THE CHAUFFEUR!!!!
So its that time of year again. The OSCARS are on Sunday! much speculation has been made about what might win and what not. So let me add my own voice to the fray. Below is the list of the main categories. Let me try to dissect what I have been hearing through the grape vine and pick out who will win this Sunday. After the award show we can all come back here and see how close or far off I was. Should be fun!
Best Supporting Actress:
Penelope Cruz - Nine
Maggie Gyllenhaal - Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick - Up In The Air
Mo'Nique - Precious
Vera Farmiga - Up In The Air
This one seems easy. Mo'Nique has won practically everything for this performance, and she will likely take this award to. This win will esentially be the only major win Precious gets. The only upset I could see happening is Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart, but it isn't likely. Expect Mo'Nique to win this.
Best Supporting Actor:
Matt Damon - Invictus
Christoph Waltz - Inglorious Basterds
Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones
Woody Harrelson - The Messenger
Christopher Plummer - The Last Station
Same for this award. Christoph Waltz has it in the bag. His only real competition in this award was Stanley Tucci, but he never picked up the amount of hype for his performance that would be necessary to be a proper challenger to Waltz since Lovely Bones flopped. So expect Christoph Waltz to easily take this award.
Best Actress:
Meryl Streep - Julie and Julia
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Gabourey Sidibe - Precious
Carey Mulligan - An Education
This is the only one that has me stumped. It's essentially down to two people: Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock. Streep has been nominated 7 million times, only won once. So the academy voters might give it to her as a sign of apology. Or they give it to Bullock who has had one hell of a career resurrection, and the academy loves resurrection stories. The other scenario is those two split the vote, and a third party comes in and takes the win, in this case it would probably be Helen Mirren. I don't know. This one is tough. Hmmm. I think i'm going to go for the wild card and say Sandra Bullock pulls off the victory here.
Best Actor:
Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
George Clooney - Up In The Air
Morgan Freeman - Invictus
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Jeff Bridges will win. He gives what is being called the best performance of his career with Crazy Heart, and he has swept every other award thus far. Jeremy Renner is to new to the scene to win, Morgan Freeman too old to the scene, Nobody saw the Colin Firth movie, and the the academy loves George Clooney, but he didn't give the better performance than Bridges. So my call for this one is Jeff Bridges all the way. Who knew?
Best director:
Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
James Cameron - Avatar
Jason Reitman - Up In The Air
Lee Daniels - Precious
Quentin Tarantino - Inglorious Basterds
This one seems easy to me. I think Kathryn Bigelow is going to win. Her only real competition is James Cameron, but even HE is saying she should win. Fact is no woman director has ever won this award. This academy pretty much HAS to give it to her for that reason alone. Frankly, if she doesn't win this award, for this movie, no woman will ever win best director. Add to the fact, many people think Avatar will take best picture, so they will want to award The Hurt Locker with something big. That would be the award for director. Kathryn Bigelow will take this one, making her the first woman director to win this award.
Best Picture:
Avatar
The Blind Side
An Education
A Serious Man
The Hurt Locker
District 9
Up In The Air
Precious
Up
Inglorious Basterds
10 pictures nominated and it still comes down to just two. Or does it? Right now it's almost a dead even race between The Hurt Locker and Avatar. It's nearly impossible to call for which. The vote is essentially split between the typical academy member voting for The Hurt Locker because they think films like this are more important and credible. The other academy members think it will do better for their image if they give it to a film people actually saw. So it's an even split. This of course has led to another possibility, Inglorious Basterds. The thinking is that The Hurt Locker and Avatar are dividing up the vote enough so that Inglorious Basterds can sneak on in there and take the win. Sort of how John McCain won the republican nomination in 2008. All the religious fucks voted for Huckabee, and the fiscal nuts went with Romney, thereby splitting the party in two. Everyone left voted McCain, and he edged out the nomination. Same thing may be happening here. I think that's a long shot though. In the end, I think it will be The Hurt Locker that takes the prize. I think just enough academy members will come down on the side of the serious film over the populist one. Would be badass to see Inglorious Basterds win though, just to see something truly unexpected happen. But the Oscars are FAR more orchestrated then you think, so don't bet on it. My final call: The Hurt Locker.
In the end I don't care which of the three win. All three films were outstanding. Avatar was one of the best made fantasy films of the last decade, with CGi that is ground breaking and will elevate the entire industry to the next level in ways not seen since the first Jurassic Park. Inglorious Basterds was probably the most fun to watch film of all those nominated, and it's the only one that continues to get better and better with each viewing. The Hurt Locker was a stunning war movie, one that kept you on the edge of your seat not by action or antics, but by taking you directly into the mind of a war addict and making you see things through his eyes. His rush was your panic. I really did like this 10 nominations thing. I hope they keep it around. I was expecting it to fail, and was bracing for the academy to vote 10 films nobody saw or gave a shit about, but it makes me smile seeing films like Up and District 9 get nominated.
