Should Have Been Best Picture 2010-2011

It’s that time of the year again — actually, we’re a bit late this year — and we’re the bunch of people who can never be satisfied when the Academy Awards announces their Best Picture nominations. So as it is tradition now with our Should Have Been Best Picture feature, we asked our favorite film lovers what films they would pick to replace five of the Best Picture noms.

Picked by: Rodrigo Salazar

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 1

The seventh Potter film (divided in two parts) tells the final chapter of the Potter saga and focuses around Harry’s quest of finding Lord Voldemort’s Horcruxes in order to make the Dark Lord mortal and defeatable.

What makes this stand out over previous Potter films is not just the excellent technical aspects enhancing the viewing experience, butDH1 has managed to capture the spirit and essence of the book, pleasing audiences, critics and even the most die-hard Potter fans that harshly criticized the previous Potter films.

Though not boasting Oscar-worthy performances, which hasn’t stopped other films from getting the BP nod before, the film is carried by Radcliffe, Watson and Grint’s natural chemistry, which makes the film engaging.

Replacing: The Social Network

Picked by: Marya Gates from Cinema Fanatic

Shutter Island

Love it or hate it, Martin Scorsese’s fourth collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island, featured one of the best ensemble casts of the year, including DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Patricia Clarkson, Max Von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Elias Koteas, John Caroll Lynch, Jackie Earle Haley and Ted Levine.

What was so wonderful about this cast was that each actor played an important part in telling this story and creating the atmosphere of the film, and each created such memorable and distinct characters while they were at it.

Add to that top notch production and costume design, startling visual effects and a soundtrack composed of a hodgepodge of pieces from several modern composers and the result is one of the most stirring and original films of the year.

Replacing: The Kids Are All Right

Picked by: Candice Frederick from Reel Talk

Mother and Child

Oscar nominee Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right) is Karen, a woman emotionally crippled by both the guilt she feels from giving her child up for adoption when she was only fourteen and the love her mother never showed her. Her biological daughter Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), now 37, has spent most her life escaping love until she winds up in a position that offers her no way out. Then there’s Lucy (Kerry Washington), whose unwavering passion for becoming a mother will rip your heart out with each failed attempt. These heartbreaking stories are carefully intertwined to bring us a charming look at motherhood in four various colors: frustration, rage, love and, eventually, hope.

Washington, in a career best performance, is breathtaking as Lucy. Her yearning is so palpable you’re forced to root for her until the very end. Bening has clearly found her niche playing a painfully bitter woman you want to dislike but feel too sorry for to do so. Watts will surprise you in her emotionally devoid performance that gives way to a softer, sweeter ending that brings the entire story full circle.

Mother and Child isn’t a hard-hitting drama, but rather a precious, soulful look at family, love, and loss.

Replacing: Toy Story 3

Picked by: Spencer Evans @Ambrose Ray

The Town

Action scenes in thrillers bore me, especially in the typical heist film. But The Town is packed with intense scenes that move the film forward — the car chase scene is not just there to impress the easy-to-please Michael Bay fans.

The average action film is stuffed with clichés of booming twists and turns, while lacking emotional connections with an audience. The Town is smart enough to avoid what is expected of it. What gives the film a deserving spot on the Best Picture voting ballot isn’t just the intriguing and heart-stopping action. The film provides characters that are interesting, and more importantly, some of those characters are worthy of sympathy and respect.

The dialogue is simple but intense, moving the characters through a lifestyle of danger due to their twisted logic in a way most films never achieve.

Replacing: The Fighter

Picked by: Benjamin Vargas @bensower

Blue Valentine

This is a story about Dean (Gosling) & Cindy (Williams) and the roller coaster that love can sometimes be. The director does a great job of showing us the highs and lows in their tumultuous relationship. The cinematography is beautiful and the director uses different colored film stock to show the different phases of their lives.

Blue Valentine is a powerful film that will affect anyone who sees it. There are three groups it will make the biggest impact on: people who are considering marriage, those in a marriage and couples who find themselves on the brink of disaster. It gives a very realistic and, at some points, harsh vision of each stage of a relationship.

This film, in my opinion, is the most haunting and painfully realistic vision of two people in love that I’ve seen in a long time. It is a travesty that it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. Gosling should’ve been nominated for Best Actor. His role and Williams’ role are intertwined and both needed to be awarded.

Replacing: 127 Hours

That’s it!

Do you agree with the picks by these film lovers?

If not, which ones would you choose?

Do you think they’re replacing the right films?

7 Responses

  1. Renard B. says:

    ABSOLUTE SHAME on ms. Frederick for wanting to REPLACE “TOY STORY 3” :(
    …no respect for what deserves to be nominated.…

    • amy says:

      @Renard B., I actually think Toy Story 3 should win Best Picture xD But Candice may have had her reasons for choosing it.

      Having said that, I would fully support The Town and Blue Valentine.

  2. Castor says:

    Bold move Rodrigo but I like it. I find Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 to be my favorite movie of the series when it’s all said and done and I do think The Social Network is wildly overrated.

    For me, I would definitely replace The Kids Are All Right (which I don’t really understand why it got so much praise) with just about anything else. It’s tough because 2010 was a pretty weak year in movies. Blue Valentine was an obvious snub and HP as I said above would a great option too. Heck, I will say Tangled.

    • Rodrigo says:

      @Castor, At the time Amy told me to help out, I felt strong about DHP1; it was the first (and only) Potter film to stand a chance as a legitimate Oscar/GG candidate. Obviously, it wasn’t going to get in. But if Avatar did, then why not DHP1?

      I like TSN now. I avoided it because of the massive overhype it had. But it’s easily the first film I’ve managed to tolerate and appreciate Eisenberg as an actor. Wished The Fighter and/or Black Swan won BP at the Oscars and GG instead of TSN and TKS (which I liked because of Geoffrey Rush’s trolltastic performance).

  3. Danny says:

    Honestly, you could replace Toy Story 3, The Blind Side, and the Kids Are Alright with any other movies and the crop would have turned out significantly better.

  1. February 20, 2011

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gossip Wiz, YAM Magazine. YAM Magazine said: It's out! Thanx to @MakeYourself85 @oldfilmsflicker @ReelTalker @AmbroseRay @bensower Should've Been BP 2010/11 – http://tinyurl.com/66r6hqw […]

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