Finally, something meaningful to talk about.
The Oscar nominations are out, and the Avatar juggernaut is tied with The Hurt Locker for nine nominations each, including Best Picture and Director, followed by Inglourious Basterds with eight nods, and Precious and Up In The Air garnering six.
This is the first time in over sixty years that the Best Picture nominations will include ten nominees instead of the usual five, which explains the District 9 and The Blind Side nods (and I’d wager Inglourious Basterds as well). It’s a race between Avatar and The Hurt Locker as far as the big categories go.
Here’s a run down of the top categories and my predictions:
Best Picture
• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious: Based On The Novel “Push” By Sapphire
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up In The Air
What should win: Inglourious Basterds
What will win: Avatar
Usually the best director and picture prizes go hand-in-hand, but my hunch is the Academy will split the awards this year, rewarding Cameron with the Best Picture prize for box office glory alone, but give Bigelow the Best Director award for making the superior film.
Inglourious Basterds, however, was the best movie of the bunch. It was balls-out fun to watch from start to finish, even if it is less "serious" than some of the other nominees.
Best Director
• Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
• James Cameron (Avatar)
• Lee Daniels (Precious: Based On The Novel “Push” by Sapphire)
• Jason Reitman (Up In The Air)
• Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
Who should win: Kathryn Bigelow
Who will win: Kathryn Bigelow
Only four women have ever been nominated for best director, and a win for Bigelow would be a first. But that’s not why Bigelow should win. The Hurt Locker is an intense psychological thriller, and even if parts of it aren’t perfect, it’s still a masterstroke of careful, thought-out directing.
Best Actor
• Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
• George Clooney (Up in the Air)
• Colin Firth (A Single Man)
• Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
• Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)
Who should win: Jeremy Renner
Who will win: Jeff Bridges
I’m hoping Renner will pull off an upset here and nab the trophy from the favourite, Bridges. I thought his performance as an adrenalin-junkie soldier in The Hurt Locker was masterful.
Best Actress
• Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
• Helen Mirren (The Last Station)
• Carey Mulligan (An Education)
• Gabourey Sidibe (Precious: Based On The Novel “Push” By Sapphire)
• Meryl Streep (Julia & Julie)
Who should win: ???
Who will win: Sandra Bullock
Of the five nominated, I’ve only seen Gabourey Sidibe in Precious, and thought she was nearly impossible to understand. Bullock will probably win, which is too bad. I haven’t seen The Blind Side, but no thinking-person could honestly consider this movie award-worthy.
(Ironically, Bullock is also nominated for a Razzie award for All About Steve. At least someone knew what they were doing).
Best Supporting Actor
• Matt Damon (Invictus)
• Woody Harrelson (The Messenger)
• Christopher Plummer (The Last Station)
• Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)
• Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Who should win: Christoph Waltz
Who will win: Christoph Waltz
The smart money’s on Waltz to win for Inglourious Basterds. He’s already snagged the Golden Globe and SAG awards respectively, and his performance in Basterds is brilliant. Who says Nazis can’t be charming?
Best Supporting Actress
• Penélope Cruz (Nine)
• Vera Farmiga (Up In The Air)
• Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart)
• Anna Kendrick (Up In The Air)
• Mo'Nique (Precious: Based On The Novel “Push” By Sapphire)
Who should win: Mo’Nique
Who will win: Mo’Nique
This one’s a no-brainer. Mo’Nique will win, and should win, for Precious. She manages to humanize one of the most monstrous film characters of the decade, and delivers one of the best monologues I’ve ever seen.
Other predictions and observations:
• Best Animated Film will go to Up.
• Hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will be funny-ish.
• The show will go way past its three-hour running time.
• There will be countless jokes about the length of best picture nominees.
• The best picture nominees contain quite a few movies with questionable racial politics, i.e. The Blind Side, Avatar, District 9, and Precious.
In theory the five director nominees = the five picture nominees, but usually they throw in one director whose film isn't nominated for some reason. Not the case this year thanks to the 10 nods for best picture change, which I like as well.
(Spoiler Alert)
I thought The Hurt Locker was overrated. I kept waiting for something to happen like a central plot or crisis, and it never materialized. It felt like it should have been a collection of short films because there was almost no continuity from one scene to the next. You could easily have watched each scene weeks apart or simply just watched one scene and the experience would have been the exact same.
And I hope Mo'nique doesn't win for reasons I've already discussed at length. Her character was so over the top that it made the story lose all credibility to me.
isn't anyone gonna say what everyone is thinking? that for a 60 year old woman, Kathryn Bigelow is pretty hot.
if you wanna see what the 'real' best picture nominees would have been, you just match them up with who was nominated for best director.
so UP IN THE AIR, PRECIOUS, INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, THE HURT LOCKER, and AVATAR would have been the 5 nominated during a regular year.
i kind of like expanding the nominees to ten... the intention was to get some big budget, hollywood summer fare you'd never think would get nominated for a best picture award, hence stuff like distrcit 9 (and unfortunately the blind side)