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2010 Academy Award Picks Wrap-Up Post

Yes, I am talking about last year’s nominations. With the help of Netflix, I am able to set a goal for myself to watch the movies that are nominated in the major categories for the Academy Awards before the next round of nominations come out.

I just made it this year.

So here’s the recap from last year, and I am surprised by some of the results.

If I Picked the Oscars (in order of my vote)

Best Picture:

Nominating ten movies is really too much. If they took just the top four from my list and added A Single Man, I would have been happy and feel that this was a really strong showing. Some of these other movies just didn’t have to be there. In fact, drop The Hurt Locker, and that would have been plenty.

If I Picked the Oscars (in order of my vote)

Directing:

I find it strange that I thought so highly of Precious right when I finished watching it and can barely remember anything about the movie now. Hmm.

If I Picked the Oscars (in order of my vote)

Best Actor:

A very close race between the top two spots. I’m giving the slight edge to the the former Mr. Darcy.

If I Picked the Oscars (in order of my vote)

Best Actress:

For a long time, I was very surprised at the thought that I would have actually, legitimately given the trophy to Sandra Bullock. Hey, I like her too. It’s just that one doesn’t usually think “Oscar contender” when her name comes up. Then… on the very last day of my Oscar cycle, in comes Helen Mirren.

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Movie: The Last Station

I’m so glad that I read The Kreutzer Sonata a short while ago or I would have spent much of the movie trying to catch up. I had no idea that Leo Tolstoy had such philosophical beliefs and even inspired a movement.

Thanks to the introduction of that book, I had a head start on all of this. I knew that his ideas put him at odds with his wife. This is the timeperiod that we see in this film.

Count Tolstoy is torn between his dreams for a different kind of world and the very immediate world that he knows and, probably very much, loves. What does a wealthy, titled man do with his desire to see a redistribution of wealth and the rise of the peasantry? What does a husband of forty-eight years and the father of thirteen children do when he no longer believes in marriage?

The four principle actors in The Last Station provide the tension and the energy for this tale. Helen Mirren and Paul Giamatti play wonderfully the push-and-pull on Tolstoy’s resolutions between family and philosophy. They bring to the screen faithfulness and benevolence as well as sinister manipulation. Like Christopher Plummer‘s Leo Tolstoy, James McAvoy‘s Valentin is caught in between, wanting to believe in both but finding himself having to choose, over and over again.

I don’t want to overstate the angle of outside forces acting on a legendary and blame-free Tolstoy though. Plummer’s Leo Tolstoy is a full participant in this drama. Valentin also makes his own decisions. All together, they make for some wonderful interplay with both the humor and the conflict elements. There are flaws with The Last Station, but it is definitely worth checking out.

If I Picked the Oscars (in order of my vote)

Best Actress:

Tags: Movies by Ms. SP
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Movie: Invictus

Much of Invictus is very interesting to watch. I was very involved with the story as they showed how Nelson Mandela attempted to bring back a post-apartheid South Africa.

One of the tools he chose to employ was rugby. Strangely, that’s when this movie lost its momentum for me.

During the World Cup title game sequence, all the visuals just started to get repetitive. Granted, I only know the basic basics of the game, but it just was not interesting.

First, I didn’t even know that it was the finals until midway through the game. The South African team’s advancement through the tournament was not handled very clearly. Then, it seems like the final was not that dynamic a game. It was a low-scoring affair within a sport that involves a lot of time on the ground. There’s a reason that rugby sevens (and not the full rugby) is the format that is going into the Olympics.

This, coupled with the obvious holes that were left during the earlier parts of Invictus, makes this one of the weaker movies that has left Clint Eastwood’s hands in the recent years.

If I Picked the Oscars (in order of my vote)

Best Actor:

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