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

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!

Why The King's Speech Should Not Win Best Picture

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.

The King's Speech Rises Above All Competition

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

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?

Banner Year

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

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.

Oscar Nominations Trivia: Original Women

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!

Oscar Nominations Announced!

Oscar nomination morning has come and gone, and we are left with a strange group of nominees. Certainly, most, if not all, are deserving, but there were a few strange occurrences.

For example, 127 Hours wound up being way stronger than most predicted, and Black Swan a lot weaker. Academy voters were dumber than assumed and nominated Hailee Steinfeld as a Supporting Actress. The directors' branch ignored Christopher Nolan for Inception, proving their bias against him after three different DGA nominations that weren't converted to Oscar nominations. And the snubs for Mila Kunis and Andrew Garfield particularly sting.

Final Oscar Nomination Predictions Updated

We're so close to Oscar nomination morning! Only two days left. The Producers Guild of America just threw the race into a major loop with their prize going to The King's Speech, stopping The Social Network's total dominance. What will that mean on Oscar morning? Predictions updated on the tab above--read some analysis after the jump.

The Best of the Best: Ballerinas, Broken Hearts and Boys Being Boys

If you've looked at The Awkwards By Year tab recently, you'll notice that Blue Valentine has replaced The Social Network at #2 for 2010--as I mentioned when first writing the Awkwards for 2010, Valentine's one-week release rendered it ineligible for the awards the first time around. If it had been eligible, not only would it have made #2 on the Best Picture roster, it would have been runner-up for Best Actress (Michelle Williams) and probably placed in several other categories as well (though I can't choose any category it'd win). But even though I placed it at #2, I'm still not confident of how my top three would look.


Let's face it--there are really no three more different movies than these. In fact, despite all being well-rounded and fully-formed films, they are each an achievement of a different art: Black Swan is the ultimate director's film, with a crazed, fully realized vision, Blue Valentine is the ultimate actor's film, filled with lived-in performances and a brilliant mix of scripted and improvisational acting, and The Social Network is a writer's movie, featuring one of the best screenplays ever written.

I say this more than enough, but it's a shame that all three of these films had to be released in the same year. They will, in my mind, all stand the test of time as works of art, films that set out with a purpose of narrative and fulfilled it completely. One is a psychosexual thriller that acts as a horror film for anyone involved in the arts. One tells a story (not a retelling of events, but a story) about how the site that drives our lives was made. And one is a portrait of a collapsing marriage that breaks your heart with no mercy.

There is so much to love, so much to respect and so much to really respond to in all these films. Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling and Jesse Eisenberg are all giving the performances of a lifetime. Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are all showing exactly what they're capable of. Winona Ryder, Rooney Mara, Armie Hammer and Brenda Song are showing that there are truly no small parts, only small actors--and they are most certainly not small actors. Darren Aronofsky is letting his art take him to his peak. David Fincher is reining himself in for the first time in his career. And Derek Cianfrance is establishing himself as one to watch.

There is indeed so much to love about these films, but what is perhaps most important is that they show us how modern cinema is not dead. There are films out there that are beyond the remakes and sequels you see everywhere. There are films beyond the traditional genre molds. There are films that are still what film truly should be: art, exquisite and beautiful. These are the films of the year--they could be in any order depending on the day, but they are the best. Black Swan, Blue Valentine and The Social Network: truly the Best Pictures of the year.