Cool Black's Oscar picks 2011

Of the ten pictures nominated for "Best Picture" I have seen eight of them and they are (pictured above left to right, top, True Grit, The Kids Are All Right, Winter's Bone, Toy Story 3, (left to right, bottom)The King's Speech, Inception, Black Swan and The Social Network.) My picks for the Oscars will be from those pictures. (I will also bold the correlating nominations.)

My pick will be under “Cool Black’s Oscar Pick:” These are NOT who I think will win; it’s who I think SHOULD win based on my opinion and those who know me, know I am quite discerning.

As a screenwriter two of my favorite categories are the two screenwriting ones. For the record:
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source (usually a novel, play, or short story but also sometimes another film). All sequels are automatically considered adaptations by this standard (since the sequel must be based on the original story).

Best Writing – Original Screenplay

Another Year – Mike Leigh

The Fighter – Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, and Eric Johnson

Inception – Christopher Nolan

The Kids Are All Right – Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg


The King's Speech – David Seidler

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Christopher Nolan for Inception. Of the original screenplays Inception was just a trip…a mind trip and while it was full of hard to grasp concepts it had an underlying storyline that was pretty easy to follow.


Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay

127 Hours – Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy from Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston

The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin from The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich


Toy Story 3 – Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich; characters based on Toy Story and Toy Story 2


True Grit – Ethan Coen and Joel Coen from True Grit by Charles Portis


Winter's Bone – Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini from Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network. Sorkin wrote one of the smartest screenplays in modern history. Not only is it smart, it made “geek speak” not so boring by combining it with whip fire dialogue, wit and sarcasm.


Best Cinematography

Black Swan – Matthew Libatique


Inception – Wally Pfister


The King's Speech – Danny Cohen


The Social Network – Jeff Cronenweth


True Grit – Roger Deakins

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: (Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for the cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography.)

Hard, hard category. Having seen all of these pictures I’m going to say that ALL are worthy nominations, but I have to go with a TIE for Wally Pfister for Inception and Danny Cohen for The King's Speech.


Best Film Editing

127 Hours – Jon Harris

Black Swan – Andrew Weisblum


The Fighter – Pamela Martin


The King's Speech – Tariq Anwar


The Social Network – Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: I’m going with Andrew Weisblum for Black Swan.

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale – The Fighter as Dicky Eklund

John Hawkes – Winter's Bone as Teardrop


Jeremy Renner – The Town as James "Gem" Coughlin


Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right as Paul


Geoffrey Rush – The King's Speech as Lionel Logue

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech as Lionel Logue. Again PITCH PERFECT acting!


Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams – The Fighter as Charlene Fleming

Helena Bonham Carter – The King's Speech as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon / Queen Elizabeth

Melissa Leo – The Fighter as Alice Ward

Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit as Mattie Ross

Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom as Janine "Smurf" Cody

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: I refuse to pick Hailee Steinfeld in this category because I stated above she deserved to be in the “Best Actress” category so I’m going with Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon / Queen Elizabeth.


Best Actor

Javier Bardem – Biutiful as Uxbal

Jeff Bridges – True Grit as Rooster Cogburn


Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network as Mark Zuckerberg

Colin Firth – The King's Speech as Prince Albert / King George VI

James Franco – 127 Hours as Aron Ralston

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: I heard this category referred to as Colin Firth and everyone who will lose against him. I totally agree. PITCH PERFECT acting!


Best Actress

Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right as Nic


Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole as Becca Corbett


Jennifer Lawrence – Winter's Bone as Ree Dolly


Natalie Portman – Black Swan as Nina Sayers

Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine as Cindy

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: First, I totally have to say that Hailee Steinfeld (the little girl from True Grit) deserves to be in this category! She was absolutely fantastic in that film and had such a large role (like every scene). She was nominated for “Best Supporting Actress” for that role, but…I just don’t have the words.

Anyway, my picks are again a TIE Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone as Ree Dolly and Natalie Portman for Black Swan as Nina Sayers.

Natalie Portman did give the performance of her career, but so did Jennifer Lawrence. While Natalie’s was frenetic, Jennifer’s was just the embodiment of distress.


Best Director

Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan


Ethan Coen and Joel Coen – True Grit


David Fincher – The Social Network


Tom Hooper – The King's Speech

David O. Russell – The Fighter

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Not really a hard choice, I think all four I did see did great jobs, but my pick is David Fincher for The Social Network.


Best Picture

127 Hours – Danny Boyle and Christian Colson

Black Swan – Scott Franklin, Mike Medavoy, and Brian Oliver

The Fighter – David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, and Mark Wahlberg

Inception – Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas


The Kids Are All Right – Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, and Celine Rattray


The King's Speech – Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, and Gareth Unwin


The Social Network – Dana Brunetti, Ceán Chaffin, Michael De Luca, and Scott Rudin


Toy Story 3 – Darla K. Anderson


True Grit – Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, and Scott Rudin


Winter's Bone – Alix Madigan and Anne Rosellini

Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Like I stated at the beginning, I have seen eight of these ten pictures and each one worthy of the nomination. While I personally thought Inception and The Social Network were the best films I saw last year I have to pick The Social Network as Best Picture.

