Justin’s Rating: 4/5

Jesse, my friend Matt, and I went to Shutter Island this past weekend. It was the quality that I expect from Martin Scorsese. The guy is a master filmmaker and knows exactly how to establish mood, tone, and everything else that goes into a great psychological thriller.  This movie has all the makings of a great movie, and even though it isn’t perfect, it is still a great movie. And Jackie Earle Haley, although he is only in the movie for about two minutes, gives a performance to die for. He is such a great actor and is always different and dissolves himself into his characters. I was thoroughly impressed with all the performances in the film, and it was great to see Mark Ruffalo (who is one of my all time favorites) get a big role in a big box office release. My praise was only half of the reason for this post, now for my other reason…

As everybody that knows me knows that I have a very love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with the critics. I will say that for the most part the good critics know what they are talking about, but then we have these schumcks from blackcountertoponthesidewalkcrack.com talking about things that they know nothing about. Usually I don’t care what these idiots have to say but when it plays a pivotal role in people’s perception of a great film it really bothers me. It plays that role through a little sight called rottentomatoes.com, which I have spoken out against in the past and I will do it again. Please don’t put any clout into their tomatometer or whatver it is called, because it can be way off, and it is again in regards to Shutter Island. If you take a look at the two most famous and respected critics on the planet (Roger Ebert and Peter Travers) they both gave the film 3.5/4 which is a great rating. Both praised the movie even though it may not be perfect. Many other respected and notable critics have also praised the film and have given it good marks. So why does it have a 66% on rottentomatoes then? Because of these jackass critics that know nothing of film. If you read their negative reviews on the film, they almost don’t make any sense. These people seem to have no idea what they are talking about. It just sounds like they are talking because they love the sound of their voice, which is kind of what I do, but dammit, I’m better at it. It is a severe injustice that people are looking at this sub-par rating and judging the movie accordingly without deciding for themselves. In my respected opinion, if you find yourself always agreeing with the critics or with the tomatometer, then get an opinion of your own, because clearly you don’t have one. If you can’t get your own opinion, then I will gladly let you borrow mine.

Having worked in a facility for a year, that was very similar to this one, I am here to tell you that this might be the most unrealistic movie ever made. I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes and scoffing at the ridiculousness of the actions on the screen. First off, people in these kind of facilities are monitored by many people day and night, 24/7. These violent and troubled teens were allowed to walk around at will, go into other people’s rooms with no supervision, get out of their own rooms at night and wander around, they were allowed to scream and fight and anything else you could possibly imagine. I don’t think my intelligence has ever been so insulted as it was when I watched this movie. There is one point where a kid has a pocket knife. He has been in the facility longer than our main character so he didn’t just arrive with it. Where did this knife come from? It just all of the sudden appears?! And there is no way on this freakin planet that he got that knife in there. Absolutely no how, no way. And where were all of the employees?! This whole movie these violent teens are walking around doing whatever they want, coming and going as they please, and nobody is ever watching them! They go outside by themselves, completely unsupervised?!?! I don’t think so. Then multiple fights break out, and they are allowed to fight for a good thirty seconds before anybody shows up! Are you kidding me?! These fights would last five seconds tops. When these kids started yelling and swearing and inciting their peers they would have immediately been removed from the situation and taken somwhere else to cool down. That’s how it works. They wouldn’t just let them sit there and yell at each other and incite each other until a fight broke out. Give me a break. Don’t waste your time with this movie. It sat on my dvr for almost two months, and I wished I would have just deleted it. Oh had I known then what I know now.

