Best of Best Picture 2011
By Anthony Daquano
February 22, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Black Swan marks Aronofsky’s third film to land a lead acting nomination and his first Best Picture and Director nomination and deservedly so. I’m still recovering from my first viewing of Requiem for a Dream some seven years ago, but have been hardly been able to do a complete viewing since. However, despite Black Swan’s relentless pace as we spiral into Nina’s psychosis, I knew leaving the theater that I would have to take that trip again. It wasn’t only the crazy mother (Barbara Hershey) attempting to dump a birthday cake in the trash or Winona Ryder realizing the '90s are over that dragged won me over, but the pulsing score and dizzying cinematography mirrored the world of ballet to enhance the hypnotic effect. Aronofsky deftly mixed high art while giving us a pop culture treat in the tandem of Portman and Kunis and resulted in not just my favorite movie of the Academy’s ten but my favorite of the year.
2. True Grit
True Grit may not be the Coens' darkest movie, it may not be the funniest and it may not be the quirkiest but it is certainly the most beautiful. Mattie Ross, an afterthought in the campy John Wayne film, comes to life and stands as one of the Coens' greatest protagonists. Rooster Cogburn, a caricature of John Wayne, becomes a surrogate father in the hands of Jeff Bridges. It may not have the rapid fire wit of The Social Network or display a triumph over adversity, but True Grit may give us the most human relationships of the Academy’s ten this year and for that it deserves to be applauded.
3. Inception
I’ve heard all the criticisms and yes, Inception may not hold up to the same scrutiny on a second viewing, but none of the fun is lost on that second viewing. Regardless, summer entertainment is rarely this enthralling anymore and few big stars produce the level of films DiCaprio has lately. And despite the criticisms that the film allows for too many interpretations, it will likely become one of most talked about movies for Freshman Philosophy classes since The Matrix.
4. Toy Story 35. The Fighter
Another 2010 film focusing on strong family bonds and another film that works despite a well played out story arc. Featuring the strongest cast of the year with what will hopefully bring Christian Bale an Oscar, this family feels real and thus our investment becomes real, despite the familiar faces portraying them.
6. The Social Network
All the critical acclaim has landed on Fincher’s latest, but I’m not convinced it is the modern masterpiece they are calling it, nor am I convinced that it defines my generation. What it does do is provide a modern day tragedy and shows us the fraying of a relationship. Fincher has made better movies (Se7en,Fight Club and Zodiac) but his kinetic direction may be his best here, coupled with terrific performances by Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. Yet, I’m not as sold on the screenplay as everyone else is. For me the dialogue was too strained, too witty and too perfect to be anything but from a writer’s pen.
7. The King’s Speech
Whereas its main competition for the Gold shows us the end of a friendship, the King’s Speech shows us the beginning of a deep relationship between men. It may be typical Oscar bait, but the story is so well told that it is hard to mind. Helping matters from my perspective was my own experience with speech therapy and my struggle with self-image resulting from it. Those Oscar campaign ads about it being a movie you “feel” are not far from the truth.
8. The Kids Are All Right
One of the funniest movies of the year and featuring Annette Bening’s best performance since American Beauty was one of the 2010’s best surprises for me. The movie may mine familiar territory aside from the lesbian angle but the movie succeeds by creating real characters that have strengths and flaws and not making any one of them the “bad” guy. Now if we could have only had seen more of the kids.
9. Winter’s Bone
Despite a trio of great performances, Winter’s Bone left me a little underwhelmed and not quite getting all the hype. Strong characters don’t always make for strong story and the end result was of little consequence, a story set in the back-roads of the Ozarks. Yes, the movie captured the region and yes, the movie has a strong central female character that wants to break from those bonds of poverty, but it still didn’t hook me.
10. 127 Hours
I have a problem with many of Danny Boyle’s films and 127 Hours is no exception. I loved 28 Days Later as a college Freshman, I thought it was a smart, terrifying movie. Then I realized that Boyle had no ending to his movie so he took a page from George Romero to comment on the abuses of the military and that man is evil (also a favorite motif of James Cameron). Sunshine started as a fairly smart science-fiction movie before devolving into an unexciting monster movie. Slumdog Millionaire, while engrossing, is a Dickensian tale told in India with a heavy Anglicized point-of-view. Now 127 Hours uses Boyle’s typical tricked-up filming to cover the fact that he has little story. James Franco saves the movie from being a pretentious mess, by allowing the viewer to sympathize with Aron Ralston’s plight. In a year with a top-notch mainstream thriller (The Town), Scorsese's play on psychological camp (Shutter Island), a harsh family crime drama (Animal Kingdom), actually engaging gimmicks (Buried), an emotionally wrenching relationship drama (Blue Valentine) and a documentary that makes you question the truth (Exit Through the Gift Shop), the Academy was not without a share of worthy replacements.