Best Picture Predictions

Soundtrack provided by Wick-it the Instigator


Best Picture

The Artist
The Descendants
The Help
War Horse
Moneyball
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Midnight in Paris
Tree of Life
Hugo

So everything else has been snarky, but I feel like I've snarked each of these films as much as possible. Plus, the Oscars are actually coming up for realsies, so I want to do an actual break down of these films.

First, a caveat: I haven't seen The Descendants, The Help, War Horse, Moneyball, or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. From all accounts, they are: beautiful, cloying, surprising, and exploitative, respectively. Of those, I feel bad about not seeing the Descendants. The Help and War Horse I'm fairly apathetic towards. Moneyball I feel like I should be apathetic towards, but I've heard enough good things to spark my curiosity. Extremely Loud I want to see for the same reason I slow down to look at a car accident on the side of the road. I know I shouldn't, but it's just too damn fascinating.

So let's count down the films I've seen.

Midnight in Paris

This was probably the most delightful film of the year. I walked out of the theater beaming, and every 1920s sequence was pitch perfect. Hemmingway was probably my favorite supporting character of the year. I'm not a 1920s aficionado nor a Francophile, but MiP made me think I could become both.

Ultimately, it's a bit light to outpull the other films on this list, but I don't know if I had a more uplifting experience in theaters this year.

Hugo

The Oscars went all in on 1920s Paris this year. Actually, all four of the best picture nominees that I've seen are nostalgia fests. In fact, the only films that take place in the modern world this year seem to involve the apocalypse (Melancholia, Take Shelter, Another Earth). America needs to cheer up, I think.

Nothing explains the existence of Kung Fu Panda 2 better than Hugo's box office returns, and I don't want to listen to anyone talk about how Hollywood has no original ideas ever again. A visual masterpiece, with a rich tapestry of interwoven stories and characters, amazing adventures, deep inner and outer conflict, and even a wonderful bit of cinematic history, I don't know how much more a single film can pack into a train station.

For a while I even considered Hugo for my favorite film of the year, though it did end up sinking a bit down the list when all was said and done.

The Artist

The Artist was my favorite 'accessible' film of the year and likely the Best Picture winner in the real world this year. I put quote around accessible, b/c how accessible really is a black and white silent film?

Well, it turns out very; I didn't know exactly what to expect when I went into The Artist, but crowdpleaser was certainly not high on the list. But what a crowd pleaser it was! I'm going to find it hard talking about this film without gushing; it was absolutely masterful in its execution, and Dujardin and Bejo oozed more charisma and zest in their performances than any film I've seen in years.

We've had far too much nostalgia here: time to get bitter.

Tree of Life

Ok, so I have to preface this by acknowledging that Tree of Life has no chance.

I know that, you know that, the Academy knows that, Terence Malick and Brad Pitt knows that. That being said, it's the only film on this list that will have long term staying power in cinematic history. It was a tour de force, the most ambitious vision I've seen attempted since Synechdoce, New York, and the most emotionally raw, honest, hyper charged film I've seen in a long, long time.

The degree of difficulty here can't be understated. Yes, The Artist had to sell a black and white silent film to a modern audience, but at least it's couched in a traditional narrative structure. Tree of Life is a philosophical riddle wrapped in a pastiche of disconnected scenes with nothing but the audience's imagination and work ethic to hold them together. It's demanding, mercurial, and maddening, willing to drop the story for 20 minutes to show a visually stunning montage of planets forming and dinosaurs. The story, btw, is set in 1950s rural Texas. This is not an easy leap for audiences to make.

At the end of the day, are there some flaws? Sure. I don't care. Nothing this year was even playing on the same field as Tree of Life in cinematic ambition and panache, and it is and will likely remain my favorite film from 2011.

Now, that being said, there's no fucking way Oscar will agree, so I'll settle for a well deserved nomination and cheer The Artist on.

Now on Sunday, when Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close wins, I'm going to print all of these posts out and set them on fire.