Best Zeitgeist Picture of 2010

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2011)

There are those who malign BS as trashy and hysterical, and it's hard to argue that it isn't. But if you can see past that, this film taps into the here and now like few others. (The Social Network, of course, is a Zeitgeist movie, and a good one). Specifically, BS is rendered almost exclusively from Nina's point of view, and she is basically living in a pressure cooker. That said, I think viewers often think films with artistic pretensions have to be taken seriously at all times. Not really. Often, art films are 'saved' by flashes of humor. And BS is a fairly rare hybrid of an art film that is highly commercial as well. Few films since the late 60s are as on point in the art/commercial sense as BS. Many are the films that have tried for the Rosemary's Baby thing. Finally, the Polanski award goes to ... Aronofsky.