2010 Calvin Awards: Best Picture
February 12, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com

It's all fun and games until the house lands on the dog, the boy and the old man.
This is the ninth time we have done The Calvins. While we will make a bigger deal of this point next year since the public loves round numbers so much, I mention this now in order to take this opportunity to look back at prior winners. The original selection for Best Picture was The Royal Tenenbaums in 2002. The next three winners are all ones that I'm certain film lovers have seen, About a Boy, Lost in Translation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The choice that caused outrage among our readers, one I fervently believe holds up very well in hindsight, is Serenity. Our group loves those rare action flicks that are done right, an idea we reinforced two years later when The Bourne Ultimatum was our choice for Best Picture. In the middle of those two votes, we named The Queen Best Picture in the 2007 Calvins. Last year's winner was of course WALL-E, which earned a whopping 115 votes on its way to edging out The Dark Knight as our choice for film of the year. Our 2010 awards see a similar result but a much larger margin of victory.

Yes, for the second consecutive year, a Pixar release is our selection for Best Picture. Up not only wins the title but does so with 140 votes, easily the largest scoring total we have had in the seven years we have used the current scoring format. As was the case last year, Up was nominated on the highest percentage of ballots while also garnering the highest number of first place votes to boot. We as a group keep asking ourselves when Pixar is going to disappoint us, but anyone who read the site in 2009 realizes that Up was not the film to do so.

What aspect of Up moves us enough as a collective group to allow Pixar to repeat as champion? The answer can be found sprinkled throughout the rest of the voting in this year's Calvins, particularly in the Best Scene category. The biography of Carl featuring his relationship with Ellie is as heart wrenching as the cinema format allows. With his complete devotion to her, the bitter loneliness he feels in her absence overflows into all other aspects of his life now that he has come to the twilight years of it. When a young, well intended boy in desperate need of not just parental guidance but attention itself arrives at Carl's door, the viewer immediately recognizes exactly how much the duo needs one another. Moments later, Carl releases the balloons and thereby untethers both boys from the ties of their sadness. Pixar's producers have pointed out that the animation of Up is crafted in such a manner that it reinforces their character flaws. Such is the CGI animation pioneer's attention to detail that they demonstrate behavioral patterns in every aspect of each drawing. We as a site are in awe of Pixar's storytelling ability, which simply makes us part of the masses when it comes to their films, for they are the gold standard in the movie industry. Up is simply their latest masterpiece as well as a worthy selection for Best Picture of the year.

A distant second place in this year's race for Best Picture is our selection for Best Overlooked Film of the year, The Hurt Locker. The Kathryn Bigelow exploration of the lives of unwanted American soldiers in the Middle East is spectacular. Its evaluation of how specialists uncover and neutralize explosives creates a singularly unique viewer experience. We are forced to watch as the men are treated as unwelcome aggressors as they try to protect the locals from disaster all the while. The half a dozen or so instances when the soldiers flip from combat readiness to in-assignment discipline (or lack thereof) are searing in tone. One moment, these are soldiers at their barracks trying to buy a pirated DVD and the next minute they are manning an unsecured position, attempting to ascertain whether the onlookers are rubbernecking or attempting to spill American blood. This film is an exploration of soldiers' addiction to adrenaline while simultaneously providing a similar rush to the audience.

The rest of our top five this year is comprised of Inglourious Basterds, District 9 and Up in the Air. Quentin Tarantino's film has acquitted itself quite well at The Calvins this year and the reason for that is simple. He chose the perfect broad target in order to counterbalance his ordinarily over-the-top style of cinema to make it more palatable. District 9 is Neill Blomkamp's way of telling all the financiers who dropped out of Halo that they made a huge mistake. His film premise is to take a Borat-ish character and subject him to horrors straight out of A Clockwork Orange. The end result is a hallmark cinematic achievement for anyone but it is all the more noteworthy for a first time director. Up in the Air is Jason Reitman's latest triumph, something of an emotional successor to In Good Company but a better and timelier exploration of similar themes.

The 800-pound box office gorilla of the year, Avatar, is our sixth place selection. Our staff was tormented over what to do with this, the shiniest movie ever made. The problem we faced is that many of us have argued that once you take away the special effects from films like Star Wars and Jurassic Park, there isn't much left in terms of story. While Avatar's special effects are truly special, and historically so, that same argument applies here. We love the sizzle but we note the ordinary nature of the steak itself. If Avatar proves to be equally as absorbing on our home theaters, we'll regret this choice but we are expecting this to be a title that plays much better in theaters than it does long term in our homes. Meanwhile, the opposite is true of Star Trek, the third science fiction film in our top ten (you fell one short, Academy Awards voters!). It doesn't hide behind spectacular visuals but instead places the focus squarely upon the characters, particularly the ones who drove the success of the franchise in the first place, Kirk and Spock. The end result is exactly the sort of tight action piece J.J. Abrams previously demonstrated he could produce in Mission: Impossible III.

State of Play, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Hangover are our final three selections for the year. State of Play, based on the BBC mini-series, offers Russell Crowe's best performance in many years as he finally decides not to sleepwalk through a role. Fantastic Mr. Fox shows that Wes Anderson may be better equipped for the meticulously detailed world of animation than he is for regular features. And The Hangover has Mike Tyson playing air drums before punching out that annoying guy from The Office. What more could we ask from it?

Coraline, Watchmen and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were the films that were just a few votes short of nomination. As we have done the past couple of years, rather than list just those few notable titles that missed the cut, we will instead list the top 25 films to receive Best Picture votes in the 2010 Calvins. (David Mumpower/BOP)

Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Breakthrough Performance
Best Cast
Best Director
Best DVD
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Best Videogame
Worst Performance
Worst Picture