Awkward is What We Aim For

Rapid Reviews: Gotta Get Caught Up!

2011-09-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

Time to get this thing back on track, don't you think?

We're about to hit Oscar season once again and I've been incredibly remiss in updating this blog. Despite multiple promises to update more this summer, I failed miserably at my task. So hopefully (cross your fingers), this Rapid Reviews post is the beginning of a new, strong season.

I know. If I cry "wolf" one more time, you readers are just gonna stop coming back. But without further ado, let's check out what I saw at the movies this summer.

Bad Teacher isn't a funny movie in the traditional sense. You'll probably be shocked. You'll wonder exactly how a movie this crass got made. You'll think that if a male character were saying or doing any of this, the movie would be condemned by a thousand different parents' councils. But it's just not a well-constructed movie. And Jason Segal is totally wasted here. I'm skimping on details because it's been so long I can't really remember them. Perhaps that's the most damning statement of all. C+

Midnight in Paris is an absolutely wonderful film. It's truly delightful. Only Woody Allen could make me love Owen Wilson and hate Rachel McAdams' characters in the same movie. (Ignore the disastrous grammar on that one--it's a Rapid Review, after all.) It's awfully light, and lacks some of the gravitas that would make this movie a little more capital-I Important, but every once in a while, you want to see a movie that's just lovely. And Paris is perfectly lovely. A-

Apologies for the lack of screenshot for X-Men: First Class. I'm running on fumes for this one. Saw it once and absolutely loathed it, then saw it again and started to like it a lot more. But it's one of those movies that time is not kind to. The best I can say is that it was okay. B

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II beats part one by a lot and is one of the best films of the franchise. Interestingly, everyone seems to use different criteria to grade the Harry Potter films, with most posing the challenge that they must properly translate book-to-screen. I have no such criterion. Frankly, I consider the books and the films completely different entities and I hate cross-comparison. My favorite movie is the third partially because it deviated so much from the franchise (and was simply a fantastic movie). This was a strong movie, though I'll say that dividing the book into two movies was a silly move from the beginning. B+

The Help has stirred up a fair share of controversy and Oscar buzz alike, perhaps each creating the other. But at its core, this is a film that boasts incredibly strong acting from an all-female ensemble (we don't get too many movies with all-female ensembles that aren't awful anymore, so we should embrace them as they come). Emma Stone and Allison Janney are both doing great work, while Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain are both absolute wonders to watch. But the star here is Viola Davis. She burned a hole through the screen in Doubt a few years ago and has never ceased to be incredible. She elevates what should be a television film subject into being true Acting (complete with a capital A). B+

Friends with Benefits is cute. Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake know they're not in the best film in the world and have fun anyway. Richard Jenkins somehow thinks he's in an Oscar contender and delivers a world-class performance as Timberlake's father suffering from an illness. And there's a lot of sex. This movie shouldn't be compared to No Strings Attached, because it's worlds better than that dreck, but it also shouldn't be compared to director Will Gluck's fantastic second feature, Easy A. This one falls somewhere in the middle. B-

...Nah, not wasting my time talking about 30 Minutes or Less. It was horrible. And unfunny. And Aziz Ansari might be the most overrated comedian since Dane Cook. Yeah, I said it. D

Happy Happy was too much fun to watch. A Norwegian film getting released this weekend, it is a tad stereotypical, but it makes up for it with immense heart and a lot of great writing and great acting. The performances are lived-in, with each character breaking out of their stereotype and truly jumping off the screen and into your heart. It's not a perfect movie, but it's completely fine with being less than perfect. Because it's human. A-

Crazy, Stupid, Love. What a movie. It thrilled me from start to finish. It enticed me with its witty writing and stupendous cast. It enthralled me with how human these characters were. It made me laugh. It made me love. It was truly one of my favorite films of the year. A

Whoo! All movies done! Let's see if I can't finally get this blog back on track!

Oscar Predictions: They're Alive! So Am I!

2011-07-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

I know, I've promised that this blog has come off hiatus like three times now, so this promise will probably turn empty anyway. But we're back! And we've got new Oscar predictions ready for you! Check out the reviews page for some new ratings, too (I probably won't get around to reviewing X-Men or its prequel, but I will try to review the fantastic Midnight in Paris). And since we're at mid-year, a quick look at what's topping my list of the year is probably forthcoming.

Stick with us! You guys have boosted us above 15,000 hits and it's much appreciated!

MVM: You Belong with Taylor Swift

2011-05-31T22:27:00.000-07:00

Music Video Mondays comes back from its hiatus with possibly the blandest, most inoffensive video to ever become controversial. The controversy behind "You Belong With Me" is, of course, more due to Kanye West than anyone else, but for that reason alone, this video's likely to become the one remembered among all the Beyoncé and Lady Gaga videos of the era.

Really, there's not much plot to this one--girl likes boy, boy has girlfriend--but it poses the same blonde vs. brunette questions that Gwen Stefani's "Cool" did, and like Gwen, Taylor is playing both sides of the coin here. Let's take a closer look and see some of the drama behind the façade.

The video starts with a look at our hunky love interest:

...played by gorgeous blonde Lucas Till. ~~Pedophiles~~ Miley Cyrus fans in the audience might recognize him from The Hannah Montana Movie. I recognize him from this video. (Props for the pre-Biebs haircut!)

Because Taylor has not yet made herself a Facebook page to stalk hunky blonde boys on just yet, she resorts to creeping on him through her bedroom window. Though you gotta question his judgment leaving the curtain open. We're expected to see the gorgeous Taylor Swift as an ugly girl because she wears glasses and reads. That horrendous-looking bitch. She makes me want to vomit.

"Why is that crazy bitch next door staring at me?"

Naturally, since he's creeped out, he closes the window. (Yeah, technically he responds first, but let's be real, he's just being nice.) Then she almost shows him this:

CREEPER OMG

But oh no. Taylor doesn't stop there. She proceeds to try on a series of really unflattering outfits, escalating in their (and her) ugliness. One of said outfits:

Despite "Raggedy Ann as a Japanese Goth as Taylor Swift"'s best O-face, all hunky blonde boy does is peek at her:

And sees this:

HOT

Laughing at her poor "Locomotion" dance, he pities her when she's reading a book (who does that?) on the bus bench (a breeding ground for social outcasts and ads for DWI lawyers).

Hunky blonde boy tolerates her presence for almost thirty seconds (a record!) and even touches her (a HAZMAT team was called) before his hot girlfriend pulls up.

OMG IT'S TAYLOR SWIFT AS A BRUNETTE

This video teaches us the lesson that blonde is only okay on hunky teenage boys. If you're going to be a hot chick, you best be brunette and drive a convertible. Like Barbie. Except, you know, brunette.

Brunette Barbie gets that hunk of deliciousness all over her. No HAZMAT team needed for that babe.

(If we can have a serious conversation about T-Swift for a moment--and we cannot--don't you think she looks better as a blonde? I think she kinda looks like a Skipper doll here. Remember Skipper? Barbie's tomboy friend? Lord knows she was the whore of the doll world whereas Barbie saved herself for marriage. Before leaving Ken to go be with that ugly Aussie. This is one strange tangent.)

Of course Brunette Barbie is a cheerleader. That fabulous bitch.

Of course Ugly Taylor is a band geek. And not even a sexually active band geek. She would have nowhere to sit in the Mean Girls cafeteria.

Brunette Barbie flirts with Brunette Hunk thinking that he's much hotter (he's not)...

...which pisses off (much hotter) blonde hunk.

In a depressed and desperate state, hunky blonde boy asks the hideous blonde with glasses like Harry Potter if she's going to the prom.

Of course you are.

But even a blonde bitch as ~~gorgeous~~ nasty as Taylor can whip up an adorable dress on the spot...

Anyone notice that Taylor loves her white? She's always dressing up in white. Bitch, you dated Jake Gyllenhaal. No one's believing the virgin thing.

Anyway, her ozone-depleting ugliness finally tamed, Taylor manages to steal the boy away from this whore:

Eat it up, bitch. Blondes rule the world.

And turns out the guy's just as much of a creeper as she is! They belong together! Blondes rule as long as they put a dress on and tame their inherent ugliness. That's the moral of the story, right? Right?

Do you have a hunky blonde boy that belongs with you? Are you also repulsed by Blonde Taylor's hideousness? Take it to the comments!

We're running a day or two behind here. Give us a little bit to get the new Netflix Pix up.

I'm An Awful Blogger.

2011-05-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

...I have no excuse. It's summer. I should have started both Music Video Mondays and Netflix Pix this week. They'll come next week, I promise. (The piece on The Good Wife, however, might forever languish in development issues.)

Revised Oscar predictions post-Cannes will also be up sometime this week.

Wild Speculation: Emmy Edition

2011-05-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

I'm stalling out on my attempt to write a piece about The Good Wife, so what better time to attempt to predict what will be nominated for the top Emmy awards come...whenever the Emmy nominations are announced? (I think it's July--I really have no idea. This is as random as projects come on Awkward is What We Aim For.) Be forewarned that I suck pretty hard at predicting the Emmys simply because unlike the Oscars, where the pool is fairly small and narrowed down by a bunch of precursors, the Emmys are a bigger pool with more populist swing at times that have only a couple precursors that happen six months before the Emmys even nominate. So this is a bit of a wild goose chase, really. Come take it with me!

Best Drama Series
Big Love
Boardwalk Empire
Dexter
The Good Wife
The Killing
Mad Men

I'm only sure about four of these--The Killing may not have the buzz to get nominated and Big Love's final season may not be worth rewarding. But a lot of former locks in this category are gone now (like Lost and Damages), so it'll be interesting to see what fills the slots.

Best Drama Actor
Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire
Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House
William H. Macy, Shameless

The nomination for Macy is probably a longshot, but I seriously could not come up with a sixth. I think his name will carry him to a nomination.

Best Drama Actress
Kathy Bates, Harry's Law
Mariska Hargitay, Law and Order: SVU
Julianna Marguiles, The Good Wife
Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men
Katey Sagal, Sons of Anarchy
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) is always a contender, but I feel like there's only room for her or Sagal, who just won the Golden Globe in this category, not both.

Best Drama Supporting Actor
Andre Braugher, Men of a Certain Age
Alan Cumming, The Good Wife
John Noble, Fringe
Chris Noth, The Good Wife
Michael Shannon, Boardwalk Empire
John Slattery, Mad Men

...sure. Let's go with that.

Best Drama Supporting Actress
Christine Baranski, The Good Wife
Michelle Forbes, The Killing
Sharon Gless, Burn Notice
Christina Hendricks, Mad Men
Kelly MacDonald, Boardwalk Empire
Archie Panjabi, The Good Wife

Elisabeth Moss promoted out of this category and Rose Byrne's show wasn't airing this season, which leaves us with two spots. I filled them out with Forbes and MacDonald but have no faith in my guesses.

Best Comedy Series
30 Rock
The Big Bang Theory
Glee
Modern Family
The Office
Parks and Recreation

This is awfully network-heavy, which leads me to think I should replace Parks with either Weeds or Nurse Jackie...

Best Comedy Actor
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Rob Lowe, Parks and Recreation
Joel McHale, Community
Matthew Morrison, Glee
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory

I had to think really hard to get to six here. What an underwhelming category. I have no confidence that Lowe will get nominated but also can think of no one else for the sixth slot. Why doesn't Ed O'Neill hurry up and promote himself to the lead race? He'd get nominated easily!

Best Comedy Actress
Toni Collette, The United States of Tara
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Laura Linney, The Big C
Lea Michele, Glee
Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation

And as opposed to the men, I actually had to cut out a couple viable contenders here. Can I just borrow a spot from Best Comedy Actor to use it here?

Best Comedy Supporting Actor
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Chris Colfer, Glee
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock
Oliver Platt, The Big C
Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family

Morgan and Platt are the shaky bets here.

Best Comedy Supporting Actress
Julie Bowen, Modern Family
Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock
Naya Rivera, Glee
Sofia Vergara, Modern Family
Betty White, Hot in Cleveland
Kristin Wiig, Saturday Night Live

The prediction for Rivera over Lynch is probably ridiculously wishful thinking, but I have to admit she's had the much stronger season.

Best Reality Competition Series
American Idol
The Amazing Race
Dancing with the Stars
Project Runway
Top Chef

The nominees have been the same for years now--why change? It's still a ridiculously solid bunch. Also remember that with Chef's win in this category last year, breaking the death grip Race had on the category, it's a real race this year. (I'd bet on Idol or Runway.)

So...that was fun. Any thoughts? Am I wrong all across the board? Take it to the comments!

Glum

2011-05-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

The image above is the perfect encapsulation of why this season of FOX's Glee has gone so far off the rails: it has sacrificed everything important about itself to find a happy ending for the character who best represents showrunner Ryan Murphy himself: Kurt Hummel, once a brilliant supporting character with fantastic lines and solo numbers now nothing but a shell, a pariah and martyr who can be almost painful to watch.

Harsh? Maybe. But Glee needs someone to be harsh who isn't a professional critic and isn't a rabid fan who thinks characters are being "mistreated" by the show. It needs a voice of reason. It needs someone to say that this creature, this phenomenon that the little show about a show choir has become isn't beautiful or wonderful. It's ugly, the very essence of glum.

I've long been unhappy with Glee's inconsistent characterization and inability to discover exactly what it wants to be. That complaint still holds some water, especially regarding what the show has done to some of its most likable characters. Good-hearted Finn Hudson is now an unlovable cad who waffles between the same two girls he has since the second episode of the series. (We're on episode 40.) Both of those girls are much less personable than they once were--Rachel's drive reeks of desperation, while Quinn has morphed completely into the frigid blonde bitch with no love for Rachel despite the major inroads they made together in season one. (This has not stopped the show from pairing them in a duet where they talk about being pretty and unpretty despite the fact that they hate each other--but don't worry, we'll get to the music in a bit.)

Other characters have been boiled down to token minorities: Tina and Mike Chang can't seem to break out of their Asian Couple mold, while Brittany is stuck as a (fairly offensive portrayal of a) bisexual hopping from Artie (now nothing but whiny) and Santana (perhaps the only three-dimensional character left on the show) without any pause. Kurt, Blaine and Karofsky play the three degrees of gay--not that there are any other options than martyr, out-but-sensitive and deeply, deeply closeted. Lauren is the big girl and Puck is the bad boy who wants the big girl. And Sam--well, who really cares about Sam anyway? Not the audience--the writers have never really given us a reason to care about him!

Will, constantly praised as the best teacher at McKinley, continues to make increasingly boneheaded decisions when it comes to his students. His love interests vary between an OCD pixie who is either crazy or not depending on the episode (Emma, a waste of Jayma Mays' talents), an irresponsible substitute teacher (Holly, once a blast of fun played by Gwyneth Paltrow but now stale and moldy), a drunk former glee club star (April, only still funny thanks to Kristin Chenoweth), and his shrew of an ex-wife who has never served any purpose other than screwing up Will's life (Terri, played as gamely as possible by Jessalyn Gilsig).

Even Sue Sylvester has turned into a tool for the writers to use to serve whatever plot purpose is needed at that moment--is she a villain? Is she turning good? Is she somewhere in the middle? All of the above! Jane Lynch deserves better than this--and better than last night's episode where she looked dumbfounded to be playing the character in such a strange, dishonest direction.

So with Santana the only character working anymore (thanks to Naya Rivera's beautiful acting above all else), one would turn to the music to get them through. And some of the music is great! I love Rachel and Jesse St. James' cover of "Rolling In the Deep" from last week, Santana's cover of "Back to Black" this week, and the aforementioned, truly wonderful mashup of "I Feel Pretty" and "Unpretty" done by Rachel and Quinn.

But so much of the time the music seems to be decided on what's popular at that moment--say, the cover of "Friday" (although that came a few weeks late). Or "Born This Way". Or "Tik Tok". The list goes on and on--while the music is still fine, it's stopped serving plot purpose and is more a showcase. While I've liked this in some instances ("River Deep - Mountain High" was done in a showcase setting and it vies with "Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy" and "I Feel Pretty/Unpretty" as my favorite performance of the season), in others it just comes off as so bizarre and out of place.

Something happened when the show introduced and focused so much on Darren Criss as Blaine. The show morphed from being about the artistic direction and became about pleasing the fans, truly the death knell for any show. It will probably continue on for several seasons thanks to the love from the fans and it's never-ending desire to please their every whim. But soon enough the fans will shrink in number, because you can't please all of them all the time. When they're not being pleased, they'll be able to take a moment and see what Glee has become--an ugly beast of self-promotion and character derailment. It's not even a joy to watch anymore--it's a chore. And a show that once showed such promise has become a parody of itself and proven to all it's critics that it is exactly what they thought it was. What a shame.

Brilliant Bridesmaids

2011-05-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

This one isn't gonna take too much waxing poetic: Bridesmaids is brilliant. A sure-to-be-iconic film that translates all the greatest bits of Apatow-style humor and mixes them with the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) bitchery of Mean Girls. Incredibly quotable and boasting magnificent performances from all six central ladies, from the scene-stealing antics of Melissa McCarthy (thank GOD for this breakout--long time coming since Gilmore Girls) to the sublime divahood of Rose Byrne (her Helen is truly a goddess for bitches-in-training everywhere) to the truly marvelous anchor performances of Saturday Night Live veterans Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph, with strong performances from Ellie Kemper (The Office) and Wendi McLendon-Covey (Reno 911!) that have fantastic moments when you're probably too busy laughing over whatever just happened.

The movie is emotional while still being hilarious. It's moving while not getting bogged down by the shmaltz. It's well-written with varying types of humor but doesn't pander. Bridesmaids is here for you to love it and if you don't, it doesn't give a shit. Trust me, there's a million more people laughing out there for every one who doesn't. Truly a fantastic film and one I can't wait to see again.

I honestly have nothing else to write. It was that great. A

Have you seen Bridesmaids? Do you have anything else to say to supplement my breathless, wordless review? Take it to the comments!

The Voice: I Don't Love This Cheesy Show

2011-05-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The Voice, the latest (yep, arriving to this trend pretty late) and greatest (eh, not so much) talent show brought to you by NBC. The show features country singer Blake Shelton, big-belter diva Christina Aguilera, "Fuck You"-singing phenomenon Cee-Lo Green and Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine as "coaches," the friendly alternative to judges, trying to find . In this aspect, it's ripping off The X Factor before it even reaches U.S. shores as well as ripping off American Idol. The Voice was obviously meant to take down the original at its weakest point. (Of course, that didn't work out as expected.)

In all, the show is kind of a big ball of cheese that is saved by the great ~~judges~~ coaches and how much chemistry the panel shares. But is a show that's all about the ju coaches going to work in the long run?

Let's start with the positive: this is a really great panel. Easily the best among the reality judge panels today aside from Top Chef's and Project Runway's. What's even better is the panel is balanced, with all four bringing major musical chops and ~~judging~~ coaching pedigrees. This separates it from panels dominated by one major personality (America's Next Top Model by Andre Leon Talley; surely The X Factor by Simon Cowell) or panels that are incompetent as judges across the board (America's Got Talent; American Idol).

The show also boasts a great amount of fun. The blind auditions led to some friendly competition between the coaches (hey, I didn't say ~~judge~~--aw, crap), but the gimmick soon gives way to what are described as "Battle Rounds". We're currently in the middle of these rounds, which can be fun, but they also point out the central flaw of the show: it doesn't quite know how to find talent.

As a reality show, The Voice is a little too fond of the corniness and not enough on making it a real production but it works well enough. As a talent search, however, it fails miserably. Hell, they ran out of potential auditioners so quickly they had to cycle back through the rejects just to fill each coach's team! Not only that, but you've seen a lot of these folks before. Remember that Idol came under incredible scrutiny for allowing those with major record deals before to compete in its seventh season. The main complaint was that this allowed for a massive advantage. That's not so much of a worry here, as almost everyone has this advantage! It does, however, make for a really stupid talent search--they know these contestants are talented! We know they are too! We've seen it all before!

