The Best Film of 2010

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Catching you up with links to my rankings of all the 2010 Best Picture nominees:

The Introduction of William H. Dirkness

Ranking The Best Pictures: 8-10

Ranking The Best Pictures: 4-7

Ranking The Best Pictures: 2-3

1. Black Swan

Bam! The credits roll but paralysis has overtaken my body. The other people in attendance (after laughing through many of the scenes that made them squeamish or uncomfortable) are standing and leaving the theater. Meanwhile, I can't move. I can't even think. I will be the last one to leave the theater. By far. I feel like what I had just witnessed has changed me.

The sign of a great film can be traced to the emotional impact it has on you. I experienced an entire spectrum of emotions throughout Darren Aronofsky's best film to date (2. Requiem, 3. Wrestler). When I returned home, I scribbled down on a sticky note (my preferred way to record thoughts) the following words: Delusional, paranoid, confidence, created a monster, insecurities, sense of self, dark tones. My mind was so active afterwards that I could've written a Harvard dissertation on it, but instead chose to just scribble those seven notes down.

Black Swan hit me on such a personal level with what I felt was the heart of the film: Natalie Portman character's quest for perfection. I've always wrestled with the idea of perfection. It seems so boring. Without the proper perspective of losing, it just becomes ego feed (yes this is a sports rant, my specialty, but can be applied to other facets of life). Yet, so many people seek it, while really, if it's about anything, it's about the pursuit of it. The journey > final destination (A cool story: I wrote this preceding paragraph on a spiritual frolf outing before nearly missing a called ace on #5 at Shawnee Mission Park, which gets me to my next point...).

I'm afraid of perfection. I'm an avid bowler and disc golf player who has never shot 300 or thrown an ace, while numerous people of inferior skill have accomplished those feats, for just a few examples. I feel like I handle times of failure/sadness better than times of success/happiness, which is a weird concept. It's almost as if I sense the impeding upward/downward swing that follows (a result of keeping one eye on the future instead of two eyes on the present). In conclusion, I'm better from behind (as much of the local Asian population already knows) than I am in front.

Can you believe I've written 4 paragraphs on this film and haven't even discussed the hottest lesbian scene in movie history (waiting to be proven wrong)? In fact, I was so blown away by Black Swan that the carpet munching didn't even crack my ten favorite things about the film (but maybe it will on the second viewing). The transformation of Nina, both literally and metaphorically, from an innocent White Swan to an emotionally corrupted Black Swan is truly incendiary. Incendiary. The director, the most underrated character of the film, knows that he must shatter her purity in order for her to fully embrace the role of the Black Swan, which sets the metamorphosis in motion.

The process drives Nina to the brink of exhaustion, both physically and mentally, complete with delusions and paranoia, a manifestation created from her own intrinsic insecurities, with the audience left to decide what's real and what's not (Personally believe more of the scenes are her own illusions than most other people) - I theorize that every delusion is directly related to one of Nina's scratching episodes (ripping the hangnail back is absolutely terrifying and haunted me for the ensuing fortnight). Portman portrays the character so well, that just saying she should win the Oscar for Best Actress doesn't come close to expressing how I feel about her performance. The way most people are talking about Colin Firth's performance is how I felt about her achievement. It would be an absolute travesty if she didn't emerge victorious on Sunday night.

I know Black Swan doesn't have a chance of bringing home the Best Picture Oscar, but it fulfilled its destiny by snatching up one of nominations (the committee isn't ready to recognize a film of such complicated psychological depth). Plus, what it does get, is William H. Dirkness' first annual 'Best Movie of the Year' label. Furthermore, searching back a few years, Black Swan would classify as the most powerful and meaningful film to me since 2007's No Country For Old Men.

IMDB Nugget: SPOILER: There is a mirror or a reflective surface in nearly every shot of the film. The only noticeable place where there isn't one is when Nina is on stage, during the film's climax, performing the Black Swan, when her 'dark side' has taken over.

IMDB Double Dose: Nina Sayers: I was perfect...

I hope you all enjoyed my rankings of the 2010 Best Picture nominees, and hope that you gained something from atleast one of the films. Everybody enjoy the Academy Awards tomorrow night!

William H. Dirkness

KU vs. Oklahoma Live Feed

Ranking The Best Pictures: Films #2-3

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Catching you up on William H. Dirkness' past MovieTox:

The Introduction of William H. Dirkness

Ranking The Best Pictures: Films 8-10

Ranking The Best Pictures: Films 4-7

Without further ado, here w'go....

3. The Social Network

Once upon a time, I was made fun of by my friends for wanting to see "The Facebook movie." Yea, well, who's the crazy man now?!? This really made me take notice of an interesting paradox existing within my generation, which ironically, parodies this very movie. Despite the universal participation of Facebook, any mention of it in the real world gets you a seat at the loser table. It's very uncool. In fact, the only time you do hear about it is when people brag about how little amount of time they spend on it or how much they hate it. The social networking site has almost become socially unacceptable. People have long been obsessed with being perceived as cool, and to tie this all together, perhaps no movie better captures the essence of that chase than The Social Network.

