Golden Globe Awards: Results

Here are the winners in the movie categories at the Golden Globes. The blue correspond to my correct predictions and the red corresponding to predictions which were wrong.

Best Motion Picture – Drama
* The Social Network
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
* The Kids Are All Right
Best Director – Motion Picture
* David Fincher for The Social Network 
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture
* The Social Network: Aaron Sorkin
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
* Colin Firth for The King’s Speech
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
* Natalie Portman for Black Swan

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
* Paul Giamatti for Barney’s Version

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
* Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right 
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
* Christian Bale for The Fighter
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
* Melissa Leo for The Fighter
Best Original Song – Motion Picture
* Burlesque: Diane Warren (“You Haven’t Seen The Last of Me”) 

Best Original Score – Motion Picture
* The Social Network: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross 

Best Animated Film
* Toy Story 3
Best Foreign Language Film
* In a Better World (Denmark)

Top 10 Movies of 2010

Following the precedent set by my list of Top 10 movies for 2009, this year's list shall only consist of movies that are eligible for the 2010 Oscar and that I also saw in 2010, not just Oscar-eligible movies that I saw whenever or non Oscar-eligible movies that I saw in the last calendar year. Anyway, here is MadProfessah's list of Top 10 movies for 2010 (you can select film names to read my reviews):

10. The Town. This is Ben Affleck's second feature film that he has directed, following an excellent debut with Gone, Baby, Gone. This time he also co-wrote the screenplay and is the lead actor. Affleck wisely cast Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) in the pivotal role as Affleck's character's childhood best friend. The Town features some broad Bostonian accents and some thrilling heist and chase sequences well-executed and well-directed. It is the love story at the heart of the film which makes an indelible impression, however.

9. The Fighter. Directed by David O. Russell and starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale as brothers with Amy Adams and Melissa Leo as their girlfriend and mother, respectively. The Fighter at first glance would appear to be a quotidian example of yet-another boxing film attempting to ape Rocky, but it is energized by an incendiary performance by Bale as a quirky, crack-addicted, former boxing champ who is trying to train his older brother to a world title. Leo and Adams are also excellent in their somewhat confined roles, while Wahlberg is surprisingly very good indeed. And it's based on a true story!

7. True Grit. Who in their right mind would try and adapt an Oscar-winning classic Western and cast an unknown in their debut movie role in the film's central character? The Coen Brothers, of course! True Grit stars Jeff Bridges in the role which John Wayne won his Oscar and Matt Damon plays the second male lead. Introducing Hailee Steinfeld (remember that name) as the 14-year-old girl who wants revenge for the murder of her daddy and who gets more than she bargained for. The cinematography is stunning and the language of the original book the movie is based on is highlighted in a delightfully entertaining way.

7. The King's Speech. Appears to be genetically designed for Oscars: a period picture (London between World War I and II), more legendary British actors than you can shake a stick at, a lead character with a personal disability he needs to overcome in order to succeed at his job and a quirky supporting character who helps the lead character achieve his goal. Of course, "the job" Colin Firth has to succeed at is public speaking, because he is the King of England. And the quirky supporting character is played by the always delightful Geoffrey Rush. The film is bolstered by Firth's remarkable performance; he makes the audience feel sympathy for a monarch, never an easy task.

6. 127 Hours. This was the movie which had the most visceral impact on me during the entire year. How could it not? James Franco depicts the real story of a guy who got trapped for more than 5 days and nights in a canyon and hacked his own arm off (with a dull implement, no less) in order to surviver and have the movie of his life directed frenetically by the Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle. I admit that I looked away from the screen during those scenes but I defy you not to watch this film without your heart racing at some point.

5. The Kids Are All Right. Lesbian moms who watch gay porn as foreplay?Ohhhhh- kay. What really makes this surprisingly affecting film is the verisimilitude of the depiction of the relationships and mistakes the characters make as they deal with an emotionally fraught situation: teen-aged kids get in contact with the sperm donor their very different lesbian moms used to create their family. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are equally wonderful as the two leads, but Mrs. Beatty is finally, deservedly, receiving the overdue acclaim (and possibly the statuette) that Hilary Swank has previously denied her (twice!).

4. Waiting for Superman. After seeing this documentary you will be enraged by the way we handle education in this country and the devastating impact this has on children and their (and our) future. The one time I cried in a movie theater all year was in despair realizing that a real person's potential was being disposed of right before my very eyes and there was nothing that I could do about it. Emotionally powerful filmmaking.