I'm afraid that The Voice is going to run out of chemistry between the coaches and the whole thing is going to look like a tired retread very quickly. Because as Idol is showing us right now, you need great contestants to make a show like this worth watching. And right now the contestants on The Voice are boring me to tears.

American Idol: Haley and the Rest

2011-05-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

Here are words I never thought I'd type: Season 10, the first without Simon Cowell as judge, is the best season of American Idol ever.

Take a moment to spit out your arguments. "The judges suck," "The contestants aren't that good," "They're being a bitch to poor Haley Reinhart," etc.

Well, the judges may be inaccurate, but they most certainly do not suck. They're strong enough personalities to sell whatever crap they're offering well--and it's honestly not their mission to provide criticism, it's to be entertaining. Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler have been and continue to be truly entertaining. (We'll forget Randy Jackson exists.)

And yes, they are probably really screwing with poor Haley, but they've also (intentionally or unintentionally) given her the chance of a lifetime, as all the manipulation has led to a final three finish for the Illinois songbird.

But let's talk about those contestants and how "not good" they are. Because let me tell you--they're actually the best bunch this show has seen since Season 5 and possibly the best bunch ever. (Yes, they even beat Season 8!)

Haley, go ahead and put us in the mood:

This is a season that, despite popular opinion, has been both consistent AND good. (Most Idol seasons are one or the other.) Contestants like Pia Toscano and James Durbin who have been knocked off early provided us with great performances before they departed--from Toscano, we got "I'll Stand By You" and "All in Love is Fair," and from Durbin, we got "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "Living for the City." Even from the so-called "bad" contestants we got gems: Naima Adedapo's "Dancing in the Streets," Thia Megia's "Out Here On My Own," and Jacob Lusk's "A House is Not a Home." And with a couple exceptions (Adedapo's "What's Love Got to Do With It" and Lusk's "No Air"), there really haven't been any disasters all season long.

Now we're left with three really fascinating contestants, two of whom will move on to compete in next week's finale. Let's take a look at the two "frontrunners" before we get to my personal favorite, Miss Reinhart.

Scotty McCreery

Scotty is a fascinating breed of Idol contestant from the "Danny Gokey/Taylor Hicks" mold--he's massively popular without really delivering one AMAZING performance. He's definitely the most fun contestant left, though--just look at his performance of Montgomery Gentry's "Gone"! He's having so much fun!

He can even be touching and heartfelt when he needs to be, like on his cover of James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend". He's also seen as the most viable winner--an assumption I think is just plain wrong. Scotty is a strong singer, but there's no male Taylor Swift for a reason--country music requires an "I've seen it all" kind of feeling in order to be authentic and Scotty is all of 17 years old. He's not ready just yet despite his killer voice. Still, he's tons better than the haters make him out to be.

Lauren Alaina

I strongly debated whether to put this performance of Martina McBride's "Anyway" or her fun rendition of Carrie Underwood's "Flat On the Floor" up, but the breath control problems on the latter led me to the former. But that's the way with Lauren, isn't it? She's always got a caveat or two with every performance.

There's no unconditionally great performance in her repertoire. She's being sold as the clear frontrunner but just hasn't lived up to her early promise. I'm hoping we get a real moment with her this week, but frankly, she's just disappointed me despite some enjoyable performances. Her big shot was replicating a Jordin Sparks moment on "I (Who Have Nothing)" this week, but she let Haley have that song. I'm betting she's regretting that choice now.

Haley Reinhart

There is a girl on American Idol
They call the Underdog
And she's been the butt of many a critique
But God, I think she can win

Haley Reinhart's journey on American Idol is absolutely fascinating. Frankly, she wasn't very good at first (I myself wanted to see her go sooner rather than later), but her Top 11 Redux performance of "Bennie and the Jets" finally got her some praise. She didn't really inherit the critical favorite mantle until she covered "Rolling In the Deep," however--still lamenting over the loss of Pia Toscano, most critics were in a position of just not caring. Then there was Haley.

Truly, she's a wonder--her voice is kinda weird but she's got perfect pitch. She looks super-commercial but sings some odd selections. She can do the fun stuff and the dark, dramatic ballads. She's responsible for the most critically acclaimed performance of the season, the above "House of the Rising Sun," and she's showing no signs of slowing down.

Assuming the two country kids split votes this week (a good assumption) and her fanbase keeps voting (a shaky assumption), she'll make her way into the finale to square off with either Scotty or Lauren. While I'd say whichever crooner fights her likely has the upper hand, I wouldn't put anything past Haley at this point. She's truly astounding, a new kind of Idol contestant for a new era: it's not the prepackaged talents that matter, it's the ones who grow as an artist and simultaneously grow on you.

Well done, Lady Reinhart. Keep on trucking through this week. And Idol? Don't change anything just yet. You're doing just fine.

The State of the Blog

2011-05-15T22:12:00.000-07:00

Hi, blog. It's good to be writing to you again. Or on you, more specifically.

I know it's been a while. I'm sorry I had to take that hiatus from writing, but school is more important than passion projects. But I'm back! Did you miss me?

Oh, don't be so cruel, blog. I didn't leave you completely alone! I was doing some work behind the scenes, and hey, I wrote that review! I'm here to stay this time...until school forces me to leave you again. Sorry. I know you're a little like the narrator in that Sugarland song but you know what? It's great when we're together. (And no, that video won't be my next Music Video Mondays entry. It's a blonde bitch on a black background. It's no fun to rip apart.)

Speaking of that series, it'll be starting up again come next week. Unlike other series on the site, I'm not gonna formally announce a schedule or even how much it'll come around, but you can expect entries fairly frequently (every other week is sounding reasonable right now, but don't hold me to that) and some great videos are gonna be ripped apart soon. (I'm thinking of doing a weeklong series devoted to Lady Gaga videos, but I don't know if that's not too ambitious...TBD on that one.)

Netflix Pix is gonna start its summer season, though, and I'll have a schedule to follow out soon. Our season premiere is gonna be next Tuesday and we're gonna feature two performances by an underrated, underused actress: Rachel Weisz. (She's also undermarried: poor Darren Aronofsky!)

But blog, since all this is coming next week, along with updated Oscar predictions and more announcements, what will we be doing this week?

Hopefully, we'll have a couple more movie reviews up this week (Bridesmaids and Thor are on tap), but expect an analysis of the current season of American Idol up before Wednesday's performance show.

I'll also get up pieces on the current season of Glee and why I think it's such a failure (this will relate and reference back to my last piece expressing dissatisfaction with Glee, so read up!) as well as on the second season of The Good Wife after the finale on Tuesday. Finally, keeping in the spirit of writing about television, I'll try to get pieces up about The Voice and Happy Endings (one's my new favorite show and the other, um, is not) in the next couple of weeks.

And we're gonna try and start a new series featuring guests called "Awkward Conversations" that could be stellar or could be disastrous--we're gonna take that journey on the tightrope together.

So, blog, I'm really back, and in a big way. I'm here for the long haul, too. So, "why don't you stay?"

The Lincoln Loser

2011-05-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

There are movies that you want to be good with all your heart. Maybe they've got a great cast. Maybe they feature the comeback performance from a familiar star who's ventured off their strong career path after early promise. Maybe the source material is strong. And maybe they've got all these things and they still fail, disappointingly.

Sorry, Ryan. This review's gonna be a hard one for you.

The Lincoln Lawyer is exactly that: a sad, disappointing failure.

I am such a huge fan of A Time to Kill and, more specifically, Matthew McConaughey's performance in the film that when I saw the oft-shirtless actor was starring in another courtroom film, I was thrilled. It'd be a return to form! He'd recapture the magic of his brilliant Jake Brigance!

And to be fair, he did--McConaughey gave a brilliant performance considering what he was handed. Unfortunately, he wasn't handed much worth writing home about. This soggy, overdone, overstuffed film doesn't bring anything new or exciting to the world of film and manages to screw up the more familiar elements by becoming repetitive and half-baked.

The central conceit is that McConaughey's amoral attorney Mickey Haller is called to represent a rich boy accused of sexual assault (played by Ryan Phillipe, who can't seem to channel his rich brat style into a strong performance here). He's soon caught in a much bigger, more convoluted web thanks to the client's lies, which forces Haller into a moral bind while dealing with more angry detectives than you can count (the most infuriatingly familiar of which is played by Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston--he's quite angry for someone with so little backstory) and his ex-wife, a prosecutor who loves to nag him (played with gusto by Marisa Tomei--it's sad she's got so little to do other than be irritating).

Obviously, the story has plenty of twists and turns--too many, one might say. I counted four or five possible ending points before reaching the real ending. The screenwriter clearly figured more underdeveloped characters was better than fewer developed ones, which led to many, many loose ends needing tying up at the end of the film. But you'll be shocked at how little you care--after all, these are characters with absolutely no real introduction or history to them. In fact, by the end of the film you're more bored and annoyed than anything else.

It's a shame, this could have been a really fantastic character piece if the screenwriter had allowed it to be or the director of photography had stopped shaking the camera so damn much and captured the subtleties of McConaughey's acting. But this is a movie filled with missed opportunities for greatness. Instead, it's not even good--it's just a big disappointment. C-

An Absolute Scream

2011-04-17T03:22:00.000-07:00

There are some movies that you appreciate for their artistic value but don't really enjoy (though I really did like Jane Eyre, I can understand why others might have an "it's good but I wouldn't watch it again" response). Then there are some films which are utter guilty pleasures with no real artistic value (The House Bunny comes to mind--though talking from experience, it is the perfect movie to watch while sick). When a great movie is completely enjoyable from beginning to end, however, you know you've hit the jackpot. This year's greatest jackpot so far is Scream 4.

What is the best part of Scream 4? Is it the magnificent ensemble work by actors who are completely aware of their role in a horror parody who look to be having the time of their lives? Is it the standout work from the übertalented Allison Brie and Emma Roberts? Is it the script, a focused and effective parody that succeeds both as a horror film and a comedy? Is it the dialogue, witty and quotable while remaining completely contemporary? Or is it Wes Craven's direction, a sign that the master has not lost his touch?

The fact of the matter is that this completely unnecessary sequel a decade after the original trilogy ended still wouldn't work even if everything came together so magnificently as stated above. What really makes Scream 4 go above and beyond is the true sense of awareness and genre savvy that permeates every scene. These aren't stupid characters--they know exactly what's going to happen and somehow still can't avoid it because--surprise!--this movie is beyond meta.

The twists are completely believable--I thought I knew where the story was going only to be surprised at least twice and yet I totally understood. The characters are well-defined and, though not always, there's stakes involved with their deaths. The old guard who returns to the film (Neve Campbell, who plays the wearied victim so well as Sidney Prescott, and the long-suffering Arquettes, David and Courtney Cox) is still having a good time, while the newcomers (especially the previously-mentioned Brie and Roberts, though dues must be paid to Hayden Panettiere who transcends her previous work here) give promise that this franchise has plenty of life left in it.

The film delights in being meta, poking fun at itself and other horror films constantly. It could have become the latest entry in the Scary Movie franchise but avoided it with aplomb by making the kills as intense as ever. It is truly two fantastic movies in one: an edge-of-your-seat thriller and one of the best parodies of the decade. What a thrill to watch. A-

High Ate Us

2011-04-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

A sad bear for a sad occasion: I'm here to announce a bit of a hiatus for Awkward is What We Aim For. The end of my first semester at university has just about killed me (and it's not even done killing me yet!), which has made this blog more of a chore than a joy. Obviously, readership has gone up immensely since things started amping up for the Oscars, and I'm truly appreciative for everyone who reads this as much as they do. But it's time for me to take a break, at least for a month or two.

This means that with very few exceptions, everything's going to be delayed--including Netflix Pix and Music Video Mondays. Chances are I'll do MVM entries every once in a while, but I'm going to end this season of Netflix Pix early and bring it back for a summer mini-season. Movie reviews, however, will still be posted fairly frequently.

But the blog will stay up and running--you can always read any of the entries we have up, including the massively popular premiere of Music Video Mondays, featuring Rebecca Black's "Friday" (viewed almost a thousand times since mid-March), my write-up of Winona Ryder's performance in Black Swan for StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Blog-a-thon 2010, our coverage of Melissa Leo's fabulously bad FYC ads, my send-up of those ads, the Live Blog Bonanza for the Oscars this year (Part I, Part II and Part III), and my favorite piece I've ever written, my review of Black Swan. And of course, I'll be updating the Oscar Predictions regularly with Andrew assisting me throughout the summer and next fall.

Keep your eye here for when we do update (and trust me, I will update--I can't just quit cold turkey!), and keep aiming for awkward!

Inspiringly Insidious

2011-04-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

With few exceptions, I am not a fan of the horror genre. Oftentimes it seems to be going for cheap thrills rather than truly entertaining an audience and keeping them on their toes. (For every The Exorcist or the original Nightmare on Elm Street, you get a Final Destination or remake of Nightmare on Elm Street.) So color me totally surprised when I tell you that I loved Insidious not just as a great movie-going experience (though the truly fantastic crowd did make it better), but as a movie individually. One of the best horror films I've ever seen, and I don't give out such hyperbolic praise lightly.

Sure, the premise is a little silly--a boy is being haunted and his mother is seeing the demons hunting him. His father doesn't believe the explanation: his soul is separated from his body and is lost in something called the Further (this movie's substitute for hell). But despite the lame plot, it's explained quite well and never feels like it's pandering to the audience. The dialogue feels natural--if such a bizarre event was occurring in reality, people would behave like this. Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson are particularly good--they're more than your typical horror film final girl and guy. The supporting cast is solid as well, especially the ghostbusting team that arrives in the third act, but Wilson's on-screen mother, the great Barbara Hershey, looks a little lost here, perhaps wondering why she chose this as a follow-up project to Black Swan. (It kinda kills her comeback momentum, no?)

The direction is top-notch: James Wan is doing his best work since the original Saw. The film isn't afraid of throwing multiple twists and spooks at the audience in quick succession--if you're freaked out, so be it. They're not taking it easy on you. It gets to the point where several members of my theater's audience were reacting to completely normal shots, like one of the house, but that was the tone of the film: fear around every corner. The cinematography is unique and seems like a good intersection between the "found footage" style of Paranormal Activity or Cloverfield and straight-up cinematography.

It's a shame the film loses itself in the mythology too much near the end of the film--it seems like at least one major scene could have been cut without the story suffering. Without that drag, this would have been a near-masterpiece horror film. As is, it's merely very good and can scare the living daylights out of you. B+

By the way, if you haven't seen the trailer for Guillermo del Toro's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, which plays before this film, check it out, but make sure to full-screen it for full effect. And leave any comments in, y'know, the comments section!

Almost Theyre

2011-04-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

More than a few readers have likely read the novel Jane Eyre in school or for pleasure, but film adaptations of the book are hit-and-miss. As a result, I wasn't expecting much of this horror/prestige hybrid telling of the now-classic story of love between the titular Jane and Mr. Rochester. Imagine my surprise when I found myself charmed and fully riveted by this version starring the gorgeous Mia Wasikowska and the drop dead beautiful/talented Michael Fassbender.

The choices made by director Cary Fukunaga are effective ones, from the in media res story structure to the twinges of terror that keep the audience on their toes. The writing is an effective adaptation, though the language sometimes flies over the audience's heads. Large blocks of dialogue are slightly muddled when the actors (Wasikowska specifically) don't deliver them with any real understanding or punch. (One of the reasons True Grit worked so well was because young star Hailee Steinfeld had a dexterity with the wordy dialogue.)

However, the film more than overcomes its shortcomings. It's a captivating tale told with aplomb. The art direction and costume design are particular highlights--look for one or both to be recognized come next year at the Academy Awards. The supporting cast was absolutely phenomenal, from the understated Judi Dench to the fabulously bitchy Sally Hawkins, who I have officially thrown my allegiance behind (all it takes is one bitchy performance...right, Winona Ryder?)

The entire film is effective in ways you'd never expect. Truly a pleasure to watch, if not as effortless as it could have been. You can see the cracks, but you happily ignore them. B+

Netflix Pix: Funny Girls and Serious Boys

2011-03-31T23:49:00.000-07:00

It seems like Netflix Pix features come far too quickly every week--each time I'm done with one it's onto the other. It'll probably go every-other-week in Season Two so I won't feel so drained by it to the point where I miss deadlines by a mile. But I digress.

This week we have two vastly different movies, and that's where this series makes its bread and butter. We'll be taking a look at the film that earned Tommy Lee Jones his last Oscar nomination, In the Valley of Elah, a film I've always considered underrated. Then we'll look at Funny Girl, the Barbra Streisand-starring musical that made popular such anthems as "Funny Girl" and "Don't Rain On My Parade." The theme this week is weak (no pun intended), but it's essentially this: boys are serious and talk about war, girls are divas and sing about things. Sexism! Now available in fantastic films.

In truth, Funny Girl isn't a fantastic film--it isn't even a very good film. It's all centered around the first half, deflating immensely in the second and does a poor job of sustaining the energy between musical numbers.

But what musical numbers they are. "Funny Girl" is a heartwrencher, one that will seriously leave you in tears. "And though I may be all wrong for the guy, I'm good for a laugh." Who among us hasn't felt that pain in relationships when you realize you're funny/cute/useful but they're just not interested beyond that? Put all that pain into an under-three-minute song and have Barbra Streisand belt it out. That's how painful it is.

Speaking of Barbra belting, the big masterpiece is "Don't Rain On My Parade," which most Glee fans know from Lea Michele's barn-burning version in last year's mid-season finale. Trust me, it's better here. Streisand completely deserved the Oscar she won for this film, even if the movie really doesn't hold up well years after its release. C+

Now, if you wanna talk about a movie that not only holds up but gets better every time you watch, it's the glorious In the Valley of Elah. Tommy Lee Jones pulled off a miraculous Oscar nod despite a void of buzz for his performance, but it is easily the best work he's ever done. Powerful, stoic, moving--just like the movie.

Charlize Theron is similarly great in the Iraq War-staged murder mystery that creates this story. The movie just came out too early--Iraq War movies didn't become popular until The Hurt Locker two years later. But this is superior to Locker in almost every way (and that's coming from a fan of Locker, so that's high praise indeed). A definite must-watch. A-

I know, I know, these are getting less and less descriptive each time. But blame my lethargy. I'll try to give more to next week's entry. In the meantime, if you've seen either of these movies, take your thoughts to the comments!

MVM: I Know We're Cool

2011-03-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

Another installment of Music Video Mondays for you guys! We premiered this series in 2011 with Rebecca Black's magnum opus 'Friday', then took a trip back a decade to talk about a girl named Lucky. Let's land somewhere in the middle this week to talk about our favorite Aughts-era platinum blonde: Gwen Stefani. After breaking up with No Doubt, Stefani released her solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. in 2004, and launched an incredible five hit singles before finally crashing (on its sixth single, ironically called "Crash").

Preceded by "What You Waiting For?" and "Rich Girl," as well as the massively successful "Hollaback Girl," the song and video this week, "Cool," was the fourth of these singles and the slowest. Truly a shift in tone from the other fast-paced singles, "Cool" was actually quite lovely, a beautifully-performed song with an equally lovely video to accompany it. The whole point is that Stefani and her supposed ex-lover are now 'cool,' but really, you can feel the awkwardness bubbling throughout the video. Let's check it out!

We open on what we come to learn is a fabulous Italian villa belonging to Gwen Stefani (that is, the character in the story). Seriously, I'd give up food for a year for this thing. It's absolutely gorgeous. Gwen is preparing for the arrival of her ex-lover and his new fiancée. It's probably gonna be a little strange, but it's okay, because they're "cool." Hence the name of the song.