The heart of the movie can be traced to whether you feel sympathy for the main character, exquisitely played by Jesse Eisenberg. Personally, I do. All Mark Zuckerberg wanted was to be liked and accepted (see what I did there?). He's noticeably filled with a tremendous amount of insecurity. Obviously, some of his actions came off as evil-natured, but I don't think he was ever trying to purposely hurt anybody, but rather he's just vulnerable to being taken advantage of. At the head of that was former Napster creator Sean Parker, who is the perfect embodiment of 'cool,' magnificently casted as Justin Timberlake (finding out the dude from Napster had anything to do with Facebook was one of the nice surprises of the flick). Parker introduced Zuck to the big time, showing him what it was like to be cool, seemingly giving Zuck what he had always lacked: (In the irony of all ironies) Friends. In fact, The Social Network contains so much irony wrapped up into one movie that I felt anemic afterwards.

I have to mention the two brainchilds behind it, Director David Fincher (who my buddy, CS Mofo, would light me up if I didn't mention has a background in music videos, not to mention Fight Club), and writer Aaron Sorkin (who my buddy, Leftover Taco, still jerks off manually). That dream team made this movie a near can't-miss. There's also the Winklevii, who (through one actor, I might add) offer the comic relief of the film, and provide the best line of the year, "I'm 6'5, 220, and there's two of me." The movie oozes with so much relevance that it would be hard not to enjoy, especially because the story is relatively unknown. I will be cheering hard for this film to emerge victorious over The King's Speech come Sunday.

IMDB Nugget: During one of the depositions, it is mentioned that the invention of Facebook made Mark Zuckerberg "the biggest thing on a campus that included nineteen Nobel Laureates, fifteen Pulitzer Prize winners, two future Olympians, and a movie star." One of the lawyers then asks, "Who was the movie star?" and the response is, "Does it matter?" This movie star was, in fact, Natalie Portman, who was enrolled at Harvard from 1999 to 2003 and helped screenwriter Aaron Sorkin by providing him insider information about goings-on at Harvard at the time Facebook first appeared there.

2. Inception

It's a shame that this film was released in the summer and is no longer fresh in people's minds. Even I started to question my own previous enjoyment of it until I rewatched it just the other night (which resulted in zero-gravity like slobber bubbles). It's like the College Football player in the Heisman race who dazzles at the beginning of the season, only to be forgotten when his team falls into irrelevancy at the end, and never sniffs the trophy. In other words, Inception is Denard Robinson. I believe Christopher Nolan got hosed on a Best Director nod because of this, and that this may be his masterpiece.

Most people's first focus is on the ending, which is hard for some because it is left open to interpretation and people are forced to think for themselves, but I'm gonna start with my favorite scene of the movie, when Leo Dicap's character is explaining the "rules" of inception to Ellen Page's fine piece of tail. A few of them were simply brilliant, and here are my favorites...

• I really like how people's biggest secrets are hidden into safes that can be very difficult to discover
• I thought having characters from your subconscious out to hurt the people around you was a fantastic representation of how your past affects your present
• Recreating past memories in your dream world is the best way to lose grasp on reality
• People can have defense systems implanted in their mind to protect them from extraction, also referred to as being "militarized"

Now let me take a stab at my very own interpretation of the ending (SPOILERS). Let me start by saying that the question everybody wants answered is if Cobb is still dreaming or if he has actually gotten back to his kids in "reality." While that aspect of the ending was very thought provoking, and extremely fun to debate, I believe Nolan's ultimate message was that he didn't care about whether he was dreaming or not anymore. He doesn't stick around to witness the verdict of his totem, but rather walks out and plays with his kids, accepting whatever state he is in as reality. That's the evolution of his character in the movie.

Now for what I believe? I think he was still inside his limbo, deep into dream world, to a point where he was convinced it was reality. To take it even further, I believe the Asian dude, Saito, possessed the capabilities to help him achieve his faux-reality. The key was eliminating the idea of trying to keep his wife alive in his subconscious, and this may have been what Saito had promised to him all for his incepting con-job on the business dude. But you never see Cobb being "kicked" through the different dream stages (brilliantly differentiated with different settings - rain/snow/subconscious shores) like the others, he just wakes up on the airplane. And from that moment on, none of the other characters ever say anything to him, but instead just look at him like they are his "projections." And the biggest decider in my mind was how the kids he came "home" to hadn't aged at all, and were identical to his memories of them. This all led me to believe that he was still dreaming, but was ready to accept it as his reality regardless, which in a way, might be what we all do from time to time.

IMDB Nugget: The first letter of each of the main character's first names - Dom, Robert, Eames, Arthur/Ariadne, Mal, Sato - spell the word DREAMS.

IMDB Double Dose: Not counting flashbacks, Cobb's wedding ring only appears in scenes where he is dreaming. Was he wearing it in the final scene??

Only one movie left to go on the list, which you can wait a day or two for, or decipher on your own by digesting the rest of my list, the choice is yours.

William H. Dirkness