Oscar Picks 2010
Busiest week of my life. Everything is nuts. Time for the Oscars. Here’s what I think:
Best Picture
Nominees: 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
Will win: Avatar
Should win Inglourious Basterds.
The 10 nominee thing is dumb because the Best Director category reveals who the real ‘top 5′ are. But now District 9, which was a pretty great movie, gets a “Best Picture nominee” sticker on its DVD case. So there’s that.
I haven’t seen An Education, Precious or A Serious Man yet. Of the remaining choices:
- I am a fierce defender of Avatar as being a film that’s nearly flawless in execution. Sure, the story is kind of dumb as fuck, but everything else just works so well. It wasn’t my favourite movie of the year, but I’m not opposed to it winning. It’s an achievement that deserves recognition.
- The Blind Side was, come on, just dumb. One of those movies that I’d be quite happy to regard as a nice little bit of holiday season fluff, except now it’s got award buzz so I have to actively dislike and root against it.
- District 9 was totally great and a lot of fun. I liked both the accents and the metaphors. And that gun that blew stuff up.
- The Hurt Locker was a great movie. Well-paced and well-acted. This kind of movie isn’t really my thing, though. I almost wrote that I don’t like war movies, but I’m about to heap a bunch of praise on Inglourious Basterds, so that wouldn’t really be accurate. There is just something about this kind of war movie that doesn’t totally work for me. But whatever. Well made! An achievement!
- Inglourious Basterds was kind of like Avatar in that I was pretty sure I was going to dislike it but ended up with a grudging respect for it about mid-way through. But where that grudging respect only went so far with Cameron’s movie, Tarantino made me a believer. This was totally and completely great. It’s too bad they had to make the Brad Pitt-and-friends stuff the focal point of the marketing, because the real story in this one is the French cinema plotline. The ending with the fire and the shooting is absolutely the best thing I saw this year.
- Up – delightful. As always with Pixar flicks. But I did feel like it kind of came out incredibly strong out of the gate and then never really lived up to that promise, especially with the silly second half where the dogs fly airplanes and such. It’s a mid-level Pixar movie, behind The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Wall-E and maybe one or two others for me.
- Up in the Air was great filmmaking, and there’s a sequence toward the middle with the hotel party and the karaoke and the dancing that is phenomenal, but there was something about this that felt a little bit incomplete to me. It still might be my second favourite movie of the year, but it didn’t quite feel whole to me.
Best Director
Nominees: James Cameron (Avatar), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Lee Daniels (Precious), Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds)
Will win: James Cameron Should win: Quentin Tarantino
I feel like the Best Picture and Best Director categories should generally go to the same film, so I’m sticking with that this year. Even though I think Tarantino is a tremendous douche.
Best Actor
Nominees: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), George Clooney (Up in the Air), Colin Firth (A Single Man), Morgan Freeman (Invictus), Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)
Will win: Jeff Bridges Should win: George Clooney
I haven’t seen Crazy Heart but neither have most of the people voting for this category, and they’ll vote for Bridges because he is old and likeable and deserves to win for his whole body of work. It’s kind of lame reasoning, but it’s nothing new. And I do genuinely like Bridges so I’ll go with it.
My ’should win’ pick with a toss-up between Clooney and Renner and I liked Clooney’s movie better so there you go.
Best Actress
Nominees: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), Helen Mirren (The Last Station), Carey Mulligan (An Education), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious), Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)
Will win: Sandra Bullock Should win: Meryl Streep
It’s Bullock as a lock to win. Which is a blah choice but kind of fits with the whole phony idea that Hollywood will seem less sexist if they honour the few women who turn 40 and still get regular work.
Meryl Streep doesn’t need more awards but I actually thought her half of Julie & Julia was really good and almost made up for the other half being mind-numbingly awful.
Best Supporting Actor
Nominees: Matt Damon (Invictus), Woody Harrelson (The Messenger), Christopher Plummer (The Last Station), Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones), Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Will win: Christoph Waltz Should win: Chirstoph Waltz
There’s absolutely no doubt here. He clinched this in the first 10 minutes of the film.
Best Supporting Actress
Nominees: Penélope Cruz (Nine), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart), Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air), Mo’Nique (Precious)
Will win: Mo’Nique Should win: Anna Kendrick
Mo’Nique is another virtual lock to win, as none of the other nominees have much momentum. I’d give it to Kendrick as I thought her character was great and she did a good job acting like she was drunk. Plus I think she’s really attractive and that counts.
The Rest
- Best Original Screenplay should and will go to Inglourious Basterds
- Best Adapted Screenplay should and will go to Up in the Air and the acceptance speech will be hilariously awkard as the two credited writers hate each other
- Best Animated Feature will and should go to Up because no one else is yet in Pixar’s league when it comes to animated films
- Best Foreign Language Film is a wild guess with The White Ribbon
- Documentary Feature goes to The Cove
The rest are irrelevant, really – Avatar will win all the effects and sound categories (Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Art Direction, Cinematography). Make-up goes to The Young Victoria. Costume Design goes to Nine. The song award probably goes to Crazy Heart. Best score goes to Avatar because why not. And no one watches short films, animated or otherwise, but I’ll pick Logorama and Miracle Fish for animated and live action, respectively.
