Top Ten Feature Films 2010

I really struggled over my top ten list this year. There were maybe six films that were pretty hard locks early on, which only left four open slots for the rest of a field of strong contenders — not a lot of wiggle room in a year with a good many solid films rightfully in contention for top ten lists.

For the most part, I think the films that made the final cut onto my top ten list will not come as a surprise if you know me and the types of films I tend to like more than others.

Some of the films that did not make the final cut for me, though, may surprise you, and I’d like to say a few words about that. First, there were several other films to which I gave thoughtful consideration (and if this had been a Top 20 list, they likely would have been on it); some of them are smaller films, and not all have distribution, so I’d like to recognize their excellence.

They are, in no particular order: For the Good of Others, Secret Sunshine, Father of My Children, The Vicious Kind, The Illusionist, and Shutter Island. I Saw the Devil, which was one of my favorite films at TIFF, would have made my top ten, but since it’s supposed to be released here in March, I’ll hold off and include it next year.

And it might come as a surprise, given the number of artsy films on my list, to learn that the two films that came closest to making my Top Ten list but just missed are Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.

And while I haven’t done a lot of Oscar prognosticating yet, I will say right now that The Illusionist is my pick for Best Animated Film over Toy Story 3, fond as I am of Woody, Buzz and the gang.

There are not any documentaries on my top ten, not because there were no good docs this year, but because I find it very hard to compare features to docs; there’s a reason fests and the various awards separate the categories. So I will have a Top 5 (maybe 10) Docs list in a day or so. Yes, yes, it’s a bit of a cop-out. Sorry. I’d rather put the spotlight on the docs separately, though.

The most notably absent of the major awards-contending feature films on my final list are The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, and The Social Network. Of these, The Fighter came the closest to making the cut, but in the end I found that the acting, for me, was stronger than the writing, and that it was problematic for the supporting characters in the film (particularly Dickie and Alice) to be more flawed and interesting on the surface (which is what the script and director chose to show us) than the main character.

Mark Wahlberg’s younger brother Mickey was the more psychologically complex character in his quieter way, but he wasn’t as showy as Christian Bale’s malnourished crack addict or Melissa Leo’s flamboyant stage mother; that’s a writing and directorial decision that made it hard to know who we were supposed to be rooting for — Mickey? Or Dickie? Or both? Or all of them? That said, there was a subtlety to Mark Wahlberg’s performance that I found very moving, and Amy Adams, reaching outside her comfort zone, is excellent.

I enjoyed The Kids Are All Right, for the most part, but again, for me it was a film driven more by the excellent performances by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore than by the direction or script. I applaud Lisa Cholodenko for her handling of the subject matter and for the originality of the idea, but the execution I found problematic. I already devoted an entire column to this subject, though, so I’ll leave it at that.

And then we have The Social Network by far the most popular kid in the Top Ten lunchroom this year. There’s some good acting in there, and it’s an entertaining enough film, although I still take issue with the way Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed — not so much with Jesse Eisenberg’s performance, which is solid, but with the way the character is scripted by Aaron Sorkin. There are some cleverly edited scenes in there (but if you put them side-be-side with similar scenes from Wall Street 2, are they really head-and-shoulders above?).

I suppose Social Network reflects the “cultural zeitgeist,” and critics love them some cultural zeitgeist about as much as they love seeing reflections of themselves in a movie. It’s certainly true that the last 15 years or so have been a remarkable bit of our societal growth to be a part of. I get that. And as a regular Facebook user, I admit it was kind of cool watching this film and seeing the birth of a website that’s become a regular tool I use in my own work and life to stay connected with friends, family and colleagues scattered far and wide.

But Social Network did not, for me, represent David Fincher’s best effort as a director, particularly when I compare it to the sheer balls of Darren Aronofsky in making the crazy, beautiful Black Swan as a follow-up to The Wrestler, or the brilliance of Chris Nolan in conceiving and bringing to life a starkly daring and creative bit of genius like Inception. It doesn’t match the artistry with which Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy attacked what could have been a Lifetime Movie of the Week in 127 Hours, spinning a a compelling, gorgeously shot film out of a story about a guy stuck alone in a crevice in the wilderness with his arm pinned by a rock. It cannot stand against the meticulous process with which Mike Leigh worked with his cast in crafting Another Year, or the poignant honesty and deep sadness of Rabbit Hole, or the rich, full exploration of what it means to live and to die in Biutiful. These films captured raw, honest, flawed and deeply human characters acting and reacting to each other in ways that make us feel like we have been gifted with a rare and insightful mirrors that reflect back to us our own humanity.

