The First Sporklie Spork Award Goes To...

The Sporklie Awards, which hereby commence on this laudable date in time of history and such things, do not exist as a mere echo of critical establishment, nor as a fawning gesture of thin praise, nor as a mockery of film.  A Sporklie is not an Oscar, it is not a Golden Globe, and it is not a Razzie. A Sporklie Spork honors other qualities.  With certainty, yes, a Sporklie upholds Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the whole Moulin Rouge. But a Sporklie, above all of this, stands for something else: Justice. The Spork is able to slide through the soup of talent and stab that which is juiciest, rescuing it from the stewy bottom and cradling it to the surface, to be devoured with appreciation and glee, for Justice to be Served.

And in the name of Justice, a Sporklie serves the Oscar Snubbed.  Film Spork hereby announces the Sporklie Spork for Leading Actress in a Motion Picture, after the JUMP!





Tilda Swinton in I Am Love.

The film consists of Russian Tilda overcoming her adopted Italian family's anti-Italian icy rigidity and awakening to a new experience of life involving the appreciation -- the fetishism even -- of the senses (with the help of a hot chef). She Tastes her food, she Basks in the sun, she Feels the flowers, she becomes so alive she makes the release of a long-held pee a transcendental experience. She speaks Italian and Russian. And just when she feels most intensely, she endures the rare and ultimate loss and faces the unendurable choice.  In the process, Swinton becomes an androgynous fashion icon for the 2010s (with the help of Antonella Cannarozzi's Oscar nominated costume design).

In an Oscar season obsessed with the strange and perhaps anti-human impact of technology on our social lives (The Social Network), the power of discovering one's voice (The King's Speech), and the philosophical confusions of existence, dreams, and reality (Inception), Tilda's performance in I Am Love actually stands as an existential answer to these vexing contemporary questions: just be alive! The meaning is in the senses, and as our sensuous books become sleek screens and our huggable human friends become distant digital commentators, Tilda's sensual Italian awakening serves as a delicious reminder of What It Is To Live. The Academy will probably reward Perfection this Oscar Season, but at Film Spork, we're honoring Gusto.

To Tilda! The One with Gusto!