Marcus, Alex, Diane, & Sam: 83rd Academy Awards Selection

Marcus:
Best Visual Effects: Inception (From the moment I saw the trailers, I knew.)

Best Film Editing: Black Swan (Because I imagine it's hard to juggle scenes of people going crazy offstage and scenes of following around dancers on stage, then have them converge seamlessly together. Also I may have flipped a coin on this one.)

Best Costume Design: The King’s Speech (Because you can't be the King without kick-ass shoulder tassels.)

Best Makeup: The Wolfman (To be honest I thought most of this was CGI. Shows what I know, but good job with the makeup either way.)

Best Cinematography: Black Swan (It wasn't so much masterful cinematography as it was magically making a camera invisible in a room that was mostly mirrors. That and extreme close ups of hangnails. Fuck.)

Best Art Direction: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (If the person in charge of finding set locations was not the highest paid crew member working on this movie then a terrible disservice was done.)

Best Sound Mixing: Inception (Aka how well sounds are combined to create an overall feel. You could feel every second of Inception deep down in your bones.)

Best Sound Editing: Toy Story 3 (Aka the creativity of sound effects that are recorded for use in the movie. What the hell, Toy Story 3's not going to win Best Picture, but it might as well win something other than Best Animated Film.) 

Best Original Song: “We Belong Together” - Toy Story 3 (Because Randy fucking Newman, that's why)

Best Original Score: Inception (Forget Lady Perry and Katy Gaga. Let's face it, Hans Zimmer created the most iconic song of 2010)

Best Animated Short Film: Day & Night (Because it's Pixar and it's adorable, is there even a question?)

Best Live Action Short Film: The Crush (Because I read the summary and liked it better than the other summaries.)

Best Documentary – Short Subject: The Warriors of Qiugang (Haha... Qiugang)

Best Documentary – Feature: Exit Through the Gift Shop (This was one of the few documentaries I've seen that engaged me throughout and I really want to see if Banky has some sort of stunt planned for if it wins.)

Best Foreign Language Film: Incendies (National pride.)

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3 (Shut the fuck up.)

Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network (Because you got to hand it to Aaron Sorkin, at the end of the day he made a story where Mark Zuckerberg, a socially awkward man who's personality makes cardboard look sexy, seems like a pretty cool guy.)

Best Writing – Original Screenplay: Inception (Christopher Nolan wrote this whole thing by himself, kept track of the whole story line and everything, presumably without giving himself a nosebleed. Considering he got snubbed in the director category, I want him to have this one.)

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams (I'm torn between both the leading women in The Fighter. Adams and Leo both gave powerhouse performances, but at the end of the day I'm making my decision based on the fact that the porch-side conversation between Adams and Christian Bale was the most powerful moment of the movie.)

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (He owned this part and it's about time he got his dues. No matter how weird the guy is, nobody can deny he's a great actor.)

Best Actress: Natalie Portman (If you need to ask, you haven't seen Black Swan. Watch it and just try to compare her to any other female performance this year.)

Best Actor: Colin Firth (He's such an under-appreciated actor, but he's so in his element with this role, it'd be a shame if he didn't win.)

Best Director: David Fincher (If he wins, it will not be a win for The Social Network, it will be a win for Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, and Benjamin Button combined)

Best Picture: Black Swan (Because I want to live in a world where a movie about Facebook is not considered the best piece of cinematic art made the whole year, and Black Swan was so very, very good. I didn't see The King's Speech, so maybe my choice is uninformed, but I find myself not too beat up over the fact that I missed it, and this is just my personal preference, after all, so I'm content with my pick.)