Gwen is wearing a leather top with a shiny skirt that we see for about one frame. It's unimportant. The hair is what's important. Gwen, you fabulous platinum blonde bitch, you. Show up that dumpy brunette whore your Hunky Italian Ex-Lover is wasting his time with.

Hunky Italian Ex-Lover is totally into the blonde hair. The new whore looks on with envy while Gwen resists his touch.

"Yeah, it's fabulous. You could've had this. But you went for that slut to your left. So hands off."

"Hi, I'm Sofia--" No one asked, Sofia. Don't bother introducing yourself.

Gwen appears to be humoring Sofia (I have no idea if that's her name, she just looks like a Sofia) by greeting her with a kiss. What Sofia doesn't know is that Gwen has mono. So suck on that, Sofia!

Having infected Sofia, she proceeds to make hers and Hunky Italian Ex-Lover's lives miserable by taking them around her ever-more-fabulous Italian villa. We also see the skirt for half a second. Don't bother looking, it's unimportant. Soak in the absolutely gorgeous furniture and Sofia eating her heart out. But we soon learn more about Gwen and Hunky Italian Ex-Lover's history...

In a shocking twist, Gwen herself used to be a brunette! Obviously this guy has a thing for brunettes. He also used to be all young and virile. He's hot both ways though.

Except when he's wearing that thing. Never wear that again, Hot Italian Ex-Lover. Never. Gwen, however, still cleans up as a dressed-down brunette. Why Hot Italian Ex-Lover left her for the completely unappealing Sofia is beyond me. Get your shit together, Hot Italian Ex-Lover.

We see a bunch of shots of Gwen writhing on a bed throughout the rest of the video, which I'm assuming is Gwen Stefani the singer instead of Gwen Stefani the character. Think of it like the difference between Lucky and Britney Spears last week. Anyway, she's writhing about while singing the song, which is a lovely ditty that sounds like a Cyndi Lauper throwback. The whole point of the song is that she's married now, her ex has a new girlfriend, and they're all totally cool with it. As we come to find out, she's nowhere near cool with it.

And why should she be? They were a totally hot young couple. Look at them, all Italian and the like. Also: want to live in Italy now please.

Gwen hands the lovely couple their coffee, and it's clearly been poisoned. Look at her face. That's totally a "take a bite, dearie" face. And Sofia is totally oblivious. Look forward to being dead by the end of the song. How "cool" will you be then, Sofia?

On the other hand, I'm rooting for Hot Italian Ex-Lover not to die. He's way too hot.

The couple touches hands and that makes Gwen livid.

That was once her hand touching Hot Italian Ex-Lover's!

Now it's Sofia's! (Bitch.)

She made poor Gwen Stefani (narrator/singer, not character) cry! Damn you, Sofia, upsetting both our Gwens!

Gwen invites Sofia over to the couch ~~to kill her~~ to check out Sofia's ring, or at least that's how it looks...

But in an actually-kinda-shocking-and-I'm-not-kidding twist, Gwen takes the ring off her finger and puts it on Sofia's! So, in essence, the whole reason for their visit is to get the ring back from Gwen so it can be given to Sofia!

Wow, I wonder how that proposal went. "Will you marry me? I have a ring, but it's still on the finger of my way-hotter ex-lover Gwen Stefani. Don't worry, she's not a super-hot blonde now or anything."

Look at those smiles. They want to kill each other. It's delicious.

Meanwhile, Gwen concocts a plan to kill both Hot Italian Ex-Lover and Sofia in one fell swoop while she sips her coffee. Sure, she may be saying they're "cool" and all, but really, it just takes one look. Diva is pissed her man has been taken by someone less hot and more Sofia-ish (don't ask me what it is, I just know) and is ready to whip her hair and take them out.

Thus, she leads them to their doom, death by drowning in the body of water lying outside the fabulous Italian villa. They won't even know what hit them...

Nah, it actually ends with the former couple sipping their cups concurrently while fondly remembering their kiss. And then she kills them by drowning.

...or they go frolic outside. Either one. (I prefer my ending.)

Have you ever invited over a Hot Italian Ex-Lover to give back the ring he gave you when he proposed? Did you meet his evil girlfriend and ~~purposefully~~ accidentally kill her in the body of water outside your fabulous Italian villa? Are you guys cool now? Take it to the comments!

Netflix Pix: Vicky, Cristina, Maria Elena, Hannah and Her Sisters

2011-03-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay on the new episodes of Netflix Pix! The good news is that the next six weeks will (theoretically, hopefully, God willing) bring an uninterrupted stretch of episodes until the end of the season.

This week, we're taking a quick look at some of the most fabulous women ever to grace Woody Allen's oeuvre. That's right, this week we're looking at the my number one film of 2008, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, starring Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johanssen, Patricia Clarkson and the fiery Oscar winner Penelope Cruz. We'll also take a look at Hannah and Her Sisters, Allen's 1986 box office success that stars Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Allen himself, and two Oscar winners, Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest.

Fair warning: this week's Netflix Pix is going to be less exciting than usual. I can say right now that the grade for both films is easily an A, and there are probably more than a few who disagree with me, particularly regarding Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But this is where we all learn something about me, and Awkward is What We Aim For as a result, that we all know already: I'm a sucker for a good script and great acting.

First, let's quickly talk about Hannah and Her Sisters, a movie very few would argue isn't deserving of high praise. With a brilliant script that remains one of Allen's crowning achievements (along with Annie Hall and Manhattan, as well as arguably Match Point) and a cavalcade of now-legendary actors, Hannah holds up incredibly well. It's funny, refreshing, impressively plotted and masterfully acted. Watching Barbara Hershey's performance here (as well as considering her underrated performance in Black Swan), it's a shame she never broke out to be a bigger star in Hollywood. Of course, screen legends Dianne Wiest and Michael Caine are doing some of the best work of their careers here, with Wiest as the true revelation. Hannah is on Instant Stream.

But the real point of this column is to defend my love of Allen's 2008 Spanish venture, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. His third film shot in Europe and the first of which wasn't shot in the United Kingdom, Barcelona is often considered nothing more than the best of Allen's worst works. However, the film deserves more credit than that: while it isn't as superbly scripted as some of his other works (though it's still a fine script), the acting captures the emotions of the film perfectly. Of course, Penelope Cruz is magnificent as the fiery Maria Elena--her Oscar was well-earned. She captures the insanity and humanity of the character in equal measure--not an easy feat.

Javier Bardem gives good smolder, nailing his deadpan delivery while still managing to remain magnetic on-screen. Scarlett Johanssen captures the restlessness of her vacationing student with aplomb. Minor characters like Patricia Clarkson's sexually frustrated wife nail their performances with few scenes. But perhaps the best in the film is the Woody Allen stand-in Vicky, played with the greatest uptight energy by Rebecca Hall. The performance could have been immensely unlikable, and it surely isn't truly likable, but she makes the character's arc feel completely believable and relatable.

Two different films, two different triumphs: one of acting and one of writing. Each is competent in the other regard and is directed with Allen's signature quirkiness. Each is a prime example of exactly why Allen is the legend he is. Each is worth an easy A.

Agree? Disagree? Take it to the comments! We'll be back with Netflix Pix again next Tuesday!

MVM: She's So Lucky

2011-03-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

It's time for the next installment of our new series Music Video Mondays! While I don't think this will be nearly as popular as the premiere of the segment, an analysis of Rebecca Black's "Friday" (thanks to everyone who pushed it to over 500 page views!), we're gonna appeal to early Aughts' nostalgia with a look at a Britney Spears video most college students should remember fondly.

This is a story about a girl named Lucky.

While there are arguably more 'famous' Britney Spears videos ("Me Against the Music" and "I'm a Slave 4 U" come to mind), and "Lucky" is an ersatz combination of a couple of different Britney songs (you can hear influences of "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops! I Did It Again" throughout), but there's a certain connection that "Lucky" has with the Aughts kids. Not only that, but it's an almost ridiculous video--it involves Britney playing two roles (technically three), multiple wardrobe changes, and a whole lot of glitter. (Take that, Ke$ha.)

Now to introduce our characters. This is Britney, our narrator. Don't confuse her with Lucky.

That's Lucky. She's the one in the fur coat. She's also got bigger hair. Got it? Good.

Britney sings a story about how Lucky is a Hollywood girl whom everyone loves but is actually really sad on the inside. To us, Lucky just looks kinda bored. She might well be upset, but all she's doing is looking off into the distance and walking through her fabulous house. Britney keeps showing up wherever she walks, but Lucky is far too busy looking off into the distance to notice her. Even when she's standing right in front of her. Oh well. She's far too distracted by those lovely (fake) white flowers.

Lucky looks into her favorite mirror while sitting in front of her other favorite mirror and pets her hair. Britney keeps singing how upset Lucky is, but her expression really hasn't changed. Maybe she's trying to change it by staring into her mirrors really hard. Botox is scary, kids. Don't try this at home. Look what happened to Nicole Kidman post-Oscar, pre-Rabbit Hole.

Oh, so that's why she was looking in the mirror! She was getting her hair perfectly to prepare for her angry blond man to ravish her. He's slightly terrifying.

But then: FAKE-OUT! Turns out, Lucky is just an actress! She finishes her scene and complains about how many takes it has required--though if I were her, I'd be happy I had a job. Girlfriend has no expression whatsoever--she spent that entire scene looking bored. Unless she's playing an expressionless deaf mute who wears fabulous fur ensembles, she's just a bad actress.

Lucky's something of a diva, brushing off the people around her to answer her adorable circa-2000 cell phone. Britney looks disappointed in Lucky's diva behavior (she has been singing a whole song about how upset she is to defend her, after all), so she decides to just jack Lucky's favorite mirror.

You don't fuck with Britney.

Here's where things get weird. Britney transforms from simply a narrator/observer into something of a fairy, pouring glitter on the scene. She throws the glitter while sitting on her big shiny star. She might be more of a diva than Lucky.

Lucky somehow wins a Best Actress award, but we're gonna assume that it's a CableACE award or something. The girl has no range of emotion, after all. And it must be a ghetto ceremony...

...because the reporters are using cameras from the 1950s. And yet there's a television reporter standing on the red carpet. We're in a strangely anachronistic setting.

Wait, that's an Oscar she's holding! That bitch won an Oscar! For staring blankly and getting seduced by a scary blond man! She looked like she took a fucking Xanex before going on-set! Someone was robbed!

poll by twiigs.com

Despite that travesty of an Oscar win, Britney is supportive, throwing more glitter on Lucky. At this point, she has to be just coated in glitter. The Grand Marshal at San Francisco's gay pride parade probably gets showered with less glitter than Lucky. But it causes Lucky to cry and we finally see those tears that come at night we kept hearing Britney sing about. It's pretty pitiful that the only way this sorry bitch can show any emotion is by having her alter-ego throw glitter in her eyes, though. (Sorry, she won an Oscar. I'm upset.)

Britney finishes telling the story and the last image we see is her silhouette against the billboard depicting Lucky. It says that she's on top of the world, but we're supposed to understand that she's really not, with the pain inside her destroying her happiness.

But let's be real: bitch has an Oscar. She needs to stop whining.

Do you love Britney Spears' "Lucky" video? Why do her tears come at night? Why so much glitter? Take it to the comments!

American Idol 10: Why It's Working (Even Though It Shouldn't)

2011-03-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

This really shouldn't have worked. Why is it working?!

America is currently experiencing the closest thing to a television miracle. A ten year-old reality show that saw its ratings hemorrhage in its last season is healing itself by making changes and running a tight ship. It overhauled its judging panel and got great talent to fill the ranks of the final rounds. It reinstated its former executive producer and its host suddenly learned how to host a reality show.

This... is the new American Idol!

Honestly, I left the show for dead after the last season. I didn't particularly care that Simon Cowell was leaving--he had appeared bored for the past two seasons. What I cared about was how the show couldn't end on time ever, the contestants were boring, they hid behind their instruments and none of them could seem to create watercooler moments. (The closest one contestant came was Siobhan Magnus with her lung capacity-defying scream on such songs as "Think" and the masterful "Paint It Black"--the fantastic Crystal Bowersox couldn't seem to create any buzz off of her run of fantastic performances.)

This summer, Idol chose to rehire formerly ejected executive producer Nigel Lythgoe (who, despite his penchant for big power ballads instead of musical ingenuity, runs a damn good show) and clear out the judging panel (with the exception of Randy Jackson, a bit of a stalwart on the panel). They hired Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler to fill out the panel and the show has been running swimmingly ever since. The auditions were good, the middle rounds were solid, and then the Top 24 week had three of the best-run episodes Idol has ever experienced. Not only that, but they uncovered some major talent: the old-fashioned belter Pia Toscano, the diva Jacob Lusk, the surprisingly sexy Casey Abrams and the Adam Lambert 2.0 James Durbin, among others.

In other words, the show got damn lucky.

Frankly, the show should be floundering right now. A whole new judging panel? An old executive producer who managed to tank his own show (So You Think You Can Dance) in the meantime? Drive-by semifinals that eliminated 11 contestants in one week? It all spells disaster, but when read aloud, it apparently sounds more like success. (It's like Raymond Luxury Yacht in Monty Python lore.)

The show will probably teeter on the line of success versus failure for a while, but if it can stay on the right side of the line, I think we're in for a really great season.

Are you guys watching the new season? What do you make of the new judges? This year's talent? Take it to the comments!

MVM: Which Seat Can I Take? The Rebecca Black Story

2011-03-14T22:48:00.000-07:00

I'm in the middle of writing about the newest season of American Idol, but let's be honest. No one wants to read about that today. We (we we) want to read about viral sensation Rebecca Black and her unending quest for fun, fun, fun, fun on Fridays (provided she picks the right seat in the car, of course) in our new segment called Music Video Mondays.

Oh, Rebecca, you have no idea.

Inspired by poor unfortunate soul Rebecca Black, Mondays will now host breakdowns of music videos old and new. It's a small way of expanding the scope of Awkward is What We Aim For beyond film reviews. (Speaking of those, I know, I was supposed to have a new Netflix Pix up this week. That's my fault--it'll be back next week.)

Video and commentary follow after the page break.

What isn't there to love about the epic musical saga that is Rebecca Black's "Friday"? Answer: everything. The song, which is either an incredibly effective parody or the saddest thing I've ever experienced in my life, follows Rebecca's Friday morning from its first moments to the epic conclusion through the most dryly-delivered, utterly vapid lyrics.

After awakening, Rebecca manages to make her way through the trying tasks of the morning like eating cereal and "being fresh" and gets to the bus stop, waits for the bus, then is promptly picked up by her friends. Perhaps it's best that she doesn't wait for the bus, because she has enough problems deciding where to sit in her friend's car (I see my friends/Kickin’ in the front seat/Sittin’ in the back seat/Gotta make my mind up/Which seat can I take?). Faced with a bus full of open seats, the poor girl might have had a brain aneyurism.

poll by twiigs.com

We hit the chorus and discover what Rebecca's Achilles' Heel is: enunciation. The word 'Friday,' somewhat vital in a song titled "Friday", sounds quite a bit more like 'fried egg' after she (and AutoTune) are done masticating it. Thanks to whatever sentient being controls us all, we only have to bear her butchering the title of her song six times until we reach the second verse.

Somehow, Rebecca has made it through the treacherous day and is now headed to a party with her girls at 7:45. Since Rebecca is about 14 years old and probably still has a curfew, it's expected to be a short party. Somehow, she's still struggling with which seat to take, which leads us to realize exactly why she's having so much trouble pronouncing 'Friday'--she's paralyzed with indecision and the poor thing has shut down all motor function. She really shouldn't be partying so hard at the late hour of 7:45--the girl needs her rest. And someone to make decisions for her. Might we suggest Oprah?


No, don't give her a brand new car, Oprah! She doesn't even know where to sit in her friend's car!

Then we hit the bridge, which really just needs to be absorbed in its entirety:

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We we we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes afterwards
I don’t want this weekend to end

Yes, that's right, folks! For just $19.95, you can get your very own Rebecca Black sing-a-long calendar! You may not remember those pesky first few days of the week, but you'll always know when it's the weekend! Particularly Friday! Order now and we'll also throw in your very own rap verse!

That's right, there's a rap verse. The poor shmuck somehow seduced/drugged into doing this project has to also mull the now infamous question of which seat to pick, instead choosing to both chill in both the front and back seats simultaneously. I hope Rebecca didn't hear this. Finding out she spent the better part of her Friday mulling a question that doesn't even require an answer might just make her cry. But no, it seems that she was too busy preparing to "belt" the chorus twice more. We can only hope all that stress was abetted just in time for Rebecca to enjoy her Friday. How was it, Rebecca?

Rebecca Black Swan

Where were you when you first heard the tragedy of Rebecca Black? How hard did you laugh? Will you ever be able to hear the word 'Friday' without flinching ever again? How will you decide whether to sit in the front or back seat next time you get in your car? Take your uproarious laughter to the comments!

Almost a Complete Win

2011-03-09T14:42:00.000-08:00

I'm on a bit of a Sundance kick right now--tonight I'm attending a preview screening of Like Crazy, a big hit at the independent film festival earlier this year (and one of our predicted Best Picture and Best Actress nominees for 2011), and last night I got the chance to attend an on-campus screening of Fox Searchlight's newest film (and another Sundance darling) Win Win, directed by The Visitor's Tom McCarthy and starring Paul Giamatti.

The former I won't get the chance to write about for many a month--it's not yet been assigned a release date, much less an MPAA rating. The latter, however, is embargo-free, so I'm free to say that it is just short of a total knockout. Well-acted, well-written, and well-paced, the film is nothing short of superb.

Win Win stars Giamatti as Mike, a lawyer in small-town New Jersey with two daughters who is struggling to make ends meet despite working a second job coaching a tragic high school wrestling team. He's afraid to let his wife, Jackie (the brilliant Amy Ryan), know exactly how bad things are, so he agrees to take on the guardianship of a dementia-addled client (Burt Young) declared incapacitated in order to make the extra $1,500 a month.

The client's daughter (Melanie Lynskey, so brilliant in Away We Go and doing even better work here) is absent, but her son, Kyle (first-time actor Alex Shaffer, so naturally deadpan), shows up from Ohio and winds up in Mike's care. Kyle appears to be a bit of a loose cannon: he has tattoos, he smokes, and he seems to be keeping more than a few secrets. Despite Jackie's initial hesitation, the family winds up taking Kyle in. They soon learn that Kyle is an expert wrestler, so Mike and his assistant coaches (the older, more useless coach played by Jeffrey Tambor; the younger coach obsessed with Kyle's ability played with a lack of censor and brilliant comic energy by Bobby Cannavale) place him in the high school and on the team.

It's fascinating to watch the initially icy Kyle melt as his relationships with Mike and Jackie develop, and Shaffer makes his slow transformation feel honest. When his mother finally shows up on the scene, Shaffer's reactions allow the audience to share in Kyle's pain. He's a bit wooden at moments, as any first-time actor might be, but his immense charm wins the audience over--they want Kyle to succeed and grow. Giamatti is doing his typical phenomenal work, acting in a morally gray area with such a desperate desire to help his family that the audience never once turns away from him. Ryan is a firecracker as Jackie, the comedic punch and emotional core of the film. It's a massive credit to her that the role doesn't play as a nag or an overcautious woman. Like her fellow leads, her character feels immensely real.

Not often does a film feel as authentic as this one. The set design is homey and very warm--Amanda Carroll's work here is far different than the sets she designed for Shutter Island, but these sets are equally detailed and engaging. Scott Anderson, the art director, knows exactly how to make an authentic middle-class experience feel relatable and realistic. The script, written by director McCarthy, is awkward at moments but full of heart.

