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The King's Gritty Network (Or: Oscars Ahoy!)

Jesse Walker | 1.25.2011 2:42 PM


This year's Oscar nominees were announced today; if you want to talk about them, this is your thread. The Social Network, a.k.a. the Facebook movie, is widely seen as the frontrunner to take Best Picture. I won't be surprised if it wins: It's a movie about the alleged evils of a rival form of entertainment, a well-trod path to praise in Hollywood. The other leading contenders are True Grit, which has the advantage of being a genuinely good movie, and The King's Speech, which may well be a good movie -- I haven't seen it -- but its more substantial advantage is that it's about English people with titles. The Academy eats that up.

Books Editor Jesse Walker is the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

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