Oscar-palooza!!

Another year, another penis-polishing that the Academy needs. And so begins the Oscar season.

This time out, though, they’ve changed the rules a bit. Instead of a special five films being chosen (or, more to the point, four great films and one filler), they’ve decided that we need TEN films in the Best Picture category. So now it’ll be four great films, four filler films and two terrible films.

Sigh. What hell hath they wrought? All so they can sell more tickets and DVDs. Whatever. Let’s get on with it.

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

Avatar? Really? Sigh again. Sure, it’s a decent movie, but is that really what we want for an Oscar nominee? Decent? No. We want great.

There’s some greatness here. Up is absolutely great. District 9 is absolutely great. Inglourious Basterds is pretty great. Aaaaand, I haven’t seen the rest of them. Dammit. I can, however, tell you which ones would NOT have been nominated if it weren’t for this “rule of 10.” Blind Side would not be here. Up, unfortunately, would be relegated to only Best Animated Feature. A Serious Man is a borderline case. No one really saw it, but it’s about a Jewish guy, so that could have saved it. Inglourious Basterds would have been left off because it’s Tarantino and he’s not allowed to win even when he’s amazing. (I give you Pulp Fiction losing to Forrest Gump as exhibit A.) District 9, although a great film, is too violent to be on a five film list. And Up In The Air would have probably been knocked off because it’s too light…although Juno was here last year, so who knows?

Who will win? It’s a tough call because there’s too fucking many nominees! (Office pools are screwed.) I’m gonna say Hurt Locker, though. I haven’t seen the film, but it’s topical and, apparently, more than just a popcorn film. (Although, since I know a guy who used to do what they do in the film, I know that it’s completely unbelievable.)

Speaking of “popcorn film,” I’m a little tired of that moniker being put on anything with a little action in it. I saw the last part of the nominations on The Today Show this morning and the “expert” they had on there talking about it called District 9 a popcorn film that never would have been nominated otherwise. He’s half right. It never would have been nominated because it’s a sci-fi film. But it is ANYTHING but a popcorn film. It’s dark. It’s depressing. And it full of political commentary that will always be on topic. A popcorn film is something with almost no thought behind it…or at least it doesn’t force you to think. The Indiana Jones films are popcorn films, although VERY good ones. Avatar is a popcorn film that should not be on this list. It’s “message” about race and “ugly Americans” is hackneyed and stale and only there to prop up a lot of cool effects and tall smurfs. District 9, on the other hand, uses its effects (which look better and more realistic, by the way, than Avatar’s) to prop up its message, which is much the same as Avatar’s. The message is given in a new way. It’s an amazing film that deserves better than the “popcorn” label that guy put on it.

Ok, enough about that. Hurt Locker will probably win, although, honestly, I think Up should win. It’s a beautiful film that doesn’t pull punches just because it’s a “kid’s film.” Pixar never underestimates their audience and that’s what makes their films timeless. No pandering just because the audience is aged in the single digits. Good for them!

BEST DIRECTOR

• Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
• James Cameron – Avatar
• Lee Daniels – Precious
• Jason Reitman – Up In The Air
• Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds

Kathryn and James duke it out again! This time, though, it’s in the Kodak Theatre instead in divorce court. Who will win, because it’ll be one of them. Lee, Jason and Quentin will be left in the dust.

I’m thinking Cameron is gonna win this one, no matter which film wins Best Picture. He did a great job of directing those pixels, even if the rest of the movie was kinda mediocre.

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

I like all of these guys and wish them all the best, but I haven’t seen a single one of the movies. (I’m going to see Crazy Heart tomorrow. More on that then.) Just from what I’ve heard, I think Jeff has it, though. He won the Golden Globe and that’s typically a pretty good indication. That and there’s a HUGE emotional arc going on in that film, from what I’ve heard. Oscar loves a loser and Jeff is amazing at that sort of role.

Then again, Colin could come from behind (oh….I’m sorry…that was quite naughty, wasn’t it?) and take it from Jeff. Another loser and another huge emotional arc. AND Oscar loves a straight man playing a gay man.

