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!

However, I just watched the movie, and for the first time in my life I think I can actually say I prefer a film to the original source.

(Wait.  Scratch that.  I also like the 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility better than the book, but I’ll let Jane Austen off the hook because it was her first novel and I’m sure if she’d had a little more experience, her version would have been just as good as Emma Thompson’s.)

Anyway…while the film version of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas remains doggedly faithful to the novel, it omitted what I now realize to be my key irritation with the book, which is the author’s device of depicting Bruno’s naïveté through his consistent mispronunciation of key words (fury for Führer and outwith for Auschwitz).  Also, the movie never named the concentration camp, which I thought lent a great deal more plausibilty to the premise of A) a free boy being able to observe the workings of a concentration camp from beyond the fence without being noticed by guards (not that other camps weren’t as horrific as Auschwitz, but its being the most notorious one, made it, in my opinion, perhaps not the best choice for the novel’s setting) and B) a young Jewish boy not having been immediately gassed upon entering the camp along with his grandparents.

So while the premise may still require an overall suspension of disbelief, the movie erases the flaws of the book so that this glimpse into the way we perceive good people and evil people (or, more accurately, people who are both good and evil — or have the capacity for both good and evil, which is all of us) stands out in a deeply profound way.  It’s a story that lingers with you after you’ve turned the final page (or turned off the DVD player), particularly after viewing it and having such clear visuals.

For me, even more than the utterly disturbing last scene, is the prominence of Nazi propaganda throughout the film.  Which was one other aspect of the book that bugged me; a boy Bruno’s age surely would have been indoctrinated against Jews in school — especially a boy who’s father ranks high enough to be made kommandant of a major concentration camp.  But this is not so in the book for the sake of Bruno’s absolute ignorance when he meets a young concentration camp inmate.  While the movie does stay true to this on Bruno’s part, it makes excellent use of his older sister, Gretel, who, after developing a crush on a young soldier, becomes enamored with The Hitler Youth and hangs on to the children’s Nazi tutor’s every word.  When Gretel is first introduced to us in the film, her arms are full of dolls; later, the dolls are relegated to the cellar while she plasters her bedroom walls with posters of Hitler and the League of German Girls.  The transformation is disturbing, to say the least; I’m not sure which is more so:  the image of a 12-year-old girl being so given over to a dangerous political movement, or of her mother being stunned speechless to see it.

Here I must comment that I particularly liked the way the film fleshes out Bruno’s mother.  The book focuses more on his father, and while the father remains at the heart of the film, I felt that, again, the plausibility of the premise was strengthened by the film’s omniscient point of view, which allowed us to see her dawning realization of just how final “The Final Solution” was.

Which brings me back to the other propaganda image that lingers with me almost an hour after I finished the movie.  At a crucial juncture in the story, Bruno stumbles upon his father, grandfather, and other Nazi officials viewing a propaganda film that depicts Jewish prisoners happily enjoying the “comforts” of the “work camp” after their day’s labor is complete:  they play organized sports, attend concerts, socialize at a cafe.  Bruno sees these images and believes his friend in the concentration camp is okay — that he is, in fact, happier than Bruno, who is not allowed to play in his own back garden and has no friends.  Despite having seen some Nazi propaganda, I’d never seen this, and was astonished and appalled that they could even have dressed up the concentration camps.  I almost didn’t believe it, thought it might have been an invention of the film-makers, so I googled.  Sure enough, a propaganda film was made at Theresienstadt in the now Czech Republic.

I really must get around to reading Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and watching Schindler’s List, which I keep putting off because I’m never in the mood.  When is one in the mood for the Holocaust?  One must look at it anyway.