The Snubby Awards: 2011 Oscars

It's that time again: The Snubby Awards!  For those of you who don't know, the Snubby Awards take a look at all of the Best Picture nominees from a given year and determine if the best film won or if one was snubbed.  If that's the case, they win the coveted Snubby Award!

This time we'll be taking a look at the 2011 Oscars, which was the strongest field of nominees we've had so far on The Snubby Awards.  The nominees were 127 Hours, Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, and Winter's Bone, with the winner being The King's Speech.  Did The King's Speech deserve to win or did somebody else get snubbed.  Let's find out!

#10. The Kids Are All Right

This movie follows two kids who have lesbian mothers and were conceived by the same sperm donor.  The kids reach out to the donor, played by Mark Ruffalo, to try and get to know him and he turns their world upside down.  This was an interesting movie with dynamic characters, but Julianne Moore's sexuality is completely mishandled and the treatment of Mark Ruffalo's character and Julianne Moore's character feels extremely unbalanced and unfair, which causes it to take last place.

 7/10: Good 

#9. Winter's Bone 

After her father goes missing, Jennifer Lawrence sets out to find him in the meth cooking world of southern Missouri.  If she doesn't find him soon, she will lose her house.  Winter's Bone has a really interesting story in a fascinating setting with excellent performances by Lawrence and John Hawkes. It was just missing one big twist or climatic moment.  Something to take it to the next level.

 9/10: Great 

#8. The King's Speech

Yes, I do think someone was Snubbed this year.  I really liked The King's Speech, but it was not worthy of winning Best Picture.  Colin Firth plays the King of England who suffers from a severe stammer, who seeks the help of Geoffrey Rush to help him fix his impediment so he can more effectively lead his country.  The performances are marvelous and the story is very engaging, it's just hard to root for Firth's character in the first half of the film because he is so unlikable and that prevents it from getting into the top tier, where the rest of our nominees lie.

 9/10: Great 

#7. The Fighter

The Fighter is a pretty straightforward boxing movie.  I've seen this story before, but what elevates this movie are the characters.  Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Melissa Leo are all fantastic and really dynamic characters.  Their interactions carry this movie far more than the boxing and we get and truly excellent film out of the deal.

 10/10: Amazing 

#6. 127 Hours

This movie follows a outdoor enthusiast played by James Franco who gets trapped in a crevice by a fallen rock.  Since no one knows where he is, Franco has no choice but to cut his own arm off.  This movie is essentially the James Franco show and it's an entertaining show indeed.  The arm amputation scene is incredibly hard to watch, but Franco's charismatic performance gets us through.

 10/10: Amazing 

#5. True Grit

After her father is murdered, a young girl (Hailee Steinfeld) hires a drunken U.S. Marshal (Jeff Bridges) to track down his killer and accompanies him into the wilderness to do so.  Steinfeld and Bridges give amazing performance and the movie as a whole is very dark, but funny.  The Coen Brothers deliver another masterpiece.

 10/10: Amazing 

#4. Black Swan

The story of a ballerina (Natalie Portman) who is under a ton of pressure and starts to lose her mind.  This movie is beautiful and insane.  Natalie Portman gives a brilliant performance and definitely deserved to win Best Actress.  This is a truly bonkers film and I'm glad that it got the recognition it so richly deserves.

 10/10: Amazing 

#3. The Social Network

The story of the creation of Facebook.  The Social Network is a brilliant character study of Mark Zuckerberg, who is played to perfection by Jesse Eisenberg.  It's an utterly fascinating and enraging story.  Zuckerberg is a phenomenal villain and a really interesting character.  Most years, this movie would take the top spot.  Unfortunately, it had to go up against two of my Top 10 favorite movies of all time.

 10/10: Amazing 

Now for the Top 2 in alphabetical order.

Inception

A brilliant sci-fi heist film with incredible visual effects, suburb cinematography, interesting characters, and some of the best action sequences ever captured on film.  Inception also has a heartbreaking main character in Dominic Cobb, played expertly by Leonardo DiCaprio.  Inception does everything right with an compelling and intelligent story.  I still love watching this movie and it's one of my favorites.

 10/10: Amazing 

Toy Story 3

This might be a hot take, but I say Toy Story 3 is the best in the series.  I recognize that there is a lot of nostalgia at play here.  I grew up watching Toy Story 1 and 2.  The 3rd movie takes everything I loved about the first 2 and wraps them up with a beautiful emotional bow.  I not ashamed to admit that I cry every time I watch this movie at least twice.  Plus it's a prison escape movie!  Who could have predicted that!?  It's the perfect end to the trilogy.  

And the Snubby Award goes too...!

Toy Story 3!  Not only is it my favorite film of the year, but it's my favorite film of the decade.  It's a truly perfect film and was snubbed from winning Best Picture.

Next time I'll be looking at the 2019 Oscars!  Did Green Book deserve to win or did somebody get snubbed?  Stay tuned!