My vote is still on Bridges, though. He’s due and the guy’s amazing in everything he does.

BEST ACTRESS

• Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren – The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan – An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe – Precious
• Meryl Streep – Julie And Julia

Wait…did I read that right? Sandra Bullock? Are you kidding?!?!

Ok, whatever. I hear she’s actually really good in the movie…the only thing with any real life in the movie, actually. But she won’t win. Not a chance.

I’ve heard amazing things about Gabourey and Carey, but they also probably won’t win, as cool as it would be for a large, young black lady to win an Oscar.

This is probably going to be a fight between the two grand dames. Meryl and Helen are gonna duke it out. My guess is that the Academy is going to be in love with Meryl again for portraying a crazy old lady who was vivacious and full of life. Julia Child is a larger than life figure and Meryl stole the whole movie with what was apparently the only good thing about the movie. (Haven’t seen it and am not all that interested in seeing it…except for Meryl’s performance. If I could cut the Julie part out, I would be MUCH more interested.)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Matt Damon – Invictus
• Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
• Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
• Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
• Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

Is there any doubt who’s going to win this one? Christoph has it tied down. The only other film I’ve seen here is The Lovely Bones and Stanley was creepy and amazing, but Cristoph put in one of the best performances of the decade. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll take this one home.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Penelope Cruz – Nine
• Vera Farmiga – Up In The Air
• Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
• Anna Kendrick – Up In The Air
• Mo’Nique – Precious

Damn. I really need to get a job where I have more time to watch movies. I haven’t seen any of these, either. I’m guessing, though, that Mo’Nique is going to take it. She’s gotten nothing but accolades for her role as a horrible, uncaring mother. And, considering that she’s known as a comedian, it’s a big turnabout for her. She’s in the club, especially after winning the Golden Globe.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Mark Boal – The Hurt Locker
• Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds
• Alessandro Camon/Oren Moverman – The Messenger
• Joel Coen/Ethan Coen – A Serious Man
• Bob Peterson/Pete Doctor/Thomas McCarthy – Up

Up. All the way. Because it won’t win Best Picture, they’re going to give it this one as a consolation prize, even though it also has another award locked up. If not Up, then Hurt Locker will win, even though they didn’t stick to reality.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Neill Blomkamp/Terri Tatchell – District 9
• Nick Hornby – An Education
• Jesse Armstrong/Simon Blackwell/Armando Iannucci/Tony Roche – In The Loop
• Geoffrey Fletcher – Precious
• Jason Reitman/Sheldon Turner – Up In The Air

MAN, I really wanted to see In The Loop. It looked pretty awesome and fucking witty! That’s something we don’t see a whole lot in American movies these days. We gotta go to the Brits for that. It’s good to see that it’s being rewarded.

But it won’t win. Either Precious or Up In The Air will take this one home, since neither of them are going to win the big ones. My vote is on Precious because the Academy will feel guilty. Any other year, Up In The Air would probably take it, though.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Mauro Fiore – Avatar
• Christian Berger – Das Weisse Band – Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte
• Bruno Delbonnel – Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
• Barry Ackroyd – The Hurt Locker
• Robert Richardson – Inglourious Basterds

I would love it if a Harry Potter film would win an Oscar…but it’s not gonna happen. Most likely this will go to either Avatar or Das Weisse Band. Why? Because Oscar loves new technology (Avatar) and black and white (Das Weisse Band). Even though the German film wasn’t actually SHOT in b&w, Oscar doesn’t care. The end result is all that matters.

But Avatar will probably win, even though most of the “cinematography” was done after the fact. Fuck this movie. I’m starting to hate it.

BEST EDITING

• Stephen E Rivkin/John Refoua/James Cameron – Avatar
• Julian Clarke – District 9
• Bob Murawski/Chris Innis – The Hurt Locker
• Sally Menke – Inglourious Basterds
• Joe Klotz – Precious

Precious? Really? I haven’t heard anything about the style of that film. I figured it was just typical point and shoot, nothing special editing-wise. Huh. Weird.

