OSCAR: Critics Keep Friending 'The Social Network' While Picture Rivals Keep Fretting

In an era where review aggregation sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have erased individuality and replaced it with a percentage statistic that can be quoted? more easily than the words of Roger Ebert or other?name reviewers, we are seeing a pack mentality emerge with critics groups come awards time. No matter which region of the country, they all seem to be moving in step with each other for the most part. For David Fincher this has to be especially sweet. Just two years ago he sat on the sidelines as nearly all these groups lined up?for Danny Boyle and Slumdog Millionaire against his highly touted The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. When Oscar time rolled around there was no question which film would win. Now it’s hard to find a single critics group that doesn’t want to friend The Social Network -- and rivals in this still very fluid race are feeling the pain, no doubt trying to figure out how to counter it all before it’s too late.

While most Hollywood offices are shutting down for the holidays,?Sony Pictures'?awards campaign?crew are working overtime?for contender The Social Network?in advance of next week's mailing of Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences nomination ballots.?That’s why director?Fincher, who was supposed to be on a 2-week holiday break from shooting the studio’s?The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in Sweden, actually?isn’t getting much of a break at all. Last week, he was in New York doing a Q&A moderated by?pal Spike Jonze. And now Tuesday and Wednesday he is on the Sony lot in Culver City for 3 more sessions?aimed at actors, editors, sound designers, cinematographers, and other various voting groups who are still in town and not preoccupied by the?holiday. I am told Fincher only agreed to do these Q&As in order to support various crew and cast members who will be appearing with him.

An evite "Save The Date" notice also went out? for a January 6th DVD/Blu Ray “launch event” for The Social Network -- although some voting groups already got a taste of it when Sony sent yet another For? Your Consideration DVD, this time featuring the movie and a 2-hour second disc full of supplementary features. Even though groups like the BFCA and HFPA have already received screeners, this seems like a smart move; it?freshens the film and adds extras to give it another whirl in the player over the holidays timed just before final voting gets underway. Sony can’t do the same for the Academy, however:?sending anything other than the movie is against the rules.

Why such a hard?sell??While it made a huge splash when it opened?on October 1st, The Social?Network?maybe?faded a bit in Hollywood's awards firmament when other later entries like The King’s Speech and The Fighter hit the spotlight. Now it’s roaring back with help from the same critics groups who first championed?No Country For Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Hurt Locker?creating a consensus and perhaps influencing the vote?for the last 3 consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners. Time Magazine’s selection for 2010 Person Of The Year of Mark Zuckerberg, the real life inspiration for Aaron Sorkin’s script,?certainly also hit just at the right time for Sony’s?re-energized awards campaign.

No film has been honored more this season or won more critics groups' Best Picture awards than The Social Network in what has been the most wide-open race in years.?In fact, no other movie has won any Best Picture award from critics (okay, except the San Diego?reviewers who courageously broke ranks to give it to Winter’s Bone). Whether it? has been critics orgs in Boston,?Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Detroit, Florida, Houston, Indiana, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York,?San Francisco, St. Louis, Toronto, Washington DC, online, offline, or at the “Satellite” awards, the result is always the same: The Social Network = Best Picture. Of course not every friggin’ state or city with a “critics society” has weighed in yet. But how much do you wanna bet that Phoenix, Iowa, Kansas City, Oklahoma, and Vancouver??follow like lemmings. Anyone wanna guess which way Central Ohio and Utah are leaning?

It all started at the beginning of the month when the National Board of Review named?The Social Network?its Best Picture -- and they don’t even call themselves critics. We’re not sure who they actually are but they jumped on board first. Most recently,?the London Film Critics showered it with nominations. And of course?the high profile televised awards shows --?NBC’s Golden Globes from the?Hollywood Foreign Press Association and VH1’s?Critics Choice Movie Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (I am a member there) --??also have it in contention big-time for their January ceremonies. Even the African American Film Critics Association which?handed out its main acting awards to Halle Berry, Michael Ealy, and Kimberly Elise and included films like Frankie & Alice, For Colored Girls, Blood Done Sign My Name, and Night Catches Us in its Top 10 list -- but still fell right in line when it came to naming Social Network its Best Picture?despite not much?diversity in its cast, as I recall.

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Roll With The Cycles, Grab Some Cisco While It’s Cheap Again

Darwin's ideas work in stocks, too

“If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.” – Eubie Blake, American composer (1887–1983)

You cannot underestimate the power of cycles.? They reoccur in nature, business, and financial markets with great regularity.? When we ignore them, cycles seem obvious in hindsight.? Foresight is where you’ll make your money.

Time frames may be different based on secular trends, weather phenomenon, innovations in health care, and government intervention, but generally, what goes around, comes around.? For example, economic booms and busts occurred, on average, every 14 years for 2,000 years.?Beginning in the late 20th?century, they began cycling every seven years as a direct result of government efforts to stimulate economic activity during recessionary downturns.? While they occur more frequently, they’re cycles nonetheless.

Tall Parents Have Shorter Children, On Average
Charles Darwin and his cousin, Francis Galton, were the first to note that tall parents have shorter children, on average, and vice versa.? With Karl Pearson, they studied over one thousand father and son pairs.? Galton termed this phenomenon in nature “regression to mediocrity.”? Since then, the method of studying how one variable leads to another variable has been called “regression analysis.”