There are some solid performances in Social Network, yes . But even looking at the acting, there’s not a performance in The Social Network that has the depth and soul of Javier Bardem’s dying father in Biutiful, the sheer guts of Natalie Portman’s tragic perfectionist in Black Swan, the anguished loneliness of Lesley Manville in Another Year, the clarity and honesty of Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit. Or for that matter, the chemistry of Chloe Moretz and Nic Cage in Kick-Ass.

You, of course, are free to disagree with what made my list and what did not, and no doubt many of you have your own thoughts to share on why you disagree with my choices and reasoning. That’s the best thing, to me, about top tens — they provide an opportunity to hone down the year and then engage in energetic debate about our choices. My top docs list is coming soon, and after the holidays I’ll break it down further with my picks for who should win at the Oscars, all political BS aside.

All that said, here are my Top Ten Feature Films of 2010:

1. Biutiful
2. Another Year
3. Black Swan
4. 127 Hours
5. True Grit
6. Winter’s Bone
7. Rabbit Hole
8. Inception
9. Blue Valentine
10. Dogtooth

The Agony and Ecstasy of Top Tens

I was having some interesting back-and-forth on Facebook with some colleagues about Top Tens, so decided the subject was worthy of a brief blog post. My mailbox was flooded this morning with a slew of Top Tens from all over the place. I’m always impressed and a little intimidated by folks who can get it together enough to see every single film worthy of contention AND get a top ten list together that early. Myself, I’m aiming for next week, and expect to meet my self-imposed deadline.

So I’ve been busy making my Top Ten list and checking it twice … three times … four times. This has been a good year for movies, overall, but pretty much any year there’s a bit of agonizing when it comes down to making the final, FINAL list. Who makes the cut? Who just gets edged out? Who’s not in the running at all?

Since I don’t live in LA or NY, where the early screenings fairy is most bountiful, there are still a couple films I need to catch (that’s the downside of working in this biz while living in Seattle, but there are so many good things about living here that I can deal). We just got True Grit last night here. Tonight I have to choose between I Love You Phillip Morris and How Do You Know. And I still have a few screeners that are serious contenders to get through. So I expect my own list will be done next week, and then I have my critics’ groups to get year-end voting done with.

But as I was looking over the Top Ten lists that flooded my mailbox this morning in the mad, crazy rush to be first, first, FIRST! with the top tens, a few things struck me. The first is that The King’s Speech, which everyone seems to be assuming is an Oscar frontrunner for Best Picture, is not showing up on a lot of critics Top Ten lists at all. Not that Top Tens are a reliable indicator of Oscar — totally different groups — but still. Don’t you find it odd that this supposed Oscar front-runner didn’t impress enough critics to make their Top Tens? I do.

Another thing I noticed is how many critics are putting The Social Network in the top three on their lists, to which I can only say, “Really?” Look, I heart David Fincher a lot. He’s a fab director. But for me, The Social Network was meh-to-good, not great. It’s not Zodiac, not Fight Club or Se7en. Are there some excellent directorial choices in there? Yes. Great performances? Sure, sure (though I would still argue that Andrew Garfield is more deserving of consideration for Never Let Me Go, in spite of how rapidly that film became unfashionable). Anyhow.

I, like most of the folks I know who are expected to come up with a Top Ten at the end of each year, really agonize over the final cut. I keep a running list starting in January of films that might be in the running, and sometime after Thanksgiving start filtering the likely contenders from the maybes. I put a lot of thought into it, and pretty much everyone I know does the same. Your Top Ten says a lot about your taste in film, and — criminy! — who wants their colleagues to read their list and think they’re an idiot?

Also, I always struggle over whether to include great films that didn’t have US distrib this year. What if they had distrib, but only in Europe? Does that count? How about a film that micro-released with one weekend on one screen in NYC? Should I include fest films that haven’t secured distrib here at all yet? But then what if they do get distrib next year … would I have to include that film twice?