I’m gonna vote for District 9 on this one. It may be the only one that it wins since Avatar is going to shut it out of just about everything else. It’s a real shame because it’s a great film.

BEST ART DIRECTION

• Rick Carter/Robert Stromberg/Kim Sinclair – Avatar
• David Warren/Anastasia Masaro – The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus
• John Myhre/Gordon Sim – Nine
• Sarah Greenwood/Katie Spencer – Sherlock Holmes
• Patrice Vermette/Maggie Gray – The Young Victoria

GODDAMMIT!!! My choice is Dr. Parnassus, but it will NEVER win against all of these movies! Sheeeeiiiiit.

Sigh. Avatar will probably fuck this one up, too. It was pretty beautiful. But Dr. Parnassus is perfectly messy, broken and, well, imaginative. Avatar is almost TOO pretty.

Please, Academy members. Give this to Gilliam and his crew. They NEED it and the movie deserves it. Search your feelings. You KNOW it to be true!

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

• Janet Patters – Bright Star
• Catherine Leterrier – Coco Avant Chanel
• Monique Prudhomme – The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus
• Colleen Atwood – Nine
• Sandy Powell – The Young Victoria

Once again: goddammit. Dr. Parnassus totally deserves this one, but it will probably be beat out by one of the actual period dramas, of which there are three here. But the costumes for Dr. Parnassus are WAY cooler and more intricate than anything I’ve seen in any of the other films. I still vote for Parnassus.

BEST MAKEUP

• Aldo Signoretti/Vittorio Sodano – Il Divo
• Barney Burman/Mindy Hall/Joel Harlow – Star Trek
• John Henry Gordon/Jenny Shircore – The Young Victoria

I totally vote for Star Trek here. Il Divo basically had makeup on one dude and The Young Victorians had to make Emily Blunt beautiful…wait. Already done. No makeup required. Star Trek wins! They painted a girl green!

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

• James Horner – Avatar
• Alexandre Desplat – The Fantastic Mr. Fox
• Marco Beltrami/Buck Sanders – The Hurt Locker
• Hans Zimmer – Sherlock Holmes
• Michael Giacchino – Up

James and Hans have the pedigree, but fuck ‘em. They’ve won enough. They’ve both won an Oscar each and been nominated a jillion times. I vote for either Alexandre or Michael. Yes, they’ve been nominated before (twice and three times, respectively), but they’ve never won and they’re doing interesting things with music.

My vote is for Alexandre. His score for Mr. Fox is fun and fits in with Wes Anderson’s non-original music choices perfectly. Do it. Don’t cuss him out of an award.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

• T-Bone Burnett/Ryan Bingham – “The Weary Kind” – Crazy Heart
• Reinhardt Wagner/Frank Thomas – “Loin de Paname” – Faubourg 36
• Maury Yeston – “Take It All” – Nine
• Randy Newman – “Almost There” – The Princess And The Frog
• Randy Newman – “Down In New Orleans” – The Princess And The Frog

Randy’s going to cancel himself out here. No more Oscars for him, even if it’s supposedly the best Disney movie in decades. Most likely, this one goes to either “Take It All” or “The Weary Kind.” My vote is on Crazy Heart. I haven’t heard any of these songs, but that’s where my vote goes. It just seems right.

BEST SOUND MIXING

• Christopher Boyes/Gary Summers/Andy Nelson/Tony Johnson – Avatar
• Paul NJ Ottosson/Ray Beckett – The Hurt Locker
• Michael Minkler/Tony Lamberti/Mark Ulano – Inglourious Basterds
• Anna Behlmer/Andy Nelson/Peter J Devlin – Star Trek
• Greg P Russell/Gary Summers/Geoffrey Patterson – Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

Wow. Let me reiterate this: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen was nominated for an Oscar. I don’t care that it’s a technical award. It sucks that this was allowed to happen. All it will do is inflate Michael Bay’s ego, as if he had a goddamn thing to do with it.

