A Final Note on The Oscar Process

With only a few days left before the 2011 Academy Awards, as well as the release of the BKFT Oscar Podcast, I wanted to state for the last time that I still believe Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan is the best film that is nominated for Best Picture. The fact that the film has been swept up in the marketing machine that is the pre-Oscar push made by each film's distribution company is a genuine shame. I would also like to reiterate that even though I appreciated both Tom Hopper's The Kings' Speech and David Fincher's Social Network, they are not as daring or complex as what I believe will one day be a horror-macabre classic, The Black Swan. That said, the only films I seem to hear about- because, I have to admit I avoid most Oscar blogs- are The King's Speech and Social Network. This forces me to conclude that it was great that the Academy of Motion Pictures of Arts and Science decided to nominate 10 films, but the Best Picture race is still only two front-runners both representing different ideals (last year it was James Cameron's Avatar versus Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker) battling it out for the award that is determined by how many millions of dollars is spent on marketing and how much person-to-person buzz a film builds. That's right, I'm talking about Slumdog Millionaire, which everyone has forgotten a mere two years later, whereas Aronofsky's The Wrestler, nominated against Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, is now regarded as a modern feat of filmmaking. Here's to you, Mr. Aronofsky, I only hope and shudder at the thought that you might win Best Director and a Best Picture Oscar for your installment of the next Wolverine film.