I’ll have my Top Ten list done by early next week, maybe even over the weekend if I really get it together. In the meantime, there’s some good movies coming your way the last couple weeks of the month. You can check out the running list of Top Tens from a slew of critics right here. Maybe perusing those lists will give you some ideas for films you want to catch or at least add to your Netflix cue.

And the Golden Globe Noms Are … Yawnnnn

So, the Golden Globe noms were announced this morning, not that anyone particularly cares. Although I find it kind of funny that entertainment journalists actually get up at the asscrack of dawn to “report” on the urgent news that the HFPA nominated Johnny Depp twice and The Tourist for anything. If every journalist who works in Hollywood would stop pretending the Globes are important as anything other than the Hollywood ass-kissing fest they are, maybe they would go away. Or maybe not. Hollywood does love any excuse to play dress-up, I guess.
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Blue Valentine Gets the Rating It Always Should Have Had

Sweet.

Blue Valentine, which stars Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling in a story that interweaves the beginning and end of a romance (and features some oral sex that some people apparently found controversial) has finally received a revised rating of “R” from the MPAA.

I was just bitching last night after the Blue Valentine press screening with some fellow film journos about how ridiculous it was that the film had been slapped with the dreaded “NC-17” for sex scenes that are far less graphic than those in The Kids Are All Right and certainly no more graphic than a similar girl-on-girl scene in Black Swan.

So congrats to Blue Valentine for the new rating. More on the film itself soonish.

UPDATE: I was concerned that maybe the film had been cut to get the “R” rating, but it was just confirmed to me by a publicist that the version I saw last night is the final cut, and that only the rating was changed. Most excellent.

Voynaristic: The Kids Are (Not Quite) All Right

SPOILER WARNING: This column is an analysis of the film The Kids Are All Right and, as such, contains significant spoilers. You have been duly forewarned.

I realize it’s not the popular thing to say, but I’m going to go out on a limb and tell you that I finally got around to seeing The Kids Are All Right and it was just … all right. Look, it’s not a bad film, by any means. In fact, it may even be a pretty good film. But the best film of the year? Or even in the top ten best films of the year? Not quite. Sure, it’s a hell of a lot better than a lot of movies to which it’s been inaccurately compared, but if I could only put one or two indie films this year seriously in the Oscar race, Winter’s Bone or Biutiful, Another Year or Get Low, would all be way ahead of The Kids Are All Right on my list.
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Review: Black Swan

You wouldn’t know it from its Rotten Tomatoes rating, but Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, Black Swan, was probably the most divisive film at Toronto. Perhaps it was because in the days leading up to the fest we kept hearing such different things about it: Some rumors said it was a callback to the visually compelling, non-linear structure of The Fountain, others said it evoked The Wrestler in the world of ballet.
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Random Thoughts: Of Oscars and Indies

I’m not crazy about the news of Anne Hathaway and James Franco co-hosting the Oscars. Like them both as actors, they’re both smart and certainly capable of being funny, though the SNL hosting history doesn’t impress me as much as it seems to have impressed most everyone else. SNL and Oscars are two completely different animals.

For me, the Oscars host (or hosts) just really needs to be someone who’s primarily a comedian. Someone who’s capable of walking that line between being funny and pushing the star-studded crowd to the very brink of not being sure if it’s okay to laugh at themselves or not. Hugh Jackman was an exception — he’s such a natural live performer that he pulled it off pretty well.

I really liked Steve Martin and Billy Crystal as Oscar hosts, and my pick for this round would have been Tina Fey. But so it goes. I do agree with what David wrote on the Hot Blog about the importance of the writing, especially with two people are are actors and not stand-up comedians in the hot seat. And I’m very much on the fence about the appropriateness of having a likely nominee as a host.

As for the show itself — longer, shorter, no performances of songs, more songs, show the shorts, don’t show them … whatever. Honestly, whatever they do, someone’s going to bitch about it. It is what it is: Hollywood’s big self-congratulatory back-patting fest that’s gotten overgrown in significance as if we’re talking about the Nobel Peace Prize or something.

