Okay, we are back. We took a week off last week, but over the next two weeks we'll time this perfectly now with our "catchup" period of OVP My Ballots, where I pick who I would've given the nominations to if I had run the Oscars in a given year. We have one more to catchup on before we have these for every one of our Oscar Viewing Project retrospectives (links are at the bottom of the page if you're new and want to see some of my past ballots, as well as my thoughts on every one of the below Oscar races, as I have seen every film that was nominated in these categories from 2010), and then we'll align with the end of 2004 (afterwards we'll have one of these at the end of every year retrospective we do). That's enough housekeeping-let's get into who I would've nominated in 2010!
Another Year
Black Swan
Blue Valentine
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Inception
Never Let Me Go
Rabbit Hole
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
Gold: David Fincher's look at Mark Zuckerberg, such an atypical, cold approach to a biopic, feels even more resonant ten years after the fact, as we live in a world profoundly damaged by Facebook.
Silver: The (penultimate) goodbye to the Toy Story franchise may have unnecessarily added an extra coda to its story in 2019, but that doesn't take away from the heart & soul of this goodbye to childhood.
Bronze: This is my favorite films, not me trying to be super qualitative about the fanciest or most prestigious films of 2010. That being said, I still stand behind Scott Pilgrim being a great movie, a fun comic book ode with an offbeat, gut-busting script.
Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine)
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Christopher Nolan (Inception)
Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3)
Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)
Gold: David Fincher's oftentimes detached, noir approach doesn't always succeed when he's crossing genres, but with The Social Network, looking at Mark Zuckerberg's tale as a man destined for personal doom feels like the correct motif.
Silver: Edgar Wright's vision in Scott Pilgrim emerges fully-formed, a comic novel come-to-life, with each of Ramona Flowers' evil exes providing us with a new chapter in Scott Pilgrim's life. A total joy.
Bronze: Derek Cianfrance's analysis of a marriage, both its highs and its lows, is a jewel-it shows the ways that our personal history keeps us together, oftentimes longer than we should, and how that personal history can sometimes substitute for a dwindling love.
Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine)
Gold: Ryan Gosling became the go-to swoon guy long before Blue Valentine, but this is the movie where I think America's collective crush on him solidified. He plays Dean as a sweet, kind, hapless figure, someone who fell in love but never fulfilled the other promise he might've had in his youth.
Silver: Jesse Eisenberg's incarnation of Mark Zuckerberg has to walk a fine line-he needs to ensure that we hate Mark by the end of the film, giving us hints of what he's created, while still compelled to want to understand where he'll go next, where the story will take him. He fully lives up to the task.
Bronze: Firth likely got some of his accolades for a convincing, perfectly-realized stutter. He makes my list though as a man who can wage an internal war, a sturdy serious figure trying to rise to an occasion that he never expected to endure.
Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
Gold: Kidman's work in Rabbit Hole is a reminder of what a skilled performer she is onscreen. She compartmentalizes-look at the way she approaches all three of her primary costars with unique tactics-giving us different pieces of her broken heart.
Silver: Michelle Williams plays internal conflict better than almost any actress of her generation. Within her eyes, Cindy struggles along with the audience-we see the way her mind works as she ponders her life with Dean, and if she's ready to leave him behind to pursue her own future.
Bronze: Portman's terrifying transformation as Nina comes down to details. She lilts her voice higher as the film progresses, regressing into the little girl scared of her mother & of failure...it's intricate work in a performance that could have just been to-the-rafters.
Kieran Culkin (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)
Andrew Garfield (Never Let Me Go)
Andrew Garfield (The Social Network)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)
Miles Teller (Rabbit Hole)
Gold: Andrew Garfield's breakout moment came in a dual punch in 2010 (see also Never Let Me Go), but this is the part that made him a star. Someone slightly over-his-head, his Eduardo Saverin spends the movie understanding his worth...and eventually demanding it.
Silver: Mark Ruffalo specialized in this sort of off-kilter figure for a decade before inhabiting Bruce Banner, a charming Peter Pan whose handsomeness disguises the fact that he never grew up (and his Paul learns that time is a debt we all have to pay).
Bronze: Kieran Culkin may have finally stepped out of his brother's shadow with Succession, but don't forget he's been stealing scenes for decades now. Case in point-the way he commits grand theft auto with Scott's (gay) roommate Wallace Wells.
Dale Dickey (Winter's Bone)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Lesley Manville (Another Year)
Kristin Scott Thomas (Nowhere Boy)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)
Gold: Jacki Weaver completely owns the screen as Smurf, a cruel, calculating mother with a cartoonish grin. She plays her like a viper, always ready to strike, but one who comes dressed as a rabbit, so when it happens...you're caught unawares.
Silver: Lesley Manville's role in Another Year punches you in the stomach it's so hard to grasp. She brings a thorough soul to a woman that we look past on the screens, and Manville doesn't provide us respite or easy answers in the way that Mary's tale will turn out.
Bronze: Melissa Leo's work in The Fighter is the peak of her career for a reason. Her Alice is so good at manipulating a room, a mother who has had to fight, turning on the charm at the exact right moments to always get her way.