Alex:
Best Picture: The Social Network. (Marcus and Sam disagree, but they aren’t the boss of me!)
Best Actor: Colin Firth, King’s Speech. (I’ve seen True Grit, The Social Network, and King’s Speech, and Firth had the best performance among the nominations I’ve seen. But I’ve heard Bardem’s and Franco’s performances are better, so don’t listen to me.)
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter. (Luckily Bale fucking crushed his part, so we’re saved the Oscar going to someone just acting angry, like Renner did in The Town. I heard Hawke was fantastic though.)
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Natalie Portman, Black Swan. (Portman wins because I’ve only seen her performance, which was really good. Also she is Natalie Portman).
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Melissa Leo, The Fighter. (Fucking crushed it).
Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3. (Best Pixar movie ever? Best Pixar movie ever).
Art Direction: Inception (I don’t really understand what this category is)
Cinematography: Black Swan (Although I do love me some great western pan’o’ramas, the visuals of Black Swan was really what made a story about a skittery ballerina fucking terrifying).
Costume Design: True Grit (A Coen Brothers movie has to win SOMETHING).
Directing: Darren Aronofsky (see Cinematography)
Documentary Feature: Exit Through the Gift Shop (Just to see if Banksy would show up/what he (she?) would do).
Documentary Short Subject: Strangers No More (Puts nominations on wall, puts on blindfold, throws dart)
Film Editing: The Social Network. (The change of time settings, and the quick pace were two of the aspects of the movie I enjoyed the most).
Foreign Language Film: Biutiful (For Javier Bardem, and the precedent of movies with words being misspelled in the title being good).
Makeup: Barney’s Version. (Paul Giamati, and not the Wolfman)
Music (Original Score): Inception. (BWAAAAAAAAAA).
Music (Original Song): Toy Story 3. (Randy Newman!)
Short Film (Animated): Day and Night. (Best Pixar Short ever? Best Pixar short ever)
Short Film (Live Action): God of Love (There are a lot of fucking categories).
Sound Editing: Tron: Legacy (Tron got boned in visual effects so there has to be some make up)
Sound Mixing: Inception (BWAAAAAAAAAA)
Visual Effects: Inception (Please don’t let Alice in Wonderland win).
Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Social Network. (This one seems to be pretty in the bag)
Writing (Original Screenplay): The King’s Speech. (Of the pictures I’ve seen, The Fighter, Inception, and The King’s Speech, the script wasn’t a particularly strong component of any of them. So… King’s Speech)


Diane:
Best Visual Effects: Inception (because you can’t imagine a train approaching without some damn good visual effects)
Best Film Editing: Black Swan (oh the mirrors!)
Best Costume Design: The King’s Speech (all period pieces win best costume)
Best Makeup: The Wolfman (the only one with not human makeup)
Best Cinematography: A tie for me between Black Swan and Inception
Best Art Direction: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (because the movie was nothing but landscapes for good two hours)
Best Sound Mixing: The King’s Speech
Best Sound Editing: Toy Story 3 (because the sound of toys screaming doesn’t get there on their own you know! [it gets there by torturing the Korean kids who make the toys])
Best Original Song: “We Belong Together” - Toy Story 3 (I could be wrong now…BUT I DON’T THINK SO!)
Best Original Score: How To Train Your Dragon (Congrats Dreamworks, you won….something)
Best Animated Short Film: Day & Night (It was played before a Pixar movie, by associative Pixar property it shall win!)
Best Live Action Short Film: Na Wewe (One word: AFRICANS)
Best Documentary – Short Subject: Strangers No More (I’m tired of watching depressing documentaries and overall the message is uplifting and universal)
Best Documentary – Feature: Waste Land (While I normally watch documentaries like Inside Job, it wasn’t telling a story the population did not already know. Waste Land should have been nominated for best art direction as well because it was absolutely beautiful)
Best Foreign Language Film: Biutiful (Silly Marcus, a Canadian film isn’t foreign enough)
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3 (PIXAR! PIXAR! PIXAR!)
Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network (I hate to say it, but they’ll win this one)
Best Writing – Original Screenplay: Inception
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale
Best Actress: Natalie Portman (One of her best performances ever)
Best Actor: Colin Firth (So help me if Jesse Eisenberg wins I will shit a brick!)
Best Director: David Fincher
Best Picture: Black Swan (Toy Story 3 in close 2nd)