3. The Social Network. Film-making of the highest quality: every element just works. From Jesse Eisenberg's annoying "punk genius billionaire" persona, to David Fincher's suspenseful direction of Aaron Sorkin's incredible script punctuated by Trent Reznor's score, The Social Network was the film of the year for 2010. It seizes you from the opening scene and never lets you go.

2. Toy Story 3. Pixar again! Now they are really just ****ing with the rest of Hollywood. Not satisfied with a string of unprecedented successes (11 and counting!) Pixar is now showing that they can make sequels of sequels and they will still be better than 99% of the what the rest of the industry produces.Toy Story 3 in my estimation, is actually the best of the Toy Story films and is in the very top tier of all Pixar films (The Incredibles is still #1 in my book). Even though it is is "just" cartoons, the film's story pack an incredible wallop which allows all members of the audience to either remember their own childhood and the joy of playing with toys, or to experience the film as a delightful romp of toys coming to life. How they are able to repeatedly, unerringly come up with brilliant stories, impeccably executed is one of the wonders of the world. All you can really do is sit back and enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts.

1. Inception. Christopher Nolan is my favorite director, and has been since his feature film debut with Memento. Most of the world knows him for his fantastical box-office success with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight but I love his films (like The Prestige) for the brilliant puzzles, spectacular direction and always, ingenious originality he brings to every endeavor. Even with his reputation I was still dazzled by Inception. A dream within a dream within a dream? A triple ticking-time bomb? Are you kidding me? Inception has all the brilliant film-making of elements of The Social Network and then combines it with a visual feast and a mind-bending screenplay that significant fractions of the tens of millions of people who have seen the film still do not understand. My question is, do you think the top stopped spinning?

The most important (final) scene in Inception

Honorable Mentions: Shutter Island, Kick Ass, How To Train Your Dragon, Winter's Bone.

Oscar Contenders Not Seen in 2010: Black Swan, Inside Job, Carlos, Biutiful. 

OSCARS 2011: PGA Announces Nominees For Best Picture

Here are the nominees for the Best Pictures of the Year according to the Producers Guild of America:

127 HOURS
Producers: Danny Boyle, Christian Colson

BLACK SWAN
Producers: Scott Franklin, Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver

INCEPTION
Producers: Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas

THE FIGHTER
Producers: David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, Mark Wahlberg

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
Producers: Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Celine Rattray

THE KING’S SPEECH
Producers: Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin

THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Producers: Dana Brunetti, Ceán Chaffin, Michael De Luca, Scott Rudin

THE TOWN
Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Graham King

TOY STORY 3
Producer: Darla K. Anderson

TRUE GRIT
Producers: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Scott Rudin

I've seen all of these movies except for Black Swan which I hope to get to this week. Click on the film name to go to my review.

The PGA and the Oscars' Best Picture nominees are often concordant, especially since both organizations moved to 10 nominees in the same year.

SAG Award Nominationss Announced

The Screen Actors Guild award nominations were announced this morning. Since the Actors branch is the largest block of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the SAG Awards often track the Oscar nominations very very closely.

Here they are (courtesy AwardsDaily.com):

Ensemble:
Black Swan
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
The Social Network

Actress, Lead:
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Hilary Swank, Conviction

Actor, Motion Picture
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours

Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, The Fighter
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

Actress, Supporting
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
Mila Kunis, Black Swan
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

I am bitterly disappointed by the absence of Inception from this list.

TIME Magazine Names Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year

Facebook founder and the world's youngest billionaire Mark Zuckerberg has been named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2010.

The editors explain their choice:

At 26, Zuckerberg is a year older than our first Person of the Year, Charles Lindbergh — another young man who used technology to bridge continents. He is the same age as Queen Elizabeth when she was Person of the Year, for 1952. But unlike the Queen, he did not inherit an empire; he created one. (The Queen, by the way, launched a Facebook page this year.) Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is a recognition of the power of individuals to shape our world. For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them (something that has never been done before); for creating a new system of exchanging information that has become both indispensable and sometimes a little scary; and finally, for changing how we all live our lives in ways that are innovative and even optimistic, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year.

The story of the founding of Facebook is depicted in the movie The Social Network starring Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg, adapted from a fictionalization into a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. The movie has been winning several  end-of-year critics awards and must be considered one of the frontrunners for the Best Picture Oscar.