Pinback's Final 2010 Academy Nominee Rankings

[pinback]

As of three nights ago, we've finally made it through all ten of last year's Best Picture nominees, thanks to True Grit finally coming out on DVD. I will now rank them in order, with ratings and a small NIBLET of opinion about each of them.

Rankings are on the famous Pinback 0-5 Star scale, where the fifth star is reserved for extremely special films, not just great ones.

#1. The Social Network (****1/2): A masterwork. Two hours of people talking about websites, and the most riveting movie I've seen in years. It's Fincher's third best movie, which means that Fincher might be the best director on the planet. Far outclasses anything else in this list, and the fact that it didn't win is still a monstrous injustice.

#2. 127 Hours (****): Another movie about something you wouldn't think would be interesting (a guy stuck on a rock), and it's fascinating, terrifying, funny, and at one particular point which you can guess, awfully difficult to watch. Another Danny Boyle winner.

#3. True Grit (***1/2): A solid Coen Bros. effort, but one which you feel like they could have done in their sleep. A raucous, hilarious first half gives way to more traditional narrative by the end, but it's a joy throughout, and Jeff Bridges once again knocks it out of the house, even though I'm not sure I understood 1/4 of what he said.

#4. The King's Speech (***1/2): I wanted to hate this for beating Social Network, but it's hard to hate. A well done telling of a "made-for-the-Academy" storyline. Colin what'shisname won all the acting awards, but Geoffrey Rush steals the show.

#5. Black Swan (***1/2): A bit of a return to form for Aronofsky, this mindfuck turns ballet into a literal horrorshow, and also features Natalie Portman masturbating vigorously. So, there ya go.

#6. Toy Story 3 (***1/2): I saw the original Toy Story about five hundred times, but only saw the second one about a week before this came out on DVD. This is much better than the second one. My only complaint was, Christ, there's just SO MUCH going on in it, it's actually quite exhausting. But for a movie like this, too much is better than not enough.

#7. Winter's Bone (***): A Heart-of-Darkness-like trek through the Ozark Mountains, done up to look just as dangerous and foreboding as the Congo river, the land through which Jennifer Lawrence must navigate is the most impressive character in the film. Also holy crap is she gorgeous. Oh my god.

#8. The Kids Are Alright (**1/2): A difficult movie to like, because everyone in it is a horrible person. One character is presented to be perhaps not a horrible person, but by the end, everyone is horrible. However, good performances and at least a slightly interesting narrative make this reasonably watchable. Once, anyway.

#9. Inception (**1/2): It's inexcusable that this is thought of so highly. It's a reasonably well-executed caper movie, with one reasonably interesting idea, and a few reasonably entertaining special effects. Two and a half stars is a reasonably accurate rating.

#10. The Fighter (**): What the hell is this? This is a movie? Christian Bale's performance aside, I cannot think of a blander story to put to film. Not to spoil it for anyone, but as far as I can tell, the story is: "Pretty talented boxer practices a lot and then wins a bunch of fights." Yeah, that's... that's great. Couldn't you have just told me about it and saved me the two hours? David O. Russell was a better storyteller when he was punching his stars and calling Lily Tomlin a cunt.

This concludes this list which is now over.

[AArdvark]

Dammit pinback, you need to start a review podcast. Maybe once a month or something...

[Tdarcos]

#2. 127 Hours (****): Another movie about something you wouldn't think would be interesting (a guy stuck on a rock), and it's fascinating, terrifying, funny, and at one particular point which you can guess, awfully difficult to watch. Another Danny Boyle winner.

"I'd give my right arm to be the star of a movie. Oh, wait, I already did."

This is a modification of this quote allegedly from Lance Armstrong:

"I'd give my left nut to win the Tour De France. Oh wait, I already did!"

[Tdarcos]

Dammit pinback, you need to start a review podcast. Maybe once a month or something...

I've heard Ben when he was on the radio and even in his movie. He is the one and only substitute for sleeping pills; he could put insomniacs to sleep.

Roger Ebert is interesting both in writing and in person, as witness his multi-year TV appearance with the late Gene Siskel. Benjamin Parrish unfortunately does not have that kind of capacity in his in-person persona.

[Flack]

Welcome back, TDarcos.

As for Ben's list, I've only seen one movie on it, but I am interested in seeing most of them. When you have a wife who hates watching movies and two kids who love watching SpongeBob, quality theater time is always a challenge.

[pinback]

Dammit pinback, you need to start a review podcast. Maybe once a month or something...

I've heard Ben when he was on the radio and even in his movie. He is the one and only substitute for sleeping pills; he could put insomniacs to sleep.

I was in a movie?

[Tdarcos]

Dammit pinback, you need to start a review podcast. Maybe once a month or something...

I've heard Ben when he was on the radio and even in his movie. He is the one and only substitute for sleeping pills; he could put insomniacs to sleep.

I was in a movie?

This is not you:[youtube][/youtube]
But this is:
[youtube][/youtube]
And this is, too:[youtube][/youtube]

[pinback]

Oh. I didn't consider them "movies".

What I can't stand about watching movies on TV is the movies they interrupt the movies with to sell you stuff.

[bruce]

Oh. I didn't consider them "movies."

"I did not have sex with that woman."

Bruce

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I want that pie.

Ben could have been in Get Lamp. Jason was willing to interview him. Apparently Ben stopped returning phone calls, which is the #1 crime against humanity he ever performed.

Ben still hasn't seen that movie, if I remember correctly.

[Tdarcos]

Oh. I didn't consider them "movies."

"I did not have sex with that woman."

Bruce

Yea! You hit it right on the nose. I consider a video posted on YouTube to be the equivalent of a "movie". When people had super-8 video cameras, what did we call their amateur films? "Home movies."

[Tdarcos]

Oh. I didn't consider them "movies".

What I can't stand about watching movies on TV is the movies they interrupt the movies with to sell you stuff.

Watch pay channels then. Or PBS. You want expensive video for free, someone has to pay for it. Either you get it free by there being advertising, or you pay for it by subscription.

I actually used the above correctly then changed it to "their" then changed it back because I was right the first time. I thought it was wrong but checking some sites indicates I was correct in my understanding that "there" is the correct word in the above paragraph. I'm still a little bothered by it, though.

If I had said "advertising being there" I'd have had no problem; that would be correct but the way I wrote it bothers me a little.

[Knuckles the CLown]

after months of inactivity. I return just to say. "true grit" sucked.

[AArdvark]

Balls! I was gonna watch that soon. Now I wont.


THE
MISS NOTHING
AARDVARK

[pinback]

Balls! I was gonna watch that soon. Now I wont.


THE
MISS NOTHING
AARDVARK

No, it did not suck. With all due respect to the CLown, his taste in movies is... what's a nice way to say "horrible"?

[Tdarcos]

Balls! I was gonna watch that soon. Now I wont.


THE
MISS NOTHING
AARDVARK

No, it did not suck. With all due respect to the CLown, his taste in movies is... what's a nice way to say "horrible"?

"Less than credible" - "lacks intellectual integrity" - "fails to follow standards of normalcy" - "is an insult to the universe"

Using Wiktionary, what I could come up with was "tremendously wrong".