Where the movie disappoints is in its execution. The cinematography is awkward and the shots are far too short. The editing is too quick and focuses far too much on close-up shots. The method with which the shots are cut makes it feel like a character can't talk unless the camera is right on their face. It caused the film to proceed a bit slowly and never feel quite as immersive as it could have been. Ultimately, McCarthy's direction is likely to blame--it's as though he meant it to be stylistically awkward and just missed the mark.

However, none of those errors destroy the impact of the film--merely reminders of what could have been. Judged simply on the acting and writing, this is a perfect movie. As is, it merely comes awfully close to a total Win. A-

Netflix Pix Season 1 Schedule: What's Next?

2011-03-05T17:53:00.000-08:00

Everyone doing just fine on this lazy Saturday? Nothing too exciting happening in this neck of the woods--just rewatching Chicago on Netflix. I'd forgotten how much Catherine Zeta-Jones deserved her Oscar considering my love for Meryl Streep's performance in Adaptation. Sometimes too many great performances come in the same year. Michelle Williams and Nicole Kidman learned that lesson quite well this year. Be on the lookout for a pair of pieces about the oh-so-different Chicago and Dreamgirls...sometime. Probably in a few months. We've always got too much going on.

I wanted to share with everyone the schedule for Netflix Pix for the remainder of the season. Like all good series, I'm going to put this one on hiatus for the summer, bringing it back in August. Before then, however, we have six more episodes to look forward to. Check out the schedule for the remaining episodes below. And as always, you can check out these posts here at Awkward is What We Aim For or at our new partner site Reel Artsy!

March 22 -- Woody Allen: Hannah and Her Sisters & Vicky Cristina Barcelona
March 29 -- Funny Girl & In the Valley of Elah
April 5 -- Rachel Weisz: The Constant Gardener & Runaway Jury
April 12 -- I Am Love & Postcards From the Edge
April 19 -- Christopher Guest: Best in Show & For Your Consideration
April 26 (Season Finale!) -- The Devil Wears Prada & Sunset Boulevard

Extremely Annoying and Incredibly Repetitive

2011-03-03T12:26:00.000-08:00

Most of you movie buffs are probably aware that the film adaptation of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is expected out in the next couple of years. (It could theoretically come out this year, but it's slated for 2012, which is why it's missing from Andrew's and my early predictions along with Roman Polanski's Carnage.) It's being directed by Stephen Daldry and will star Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks.

To say I am not looking forward to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the understatement of the century. I cannot stand that book. Maybe it will adapt well, but it's the equivalent of trying to put lipstick on a really artistically-stunted, incoherent pig.

Told you I really hated it.

The truth of the matter is, EL&IC is a pretentious piece of crap masquerading as a novel. It loves to use blank pages for "dramatic effect" and it attempts to break the mold of storytelling--which only makes it suck harder.

Obviously, these issues will be sorted out through adaptation, and the film will do quite well at the 85th Academy Awards if only because the film is helmed by Daldry (who is three-for-three on getting Best Director nominations for his films) and starring two former Academy Award winners. But I'll still have a negative view of the film simply because of something far more intensely personal than whether the book is good or not--it's the piece that beat mine when I was a speech-and-debate competitor in high school.

Yeah, that's right. This is high school trauma happening right now. It was about a year ago and I was competing at a local State-qualifying tournament. I was on fire with my Dramatic Interpretation piece, "Iphegenia in Orem" by Neil LaBute. I had long struggled with the piece, but for the first time I was fully comprehending and digging into the emotion of the piece. In the finals round, I lost myself and fully became my character. (I Black Swanned before it was a thing!) I had never felt the piece so much before.

And then I got second. What was first? A guy doing freaking Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Damn that book.

Why do I tell you this story, other than to make you laugh at my high school pain? Surprisingly, there's actually a point. My performance was no better or worse than my competitor's (I'd like to think it was better, but I'm biased), but I was working with an unlikable character. He was playing the little boy at the epicenter of EL&IC, a boy who loses his father in the 9/11 attacks and blames himself. (The father is to be played by Hanks, while the surviving mother is to be played by Bullock.) It's exactly this kind of thing that will lead the movie adaptation to succeed.

Much like Toy Story 3 and, to an extent, The King's Speech this year, EL&IC will be a tear-jerker. It's going to be overly emotional and campaign as a movie you "feel." For that, it will be massively successful, as well as for the high bankability of its stars.

I will go see EL&IC upon its release, of course. There's a chance that I might even like it. But the fact of the matter is that this is an open-and-shut case of "Will it be a hit?" Don't believe any stories coming out in the next two years about whether the movie will be successful. It could be the worst movie Stephen Daldry's ever directed or either star has ever appeared in and it will be an absolute home run. Mark my words.

...and I totally deserved first place.

Beyond the Awkward: Take a Trip to Crazytown! Oscar 2011 Predictions

2011-03-02T01:25:00.000-08:00

Come on down to Crazytown, folks! It's been a mere couple of days since the last Oscar season ended, and we here at Awkward is What We Aim For are preparing for the 84th Academy Awards--in one year's time.

Why are we doing this, you might ask? Well, call us certifiable, but we always love to be a step ahead. And this is about a thousand steps ahead. As a result, these predictions are sure to fail in a grand fashion (which is why we kept it to the top six categories), but really, they were just fun.

Joining me in this ridiculous venture is AIWWAF contributor Andrew Sheridan, making this both a Beyond the Awkward feature and a Oscar Predictions post. Double the crazy, double the fun!

We made our predictions independently of each other, so you'll see both lists below, followed by some quick analysis. The overall list (both synthesized into the best guess) will appear in the Current Oscar Predictions section. Enjoy our insanely early Oscar picks!

BEST PICTURE

Andrew's Picks

Contagion

The Ides of March

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

J. Edgar

Like Crazy

Restless

Shame

Twixt Now and Sunrise

The Tree of Life

War Horse

Kevin's Picks

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Contagion
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Ides of March
J. Edgar
Like Crazy
Midnight in Paris
Restless
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Both Andrew and I have a lot of faith in the films headed up by the veterans, and as he says, "This is going to be a big year for veterans--no Tom Hoopers, no Jennifer Lawrences." We both think Contagion, The Ides of March, J. Edgar, Like Crazy, Restless, The Tree of Life and War Horse are likely to get nominated, so that's the most likely batch of predictions.

BEST DIRECTOR

Andrew's Picks

Clint Eastwood, J. Edgar

Frances Ford Coppola, Txist Now and Sunrise

Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

Steven Soderbergh, Contagion

Steven Spielberg, War Horse

Kevin's Picks
George Clooney, The Ides of March
Clint Eastwood, J. Edgar
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Steven Soderbergh, Contagion
Stephen Spielberg, War Horse

"A big year for veteran directors" is what Andrew calls it, and I have to agree with him. We both agree on four of the five directors likely to be nominated, and while Andrew picks Coppola to be nominated and I pick Clooney, each is, like the other four, at least once an Oscar nominee for directing.

BEST ACTRESS

Andrew's Picks

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

Felicity Jones, Like Crazy

Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin

Michelle Williams, Meek's Cutoff

Kevin's Picks
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Rachel McAdams, Midnight in Paris
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Andrew and I agree on four of the actors but only three of the performances, with his nod for Williams going towards her performance in Meek's Cutoff rather than My Week With Marilyn. Andrew prefers Jones to McAdams for the fifth spot, a smarter bet. He also thinks that Streep won't win her third Oscar this year--instead, she'll win for August: Osage County next year.

BEST ACTOR

Andrew's Picks

Johnny Depp, The Rum Diary

Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar

Sean Penn, This Must be the Place

Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life

Michael Fassbender, Shame

Kevin's Picks
Johnny Depp, The Rum Diary

Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Colin Firth, The Promised Land
Ryan Gosling, The Ides of March
Sean Penn, The Tree of Life

An interesting conundrum in this and the supporting male actor categories--where to place the Tree of Life men? I put Penn here but only have him getting one nod, whereas Andrew places Pitt here and has Penn getting nominated for This Must be the Place here in lead. He also firmly believes Penn could win a third for one of the two performances. (He and I also agree on Depp and DiCaprio.)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Andrew's Picks

Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life

Marion Cotillard, Midnight in Paris

Judi Dench, J. Edgar

Frances McDormand, This Must be the Place

Kate Winslet, Contagion

Kevin's Picks

Marion Cotillard, Midnight in Paris
Viola Davis, The Help
Judi Dench, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Jennifer Lawrence, Like Crazy
Naomi Watts, J. Edgar

Andrew and I agree a lot less here than we did in the other categories--my faith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel gives Dench her nomination here instead of for J. Edgar, which I place my faith in Watts getting her nomination for. We both agree on Marion Cotillard for Midnight in Paris, however.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Andrew's Picks

Eric Bana, Hanna

Armie Hammer, J. Edgar

Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Ides of March

Sean Penn, Tree of Life

Jim Sturgess, The Promised Land

Kevin's Picks

Armie Hammer, J. Edgar
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Ides of March
Ezra Miller, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life
Tom Wilkinson, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

See Best Actor for more on the Pitt/Penn category placement confusion. Hammer and Hoffman are our shared nominees here.

Well, that brings us to the end of our tour of Crazytown--what do you all think? What nominees are you expecting next year? Are we overlooking something obvious? Who do you place more faith in: me or Andrew? Take it to the comments!

Netflix Pix: Eternal Kramer vs. Up

2011-03-01T00:34:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay on Netflix Pix entries, everyone. Oscar's annual Month o' Crazy got in the way. But we're back to regular entries, once a week or every two weeks (still not decided just yet).

However, to reward a long wait, as well as to celebrate the first collaboration between Awkward is What We Aim For and Reel Artsy, we have three movies featured today, one regular mail and two Instant Watch. The combination (and the title of this post) is awkward, but that's exactly as it should be, no?

Without further ado, let's get started!

I had always seen bits and pieces of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) before, but I'd never seen the whole film in one sitting. It's a good thing I finally accessed it on Instant Stream today--along with Black Swan, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Devil Wears Prada and Moulin Rouge!, the film is firmly planted among my favorite films of all time. It also can boast that it is among the best I have ever seen--not an easy distinction.

Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, Sunshine revolves around the ideas of manipulation of memory--what if ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends could be erased, never to be thought of again? Science fiction-based but truly grounded in the humanity of its characters, including the quartet of memory-erasers who provide a secondary, equally moving plot, Sunshine never forgets the essential reality lying underneath its mystical premise.

The film is truly original, a work of art that is the rare intersection of great acting, great direction, and great writing. The fact that it was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in its year is a crime--it should have been the clear winner. Director Michel Gondry truly manipulates the audience, traversing cinematic worlds that others would never dare consider. It's a shame his last film, The Green Hornet, was such a disappointment--perhaps if he had used his flair for the bizarre but incredibly functional there, it would have been better. It is surely in full effect here, and it is paired brilliantly with Charlie Kaufman's dynamite screenplay. Both challenging and complex, Kaufman twists time and expectations for maximum payoff. It's a fantastic trick and one that might never be pulled off again with the same aplomb.

No little amount of credit for the success of the film goes to the actors, a sextet of brilliant natural actors that allow the two parallel stories to intersect and blossom beautifully. Carrey and Winslet are both doing phenomenal work here; for Winslet, this is likely her best ever, if not perhaps just behind Titanic. The other members of the ensemble, including a superb Kirsten Dunst and Tom Wilkinson, facilitate the parallel plot with flourish. Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood are also doing strong work here, though my one (minor) criticism of the film would be the underdevelopment of their technician characters.

There's almost nothing wrong with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It is perhaps one of the most ambitious movies ever made and one of the greatest. Both of those superlatives together are a rare but incredibly satisfying combination. Not one to forget, to say the least. A

I've long had issues with Up (2009). I saw it shortly before it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature last year and before it was just the second animated feature film ever to be nominated for the Best Picture prize and absolutely hated it. I rewatched it recently and found that it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered, but I still have one major issue with it that will forever prohibit it from being a favorite of mine.

An artistic marvel, Up tells the story of Carl Fredricksen (memorably voiced by Ed Asner), a curmudgeon who attempts to escape the world by using balloons to lift his house into the air. It makes more sense in context. He winds up on a tropical island with a Boy Scout who tagged along, a dog who can speak (Dug, who we'll discuss more in a bit), and a flamboyant bird named Kevin and is forced into an altercation that is far too cartoony to even describe.

But that's not the real story. The real story is the first twenty minutes, a sequence called "Married Life." Scored by the brilliant Michael Giacchino (who scored the rest of the movie, too, and won an Oscar for it, but that's not important right now), the sequence, aside from a brief spoken introduction, is a wordless depiction of the beginning and ending of a relationship, done in nothing more than quick scenes. The entire sequence is nothing short of devastatingly beautiful, heartwrenching, and a sight to behold. It is not only one of the greatest animated sequences of all time, it is one of the greatest cinematic sequences in history. No qualifier necessary--it's sheer brilliance.

It is because of this that I have such issues with the typical cartoon plot that follows. A movie with that ambitious a beginning deserves a more ambitious follow-through. I often hear in response, "Well, Kevin, it's a kid's movie," but I don't think there's been a Pixar movie in some time that was really a kid's movie. WALL*E remains one of my favorite films of all time, and I certainly wasn't a kid when I saw it. The only element in the rest of the film that really worked for me was Dug, the talking dog, and even he was too cartoony. The only reason I liked him so much was because Bob Peterson, the voice actor, gave such brilliant line readings it was impossible to not fall in love with the character.

All in all, not a great movie. But a passable one. B for the film, A+ for "Married Life"

And finally, our bonus Instant Stream film today is Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). One of the most superbly-crafted pieces of family cinema I've ever seen, the hard-to-swallow film about a custody battle boasts the finest performance I've ever watched from Dustin Hoffman and truly phenomenal work from Meryl Streep (as if she can deliver anything less).

Since this is a bonus, I'm not going to talk much about the film itself--it really must be discovered as the story progresses, anyway. Suffice it to say it is a storytelling marvel, if a bit simple from a cinematic point of view. The film gets an A-, but the real standout is Streep. She won one of her two Oscars for this performance, and it's easy to see why. Like most Streep performances, she tosses away all vanity, but there's something more to this one.

With all of Streep's performances in the 21st Century, there's been a hint of self-referential in each. A sort of "I am Meryl, screen titan" quality that she is certainly not imbuing in them herself, but is a natural side effect of being considered the greatest actress who ever lived. None of that exists here. This is Streep proving exactly why she has the title she has. She is masterful. Other than in Sophie's Choice (her other Oscar win), there is no better performance in her repertoire. It's a must-see for every up-and-coming actor: this is how you make a career for yourself. This is how you get them to remember your name.

Well, there's our three Netflix Pix for the week. Like them? Hate them? Think I'm inhuman for not loving Up? Take it to the comments!

Anne and James' Excellent Adventure

2011-02-28T17:31:00.000-08:00

Sure, the title of the post is a stoner joke, but let's be honest, there was only one host on drugs last night.

How else to explain that?

In all seriousness, it is a bit irritating in retrospect to analyze the performances of our two young hosts simply because they were two people performing at completely different shows. Anne Hathaway was young, fun, energetic, good with ad-libs, and seemed genuinely happy to be there. James Franco...not so much.

The show itself ran pretty close to on-time, only going a few minutes over. And the whole thing felt briskly paced, with plenty of fun throwbacks to honor the history of film. The opening sequence was a great homage to all the best picture nominees--much better than the final rundown of the nominees, which was scored to the final scene from The King's Speech. It made the win feel preordained, which really killed the sense of drama.

In fact, that can be said of the entire show--started out ridiculously strong, but all the drama got sapped out of it the longer it went on. Not only that, but some of the fun started to drain, too--somewhere around the shorts categories, as always. The "time capsule" film clips were interesting, but hit-and-miss.

There's not a whole lot to be said of the show that hasn't been said elsewhere. I really enjoyed it, unlike most others, but most of the criticisms I'm hearing are things that I didn't mind (not enough jokes? of course, they're not comedians; not enough musical numbers? not a requisite, and I liked the restylized "On My Own" just fine) or I just didn't notice (sure, there was some awkwardness, but did I just miss all these long silences?). All in all, if they had Anne Hathaway back as host next year, I would be absolutely thrilled. A for Anne, C+ for James Franco, and a B+ for the ceremony on the whole.

The King's Gambit

2011-02-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

If you were reading the live-blog last night, you'd have noticed at about 7:36 PM how confident I was that The Social Network was going to win Best Picture and Best Director. This was because it won Best Editing, traditionally seen as a lead-up prize to Best Picture, and also stole a Best Original Score win away from The King's Speech which, with under-awarded master composer Alexandre Desplat at the helm, should have easily taken the win over the risky, untraditional score of Network. And then Tom Hooper won Best Director for Speech, and I couldn't quite figure out what the hell was going on.

The fact of the matter is that no film with twelve or more nominations has ever won as few Oscars as The King's Speech did last night. The reason I swapped my Best Picture prediction to Network at the last second was because I felt that if Speech was going to win, it was going to win big. Four total wins just seemed too few, particularly if Network and Inception were going to take three (ironically, Inception wound up with four).

But as it happened this year, it seems as though Academy voters really did consider each category on its own merits. They didn't love The King's Speech passionately--they just loved it enough to give it Best Picture.

So this all makes sense, right? Well, in a word, no. Something still doesn't seem right. Why the hell did Tom Hooper win?

Was it the Directors Guild of America win? Is that was pushed him over the top? The fact of the matter is, no one would seriously say that Hooper is a better director than David Fincher, Joel and Ethan Coen, Darren Aronofsky or David O. Russell. And if they would (they should get their heads examined), they should realize that they're not really understanding how weird this is.

A director wins for the overall vision of a film. Easy enough to determine, right? Except last night, Oscar voters made the determination that The King's Speech did not have the best editing, sound mixing, costume direction, original score, art direction, or cinematography. That's a lot of elements to not be the best for the director's vision to still be the best.

"But Kevin," you say, "he's an actor's director." Oh, right. Of course. An actor's director. Because that helped Lee Daniels out last year for Precious. Not only that, but the voters also decided that Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter were not "best" for their respective performances, either. So here's what was best about The King's Speech: the screenplay (something The Social Network also won) and Colin Firth's performance. Neither of those can be fully attributed to Tom Hooper.

I understand why The King's Speech won Best Picture. It's one you love, not one you respect, yada yada yada. All terrible reasons for awarding a movie Best Picture, but it is what it is. But the win for Hooper just baffles me. The only explanation is that voters no longer consider the two prizes any different--what wins for Picture will always win for Director. And that's a shame, because the prizes are different and should be awarded under different criterion.

But hey, nothing was going right last night. Except the actual show, of which I've woken up to realize I was one of only a few fans. More notes on the actual show to come.

poll by twiigs.com

This is How You Win and Lose Oscars

2011-02-28T02:10:00.000-08:00

For fun on this Oscar morning-after... How does one win an Oscar?

Make miniseries that win Emmys, then do the exact same thing with your movie!

Make a trailer with ordinary people talking about your movie!

Make out with an equally hot young actress!


Pose in faux fur next to a swimming pool!

But most importantly...

On that note... How does one lose an Oscar?

Embody a fully fleshed-out but unlikable character.

Through improvisation and method acting and getting naked.

Put yourself in grave danger while not dancing.

Be funny.

...you know, I don't even want to joke about how this happened.

More thoughts on last night's "festivities" to come. I still have a positive view on the show as a whole, but the wins are starting to grate on me a bit (as you can tell). And we're going to talk through exactly how The King's Speech secured the top two wins while only winning a third of the awards it was up for. No Best Picture winner with twelve or more nominations has ever walked away with fewer wins--how'd it happen this time?

The answer to that and more later this week. For now, laugh and enjoy.

