My best picture ballot

When voters vote for best picture, they actually don't just vote, they rank their favorites. If I were a voter, this would be my ranking.

1. Inception
2. The Social Network
3, Black Swan
4. The Fighter
5. The Kids Are All Right
6. True Grit
7. The King's Speech
8. Toy Story 3
9. Winter's Bone
10. 127 Hours

As for the top five, they were all in my ten best list, and the explanations can be found on my list.

I had True Grit and The King's Speech, they were both in my 11-20 list, which is not ranked. I rank True Grit slightly higher, which I found more emotinally satisfying. I respect The King's Speech, a very well made movie, but a bit emotionally distant for my taste.

As for Toy Story 3, it was the first Pixar film where I felt the gears moving a bit. But the characters shine through. It was one of the four or five films I knocked out of my final 20 in my final debate with myself over what would be in my final 20.

As for the two not in the debate, Winter's Bone is a good film, but with the typical rough edges of low budget filmmaking. As is normal for the Oscars, when one element is truly outstanding, the film itself tends to be overrated. Jennifer Lawrence is outstanding in the lead, and deserves her Best Actress nomination. The film is very good, but I cannot ascribe greatness.

And I still reccommend my lowest ranked film, 127 Hours. Once again, one great element: James Franco's performance. The film is basically a one man show, but the reasons why I should care are missing, and for me the film paled to another one man show, Buried, which I thought was more intense and more important, even though it is fiction.