It’s a nice excuse for everyone to get dressed up and show off the latest gorgeous dresses and be asked who designed their dress and loaned them a million dollars in jewelry. It’s nice to celebrate the movies, and honor those films and performances that were a cut above the mean, sure. And if it helps a film like Winter’s Bone or Inside Job or The Kids Are All Right get a bigger box office take at the end of the day, well, huzzah.

*****

Speaking of indie films …

I’m not sure what the point is of the Independent Spirit Awards anymore. I know and respect many of the nominating committee members, but this year’s noms felt even more predictable and pre-Ocar than usual to me.

Admittedly, there are actually quite a few actual indies on the overall nominations list. But the Best Feature Noms are heavy on the studio-indie labels and otherwise predictable. Ditto with the Best Director nominees. You have to dig down to “Best First Feature” to get to films like Get Low and and Tiny Furniture. And I dunno, “Best First Anything” always sounds to me a bit like “E for Effort.” You were good enough to be a “Best … for a newbie” but not a “Best-best.”

If you burrow all the way down to the John Cassavetes Award you get to what should really be the meat of the ISAs: films like Daddy LongLegs and The Exploding Girl and Lovers of Hate (kind of surprised Trash Humpers isn’t on the list for this one, actually). Then we have Screenplay and “Best First Screenplay” (see above rant under “Best First Feature,” later rinse repeat) and then a slew of mostly predictable, likely Oscar-nom heavy acting nominations. Ronald Bronstein’s a nice surprise there, and some nice noms for Mother and Child and Get Low. And glad to see Jennifer Lawrence get some recognition as she’s likely to get screwed when it comes to Oscars, but other than that, meh.

As for Best Foreign. Well. Biutiful, for me, is notably absent, as is Father of My Children. And if we’re going to have The King’s Speech as a Best Foreign nom and not Best Feature (really?), well, where the hell is Mike Leigh and Another Year? And where’s Lesley Manville in the acting noms? Happy for Greta Gerwig and all, but Manville’s performance in Another Year is one of the best of this year, period.

No real complaints about the doc nominees, nice to see both Sweetgrass and the under-appreciated Thunder Soul in there. But I’d have liked to see The Way We Live on there, even if it is Oscar-shortlisted. And it would have been nice to toss a little love to the Joan Rivers doc.

Maybe what the ISAs really need to do is break down their Feature awards not by “Best” and “Best First” but by budget, or studio-financed versus truly indie, or something. Give more of the smaller, low budget films without the money to buy a lot of promotion and schmoozing a shot.

For my money, the nonfiction Cinema Eye Awards are more about indie film than the Spirits. Look at the Cinema Eye nominees for “Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking. 2011 marks the fourth year of the Cinema Eye Awards, and every year they’ve had a pretty excellent slate of nominees. Not necessarily the biggest moneymakers, but most assuredly some of the best made docs of their years.

This is what the independent film world needs more of: an opportunity for well-crafted films with tiny budgets to have some recognition. Less emphasis on luring celebs and televising the event, more focus on the art of independent film. That’s what I’d like to see, anyhow.

Review: The Lottery

The Lottery, one of 15 films on the Oscar shortlist for documentaries, is one of the most frustrating and infuriating films I’ve seen this year. The film is about Harlem Success Academy, although philosophically it addresses ideas around charter schools generally; it tracks four Harlem families as they anxiously wait to see whether their kids’ names get drawn for the few available kindergarten slots at HSA for the coming school year.
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Things to Be Thankful For

We’re getting an early start to the long holiday weekend around here; Seattle got nailed by an early snow storm, which gave the kids a couple snow days tacked onto the Thanksgiving weekend. So we’ve got the unexpected bonus of a six-day holiday weekend around here, and spirits are high. I hear that Angelina Jolie hates Thanksgiving and doesn’t want to perpetuate celebrating an anniversary of murder, and to that I say, well, good for her, and I guess can see her point.

But for me, Thanksgiving has always been not about the past and Pilgrims and Native Americans, but about the present and the future; it’s a time to take a pause from the hectic pace of life and reflect on the many blessings we have in our lives. Around here, we try to focus with our kids on helping them to be aware of how fortunate we are to have a nice home to live in, plenty of food to eat, warm clothes to wear, jobs that provide the money to support our family. And, of course, to be aware that others are not so blessed, and to make room in our hearts and our budgets to give to those who need a little boost to help them out.

