Film: I Still Think The Social Network Should Have Won Best Picture

Hooray for Harvey.

The Weinstein Company honcho is back on top after The King’s Speech cleaned up at the 83rd Academy Awards. The Guardian is calling him the “Oscars’ comeback kid,” saying he’s made a return to glory after suffering a few not-so-good years.

You see, Harvey Weinstein is a genius marketer, and he’s especially adept at campaigning for Oscar gold. Lest we forget, he’s the man who shepherded 1998’s Shakespeare in Love to Best Picture over Saving Private Ryan. (It should be said that I’ve always preferred Shakespeare to Ryan, but no one, even me, really believed it had a chance.)

That earlier contest should have served as foreshadowing for last night’s miscarriage of voting. You see, The King’s Speech did not win because it was truly the year’s best picture. It won because Weinstein campaigned mightily and successfully for its win.

Don’t get me wrong. I saw The King’s Speech and I liked it a great deal. I thought the acting was superb across the board; had Geoffrey Rush or Helena Bonham Carter taken the Oscar in the categories for which they’d been nominated, I wouldn’t have been upset.

Amazing acting aside, however, The King’s Speech is not the type of film that truly shows the magic of the cinema. It’s not a visual marvel by any means. Its feel-good story is a by-the-numbers affair; if you’ve seen one underdog story, you’ve seen them all. Simply put, it brings nothing new to the table.

The 83rd Annual Academy Award Nominations (& My Predictions)

This morning, nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards were announced by AMPAS president Tom Sherak and 2009 Oscar® winner Mo’Nique. The two announced nominees in ten major categories; the complete list of nominees was distributed to the media and made available at the official Academy Awards website, www.oscar.com.

The King’s Speech lead the pack with 12 noms, followed by the Coen bros. True Grit remake, which garnered 10 nominations. The Social Network and Inception tied for 8 nods each, but surprisingly, Inception director Christopher Nolan did not get a Best Director nomination. (He did get an Original Screenplay nom, however.) Also shockingly snubbed was Andrew Garfield for his emotional portrayal of Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network.

Check out the 2010 Oscar nominations, and my predictions in bold, below:

Film: Check Out Rooney Mara As Lisbeth Salander

I may be the only person on the planet who hasn’t read any books in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series written by Steig Larsson, but even I know they’re currently at the summit of pop culture these days. The first book in the series is being adapted by The Social Network director David Fincher and stars Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, the computer hacker heroine of Dragon Tattoo.

Mara is on the cover of February’s W Magazine in her Lisbeth Salander get-up. The article on the film reveals some major changes in the upcoming film:

The script, which captures the novel’s bleak tone (its original Swedish title was Men Who Hate Women), was written by Academy Award winner Steven Zaillian, who wrote Schindler’s List, and it departs rather dramatically from the book. Blomkvist is less promiscuous, Salander is more aggressive, and, most notably, the ending—the resolution of the drama—has been completely changed.

Peep more photos of Mara as Lisbeth below.

Film: The Social Network On DVD and Blu-Ray January 11

Two years ago, when I first blogged about The Social Network, I poked fun at the notion that a film about Facebook would be “a compelling piece of cinema, a pre-ordained critical darling destined for box office success.” (“Poked” … get it? Didja get it?)

Even with the participation of screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, producer Scott Rudin, musician Trent Reznor and director David Fincher, I was skeptical about how a movie chronicling the founding of Facebook would turn out. Well, not only is The Social Network still my favorite film of 2010, it seems to be everyone’s favorite, earning the top spot on numerous critics’ lists and garnering a shit-ton of award nominations.

On Tuesday, January 11, The Social Network will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray. The two-disc set will be jam-packed with extras, including two commentary tracks, a feature-length documentary (How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?), and a half-dozen featurettes.