And The Oscar Goes To..

It is that time of the year again, the 83rd Academy Awards will be held on the 27th of February and I thought this would be an ideal time to write a little about the front-runners for the Oscars, along with my opinion of the movie. Of course I haven't seen all the nominees, but I suppose I have seen all of them which matter. So here goes.

Black Swan

"I was perfect..."

-Nina Sayers

And perfect she was, Natalie Portman's portrayal of the character and as the prima ballerina is absolutely brilliant. This isn't the first time she has proved her mettle at acting, she was impressive in her role of an aspiring "cleaner" in the movie Leon, she showed tremendous potential at the young age of 12, then we all know of her character in V for Vendetta and how she agreed to go bald for the character just shows her degree of involvement in the movie.

This movie comes from the director of Requiem For A Dream Darren Aronofsky. As if the latter wasn't traumatizing enough, the director attempts at recreating a similar atmosphere, and he succeeds doing so. Everything from the background score, story narration and camera work reminds the audience of the movie.

The story is about Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) who is a ballerina who gets chosen for the lead in a play called Swan Lake. The play involves two characters the White Swan and the Black Swan, as the names suggest the White Swan is pure and the Black Swan is the evil twin. The entire movie shows the transition of Nina from a white swan to its evil twin. The theme of the movie is dark, it is disturbing but that doesn't mean you should miss it. Watch it for Natalie Portman's brilliant acting the sure-shot Oscar winner for the Best Actress and of course if you want to relive the experience of Requiem for a dream again. This is one of the contenders for Best Film but it is unlikely to win the accolade. I would say it is the #5 contender for Best Film.

Definite Oscar:
Best Actress in a Leading Role

127 Hours

"You know, I've been thinking. Everything is... just comes together. It's me. I chose this. I chose all this. This rock... this rock has been waiting for me my entire life. It's entire life, ever since it was a bit of meteorite a million, billion years ago. In space. It's been waiting, to come here. Right, right here. I've been moving towards it my entire life. The minute I was born, every breath that I've taken, every action has been leading me to this crack on the out surface."

-Aron Ralston

Danny Boyle continues the trend of making movies based on novels, Trainspotting, the ridiculously over-rated multiple Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire and now 127 hours.

First of all it is a much better movie in every department when you compare it to Slumdog, I have never been a big fan of Slumdog, it won so many Oscars mostly because the people liked seeing India as a collection of dirty and desperate people with no values whatsoever.

This movie though is genuinely good, James Franco does a brilliant job of portraying Aron Ralston. A.R Rahman's background score is very much in sync with the theme of the movie and the direction and screenplay is decent as well. One funny mistake in the movie is how Franco's stubble remains the same throughout the entire 127 hours. Still it is excusable since everyone's stomach would be pushed to the limits after seeing the amputation and the colour of the liquid which he uses to hydrate himself.

It is ironic however that this movie wouldn't win any Oscar except for the outside chance which it has in Best Background Score. But of course after the embarrassing number of Oscars which Slumdog received, Boyle shouldn't be complaining if he doesn't get any for this movie. Its only fair that you don't get an award for a movie which deserved it when you have got an award for a movie which didn't deserve it. That's about the #4 contender for the Best Movie.

Inception

"What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere."

-Dom Cobb

And the quote pretty much explains what Christopher Nolan did, he had an idea more than a decade ago right after his first movie Memento, he took his time to refine the idea, made sure that it is fully formed and then he made it into a movie which pretty much confused everyone who watched it and the people who claimed to understand it on the first watch were clearly lying through their teeth.

Inception is Nolan's transition from mind-blowing (The Dark Knight) to mind-boggling, and the transition couldn't be more perfect (Yes! I know perfect is an absolute term). Who ever thought that one movie could be interpreted in so many different ways, it is simply amazing how all the story arcs combine and fit together so seamlessly. Hans Zimmer's background score cannot be expressed through words, the finality delivered at the end of the 3rd dream level, the chase sequence score through Mombasa and the final soundtrack which plays during credits are simply amazing, it keeps you so involved in the movie.

Nolan used to have this tendency to use female characters as a source of guilt in ALL of his movies, well that doesn't change this time around, however there is a second female character Ariadne played by Ellen Page who in my opinion is the best ever female character written by Nolan. I wonder what we could look forward to in The Dark Knight Rises with Selena Kyle's character after this.

All the praise aside cause I am not the first to praise the movie and I certainly won't be the last, when it comes to Awards all of Nolan's movies have more or less been snubbed. But this marks the highest level when Nolan didn't even earn a nomination for this epic movie for direction. But a director of Nolan's caliber doesn't really need an award to show that he is a good director, he can always plant the idea that he won the award!

Likely Oscars:
Best Original Screenplay
Best Random-Tech-Category-Award-No-One-Really-Cares-About


This happens to be my favorite movie of all time and this particular dialogue is my favorite.

"You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope the train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter because we'll be together."

-Mal

I am almost as big a fan of Inception as I am of sarcasm, hence the picture on the left which is an unholy mashup of Inception and mean girls. I know it is an insult to the aura of the movie, but you gotta admit that this one's pretty funny.


There is a parody of the inception trailer which is pretty hilarious as well, it is called "Inebriation" and you can watch it here.

Inception in my opinion is the most deserving candidate for the Best Film, but unfortunately the Oscars aren't given to the most deserving movie, so this is my #3 pick for the Oscar.


 The King's Speech

"If I am King, where is my power? Can I declare war? Form a government? Levy a tax? No! And yet I am the seat of all authority because they think that when I speak, I speak for them. But I can't speak."

-King George VI

One of the overwhelming favorites to win the Best Actor category as Colin Firth stutters and stammers his way into our hearts with his brilliant performance as King George VI. When I heard that a movie named "The King's Speech", I thought it'd be one of those boring historic movies and had no expectation when I started watching it, I soon found out that I was wrong. It actually turned out to be a pretty engaging movie. Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange of Harry Potter) is gracious in the role of the Queen and deserving of the Best Supporting Actress nod. Overall expect this movie to be a multiple Oscar winner, of course you wouldn't expect any less from the BAFTA winner for Best movie and 12 nominations at the Academy.

Likely Oscars
Best Actor
Best Supporting Actress
A few technical awards surely, and the #2 contender for Best Film

The Social Network

"People want to go online and check out their friends, so why not build a website that offers that? Friends, pictures, profiles, whatever you can visit, browse around, maybe it's someone you just met at a party. Eduardo, I'm not talking about a dating site, I'm talking about taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online."

-Mark Zuckerberg

I have major issues with this movie,

• A movie which is based on a website. Seriously?
• "Feeding chicken to a chicken is considered as animal cruelty". I am sure chickens will start attacking and eating each other after that.
• The poster illustrates the issue, the reason facebook exists is because Zuckerberg wanted revenge against his girlfriend.

I am not one of the guys who can appreciate a movie when I don't like the premise of the movie, well it is kind of sad that others don't seem to think so. I did liked Jesse Eisenberg's acting, a little iffy about the music. The only part of the movie I liked was the ending, even after becoming the CEO of a promising company, the youngest billionaire, he is still where he was at the beginning of the movie, emotionally speaking, hitting refresh continuously kinda smacks of desperation. Ouch!

I really wanted a better story behind Facebook, but what can you do right?


Likely Oscars
Best Movie
Best Director
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Music

The Others

Toy Story 3

"To infinity and beyond . . "

-Buzz Lightyear

Pixar comes up with yet another gem of a movie, one of the few trilogies where the third movie is the best of the lot. Woody and his friends written after a hiatus of more than a decade, but they still manage to strike the write chord with the viewers. Most of the viewers were kids when the movie released and I am pretty sure all of them turned out to watch this movie, none of them would go home without thoroughly enjoying the movie. Pixar never disappoints, one of the few 3D movies where one could actually feel the third dimension. Everyone knows an animated movie is never gonna win an Oscar for Best Picture, a nomination is as far as it can go, so after Up last year Pixar has yet another animated movie in the category this year.

Likely Oscar
Best Animated Movie

I haven't watched any of the other nominees but the other movies which matter seem to be

The Fighter
Seven nominations and the story of a boxer, it rings a bell doesn't it? Christian Bale seems to have a sure shot Oscar here for Supporting Actor

Biutiful
A Mexican story about after-life and stuff. Best bet to win the foreign film accolade.

True Grit
Another multiple Oscar nominee directed by the Coen brothers of "No Country for Old Men" fame, have to watch this one, seems to have an interesting story.

Fan Favorites
According to a poll conducted by IMDb these are the favorites in various categories:

Best Film: Inception (41.4%)
Best Actor: Colin Firth - The King's Speech (55.6%)
Best Actress: Natalie Portman - Black Swan (83.6%)
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale - The Fighter (63.3%)
Best Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech (33.1%)
Best Director: David Fincher - The Social Network (39.9%)
Best Foreign Language Film - Biutiful (Mexico) (56.8%)
Best Adapted Screenplay - The Social Network - Aaron Sorkin (52.6%)
Best Original Screenplay - Inception - Christopher Nolan (73.2%)
Best Animated Feature - Toy Story 3 (72.4%)

And now we await the 27th of Feb.