This week on The Collision, we talk about crime dramas, their appeal, The American Dream, notions of justice, rationalization, social contracts, and other topics way above our paygrade.  We then move on to talk about the new crime drama Killing Them Softly before moving on to our recommendations.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode (“The Past, Present, and Future of Star Wars“), click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. To keep up to date with The Collision, you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg, @AdamChitwood, and @DrClawMD (Dave Trumbore). Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

In what easily had to be one of the most painful, unfunny Oscar ceremonies in recent memory, The King’s Speech finally reached the end of its inevitable march to Best Picture.  It was the first Best Picture winner to win less than five Oscars (it won four, including Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay). [Correction: Crash, which won Best Picture in 2006, only won 3 Oscars]  Does that make it more or less unworthy of the Best Picture crown?  I don’t know.  I don’t care.  I’m drained after live-blogging the awful show and 50 minutes of terrible pre-show.

Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

It’s no surprise that Aaron Sorkin’s script for The Social Network won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Writers Guild Awards last night — that script is the favorite for pretty much any award it’s up for.  The same is roughly true for David Seidler’s script for The King’s Speech in the original category.  But the very British The King’s Speech does not meet WGA eligibility, leaving a vacuum at the top.  Christopher Nolan stepped up and won Best Original Screenplay for Inception, news that ought to please the masses.

In television, Mad Men was named the Best Drama Series for the third year in a row, while Modern Family managed to end 30 Rock‘s three-year reign as Best Comedy Series.  Hit the jump to see the full list of winners.

Uh-oh, The Social Network.  Heading into January, it seemed like the Academy Awards were yours to lose.  But things have been rocky since your (admittedly meaningless) Golden Globes domination.  The Producer’s Guild chose The King’s Speech, shortly before that movie racked up 12 Oscar nominations to your 8.  Now the Director’s Guild has followed suit and selected The King’s Speech‘s Tom Hooper in the Feature Film category for their 63rd annual awards.  Since 1948, the Academy and the DGA have only disagreed on Best Director six times.  I believe Oscar night now unofficially belongs to you, The King’s Speech.

Hit the jump for the full list of winners, including Martin Scorsese for directing the pilot of Boardwalk Empire.

Earlier this week, the Directors Guild of America named its nominees for Best Director.  Now they’ve named their nominees for Best Documentary Director.  And the nominees are:

• Lixin Fan for Last Train Home
• Charles Ferguson for Inside Job
• Alex Gibney for Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
• Davis Guggenheim for Waiting for “Superman”
• Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger for Restrepo

Among the notable snubs were Banksy for Exit Through the Gift Shop and Amir Bar-Lev’s The Tillman Story.  It’s possible that the DGA’s nominees will be the five Oscar nominees as well, but I honestly don’t see what’s so spectacular about Client 9.  Obviously, I’m biased towards Exit Through the Gift Shop, but I think it’s the more enduring and thought-provoking work.  Winners will be announced Saturday, January 29th. [TheWrap]

The Writers Guild of America has announced their nominations for the best screenplays of 2010.  Most of the usual suspects scored noms, including The Social Network and Black Swan. A couple of nice surprise nominations for Please Give and I Love You Philip Morris shake up what’s mostly a list of more of the same. Oscar favorite The Kings Speech failed to meet eligibility requirements to be considered, and was therefore disqualified (as were a number of other high-profile scripts).  Usually a reliable predictor for Oscar gold, the winner of the WGA award has gone on to win the Oscar in the same category 11 of the last 16 years.

Don’t let the lack of a Kings Speech nom fool you, as that film and The Social Network have been racking up awards in the original and adapted screenplay categories respectively over the past month. Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominations in the Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Documentary Screenplay categories.

I won’t deny the vanity of year-end lists.  Most professional critics will sit through over 100 new films per year and the year-end list is a badge of honor that says, “These are the films I appreciated the most.  Behold.”  Despite the vanity, I continue to think that the year-end Top 10 provides a valuable service to the average moviegoer.  Most folks don’t have the time, cash, or inclination to see every movie released in a given year and a Top 10 list says, “Here are the must-see films from the past 365 days.  Netflix them or something.”  I didn’t get to see every film that could have potentially made this list, but I feel confident in my choices.  So forgive my indulgence and hit the jump for my Top 10 films of 2010.

In my profession, there are two very important things you must do: watch movies and keep notes.  I did an alright job with the first one, but admittedly fell short on the latter.  While last year I was able to confidently provide what I thought were the best kills and quotes, this year I didn’t do a good job with record keeping and so I’ve omitted those categories.  Next year I’ll be more meticulous and make it a point to see movie where people get destroyed while saying witty things.

However, I did see enough movies to confidently make a list of the folks I thought were the best actors, directors, and other miscellaneous greats.  Hit the jump to check out my picks.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released their shortlist of 15 documentaries that have advanced in the voting for Best Documentary nominations.  The list includes Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for Superman, and, one of my favorite films of the year, Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop.  Unfortunately, the documentary Catfish was shutout.  While some have speculated that it’s because of controversy regarding the documentary’s authenticity, that same controversy of “realism” also surrounds Exit Through the Gift Shop.  However, as long as Gift Shop continues to have a shot at the top prize, I’m happy (although Inside Job and Waiting for Superman are also quality films).

Hit the jump for the press release and a list of the final 15 contenders.  The 83rd Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on January 25, 2011.

The line-up for the 2010 Telluride Film Festival has been announced and there are some exciting inclusions.  If I were attending Telluride, the two films at the top of my must-see list would be Errol Morris’ new documentary Tabloid which is about former-Miss Wyoming/convicted rapist/dog-cloning advocate Joyce McKinney, and Peter Weir’s war film The Way Back, which is the director’s first film since 2003′s Master and Commander.

The line-up also includes other films that are making the festival rounds including Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go, the financial-collapse documentary Inside Job, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist, Mike Leigh’s Another Year, and Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe.  Hit the jump to check out the full line-up.  The Telluride Film Festival runs from September 3 – 6th.

In 2008, the stock market took a bit of a stumble that resulted in the loss of millions of jobs, homes, and trillions of dollars.  The aftermath left many people wondering just what the hell happened.  Inside Job, the newest political documentary from Oscar-nominated director/producer Charles Ferguson (No End in Sight) “traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia” and uses Matt Damon’s narration to do so.  Check out the trailer after the jump.