the creation of Facebook, ultimately the details hardly matter. What is interesting are not the roots of a pop culture phenomenon but watching these personalities clash and the age old tale of money not buying happiness, which makes the 21st century no different from the previous thirty. There are no car chases, no guns, no fatal diseases landing beloved characters in the hospital, no sweeping romantic love story, no chapter of a history textbook brought to life. But
The Social Network seems to be the right movie at the right time, at least for Oscar.
It COULD be
The King's Speech, or
Black Swan could have one more surprising magnificent performance or the overlooked underdog of
The Fighter could throw a devastating body blow in the final round. But it's probably going to be the Facebook movie. Get used to it.
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