2011 Academy Awards - Pop Guru's Oscar Challenge & Top Pick

Ah, the grandest night of the year is upon us - Oscar Night! I'm pumped and ready to digest 8 hours of fashion reviews, hoping Ryan Seacrest will fall off the box he stands on live on camera, and watch James Franco add Oscar host to his never ending resume. So I thought I'd bring back the Oscar review as I successfully completed my 6th annual Oscar Challenge. That's right - I saw all 10 movies nominated for Best Picture tonight. My wallet is much emptier, but I saw some great movies and some really not so great ones. Beware if you haven't seen the movies, I didn't censor myself.

The Kids Are All Right - I was so excited about this movie for months before I saw it. I was pumped and ready for an awesome movie, but this movie only left me with a lingering feeling of disappoinment. I mean, I get it - Mark Ruffalo is delicious and who wouldn't want to be with him? But a lesbian cheating on her partner with their sperm donor and tearing her family apart - I don't buy it. Mark Ruffalo could turn anyone straight, but I was not a fan of this storyline.

Winter's Bone - More like throw me a bone so I can gouge my eyes out so I'm released from the hell of watching this godawful film. The first hour of the movie is just Jennifer Lawrence walking through the fields of Ozark land. Seriously, just a girl and some flannel walking through endless fields. She encounters various rednecks along the way, and this was the only time I felt any interest at all because it reminded me of my home, sweet home in the south. These days, I have to watch Teen Mom 2 to see men dipping and spitting in a cup, so the only thing this movie did for me was remind me of our field parties in high school. So thanks for that, but I don't recommend anyone attempting to watch this movie ever. Unless you need a nap, because I took three in my many attempts to get through this movie.

Toy Story 3 - I had never seen Toy Story or Toy Story 2, so I was a little worried I had missed some important story lines and wouldn't be able to keep up but somehow I managed to get by. This was actually a really cute movie, though I have no idea how it snuck it's way into the nominations. I guess when Winter's Bone can get nominated, anything can happen.

The Fighter - Oh, Mark Wahlberg, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Six - as in his unbelievable six pack. This man and his six pack never seem to age. He looks just as good as he did in his Calvins back in the day. While I don't think this is best picture by any means, it is a great sports movie and it included drug addiction which, ironically, is like crack for me. I just can't resist a good drug addiction story. Christian Bale really did an awesome job and I hope he wins Best Supporting Actor, but I could barely look at his skinny face the whole time because it brought back the horrific memories of watching his emaciated body in The Machinist. Vom. Never watch that movie, and if you do, I guarantee that you will be hitting up McDonald's afterwards for fear of looking like Christian Bale in that movie. Anywho, I really liked this movie and there were some great performances. However, Amy Adams delivers pretty much the same surface performance in every movie and still manages to get nominated for just phoning it in. This fact will aggravate me until the end of time.

Inception - My favorite part about this movie is that it didn't allow an opportunity for Joseph Gordon Levitt to show off his singing abilities. Enough is enough - please spare me from ever having to hear the musical stylings of JGL again. I always hated the phrase "water cooler gossip", but this movie literally had me and my coworkers standing at the water cooler discussing this movie for an hour. I'll take any excuse to skip out on work, and this movie had so many interpretations to discuss. Do you think Leonardo ended up in reality or dream world? I think he ended up in reality because the spinning top was acting like it might topple over, and it never did that in dream world. Many other people thought the opposite. It's one of those movies that I want to watch multiple times so I can see the things I missed the first time. This was truly a great film, but it doesn't get my pick for the winner.

127 Hours - I want to give a shout out to all the people that told me that you don't see any of the blood and guts when James Franco is cutting his arm off. "Oh, it's hard to listen to that, but you don't see anything." Really? REALLY? Because I'm pretty sure I saw the bloody interior of his discarded arm squished in by that boulder. Sick!!! I was not prepared for that. It's actually a good diet plan for the squeamish because I could not eat for a long time after that. Besides the gore, I was actually pleasantly surprised by this movie. I had no idea how they were going to make a guy stuck in a ravine for 5 days interesting. But somehow they managed to make just a guy, a boulder and a video camera quite entertaining. Although lesson learned, I will not be going hiking alone anytime soon. Not that I ever would have done that anyway, but I will use this movie as an excuse to get out of any hiking invitations.

True Grit - This movie starts out a little slow, but I thoroughly enjoyed it - much like any Coen brother movie I've ever seen. I mean hey, their first film Blood Simple is slow at first, but I was so engrossed in the terror during the final scenes that I could hardly breathe. I've enjoyed every one of their films, with the only one wavering on my list being Burn After Reading. True Grit is very good and both Jeff bridges and Hailee Stenfield were excellent. Matt Damon could use a little work on his southern accent, but besides that distraction, I highly recommend this one.

The Social Network - I spent most of this movie tense and stressed out, and not because of the uncomfortable feeling everyone gets watching Mark Zuckerberg. I was supremely distracted during this movie because I had dropped my iPhone in a huge nasty brown New York City rain puddle walking into the theater, and my bank account was not prepared to purchase a fifth iPhone. A tupperware full of rice later, my phone survived and I could breathe again. It was very interesting to me though to see this story unfold, much of which I already knew. Everyone can feel connected to this movie because (most) everyone has Facebook. UGA was one of the first non-Ivy League schools to get Facebook, and I am eternally grateful that it didn't debut until well into my senior year so my college antics weren't displayed for all to see. Best Picture? No. Most relevant? Yes.

Black Swan - I was left baffled by this movie for weeks after seeing it. I talked to everyone who had seen it to get their opinion. I had so many questions, including what was the deal with the weird waffle print on Natalie Portman's skin? Gross. Everyone said it was because she was turning into the swan, but I would have preferred some feather action to make that more logical. They touted this movie as a sexual psychological thriller, and sexual it was. It was so sexual it knocked up Natalie Portman. I did really like the film though, mainly because I'm a Lost nerd and I like anything that leaves me asking questions well after I've left the theater. Natalie Portman definitely gave everything she had for this film, and she totally deserves the Best Actress award.

The King's Speech - Note to self: if you attempt the 4pm showing of a historical film, you will be the only person under the age of 60 in the movie theater. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and was wowed by the performances from both Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. You actually feel the pain of this man as he is panic stricken when behind a microphone. Dude, I get it. I almost vomited on the microphone during my Maid of Honor speech at a recent wedding. So maybe I had a personal connection to this guy's angst, but I really think people of any age would enjoy this movie. This one has a little bit of everything: drama, comedy, romance, history, the signature royal corgi dogs. I am fairly certain the Academy will choose this for the top award, and I have made this my pick for Best Picture as well. Now if only we could get Helena Bonham Carter to dress as well as she did in this movie, all will be right with the world.