Make an Argument
Ranking this year’s Golden Globe contenders for Best Motion Picture
By Eric Hughes
January 12, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
I’ll start with what I think is the least likely to win – Black Swan – and work my way through the list until I get to the odds-on favorite.
5) Black Swan
Were Black Swan to win Best Motion Picture at the Globes on Sunday, I dare say it’d be one of the biggest upsets of all time. This has less to do with the other films it’s competing against, and more to do with the kind of film Black Swan is. It’s profoundly creepy, and as much as I dug it, I really think I need only see it once (in much the same way I only needed to see Requiem for a Dream – another Aronofsky – once).
Before actually seeing it, Black Swan’s Best Picture nod made a ton of sense. It had great press, it was a product of Darren Aronofsky’s extraordinary mind, it featured Natalie Portman at her (allegedly) absolute best and, probably least important but I’ll list it here anyway, it had a $80,000+ per screen average over its opening weekend. At the time it got nominated – and this still rings true today – it was the hot indie movie. Again, the whole thing made total sense.
I saw Black Swan, and I struggle with the idea of it being a Best Picture nominee. The flick is hellishly dark – extremely chilling, let’s say – and caters more to Natalie Portman and her abilities as an actress than to the ensemble at large. I guess I get caught up in the idea of it competing against the bigger guys because it isn’t as rounded a movie. It doesn’t have the mythology of Inception or the family drama pull strings of The Fighter or the sense of completeness that The Social Network abides by. It’s more or less a vehicle for Portman to amaze us. And though she does, that’s really all I got out of the movie.
With that said, it’s exciting that the Hollywood Foreign Press would select a flick like Black Swan to contend for the big prize. I’d argue it’s a step in the right direction, because Black Swan, among other things, is art. It focuses hard on Portman and favors the close-up over other camera angles. Like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, we oftentimes follow Portman – a view of the world from a few steps behind her. It’s a fantastic style touch, really, that kept me in the moment and at unease.
Anyway, I’d love to see Black Swan pull off such a rare, rare feat – imagine the kind of statement that would make – but it just ain’t gonna happen.
4) Inception
It’s awful nice seeing a flick like Inception earn a rightful spot among the Hollywood elite with its Best Motion Picture nod (and three more Globe considerations to boot). That’s because Inception is that atypical blockbuster that rears its head every few years that goes against the grain of what you’d expect from mainstream film. More than an impressive watch, Inception is smart. Successive viewings of the thing have yielded new insight into Nolan’s thought processes and ideas. (If anything, they’ve made me appreciate his work more so than I did the day I saw Inception in theaters. And I really liked the movie that day).
I like (nay, love) that Inception got a nod, but again, I don’t see it picking up Top Globe on Sunday. A small, but possibly significant reason for this is that Avatar won last year. Yeah, it doesn’t seem right for last year’s kings to affect what wins this year, but the possibility is certainly there. Prior to Avatar, the HFP honored Slumdog Millionaire, Atonement, Babel and Brokeback Mountain. Average budget among the four? Just 21 million – or about eight times what it cost to make Inception. Were it to win, Inception would be the most expensive champion – ignoring that pesky Avatar, of course – since Titanic.
Along these lines, I think Inception is a bit too steeped in mythology to win out against some of the Globes’ more “traditional” contenders. Mythology is good – great, even – but I don’t know that it sustains against, say, periods (The King’s Speech). Inception is epic, but not in the way that The Social Network is. Inception is deep without being deep, you know? So the totem topples or it doesn’t topple – where does that leave us?
3) The Fighter
The Fighter is my least favorite of the bunch, but I feel it stands a better chance at winning Best Motion Picture than the flicks I’ve already discussed for having many of the familiar qualities that help movies like it get nominated time and time again at major award shows. At its heart, The Fighter is a family drama about one central thing, really: Discovering a line, the happy medium, between career and family (if such a line exists). If you can’t have both, then which do you favor? And if you can have both, will the result satisfy?
Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo, in particular, are remarkably great in the movie. Leo’s character, in fact, feels at first a bit stock – a tough, no nonsense mother you know you’ve seen before – but over time she develops her into what turned out to be my favorite part about the movie.
A surprise, though, was Wahlberg. He not only got out-acted by the people I just listed, but got the least amount of sympathy from me as well. I more enjoyed Bale, Adams and Leo, and what they brought to the movie, and kinda think he got his acting nod, too, because the other three did.
2) The King’s Speech
Thanks to a friend who really wanted to check out how Colin Firth stacks up as an actor with a speech impediment, I completed my binge on Golden Globe-nominated movies with an early bird screening of The King’s Speech over the weekend. Firth, actually, is fantastic as King George VI. As is Geoffrey Rush, who reprises his role as Hector Barbossa from the Pirates movies. No, he plays the king’s speech therapist, and together with Firth, acted with some of the best male chemistry I’d seen all year.
The acting, though, was more thrilling for me than The King’s Speech’s story. I think where it goes wrong is it all feels rather basic. Yes, we’re dealing with Britain’s Royal family in the 1930s and ‘40s, yet the only thing the movie really builds to is, yes, the titular speech. I would’ve liked for a little more to chew on.
Personally, I don’t know how The King’s Speech ranks among my favorites of the year yet. I’ve been recommending it to those that ask, sure, but making sure to note that it’s more an actors' movie than anything else. I can see it winning the Globe – it’s that sort of movie – but I think there are a handful of other releases from 2010 that I feel more enthused about.
1) The Social Network
Perhaps you figured it out before you got down here to the bottom, but The Social Network is not only my favorite of the year – something I alluded to on Tuesday in How to Spend $20 – but the movie I think stands the best chance of winning Best Motion Picture at Sunday’s Golden Globes. Here’s what I got:
Jesse Eisenberg is masterful as Facebook architect Mark Zuckerberg. He plays him with just the right amounts of genius, naiveté and asshole – or, I guess, what I suspect Zuckerberg would be like in social settings.
As well, Justin Timberlake is a total gem. He enters the movie in a funny way, and steals just about every scene he appears in.
Aaron Sorkin’s script is razor sharp. It’s zippy, fun, witty and just damn entertaining. I honestly don’t remember an instance of drag. The Social Network just moves.
At its heart, The Social Network is great drama. If it didn’t bounce around so much, it’d work well as a theater production maybe. The changes in scenery alone make it an absurd suggestion, but alas.