Best Supporting Actress

Vera Farmiga–Up In The Air

Penelope Cruz–Nine

Anna Kendrick– Up In the Air   (I predicted Melanie Laurent–Inglourious Basterds)

Mo’Nique–Precious

Maggie Gyllenhaal– Crazy Heart   (I predicted Julianne Moore–A Single Man)

Best Supporting Actor

Stanley Tucci–The Lovely Bones

Christoph Waltz–Inglourious Basterds

Matt Damon–Invictus

Christopher Plummer–The Last Station     (I wasn’t lying about the required one really old dude nomination)

Woody Harrelson–The Messenger

Best Actress

Meryl Streep–Julie & Julia

Sandra Bullock–The Blind Side

Carey Mulligan–An Education

Gabourey Sidibe–Precious

Helen Mirren–The Last Station

Best Actor

George Clooney–Up In The Air

Jeff Bridges–Crazy Heart

Colin Firth–A Single Man

Morgan Freeman–Invictus

Jeremy Renner–The Hurt Locker

Best Director

Quentin Tarantino–Inglourious Basterds

Kathryn Bigelow–The Hurt Locker

James Cameron–Avatar

Jason Reitman–Up In The Air

Lee Daniels–Precious

Best Picture

Avatar

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

Precious

Up In The Air

The Blind Side    (I predicted Star Trek)

A Serious Man

Up–     (Told ya so.)

An Education    (I predicted In The Loop)

District 9

*Out of 35 nominations, I correctly predicted 31. That is 88%! I must say that I did pretty good. Now to pat myself on the back…….that felt good. I honestly cannot believe in any world that the Blind Side got nominated for best picture! What has this world come to?! I blah all over that movie. Avatar and The Hurt Locker lead all movies with 9 nominations each. Inglourious Basterds got 8, Precious and Up In The Air both got 6, Up got 5, and District 9 got 4. Overall I think the nominations are pretty good. But one thing that I absolutely have to point out is that Avatar is 1 of only 2 movies that is nominated for best picture that isn’t nominated for a writing award. That’s right, my guarantee that it wouldn’t get nominated for writing came true. But it’s not like it took a genius to predict that. And the other movie that isn’t nominated for writing is The Blind Side, which shouldn’t be nominated for best picture anyway, but at least it is nominated for acting. Avatar isn’t nominated for any writing awards or any acting awards. Hmm…..

First, we have the issue of dealing with it being the highest grossing movie of all time, worldwide and soon to be domestically. However, not only are these stats misleading, they are completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. They are misleading because, wait for it…………Avatar was being shown in 3-d as well as 2-d. We all know what this means, right? 3-d tickets cost 3 dollars more per ticket. So instead of someone going to see a regular movie and paying fifteen dollars, they are going to avatar in 3-d and paying twenty-one dollars. See what kind of problem that creates with comparing it to other movies? Avatar is currently sitting at 595 million dollars. Let’s compare that with 2008′s the Dark Knight. The Dark Knight made 533 million dollars, with no 3-d showings. If we took twenty percent of those ticket sales and turned them into 3-d ticket sales, what would the Dark Knight’s gross be at that point? I don’t know because I don’t know how to do that kind of math but it would be quite a bit higher. And that would be assuming that only twenty percent of Avatar’s ticket sales were in 3-d, which we all know is definitely a low guess, I would estimate it somewhere around fifty five or sixty percent. Even if we don’t want to accept that argument, we can look at the all time box office and see how it compares when you adjust for inflation. If you adjust for inflation, Gone With The Wind is the highest grossing film of all time by a longshot. It’s not even close to Avatar with sales at 1.5 billion domestically. When adjusting for inflation Avatar is the 21st highest grossing movie of all time, so the highest grossing movie argument just can’t be used.

But, as I stated before, that argument is really irrelevant. I say that because best picture is not awarded to the most popular movie, or the highest grossing movies of the year. In fact, the people that have the artistic integrity to make film as art and aren’t concerned with huge box office earnings usually aren’t widely seen because filmmaking has become about making money so they only buy the movies that have mass appeal. The award of best picture is given to the best made film of the year, how much a movie makes says nothing about how well the movie is made. If the academy nominated the highest grossing movies of the year the list would look like this: Avatar, Transformers 2, Harry Potter, Twilight, Up, The Hangover, Star Trek, The Blindside, Alving & The Chipmunks, and Monsters vs. Aliens. Does that really look like a list of the ten best movies of the year, or more like a list of the most appealing movies to a majority of people?

