The King’s Speech vs. The Social Network: A Generational Battle?

I’ll admit that until just a few days ago I was absolutely positive that nothing could beat the juggernaut that is David Fincher’s The Social Network on Oscar night.  Well, now everything’s a little less definite.  Tom Hooper’s win for The King’s Speech at the Director’s Guild Awards and the cast’s win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards (remarkable for such a relatively small group of actors) is causing everyone to rethink who the front runner for Best Picture is.   Cinematical spells it out better than I can.

So who will win?  It’s funny, because I always find it difficult to pick who I think should win in any category.  I spend so much time wondering who will win that I rarely consider who I think should win.  That’s partly because I unfortunately have rarely seen all the nominees, so I feel bad choosing any one nominee when I haven’t witnessed them all.  It’s also partly because the choices are often so different, especially in the Best Picture category, that it is difficult to decide which is “better.”  I know that’s what the Oscars are all about, but I think that it is often a very subjective decision.  I often have favorites going into it, films which strongly affected me or which I immediately decided I would watch many more times.  The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was the first of these for me.  I was obsessed with the trilogy, and the film’s clean sweep at the Oscars had me on the edge of my seat and screaming at the television.  Slumdog Millionaire was another instance of a film I was really rooting for.  I wish I had one of those movies this year.  The reason I don’t have one isn’t that there weren’t any worthy films.  It’s because there were so many films which I believe are equally deserving and appeal to me in very different ways. 

The Social Network and The King’s Speech, for example, were both great films, if you ask me, but they were also very different, so it’s difficult to pin down which was better.  The Social Network is very American, very contemporary, very hip, very young.  The King’s Speech is very British, very much a period piece, innovative but with a classic story, and about older characters.  It’s really hard for me to choose which one is more deserving.  I honestly cannot decide.

As far as which film the Oscars will choose, I can only base my choice on recent Oscar trends.  The awards seem to recently be geared toward more hip, unorthodox films, as opposed to the period pieces and “serious” dramas which reigned in the early to mid nineties (Dances with Wolves, Schindler’s List, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love).  For instance, a Coen brothers film (No Country for Old Men) won Best Picture.  I wasn’t a big fan (I just didn’t get it), but that’s definitely a hipper choice than, say, Atonement, its competiton.  Slumdog Millionaire (Hooray!) beat more conventional Oscar bait Benjamin Button (a David Fincher film, ironically) Frost/Nixon, and The Reader.  And gritty, female-directed, intimate military drama The Hurt Locker beat out Avatar, which was probably considered the front runner for a while.  Now, if Inglourious Basterds had won, the world might have been taken over by Tarantino-obsessed  film hipsters, and the Oscars would never be the same.  But you can still see that the Oscars are no longer this seemingly stuffy, pretentious awards show that only honors serious movies about older people decades ago.  Hell, the show’s being hosted by James Franco and Anne Hathaway (the youngest host ever), for Christ’s sake!  What I’m saying, in case you haven’t figured it out, is that I’m still pretty sure The Social Network will take home the gold, although I’m not as certain as I was a few weeks ago.  We shall see.

This also brings up an interesting question concerning the Oscars, and film in general, and a generational gap.  Is this battle for Best Picture a generational battle?  A fight over the future of film?  A struggle between the old and the new, the old-fashioned and the hip?  Ah, I’m being too dramatic.  Right?

Just an aside: I was directed to this amusing site the other day.  It’s called the Film School Thesis Statement Generator.  You’re supposed to type in a film and it will give you an appropriate thesis around which to write a paper.  Of course, these are randomly generated statements, but it’s funny how many films of I typed in resulted in sort-of-convincing thesis statements (“Through the use of implied depth-of-field, Jaws reminds the spectator of the post-war crisis of masculinity.”  Hmm, that’s kind of spot-on.)  As a Film Studies student, I’m familiar with these kinds of thesis statements, whether as a result of reading academic articles by intellectuals or struggling to form my own arguments for papers.  Maybe it won’t be as funny to those who aren’t familiar with concepts like the male gaze or mise-en-scene, but I thought I’d share it.  Maybe that should have been included in my previous film nerd post.  Aw, who am I kidding, all my posts are nerdy.

