Predicting the Nominees: You Can Try the Best You Can

 
     What would a blog about movies be without predictions on the Academy Awards? Well, I guess it could focus on the artistry of the films themselves, but given my love of the Oscars, there was no way I was going to start a movie blog without throwing in my own Oscar predictions. Every year, like many others, I take part in a friendly family competition to see who can guess the most winners correctly in all the categories, and I usually don't do too bad, but I have never attempted to guess the nominations themselves. I have no idea how good I'll be compared to other bloggers, but I'm eager to see if all my Oscar obsessing will lead to superior prognosticating. Honestly, I don't think I will be all the good, but I'll try the best I can, so check out my predictions after the jump. For now, I am only going to make predictions in the major categories, but at some point I will make predictions for every category. I will list the nominees in order of how confident I am that they will be nominated, and then I will list a few possible substitutions that could sneak in. Finally, after the predictions, I will give some analysis on each of the categories. Here goes nothing!

News: South Park Mocks Inception

     I enjoyed Christopher Nolan's "Inception" early this summer, but I thought it was a little over-rated by some (especially in the blogging community). It's a pretty good film, but I actually think it's one of Nolan's weaker films. Apparently, Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park had some problems with the film too, as most of last night's South Park was devoted to mocking the film. As I said, I liked the film, but the weaknesses of the film that last night's episode of South Park pointed out are dead on. They are the exact problems that, in my opinion, kept the film from being a "masterpiece", like so many other people eagerly crowned it. So if you want to check out my problems with Inception, and laugh your ass off at the same time, click here. Thank you South Park!

If I Picked the Winners: Best Actor 1997

     If you haven't read the "About Me" section to the left of your screen, I will let you know here that I am obsessed with the Oscars. I have been obsessed with the Oscars since about the age of ten. From then on, I have collected numerous books on the Academy Awards and spent (wasted) countless hours flipping through them and memorizing winners and nominees. I can name from memory all the Best Picture winners in order from 1927/28's "Wings" to 2009's "The Hurt Locker" (I wonder how many more important things I would know if I didn't have this in my brain) and I have seen all but ten of the winners.

     I am not really sure why I became so obsessed with the Academy Awards. I think it might be because it merges the competitive aspect of sports that I love with the artistry of film. Nevertheless, I am still driven by all things Oscar, which is why I am writing this weekly (hopefully) column where I will take one of the 8 major categories (Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, and the two Writing categories) from some year and rank the nominees. It is a lifetime goal of mine to see all the nominees, from every year, for all these categories (technically it is an impossible goal since a few of the early films are lost). I have about 800 and something movies to go, which may sound like a lot, but to get it down to that number you have to watch a lot of Oscar nominated movies. The upshot of this is there are a lot of categories where I have seen all the nominees, which gives me a lot of potential columns to write, but for the very first "If I Picked the Winners" column, I thought I would start off with the first category in which in I saw every nominee: Best Actor 1997.

Retro-Review: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

     Before I get into my review of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", I would like to explain the Retro-Review section. The idea behind the Retro-Review section is pretty self-explanatory (I review old movies), but I would like to take some space of my little part of the internet to make a public service announcement about old movies.

     I watch a lot of old movies. In fact, I watch too many old movies to write Retro-Reviews on every old movie I see, but whenever an old movie inspires me to write a review, you will see it in the Retro-Review section. Unfortunately though, most people don't watch a lot of old movies. For many people, if a movie (like history) happened before they were born, it doesn't matter, and this is a shame, because some of the greatest movies of all-time are very old films.

     In today's world of Facebook and Twitter (I'm starting to sound like I am 80), movies with antiquated ideas, no explosions or sex, or shots without cuts every five seconds may be a little too much to ask of an audience, but that's sort of the point. I have always felt that movies, whether they are about some historical event or are simply a window to another place and time, are the best way to learn about history. The thing that many people fail to realize is that as much as things have changed, people have really stayed the same.

Review: The Social Network

How do you become the youngest billionaire in the world? Hard work and practice? That may get you into Carnegie Hall, but in and of itself it will not make you a billionaire. Education and intelligence? They sure don't hurt, but there are many smart educated people who will never come close to making a billion dollars over their entire lifetime. Kill your enormously wealthy parents and watch the inheritance flow in? While this option is only available to a select few, it may be the most practical option I have mentioned yet. Exploiting the psychological motivations of your generation for everything its worth? Welcome to Facebook!

     "The Social Network", if you haven't heard by now, tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. The film starts with a snappy conversation between Zuckerberg (played by Jessie Eisenberg) and his girlfriend (Rooney Mara). After a few careless comments by Zuckerberg, the couple breakup, and this event (according to the film) leads to a chain events that ends with the creation of the social networking website.