Thanksgiving for me is also about getting mentally geared up for the upcoming Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa season, when we should be as mindful (or more) of giving as well as receiving. This is absolutely my favorite time of the year, and this year in particular my heart feels very full.

I’m very thankful this year for my own good health, and for healthy, happy, well-adjusted kids and a new marriage. I’m immensely thankful to still be employed in a tight economy, and to be able to write and edit for a living when there are many other crappy jobs I could be doing just to make ends meet. I’m thankful for amicable relationships with ex-spouses that allow us to have a crazy, loving, blended extended family where everyone gets along most of the time.

We will be having lots of family time this holiday weekend. In between marathon sledding sessions, warming up with hot cocoa and popcorn by a cozy fire, and delightfully raucous games of Munchkin and Zombie and Chthulu Dice with six kids and two game-geeky grownups, I have big plans this weekend to snuggle up under warm covers and work my way through the stack of screeners beckoning from the foot of the bed.

The screener fairy has been making daily stops by our house, so in between holiday activities and cooking and playing, I’m planning to watch Restrepo, The Kids Are All Right, Road to Nowhere, The Lottery, Somewhere, The American, The Town, Greenberg and Babies. I’m even going to take a second look at Hereafter, and we have both Inception and HP 7.1 to watch again (really loved that movie, though I will enjoy more watching it together with 7.2 after it comes out … I think the pacing will play out better that way).

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the awards-season movies What do you love? What do you hate? Who’s getting overlooked? Who’s overrated? What do you think about this new docs category at Sundance? Are you fine-tuning your own Top Ten list? Do you care about Oscars and Golden Globes and BAFTAs (oh my)?

Happiest of holidays to you and yours. I hope you enjoy your time with friends and family, as I plan to. But if you need a break from hearing Aunt Ethyl’s stories for the 89,000th time, drop on by and let’s chat about movies too. As for me, I have a few more films I need to see yet in addition to the screeners I have here before I can narrow down my own top ten and gear up for voting with my critics’ groups. True Grit, Rabbit Hole and The Fighter are the big ones I have yet to see before I can hone things down seriously. There is much movie-watching to squeeze in around holiday stuff, but this is such a wonderful time of year, I don’t even mind how hectic it gets.

Happy holidays to all, and I’ll see you after Thanksgiving!

Just in Time for the Holidays in Seattle: Heaps of Movie Magic

Holy cow, do we have a lot of awesomeness coming up at SIFF Cinema, which is one of the very best reasons to live in in Seattle. I was just perusing a list of upcoming screenings and events, and here are some of the highlights, my fellow cinephile Seattleites (or non-Seattle friends who’d like to pop up here for a weekend of fun):

SIFF Cinema has your Willy Wonka Smell-o-vision Action coming your way. Plus? The Labyrinth Quote-Along, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: an audience participation version of one of my favorite movies ever. You’ve got your goblins, you’ve your David Bowie as the Goblin King in tight-tight pants and huge hair, you’ve got subtitles for quotable moments, and lyrics to all the songs, all the better for you to get your Labyrinth audience-participation action on. I know some Seattle film writers I’d love to see cosplaying the Goblin King, too. You know who you are.

My teenager is hot to see Kuroneko (and can I just brag that she knew that translated to “Black Cat” before I read that bit to her … all that manga and anime is paying off!). Demons, samurai, and revenge melodrama. Oh yes, bring it on.

Perhaps the most intriguing event slated (for me anyhow) is the dual screening of The Wizard of Oz/The Dark Side of Oz. The former is exactly what it sounds like, but the latter? A merger of the film The Wizard of Oz paired with Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. What?! Sounds trippy and fascinating … I never knew there were connections between the two in lyrics, song titles, even the timing of the music. Intrigued to check this one out.

In February we have a ton of sci-fi/action coming our way. Escape from New York paired with Dark City; Forbidden Planet, followed by a double feature of Serenity and Starship Troopers; Time Bandits paired with Galaxy Quest; and a Spaceballs Quote-Along.

