Category: Movies
My 2011 Oscar picks and predictions
The Academy Awards are tonight and this year I’ve seen 8 out of the 10 Best Picture nominees, as well as quite a few of the films nominated in other categories. So in these hours leading up to the ceremony, I offer my personal Oscar picks (the films I think should win and that I personally liked the best) as well as my predictions for who I think will actually win, given the Academy’s voting history. You’ll see they often line up, but sometimes do not.
On with the show…
Best Picture
Ricky’s Pick: The Social Network and Toy Story 3
Oscar Prediction: The King’s Speech
Out of the eight Best Picture nominees I saw (I didn’t see The Kids are All Right or Winter’s Bone), it’s tough to choose between The Social Network and Toy Story 3 as a favorite, because I enjoyed them both for entirely different reasons. The Social Network is the first movie to ever successfully capture the computer world without inserting unnecessary beeps, elite hackers, or The Matrix. It’s a world I can relate to quite closely, having gone to college for computer science and even going to the same high school as Eduardo Saverin, though I never knew him as he was a few years behind me. And that’s what picking the winners of any of these categories comes down to for me: ability to personally connect. If I can’t feel what the characters are feeling, then the movie is a dud for me.
While The Social Network reminds me of my college years, Toy Story 3 connects me to both my childhood and the process of leaving for college. It all hits closely to home, especially with the tear-jerking finale. Plus, I’m already a Disney fan and it’s hard not to root for it.
The King’s Speech is an actor’s movie and a well-performed one. But I can’t relate to it at all. It’s about British royalty, the social elite, and speech therapy. Sure there are some friendship themes in there that all can relate to, but in the end I just didn’t find myself caring enough about the characters and I found the ending to be entirely unsatisfying. It’s an interesting story, especially given that it’s (mostly) true, but that’s all. However, it’s exactly the type of movie that the Academy likes to award Best Picture to. I hope they don’t, but I think they will.
Here is my overall ranking of the Best Picture nominated films:
1. The Social Network
2. Toy Story 3
3. Black Swan
4. 127 Hours
5. The Fighter
6. True Grit
7. The King’s Speech
8. Inception
As I said above, I didn’t see The Kids Are All Right or Winter’s Bone.
Actor in a Leading Role
Ricky’s Pick: Colin Firth
Oscar Prediction: Colin Firth
Despite my feelings about The King’s Speech as a film, Colin Firth did a wonderful job in his role. He conquered the dialogue, speech impediment and all. Jessie Eisenberg certainly had a few tongue twisters with Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue in The Social Network, but ultimately he was still Jesse Eisenberg. Firth transformed himself into the titular King.
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365 Adventures in 2011: Day 57 – And the Oscar goes to… me!
Inspired by the Academy Awards coming up tomorrow, I took a trip to Disney’s Hollywood Studios today to seek out as many Oscar-related items as I could find. I’ll post a photo round-up of them all tomorrow, but today’s photo is of me standing next to a bunch of Oscar statues awarded to Disney over the years for various films. It definitely got me in the spirit to watch tomorrow night’s broadcast.
Tonight I’m going to watch The Fighter, which will be the eighth Best Picture nominee I’ve seen out of the 10 nominated this year. I don’t think I’ll see The Kids Are All Right or Winter’s Bone before the ceremony tomorrow, but those are the two I’m least interested in ever seeing anyway.
Tomorrow I’ll also post my rankings of the 8 films I will have seen by then, before the awards show begins.
Tweet365 Adventures in 2011: Day 50 – When you wish upon a star…
There’s not too much story to today’s photo. While wandering Disney’s Animal Kingdom today, I found Jiminy Cricket in the Rafiki’s Planet Watch section of the park. I don’t remember recently seeing him as a meet-and-greet character, so I had to grab a photo with him.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 47 – Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Matinee
I have spent yet another night organizing and de-cluttering our house. After cleaning up my office and the kitchen, my midnight task was to sort through all the new movies we’ve accumulated over Christmas, our birthdays, and other random purchases in the last few months. We keep all our DVDs in folders, but they tend to pile up before we actually get around to putting them IN the folders.
We haven’t even seen most of these yet, but many were purchased for only a few bucks as previously-viewed copies at Blockbuster and are thus cheaper to own than seeing them in the theater. So it’s worth it to buy them even if we only watch them once. Putting them away and keeping them organized is still a hassle though.
TweetHighlights and photos from Toy Fair 2011 – The Walking Dead, Terminator, Duke Nukem, Pirates LEGOs, BioShock, Ghostbusters, and more
I visited Toy Fair 2011 today in New York from the comfort of my office in Florida by way of coverage of the annual event from Collider.com and ActionFigs.com.
I wish I had been there in person, but since I wasn’t, sifting through photo galleries was the next best thing. And I pulled out pictures of the toys, action figures, and other fun things that I’ll most likely be buying when they hit the market soon.
So here’s my vicarious photo report from Toy Fair 2011 of what I’m most looking forward to…
Terminator
I have quite the collection of Terminator 2 figures already, so I’m quite happy to see NECA coming out with a couple of Arnold from the original Terminator as well. Plus more fun sculpts of the T-1000 are always fun too:
