(Erm, possibly not for the Oprah thing; after all, she did describe some aspect of the wedding as being “on spot,” while her British correspondent nodded and smiled in a very British way that seemed polite but clearly said Oprah is a gigantic poser.)

On the subject of the incredible amount of media attention given to the wedding, a lot of people have griped or just goggled about why Americans, in particular, care so much about some other country’s future king’s wedding. We did, after all, fight a long war for independence from said country because we weren’t too keen on their monarch.  I snarked on Facebook about the ridiculous wedding merchandise marketed to Americans, notably, a positively ghastly Kate Middleton figurine collection, but other than that the media glut didn’t really bother me. In fact, I thought speculation about Kate’s gown was a rather pleasant distraction from recent headlines of wars, economic recession, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, and tornadoes. Others, understandably, including Brian Williams and the NBC Nightly News, thought it was inappropriate to give so much attention to something as frivolous as a royal wedding when there’s so much trouble in the world right now.

But as the wedding unfolded and the media voices fell silent, I became absorbed in the magnificence of Westminster Abbey and the transcendent songs of the choir and the solemn tradition of the ceremony itself and wondered if two billion people weren’t drawn to this for a reason that runs much deeper than a bit of pleasant distraction.

My favorite scene in the Harry Potter books takes place in the Hogwarts infirmary after the Death Eaters break into Hogwarts and–SPOILER ALERT!–Snape kills Dumbledore . The Order of the Phoenix are gathered around the bedside of Bill Weasley, whose face got eaten by a werewolf during the battle, and everyone expects Bill’s seemingly shallow fiancée Fleur Delacour to call off the wedding because of his disfigurement. Only Fleur surprises everybody by saying she loves Bill more than ever now, which prompts an outburst from Nymphadora Tonks who has, apparently, been involved in a tumultuous relationship with Remus Lupin who won’t marry her because he’s a werewolf and that makes him “too old, too poor…too dangerous” for her. But Tonks disagrees, and wants to hash it out with Remus right then and there. He responds, “This is…not the moment to discuss it. Dumbledore is dead…” And then, surprise of all surprises, Professor McGonagall dresses him down: “Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world.”

Because isn’t love what it’s all about? The root of everything we fight against, everything we fight for–nature, politics, evil–is love. Family. Marriage. Without that, the human race can’t survive. And not just in a reproductive sense, though that’s certainly part of the biological drive to love. But our emotional survival is just as crucial, and humans aren’t solitary creatures. We need someone to love and to cherish, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health till death do us part.

That’s why, when the world is burning up and blowing away all around us, two billion of us turn our televisions to watch some other country’s future king’s wedding. Because we need a little more love in the world.

(And also very beautiful dresses and very bad hats.)

But it didn’t happen in Walmart, it happened in JC Penney.

So many mistakes were made that if I could have a do-over, I’m not even sure which would be the most important to do-over first. Of course the situation would have been avoided entirely had I not attempted to shop for clothes without assistance, but in lieu of that, the next smartest thing would have been not to let the Burt Squirt out of his stroller so he could run amok in the fitting room while I tried on clothes. Smarter still would have been to check before undressing that I was in a fitting room that actually locked, or, at the very least, to make sure that the door latched shut properly so that the Burt Squirt couldn’t push it open and dart out into the Juniors department.

Which is precisely what happened.

While I was clad only in a pair of khaki shorts and a flesh-toned strapless bra, looking, at a glance, quite naked.

It was one of those moments in which you feel suspended in time as the world moves on around you. There I stood, in the wide open doorway of the fitting room, fully exposed to anyone who happened by, watching the Burt Squirt’s short, chubby legs increase the distance across which I would have to streak. He stumbled a little over the toe of his slightly too-long sandal as he looked back over his shoulder to mock me with the gap-toothed grin that should not have been at all adorable under the circumstance, while I stood there, ineffectively calling him to come back to me and wondering whether I was going to have to chase after him, barely clothed as I was, or if I could scramble into a shirt before I lost him in the racks of clothes or worse.

I took my chances and opted to get dressed first. I may be willing to be that mom, who attracts a number of head wags and eye rolls because shecan’t get her toddler to ride in his stroller without him pitching a shrieking temper tantrum, but I’m not quite ready to be that mom, who chases her toddler naked through JC Penney. I still have a shred of dignity left–

–the shred that makes me willing to blog about almost chasing my toddler naked through JC Penney.

Jessica Barnes brings years of experience to the table, knows the publishing industry, has an instinct for storytelling, and has a great bedside manner as she dissects authors’ work. In addiction to providing me with invaluable feedback about how to improve my book and make it more marketable, she generously gave more of her time so I could interview her about the ins and outs of editing fiction. I hope you’ll find her responses as informative as I did.

LR: First off, do you do any writing yourself?

Jessica: I dabble a bit, and I do enjoy writing, but I realized a couple years ago that I’m a much better editor than I am a writer. As a famous fiction editor named Ellen Seligman once said, “What I am is the ideal reader, not the ideal imaginer.” That describes me to a T. So yes, I do write. Just not with what you’d call purpose.

LR: Why did you decide to become an editor?

Jessica: I’ve always been a reader, a lover of fiction. I wanted to be involved in the making of stories, because story and fiction is so important to culture and society–there’s a reason morality and wisdom has been passed down through storytelling since the beginning of civilization.

Wow. That sounded really pretentious. Mostly, I just love books and wanted to work with books. Editor seemed to be the way to go.

LR: How did you become one?

Jessica: I was an English major in college, and I had this vague idea that editing books would be a cool job, but I didn’t really know how one went about it or what it involved.I took creative writing classes, where I learned about good writing and how to put a story together, and then after college I went to this mini-grad school / summer course called the Denver Publishing Institute. There, in a month, you learn about all the different aspects of publishing, try your hand at some editing and marketing, and meet a lot of industry people. I somehow managed to land a job at a publishing company as an assistant after that, and it turned out all my reading and my writing courses had given me an instinct for good story and good writing.

LR: So you can get a job with an English major. Good to know!

Was an English or writing major required for the Denver Publishing Institute? Are there other such programs available to would-be editors?

Jessica: No, you didn’t have to be an English major to apply for the Publishing Institute. There were people there from other countries, people making career changes, people in related fields that wanted some background in publishing, and, of course, a ton of college students dying to get into the publishing field. The Denver Publishing Institute at Denver University and the Summer Publishing Institute at New York University are the only two summer publishing courses that I know of, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more.

LR: What’s your typical editing process?

Jessica: Editing is an incredibly subjective, gut-instinct kind of process. It’s reading a book, saying “I don’t like this” about an element, figuring out what isn’t working and then how to fix it. There are some black-and-white rules, but in writing, the rules get broken just as often as they get followed, so you can’t rely on them. It’s more about evaluating the experience of the book, making sure it’s as strong and has as great an impact on the reader as possible.

Generally when working with a manuscript, I start big and work my way down to the details. I usually read the manuscript all the way through first, perhaps making some notes on my initial impressions about plot elements or character interactions. Then I read it through again, more slowly and carefully, looking at the plot and structure of the book as a whole, identifying the weak spots, and brainstorming ways to make them stronger. At that point, usually, I give the author my notes and suggestions so they can make some revisions to the book, strengthen those weak spots. Then, on my third pass, I look at the nitty-gritty details and the actual writing. This is the stage where the manuscript gets marked up so that it “bleeds red”–trimming unnecessary words, rephrasing passive voice or clunky passages, making sure all the details are consistent. The author gets it back, goes over my changes, makes any changes they’d like, and then the manuscript is ready for the copy editors!

LR: And how does the copy editing process differ from what you do?

Jessica: Copy editing is the nitty-gritty detailed editing work–punctuation, spelling, formatting, those obscure grammar rules that most of us don’t even know exist. They check facts, making sure everything is accurate and correct. They catch consistency mistakes, they question details that might not, under scrutiny, make sense. Copy editors are amazing and undervalued. They make the author (and the editor) look good, and they rarely ever get credit for their efforts.

LR: How do publishers assign editors to authors?

Jessica: Every publishing house does this a little differently, but in most of them, an editor acquires their own authors. They read the author’s proposal, liked it, bought the book, and take it from there. So in a sense, the editors assign themselves to authors.

LR: So are editors the people who actually field book proposals from agents and read and accept manuscripts for a publisher?

Jessica: Usually, at least in the houses I’m familiar with. The agents communicate directly with the editors on what they’re looking for and pass them proposals. Sometimes these might go through the editorial assistants, but the assistants are more usually digging through the “slush pile” of unsolicitied submissions. But because the editors and agents have a relationship, they work directly with each other. Editors read the submissions from agents and decide which proposals they like enough to take to the acquisition committee, where the rest of the company editors along with some sales and marketing folks evaluate proposals and decide which ones to buy and publish, based on quality, marketability, and how many copies they think they can sell.

LR: How different is a manuscript after you’ve worked on it? Do authors have much input on the editing process?

Jessica: How different a manuscript is after I’m done with it compared to when it came in really depends on the project. I’ve had books on which I did very little–just polished it up, mostly–and I’ve had books in which I gave the author an entire new outline for the latter half of their  book. Most of the time, it falls somewhere in the middle. Maybe 25% of the book changes significantly.

For me, editing is a very collaborative process. I’m very aware, as I work, that this is not MY book. It’s the author’s. The author is trusting me to look at it objectively and make suggestions for how to make it better. Most authors understand this as well, so it’s a very rewarding experience, working hand-in-hand with someone to shape their vision into the best possible version. I love brainstorming with authors, trying to figure out a sticky point in the plot or a way to rewrite this scene so that it accomplishes everything it needs to. In the end, however, the book is the author’s work, and they have the final word. (Doesn’t mean I won’t argue with them a little, but in the end, it’s their call.)

LR: How do authors typically respond to your feedback? Have you ever encountered a really stubborn author who refused your advice and then reception of the book suffered for it?

Jessica: Most of the authors I’ve worked with are favorable to editorial feedback, because they understand I’m helping them, not attacking them. I’ve been lucky that the situation in which a book suffers because an author and I couldn’t work together hasn’t happened to me. Though I’m sure other editors would have a different story for you.

And then, of course, the companionable moment was broken when the Burt Squirt tried to take things too fast, too soon.

Poor Dorrie was forced to take refuge in the litter box, but even there found no respite; the Burt Squirt sent a spatula in after her.

…until today, when I walked into my neighborhood CVS to pick up a few prints.

I was carrying the Burt Squirt, and the rather trollish woman behind the counter saw us as she rang up a customer and made me jump by shouting, “I know that baby!”

At first (because, as I said, I hadn’t thought about One Hour Photo in years) I thought she was referring to the fact that we’re regular customers. I discovered this wasn’t the case when she said, “Oh my gawd, that picture! The one on the playground, with the monkey bars–that is the cutest picture I’ve ever seen! And I see a lot of baby pictures in here!”

Suddenly visions of a psychotic Robin Williams were dancing in my head. My heartbeat quickened–this person not only had seen the Burt Squirt’s pictures, she had my phone number, my address…she was going to to come steal my child–

“I have eight grandchildren,” her nasally tones that sounded uncannily like Roseanne’s interrupted my panicked internal monologue, “so I know about cute kids! You should send that picture to a magazine!”

She was so busy talking up the Burt Squirt’s picture to her customer that she didn’t notice the huge sigh of relief I heaved. Of course, contrary to what the movies would have us believe, most people who work in drugstores are not lonely and unhinged and suffering from delusions of being adopted into the families whose pictures they develop. For most people, developing pictures is just a job.

A job some people are very good at; after telling me how cute my kid was, I was putty in her hands when she asked me if I’d like to buy some picture frames for a dollar apiece.

Why, yes, I will take three, please.

When Crystal inquired about it, Greg scrunched up his nose in an expression of distaste and replied, “That cereal was yucky.”

Since the Burt Squirt became mobile, various family members have laughingly warned me to keep our cat’s food dish out of his reach. Usually when he’s crawling or toddling about I do, but today the Burt Squirt turned on the stealth and managed to try the yucky cereal on the sly.

Only he didn’t seem to think it was very yucky.

Of course it happened because I was distracted–ironically, with cooking the Burt Squirt’s dinner. Obviously I wasn’t serving dinner quickly enough, because when I turned around, there was the Burt Squirt, sitting in the kitchen with his legs splayed out, Dorrie’s food dish between them. One pudgy hand hand fisted as many dry chicken pellets as the stubby fingers could close around; the other waved winsomely at me.

His little mouth, still with only the four front teeth in it, was chewing.

And it would have continued to do so, judging from the way his nose was not scrunched up in an expression of distaste, had I not gone fishing for one, two, and a half pieces of cat food. There might have been more–probably there was at least another half a piece–but the Burt Squirt wriggled away before I could plumb the depths of his mouth for the rest of his quarry. Goodness only knows how much he consumed before I saw him doing it.

I’m not worried, especially since just the other day I saw a TV ad for an expensive brand of cat food that slagged off all the commercial brands for being made mainly of corn. If corn’s good enough for my cat, it’s good enough for my kid! That might be a backwards philosophy, but I’ll keep it in mind in the dog days of summer when he starts catching and eating the baby geckos that find their way into the house.

Saw this floating around the blogosphere in honor of World Book Day 2011 (not related to the encyclopedia) and thought it would make a fun, quick post for a Friday night.

The book I am reading: The White Queen by Philippa Gregory, and my feelings about it are mixed. The story is interesting, a page-turner, as her books always are, but the writing quality fluctuates, and so far the characters aren’t gripping me quite like the ones in The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance.

Technically I’m also reading Cordelia’s Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold, whose Chalion fantasy series I adored, but I’ve temporarily abandoned it because I got a bit bogged down in space politics after having only recently finished reading all the Orson Scott Card books. I really like the characters, though, so I’m sure I’ll be back to it once I’ve had enough of a fix in a different genre.

The book I am writing: Still Songs for Piano and Voice, which has received the attention of an editor whose critique confirmed most of my suspicions about bits that still need work and provided insight into potential marketing issues to work around. I’m excited to get back to work on it and whip it into shape; if only the Burt Squirt would cooperate by taking longer naps!

The book I love most: Anne of Green Gables, without question. My copy is falling apart, and every time I read it, I still laugh out loud. The warm fuzzies I come away with aren’t just from the oh-so-endearing characters, but also the nostalgia of reading it with my mom when I was eight and laid up with a broken arm, and of my friend Susan and me acting out Anne with our Barbies.

The last book I received as a gift: My brother gave me Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson for Christmas. I read a couple of chapters, but I had a hard time getting into it because so far it’s just the narrator talking about her grandfather and not giving me a good feel for who she is. I’ll probably pick it up again sometime, when I’m in a more literary frame of mind (and have had more sleep).

That’s right, the Burt Squirt is feeding himself–which means all that worrying I was doing about how I’d ever get him eating a variety of textured stage three baby foods was for nothing (as all worrying tends to be).

About two weeks ago he flat refused to eat his favorite puréed bananas, squash, and sweet potatoes and began gobbling up table food like he was afraid Mr. Burt and I were going to send our leftovers to starving kids in Africa. He’s not yet eating what we have at meals, but he has a fairly extensive menu of his own: bananas, whole grain toast, whole grain blueberry waffles, cheese, chicken, black beans, corn, peas, kidney beans, sweet potatoes, Annie’s Bunny Pasta with Yummy Cheese, whole wheat crackers, strawberries, brown rice, and whole wheat tortillas.

And talking of whole things, despite now having four teeth with which to chew, pretty much all of the Burt Squirt’s food comes out looking exactly like it did when it went in. Potty training is looking really good right now. Except that the Burt Squirt has never put up a fuss about having a dirty diaper, so that would probably be an exercise in poo-tility.

