Oscar Picks

The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be held on Feb 27, 2011.

The Oscar is the most prestigious award in Hollywood and almost ever actor dreams of being apart of it. 2010 was in my opinion not a strong year in film but there are deffinetly a few standouts.

Here are my picks for the 5 Major Awards











Best Picture

-Black Swan

-The Fighter

-Inception

-The Kids are Alright

-The King's Speech

-127 Hours

-The Social Network

-Toy Story 3

-True Grit

-Winter's Bone





Best Actor

-Javier Bardem - Biutiful

-Jeff Bridges - True Grit

-Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network

-Colin Firth - The King's Speech

-James Franco - 127 Hours





Best Supporting Actor

-Christian Bale - The Fighter

-John Hawkes - Winter's Bone

-Jeremy Renner - The Town

-Mark Ruffalo - The Kids are Alright

-Geoffery Rush - The King's Speech





Best Actress

-Annette Benning - The Kids are Alright

-Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole

-Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone

-Natalie Portman - Black Swan

-Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine





Best Supporting Actress

-Amy Adams - The Fighter

-Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech

-Melissa Leo - The Fighter

-Hailee Steinfield - True Grit

-Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom





Best Director

-Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan

-David O. Russell - The Fighter

-Tom Hooper - The King's Speech

-David Fincher - The Social Network

-Joel and Ethan Coen - True Grit

Machete (2010)

Finally after 3 years of waiting Machete makes it from the Grindhouse Trailer to the Big Screen and it was well worth the wait because it is Hilarious yet serious at the same time.

Danny Trejo, for what seems like the first time, heads up an all star cast comprosed of Robert DeNiro, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Segall, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohen, Cheech Marin, Jeff Fahey and Don Johnson. In addition it was directed by legendary Director, Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk Till Dawn, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Sin City and Planet Terror)

Machete is the story of an Ex-Federale turned day laborer who is hired to assassinate a Senator. What he uncovers is a conspiracy made up to gain voter sympathy and win re-election but what they didn't know was, They Fucked With The Wrong Mexican. Machete along with almost every illegal in Texas take on the drug-backed regime of McLaughlin (DeNiro).

The gore in the film is some of the best I've ever seen and is typical of a Grindhouse/Exploition type featurette. While being insanly ridiclous with dialogue and action, at the same time it does touch on serious problems in our country like Immigration and the Drug Trade and how they are connected.

Machete is hilarious and really well done for a relativly Low-Budget film that was concived as a Trailer for a double feature that came out 4 years ago, I deffinetly suggest giving Machete a watch but don't try to take it seriously.

Machete recieves 7 "Sister Lohans"...out of 10.

Piranha 3D (2010)

Piranha 3D is the remake to the 1978 counterpart to the highly regarded Jaws. It was bad and campy in '78 and guess what? It still is. The film does actually have a great ensemble cast going for it but they couldn't save bad writing and an attempt at cheap thrills in the growing 3D market.

Boasting a cast of known actors but not greats, such as Jerry O'connel, Elizabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Kelly Brook, Riley Steele, and Adam Scott along with short cameos by Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Llyod and Eli Roth.

I don't think the movie actually takes itself seriously but it is good for a few laughs mainly from cheap dialogue and grusome deaths then added to cheap dialogue. I never saw the original but Im still going to compare it to Jaws because it has the same story minus all the good stuff. Summer town in it biggest week of the summer comes under attack of a predator and they try to close down the beach but can't and people die, The End.

The two (i should say three) bright points in the movie are Jerry O'connell playing a Joe Francis like character who is hilarious throughout with his sense of dirty humor and then Kelly Brook's chest, if you catch my drift ;)

Piranha 3D recieves 4 "worst bits of dialogue this year"...out of 10.

127 Hours (2010)

From Academy Award winning Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later) comes 127 Hours an Adventure Thriller about the true story of Aron Ralston, the hiker who got his arm caught literally between a rock and a hard place. James Franco stars and does a fantastic job tackling a role that is outside of his norm. It seems odd that a film with very little narrative, but is intended to entertain, actualy does hold the viewers interest.