That’s about more movie fun than you can shake a stick at. Between SIFF Cinema, NW Film Forum, our amazing film festival, our seven Landmark theaters, Scarecrow Video, grey and rainy days that encourage movie-watching and, of course, the best coffee you will find anywhere (sorry, Stumptown in Portland, you did not measure up to my beloved Vivace), Seattle is cinephile heaven.

Man, do I love this town.

I Can Be Your Hero, Baby

I was checking up on the weather forecast and school closings this morning, and this story about real-life superheros in Seattle caught my eye. Apparently the Seattle group, which calls itself the Rain City Movement, is part of the larger national group “Real Life Superheroes.”

With films like Kick-Ass and Super, which depict average people deciding to become superheroes, and the popularity of the superhero genre generally, I guess it’s not really surprising that normal folks would decide to become crime-fighter/vigilantes, though I’m not sure how smart an idea it is for your average person with a flashlight and mace to be going up against criminals armed with guns and knives.

One of the things I liked about Kick-Ass is its fairly realistic portrayal of what can happen in a situation like that. Kick-Ass gets his ass kicked. Even the seemingly invincible Big Daddy and Hit Girl find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. Reality meets fantasy and smacks it around, hard.

On the other hand, I can understand the desire of people to feel like they’re doing something to take back their streets and neighborhoods from criminals. The police aren’t always effective, and I suppose it can feel empowering to be a vigilante fighting crime and making the streets safer … until you get shot or stabbed. Myself, I think I’ll keep my own costume-wearing tendencies safely confined to cons. But what about you? Would you ever consider being a Real Life Superhero? And what would your superhero be?

Why You Should Go See Made in Dagenham

Dear readers,

I am taking time out from my honeymoon to bring you this important message:

If you live in a city where Made in Dagenham is getting released this weekend, I’d like to take a moment to encourage you to go see it. Yes, yes, by all means, go see Harry Potter 7.1 first. I know you’ve been dying to see that, I was too.

But then, make the time to get out to support this little Brit film. I reviewed it from Toronto (you can see my full review over here) and liked it a lot. It tells a great story about a little known strike by female factory workers in blue-collar England at the dawn of the feminist movement. It’s fun, it’s a nice femme-themed movie that DOESN’T center around women talking about nothing but men and sex and fashion, and it stars Sally Hawkins and Miranda Richardson in a couple of great performances. AND it has Bob Hoskins. Jeepers, what more do you want?

I’ve read a couple of luke-warmish reviews criticizing some of the characters for being one-dimensional representations, which I actually don’t completely disagree with when it comes to a couple of the supporting characters, but on the balance the performances by Hawkins and Richardson in particular more than made up for that for me. And further, I liked that while it’s a “strong women” film, it’s more about these women who’d always accepted their place as being beneath the men realizing that was wrong, and finding the courage to stand up for what they believed in, and the film conveys this without making all the men out to be complete assholes.

There are several men in the film (Hoskins among them) who are supportive of the women, and even though some of the husbands are shown as going through a period of growing weary of the effect of the women’s strike on their own jobs and their households, they are not uniformly painted as “look, aren’t all men jerks?” but rather as people with flaws, most of whom ultimately come to support the women’s cause in spite of it going against everything they were raised to believe.

So I urge you, give this little film a chance, go out and support it, take your teenage or pre-teen daughters or nieces or granddaughters (and their brothers, too!) to see it. Because we cannot and should not forget all the women who bravely paved the way for where we are now — nor should we forget that even now, the Republicans are fighting President Obama tooth and nail on the issue of equal pay.

So please, go see Made in Dagenham, and judge it for yourself. I promise you, I would not take time out from my brief honeymooon weekend to say this if I didn’t really believe in this little film. It needs your support. Thanks.

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One

SPOILER WARNING: There are minor spoilers in this review for the Harry Potter series, though not, I don’t think, for the particular film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One. Nonetheless, if you’ve never gotten around to reading the Harry Potter books or seeing the prior movies and still, for some reason, want to see this one unspoiled, you’ve been duly forewarned.