On the subject of fits, the Burt Squirt doesn’t exactly pitch temper tantrums (much), but he does know how to make himself pretty clear about what he wants. When he wants to go outside, he toddles over to the french door to the patio and pounds on it till you either take him out in the back yard or put him in his stroller to go to the park. If he wants you to read to him, he’ll go get one of his books and throw it at you. (Clearly I need to teach him that this is not the meaning of that idiom.) And if you don’t drop what you’re doing and get on the floor to read it to him immediately, he’ll follow you around with the book, flinging it at your feet, until you do. At some point this behavior will have to stop, but right now the novelty of it makes it endearing. (And as an English lit major, I can hardly discourage my child’s love of reading; after all, I carry around an e-book reader and an iPod in the belief that reading can and should take place at any given moment.)

Anyway, I’m sure speech will replace this cavemannish style of communication soon enough, as his jabbering now consists of just about every sound in the English language (plus some other interesting ones that make me wonder if he isn’t speaking Swahili). Though he has been known to sit with other babies and simply shriek back and forth at them, as was the case when his twin girlfriends Ava and Zoe were here for his birthday party.

Now that I’ve come full-circle back to the subject of the Burt Squirt’s birthday, I’ll make the obligatory remark about how hard it is to believe that my baby boy is a year old already, that it seems like not very long ago that I held him for the first time in the hospital. (Except that it seems like a very long time ago that I got a good night’s sleep!)

As I thought about this post, the lyrics to Seasons of Love from RENT kept going through my head: “How do you measure a year in the life?” With babies, it’s easy to fall into the habit of measuring growth in inches (somewhere around 10 since birth) and pounds (between 14.5 and 15 gained). Obviously those measurements aren’t the ones that matter (except to the Burt Squirt’s pediatrician), or I’d have more exact numbers. And contrary to what the baby books would lead us to believe, it’s not even the milestones that measure the first year (even though they do provide fodder for the mommy bloggers).

It’s the love–

–which, though not quantifiable, has undoubtedly grown.

Now, let’s see just how phenomenal my cosmic powers are…

Best Picture

• 127 Hours
  
• Black Swan
  
• The Fighter
  
• Inception
  
• The Kids Are All Right
  
• The King’s Speech
  
• The Social Network
  
• Toy Story 3
  
• True Grit
  
• Winter’s Bone

Will Win: The King’s Speech
Should Win: The King’s Speech
Most Likely to Upset: The Social Network

Best Actor

• Javier Bardem for Biutiful
• Jeff Bridges for True Grit
• Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network
• Colin Firth for The King’s Speech
• James Franco for 127 Hours

Will Win: Colin Firth
Should Win: Colin Firth

Best Actress

• Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right
• Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole
• Jennifer Lawrence for Winter’s Bone
• Natalie Portman for Black Swan
• Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine

Will Win: Natalie Portman
Should Win: Natalie Portman
Random Besmirchiness: Did anyone besides me find Annette Bening’s character in The Kids Are All Right to be completely unlikeable even though you were supposed to feel for her?
Also: What the heck is Rabbit Hole? I know Oscar is notorious for nominating movies that never hit the mainstream, but it’s strange that a star as big as Nicole Kidman could garner a nod for a film that flew completely under the radar.

Best Supporting Actor

• Christian Bale for The Fighter
• John Hawkes for Winter’s Bone
• Jeremy Renner for The Town
• Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right
• Geoffrey Rush for The King’s Speech
  

Will Win: Christian Bale
Should Win: Christian Bale
Most Likely to Upset: Geoffrey Rush
Biggest Snub: Matt Damon‘s Skeezy Mustache for True Grit

Best Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams for The Fighter
• Helena Bonham Carter for The King’s Speech
• Melissa Leo for The Fighter
• Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit
• Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom

Will Win: Melissa Leo, because she won the Golden Globe and the SAG.
Should Win: Hailee Steinfeld, because she had such a long script to memorize due to there not being any contractions in it. (Also, she made me care far more about her character than I did about any of the others.
Most Likely Upset: Helena Bonham Carter, because she won the BAFTA.

Best Director

• Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
• Ethan Coen, Joel Coen for True Grit
• David Fincher for The Social Network
• Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech
• David O. Russell for The Fighter

Will Win: David Fincher, as a consolation prize for The Social Network.
Should Win: Christopher Nolan for Inception. Biggest snub of this year.
Most Likely Upset: Tom Hooper, because this year’s Oscars are pretty much a deathmatch between The King’s Speech and The Social Network.

Best Original Screenplay

• Another Year: Mike Leigh
• The Fighter: Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington
• Inception: Christopher Nolan
• The Kids Are All Right: Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
• The King’s Speech: David Seidler

Will Win: David Seidler for The King’s Speech, because Best Picture usually wins screenplay or director, if not both, and The Social Network will take director.
Should Win: Christopher Nolan, because the most difficult script to write is the one that must build an entire world. He is the architect.
Most Likely Upset: Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, because the Academy wants to give something to The Kids Are All Right.

Best Adapted Screenplay

• 127 Hours: Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy
• The Social Network: Aaron Sorkin
• Toy Story 3: Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
• True Grit: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
• Winter’s Bone: Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini

Will Win: Aaron Sorkin
Should Win: The Coen Brothers
Most Likely Upset: Toy Story 3, because the Academy wants to honor the entire Toy Story trilogy with one of the major awards.
Random Snark: When did they stop calling this award by the more concise title “Best Adapted Screenplay”? How do they fit the new title– “Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published”–on the statuette?

Best Animated Film

• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Illusionist
• Toy Story 3

Will Win: Toy Story 3
Should Win: How to Train Your Dragon

Best Cinematography

• Black Swan: Matthew Libatique
• Inception: Wally Pfister
• The King’s Speech: Danny Cohen
• The Social Network: Jeff Cronenweth
• True Grit: Roger Deakins

Will Win: Inception
Should Win: Inception

Best Score

• 127 Hours: A.R. Rahman
• How to Train Your Dragon: John Powell
• Inception: Hans Zimmer
• The King’s Speech: Alexandre Desplat
• The Social Network: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross

Will Win: I don’t know–Oscar often flummoxes me here.
Should Win: How to Train Your Dragon

Here end my predictions; I’ve omitted most of the technical categories because I really don’t know enough about them (as if I’m an expert on the categories on which I have opined!) or care enough to judge.

Fun as it is to see more great films recognized, I like to speculate about which ones would make the cut if the Oscars were as they used to be and only five could score a nomination. Just for kicks, here is my ranking of this year’s Best Picture-nominated films:

10. The Kids Are All Right

Unfulfilled personal lives, career frustrations, and children growing up and becoming independent put strain on a marriage, with the result that one partner stumbles into an affair with the friend she’d turned to for support. But the couple work it out in the end, because their kids remind them of what’s important. Hasn’t this movie been made before? Several times? Just not with a lesbian couple, their sperm donor, and their children. But Oscar-worthy films should be original, and despite providing some laughs and touching moments, this one just isn’t.

The title, in my opinion, is an apt descriptor, though perhaps not in the way the filmmakers intended: the kids are lovely and will grow up to be lovely adults, no thanks to the actual adults in their lives, all of whom I found to be unlikeable by the end of the movie, even though the script does its best to make us believe they all learned a lesson, though what that lesson is I’m less sure of.

9. Winter’s Bone

This adaptation of Daniel Woodrell’s novel caught my attention because the story–an impoverished teenage girl in the Ozarks struggling to care for her younger siblings and mentally ill mother while her meth-dealing father is on the lam from the police–has echoes of one of my favorite books, Catherine Marshall’s Christy. (It even features Dale Dickey, who played Opal McHone in the short-lived Christy TV series.) Winter’s Bone is a poignant story and a fine film, well-executed in every department, particularly acting, for which it garnered two Oscar nods. However, the pacing is ponderous, which, while befitting the somber, even futile mood of the piece, unfortunately makes the film rather forgettable (with the exception of one extremely vivid and disturbing scene of a corpse’s hands being sawed off). Justly or not, Bone ultimately lacks the sparkle to make it a real Oscar winner.