A Disappointing Ending to a Fantastic Season

2011-02-27T21:20:00.000-08:00

More thoughts on the Oscars are coming in the next few days, obviously, but I just want to offer up the list of winners and an index of the live blog. Give it a read if you haven't yet, especially if you didn't see the show.

Thanks to everyone who read tonight. I have a jaw-dropping 317 views from the past seven hours, an incredible achievement and one I'm proud to say is all thanks to you. This was my first experience live-blogging: I hope it's been as enjoyable for you all as it was for me.

Soon enough, I'll have my preliminary picks for next year's Oscars up under the Current Predictions tab (it never ends!), and we'll get back into the swing of Netflix Pix and reviewing movies. But this week is Oscar wrap-up. Get ready.

Part I: The Red Carpet
Part II: The Ceremony's Beginning
Part III: The Finale

Overall Score: 14/24, or 58% correct. (Small improvement over last year, actually, but still terrible.)

Best Picture: The King’s Speech
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
Best Director: Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network
Best Original Screenplay: The King’s Speech
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Editing: The Social Network
Best Cinematography: Inception
Best Original Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Social Network
Best Art Direction: Alice in Wonderland
Best Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland
Best Visual Effects: Inception
Best Make-Up: The Wolfman
Best Sound Mixing: Inception
Best Sound Editing: Inception
Best Song: "We Belong Together," Toy Story 3
Best Documentary Short: "Strangers No More"
Best Live Action Short: "God of Love"
Best Animated Short: "The Lost Thing"
Best Foreign Language Film: In a Better World
Best Documentary: Inside Job

The Live-Blog Bonanza: Oscars 2011 (Part III: The Finale)

2011-02-27T19:15:00.000-08:00

Red carpet coverage can be found here.
First half of the ceremony coverage can be found here.

We're still going strong! Country Strong! Speaking of, Gwyneth Paltrow should be performing soon--can Cee Lo Green stop by?

7:13 PM: The Oscar for Best Documentary Short goes to... "Strangers No More." Damnit. My bet was on "Killing in the Name." It's like Jake Gyllenhaal said: the Short categories are almost impossible to predict.

7:15 PM: Can I miss this one as well? Best Live Action Short is going to "Na Wewe" in my mind, but in real life... it goes to "God of Love." Damn, that's two years in a row I've missed all three shorts categories. Ten for sixteen (the best I can do is 75% at this point, shit).

7:17 PM: Fun with Auto-Tune! And then we hit the Twilight, which they give as much shit as possible. It's much appreciated. And Anne Hathaway's "personal moment" was adorable. Great host.

7:20 PM: OPRAH! She always teaches us how we need to improve our lives, so of course she's presenting Best Documentary Feature. It's boring, sure, but I'm still on a high after that adorable last bit, so I'm okay with Bansky losing this...to Inside Job, naturally. Which I just switched off of. Damn. Ten for seventeen (this is painful).

7:28 PM: I'm not loving this Billy Crystal bit. I feel like this show is all about honoring the history of film, not of the Oscars. This is reading too self-congratulatory.

7:33 PM: Best Visual Effects goes to Inception! Four wins for Christopher Nolan's visual masterpiece.

7:36 PM: Best Editing goes to The Social Network! Twelve for nineteen, and that's the ball game. Get ready to see two more wins for Network tonight: Picture and Director.

7:42 PM: Time for the last two Best Original Song nominees. Jennifer Hudson looks stunning still. I really like "If I Rise"--it reminds me of "In the Deep" from Crash six years ago. Which lost, of course. "Coming Home" is no "Forget You" for Gwyneth, sadly. The winner of Best Original Song is...Randy Newman?! For "We Belong Together"?! (Twelve for twenty.)

7:52 PM: Sad occasion, obviously, but I love "Smile." Hearing Celine sing it is pretty fantastic. And the audience isn't applauding during the "In Memoriam" segment! Amazing! Is this the best Oscar ceremony of the 21st Century?

7:58 PM: We've got just the big four categories left--this ceremony is gonna end on time!

8:02 PM: Hey, Kathryn Bigelow. Love you. Direct more really soon, please. Best Director goes to... Tom Hooper.

WHAT?!

8:11 PM: Okay, using this time to figure this out. So after losing almost every early award that it was supposed to win, The King's Speech wins Best Director. Which means The King's Speech is going to win Best Picture with only four Oscars to its name, just barely beating The Social Network and tying Inception. To say this makes absolutely no sense is an understatement. It's like the Academy couldn't figure out what they liked best. Maybe that's exactly what happened.

8:12 PM: Best Actress is up. I like how they're giving individual tributes to each actor read by the one presenter. It's a streamlined version of the five-actor presentations from the last two years. Natalie Portman has to win. AND SHE DOES! Thirteen for twenty-two!

8:20 PM: Best Actor, to be presented by Sandra Bullock. She's adorable. As is Anne Hathaway.

Anne: "Flub. Sorry. Drank at home."

Sandra: "Javier. Hola...Jeff, dude. Dude...Jesse, I'm still waiting for you to accept my friend request...Colin. So I hear the Queen saw the film and enjoyed it. That's good, since you're going home sometime?...James, you are the number-one reason children are picked up late from school because their mothers are watching General Hospital."

The woman is genius. I take back everything from last year. Love her to death. Enjoy your Oscar, Sandra.

And the Oscar goes to Colin Firth. Of course. Well-earned. Two years of brilliant work. Fourteen for twenty-three.

8:32 PM: Best Picture. Presented by Steven Spielberg (of course). Here we go. It's gonna be The King's Speech.

And it is. Fourteen for twenty-four. The King's Speech wins four Oscars, including Picture, Director, and Actor. Inception also wins four. The Social Network wins three. The Fighter, Toy Story 3 and Alice in Wonderland win two each. One for Black Swan.

Great ceremony, some great winners. But what a disappointing ending. The wrong film won.

The Live-Blog Bonanza: Oscars 2011 (Part II: The Ceremony)

2011-02-27T17:31:00.000-08:00

And here...we...go.

5:30 PM: We're introducing all the films nominated for Best Picture in one sequence to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' "In the Hall of the Mountain King." You know, from the score that won't win Best Original Score tonight.

5:34 PM: I'm in love with this sequence. "Alec likes for me to narrate his dreams." Don't we all, Morgan Freeman? Not loving the random Back to the Future scene, though.

5:38 PM: Anne Hathaway looks to be having the time of her life. James Franco...kinda just along for the ride.

"You look very appealing to a younger demographic."

Hee hee. Getting the mom and grandma of the hosts involved was a fun gag too.

5:42 PM: Okay, I get it. We're really keen on honoring the history of film this year. But does the reference to Titanic so early bode well for the comparisons for The King's Speech? Will the wrong film sweep?

5:44 PM: Best Art Direction. My pick just switched from Speech to Alice in Wonderland... and it was a good swap. The win goes to Alice.

5:46 PM: Now we're on to Best Cinematography. Roger Deakins should take this for True Grit...but it goes to Wally Pfister for Inception. Well, this means something...but what?

5:50 PM: Wait. They just aired a Jeff Bridges Hyundai ad--didn't they prohibit that last year because Bridges was up for Best Actor? He is again this year!

5:51 PM: I can't help but feel that bringing Kirk Douglas out wasn't in bad taste. But whatever. Best Supporting Actress. Might I be right? Nope, it's Melissa Leo for The Fighter. Apparently the Academy did "Consider" her. And we should also consider her cursing--well done, Melissa. Keeping it classy. I'm really having a pretty disastrous night so far--one for three.

6:00 PM: "It's the young and hip Oscars!" They're playing with the whole image of it so well. Then they have Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis come out and deliver their lines with zero charm. Bleh. Best Animated Short is up...hoping for "Day & Night" but betting I'm wrong. Yep, it's "The Lost Thing," which I, of course, have never heard of. Oh, well. I'm keeping my record of missing the Short categories alive.

6:05 PM: Best Animated Feature, which I'll get right simply because it's the easiest lock of the night. Toy Story 3 for the win. Yep, Toy Story takes it.

6:10 PM: Let me take this commercial break just to recap how I'm feeling right now.

UGH.

That's all. I'm liking the show overall, though.

6:13 PM: The screenplay categories are up. Aaron Sorkin for Best Adapted Screenplay--of course! The screenplay was the star of The Social Network, after all. Loving this orchestrated version of "Hand Covers Bruise," and loving the callback to Paddy Chayefsky's win for Network thirty-five years ago. Great speech--a well-deserved win.

6:17 PM: We're about to hear David Seidler speak as he wins the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for The King's Speech--it's a gift to hear him speak.

"My father always said to me, I would be a late bloomer. I believe I am the oldest person to win this particular award. I hope that record is broken quickly and often. I'd like to thank my daughter, Maya, my son, Mark, for having faith in their dad as I have faith in you."

Great speaker. Such a talent. I also love how he called it the "Melissa Leo F-word".

6:24 PM: This reworked version of "On My Own" is nothing short of amazing. Anne Hathaway can sing. I'm counting on In a Better World to win Best Foreign Language Film...and it does! Five for eight!

6:29 PM: Best Supporting Actor is up now. If Bale doesn't win this, we'll have a night of surprises ahead of us. But of course it goes to Christian Bale! I don't love the performance, but what a magnificent career.

"Melissa... I'm not going to drop the F-bomb like she did. I've done that enough already."

She's never living this down.

6:36 PM: If Alexandre Desplat loses Best Original Score for The King's Speech after the break, it's over for that movie's Best Picture chances.

6:43 PM: It goes to TRENT REZNOR AND ATTICUS ROSS FOR THE SOCIAL NETWORK! My winner for Best Use of Music wins! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

6:46 PM: We're on to Best Sound Mixing, but I'm still on a high from the last win. Such a good score. If you don't own it, buy it. The Oscar goes to Inception. With the last three (two wins and a miss), I'm at seven for eleven.

6:49 PM: Best Sound Editing is up--should go to Inception as well. Not a surprise--it does.

6:52 PM: Let's recap. Eight categories called correctly out of the twelve announced so far. We're at the halfway mark. The show is running really efficiently so far, and it looks like The King's Speech is headed for some major losses. Inception has three wins under its belt and it's headed for a fourth. Also: THE SOCIAL NETWORK WON BEST ORIGINAL SCORE! I'm really happy about that.

6:56 PM: Best Makeup is up. I'm betting on The Wolfman. And it wins! Though as Cate Blanchett says:

"That's gross."

Such a funny Oscar winner, she is!

6:58 PM: Colleen Atwood wins her third Oscar out of nine nominations for Alice in Wonderland, tying her record to Sandy Powell's, The Costume Design category doesn't allow many others to win. The King's Speech loses once again--it's done. Ten for fourteen.

7:03 PM: Wow, being on the West Coast makes this ceremony so early. I'm liking this. Randy Newman, go home. You wrote "We Belong Together" in your sleep, didn't you? Not that "I See the Light" is any better--this was rejected from Beauty and the Beast, wasn't it?

We're at a commercial break and we're more than halfway through. Might as well start another post!

The Live-Blog Bonanza: Oscars 2011 (Part I: The Red Carpet)

2011-02-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

The day that never feels like it's going to arrive is finally here. The Oscars are being broadcast tonight starting at 5:30 PM, and Awkward is What We Aim For is live-blogging everything, from the Red Carpet to the awards. Keep checking back for more and more coverage.

3:10 PM: Found E! on my channel roll finally. Melissa Leo is talking to Ryan Seacrest about how her dress had to be "built."

That architect needs to go back to the drawing board.

3:16 PM: Armie Hammer and his wife are adorable. Really hoping that J. Edgar becomes a breakout project for Hammer. I didn't love his performance in The Social Network as much as others, but I do think he's got a great natural charm and talent--Clint Eastwood will challenge him. The speed of the shoot alone will be much different than a movie with David Fincher.

3:23 PM: What the hell happened, Hailee? How did we go from that cute orange/pink number you wore a few weeks ago to the cotton candy cloud you're wearing right now? Oh, she helped design it. No wonder. She's fourteen, after all. Awww, she looks touched by her Goodyear Blimp good luck message. You forget when you're hating on a young girl's nomination in the wrong category that it's such a cool opportunity for her.

3:25 PM: Florence Welch is here! She's so cool and OH MY GOD AMY ADAMS SIGHTING. Please let her win just so my crazy-ass theory can be right!

3:27 PM: Mila Kunis was cast over iChat for Black Swan. How dirty was that iChat session?

What'd you do to get this role, Mila? Did you get all cyber with Darren?

I know, I'm horrible.

3:32 PM: Russell Brand's mother is absolutely adorable. You have to wonder what her relationship with Katy Perry is like.

3:34 PM: The E! prediction poll for Best Supporting Actress also predicts Amy Adams to win. So at least I'm not alone. I don't love Michelle Williams' haircut, to be honest. Her accent also sounds strange tonight. A little Aussie/American hybrid, I think.

3:41 PM: Zachary Levi walked to the Oscars. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm not sure how I feel about these Best Original Song nominee singers either: Florence (without the Machine), Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi... I'm looking forward to Gwyneth. Sue me.

3:49 PM: "Who is that gorgeous movie star?" asked Giuliana Rancic about Mandy Moore. Then she realized it was Mandy Moore. Whattabitch, Guiliana. Whattabitch.

3:55 PM: Jennifer Hudson looks gorgeous. Kudos to her for really thriving after the tragedy with her family a few years ago. A true star. Her new song is fantastic, too ("Where You At," get it on iTunes).

3:58 PM: JEREMY RENNER! I LOVE. JEREMY. RENNER. I have coherent thoughts about all other celebrities, but when it comes to Jeremy Renner, I literally turn into a 14 year-old schoolgirl.

D'AWWWWW JEREMY. LOVE HIM.

4:01 PM: Kevin Spacey thinks social networking is going to help countries rebel. Not really sure what his train of thought is. I mean, it helped with Egypt, but not really...? I'm not sure about this one.

4:07 PM: A Twilight musical moment? Ugh. Why the obsession with making Twilight at the Oscars happen?

4:10 PM: Justin Timberlake doesn't use Facebook. Well, fine. I didn't want to be his friend anyway. Yes I did. He's wearing Tom Ford, who I love, so he gets points.

4:20 PM: You know what, I kinda like Hilary Swank. She may not deserve both her Oscars, but she's absolutely delightful.

4:25 PM: Celine is here! And she's going back to Vegas! If anyone just feels the need to buy me an early Christmas present, hit me up.

4:29 PM: Reese Witherspoon just arrived. Maybe someday, she'll be back here as a nominee. The career just died after the Oscar, didn't it?

4:32 PM: That little pest Adam Shankman says Tom Cruise will be in the adaptation of Rock of Ages. Eugh.

4:33 PM: Gwyneth Paltrow looks stunning in Calvin Klein. Simple is best. I'm obsessed with this woman now. Obsessed.

4:36 PM: A preview for Red Riding Hood. Please, someone, tell me I'm not the only one who wants to see this. Christian Bale cut the hair but still kinda looks like cleaned-up Jesus. I wonder if he also talks like a gentleman like you imagined when you were young?

Well. So much for that.

4:40 PM: Sandra Bullock looks amazing in the red Vera Wang she's wearing. I hate red on the red carpet usually (too matchy-matchy!) but I love this dress. Halle Berry in Marchesa is pretty amazing as well.

4:57 PM: Looks like Natalie Portman's gonna be E!'s last interview... I'm gonna take a break before the main show at 5:30. See you guys in another post!

The Day Before Blues: Changing My Mind

2011-02-26T18:01:00.000-08:00

We are mere hours away from the Academy Awards, so as one might expect, I've started to rethink my predictions. Ultimately, I realized that Alice in Wonderland wouldn't register such a high nomination count if it weren't going to pick up at least a couple of statuettes. What to give it, though? I went with the consensus opinion that it is going to win Best Costume Design (designer Colleen Atwood is locked in a tumultuous battle with The Tempest costume designer Sandy Powell, and the two always win when the other is nominated--a win for Atwood would match their records) and Best Art Direction (since voters prefer too much to the understated, like The King's Speech).

But here's the issue--if you're gonna expect The King's Speech to win Best Picture, you have to give it at least enough wins to consider it a "sweep". (Movies that get nominated in big numbers like that don't win Best Picture without a lot of other wins as well: see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as an example). With those two trophies going to Alice, I honestly have no idea how to get the overall number of wins for The King's Speech up to six or above. I expect it to lose Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design, Editing and Sound Mixing, winning only Score, Original Screenplay and Actor. But that's far too many losses (especially losing Editing and Director) to also win Best Picture. The Oscars just don't work that way.

So with literally just 23 hours remaining before the ceremony, I'm switching my Best Picture pick to The Social Network. No idea why I'm doing this. It's incredibly risky. But I'm doing it.

If you wanna check out all my picks, the Current Oscar Predictions has them all. But I'm posting the major eight categories below. See you all tomorrow for live-blogging.

Best Picture

127 Hours

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King's Speech

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter's Bone

Should Win: Black Swan

Will Win: The Social Network

Best Director

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

David Fincher, The Social Network

Tom Hooper, The King's Speech

David O. Russell, The Fighter

Should Win: Darren Aronofsky

Will Win: David Fincher

Best Actress

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Should Win and Will Win: Natalie Portman

Best Actor

Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

James Franco, 127 Hours

Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Should Win: James Franco

Will Win: Colin Firth

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale, The Fighter

John Hawkes, Winter's Bone

Jeremy Renner, The Town

Mark Ruffalo, The Kids are All Right

Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

Should Win: Geoffrey Rush

Will Win: Christian Bale

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, The Fighter

Helena Bonham-Carter, The King’s Speech

Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Should Win and Will Win: Amy Adams (no idea why I have so much faith in this prediction)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, 127 Hours

Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Various Authors, Toy Story 3

Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini, Winter's Bone

Should Win and Will Win: The Social Network

Best Original Screenplay

Mike Leigh, Another Year

Various Authors, The Fighter

Christopher Nolan, Inception

Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right

David Seidler, The King’s Speech

Should Win: Inception

Will Win: The King's Speech

In a Better (Oscar) World

2011-02-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

Time to recap this year's awards season--all of it's ups and lows, its snubs and surprises, its critical darlings and guild favorites, and its former front runners and new dark horses.

Awkward is What We Aim For started blogging the Oscars back in October and, proving once again that you can always be surprised, my stipulations at the beginning of the year all proved somewhat false.

First, I posited the idea that The Social Network would have to hold on to its buzz in order to do well come awards time. It certainly held the buzz, but it also "underwhelmed" (I use quotes because I don't necessarily consider all the early awards and eight Oscar nominations underwhelming) because it is likely to lose Best Picture come Sunday. I never saw the strange, out-of-nowhere turn for The King's Speech coming.

Second, I said that if Black Swan did poorly upon its reception, it would be significantly stunted at the Oscars. Well, there's nothing poor about 86% critical approval on Rotten Tomatoes and a $100 million gross (double that if you factor in foreign grosses as well), but only five Oscar nominations (as opposed to an organization like BAFTA, which gave Swan 12 nominations) is pretty underwhelming. Just because it's popular doesn't mean it's to the Academy's tastes.

Finally, there was my insistence that Love and Other Drugs was better than we were expecting it to be (so much for that), that True Grit was worse than we were expecting it to be (it wound up with over $150 million in box office and I absolutely loved it), and that we had The Fighter pegged as a strong contender (admittedly, I seem to be the only one who has a problem with The Fighter).

So it's clear that what I "knew" earlier on was all nothing but bullshit. C'est la vie.


Todd: "La vie."

Nice, Todd. That was solid.

Looking at my predictions, I actually did much better there than elsewhere. 4/5 on adapted screenplay and original screenplay, 2/5 for supporting actor (I missed Renner, Hawkes and Ruffalo for Garfield, Harris and Brolin), 4/5 for supporting actress (missing Steinfeld, who I thought was lead and didn't place her at all), 3/5 on actress (missed Kidman and Williams for Hawkins and Manville), 4/5 on actor (missing Bardem, but then again, who didn't?), 4/5 on director (missing Aronofsky), and 9/10 on picture (missing Winter's Bone, embarrassingly enough, for For Colored Girls). That's only 9 misses three months ahead of time--not half bad!