Of all the directors who have tackled bringing to life J.K. Rowling’s incredibly popular book series about a boy wizard, David Yates — who took over the series at Book Five, HP and the Order of the Phoenix, when the series takes a considerably darker turn, and has kept on directing since — is my favorite.
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The Kids Are All About Oscar Picks

David and I were talking about the latest Gurus chart, and I made the (half-joking) observation that we should do kind of an anti-Gurus chart of my kids’ random Oscar picks. In the past when I’ve had them choose Oscar winners with random methods including Magic-8 Ball, Twister, Guitar Hero, and “Pin the Oscar on the Donkey’s Butt” they’ve averaged just about as well as folks paid to pontificate on the politics of Oscar Night. Plus, they’ve had a lot of fun doing it.

It just goes to show you, no one really knows anything, maybe not even the people being paid to know about things.

There have been some occasionally heated discussions here and on The Hot Blog about film critics and what “qualifies” someone to write about film. Generally, for what it’s worth, I think having a broad knowledge of film, a passion for movies, and the ability to write about why you like or don’t like a given film in a coherent way that connects with your readership qualifies someone to write about movies, though this is not necessarily the same thing as more purely academic film criticism.

As to what qualifies someone to be or not to be an Oscar pundit, well, that depends, I think, on what you’re looking for. Random guesses abound on the internet, and once you get it down to a Top Ten or so, pretty much anyone who works in any aspect of this business is entitled to offer a qualified opinion on which films or actors they think should win. Understanding the politics involved behind the scenes may be a little more tricksy, but if you’ve kept up at all with the recent history of Oscar winners it’s not terribly difficult for the average person to make educated guesses that are as accurate as (maybe better than) those of the experts.

In the spirit of “the average folks” versus “the experts,” I asked my kids (plus one friend) to give me their early weigh-in on their Best Picture pick based on the Top Ten on the Gurus chart, based on the titles alone if they didn’t know anything else. (For the record, Neve has seen The Social Network and Inception, and all of them have seen Toy Story 3). I also asked them to weigh in on which film had the worst title.

Their not-so-expert opinions are below. I’ll check in with them closer to Oscars for their picks in the major categories. If you have ideas on how they should make their picks this year, let me know.

______________________________

LUKA (AGE 7)

BEST PICTURE PICK: I think Toy Story 3 will win because I really like it. It was kind of sad, but some parts were funny, and it had a really good story. And I think they’re gonna make a Toy Story 4.

WORST TITLE: I think 127 Hours is a really bad name for a movie because no one wants to watch a movie that’s that long. That sounds like a really, really, really long movie. And boring.

______________________________

VEDA (AGE 9)

BEST PICTURE PICK: Toy Story 3, because it was really good and sad and it had great animation and stuff. And great characters like Woody and Buzz.

WORST TITLE: The King’s Speech. Boring. I think it’s about a guy standing there who’s giving a boring speech to try to put everyone to sleep so he can steal the town’s rarest thing.

______________________________

JAXON (AGE 11)

BEST PICTURE PICK: Toy Story 3, because it had really good animation and also it had a really good story behind it.

WORST TITLE: The King’s Speech sounds like a guy standing on a big platform just speaking for two hours. Boring.

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NEVE (AGE 13)

BEST PICTURE PICK: Either True Grit or Inception. Inception because I thought it was very interesting and I liked all the plot twists and how you had to pay attention to every thing or you’d be lost. And True Grit because I loved the trailer and I read the summary and it looks really interesting. No Country for Old Men terrified me, but I appreciated its artistry, so I think this one will be good.

WORST TITLE: The King’s Speech. The title sounds boring, because who wants to see a movie that’s about some guy’s speech? A good title is everything, right? If it’s bad, and people think it sounds boring, no one will come see it. See, this is why I get Veda to help me with my titles for my writing.

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KENDRA (AGE 14)

BEST PICTURE PICK: The name Inception really grabs me. It sounds very dramatic. I also like the sound of Black Swan. That sounds interesting, too.

WORST TITLE: I concur on The King’s Speech. It just sounds really boring. Maybe it’s not, it might be a really good movie, but that’s how it sounds.

Review: Megamind

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: You don’t really need to pay the premium to see Megamind in 3-D. It’s a sharp, nice looking film as it is, but I didn’t find the 3-D elements, though relatively seamless and painless, to be anything I couldn’t live without.
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