**(If I could have it my way, Winter’s Bone and The Kids Are All Right wouldn’t be nominated at all, while The Town and How to Train Your Dragon would. But no one ever asks me for my opinion about these things.)**

8. The Fighter

The Kids Are All Right isn’t the only nominated film to suffer from lack of originality. Two years ago The Fighter came out, only then it was titled The Wrestler, and it was a better film the first time around. Mostly because when it’s Mickey Rourke vs. Marky Mark, the winner is obvious. Christian Bale steals the show as a crack addicted has-been who lands himself in prison, and Melissa Leo and Amy Adams hold their own against him as his trashy, foul-mouthed mother/manager and Mark Wahlberg’s bartender girlfriend, respectively (refreshing to see Amy Adams break out of her doe-eyed type-casting for a change and literally beat the crap out of another woman). A film’s actors, however, can be recognized without the movie itself garnering a nomination, although the documentary film-within-a-film motif provides a fresh framework for a tired tale, and makes it possible for a plot twist that hits the viewer like a sucker punch to the gut.

7.  Black Swan

If lack of originality is a problem for The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter, Black Swan possibly errs on the side of too much creativity. Only Inception has more twists and turns–and Black Swan could do with a bit of Inception‘ overload exposition to clear up just what the heck is going on! No, the ambiguity and confusion are part of the fun, if a movie as dark, creepy, and just plain screwed up as Black Swan can be called fun. I’d like to re-watch this one, because about half-way through I began to suspect that any image reflected in a mirror was all in Nina’s (Natalie Portman) mind. And Natalie Portman does deserve every award she’s won for this performance; hopefully they–and an Oscar–will finally allow her to shake the dust of the Star Wars trilogy off her feet.

6. Toy Story 3

I love this movie. It is indisputably one of the best movies of the year. But for me it doesn’t make it into the top five because I’m not sure how much of my love for it is dependent on the previous two Toy Story films, or how much it stands on its own. The prevailing feeling I come away from Toy Story 3 is that the film was a long goodbye from the writers, director, animators, and voice actors (and through them, vicariously, the fans) to the franchise. That’s not a criticism, really; the best movies are statements of love, and the makers of Toy Story 3 expressed thatin the universally poignant story of a young man saying goodbye to his beloved childhood playthings. It made me cry (as every Pixar film since Monsters, Inc. has made me do). But speaking of other Pixar movies, Toy Story 3 is no Up (which earned the first Best Picture nomination for an animated film since Beauty and the Beast made the top five back in 1992), and when I compare the stories and themes, I have to think Toy Story 3‘s nomination honors the Toy Story trilogy as a collective body. Which, again, is not a criticism so much as an observation; The Return of the King‘s 2004 Oscar sweep rightly recognized the achievements  Lord of the Rings franchise.

Toy Story 3 certainly will win the Best Animated Feature Film category–though I can’t help but think, for the first time, that a non-Pixar film is more deserving this year: I’d love to see How to Train Your Dragon slip past for a surprise win.

5. The Social Network

The Social Network won the Golden Globe for Best Drama and is neck-and-neck with The King’s Speech (which won the BAFTA) for the Oscar, but I almost didn’t place it in my top five. Though a fascinating and enjoyable movie, it just doesn’t scream Best Picture of the Year to me. It’s a smart film–written by Aaron Sorkin, it has to be–but not brilliant. It is, however, an important film, if for no other reason than years from now it will provide a snapshot of the increasingly isolated generation that necessitated social networking, as represented here by the character of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. I say character because this isn’t a straight biopic, deviating pretty wildly from the facts and person of Zuckerberg, and I don’t think the film would have resonated with audiences if it had been an accurate depiction. The real Mark Zuckerberg might not have started Facebook because he was just trying to fit in, but the story of someone so socially inept ironically being responsible for a global social network–and managing to remain an outsider–speaks to the part of all of us that seeks connection, while at the same time making the concession that the line between relationship and mere interaction is tenuous at best.