A lot of people just go to movies to be entertained so they go to things like G.I. Joe or Transformers, anybody that saw those movies know that they are piles of garbage, but they make money because people just want to be entertained. Sadly, once again, that is not what best picture is for. It is to reward the movie that is the most well made movie overall. With a movie like Avatar, where the dialogue is mediocre and bad in parts, all the characters are flat, the plot isn’t original at all, it becomes really hard to make a case that it is the most well made movie of the year. Even with counting all the ticket sales to Avatar, you still can’t claim that that makes it great because who knows how many of those people went more than once and how many people even liked it. My final point is just a reiteration of what I said before. How much many something makes is not indicative of how good the movie is, does that mean that it has more appeal to most people, yes probably, but that doesn’t mean it’s better then any other movie. Best picture is a reward for making the best film over all the different categories, not making the highest grossing movie. I have just rambled on and on at this point, so I will stop now. I could go on about this all day, but I think you see my point.

Then in 1949, Hamlet won best picture without being nominated for a writing award. You wanna know why? Because that year there was no category for best adapted screenplay, it was only for original screenplays, therefore it couldn’t be nominated for writing. That’s five of the seven. The other two it has happened to are completely legit, and coincidentally, two of the most undeserving best picture winners of all time. They were The Sound of Music in 1966 and, yep, you guessed it, Titanic in 1997. Oh gee, James Cameron’s other big movie. Gee, that’s weird. Think maybe they have a thing for James Cameron?

So really, it has only happened twice in the history of the oscars and is about to happen for a third time, and two of those three will be James Cameron movies. Hmm. Not only has it only happened twice, but it has only happened ONCE in the last forty-four years! I can’t comprehend how something can be the best picture of the year if it isn’t even one of the ten most well written movies of the year. After all, aren’t movies stories? And doesn’t good writing go hand in hand with good storytelling? I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense to me. I am not trying to bash Avatar at all, although it may seem that way. I like the movie, I just don’t think it’s worth all the praise and awards that it is getting. I feel there are better movies that are more deserving.

Best Supporting Actress

Vera Farmiga–Up In The Air    (I have been a big fan of Vera’s since I saw Dummy back in 2003. I would be very excited to see her get this nomination.)

Penelope Cruz–Nine    (I am a big Penelope Cruz fan, but I think this nomination will come just because of the lack of good supporting female roles.)

Melanie Laurent–Inglourious Basterds     (I had never seen her before this movie, and I must say, I am a very big fan. I love those French actresses.)

Mo’Nique–Precious     (I have been resisting this movie pretty strongly, maybe it’s as good as “they” say it is…)

Julianne Moore–A Single Man     (I really don’t think Julianne Moore is great, but I think the Academy thinks otherwise.)

Best Supporting Actor

Stanley Tucci–The Lovely Bones     (I really like Stanley Tucci, so I would be ok with this.)

Christoph Waltz–Inglourious Basterds     (His performance is well deserving of a nomination and a win, we will see…)

Matt Damon–Invictus     (Although he didn’t do all that much, I see him getting a nomination for the same reason that I cited with Penelope Cruz.)

Christopher Plummer–The Last Station     (I am pretty sure there is some kind of law about nominating at least one really old dude, deserving or not.)

Woody Harrelson–The Messenger     (Yep, that really does say Woody Harrelson. Weird, huh?)

Best Actress

Meryl Streep–Julie & Julia     (Maybe the most undeserved nomination of the year. Don’t believe the hype, this performance isn’t that great.)

Sandra Bullock–The Blind Side     (She has never proved to me that she can act, but hey, in this year of sub-par performances, why not?!)

Carey Mulligan–An Education     (Who doesn’t want to watch a movie about creepy inappropriate relationships. I know I do. What? That’s not creepy….no it isn’t.)

