Best Picture Nominee Rankings

Voters are supposed to rank the Best Picture nominees, so here are mine with a mini-review.  Beware of possible spoilers.

1. The King’s Speech – It’s one of those lovely British films filled with haughtiness, grandeur and unexpected humor.  I don’t know if I could stand to hear those guttural throat sounds again though.

2.  The Fighter – Just a really good movie.  I became suffocated by that horribly ugly, trashy family; I don’t know how anyone could survive them.  Did any of those sisters have jobs?  They all just hung around in that small house smoking, drinking and judging.

3.  Inception – Yes, it’s a little hard to understand, but it was pretty effin cool.

4.  127 Hours – I sat next to an annoying woman who showed up late, and then gasped, cringed and rocked herself every time they showed a drop of blood.  What did she think this movie was about?  It does make you think about what you would do in this situation and what kind of strength you could muster.  I know I would never ride a bike 20 miles to walk around in caves, so I think I’m safe, but still.

5.  The Social Network – I didn’t like this movie as much after the second viewing.  They are not likable people and the film manipulated a lot of the truth.  I still don’t understand why MySpace and Friendster died and Facebook took over; they all kind of suck.  I don’t care if you’re at the store or what you had for dinner - keep your tedious, daily minutia to yourself.

6.  True Grit – The abrupt ending was really haunting.  It overshadowed the rest of the movie, and I left kind of sad.  But I left in a hurry because of the loud and awful song that played over the credits.  It was ear-piercingly terrible and totally out of place.

7.  The Winter’s Bone – A very frustrating movie from a feminist’s perspective, though I have very little experience in the meth world.  I am very thankful I have never had to skin a squirrel for food.  I’ve done it for fun, but who hasn’t? 

8.  The Kids Are All Right – I liked it, but do lesbians really hop into bed with dudes so quickly?  Plus, he seemed kind of smelly.

9.  Black Swan – It’s hard to enjoy movies that trick you into thinking that things happened – of course we’re fooled, we had to watch what you showed us.  However, I was very disturbed by several parts (not the sex scene (which didn’t actually happen!?!)).  I don’t know if I liked it, but it definitely stayed on my mind.

10.  Toy Story 3 – This is quite possibly the saddest movie ever made.  I am a borderline hoarder with a Peter Pan complex, so this movie destroyed me.  And not in a funny, growing-up-is-hard-to-do way – I was completely devastated from beginning to end.  Except for the part where the toys prepared themselves to die in the incinerator - that was a little deep and unnecessary for a ‘kid’s’ movie.

Thursday shows - 1/27/11

Community – “Celebrity Pharmacology 212”

Recap:  Annie produces a ‘Say No to Drugs’ play for the study group to perform for 50 at-risk preteens who are armed with commemorative baseballs and hopped up on leftover Charleston Chews.  Drugs and children is another one of those chicken or the egg type quandaries.  The play consists of Troy and Abed in random bee costumes, Jeff and Britta as the Cool Cats (Pee Wee’s Playhouse reference?), a pot leaf Pierce and Shirley, for reasons never explained, dressed as a green crayon.   I don’t mean to stereotype but doesn’t Troy already have a front stinger?  The already bad play goes awry when Pierce financially manipulates Annie into giving him carte blanche of the script.  He gets a big head when the clearly below-average children laugh at his showboating – “I love you, drugs” and that’s before he gets to his ‘penis material’.  Chang takes a beating for the team, proves he’s actually crazy to Shirley and made a creepy face that haunts my dreams.  Fun Facts:  Annie lives above Dildopolis and Jeff proves he’s sexy in a coffin.

• Best Line:  “I thought drugs just made people custom-paint their vans and solve mysteries.” – Abed
• Runner-Up:  “That’s my landlord and if he wanted to rape you, you’d be raped.” – Annie to Pierce

Parks and Recreation – “The Flu”

Recap:  Pawnee is taken over by the flu, just as Leslie needs to convince local businesses to support the Harvest Festival.  This episode illustrates the well-known fact that men and surly, spoiled post-teens are pansies when they are sick.  Due to the flu, Rob Lowe’s character was brought down to human level for Ann and April begins to warm up to Andy after a sweaty forehead kiss.  The best part was the interaction between Ron and Andy.  Ron gets Andy to take over for April even though she is "the whole package – aggressively mean and apathetic."  They have never spent too much time together, but they ate meat, talked sports, played catch and shared an uncomfortably long hug.  Ron even giggled as they ran away from the blaring car alarm.  Sidenote, Nick Offerman had a fairly decent throwing motion, much better than most actors, especially those kids on Community.  He’s starting to become my new fake boyfriend now that Brendanawicz is gone.  I know he would hate my vegetarian liberalness (as would Jack Donaghy) and my aversion to moustaches, but the flame has been ignited. 

• Best line:  “I worked with a guy for 3 years and never learned his name – best friend I ever had.  We still never talk sometimes.”  Ron Swanson on working with women
• Runner-Up:  “No one dresses up as a janitor when they want to be slutty.”  April about Ann’s job

The Office – “The Seminar”

Recap:  Andy hosts a small business seminar at the office in an effort to boost his sales productivity.  Ricky Gervais made a cameo appearance at the beginning of the episode – is that just a tease or is he actually considering taking Steve Carell’s place?  His movies haven’t really done anything and no one was happy with him at the Golden Globes, but would be return to the job that made him famous in America?  He would have to adjust to the length of our seasons – 22 episodes, not 6.  Why do they do that?  As soon as you start liking a show, it’s over after 12 episodes.  Anyhoo, all the ‘good’ speakers backed out when they saw the lame crowd, so Andy had to rely on the fringe office members.  Kevin threw up, Creed spoke about the Loch Ness monster, but Kelly the Business Bitch saved the day with a call from an inappropriate professor.  In the secondary plot, Erin reveals she’s too dumb to function as a human being.  I know not everyone can excel at Scrabble, but “it doesn’t just have to be cow stuff, right?”

• Best Line:  “I like the early parts of the movies when they have a perfect family.” - Erin reviewing The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby and The Ring
• Runner-Up:  “Practice the Olympics.” – What Michael’s Greek character does in his spare time.

30 Rock – “Operation Righteous Cowboy Lightning”

Recap:  Jack tries to corner the market on celebrity disaster telethons and Tracy is an immature idiot officially named ‘Unclaimed Perfection Baby Boy.’  Tina Fey has cemented her spot as my hero by valiantly trying to prove how much reality shows suck, while still pining for the ‘golden age of scripted material.’  God, they really do suck so much.  I would rather watch any scripted show, except According to Jim, than reality TV.  Who cares what these brain-dead, fame-hungry assholes think, say or do?  Pageant moms, drunken Jersey sluts, rich-bitch housewives, more sluts competing for the fake love of a man-slut – who effing cares?   How can people (Mark) listen to their self-indulgent, blabbering gibberish?  It hurts my brain and my soul.  Please, all of you, quietly kill yourselves.  Back to a show I love, I almost snarted at the Charles Widmore reference and Mel Gibson is going to be super angry when he finds out people think he’s a racist.

• Best Line:  “It was our highest ratings since that episode of SVU where the detectives watched American Idol.” – Jack Donaghy proving TV has been ruined
•   “I’m as happy as a clam that wants to kill some woman.”  Tracy trying to keep his cool for the cameras