the social network – Open Mouth Insert Words

Every year, right in time for the Oscars ceremony, I usually write two pieces about film. The first one details the current nominees and supposes who the winners would be if I had a vote. The second one details the ceremony from a decade in the past and examines how our perception of those past nominees has changed in the subsequent years. This year is a bit different. I’m combining both posts because in my research I’ve discovered that I don’t have much to say about the 2011 Oscars ceremony and I don’t feel like I care much about this year’s crop of nominees. Perhaps it’s pandemic brain setting in. I’ve seen most of this year’s films (save for Minari) but in many of the categories, I just don’t see one nominee standing out amongst the pack. As for the ceremony ten years ago, I’m going to detail that right now.

In February of 2011, the 83rd Oscars ceremony took place, celebrating the best of film from 2010. Usually, this is where I pick apart the winners and dissect where public discourse has led these films in the ten years that have passed. I’m shocked to report that, since I began this yearly project, the 2011 Oscars is perhaps the most time-accurate ceremony I’ve yet researched. I believe there would be differences now but the overwhelming majority of previous winners would still hold onto their statues today. The top two prizes are the only differences I can conceive. I do not think The King’s Speech wins best picture anymore. No way. The same goes for Tom Hooper as the best director winner for helming The King’s Speech. Those honors would now go to David Fincher for his work on The Social Network. For my money, I also believe The Social Network would now walk away with the best picture statue as well. It’s funny to me, after taking The Social Network off of my own top ten list from ten years ago. A strange thing happened the moment I chucked it aside and claimed it to be a film I’ve thought very little about in the years since: I haven’t stopped thinking about it. The film is oddly prophetic for the society we find ourselves in. I don’t think Academy voters would be able to deny it any longer. As for the rest of the big winners: Firth would still win, Portman would still win, Bale still wins, and Melissa Leo (although with stiff competition from Weaver) still wins. I went through the entire list and couldn’t come up with a single compelling reason for any of the previous winners to lose their prize today. I honestly never thought this project would produce a ceremony so accurate, a decade later. But this is why I’m so fascinated with said project.

On to this year’s crop of nominees. I carefully sketched out the hopefuls and asked myself: do I really care about this race? The answer was almost always no. This isn’t to say that there’s zero resonance for me, it’s more akin to these works not separating themselves from each other. Now, for ten of them, I do have clear favorites and I’ll go over them now.

For Best Picture, I like this crop of nominees quite a bit. The weal link here is The Trial of the Chicago 7. That said, Judas & The Black Messiah, Promising Young Woman, and Nomadland are my clear favorites. Out of this group, Nomadland struck the deepest chord. It’s a film of exquisite tranquil beauty while hiding a storm of pain beneath the surface. It was clear to me then that it was the best film on this list and that sentiment still holds true.

Best Director is a killer crop of nominees. The most recent of them I’ve seen is Thomas Vinterberg’s work on Another Round. He pulls a lifetime of thought and feeling out of his actors, anchored by (maybe the best in the biz) Mads Mikkelsen. He made this a race but Chloe Zhao’s confidence in herself and trust in her actors carries the day for me and she better win this statue on Sunday night.

Stepping back to Vinterberg again, Another Round will and should win the International Feature Film Oscar on Sunday. What an incredible film about the galaxy of life we still have inside of us somewhere, even when we feel lost and hopeless. The film also features the most pitch perfect ending to any film I saw this past year. Marvelous.

Cinematography is another category I have strong feelings about. Nomadland wins this in a landslide. Easy peasy. If you haven’t seen the film, google the trailer and tell me I’m wrong. For argument’s sake, Judas & The Black Messiah also features some exquisite camera work.

The writing nominees also catch my feelings. Kemp Powers’ great script for Regina King’s One Night In Miami is my pick for adapted screenplay. The film depends on words more than any other film nominated and the words are all very, very good. The original screenplay category better damn well go to Emerald Fennell for her incisive writing on Promising Young Woman. God damn! What a fucking movie! One of the best scripts in quite some time.

Supporting Actor is a mixed bag for me. First, I love Lakeith Stanfield but I’m confused over him being in this category and not Lead Actor. In Sound Of Metal, Paul Raci takes what could’ve been a simple mentor role and turns it into a career defining performance. It is minimalist perfection. My vote, however, would go to Daniel Kaluuya for his performance as Fred Hampton in Judas & The Black Messiah. This dude never puts a foot wrong. He’s going to need a warehouse to store the hardware he will accumulate over his career. What an actor.

Supporting Actress is Maria Bakalova all the way. The moment I saw the new Borat film, I predicted this moment. It was as clear as a freshly washed window to me. Hoy smokes, this actress came out of nowhere and delivered my absolute single favorite performance of the year. It is simply astonishing work. Let me repeat: astonishing.

Lead Actor will likely see the late Chadwick Boseman be honored for his work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. I can’t argue that because it’s the performance of his short yet illustrious career. My personal preference is for Riz Ahmed to win for Sound of Metal. I love internal performances and Ahmed gives one for the ages. He’s an actor currently showing us he still has miles to go before fully mining the depth of his talent and I cannot wait to be right there in the front row for his journey. Riz Ahmed, my second favorite performance of the year.