Financial market observers see it all the time.? Excessively high prices eventually lead to excessively low prices.? The key to succeeding as an investor is knowing where the excesses are when they’re happening and exploiting them.

Special Offer: Make the most of explosive moves in gold and silver but don’t get left holding the bag when it’s time to run.? Click here for instant access to market timing analysis and specific gold, silver and hard asset model portfolios in Curtis Hesler’s?Professional Timing Service.

“Joining The Dow Can Be The Kiss Of Death”
In September, Jeff Reeves of InvestorPlace.com conducted research showing that by the time companies have grown to become the recognized leaders in their industries, share prices are inflated.? For example, turning the clock back to March 1999 when the Dow Jones Averages closed above 10,000 for the first time, then crested to 11,000 a few months later, four of the biggest names of the day joined the Dow 30. Here’s how they fared: AT&T (then SBC Communications), down 38%; Intel, down 50%;?Microsoft, down 47%;?Home Depot, ?down 38%.

During subsequent reformulations of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, laggards were replaced with other leaders of the time.? They included Pfizer, Verizon, Bank of America, Cisco, and AIG.? As a group, these stocks have been shellacked since they joined the Dow 30, but along the way they have continued to make a lot of money for anyone who purchased shares when stock prices were excessively low.? Many have tripled off of lows in 2003 and 2009.

The point is this: You cannot fight the power and magnitude of cycles.? They can make or break an investor.? Here’s one stock that appears far too low right now:

Fallen Angels Focus Stock: Cisco Systems? (CSCO, 20.15)

Cisco is the dominant player in the global networking industry.? Shares plummeted more than 16% on ?Thursday following a less than stellar outlook presented by company management.? While management cited near term challenges, we believe the selling has provided an attractive entry point for longer-term investors.

The company has a solid balance sheet, operating profit margins of more than 20% and net margins in the high teens.? Our fair value estimate (based on discounted cash flow analysis) is $30 per share; providing investors with 50% potential upside from current levels.

Gabriel Wisdom and clients of American Money Management LLC, including mutual funds managed by AMM may buy or sell securities mentioned without prior notice.

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Roll With The Cycles, Grab Some Cisco While It’s Cheap Again

Darwin's ideas work in stocks, too

“If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.” – Eubie Blake, American composer (1887–1983)

You cannot underestimate the power of cycles.? They reoccur in nature, business, and financial markets with great regularity.? When we ignore them, cycles seem obvious in hindsight.? Foresight is where you’ll make your money.

Time frames may be different based on secular trends, weather phenomenon, innovations in health care, and government intervention, but generally, what goes around, comes around.? For example, economic booms and busts occurred, on average, every 14 years for 2,000 years.?Beginning in the late 20th?century, they began cycling every seven years as a direct result of government efforts to stimulate economic activity during recessionary downturns.? While they occur more frequently, they’re cycles nonetheless.

Tall Parents Have Shorter Children, On Average
Charles Darwin and his cousin, Francis Galton, were the first to note that tall parents have shorter children, on average, and vice versa.? With Karl Pearson, they studied over one thousand father and son pairs.? Galton termed this phenomenon in nature “regression to mediocrity.”? Since then, the method of studying how one variable leads to another variable has been called “regression analysis.”

Financial market observers see it all the time.? Excessively high prices eventually lead to excessively low prices.? The key to succeeding as an investor is knowing where the excesses are when they’re happening and exploiting them.

Special Offer: Make the most of explosive moves in gold and silver but don’t get left holding the bag when it’s time to run.? Click here for instant access to market timing analysis and specific gold, silver and hard asset model portfolios in Curtis Hesler’s?Professional Timing Service.

“Joining The Dow Can Be The Kiss Of Death”
In September, Jeff Reeves of InvestorPlace.com conducted research showing that by the time companies have grown to become the recognized leaders in their industries, share prices are inflated.? For example, turning the clock back to March 1999 when the Dow Jones Averages closed above 10,000 for the first time, then crested to 11,000 a few months later, four of the biggest names of the day joined the Dow 30. Here’s how they fared: AT&T (then SBC Communications), down 38%; Intel, down 50%;?Microsoft, down 47%;?Home Depot, ?down 38%.

During subsequent reformulations of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, laggards were replaced with other leaders of the time.? They included Pfizer, Verizon, Bank of America, Cisco, and AIG.? As a group, these stocks have been shellacked since they joined the Dow 30, but along the way they have continued to make a lot of money for anyone who purchased shares when stock prices were excessively low.? Many have tripled off of lows in 2003 and 2009.

The point is this: You cannot fight the power and magnitude of cycles.? They can make or break an investor.? Here’s one stock that appears far too low right now:

Fallen Angels Focus Stock: Cisco Systems? (CSCO, 20.15)

Cisco is the dominant player in the global networking industry.? Shares plummeted more than 16% on ?Thursday following a less than stellar outlook presented by company management.? While management cited near term challenges, we believe the selling has provided an attractive entry point for longer-term investors.

The company has a solid balance sheet, operating profit margins of more than 20% and net margins in the high teens.? Our fair value estimate (based on discounted cash flow analysis) is $30 per share; providing investors with 50% potential upside from current levels.

Gabriel Wisdom and clients of American Money Management LLC, including mutual funds managed by AMM may buy or sell securities mentioned without prior notice.

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