We've learned a lot from this Oscar season. We've learned that the critics really don't matter, but the guilds matter plenty. We've learned that the "Oscar movie" may not yet be dead. We've learned that if you're looking for consistency, the Academy is not your friend. And we've learned that as Sasha Stone loves to remind us, we know nothing. "The trick is not minding."

Best of luck to all nominated come Sunday. We'll be here, live-blogging within an inch of our lives.

Shameless Plug: My Oscar-Predicting TV Appearance!

2011-02-23T16:38:00.000-08:00

Time for another installment of Beyond the Awkward, where we discuss and divulge things that go beyond the scope of this site. Because--did you know?--there are other things out there besides this site. I know, right?!

Since Awkward is What We Aim For is sorely lacking in podcasts and the like, I thought I would share with you guys the latest episode of ROAR Network, LMU's student network's news show, ROAR Dispatch, which features yours truly (normally the Assistant Director of Programming at the network but for one appearance only an on-air talent) predicting the Oscars. That's right--I'm like the next Dave Karger or Ben Lyons. Except not really. At all.

ME! Hi.

My picks are no different than they are on the site, but hey, you can see me in person! Plus, you can check out all of ROAR's content--we're an up-and-coming network, but our website is top-tier and you can see some of our new content. Check out my appearance by following this link. (I come on-screen about twelve minutes in, in the last fifth of the show. I'm the one in the purple shirt!)

ROAR Dispatch: Episode 7 from ROAR Network on Vimeo.

Liam Neeson in Taken 2: Starring Bridget Von Hammersmark and Betty Draper

2011-02-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

Unknown, starring Liam Neeson, is a film you've seen before.

There’s a lot to like about Unknown, from the completely game performances by stars Liam Neeson and Diane Kruger to the taut, thrilling and actually quite possible screenplay, adapted by Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell from a novel called Out of My Head by Didier van Cauwelaert. There is, in turn, a lot to dislike as well: the underdeveloped characters, the sometimes half-baked action sequences and the high number of twists without much real payoff.

Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, a man who loses his memory after an accident in Berlin. When he recovers four days later, his wife (played about as robotically as possible by Mad Men star January Jones) has no memory of him, and he’s been replaced by another man claiming to be him. (Aidan Quinn, who doesn’t have a whole lot to do but does nail his standout scene of syncing his words with Neeson’s with aplomb, plays the man impersonating Martin.) Kruger plays Gina, the Bosnian cab driver whom Martin is convinced knows something about why he’s been replaced.

Bruno Ganz is a scene-stealer as a former spy Martin hires to help him. He seems to be the only actor in the film having any fun; while Neeson and Kruger are both plenty game to perform to their fullest, they treat this with the utmost seriousness of purpose. There’s really no fun to be had in their performances, forgoing any winks for audience love in favor of strict adherence to their characters.
Fun to be had or not, I wish the characters had been fleshed out more. They’re kind of dull, and they don’t do anything except evolve into more confusing but no less dull characters. Kruger’s character never really develops and, as it turns out, has absolutely no knowledge that is relevant to determining the plot. She is, in other words, an unnecessary character. And Neeson is playing his Taken character once again, requiring the audience to be impressed by how badass he is. That would be fine if we hadn’t seen it all before.

Jones’ character is particularly one-note, but she plays the character with such stiffness and lack of purpose that it’s impossible to read her. For a character like hers, you might say that’s the point, but I think she’s doing the right thing in the wrong way.

Despite the underdevelopment of characters, the plot is really well constructed for a throwaway thriller such as this. There are moments that don’t read completely honest – for example, the big conference that Martin keeps discussing throughout the film is never really discussed in full. We’re expected to react wildly to a twist involving who is the target of a particular action, but all that we wind up doing is scratching our heads and moving on because it’s just not completely comprehensible.
None of the issues with Unknown will be of any great detriment while watching the film. It’s pure popcorn enjoyment: a taut thriller with good dialogue and solid performances. It’s not as charming as a film like The Adjustment Bureau, but it’s got a great sense of tension and action that make it immensely watchable.

It’s not a masterpiece by any means, and the jokes that the film is essentially Taken 2: Starring Bridget von Hammersmark and Betty Draper are pretty accurate, but it’s a whole lot of fun and worth the price of (matinee) admission. B-

Updated: The Awkwards! Honoring the Best in Film from 2010

2011-02-23T14:38:00.001-08:00

UPDATED 2/23/11: With the Oscars just days away, I thought it best to update my individual awards, making some changes for what I now consider premature decisions.

Well, you know what I think will be nominated for the Oscars this year. But if I were running my own awards show, it would look a little different. That's right, fasten your seat belts for a long, long trip, because it's time for the 3rd Annual Awkwards!

Unlike the Oscars, I only have 15 categories, and of those, I only use seven of the Academy's (technically, eight, but I use slightly different criterion for my Best Artistic Direction award). Some are more fun than others, but overall, I want to capture all aspects of a film in these categories that may have not as much to do with the technical work, but what, as an audience, we appreciate.

I also award 5th through 1st, so no one feels left out. After all, these are by far the most important awards given out this season... (*snigger*... did I just snigger at myself?) The only other rule I have is that one performer can't be nominated twice in one category.

A quick note on the graphic: in honor of the award being called the Awkward, I present one of the more awkward moments in Oscar history--the interruption of the Best Documentary Short Music By Prudence winner's acceptance speech by a booted producer from the project--as a representation of how truly awkward awards can be.

Left ineligible originally this year were Barney's Version, Frankie and Alice, Biutiful, Country Strong, The Company Men, Blue Valentine, Another Year and The Way Back due to their limited releases. It's an unwritten (well, now it's written) rule of the Awkwards that one-week "qualifier runs" carry no water here. I took off this restriction for this update, but the only film it benefited was Blue Valentine.

So, without further ado, let's get started...

Best Ensemble

Black Swan

Inception

Please Give

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
The Social Network

5th Place: A group of incredible women (and the spectacular Oliver Platt) play the many different roles of women in a sophisticated, beguiling ensemble in Please Give.

4th Place: Darren Aronofsky brings out the best in all of his actors, creating what is possibly the greatest horror ensemble in Black Swan.

3rd Place: The characters feel incredibly real as they fight over the creation of Facebook in The Social Network.

2nd Place: Inception assembles a group of actors young and old, of varying degrees of veteran status, but all talented and smolderingly good-looking. It's an attractive ensemble in so many senses.

1st Place: Without such a talented ensemble, the rapid pace of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World wouldn't have worked, but each member of the cast is an undeniable gift to this incredibly fun movie.

Best Individual Scene
The transformation, Black Swan

"You Always Hurt the Ones You Love," Blue Valentine

Charlene vs. Dicky, The Fighter

The Three Brothers, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I

Mark and Erica's breakup, The Social Network

5th Place: It may appear the most disparate, but the animated telling of "The Three Brothers" story is a standout as the best part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I.

4th Place: "I like my life," Charlene says to Dicky in The Fighter. She holds back tears and stands her ground for her man, making her perhaps the bravest fighter of them all.

3rd Place: Watch Nina pirouette again and again, with each turn summoning more of the Black Swan inside her. A technical and directorial marvel.

2nd Place: The Social Network starts with one of the fastest, most mesmerizing scenes of all time--Mark Zuckerberg's breakup with his girlfriend, Erica--and the history of Facebook all unravels from there.

1st Place: The sound of the ukulele played by Dean to a dancing Cindy echoes throughout their relationship and throughout Blue Valentine--we feel them falling in love, and we just as painfully feel them falling apart.

Best Supporting Actor

Matt Damon, True Grit

Andrew Garfield, The Social Network

Tom Hardy, Inception

Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

Miles Teller, Rabbit Hole

5th Place: Damon is great fun as LaBoeuf (pronounced 'LaBeef,' naturally), spouting pronouncements of Texas with relish and pride in True Grit.

4th Place: Hardy is a sultry enigma in Inception, the most intriguing in an incredibly strong ensemble and at so many moments the funniest.

3rd Place: Teller calls to mind the great Viola Davis in Doubt with his ability to use a short amount of time onscreen to great effect, matching and even outshining his scene partner Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole.

2nd Place: A brilliant sparring partner for Colin Firth, Rush plays the late King George VI's speech therapist, the Australian Lionel Logue, with equal parts dramatic gravitas and comedic stylings in The King's Speech.

1st Place: Garfield shows us the talent we could long ago see bubbling under the surface in his role as Mark Zuckerberg's wronged best friend Eduardo Saverin, acting as both the emotional entry for the audience and the unlikely hero of The Social Network's twisted tale.

Best Individual Line
Animal Kingdom

Black Swan

Easy A

Inception
True Grit

5th Place: "I do not know this man." Maybe not the best line, but surely the best line delivery--Jeff Bridges' Rooster Cogburn understates matters with such hilarious aplomb in True Grit.

4th Place: "Hey! No judgment. All God's children. It's fine. I was gay once, for a while. No big deal. We all do it. It's okay." Try to keep the smile off your face as Olive's father delivers this instantly-quotable line in Easy A.

3rd Place: "You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter - because you'll be together." Achingly nostalgic and delivered beautifully by both Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard in Inception. It's a transporting, deeply felt line, one that echoes throughout the film.

2nd Place: "You've done some bad things, sweetie." Jacki Weaver's Smurf delivers her signature line in Animal Kingdom with both relish and with a sense of advantage: she knows what you don't think she knows.

1st Place: "I just want to be perfect." What a desperate plea from Nina in Black Swan. She's tortured by her inner need to be the best. It's an instantly classic line that was also used as part of a creative, innovative marketing campaign for the film. Well-written and well-delivered.

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Fighter

Marion Cotillard, Inception

Mila Kunis, Black Swan

Amanda Peet, Please Give

Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

5th Place: Kunis is much like the dancing style of her character, the mysterious Lilly, in Black Swan: effortless, seductive, and sultry, but she also brings to the table a wicked sense of timing and a natural ease that perfectly embodies the Black Swan.

4th Place: Believe the hype: though Weaver doesn't have much to do in the first two acts of Animal Kingdom, her performance in the third act approaches flawlessness: her Smurf is not the simple woman she seemed to be before, but a complex crime figure who pulls all the strings.

3rd Place: Adams isn't herself in The Fighter, unlike the characters she's played in such films as Doubt and Julie & Julia. Instead, she plays the tough-talking Charlene with equal parts honesty and gravitas, standing out in an underwhelming film as the highlight.

2nd Place: Peet shows previously unseen depths in Please Give, never fearing being interpreted as unpleasant or unlikable. Instead, she goes for the throat and gives the best performance of her career as a narcissistic, self-involved New York woman we pretend to hate but are forced to acknowledge we see bits of in ourselves.

1st Place: Cotillard is heartbreaking in Inception as both Mal and Cobb's memory of Mal, two different entities she imbues with the same energy and aching nostalgia. A beautiful performance, one that deserves the awards attention it never received.

Best Use of Music

Black Swan

Easy A

Inception

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

The Social Network

5th Place: "I got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine..." What Olive declares to be the "worst song ever" is the perfect earworm, sticking with both her and the audience throughout Easy A.

4th Place: Composer Hans Zimmer uses a fun trick transforming the Edith Piaf song used as a kick in the movie into the main score cue, creating a whole new world of insight. What a layered, conversation-inspiring film Inception is.

3rd Place: "Hello again/friend of a friend/I knew you when" Composed by Beck (with an oh-so-great assist from Metric on "Black Sheep"), Scott Pilgrim's soundtrack is a rebel yell of enthusiasm to match the intensity and speed of the movie.

2nd Place: Black Swan used Swan Lake's already dramatic score and turned the dial to eleven, giving each scene the perfect sense of triumph or fear.

1st Place: The Social Network's score, masterfully composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, was both contemporary and thematic, proving that the two can indeed go hand-in-hand.

Best Poster(s)

Black Swan

Inception

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Never Let Me Go

Rabbit Hole

5th Place: Inception's character posters introduced us to all the principals and their roles on the "Dream Team" in an artful, interesting way.

4th Place: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work shows us that "piece of work" herself, Rivers, as a work of art with a personality almost bigger than the poster itself.

3rd Place: Rabbit Hole's final poster, sectioned into the many emotions its central characters go through, was both striking and somehow beautifully ugly.

2nd Place: Black Swan had so many incredible posters from the mod-inspired foreign posters to the striking visage of its star, Natalie Portman, with a crack in her façade.

1st Place: The primary poster for Never Let Me Go evoked nostalgia in its audiences so beautifully it's common to find yourself aching for hours after looking at it. If only the film itself was so good.

Best Actor

Jim Carrey, I Love You, Phillip Morris

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Colin Firth, The King's Speech

James Franco, 127 Hours

Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine

5th Place: Carrey constantly surprises in his ability to go beyond his usual slapstick, but he has never been so mesmerizingly good as in I Love You, Phillip Morris, imbuing the antihero Steven Russell with great heart and personality.

4th Place: Firth should have been the big winner at the Oscars last year for his work in A Single Man, so when he wins for his impressive work in The King's Speech, it will be a reward that has come a year late but is still well-deserved.

3rd Place: Dean is conflicted and in love in Blue Valentine--he plays both the old, wily Dean and the new, broken-down Dean in equal measure with equal proficiency. It's a gorgeously-executed portrait of a man in two stages of his life.

2nd Place: Eisenberg embodies Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg with such innate loneliness and heartbreak in The Social Network that audiences are drawn to his plight, no matter how misguided his character might be. Eisenberg's Mark is not an asshole, he just tries so hard to be one.

1st Place: Franco has almost no one to play off of, no supporting cast to make his portrayal of isolated, soon to be one-armed hiker Aron Ralston, instead relying on his infinite charm and dramatic undertow to fully embody his character. There is no male performance like it this year--none of the others are so beautifully crafted and executed as this.

Best Onscreen Chemistry
Natalie Portman & Mila Kunis, Black Swan
Jim Carrey & Ewan McGregor, I Love You, Phillip Morris
Leonardo DiCaprio & Marion Cotillard, Inception

Colin Firth & Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

Michael Cera & Kieran Culkin, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

5th Place: Cera and Culkin use their characters' strange situation as straight/gay roommates in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to allow for witty, quick comedic rapport that feels like a true friendship.

4th Place: Carrey may outact McGregor at every turn in I Love You, Phillip Morris, but neither of them is better than when they are acting opposite each other--you can feel the joy and the pain emanating from their relationship.

3rd Place: Portman and Kunis are Black Swan's dark and light, two forces that naturally repel. But the two performers create a dangerous chemistry together that is hard to read but nonetheless completely attractive and powerful.

2nd Place: DiCaprio's Cobb may not be in love with the real Mal anymore in Inception, but he and Cotillard create such aching, heartwrenching passion that remains unresolved that the audience wants nothing more than to see them united again.

1st Place: Firth and Rush create a genuine student/teacher relationship in The King's Speech--they may not always like each other, but they're drawn to each other.

Best Artistic Direction
Black Swan

Blue Valentine

Inception

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Toy Story 3

5th Place: Blue Valentine is shot in such a unique, gritty style--the surroundings mirror Dean and Cindy's relationship. It's all so blue.

4th Place: One of the chief complaints with the Toy Story franchise used to be its lower quality graphic work compared to other Pixar films. Toy Story 3 takes that criticism and blows it out of the water with top-notch artistic design.

3rd Place: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is, to some, a noisy, brightly colored mess. What those critics don't understand is why that noisy, brightly colored mess is a perfect representation of the world of the film.

2nd Place: Inception is daring, unique, bold, and breaks the rules of what film can do. No artistic direction this year was riskier and more breathtaking...

1st Place: ...than that of Black Swan, which played with mirrors and the dark grittiness of the New York ballet world to create a setting so impossible and yet so real it felt like the audience was on the scene at every moment.

Best Actress

Annette Bening, The Kids are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Emma Stone, Easy A

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

5th Place: Bening is the best part of the mediocre The Kids Are All Right, singing Joni Mitchell's "Blue" at the dinner table and making everyone at the table and in the audience feel more uncomfortable than at any family dinner before.

4th Place: Stone may be in the light Easy A, but her workload is anything but: she is in almost every frame of the film and carries it with absolute aplomb. She shows versatility and talent in a fun, infectious fashion and signals that there is much to be discovered about this previously low-key young actress.

3rd Place: Kidman is unafraid of playing the "bitch" or the cold, unsympathetic woman, instead embracing this role and using it to great effect in Rabbit Hole.

2nd Place: Williams portrays Cindy as a woman trapped--she can't get out no matter how hard she tries. Her Blue Valentine, Dean, is not the man she married, nor will he ever be again. She makes this slow realization as painful for us as it is for her.

1st Place: Portman is doing the best work of her career in Black Swan, never fearing the role or trying to humanize Nina, instead fulfilling the vision of director Darren Aronofsky completely while putting her own recognizable signature on the performance. She captures the descent into insanity with such verve and creates an iconic role in the process. Truly one for the record books.

Best Screenplay

Easy A, Bert V. Royal

Rabbit Hole, David Lindsey-Abaire

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Edgar Wright and Michael Bacall

The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin

True Grit, Joel and Ethan Coen

5th Place: True Grit toes the line between slapstick comedy and traditional Western drama at so many junctures and never once feels anything less than genuine.

4th Place: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is truly among the fastest screenplays ever written, with wit and pop culture savvy to match sheer speed.

3rd Place: Rabbit Hole is genius not for its bluster and monologues, but for the beautiful quieter moments that break up the anger.

2nd Place: Full of both great story and brilliant one-liners, the cast of Easy A (especially Emma Stone) has plenty of contemporary, witty material to plunder.

1st Place: The Social Network is, pure and simple, among the greatest screenplays ever written. It's fast, taut, deep, fun, strong and truly a marvel to behold as it is acted onscreen and as it can be read straight from the page.

Best Performance of the Year

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

James Franco, 127 Hours

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

A new category! This one's meant to honor the strongest performance of the year overall.

5th Place: Kidman, returning to form after years of underwhelming work.

4th Place: Eisenberg, distancing himself from the Michael Cera mold and showing his versatility.

3rd Place: Williams, proving her stellar Brokeback Mountain performance was no fluke.

2nd Place: Franco, proving that his charm and good looks are backed up by real talent.

1st Place: Portman, giving the performance of not only the year, not only of her career, but of a lifetime.

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

David Fincher, The Social Network

Christopher Nolan, Inception

Roman Polanski, The Ghost Writer

David O. Russell, The Fighter

5th Place: It's hard to separate the man from his work, particularly since the man's work wouldn't exist at all had he accepted the punishment for his crimes, but Polanski does his best directorial work in decades in The Ghost Writer, a taut, riveting political thriller.

4th Place: The Fighter may not be a top-tier movie, but it could have spiraled so far out of control were it not for O. Russell's steady hand. He kept the movie grounded in reality.

3rd Place: Fincher also constrains his usual need to overdose on length in The Social Network, keeping the story to a manageable pace and length and letting Aaron Sorkin's masterful screenplay be the star.

2nd Place: Aronofsky is an artist, one who had not yet made a masterpiece until Black Swan. All of his best techniques are used to great effect, with the sheer power and shock value of the film undeniable. He has crafted the ultimate artist's horror film.

1st Place: Nolan is a visionary, a man who never lets the idea of impossible constrain his storytelling. He, along with Aronofsky and Fincher, is truly one of the greatest auteurs of the generation, using all the tricks in his director's bag to their fullest effect in Inception. Each frame is meticulously planned--if Aronofsky's is the artist's horror film, then this is the artist's action film. Beautiful work, largely owed to his vision.