Gabourey Sidibe–Precious                                                   (Oh, sorry, I fell asleep.)

Helen Mirren–The Last Station     (Helen Mirren is a phenomenal actress, but a nomination is all this is going to be. I promise.)

Best Actor

George Clooney–Up In The Air     (I actually think I saw a couple of scenes in this movie where George Clooney was an actual character. Maybe that’s why he will get a nomination for this movie…???)

Jeff Bridges–Crazy Heart     (Jeff Bridges has always been a fantastic actor and I have been a huge fan of his for years. This is an absolute guarantee of a nomination.)

Colin Firth–A Single Man     (Hey look, a Colin Firth sighting at the oscars! Yeah!)

Morgan Freeman–Invictus     (I love Morgan Freeman but I don’t think this performance is all that special. But the academy loves portrayals of real people, so this wouldn’t surprise me one bit.)

Jeremy Renner–The Hurt Locker     (I am having a real problem with this fifth nomination. It should definitely go to Jeremy Renner but Tobey Maguire could get it for ‘Brothers’ or in a little bit of a longshot Viggo Mortensen could get it for ‘The Road.’ I am torn.)

Best Director

Quentin Tarantino–Inglourious Basterds     (I decided he is the new Martin Scorsese in the sense that it will take him forty years to get his oscar that will be WAY overdue at that point. At least he will finally get a nomination for this one.)

Kathryn Bigelow–The Hurt Locker     (She should win, and she deserves to win, but she won’t. It’s sad when the best aren’t rewarded properly.)

James Cameron–Avatar     (I don’t need to expound on this nomination.)

Jason Reitman–Up In The Air     (I love his movies, he is a big 3 for 3 in my book.)

Lee Daniels–Precious     (Yeah, I don’t know…)

Best Picture

Avatar–     (Good movie, but best picture worthy? I don’t know about that normally, but since there are ten this year, why not?)

The Hurt Locker–     (Great film. Period.)

Inglourious Basterds–     (Quentin will finally get two nominations for one of his films. Two bad those are both going to go in the loss column.)

Precious–     (Again?!)

Up In The Air–     (I like this movie quite a bit, but I don’t know if it would get a nomination in any other year.)

Star Trek–     (Great sci-fi action movie that will benefit from the five extra nominations this year.)

A Serious Man–     (The Coen Brothers always make great movies. I don’t think this is an exception.)

Up–     (Look for this to happen for the first time since Beauty and the Beast. I really don’t approve of this nomination.)

In The Loop–     (Political satires are always funny. Yeah for this movie.)

District 9–     (I don’t know if this is as much of a prediction as it is a wish. But the chances of them nominating one sci-fi movie are pretty slim, I can’t imagine what would happen to the planet earth if they nominated two. It might just blow up. Maybe that’s what will happen in 2012…)

Biggest Snubs in the Best Actor Category

Sam Rockwell–Moon     (His performance is amazing, and once again he will get completely overlooked. This is sad. It really is. I can’t imagine how freaking hard it must be to carry a movie all by yourself, and all the scenes that you have with another individual are also with yourself. This movie is brilliant, and so is his performance.)

Sharlto Copley–District 9     (As I described in my review of this film, his performance is completely brilliant and once again the Academy will reward mediocrity with nominations, and completely leave off one of the two best performances of the year. To make this performance even more impressive is the fact that Sharlto had never acted before this film, he was a camera man and he ad-libbed all of his documentary sequences. Considering that’s about the first half hour of the movie, that’s pretty damn impressive. I could never say enough about his performance.)

Biggest Snubs in the Best Picture Category

Moon–     (This is going to be the only real snub in the best picture category. As much as I love 500 days of Summer (and I do) I don’t think it’s a “best picture” type movie. I would never complain about a nomination for it, but this movie is definitely “best picture” material. It’s very stylistic and creative. We need more creativity and originality like this in Hollywood. It’s too bad it doesn’t have enough money to buy it’s oscar nomination. This movie is great, watch it. You won’t be disappointed.