The best film of 2010 will NOT win Best Picture

I am going to say this right now. The Best Picture winner will not be won by the best movie of the year. For the past several years, Pixar has had one of their films in the tops of my personal list for films of the year. Last year, in all honesty, I thought Up deserved Best Picture above Avatar (especially), above Precious, and even above the eventual winner The Hurt Locker. Up had the beautiful soundtrack, the wonderful writing, and the mild controversy surrounding the now-infamous opening 10 minutes. It had the potential, because the 2009 crop was mildly weak—especially when compared to the 2008 grouping. That being said, Toy Story 3, the best movie of the year, will not win Best Picture. And here’s why.

Toy Story 3 is a threequel, which never works in the Best Picture category, unless you are Lord of the Rings, which only won because the other two movies failed to win it in their respective years. The original lost to A Beautiful Mind, which, it’s understandable (Even though Fight Club pulled off the same type of storyline surprise years ago but was met with no awards). Chicago beat The Two Towers, which to this day remains one of the loftier upsets in Oscar history—because honestly, did you see the backlash after Chicago won everything? Besides, City of God was the best film of 2002, easily. So, a part three winning the Best Picture Oscar is just never going to happen, or at least not in a very long time.

Animated movies, much like foreign language films, will never win the top prize because they technically already have their own category—which is quite unfair. The closest to pull it off was Beauty and the Beast, which would have won if it weren’t for the instant classic Silence of the Lambs stepping in. As for foreign language, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the closest to getting top prize (Gladiator was better…really?). So, Toy Story 3 has that going against them. The movie that has the Best Picture look has got to be The Social Network. This movie has all the Best Picture quirks: mild controversy, strong reviews, decent buzz, director who has been itching for an Oscar for a while now (David Fincher), and best of all, actual quality. The Social Network does more than provide an entertaining story, it provides some of the deepest content in a script since Fight Club; Fincher’s benchmark achievement.

I compare this to Fight Club because both films provide a counter-culturalist viewpoint of the world that isn’t touched upon enough in cinema. Fight Club was more than a bunch of angry middle-agers fighting each other; it was an entire generation/subdivision of people totally forgotten in a world of celebrities, sports stars, and commercialism during the rapid late-90s. The Social Network looks at a modern-day society which is as connected as ever, but on the other hand as a society we’ve become much colder and more hostile towards each other than in previous decades. In The Social Network, it was hard to root for anyone; they were almost all selfish and willing to tear apart friendships and reputations in order to move ahead. The difference between Social and Fight Club is this: The Social Network is much more accessible to the mainstream and Oscar voters. Fight Club was much too crazy and anarchist to get any major Oscar nods.

What other movie deserves Best Picture more than Social Network (other than the obvious one, of course)? Can’t think of one. The better films of 2010 have no shot. Inception is a crazy sci-fi flick with an open-air ending (Sci-fi NEVER wins Best Picture—not even Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Matrix, T2, E.T. won anything major). Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the best-directed movie of the year, but is much too underground to gain any respect. Harry Potter 7, despite being among the best Harry Potters, is still a sequel and won’t get a chance. How to Train Your Dragon will forever be underneath Toy Story 3, so that’s a longshot. Black Sawn…not even going there. 127 Hours and The King’s Speech each have better chances, but aren’t as universally praised as The Social Network. For the first time in…well…forever, a deserving film is getting all the hopes for a Best Picture win. The last time a Best Picture winner truly deserved the prize was The Departed, back in 2006.

Bottom Line: If the Social Network doesn’t win Best Picture, I will be very surprised. It has been a successful, highly-praised, and heavily-discussed movie that has great acting, an excellent script, and stands above the norm in a rather disappointing year of movies. I am basically calling it; The Social Network wins Best Picture, despite the fact that the better film will be nominated with it: Toy Story 3. If anyone wants to argue Toy Story 3’s placement on the top of my list I have two things to say: 1) Quentin Tarantino called it the best film of 2010 as well and 2) Just remember the final 15 minutes of the film and remember how much you sobbed. Any movie that can drive an entire audience to tears (like what happened when I went to the midnight showing) deserves some praise. That being said, The Social Network should win.

Emphasis on “should.”