83rd Academy Award Predictions: Part 2

Here we are again.  Time to examine a few more categories for this year’s Academy Awards.

The supporting categories are really hard to pin down this year.  For some reason I find myself having trouble picking five appropriate actors for each category.  But here’s my best attempt.

 

Best Supporting Actor:

1. Christian Bale, The Fighter
2. Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech
3. Jeremy Renner, The Town
4. Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
5. Michael Douglas, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

[This is a tough category, because the first four are pretty much definites, but the last nomination is up for grabs.  I looked at the nominations for the Critics Choice Movie Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, all of which include the first four actors on my list.  The fifth choice varies, however.  The Golden Globes chose Michael Douglas, the Critics Choice Awards chose Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right), and the SAG Awards chose John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone).  I’m going with Michael Douglas for a few reasons.  First, the Golden Globes are usually very similar to the Oscars, with the occasional exception.  Second, the Academy almost always gives away one or two unexpected nominations from more mainstream films.  Wall Street hasn’t gotten a lot of Oscar buzz, but Douglas’s role might be this year’s unexpected nominee.  While Mark Ruffalo is always great, I didn’t feel personally that it was a particularly Oscar-worthy performance, and I don’t think there’s been enough buzz surrounding John Hawkes to garner a nod.  But who knows.  Maybe I’ll be wrong.  I probably will.  The first four names, however, are pretty much set in stone.  Who’ll win?  I predict Christian Bale to take home the top prize.  I mean, how many times does this guy have to drastically alter his physique before the Academy rewards him for it?  Personally, though, I thought Geoffrey Rush was delightful and pitch-perfect in The King’s Speech, so I’d like to see him walk away with a win.]

Best Supporting Actress:

1. Melissa Leo, The Fighter
2. Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
3. Amy Adams, The Fighter
4. Mila Kunis, Black Swan
5. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

[This is another instance in which the first four nominees are pretty much set in stone, but the fifth is kind of up for grabs.  I can definitely see the Academy going with breakout star Hailee Steinfeld.  The Oscars love to recognize young, fresh talent (Abigail Breslin, Gabourey Sidibe), so I think she has a really good chance.  Who’ll win?  I think Melissa Leo is the front runner, but I personally loved Helena Bonham Carter in The King’s Speech.]

Best Adapted Screenplay:

1. Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
2. Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
3. Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit
4. Michael Arndt, Toy Story 3
5. Debra Granik, and Anne Rosellini, Winter’s Bone

[Let’s face it.  Aaron Sorkin is going to win this one.  His witty, fast-paced, hip screenplay for The Social Network was one of the most important factors in making that film so great, so he has to take home the award.  Beaufoy and Doyle have street cred because of Slumdog Millionaire, so they’re likely to get a nod, and the Coen brothers are continuously beloved by the academy for their dark scripts.  Toy Story 3 was just brilliant storytelling, so that’s likely to get a nod, and I chose Winter’s Bone as the final nominee mostly as wishful thinking, because I always want to see more female writers on the list.]

Best Original Screenplay:

1. Christopher Nolan, Inception
2. David Seidler, The King’s Speech
3. Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right
4. Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin, Black Swan
5. Mike Leigh, Another Year

[I love this category.  For starters, I always appreciate an original idea.  So many films now are either remakes, adaptations, or sequels.  We really need more original scripts.  Plus, my favorite screenplays have won this category (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Juno).  The ultimate original idea this year, Inception, should definitely earn a nod, as will popular films Black Swan and The King’s Speech.  And as always, there’ll be a couple of quirky, character-driven scripts thrown in.  This year, I predict those will be The Kids Are All Right and Another Year.  As far as the winner goes, it’ll probably go to the juggernaut Inception, but The Kids Are All Right could sneak up and win as the year’s indie darling.]

Best Animated Feature:

1. Toy Story 3
2. The Illusionist
3. How to Train Your Dragon

[This year the animated category will only feature three nominations, because the number of available nominees fell just short of the amount needed for a five-nominee ballot.  How to Train Your  Dragon was a favorite of both critics and moviegoers, so it’ll be recognized, and The Illusionist is the foreign favorite that often gets nominated.  But let’s face it.  Nobody’s beating the brilliant Toy Story 3.]

Check back soon for my predictions for the technical awards.