Incendies
Never Let Me Go
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
Gold: The Social Network is a perfect screenplay, leaving layer-after-layer, each scene filling us with more insight into the kinds of men (good or bad) that we're leaving behind in each scene as these men become their fates. Aaron Sorkin has never been so good on the big-screen.
Silver: Brimming with wordplay (some of it not even spoken..."Julie Powers has issues"), Scott Pilgrim is endlessly quotable & hilariously funny. In a different year this would've been an easy call for the gold medal.
Bronze: Toy Story 3 is also filled with wonderful dialogue, continuing to find inventive ways to toy with (had to do the pun once) its premise of inanimate objects come to life. But it's in the final moments, as the toys fulfill their journey, that we really see the payoff of three movie's worth of memories.
Another Year
Blue Valentine
Easy A
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
Gold: Mike Leigh's unflinching look at a year in the life of several friends is extraordinary, playing in some ways like a mystery-who will be gifted happiness, contentment...and who will this be pulled away from? That staggering ending only works because of the exquisite work he'd done beforehand.
Silver: Derek Cianfrance also knows how to find an enigma in less traditional circumstances, giving us a wonderful two-act play in the life of two young lovers brought together through fate, and pulled apart by their own shifting hearts.
Bronze: Domesticity seems to be the theme here, as I'm going with Kids Are All Right to round out this trio. I loved the way that Lisa Cholodenko gives us such a rich history into the relationship between Nic and Jules, not just the bad times but also the good, as the movie heads toward its close.
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3
Gold: The capper of the Pixar renaissance, Toy Story 3 uses all of the tools in its arsenal to sell the picture-vibrant colors, flashy visual gags, and most crucially, fifteen years worth of nostalgia to underscore its ending.
Silver: How to Train Your Dragon was the moment when everyone (briefly) started taking Dreamworks animation seriously in terms of the Oscar race. A giant, whirling adventure for the big-screen (that looked terrific in 3-D).
Bronze: The Illusionist is a gorgeous, subtle ode to the work of Jacques Tati that has a beautiful animation palette (soft & pastel), and is bitter as often as sweet, giving us a tough look at how aging (and what it does to our dreams) isn't always fair.
Black Swan
Inception
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
Gold: You don't normally care about the sound mixing in a biopic. Of course, you don't usually have sound mixing as reflective of the characters as The Social Network. Think of a scene like Mark shouting his deepest insecurities in a club...and still having no one care. The sound mixing is in on the message of not being heard even when you have everyone listening.
Silver: The score in Inception works so well (not always the case with Hans Zimmer's louder-than-life music), and the film plays with silence better than pretty much every Nolan film seen since (and you can hear the dialogue!).
Bronze: Scott Pilgrim has such a robust song score to play with, and every single tune fits the scene like a glove. I also loved the way that the sound feels like an official narrator, playing with volume control from scene-to-scene.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Toy Story 3
Gold: The sound editing in Inception is so impressive not just because it's pristine & clear (you can hear the city folding in on itself, every crunch), but also because it's adding to the story. Think of the howling wind during Mar's attempted jump...if the filmmakers are going to get into our minds, we have to hear it.
Silver: Few films try to capture the adventure of flight & magical creatures in the same way as How to Train Your Dragon. The dragons are so distinctive, as is the whirling speed of the Vikings in flight...I loved the way this movie totally underscored how fun it is through its sound design.
Bronze: Scott Pilgrim leans heavy into that zooming comic book style, with us hearing the etched words in every corner (a joke in every frame), as well as using common video game aural clues to hint as Scott Pilgrim moves to the next level-a winning combination.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Inception
Never Let Me Go
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
Gold: A decade before Reznor & Ross were double nominees at the Oscars, they were making their first big-scale play for Oscar with the sharp staccatos & synthesized feel of The Social Network, perfectly encapsulating the tech beat of Mark Zuckerberg's world.
Silver: Hans Zimmer's best work relies upon big moments, a film that can match his huge crescendoes & loud musical cues. Inception is that film, a movie that needs a composer of his skill-set to match its ambitions.
Bronze: Rachel Portman's layered work in Never Let Me Go gives us a bit of melancholia, an old-timey, wistful memory as we watch the picture's life flash before our eyes.
"I See the Light," (Tangled)
"Mother Knows Best," (Tangled)
"Never Let Me Go," (Never Let Me Go)
"Ramona," (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)
"You Haven't Seen the Last of Me," (Burlesque)
Gold: It's hard to pinpoint a best song in Scott Pilgrim (and also, some of the best songs aren't eligible), but Beck's "Ramona" hits multiple highs throughout the film, getting the longing for the girl you first loved (and how you'll always remember her).
Silver: Say what you will about Burlesque & the cinematic trappings of Diane Warren, but "You Haven't Seen the Last Me" is a perfect fit for the movie, and sung with astounding devotion by the ageless Cher.