4. True Grit

There’s something irresistible about a good Western. True Grit isn’t just a good Western, it’s got an almost Shakespearean quality about it. Maybe it’s the language, the lack of contractions that makes the (often hilarious) dialogue feel poetic and grandiose and not quite realistic for the genre, which in turns makes the characters seem like the icons of  theater. I can’t pinpoint it, exactly, but it works. As does the unusual but effective soundtrack which consists largely of piano arrangements of the hymn standard “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”–a truly inspired choice that is not only appropriate for setting the right tone for the setting, but also provides a moral foundation to the story and underscores the transformative power of the heroes’ journey. If there could be a surprise upset for Best Picture, I’d love to see True Grit take home the prize* as a shining example of quintessential American cinema.

*My opinion of this film might be slightly influenced by the fact that I know a real-life Rooster Cogburn.

3. 127 Hours

The prospect of a gruesome amputation scene almost stopped me from watching 127 Hours, but I’m so glad I grinned and bore it. (Actually, I covered my eyes.) I also didn’t love the idea of an entire movie about one character trapped in one space, not having been a big fan of Cast Away–and that one man show was the incomparable Tom Hanks. But James Franco earns his place among the Best Actor nominees this year (no small feat, with the likes of Colin Firth and Jeff Bridges). It’s so much more than what I expected it to be–the story of a guy who did something stupid and paid for it; instead it’s the story of a smart guy with impressive survival instincts and skills who is the victim of a freak accident that makes him re-evaluate himself and his relationships. Through the use of stream-of-conscious flashbacks and hallucinations (and a quirky split-screen effect), as well as the camcorder which provides Franco’s Aron Ralston the opportunity to talk through his ordeal with a frequent self-deprecating humor, director Danny Boyle gives us a raw, unfiltered look at a man literally caught between a rock and a hard place (which is, I think, the title of Ralston’s book upon which the film is based) and his survival not only in body, but in mind and spirit as well.

2. Inception

What I love about Christopher Nolan’s movies is how he takes the central theme of his story and infuses every inch of the film with it. In Memento, the story of a man with no short-term memory, that means the entire movie happens backwards, in brief scenes. The Prestige is about the face-off between a real magician and an illusionist, so the three acts of the movie are constructed like the three acts of a magic trick. Inception, which is more like a dream than a movie, nails it by constructing the plot with the mythological and psychological aspects of dreams and visuals that feel like places and scenarios we’ve all visited in our own dreams–falling cars, stairs that lead to nowhere, upside-down corridors, zero-gravity hotel rooms…Even the narrative flows across disjointed scenes which, as Lenardo DiCaprio’s character points out, reflect how in dreams you never know how you get to a place in a dream, it simply makes sense that you’re there. An apt summary of the film, which is a truly memorable sci-fi thriller deserving of Oscar gold.

1. The King’s Speech

Even before the end titles rolled, I wanted to watch The King’s Speech over again. I didn’t–but it’s that kind of film. (My friend Sandy has seen it twelve times, though this may or may not have to do with Mr. Firth’s sex appeal.)

If True Grit is the quintessential American movie, then this film speaks of what it is to be English. In an Oscar race in which one of the biggest competitors is a film about broadcasting one’s life in potentially the most public of all forums, it’s interesting that  the other strong contender focuses on the idea of privacy–private pain, and private struggles. Though learning to open up about his emotional wounds is a crucial part of King George’s journey to overcome his stammer, it’s also made evident in the contrasting tabloid-worthy lifestyle of his elder brother that there’s virtue in not displaying one’s personal affairs for the world to see. Interestingly that’s the same idea at the heart of The Social Network: that technology necessarily changes how humans interact, but it’s up to us to determine how we allow it to change us.

And that’s where this film has the edge: The Social Network ends with ironic fragmentation, but The King’s Speech not only brings friends together, but unites a country, in one of the most rousing scenes I’ve seen in a movie. It made me proud to be English…except that I’m not. But that’s why we go to the movies, isn’t it? To be transported.

I’ll return later this week for my Oscar night predictions, but for now, what are your thoughts on this year’s films? Am I way off base? Any movies you feel were overlooked?

To my college roommates, should they be reading: how I miss you and your Oscar enthusiasm!