Best Picture

Black Swan
Blue Valentine

Catfish

Easy A

Inception

The King's Speech

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

In 10th Place: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the blast of fun that oozes charm and fun while supporting the most finely-crafted ensemble of any film this year.

In 9th Place: True Grit, the Coen brothers' reinterpretation of the Western that has a sense of humor both about itself and about its audience.

In 8th Place: The King's Speech, the spiritual prequel to The Queen that so beautifully shows us Queen Elizabeth II's father's special relationship with his speech therapist and how he confronted the insurmountable obstacle that was his place in the monarchy.

In 7th Place: Toy Story 3, the beautiful conclusion to a magnificent trilogy that transcends medium or target demographic and is truly a fantastic work of art.

In 6th Place: Easy A, one of the greatest teen comedies that pays great homage to all those films that it owes a great debt to.

In 5th Place: Inception, the visual masterpiece of the year with a beautiful love story at the center of all the action.

In 4rd Place: Catfish, the "is it real or is it fake?" phenomenon where the real answer is, "it doesn't matter." The film is a brilliant piece of documentary that excites and brings along its audience for a strange, thrill-loaded ride.

In 3rd Place: The Social Network, which, in almost any other year, would have easily taken the top spot. All the elements of this film, from Fincher's direction to Sorkin's script to Eisenberg and Garfield's performances to the other performances in the ensemble to the musical score by Reznor and Ross, were in perfect harmony. It is an absolutely breathtaking film.

The Runner-Up: Blue Valentine, a gritty portrait of a dying marriage juxtaposed with the beautiful origins of Dean and Cindy's relationship. Director Derek Cianfrance makes beautiful choices, and each fight, each bad decision, each screamed line makes the audience feel the pain. It's an emotional knockout.

The Awkward for Best Picture of 2010 goes to: Black Swan. Was there any other possibility? This is the film that those who saw it will proudly say to their children, "I saw that when it was in theaters!" It is the greatest artistic statement this year and of the past few years. It features a career-best performance from Portman, career-best work from Aronofsky, an incredible ensemble that elevates the work to new heights, and never lets up for one frame of the film. There are some who may dislike it, some who may find it to be "too much," but when it comes down to a discussion of which movie is best, there is no question that the best film is this. It did it. It was perfect.

If you only count the seven Oscar categories (the acting, directing, screenplay, and picture contests), the nomination tally would look like this:

5 nominations

The Social Network (2 wins)

4 nominations
Black Swan (2 wins)

3 nominations

Blue Valentine
Easy A
Inception (2 wins)

True Grit

2 nominations

The Fighter
The King's Speech
Rabbit Hole

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

1 nomination

127 Hours (1 win)

Animal Kingdom

Catfish

The Ghost Writer

The Kids Are All Right
I Love You, Phillip Morris

Please Give

Toy Story 3

And if you count all the categories, the count is revised to:

12 nominations

Black Swan (5 wins)

11 nominations

Inception (2 wins)

9 nominations

The Social Network (3 wins)

7 nominations
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (1 win)

5 nominations

Blue Valentine (1 win)
Easy A
Rabbit Hole

4 nominations

The King's Speech (1 win)

True Grit

3 nominations
The Fighter

2 nominations

127 Hours (1 win)
Animal Kingdom

Catfish

I Love You, Phillip Morris

Please Give

Toy Story 3

1 nomination

The Ghost Writer
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I

The Kids Are All Right
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Never Let Me Go (1 win)

And that is it! Many, many awards later, I am done for the year! Hopefully you guys enjoyed-forgive the indulgence on the length, but hey, awards time comes but once a year! What are your thoughts? Did I put together a solid ten for Best Picture? What movie did I love that you hated? Vice versa? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Sticking to My Guns: Why I'm Predicting Amy Adams

2011-02-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

I don't fancy myself an Oscar savant of any kind. I realize that most of my high scores in prediction pools are largely because I pay very close attention to the opinions of others. So if I'm predicting something to be nominated or win, it's likely because I saw the prediction elsewhere, thought there was good logic behind it and decided to predict it myself.

"I like my life."

And yet this year, I'm making one screwball prediction that is almost destined to fall short: Amy Adams for Best Supporting Actress. That's right: over her The Fighter co-star Melissa Leo, over BAFTA winner Helena Bonham Carter, over my former personal pick Jacki Weaver (my opinion's shifted a bit in recent weeks), and over wunderkind child actress Hailee Steinfeld. What gives me such faith in the three-time Oscar nominee who's never really come close to the gold before? What makes me think that Adams, who absolutely no one is predicting to win, is such a sure bet to win the gold?

In short, I have no idea. But I'm sticking to my guns.

In truth, I was never sure who would prevail in this year's supporting actress race. Leo seemed like a safe enough bet, but once I saw the performance, I was underwhelmed. Yes, good Oscarology never has anything to do with your personal opinion, but it's difficult to really feel for a performance's chances that you never quite understood. So no, Leo didn't really do anything for me in The Fighter, but Adams sure did.

She was by far my favorite part of the film, and probably my bronze medalist for my personal Best Supporting Actress race (got to get around to updating that--so many snap judgments and favorites I was unwilling to drop that I would probably switch my winner and runner-up in the same race, meaning Marion Cotillard would be the proud (?) owner of an Awkward). Upon repeat viewings of her big "Oscar scene," which I will subtitle 'I Like My Life,' I've grown to truly appreciate the quiet fury she brought to the performance, the layers of depth she gave the simple bar girl known as Charlene. She was more than just a supportive spouse--she was truly the light in Mickey Ward's life.

But what am I saying? My personal opinion is of no relevance here. Why do I stick with Adams to win Best Supporting Actress despite the fact that she has not picked up one major precursor prize? If I think the "Consider... Melissa Leo" PR hiccup was so disastrous, why not have Steinfeld or Bonham Carter as the recipient of the fallout's riches?

Well, if I had to formulate a complete theory, it would be broken up into three parts: the Marcia Gay Harden effect, the 3-in-5 effect, and the No Sweeps effect.

Marcia Gay Harden effect

The surprise win by Marcia Gay Harden.

An actress can easily swoop in and take the big prize in this race with little trouble--Marcia Gay Harden in Pollock, for instance. No one expected Harden, who was completely absent from all precursors, even for nominations, to win once she snagged the surprise nomination for Pollock. Yet win it she did, upsetting Golden Globe-winning favorite Kate Hudson for Almost Famous. Another example of this effect would be Juliette Binoche winning her Oscar for The English Patient over heavy favorite Lauren Bacall for The Mirror Has Two Faces. It's not like predicting an upset is the smart thing to do, but it's entirely possible that Adams could win without any precursor support.

3-in-5 effect
Getting nominated for three Oscars in five years and not even coming close to winning is very difficult to do. George Clooney won his Oscar for Syriana in 2005, then got nominated in 2007 and 2009 for Michael Clayton and Up in the Air, respectively. Phillip Seymour Hoffman won his Oscar the same year Clooney won his for Capote, then was nominated again in 2007 and 2008 for Charlie Wilson's War and Doubt. Penelope Cruz was first nominated for Volver in 2006, then won two years later for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She snagged a surprise nomination the following year for Nine. (Conversely, Meryl Streep has been nominated thrice in five years for The Devil Wears Prada in 2006, Doubt in 2008 and Julie & Julia in 2009 without winning once, but she came very close each time.) The idea that Adams is going to place third or fourth again (her performance in Junebug likely ran behind both winner Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams, while her peformance in Doubt ran behind her co-star Viola Davis and winner Cruz, as well as The Wrestler's Marisa Tomei) is a little hard to swallow. The Academy's love for her is growing, not staying static. I can't see her not at least coming close this time.

No Sweeps effect
This isn't going to be a year when one film sweeps everything--the biggest haul I'm expecting is six wins for The King's Speech, and that's a haul that does not include either supporting acting race. I'm not expecting any major haul for True Grit, either--I'm betting Cinematography is going to be their consolation prize. Sure, it's possible that The King's Speech could take every major prize in sight, but most are betting they'll miss Sound Mixing, Editing, Cinematography, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress, and I'm betting it'll miss Director on top of that. Since it's safe to assume it won't sweep everything, the assumption that Bonham Carter will win on the coattails of the film is irrational. Same for True Grit: the Academy does really like it, but I'm not sure it will love it. Steinfeld, Bonham Carter, and the too-unknown Weaver are all bad bets. Assuming that the For Your Consideration scandal is as damaging as I think it will be to Leo, I think Adams is going to be the beneficiary.

Now, you could poke major holes in my theory. No movie with two supporting actress nominees has won for either performance in the past few years (Up in the Air and Doubt are the two most recent examples) and the utter lack of traction for Adams' campaign is disheartening. Even more than that, there have been women who have been nominated more (and just as quickly) without winning: Glenn Close and Kate Winslet are the two most obvious examples. So Adams could still lose. And she probably will.

But I have a strange confidence in her chances. It's a dynamite performance and one I'm not sure the Academy will be able to ignore. I hope for the best.

Oscar Predictions: One Week Out

2011-02-20T01:29:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the quiet on the blog recently--burnout from awards talk added to a ridiculous workload this week prevented most updates. Two quick updates--first, the obvious: we're one week away from the Oscars, so final predictions are up. As always, you can find them (with all 24 categories!) by clicking on the Current Oscar Predictions tab. (Sorry for any graphical hiccups.)

I'm predicting a near-sweep for The King's Speech, though a small one--only six statuettes. I also have The Social Network and Inception picking up three Oscars, while Black Swan, Tangled, True Grit and Toy Story 3 each get one.

The second update is a very exciting one--things are gonna get a lot more awkward! Awkward is What We Aim For is now a partner of Reel Artsy, another film blog that loves to feature the awkward. You'll be able to read my Netflix Pix features on that site as well as here very soon, and we hope to get more collaborations working as soon as possible. Exciting times!

As far as next Sunday's festivities are concerned, I plan to live-blog, and I'll probably have a few more pieces up this week about specific races that I think are still contended, etc. And you can bet I'll be back on Monday morning to praise and bitch the ceremony, the winners, and the dresses.

It's kinda like Christmas week for all us Oscar watchers. Let's hope we get something good and not a big lump of coal.

It's an Adjustment, But a Good One

2011-02-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

The reviews have been coming slowly but surely recently (sorry, blame work piling up), but after seeing Rabbit Hole a second time yesterday (still a great movie, still wouldn't make my Top Ten simply because its strength is in the performances, not the overall film) and seeing the trailer for the new film The Adjustment Bureau attached, I realized I had to write a review of the new thriller just to talk about what the movie really is, as opposed to what it's being marketed as.

Wow, this movie looks so serious! Too bad it kinda isn't!

I seriously don't get what the marketing team is doing. When I saw The Adjustment Bureau last week, I was impressed by a fun thriller that relied heavily on the talents and chemistry of its leads, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, to great effect. When I watched the trailer, I thought I was watching a cut of the next Bourne film.

Make no mistake: while writer-director George Nolfi did work on The Bourne Ultimatum (a critical favorite from four years back that wound up with three Oscars), this is not Bourne 4. This is a different film that isn't afraid of a sense of humor or a sense of the whimsical. All involved realize the premise (there are a group of men who adjust what's happening in the world so it matches a master plan) is a bit of a lark, but instead of trying to sell it with great gravitas, they decide to have fun instead.

Damon is treading familiar ground here as Congressman David Norris, playing the affable guy everyone loves who can also run like hell. But he's never appeared quite as light as he does here, like this is his favorite mask to wear. His character is underdeveloped, but what is there is well-used. Blunt is even better as mysterious dancer Elise Sellas. She sells the lighter-than-air quality of her character, and her chemistry with Damon is flawless. They feel like the next Gable and Colbert: two stars with charm oozing out of every pore that have a great back-and-forth energy. Blunt's charm is particularly effusive: she may be written as a fantasy girl of sorts, but Elise seems so real that we understand the stakes for Damon's weary David.

Yes, the plot has problems: in particular, we never get to really know David. Is he really the bad boy everyone claims he is? Why do we never see any real evidence of that now? Why does he so immediately fall in love with Elise? Truly, the supposed "high concept" premise is much easier to understand than the motivations of our protagonist. It's not a fatal problem, but it does waste the chemistry between the stars a bit--they deserved a more fully-baked script than this.

Speaking of that high concept, it's pulled off fairly well. Much of the more complex mythology buried in the original short story is excised for a more streamlined, interesting story. Anthony Mackie does strong, subtle work in his "good bad guy" role, but the villain switch halfway through the film (away from the great John Slattery and to the more over-the-top Terrence Stamp) makes the film a little too inconsistent for its own good. And the ending's a bit of a cop-out, sadly. But the direction is solid, if unremarkable, and the two stars more than make up for any of the film's failings. There's no reason not to visit this Bureau. B

Oscar Predictions Revised: Fincher Up, Leo Down

2011-02-08T17:52:00.000-08:00

The Oscar Predictions tab has been updated to reflect new predictions. My current bet is The King's Speech/Fincher/Firth/Portman/Bale/Adams, but we'll have to see exactly what turns this race takes. I'm probably going to add the other 12 categories sometime soon--all depends on time and effort I can put in.

Am I overestimating how Leo will be affected by her rogue FYC campaign? If she loses, will it be to Steinfeld instead of Adams? Is there any drama in any of these races other than Best Supporting Actress? Take it to the comments!

Consider: Melissa Leo is Really Screwing Up

2011-02-07T14:47:00.000-08:00

Melissa Leo is asking us to consider her, but all I'm considering is how Amy Adams will look accepting her Oscar come February 27th.

If you haven't yet heard about the new, self-funded For Your Consideration ads Melissa Leo has in circulation right now, let me get you up to speed. These:

are the infamous ads that Leo decided to purchase and produce to supplement her For Your Consideration campaign. Leo is nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars to be held later this month, and apparently she doesn't think the general ads for her film, The Fighter, are good enough. In fact, she doesn't even think her performance as bad mother Alice Ecklund is good enough. No, she wants you to consider Melissa Leo, the actress. And I think we should consider exactly how stupid this is.

Leo's reasons for doing the ads isn't a bad one, necessarily: being an older actress, it's difficult for her to get magazine covers, so she wanted to do something that was a bit of a vanity project. It's fun, it's a kick to do, and hey, we're all talking about it. But I think Leo is gonna be shocked at how hard this backfires on her.

While I had never changed my prediction, it seemed after the Screen Actors Guild awards that Leo was the frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actress statuette come the end of this month. I was ready to resign my belief that Amy Adams would come from behind and win...and then this happened. This is a game-changer, even if everyone else is pretending it's not.

The ads themselves would not sink Leo. While it's unorthodox to continue For Your Consideration campaigns after the Oscar nominations have been announced (it comes across a little crass), extra press isn't fundamentally a bad thing. It's the fact that we're all discussing it. None of this is positive for Leo. She should only be getting press for good reasons (think Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges last year or Colin Firth and Natalie Portman this year), or have a dynamite performance that can survive limited press (Christoph Waltz) or bad press/reputation (Mo'Nique, Christian Bale). Her performance is solid, if a little on the over-the-top side. But it isn't the kind of performance that can win despite bad press.

It's always possible that Hailee Steinfeld could win instead of Adams with this new weakness (her movie does have ten nominations, after all), but I feel like the categorization issues surrounding the performance, plus her age, will be a major wrench in her Oscar chances. Adams has been nominated thrice in five years, just like Phillip Seymour Hoffman (winner for Capote), Penelope Cruz (winner for Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and George Clooney (winner for Syriana). It's natural to assume this year could very well be Adams' year. These ads and the conversation around them are only going to help her chances.

Leo could still win, though. Let's face it, there have been worse things than some tacky FYC ads to hit other campaigns. But I think it's a lot more destructive than others think. I think this is the opportunity Adams, Steinfeld, and also-rans Jacki Weaver and Helena Bonham Carter needed.

Plus, the ads are just so ridiculous. I feel like she's one milk mustache away from a Got Milk? ad, or she's advertising Bob Mackie's new line for Nordstrom. Seriously, what was she thinking? Do you know? Do you think I'm overestimating these ads' power? Take it to the comments!

Why The King's Speech Winning Best Picture Does Not Matter

2011-02-04T08:41:00.000-08:00

Now that I've voiced exactly why a Best Picture win for The King's Speech is kind of a bonkers idea, I'm going to explain exactly why that event wouldn't really affect anything.

"But Kevin," you ask, "why doesn't it matter? Didn't you just say Speech shouldn't win Best Picture?" Well, yes, I did say that. And I certainly haven't recanted my position on that matter. If it wins on the 27th of this month, I will be annoyed, probably even angry, with the idea that the Academy has failed once again to recognize the best film made this year.

And it is that statement that makes me realize exactly why a win for The King's Speech doesn't matter. Because depending on your school of criticism, the "Best" could be completely different. Because as much as we pretend "Best" is objective, it is, at least partially, subjective. And there are so many great things about Speech that it is an acceptable Best Picture winner, if not a great one.

But Speech is hardly a grand disaster the likes of which we will look back on with shame. Honestly, it's a fine Best Picture winner. What makes me nervous, and what seems to make everyone else nervous, is the idea that Tom Hooper is probably going to win Best Director. That is the decision we will look back on with embarrassment and irritation that the Academy did not choose to award a more deserving director.

I've seen Tom Hooper speak at a screening of The King's Speech. He is an obviously intelligent, eloquent man who is doing fabulous things with his career, and none of what I'm about to say is meant to take any of that away from him. That being said, he was not the best director of any film this year. In fact, I can think of many finer directors this year: David Fincher (The Social Network), Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), Christopher Nolan (Inception), David O. Russell (The Fighter), Joel and Ethan Coen (True Grit), Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), Debra Granik (Winter's Bone), Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole) Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right) and Nicole Holofcener (Please Give), among others. While Best Picture is at least somewhat subjective, Best Director really can't be debated: Hooper doesn't deserve that award.

But I digress. This piece is about why it doesn't matter that The King's Speech will be crowned Best Picture on February 27th. And that's because the film is so good. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush own the movie with the second-most powerful duet this year (after Valentine's Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams). Helena Bonham Carter underplays her supporting role with such a quiet beauty. The script, written by the brilliant David Seidler, sings with such a wit and harmony that it cannot be denied. Hooper's direction is adequate--not quite enough, but the movie has a lovely feel to it.

In fact, if readers of the blog remember, I gave my award for Best Picture last year to An Education. Light British fare is certainly a favorite genre of mine so often. The only real problems I have with this unexpected strength from The King's Speech are that the film feels very manipulative, designed to be a "feel-good" film that would convince audiences it was good simply because it moved them, plus the idea that Hooper will beat out at least a dozen more deserving directors.

I stand by my assertion that The King's Speech is not the rightful winner of Best Picture. I still think there are at least seven films that deserve that title more, starting with Black Swan and all the way down to Easy A. But this is not Brokeback Mountain versus Crash. This is not Shakespeare in Love versus Saving Private Ryan. It's more like Rocky versus Network: we'll probably look back and regret it, but no one can deny that Rocky, and now Speech, is a great movie and a fine Best Picture.

Netflix Pix: Of Clubs Both Fight and the Moulin Rouge!

2011-02-01T21:14:00.000-08:00

It's Netflix Pix time once again--apologies for the delay! My intention was to make this a regular Sunday series but it seems more likely that once every two weeks is a better aim.

This week, we have two regular-mail picks, both centered around the ideas of clubs--albeit entirely different clubs. Today, we'll visit Tyler Durden's Fight Club and Harold Zeigler's Moulin Rouge!


"Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing? Come back to me and forgive everything."

