This is just one of many tight races that will be decided on Oscar night.
The King's Speech and
The Social Network are neck-in-neck. As I've stated before, the cause for uncertainty stems from the two conflicting schools of thought on how the general Academy votes on these categories that they might not understand; do they vote for the movie they liked better, or for the movie with the more noticeable craft? There are probably plenty of voters who fall into either camp, but as to which camp is more populated is anybody's guess.
At least it comes down the two most deserving nominees, in my opinion. Tariq Anwar does a terrific job at punctuating the actors' performances with shrewd shot selection for
The King's Speech, and Baxter and Wall give
The Social Network a flow that can't be topped. Either of them would make a fine winner in lieu of Lee Smith, who suffered the most egregious snub of the year when the editors branch gave
Inception the kick.
The only clue I can look to for guidance (or misguidance as the case may be) is the ACE Eddie, which has gone to the eventual Oscar winner for the last nine consecutive years, almost always in the Drama category.
The Social Network took that this year, so I'm gonna put my faith in the trend.
As for the also-rans, there's some decent work on display, most notably Andrew Weisblum's cutting of
Black Swan. I don't relish the task of trying to moderate and control Aronofsky's off-the-wall visuals. The boxing sequences in
The Fighter were well put together by Pamela Martin, and John Harris certainly amped up the intensity in
127 Hours (even if I'm not exactly on board with that directorial decision).
Will win: The Social Network
Runner-up: The King's Speech
Should win: The Social Network
Should have been nominated: Exit Through the Gift Shop and
Inception
