Best Picture Nominee Assignment

Brainstorming



1. Toy Story

-Great ending to the series

-Funny

-Grew up with Toy Story my whole life

2. Inception

-A crazy idea

-Great action scenes

-Loved the zero gravity scenes

3. The Social Network

-Funny

-Great acting by Timberlake

-Entertaining story

4. True Grit

-Liked Maddie's acting

-Action scenes were good

-Ending was a little quick

5. The King's Speech

-Great story

-High quality acting by the King

-A different relationship story

6. Winter's Bone

-Dark

-Depressing

-Good acting by main actress



Best Picture Assignment



6. Out of all the Academy Award nominated films this year I believe that Winter's Bone is the weakest. The main turn off of this film for me was that it was extremely dark and depressing all the way through. Whether it was the shadows on characters faces, the economic hardship that they were going through or the cold and unforgiving world these people had to live in Winter's Bone was depressing. Winter's Bone had some good acting by Ree and Teardrop but otherwise I did not like the other actors. One thing I did like about this movie was that they did a great job casting their characters because I thought every character looked their part. So the main reason I thought that Winter's Bone deserved the 6th spot was that I did'nt think that it had a very good story line and it didnt have a happy part that gave the audience a rest from the overall depressing movie.

5. The King's Speech came in a close fifth place to True Grit. In King's Speech you watch as a man who suffers from a severe speech impediment work his way to becoming a great orator. I thought that Firth did an amazing job controlling when and how often to use his stutter throughout the movie. He did'nt go overboard on the idea yet he did it enough that I believed he had this problem in real life. Firth starts going to a speech therapist when he becomes King and this adds flavor and comedy to the movie. Geoffrey Rush does an amazing job as the King's speech therapist and during their many meetings a sort of romance starts. Several times Firth gets so frustrated that he walks out on Rush but with out fail he always comes back. This gives the movie a very unused sort of romance feel to it. The reason I put this film at number 5 is because it did not have as much excitement as the movies ahead of it on my list.

4. The fourth movie on my list was True Grit. It also came in a close battle with the movie with the movie ahead of it. I liked this movie for a few reasons. First the girl who played Maddie did a fantastic job and should be labeled as the main actress in this film. She played a young girl who was not afraid of anyone and she did this very well. Jeff Bridges also did a great job playing the John Wayne role in this film. His dark and rumbling voice adds a lot to his character. True Grit tells a story that is different from the usual western. This is because it portrays Cogburn as a vulnerable hero and in the usual western the hero is untouchable. I think this adds to the realistic factor of the movie. The main reasons I put this movie 4th on my list were because I liked the fight scenes and it was a great story that put a twist on most westerns.

3. The third movie on my list was The Social Network. This movie was overall a funny and entertaining movie. Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg added the comedy to this movie. Eisenberg makes it funny without even trying because some of the things his character Mark says most people would never say. This movie could have been extremely boring but there were a couple things that made it great. First the music. Club scenes and techno music make all the conversations that would be boring actually exciting. And second all the different camera angles and cuts they make are fantastic. While Mark is sitting on his computer they use cut ins and cut outs to make watching a kid looking at computer actually intense. These are the reasons why I think this movie is third on my list.

2. The second movie on my list is Inception. There are many reasons why I placed this movie over The Social Network on my list. First the idea behind Inception is genius. Its the type of movie that you would have to watch several times to really understand and then there is still some mystery about it. I thought Leonardo did a great job in this film. The only character I didnt like was Leonardo's wife. She continually caused problems for him and his crew when they already had enough stuff to worry about. The zero gravity scenes in this movie are great. They are some of my favorite fight scenes. Inception did a great job with special effects all the way through the movie. The reason why this movie is second on my list is because its one of those movies that you really have to pay close attention to and it ends up blowing your mind in the end.

1. The movie that is at the top of my rankings is Toy Story 3. I thought this was the best movie out of the bunch for a couple of reasons. First it was hilarious. The writing used in the Toy Story series has always included the obvious comedy but it also throws in some lines that a obscure and might take the viewer a couple times of watching it to realize. Second I have grown up with Toy Story all my life and I thought this movie was a great way to end the series. It ended with a touching goodbye from Andy and his toys and as always "You got a Friend in Me" was included in the soundtrack in two languages this time. I thought the story line was really good and it presented a different problem that none of the other movies had done yet. The Toy Story series has gotten better and better in each movie with its graphics and this was another plus. These are the reasons why I believe Toy Story should win the Best Picture award.