Aron is doing some mountain climbing when he runs into a few lost hikers. He shows them a good time then splits off on his own. While climbing he attempts to descend a canyon when a boulder he uses for leverage gives way and traps his arm. The majority of the film take place over the five day span in which he is trapped and tries to free himself.

He first tries to chip away at the boulder but its clearly not working. After suffering for days with little food and water and suffering through moments of delusion but still pushed foreward by past memories and sheer will to live. Finally he gives in an knows what he must do, sever his arm. In a scene that will be talked about by anyone who sees the film, the ampution is one of the most gruesome bits of film I've ever seen. He eventually cuts himself free and is able to travese his way through the canyon and find help.

I was honestly almost in tears of joy at the end of the film. James Franco was fantastic and deffinetly deserves a nomination for Best Actor and I'd expect him to get one. The film does a really great job of blending the use of the High Tech studio cameras with the use of a handheld to truly feel those moments of realism. It is really a film worth checking out not the best of the year but if your looking for good acting and a great feel of realism I reccomend it.

127 Hours recieves 7 "Jars of Pickles"...out of 10.

Inception (2010)

One of my favorite directors, Christopher Nolan (Memento,Revamped Batman series and The Prestige), has another fantastic film on his hands with Inception.

Inception is a fantastic psychlogical thriller akin to Memento but was easier to follow because it was actually a linear plot. The dificult part for most people to follow was the gap between reality and dream, I didn't find it hard to follow at all but maybe it's just me.

Inception has a great cast with Oscar noms, Leo Dicaprio and Ellen Page, Oscar Winner, Marion Cotillard, as well as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Wanatabe and Cillian Murphy.

Dicaprio stars as Dom Cobb who runs a small group of theives who are hired to infiltrate the dreamscape of victims in order to extract information from deep in their subconsience. After botching this final job Wantanabe's character, Mr. Saito, hires them fro a different sort of job, implating an idea, Inception, in the mind of Cillian Murphy's character, Robert Fischer. The only way to do this is to go as deep into his mind as possible, a dream within a dream within a dream. The group needs a new architect which is where Ariadne (Page) comes in being a natural at creating the dream scape. Everything they work for almost comes crashing down when the Memory of Cobb's wife (Cotillard) attempts to sabotage everything that Cobb does.

The movie ends in tremendous fashion and really makes you rethink the entire movie. Inception is definetly a movie that should be viewed at least twice. It is brillently directed, acted and written and Leo is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors as almost ever film hes in is fantastic.

I highly reccomend seeing Inception it is deffinetly one of the best films of the year and it will not disappoint, just make sure to pay attention cuz if you get even a bit side tracked and youll be done.

Inception recieves 9 "Leo Strut's"...out of 10.

The Social Network (2010)

I was absolutely blown away with this movie I really didn't expect much of it, I know it was getting award recoginition but I originaly chalked it up to a down year in film this year, but HOLY CRAP this just blew me away.

From Mega-Director David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac, Benjamin Button) comes the story of the creation of one of the worlds most popular websites, Facebook. Who would have honestly thought a movie about the creation of a website would be this good, I sure as shit didn't.

The Social Network boasts a tremendous cast with Jesse Eisenberg portraying world's youngest Billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, and Andrew Garfield portraing his best-friend/co-founder, Eduardo Saverin and Justin Timberlake as Napster founder, Sean Parker.

Mark is a student at Harvard who is a computer whiz. One night while on a bender he creates a website comparing the hottest girls on campus which gets 22,000 hits that night crashing the Harvard network. A few weeks later he is approached by a few jocks looking to setup a sort of match.com but for Harvard students which leads Mark to the idea of TheFaceBook. We see the whole start-up and the eventual lawsuits that come when dealing with Billion dollar ideas. People get screwed and friendships get ruined but as the tagline says, "You don't get to 500 Million friends without making a few enemies".