So there you have it. Those are my picks. Let's see how badly I do come Sunday!
Best Supporting Actress:
Penelope Cruz - Nine
Maggie Gyllenhaal - Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick - Up In The Air
Mo'Nique - Precious
Vera Farmiga - Up In The Air
This one seems easy. Mo'Nique has won practically everything for this performance, and she will likely take this award to. This win will esentially be the only major win Precious gets. The only upset I could see happening is Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart, but it isn't likely. Expect Mo'Nique to win this.
Best Supporting Actor:
Matt Damon - Invictus
Christoph Waltz - Inglorious Basterds
Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones
Woody Harrelson - The Messenger
Christopher Plummer - The Last Station
Same for this award. Christoph Waltz has it in the bag. His only real competition in this award was Stanley Tucci, but he never picked up the amount of hype for his performance that would be necessary to be a proper challenger to Waltz since Lovely Bones flopped. So expect Christoph Waltz to easily take this award.
Best Actress:
Meryl Streep - Julie and Julia
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Gabourey Sidibe - Precious
Carey Mulligan - An Education
This is the only one that has me stumped. It's essentially down to two people: Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock. Streep has been nominated 7 million times, only won once. So the academy voters might give it to her as a sign of apology. Or they give it to Bullock who has had one hell of a career resurrection, and the academy loves resurrection stories. The other scenario is those two split the vote, and a third party comes in and takes the win, in this case it would probably be Helen Mirren. I don't know. This one is tough. Hmmm. I think i'm going to go for the wild card and say Sandra Bullock pulls off the victory here.
Best Actor:
Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
George Clooney - Up In The Air
Morgan Freeman - Invictus
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Jeff Bridges will win. He gives what is being called the best performance of his career with Crazy Heart, and he has swept every other award thus far. Jeremy Renner is to new to the scene to win, Morgan Freeman too old to the scene, Nobody saw the Colin Firth movie, and the the academy loves George Clooney, but he didn't give the better performance than Bridges. So my call for this one is Jeff Bridges all the way. Who knew?
Best director:
Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
James Cameron - Avatar
Jason Reitman - Up In The Air
Lee Daniels - Precious
Quentin Tarantino - Inglorious Basterds
This one seems easy to me. I think Kathryn Bigelow is going to win. Her only real competition is James Cameron, but even HE is saying she should win. Fact is no woman director has ever won this award. This academy pretty much HAS to give it to her for that reason alone. Frankly, if she doesn't win this award, for this movie, no woman will ever win best director. Add to the fact, many people think Avatar will take best picture, so they will want to award The Hurt Locker with something big. That would be the award for director. Kathryn Bigelow will take this one, making her the first woman director to win this award.
Best Picture:
Avatar
The Blind Side
An Education
A Serious Man
The Hurt Locker
District 9
Up In The Air
Precious
Up
Inglorious Basterds
10 pictures nominated and it still comes down to just two. Or does it? Right now it's almost a dead even race between The Hurt Locker and Avatar. It's nearly impossible to call for which. The vote is essentially split between the typical academy member voting for The Hurt Locker because they think films like this are more important and credible. The other academy members think it will do better for their image if they give it to a film people actually saw. So it's an even split. This of course has led to another possibility, Inglorious Basterds. The thinking is that The Hurt Locker and Avatar are dividing up the vote enough so that Inglorious Basterds can sneak on in there and take the win. Sort of how John McCain won the republican nomination in 2008. All the religious fucks voted for Huckabee, and the fiscal nuts went with Romney, thereby splitting the party in two. Everyone left voted McCain, and he edged out the nomination. Same thing may be happening here. I think that's a long shot though. In the end, I think it will be The Hurt Locker that takes the prize. I think just enough academy members will come down on the side of the serious film over the populist one. Would be badass to see Inglorious Basterds win though, just to see something truly unexpected happen. But the Oscars are FAR more orchestrated then you think, so don't bet on it. My final call: The Hurt Locker.
In the end I don't care which of the three win. All three films were outstanding. Avatar was one of the best made fantasy films of the last decade, with CGi that is ground breaking and will elevate the entire industry to the next level in ways not seen since the first Jurassic Park. Inglorious Basterds was probably the most fun to watch film of all those nominated, and it's the only one that continues to get better and better with each viewing. The Hurt Locker was a stunning war movie, one that kept you on the edge of your seat not by action or antics, but by taking you directly into the mind of a war addict and making you see things through his eyes. His rush was your panic. I really did like this 10 nominations thing. I hope they keep it around. I was expecting it to fail, and was bracing for the academy to vote 10 films nobody saw or gave a shit about, but it makes me smile seeing films like Up and District 9 get nominated.
So there you have it. Those are my picks. Let's see how badly I do come Sunday!