Lead Actress is Frances McDormand. I don’t even know how to elaborate on that. She is an actress of such immense power and depth that she can mesmerize without saying a single word and she does a lot of that during Nomadland. Working in tandem with her director, Chloe Zhao, she somehow sums up so much of America in a two hour runtime. It’s McDormand all the way for me.

That’s it folks. The rest of the categories just don’t hold any favorites for me. Maybe Mank’s production design or Nomadland’s film editing, but that’s it. Regardless, the ceremony will give us plenty to argue about for years to come — it always does. I’ll be back on Friday to discuss some new things happening and then I’ll return to poetry next week. Until then, love each other.

Time is the ultimate determiner when it applies to the quality of a work of art. I’ve spoken about this at length and so I’ll spare you the details this time around. I’ll just get right to the business of the 2010 film retrospective and we can analyze where my film thoughts were a decade ago versus where they currently sit.

Back in 2010, my top ten films of the year were as follows:

1. Let Me In

2. Never Let Me Go

3. Winter’s Bone

4. The Social Network

5. Inception

6. Animal Kingdom

7. Black Swan

8. True Grit

9. Carlos

10. The Ghost Writer

Looking back, this was an interesting year which left many films very close to one another in my mind. It actually reminds me a lot of 2020 and because of that, I released a top twenty five instead. Ten years later and I’ll give you this off the bat: only five of these films will remain and only three of those will remain in their current slots. Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up.

The Ghost Writer. A nasty little slice of a thriller with great turns from both Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan. I still like it but it’s the first casualty. In it’s place, I’m going with Ben Affleck’s awesome crime flick, The Town. I watch this one way more than The Ghostwriter and it never fails to deliver. Really good action film.

Carlos. Is it a movie or a mini-series? Who cares. I put it on my list ten years ago, mostly because of Edgar Ramirez’s committed performance. It’s the second casualty on the list and is replaced by Animal Kingdom — our first film to move spots. It stays in the top ten but falls slightly from six to nine.

True Grit. I adore the Coens and, for that matter, Jeff Bridges. This was a very straight forward adaptation from them and a very good one to boot. It just doesn’t have resonance with me. Good film but it’s gone and replaced by another mainstay falling a few places. Inception. I still love it but it falls a ways from five to eight.

Black Swan. This is our first film which stays exactly where it was ten years ago. Aronofsky is nothing if not interesting and his films always produce thought long after the credits have rolled. Natalie Portman goes next level in this one.

Animal Kingdom. See Carlos. It’s still here but the Australian film about a family of criminals potentially being taken down from the inside falls from six to nine. Still, it made Joel Edgerton and Jackie Weaver pretty famous in the states. The new number six film is one I hadn’t seen before making my list back in 2010. It’s the completely psychopathic South Korean serial killer film, I Saw The Devil. If you like films unafraid to go dark, this one goes daaaaarrrrrrrrk.

Inception. See True Grit. I still love it but it falls from five to eight. Let’s replace it with the Sofia Coppola film, Somewhere. I’ve always had a soft spot for Stephen Dorff as an actor and here, he’s never better as a drowning famous actor in charge of his daughter for a few weeks. Goodness gracious this film is awesome.

The Social Network. Gone. I love Fincher but this one is firmly in the “I respect it but don’t really like it” category. It leaves me cold. I’ll lose it in order to give some more love to Toy Story 3. The third entry in the Pixar series is the best and made me weep like a baby by the end of the film.

Winter’s Bone. This baby stays right here. It still cooks with gas and made a star out of Jennifer Lawrence. Also, John Hawkes is one of the most underrated actors of the past twenty years. He’s incredible as her uncle unafraid of the dangers her investigation is beginning to unearth. What. A. Film.

Never Let Me Go. The biggest surprise but this is the final film to be excised from the list. Crazy, right? My number two film is completely lopped off? Maybe it was my sentiment for it being based on an Ishiguro novel but it’s not a film I’ve thought a lot about in recent years. I guess I’ve let it go. Instead, Miike deserves some love with another film I hadn’t yet seen when making the list: 13 Assassins. This film flat out knocked my damn socks off. A mediation on hate and violence and what the idea of revenge can do to people. The final forty five minutes or so are completely bananas. See it, please.

Let Me In. It stays right here. Ten years later and this film is still the best 2010 had to offer. I know it’s not a popular opinion and just for clarity, I had already seen the original it was based on, Let The Right One In. I actually prefer the remake. Why? First, it leans into the horror a bit more while maintaining the awkward coming of age story. This version is way, way scarier. Second, and more importantly, Richard Jenkins. He makes every movie better just by being on screen and he provides the entire heart and soul of the story here. Not all American remakes are bad and this one is actually better than the original. Fight me.

Ten years later and there we have it. I’ll continue to do these every year. It’s fun to look back and search yourself for how you currently feel. Five stayed. Five left. Two switched spots. Here’s the updated list:

1. Let Me In

2. 13 Assassins

3. Winter’s Bone

4. Toy Story 3

5. Somewhere

6. I Saw The Devil

7. Black Swan

8. Inception

9. Animal Kingdom

10. The Town

See ya Monday. Until then, love each other.