If I Picked the Winners: Best Supporting Actor 2010

     Quite often the Best Supporting Actor category is the most competitive race in the Oscars. Not only between the nominees, but even just to get nominated, it takes a lot of talent and buzz, as the deserving list of possible nominees quite often goes into double digits. I'm not sure why this is, maybe it has something to do with the fact that protagonists are more often straight-and-narrow characters that the audience can sympathize, while the supporting characters are allowed to be more colorful and grandiose, but whatever the reason, quite often the most memorable performance of the year is given by a supporting actor. Just looking at the last three years anecdotally, the winners (Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men", Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight", and Chistophe Waltz in "Inglorious Bastards") have all been some of the top performances of the decade. While maybe not quite as impressive as some of the previous years, this year's lineup is nothing to scoff at, featuring a fine field of wide-ranging characters and performances. Particularly, it was nice to see Christian Bale and Mark Ruffalo receive their overdue first Oscar nominations. There is one big absence though that should have made this category, performances from "The Social Network". In fact, I may have been inclined to include three different male performances from the film in the Best Supporting Actor category: Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker, and Armie Hammer as the Winklevoss twins. My personal favorite of the three performances is actually Justin Timberlake, who either by his own nature or acting talents perfectly captures the arrogant yet cowardly nature of the geek-chic Sean Parker. The one performance that had the best chance at getting nominated, but unfortunately slipped through the cracks was Andrew Garfield's wonderfully distraught performance as the betrayed friend of Mark Zuckerberg. And it was probably Armie Hammer's spectacular effects-assisted performance as not one, but two human beings, the Harvard gentlemen Winklevi (as Zuckerberg referred to them), that was actually generating the most buzz in the online community. I would have settled for anyone of them, but unfortunately as the  awards season tide began to turn against "The Social Network", these three fine performances were left in the dust. The one other performance that may have made my own personal ballot is Vincent Cassel as the Balanchine-inspired Thomas Leroy, head of protagonist Nina Sayers' ballet company. It's a captivating role and the pressure and tension he puts on Nina is the catalyst for her journey into the dark recesses of her mind. All in all, while I would have left out one or two of the nominees, it is a decent group that the Academy can hold it's head-up for. Now to the rankings.

Review: Blue Valentine

     Relationships can be a tough battle. As much as one person may truly love another, it's impossible to get around the fact that we are all ultimately just using each other. When one human being begins to count on and derive pleasure from another human being, it becomes impossible not to build expectations for one another, as we begin to see the other person as who we think and want them to be instead of who they truly are. I think Nirvana's "Come As You Are" sums it up best in the opening lines of the song: "Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be". As crude and cold as that may sound to some, I think it is the unavoidable truth, and for the most part, it works to everyone's benefit. Enjoying the presence of the ones you love is one of things that make life great, but when an individual becomes too dependent on another for their happiness, not able to enjoy life on its own terms, many serious problems can result, including pushing away the one you love the most. This unfortunate circumstance is what is painfully chronicled in Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine".

News: Christopher Nolan's Post-Batman Project

     We're still about a year and a half outside of the last Batman film in the Nolan trilogy, but even before "The Dark Knight Rises" begins shooting, speculation about Nolan's next project is all over the world wide web. This weekend, rumors began to surface that Nolan might return to his script about Howard Hughes. Sometime in the early 2000's, before "Batman Begins", Christopher Nolan had written a script based on the life of the eccentric mogul, but when the Martin Scorsese/Leonardo DiCaprio Howard Hughs bio-pic "The Aviator" made its way into movie theaters, Nolan shelved the idea. Nolan has called the script the best work he has ever done, and now that some years have passed since the Scorsese/DiCaprio collaboration, apparently Nolan wants to go back to it. From what is known, the two films will actually be quite different, for while "The Aviator" covered the early years of Hughes life and ended as he was losing his marbles, Nolan's film apparently will be almost exclusively covering Hughes later years when he was a shut-in at some Vegas hotel, paranoid that the FBI was after him. Back when Nolan was originally planning to shoot the film, he was planning to have Jim Carrey star in the role, but there is no word if that is still the case. Whoever he gets to star as Hughes, I glad he has decided to go back to the project. By the time the film is released, it will likely have been over a decade since "The Aviator", and if the two films really do cover different periods of the man's life, it wouldn't matter anyway. Nolan has proven himself to be a great shaman when it comes to dealing with aspects of the mind, and his perspective on the insanity of Howard Hughes is almost certain to be another classic in his already great filmography.