Bronze: One of my favorite things in films of the nature of Never Let Me Go is when they choose not to clean out the piano bench for an old tune that'll fit this motif, but instead add a new one. "Never Let Me Go" is at once modern & bitterly nostalgic, just like the picture it houses.
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
I Am Love
Inception
Shutter Island
Gold: It's not just about Paris folding in on itself (though it is-that scene still holds up a decade later), but it's also about the way that the art directors of Inception continually find new ways to morph our dreams, and the worlds within them. Splendid stuff.
Silver: Shutter Island has a difficult task to encounter when it comes to the art direction-how do we make this world feel real & yet not-entirely-right. Dante Ferretti dives right into that task, giving us giant, articulate sets (with just a touch of madness lurking underneath).
Bronze: Weirdly Oscar skipped I Am Love in this category despite citing it for Costume, as the sun-drenched Italian villas & ornate, stiff furniture of the movie reek of money in a way that the script could never impress upon the viewers.
I Am Love
Inception
Never Let Me Go
The Social Network
True Grit
Gold: Roger Deakins paints the west with light in the gorgeous True Grit. The giant, extensive shots in the film recall some of the work of Freddie Young-playing with shadow & dusk, Deakins gives the film a beauty that the script (unfortunately) could never match.
Silver: If the first thing you think of when you think of The Social Network is the weather (the crew team in the rain, the grey haze that seems to follow Sean Parker from scene-to-scene), you should be paying your respects to Jeff Cronenweth, who sets the mood of every frame of The Social Network.
Bronze: Luca Guadagnino's films always have their own aesthetic, and that's again the case with I Am Love, which plays with light & shadow, to give us a glowing look at the upper set of Italy (and of course, Tilda Swinton makes a fabulous subject for any cinematographer).
Black Swan
I Am Love
Never Let Me Go
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
The Tempest
Gold: I Am Love is so reliant upon the singular, money-drenched lifestyle of its main characters that the costumes have a lot to live up to. Antonella Cannarozzi knows how to find that though, giving us gowns that feel clean, flawless...and way out of your price range.
Silver: Whomever ends up getting the credit (there was a brouhaha at the time about who was the designer which resulted in a surprise Oscar snub), the work in Black Swan deserves its shout-out. The plays on black-and-white in both Nina & Lily's costumes are exceptional, and deserve recognition.
Bronze: I mean, the movie that houses the looks of The Tempest is absolutely bonkers (and a total mess), but don't hold that against Sandy Powell. We see Helen Mirren swathed in a sea of warm colors (blue, teal, green), while the men's clothes (Powell's specialty) look just as decadent & within the rockstar motif that Julie Taymor is aspiring.
Black Swan
Incendies
The Social Network
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Winter's Bone
Gold: The Social Network starts with a minor character cutting apart our central figure so accurately you spend the next two hours second-guessing, assuming she must be wrong. That she isn't, and that the film unfolds so splendidly, whirling from experience-to-experience without ever providing satisfaction for Mark, is a testament to terrific editing.
Silver: A horror film lives or dies in the editing room, and that's what Black Swan turns out to be. The movie's slow march into Nina's madness works so well because the editors know how to time the descent, ensuring we're kept guessing until it's too late.
Bronze: Scott Pilgrim runs a tightrope. It needs to remain wholly original, while skating through the world of comic books, a world even in 2010 that had been played to most degrees. The editors keep the visual humor coming, though, landing every single punchline & nod to the genre.
Black Swan
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Wolf Man
Gold: The makeup work within Black Swan is instantly iconic. You shouldn't win an Oscar just for a look, but man is it tempting to give it to Nina's alabaster face for the final sequence. Even without that though, some of the grooming & transformation scenes (the wings in her back!) are all the makeup department's doing.
Silver: The first thing you think of is, of course, Ramona Flowers' shifting hair colors when it comes to Scott Pilgrim, but it's really everyone whose makeup/hair stand out-the looks of all of the characters are carefully represented, preened perfectly to capture that glossy, manufactured aesthetic that you can only aspire for when you're in your early twenties.
Bronze: Remember when Cate Blanchett said "gross" while presenting the Oscar to The Wolf Man (still one of my favorite moments of presenter editorializing)? She's not wrong, but that doesn't mean that the big, flashy effects that Rick Baker is bringing here don't add to the story & are totally believable (if, well, gross).
Black Swan
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Inception
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Tron: Legacy
Gold: Iconic effects films that are skewered within an inch of their life by later, lesser films are usually doing something right. That's the case of the wall-of-CGI (literally) crashing into Inception, a sumptuous feast for the eyes that still holds up a decade later because it uses the effects to actually tell the story (not just astound...though it obviously is achieving both).
Silver: Harry Potter still has some magic up his sleeve with his penultimate adventure, here highlighting new heights with a decrepit white dragon trapped within the confines of Gringott's bank, and a gigantic glowing shield hovering over the iconic Hogwarts.
Bronze: Visual effects should not only be groundbreaking-they also need to aide the story. Scott Pilgrim isn't a Grand Teton of effects like Inception, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it uses its effects so well, here playing with color & video game aesthetic to enrich the humor.
Also in 2010: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2010
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