There may be no better movie musical than the bold, exciting, truly beautiful Moulin Rouge! Directed by Baz Luhrmann, the film is an absolute spectacle, extreme in any way but directed to absolute perfection. Were the hand guiding it not so steady, the extremism would feel forced and would not play as well as it does. (Even now, the film has almost as many detractors as it does fans.) But the formula is perfect. The script is absurd, yes, but it is endless fun, full of sheer excitement and joy, and is delivered perfectly by the cast.

Oh, the cast! Ewan McGregor is doing career-best work here, proving himself a brilliant singer with a beautiful voice. He also inhabits the role so well--the fact that he wasn't Oscar-nominated for this performance is a sad blemish on the Academy's history. Nicole Kidman is also doing career-best work, but her performance is almost on another level. You feel so much for her character, the courtesan Satine, as she unknowingly dies of consumption while falling in love for the first time. Each moment of the performance is captivating--she deserved the Oscar for this performance.

The music is also marvelous. Using iconic 20th century music was an inspired choice--nowhere is this more obvious than in the "Elephant Love Medley." Each choice is brilliant--when Dolly Parton and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" kicks in, it's a beautiful payoff. The one original song from the film, "Come What May," is exquisite in both its bold original form and its breathtaking, showstopping reprise form.

Sure, the movie's not perfect. No one should pretend it is. But it's flaws are greatly outweighed by its strong points. In fact, it might be the most exuberant film ever made, which is a great risk. It delivers beautifully. A

"Goddamn! We just had a near-life experience, fellas."

Fight Club is everything Moulin Rouge! isn't in so many ways: it's rough-and-tumble, it's aggressive, it's modern, it's psychologically complex: in many ways, it's the ultimate boys' movie. But that gives it so little credit--does that describe how fantastic the film really is? How Edward Norton gives an impossibly strong performance? How Brad Pitt oozes absolute daredevil charm? How Helena Bonham Carter perfectly embodies the sexually on-edge Marla Singer? It's a brilliant film and with an insane twist that no one will expect. David Fincher's best film by a country mile. A-

What do you guys think of Fight Club and Moulin Rouge! ten years after their releases? Are they on your Netflix queues? Anyone dislike these modern classics? Take your thoughts to the comments!

Why The King's Speech Should Not Win Best Picture

2011-01-31T08:50:00.000-08:00

I've been growing increasingly irritated this week, from the Producers Guild of America giving The King's Speech their top prize the weekend before last to Speech garnering 12 Oscar nominations on Tuesday to director Tom Hooper winning the Directors Guild of America prize on Saturday night to Sunday night's final triumph: the Best Ensemble award from the Screen Actors Guild. And when that ensemble won, the audience roared with approval.

That applause meant more than any of the critical prizes, the Golden Globes, the PGA, the DGA, or the SAG itself. That applause meant that the industry at large is in full-fledged support of The King's Speech. That applause meant that The King's Speech is going to win Best Picture at the Oscars come February 27th.

But it shouldn't.

Oscarologists are losing themselves over this. Nathaniel Rogers compared Speech's dominance at the SAG Awards last night to extreme and insistent dental pain, while Sasha Stone is convinced that everything she thought she knew about the Oscars is dead and she knows nothing. Reading the Oscar blogs these days is a little reminiscent of going to a series of funerals, each blog lamenting the death of its favorite film. (Luckily, I never had any delusions that Black Swan would win Best Picture beyond a wild chance, so I'm not hurting too hard about its chances dying.)

However, it's difficult to remember that The King's Speech is not, in and of itself, a bad film. Rogers puts it quite well in his live blog of the SAG Awards:

"I have to keep reminding myself through the stabs of pain that The King's Speech is enjoyable and while I was watching it I did not hate it..."

Just because The King's Speech is not the best film of the year does not make it less of a film. As I wrote in my first review of the film, Speech's "writing was lively and the performances wonderful." (I also said that "the direction could be a little too television miniseries-esque at times, probably due to director Tom Hooper's background in the genre," but apparently the DGA voters no longer give a crap about that.)

In that same review, I wrote that if The King's Speech would win Best Picture, I would have no complaints. I was misjudging myself and my love of the other films this year.

The Social Network is not my pick for the Best Picture of the year, but it might be the most deserving winner thanks to its place in the zeitgeist and its truly impressive direction, cast, and of course, the masterful screenplay. It was an idea that shouldn't have worked and yet it worked beautifully.

Black Swan, which is my pick for Best Picture, is a fearless, daring, risky, breathtaking work of art. It is complex, it is challenging, and it boasts some of the most fascinating performances of the year. It is director Darren Aronofsky's masterpiece and the performance of Natalie Portman's career.

Toy Story 3 is a film with a boldly-beating heart, the rare threequel that completely delivers. It is the largest-grossing Pixar film of all time and is among the most critically acclaimed films of the year. It is a heartwrenching film, incredibly well-made and a triumph not only of animated cinema, but cinema on the whole.

Inception is the most directed film of the year, truly the genius vision of our true auteur, Christopher Nolan. It was the blockbuster that challenged its audience--the bigger cousin of Swan. It features one of the finest film performances of the year (Marion Cotillard, edgy and sensual as Mal) and boasts the finest direction since last year's The Hurt Locker. It is the poster child of daring cinema.

Four films, each taking a real risk: who would watch a movie about the invention of Facebook? About batshit ballerinas? A threequel that tries to be more than a popcorn film? A daring blockbuster about dreams? These are among the films nominated for Best Picture that try the hardest, that make the biggest statement.

I truly cannot find a statement in The King's Speech. It is among the most enjoyable films of the year, yes, but it is not even in the top tier among the best. What is its statement: that you should find your voice? Chip Skylark had that one figured out a while ago. Triumph over adversity? Certainly unoriginal. British are delightful? Give me The Queen instead any day of the week.

Speech boasts great performances and an excellent screenplay. So what? So does Inception. And Black Swan. And Blue Valentine. And Easy A. And The Social Network. It's heartwarming. So what? So is Toy Story 3. And How to Train Your Dragon. And True Grit. There is nothing The King's Speech does better than another film this year. It is an argument that cannot be refuted when feelings are pushed aside and true film criticism becomes the topic of conversation.

Unfortunately, that won't happen. The King's Speech is the favorite film of the year, which means it will win the Best Picture prize come February 27th.

But it shouldn't.

The King's Speech Rises Above All Competition

2011-01-30T12:39:00.000-08:00

Hey, remember that time the Directors Guild of America decided that Tom Hooper was a better director than David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, David O. Russell and Darren Aronofsky? And remember how that sealed the Oscar race up and will lead to the glorified prequel to The Queen winning 8 Oscars?

Ugh. I don't have the patience. I know Speech has many fans, and it was good enough to make my top ten of the year, but it is NOT the best picture of the year, and it certainly was not helmed by the best director.

I don't have much else to say--I'll post something after the SAGs tonight. (In case you're wondering, The King's Speech is gonna win Best Ensemble, Best Actor and maybe even Best Supporting Actor there, while Natalie Portman will continue her winning streak for Best Actress--no idea how Best Supporting Actress will go.) In the meantime, check out the Current Oscar Predictions tab to see how the race has shifted.

The Class of 2010: Older and Wiser

2011-01-28T14:47:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite parts of Oscar season is to take a look at the selection of all the acting nominees as a giant "class" of sorts--what is the makeup of the group? Who are the most popular? Who are the punks who cause trouble? Who just sneaked in?

The Class of 2010: Older, More Experienced, More Best Picture-y

This year, we have a suspiciously large amount of former nominees, if not a great number of former winners. Jennifer Lawrence, James Franco, Jesse Eisenberg, Hailee Steinfeld, Jacki Weaver, John Hawkes and Mark Ruffalo are the only freshly-nominated in the group, compared to last year, when most were first-time nominees. Three of those seven (Weaver, Hawkes and Ruffalo) are older, while the other four are the youngsters of the group.

We also have several former winners here: Geoffrey Rush (a winner in 1996), Javier Bardem (a winner in 2007), Nicole Kidman (a winner in 2002), and Jeff Bridges (a winner last year). Along with Bridges, repeating nominees from last year are Jeremy Renner (going down to Supporting Actor from his Lead Actor placement last year) and Colin Firth, favored to win after he lost to Bridges last year. (Truly, his win should have come last year for his vastly superior performance in A Single Man.) For Renner, two nominations in two years for an actor who was previously unknown was tremendous--I think we're looking at one of the great character actors on the rise (he and Winona Ryder, probably).

Overall, the group is also very much older than the usual crop of nominees. The average age of all nominees this year is 41.05--interestingly enough, the oldest and youngest are both nominees from the Supporting Actress category: Weaver and Steinfeld, at 63 and 14 respectively. Take the two of them out, and the average age only rises about half a year.

The female nominees are, on average, 5.2 years younger than the male nominees. Lead Actress is the youngest category thanks to Portman, Lawrence and Blue Valentine star Michelle Williams. (If Steinfeld's category fraud had been corrected, displacing likely fifth-placer Williams, the average age would have dropped to 33!)

Lead Actor, notorious for being the category for grizzled older men, is actually rather young this year thanks to Eisenberg and Franco, registering at only .8 years older than Supporting Actress. (Again, if you took away Steinfeld in favor of likely sixth-placer Mila Kunis, you would raise the average age in Supporting Actress to 44--older than Actor and almost as old as Supporting Actor.)

The Supporting categories' nominees are, on average, 4.4 years older than those in Lead. But if you removed the assumed fifth-placers from both Supporting races (Hawkes and Weaver) to replace them with the "snubbed" candidates (Garfield and Kunis), the Supporting Actor race would drop 6.4 years, and the Supporting Actress race a jaw-dropping 7.2 years. Since the two nominees are so much older than their snubbed counterparts as to create an average 6.8-year drop in their categories, we can say that, this year at least, the conventional wisdom that the Academy vastly prefers younger actors is false.

Here's an interesting question: which nominees have worked with other nominees in previous projects? For example, Williams and Bale both appeared in the Todd Haynes-helmed I'm Not There, the movie best known for Cate Blanchett's gender-bending performance as a shade of Bob Dylan. Portman and Kidman worked together on Cold Mountain in 2003. Do you know if any other nominees have worked together? Do you love any films starring two of this year's nominees?

Finally, it's interesting how much this year's class also appeared in Best Picture nominees this year. Kidman, Williams, Bardem, Weaver and Renner are the only nominees in non-Best Picture hopefuls. Strangely enough, each of them also has the distinction of being the sole nominated aspect of their films. Obviously, this year, the Academy looked towards likely Best Picture nominees for its acting nominees, only going outside of those when there was an underdog film's performance making major noise.

What else interests you about this year's nominated actors? Do you see a through line that I don't? What interests you about the ages of this year's nominees? Take your thoughts to the comments!

Banner Year

2011-01-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

Like the new banner? I'm undecided and looking for opinions. Let me know what you think.

In case you're wondering who all the faces are and why I've selected them to be featured on the banner...


Top: Tom Hardy, Ryan Gosling, Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams, Amy Adams, Hailee Steinfeld, Jim Carrey, Jacki Weaver, Emma Stone, Bottom: Miles Teller, Marion Cotillard, Jesse Eisenberg, Mila Kunis, Colin Firth, Matt Damon, Geoffrey Rush, James Franco, Amanda Peet, Andrew Garfield

Why, it's the twenty* nominees for the Awkwards' acting awards this year! I was originally going to do an all-Oscar nominee banner, but I realized exactly how depressing it was for me to have a group without Garfield, Peet, Kunis, Teller, Stone and Damon in particular, so I decided to use this group instead! And what a diverse group it is, no? (Not in ethnicity--these actors are whiter than Wonder Bread.) Everything from a masterful comedic performance (Stone) to two of the most self-lacerating performances of the year (Kidman and Peet) to truly enigmatic performances (Hardy, Cotillard and Weaver) to performances with great heart (Garfield, Teller, Firth and Rush).

I plan on keeping this up for the rest of the year and changing at the time of the next Awkwards, provided the response to the new banner is good.

So...what do you guys think? Let me know how it looks in the comments!

*Yes, I know, there was originally a tie between Damon and Kieran Culkin for Best Supporting Actor, but I broke it afterward. Same with why Jeff Bridges and Naomi Watts no longer appear while the Blue Valentine stars do--while the one-week release disqualified the film from the original awards, the performances are too good not to include now.

Beyond the Awkward: Prognosticators React

2011-01-26T07:33:00.000-08:00

Last week, Awkward is What We Aim For hosted its first Beyond the Awkward feature with four special guest prognosticators to help predict the Oscar Best Picture race. In the wake of this morning's arguably underwhelming nominations, let's get the thoughts of our guests, Andrew Sheridan, Dani Gregorie, Brandon Cudequest and Jonathan Crossley on exactly how they feel yesterday morning went.

On the whole, the group was disappointed with the nominations, particularly the snubs of Andrew Garfield, Mila Kunis and Christopher Nolan. But a couple of them have very disparate opinions on The Town and The Fighter.

Jonathan Crossley
Thanks, World, for Michelle Williams, the Best Documentary nod for Exit Through The Gift Shop, Day and Night's inclusion, The Town not being nominated for Best Picture, and The King's Speech receiving the love it deserves. On the other side: Christopher Nolan snubbed. Is this the real twist ending to Inception? No Ryan Gosling. I shed a single tragic tear for my man-crush. True Grit's dominance in general. David O'Russell's Best Director nod and Jeremy Renner's Supporting Actor nod I could really do without.

Brandon Cudequest
It doesn't seem like the Academy does 'sweeps' anymore. Not, at least, in the past two or three years. The King's Speech got 12 nods, True Grit got 10... but what does that even mean anymore? Maybe it's for the best, so that we recognize an individual's achievements, not the work's. If that's the case, why give a film so many nominations? Do both those films really deserve all those nominations? I'm surprised Black Swan didn't find its way into more technical craft awards. Unstoppable of all things can randomly get nominated, but not a thought for Black Swan? I'm happy, but not exuberant.

Andrew Sheridan
Here's what I'm happy about: Best Actress nods for Nicole Kidman and Michelle Williams. The entire Cinematography category. The Fighter for Original Screenplay. Day and Night getting nominated for Animated Short. Past that, we have a snub for Ryan Gosling, Hailee Steinfeld's placement in Supporting Actress despite the fact that she's in every scene, snubs for Christopher Nolan, Andrew Garfield and Mila Kunis, Black Swan snubbed for Original Screenplay, Costume Design and Makeup, and Winter's Bone over The Town for Best Picture. Not happy.

Dani Gregorie
I could literally go on a rant for half an hour about how upset I am that Andrew Garfield got snubbed. It would mostly revolve around his flawless Miami accent, so I won't bother because you all would probably think I'm crazy. But I am VERY upset he got snubbed. I am also don't understand why Mark Ruffalo is in there and not him! WHY? And no Mila Kunis? Really? How could they snub her? She made that movie for me. Without her you can't really tell that Nina is crazy. Lastly, Hailee Steinfeld deserves Best Actress category placement--making her Supporting is total crap.

Any comments on their comments? What snubs are we all forgetting to be angry about? As always you can check out Jonathan Crossley fiddling at Hunting Yeti (but don't worry, it's not like he was going to extinguish Rome anyway), and take your comments below!

Oscar Nominations Trivia: Original Women

2011-01-25T23:58:00.000-08:00

Now that some of the annoyance with a few key snubs has subsided, I've started taking a closer look at the nominations and what it all means, exactly, as well as a few fun facts here and there that I find worth discussing. But first, a discussion of what I consider the two most egregious acting snubs this morning: those of Mila Kunis and Andrew Garfield.


"Someone's hot for snubbing!"

I know, there are other snubs that could be considered more surprising, like the lack of love for Ryan Gosling for Blue Valentine and Robert Duvall's exclusion for Get Low. But what I find so hideous about the Kunis and Garfield snubs is that they are effective statements that young actors in true supporting roles are unwelcome in the race.

Garfield was displaced by John Hawkes, certainly a good villain in Winter's Bone but lacking a certain heart. Other than Jennifer Lawrence, that movie lacked heart completely--it was a cold film without any emotional entry point, in my opinion. (Then again, I didn't really like Lawrence's performance, so that might have something to do with it.) I don't know why someone like Hawkes who, yes, does nomination-worthy work, should be considered a replacement for a truly authentic, relatable performance as Garfield's. (If I had my way, I would have removed the co-lead Christian Bale or Geoffrey Rush instead of Garfield, though Rush was actually my runner-up for the prize--then again, Garfield was my winner.)

Kunis I don't have the same personal passion for, but I consider a symbol of their half-hearted acceptance of Black Swan, which I resent. They love the film, they love the lead actress, they love the direction--what about the screenplay? The visual effects? The art direction? The costume design? The makeup? The supporting cast? If Kunis had made it in, or Hershey, or Ryder, I wouldn't be so upset. But no, Hailee Steinfeld made it in for her category-fraudulent performance in True Grit. It's irritating.

All right, I'm done venting. Onto the trivia!

The Best Actress Category: All Characters
I'm really fascinated by this--compare the Best Actress category to the Best Actor category. In the Best Actor category, you have the three frontrunning men playing famous figures (Colin Firth as King George VI, Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, and James Franco as hiker Aron Ralston) with a fourth playing a famous character (Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn). Javier Bardem, a surprise nominee for Biutiful as the miserable Uxbal, is the only actor playing an original character. The Best Actress race, however, is filled with women playing flawed, original characters--Annette Bening as Nic in The Kids Are All Right, Natalie Portman as soon-to-be-iconic Nina Sayers, Nicole Kidman as Becca Corbett, a role originated by Cynthia Nixon in the Broadway production of Rabbit Hole, Michelle Williams as Cindy in Blue Valentine, and Jennifer Lawrence as Ree Dolly in Winter's Bone. It's an interesting distinction in two different ways: one, that there truly are great roles being written for women, and two, that movies about famous men are far more common.

Nolan's Snub: Three Strikes, He's Out?
There has been but one other director nominated thrice for the Directors' Guild of America Award without being nominated once for the equivalent Academy Award before Inception's Christopher Nolan: Rob Reiner, famed director of When Harry Met Sally... and A Few Good Men. Reiner remains, to this day, without an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. It seems like Nolan is going to be relegated to the same fate--they just don't like what he does, sadly.

The King's Comeback
The King's Speech didn't make it through the early phase of the awards season very well, but getting 12 nominations this morning is certainly a nice achievement. Most prognosticators have swapped their allegiance to TKS over The Social Network now--I'd urge them to remember that the movie with the most nominations doesn't always win (Slumdog Millionaire over The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). I'm sticking with The Social Network. But it seems like a real race now.

Obvious Winners
By now, everyone seems to wholeheartedly believe that Portman, Firth and Christian Bale have their Oscars locked up--I'd agree with them. A lot of bluster will be made over whether Bening can beat Portman--just remember the past two years how Meryl Streep couldn't overcome Kate Winslet or Sandra Bullock despite vastly better performances. Firth and Bale are completely locked, but I don't think that Melissa Leo is locked up in the same fashion. I'd say that she's probably in second or third place right now--I'd place better odds on Amy Adams and (possibly) Jacki Weaver to swoop in and take the prize. The Supporting Actress race just seems too loose and open to surprises.

White Oscars
Finally, and this isn't something I usually wax on about, but watching Mo'Nique deliver the nominations announcement this morning (eloquently and with poise, as always), it was really shocking how white all the faces of the acting nominees were. It just proves a reminder to Hollywood that there are so many wonderful women and men of color working today, like Forest Whitaker, Denzel Washington, Djimon Honsou, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson, Kerry Washington, Mo'Nique, Gabourey Sidibe, Halle Berry and Idris Elba. To waste them is a crying shame--even though five of the aforementioned are Oscar winners, their work since then just hasn't been the same, and it's not because of their abilities--it's because of the parts Hollywood gives them.

Any more bits of trivia I missed? What do you make of all the original parts for women? Take those thoughts to the comments!