Xavier Beauvois's Of Gods and Men is our pick of the year's films
Taking inspiration from “Ignore Sarah Palin Week”, PartB ignored the Oscars and hoped the rest of the paper would naturally follow. But like the Academy usually fails to choose the best film from the preceding year, we too have failed in our blackout.
Before we (royal) give our picks, we’d like to point out that we obviously haven’t seen every film released in the past year, or even all of the films that have been in contention for awards (notably Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Another Year, Toy Story 3, Dogtooth, Honey and Biutiful), but we have seen a hell of a lot.
We’d also like to point out that very few of the Academy’s members watch all of the nominated films before voting, although that doesn’t explain decisions (all films are from their own shortlists) like Shakespeare in Love over The Thin Red Line and Life is Beautiful, Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas, and Kramer vs. Kramer over Apocalypse Now. It should also be said that for certain films, such as Life is Beautiful, the country of origin (Italy) did not prevent entry into the main “Best Picture” category, but this seems to be an exception. We resent that.
– There is inevitable bias toward English language films, due solely to our location.
– Screenplay categories are restricted to films in the English language.
– ELO = Winner from English language films.
Best picture: Of Gods and Men ELO: Winter’s Bone
Best director: David Fincher (The Social Network)
Best actor: Édgar Ramírez (Carlos) ELO: Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Best actress: Sylvie Testud (Lourdes) ELO: Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone)
Best supporting actor: Simon Garfield (The Social Network)
Best supporting actress: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Best original screenplay: The Kids Are All Right
Best adapted screenplay: The Social Network
Best score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)
Best documentary: Restrepo