Anyway, let’s ignore that abortion of a movie and see who should ACTUALLY win this one. My guess here is that, if Avatar doesn’t sweep everything as it should not, The Hurt Locker will take this one. It’s a war film. How could it not?

Then again, Avatar is also a war film of sorts, so it could take it. But I kinda think The Hurt Locker has it. It’s all about bombs, for Hitchcock’s sake!

By the way, where the fuck is District 9?

BEST SOUND EDITING

• Christopher Boyes/Gwendolyn Yates Whittle – Avatar
• Paul NJ Ottosson – The Hurt Locker
• Wylie Stateman – Inglourious Basterds
• Mark P Stoeckinger/Alan Rankin – Star Trek
• Michael Silvers/Tom Myers – Up

Here’s the big surprise in this category: no musical! Where’s Nine? Where’s Crazy Heart? There’s always a movie that has it’s main focus on music in this category.

Oh well. I’m giving it to Up, but Avatar will probably take it. Fuck ‘em.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• Joe Letteri/Stephen Rosenbaum/Richard Baneham/Andy Jones – Avatar
• Dan Kaufman/Peter Muyzers/Robert Habros/Matt Aitken – District 9
• Roger Guyett/Russell Earl/Paul Kavanagh/Burt Dalton – Star Trek

Finally, one that I think Avatar should win….if I hadn’t seen District 9. Yes, Avatar was beautiful and the 3D worked perfectly. But we were still watching a really violent cartoon. With District 9, everything looked totally real. AND it was done with a pretty small budget.

Suck it, Cameron. District 9 should win this one…but you will. Dammit.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

• Coraline
• The Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Princess And The Frog
• The Secret Of Kells
• Up

Any other year, I would say that Mr. Fox should win this. But this is the year of Up. It’s an amazing film and should win every award that it’s up for…including Best Picture. But it won’t win that, so it WILL win this one. No contest.

By the way, has anyone even heard of The Secret Of Kells? I mean, I’m not begrudging it a nomination here. I’m all for nominating the little guys. But what the fuck is it?

BEST FOREIGN FILM

• Ajami (Israel)
• Das Weisse Band – Eine Deutsche Kindergeschicte (Germany)
• El Secreto de Sus Ojos (Argentina)
• Un Prophete (France)
• La Teta Asustada (Peru)

I know nothing about any of these…except that La Teta Asustada literally means The Frightened Tit. It wins.

Seriously, though, Ajami will probably win. It’s a coming of age story in Israel. That’s a done deal.

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• Burma VJ
• The Cove
• Food, Inc.
• The Most Dangerous Man In America
• Which Way Home

These are all perfectly good Oscar bait, but my money’s on The Cove. It’s controversial. It’s about nature. And it shows how awful we are to animals. It wins.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

• China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears Of Sichuan Province
• The Last Campaign Of Governor Booth Gardner
• The Last Truck: Closing Of A GM Plant
• Krolik Po Berlinsku
• Music By Prudence

This is always a tough one, but this year it seems to be tougher than ever. We have one about an earthquake that killed thousands, assisted suicide, a GM plant closing in a small midwestern town, rabbits living between the Berlin Walls paralleling the humans on either side of the walls and a Zimbabwean woman whose broken body holds in the beautiful music that she can make. Who’s to win?

I’m going for the GM plant. It’s close to home and something that everyone can get behind.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

• French Roast
• Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
• La Dama Y La Meurte
• Logorama
• Wallace And Gromit in “A Matter Of Loaf And Death”

Not so sure about this one, either, but my vote goes to Wallace And Gromit. They’ve been absent from our lives for a while (even longer from the shorts category), and I think everyone misses them.

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

• The Door
• Istallet For Abrakadabra
• Kavi
• Miracle Fish
• The New Tenants

I’m thinking that the one about the little boy forced to work in the brick kiln and looking for a way out is gonna take this one. None of the others even come close to being that dramatic. And, as we know, drama always wins. So, Kavi has it.

That’s all, folks! All the nominees. I hope you enjoyed my predictions and, most of all, I hope they’re right. Who knows how much money I have riding on this.