The movie is just all-around fantastic, I didn't want the movie to end. Thats my only gripe with it, its only 2 hrs long but I could have sat through so much more, it's that enjoyable. This is definetly my front runner for the Oscar this year and it already won the Golden Globe so it seems like a lock.

I extremly reccomend seeing this movie, it iw wonderfully well written and brillently acted, anyone who has ever used Facebook would have some intrest in the film and even if you dont have an account it is a truly griping story of human interaction in the modern age.

The Social Network recieve 9 "Andrew Garfield as the New Spidermans"...out of 10.

True Grit (2010)

My love-hate relationship with the Coen brothers films continue with their 2010 remake of the John Wayne fronted classic True Grit. As is the case with most remakes, the originals are better. This just had a bit of a different tone than the original and i felt like it suffered because of it. The main issue is Jeff Bridges stepping into John Waynes role as U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn.

Wayne doing the role was perfect for him. He was funny at times and serious at others. Whereas Bridges didnt really convey an comedic relif and often times the accent he was using was very difficult to understand, often going minutes of converstaion without understang a single bit of the dialogue. Matt Damon stepped into a doomed role as Texas Ranger LaBeouf. The character was annoying when Glenn Campbell did it in '69 and Damon couldnt do much better, very poor casting in my opinion. The real break-out and truly great performance was given by Hailee Steinfeld, in her debut film, where I think she actually did a better job in the role of Mattie Ross than Kim Darby did in '69. And even though they give top billing and went out and got a know actor in Josh Brolin for the role of Tom Chaney, he barely gets any screentime as the role did in '69.

The film starts with the Tom Chaney killing the father of Mattie Ross, who then arrives to retrieve her fathers body and close out all of his outstanding affairs. When she learns that have yet to catch Chaney she enlists Cogburn to seek him out and eventually LaBeouf insterts himself into the manhunt.

The film was meidocre at best, I deffinetly reccomend seeing the John Wayne version instead. It has a different tone and was just all around more enjoyable compared to this remake. The one truly good thing to come out of it is Steinfeld who after giving a great performance should see a lot more work in her future as long as she doesn't squander it like many child actrs do.

There is talk of an Oscar for Jeff Bridges for his role, I may however disagree, but it would interesting if he won because John Wayne won the Oscar for the role at the 1970 Academy Awards show. It would seem as though it is just an automaticly great role is he wins, hell even if he nominated.

True Grit recieves 6 "Is that you John Wayne? Is this me?''s...out of 10.

Black Swan (2010)

Director Darren Aronofky (Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler) brings us Black Swan, a psychological thriller starring a favorite of mine, Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel.

The film is beautifully done, brillantly acted and holds a very artistic value. Natalie Portman was fantastic and will most likely, or at least should, win the Oscar for Best Actress. I guess im a bit of a fanboy for her but she is truly deserving as she was flawless in her role as Nina Sayers.

The film overall is an Allegory for the classic story of The Swan Lake. Nina who is the best dancer at the most prestigious ballet studio in New York and their forthcoming production has her cast as the Swan Queen. Nina struggles with the role as she can do the White Swan flawlessly but is too stiff and obssed with being perfect to convincingly do the role of the Black Swan. She lives with her overbearing mother who controls virtually every aspect of her life. But when Lily (Kunis) steps in to the studio Nina begins to loosen up but at the same time descendsinto madness as she believes Lily is trying to steal the role. We see this slowly build up, all coming to a head on the Ballets opening night.

Natalie Portman truly owns the movie and is perfect in every aspect. It not often that these artsy films that end up with a lot of Oscar consideration end up being really enjoyable for me but this was a suprise and I was not disapppointed like I was expecting, My only gripe is that it could have been a little darker in content and reveal her insanity at a slower rate but other wise beautifully done.

Black Swan recieves 8 "Red Eyes"... out of 10.