So that’s it, my picks this year with only two travesties Hailee Steinfeld not nominated for “Best Actress” and Christopher Nolan not nominated as “Best Director” for Inception.

List of ALL the Cool Black’s Oscar Picks
Best Writing – Original Screenplay - Christopher Nolan for Inception

Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay - Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network

Best Cinematography - TIE for Wally Pfister for Inception and Danny Cohen for The King's Speech

Best Film Editing - Andrew Weisblum for Black Swan

Best Supporting Actor - Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech as Lionel Logue

Best Supporting Actress - Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon / Queen Elizabeth


Best Actor - Colin Firth – The King's Speech as Prince Albert / King George VI


Best Actress - TIE Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone as Ree Dolly and Natalie Portman for Black Swan as Nina Sayers


Best Picture - The Social Network

*UPDATE APRIL 2011*

Now that I have seen ALL TEN of the Best Picture nominees I do have TWO changes and they are both from The Fighter.


Best Supporting Actor - Christian Bale – The Fighter as Dicky Eklund

Best Supporting Actress - Amy Adams – The Fighter as Charlene Fleming

My other choices above haven’t changed and I have written about each ten and my cumulative thoughts here

Related posts-

Lack of Diversity at the Oscars 2011

African Americans at the Academy Awards

Cool Black's Oscar Recap Past & Present

Cool Black's Entertainment Review 2010-Best Movie

Vindication of the Female Voice: The Academy and Sexism

by Aphrodite M.

Photo: Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.

Last year Kathryn Bigelow was the first female director to win an Oscar for her war film Hurt Locker. Many saw this as a major breakthrough for females pursuing and successfully working in the field. Yet, many have been yelling fowl over this year’s Academy snub of Lisa Cholodenko and Debra Granik for best director nominees.

The films The Kids Are All Right and Winter’s Bone were both nominated for best picture but their female directors were not. Does this prove sexism runs rampant in Hollywood and amongst the Academy members, made up of the Hollywood elite, or is it really just a matter of preference or even ratios?

An easy answer is that there are 10 nominees for best picture while only 5 for best director. Obviously this means some very deserving candidates must be excluded. Why both of the excluded candidates were female directors is the question many want answered.

In an article written by Stacy Smith, on March 2010 for the Huffington Post, Smith looked at gender numbers on IMDbPro and found of those who directed major motion pictures in 2007, 109 directors were male while only 3 were female. Neda Ulaby, in her article on female directors for NPR, found in 2008 only 9 percent of the 250 top-grossing domestic films were directed by women. These disproportionate numbers have not changed much in 2011. The inequality of women in film also extends to most behind the scenes jobs and even to in-front-of-the-camera speaking roles.

Women are vastly underrepresented in the film industry although they make up 50 percent of the population. Lest we forget, women didn’t even have legislation enacted for equality in the workplace until the 1960’s.

There are plenty of women who would like to break in to the male-dominated industry but it seems they are not given the same opportunities as men by the major studios. Even Kathryn Bigelow had to have Hurt Locker independently funded outside of the studio system, and many tried to mitigate her achievements by passing off her success to her mentor and ex-husband James Cameron. On the other hand, a virtually unknown newcomer like John Kosinsky is given a $100 million budget to direct the major studio film Tron: Legacy.

Female directors such as Sophia Coppola and Lynn Shelton, who have commercial success and critical acclaim, are still not at the helm of studio-backed blockbuster films even though they have repeatedly proven their talent and worth by making runaway hits of small independent films.

Coppola even mentioned in her extras footage for the film Lost in Translation that there was a sort of mutiny among the crew who didn’t think she knew what she was doing. Lost in Translation was subsequently nominated for best film and best director and Coppola won the Oscar for best writing and original screenplay.

Catherine Hardwicke, who some may dismiss as making teenage fluff films, was wildly successful in her interpretation of the first Twilight film. She took a film with a very small budget and even tighter shooting schedule and created a blockbuster which grossed a $170 million profit for Summit Entertainment. Any male director who had done the same with teenage fluff, or action fluff or any other type of fluff would probably be set to make the next James Bond film.

            The industry may be passing over female directors but it is to its own detriment. The few women who have risen up through the ranks produce compelling films audiences love to watch with profits major studios demand. Some of these amazing directors include Penny Marshall, Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, Sophia Coppola, Kathryn Bigelow and Lynn Shelton. They prove that the female voice is not only monetarily viable but important and inspiring to both male and female viewers.

            Many argue female directors will get their due when they prove themselves through making quality films. This short-sighted argument fails to notice the quality is evident, while the opportunities are lacking. The Academy is made up of the Hollywood heavy hitters who run the system and the system does not seem to show a fair hand to both male and female directors of the same caliber. No one is arguing that a director should be hired merely for her gender, but when there is proven talent and success, there is no reason for disparaging treatment of one gender over another.

As featured on Picktainment.