Academy Award Nominee Zero Dark Thirty

The Oscar should go to Zero Dark Thirty. This film details the long relentless manhunt of a CIA beauty (Jessica Chastain) on the trail of Osama Bin Laden. The tension steadily builds and never lets up. From black site interrogations scattered around the globe and across the years to the black ops assault on a Pakistani compound in the dead of a nail-biting, history-making night, the gravity of this subject matter provides its own weight. There is little need for the kind of suspense gimmicks frequently employed in director Ben Affleck's prize-competing thriller Argo.

Movie That Should Have Won the Oscar

Remaking the western movie True Grit was ballsy. Improving on John Wayne's classic was downright unAmerican. Mel Gibson should keep an eye on directors Joel and Ethan Coen, lest they engage in further subversive activities.

In this film, Mattie Ross travels across the Arkansas/Oklahoma landscape to avenge her slain father. The teen must negotiate the rough physical terrrain of "Indian Territory" and harsh moral terrain of wild frontier. She exudes courage, honesty and fairness - values modern Americans could cultivate more and boast about less.