Sam:
Best Visual Effects: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part I (The longer the movie, the harder special effects are. Also, I hate to say this, but the potter franchise needs at least one Oscar before it’s over.)
Best Film Editing: Black Swan (The editing was seamless and made the story flow amazingly.)
Best Costume Design: The King’s Speech (It isn’t set in modern day. BOOM)
Best Makeup: The Wolfman (This movie was so poorly received for being so freaking good. It was a real throwback to the wonderfully hokey monster movies of the 40’s and 50’s and the make up did the style justice.
Best Cinematography: True Grit (Until Roger Deakins is discovered to be a robot that the Coen brothers made so they could win cinematography Oscars without breaking union codes, my vote is firmly with this guy.)
Best Art Direction: Inception (The maze motifs and folding building stuff and all the cool locations like the snow palace and Saito’s Japanese fortress really make me appreciate the art direction of this film. Nod to Harry Potter)
Best Sound Mixing: True Grit (Believe it or not, the sound guys had to do extensive audio clean up to make Jeff Bridges’ lines as coherent as they are in the film.)
Best Sound Editing: Inception (The sheer epic scale of this film, with constant quick cuts and multiple layers of sound in the action sequences, really shows there was a higher level of labor being executed off camera.)
Best Original Song: “We Belong Together” –Toy Story (If you play it backwards, its “Short People”. And if you play it forwards, its not AR Rahman.)
Best Original Score: 127 Hours – A.R. Rahman (I mean if people though Jai-ho was good….)
Best Animated Short Film: The Lost Thing (Shaun Tan is a remarkable artist whose cryptic looks at worldly problems always leave his readers amazed and warm on the inside. I truly want to adapt his book “The Arrival” as a feature film because of how awesome he is.)
Best Live Action Short Film: The Confession (because Martin McDonagh didn’t write a movie this year)
Best Documentary – Short Subject: The Warriors of Qiugang (It sounds the coolest out of all the nominees. Don’t judge me for not seeing any short subject documentaries this year)
Best Documentary – Feature: Inside Job (The topicality of the subject really pulls this one to the front. It’s also very professionally made and is very clean cut. Exit Through the Gift Shop is disqualified in my opinion for the potential of it being a hoax. Also, if it won, that would defeat its purpose.)
Best Foreign Language Film: Biutiful (It’s been a while since Mexico has been represented in the nominees which is strange considering how great their film industry is. Also, JAVIER BARDEM. You do the math, friendo)
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3 (All I can say to the unfortunate other nominees: Sucks to suck!)
Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network (not what I want, but lets face, Hollywood has been duped several times by Aaron Sorkin)
Best Writing – Original Screenplay: The King’s Speech (IT NEEDS MORE AWARDS)
Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld (She was great. There is no denying that. What a spunky little teen who had to climb a giant tree and ride a horse across a river. That’s right! She did most of her own stunts. Not the snake pit though, they pushed a midget down a hole for that one)
Best Supporting Actor: Geoffrey Rush (I think Christian Bale is a phenomenal actor, but he’s too freaking weird. Geoffrey Rush is grounded and normal and plays a great eccentric character who you just want to sit in a cottage with next to a fire and have him read you a Beatrix Potter story)
Best Actress: Natalie Portman (Her performance was PERFECT. She truly has a great hold of how to show emotion. Yet, she never sacrifices subtlety.)
Best Actor: Colin Firth (Blah blah blah blah blah blah Good Stutter Blah blah blah)
Best Director: David Fincher (I’m so glad they are finally giving him his Oscar for Fight Club and Seven and Benjamin Button. Let me make this a little clearer. THE SOCIAL NETWORK IS NOT WINNING THIS CATEGORY. DAVID FINCHER’S DIRECTING OF EVERY OTHER MOVIE IS)
Best Picture: The King’s Speech (It is the most pleasant film ever. The story is compelling. Not a single actor is less talented than another in it. It’s the only film nominated in this category to feature Brendan Gleeson. Most audiences, focused on the inspirational story, missed the universal meaning it addressed as well as the heightened level of filmmaking being displayed. It is simply the most polished movie. Each other film has at least one gaping flaw. This one is practically spotless.)


The Final Results:
I come in dead fucking last with 9 correct guesses.
Sam and Diane tie for second with 11 correct picks apiece.
Congrats to Alex, who got a total 13 correct picks.

