Sunday, March 7, 2010

OSCAR Preview and Prediction Post!

I can't believe that the Oscars are tonight!

Let's take a look at the major categories and let me go ahead and spoil it for you beforehand.

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

This isn't really too much of a race, with wins in most of the award ceremonies leading up to the Oscars, Jeff Bridges seems like a lock to win Best Actor this year. If there is to be a surprise it will probably come in the form of Jeremy Renner who was one of the best parts of the under-watched and quickly canceled Unusuals last year on ABC. If Renner wins this award, then it will be a HUGE night for Hurt Locker. There seems to be a lot of push behind this movie, and it wouldn't be too shocking if it ends up running away with everything. We'll know after this award whether to expect that or not.

If I were in charge, Sam Rockwall would be winning for his performance in Moon. (Just Moon, not New Moon, he wasn't in that.) I also would have nominated Max Records for his amazing performance as Max in Where the Wild Things Are. Moon and Where the Wild Things Are were two great movies that are getting no recognition at all tonight, and that is disappointing especially considering that these were two of the greatest performances of the year.

BEST ACTRESS

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

You can never count out Meryl Streep, in fact, they should probably go ahead and change the name of the catagory to Closest Actress to Being Meryl Streep, so obviously she has a real shot after her fantastic performance in Julie and Julia. However, my money is actually on Sandra Bullock for her fan pleasing turn as an extrememly loving mother in The Blind Side. If Bullock wins, she will have the distinct honor of winning Best Actress at the Oscars and Worst Actress at the Razzies in the same year. And, honestly, how could we not root for that to happen?

On a side note, I knew that she wouldn't be nominated since her character was computer generated, but Zoe Saldana was terrific in Avatar and did so much to help bring a completely computer generated character to life.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

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

This is not even close to being a contest. I knew the second Inglourious Basterds was over that Christoph Waltz was going to win Best Supporting Actor. Personally, I hated the movie, but he was fantastic and I enjoyed every moment that he was in. He stole the film totally and completely and 100% deserves the Oscar he will win tonight.

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

How strange that on a night when Sandra Bullock will most likely win an Oscar (just after winning a Razzie for Worst Actress) we will also witness Mo'Nique win an Oscar? Could you have come up with someone less likely to win an Oscar? Probably, but still at this point last year if you had said that Mo'Nique was going to win a Best Supporting Oscar in one year's time, everyone would have told you you were insane. Everyone. Myself included. But tomorrow, she will ever be known as Mo'Nique, Oscar winner.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson & Tom McCarthy, Up
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

I'm holding out hope for an Up or an A Serious Man win here, but I would be shocked if it is anything but The Hurt Locker. The screenplay is actually one of the few things I found lacking in The Hurt Locker. While I feel that it is a tremendous movie, I felt that the story (and more specifically some of the places that the story needlessly goes) detracted a bit from the outstanding direction, acting, and cinematography. However, this film has won the imaginations of the voters and therefore will probably walk away with this Oscar despite there being other more worthy candidates in the field. And personally, I think that this would have been another place where Moon should have been nominated at which point I would also give it the award.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci & Tony Roche, In the Loop
Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

I can tell you definitively which of these won't win, In the Loop. The others are all Best Picture nominees, and one of them will walk away with this award in consolation since none of them have a shot at Best Picture. I would put my money on Up in the Air.

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

Very pleased that Up got a Best Picture nod, but I'm wondering if this category is going to be short lived. I think that it might disappear if we continue to get 10 best picture nominees, because the best animated film will probably often find itself nominated for Best Picture and the Academy might think that is honor enough and dismantle this category completely. We only have this category because people were upset that Beauty and the Beast didn't get a Best Picture nomination. Since we got the 10 nominations for Best Picture because people were upset that The Dark Knight didn't get a Best Picture nomination last year I am now envisioning a world where they just added a new category instead of doubling the number of films nominated.

This year the nominees for Best Genre Picture are...

Moon
Watchmen
Star Trek
Zombieland
Avatar

Tell me that wouldn't be an awesome category.

Anyway, back to the Animated movie category. Up is going to win.

BEST DIRECTOR

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

It will be Kathryn Bigelow, and it will mark the first time ever that a woman has won Best Director. I don't really think that there is even any suspense in this category.

BEST PICTURE

Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

It all comes down to Avatar and The Hurt Locker. Like I said earlier, if Renner wins Best Actor, you can go ahead and turn off your televisions secure in the knowledge that The Hurt Locker won Best Picture. If, however, The Dude wins Best Actor, then Avatar remains in the running. I think that conventional wisdom is that The Hurt Locker is going to win, but I have a feeling that the night will ultimately belong to Avatar. I wouldn't be surprised if Hurt Locker won, because like I said, I think a lot of people are making that prediction, but Avatar is a once in a life time Movie Experience and I think that voters are going to end up voting for it because of that. I can't wait to find out though! And at least it won't be Slumdog Millionaire this year.

Until Next Time, a few other predictions, Fantastic Mr. Fox will win Best Score and "The Weary Kind" will win Best Original Song. See you after the show!

Josh Man

1 comment:

  1. im hoping fantastic mr. fox gets best animated, anyone but sandra bullock gets best actress, and the hurt locker gets skunked. and if the universe cracks in half and christoph waltz doesn't get best supporting actor i'm going to be mad. maybe i'll even try to flip over a car. haha.

    ReplyDelete