Marcus: Reservoir Dogs (1992)

          What would you say if you walked into a warehouse and found a bunch of dead men in matching suits, a dead police officer duct taped to a chair surrounded by a pool of gasoline, a severed ear, and a lot of cigarette butts? I'll tell you what you'd say. You'd say, "Holy crap, this is from Reservoir Dogs, isn't it? I freaking love that movie," and you'd be correct on all counts because Reservoir Dogs has become iconic to the point where posters depicting the opening scene are hung in the rooms of douchebags everywhere, and the song "Stuck In the Middle with You" can give a guy nightmares.
          Reservoir Dogs is the directorial debut of Quentin Tarantino (at least it is to those of you who have never heard of "My Best Friend's Birthday") and the film does a great job of introducing Tarantino's prowess behind (and to some extent, in front of) the camera. Now, I'm no great connoisseur of everything Tarantino. I love most of his stuff, and the reason for that is that rather than have a familiar style to his movies, he infuses them with a familiar feel. The films are eclectic, but you watch one and you can just feel that it's Tarantino behind the camera. I'm going to change the subject now because reading back the last few sentences, it seems like I'm high. Or a douchebag.
          Reservoir Dogs follows the lead up to, and consequences of, a botched diamond heist, without actually showing the heist itself. "But wait a minute," you may find yourself asking, "how can a movie be any good if it doesn't show the climactic scene?"
          "Well, you ignorant putz," I would respond, "it works because Quentin Tarantino understands that the events that take place between the major plot points are just as interesting, if not more so, than the plot points themselves." And it's absolutely true. We're not shown the diamond heist because ultimately, this movie is about the characters, and characters have no place to develop during a shootout. All they can do is shoot, whereas afterwards they can reflect and grow and communicate with each other and the audience can get a sense for who they are. Now of course that isn't the only purpose of the movie, but I like to think it helps, and it's a hell lot more interesting leaving some mystery as to what exactly happened rather than showing us another cookie cutter shootout scene (note to self: fight scene between holiday themed cookie cutters, eg. easter bunny shaped cookie cutter vs. Christmas angel shaped cookie cutter = terrible idea). Anyways, it's because Tarantino takes such care in creating interesting characters rather than just shoving boring people into a gunfight that we get a discussion at the beginning of the movie about tipping waitresses that is infinitely more fun to watch than the diamond heist would be.
          I'd also mention that just because the movie doesn't feature the botched robbery doesn't mean the main hub of action has been removed. The real climax of the movie comes when the growing friction between the fellow robbers creates a distrust that leads to a vicious Mexican standoff, which Tarantino seems to use frequently in his movies and always makes it more exciting than the actual firing of weapons.
          Here's a quick rundown of the major characters in this film, in a final attempt to get you to see this movie if you haven't already;
          Mr. White: Harvey Keitel. A smart, cunning, but ultimately sympathetic robber who doesn't put up with any bullshit, and his guilt at getting Mr. Orange shot is what drives him throughout most of the film.
          Mr. Orange: Tim Roth. An undercover cop hoping to catch the guy who organized this whole heist. Gets shot by a civilian woman while fleeing the robbery and spends most of the film bleeding out on a ramp (aka playing the Christ figure).
          Mr. Blonde: Michael Madsen. A psychopath who, according to retellings of what went on  during the robbery, was the main reason things became so hectic and screwed up. He dances  while cutting off a cops ear and splashing him with gasoline before getting shot to death.
          Nice Guy Eddie: Fat Sean Penn. He's actually played by Sean Penn's brother, Chris Penn, who surprisingly died of fat in 2006, though some doctors deny that and say it was merely a chubbiness overdose. He wears a light blue track suit and gets shot.
          Joe Cabot: Lawrence Tierney. The mastermind behind the whole diamond heist. His description is best summarized by Mr. Orange in the film, "Motherfucker looks just like The Thing (from the Fantastic 4)."
          Mr. Pink: Steve Buscemi.
          I think I'll end on the excellent note that is Steve Buscemi.