Oscars 2010 Discussion

[Emperor]

I've seen 52 of the Best Picture winners. I spent a couple years working at a video store in college and made myself watch as many of them as I could. Not sure why I stopped.

 

For the last ten years I've also made it a point to watch all of the Best Picture nominees before Oscar night. Now that they bumped that up to ten, it's going to be a hella lot harder.

 

Are they going to split them up like they do the globes? Best Picture/Drama and Best Picture/Comedy or Musical?? Or just pile all ten up in the one Best Picture category.  :-\

 

Personally, I think it was stupid to flood the category like that. They could have bumped it to seven and that would have been a bit better. Ten is way too many. And if crap like GI Joe or Transformers (and I was a HUGE Transformers geek growing up) make the cut, I will officially swear off ever watching the Oscars again.

 

Ok, not really. But I will have a very angry expression on my face when they mention it as a nominee.

 

It is like we were made for each other....

[Verbal32]

:o

 

:'(

[Obligatory WOT Reference]

I just watched "Brothers" with Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhall. Scoff all you want at Tobey Maguire in the Spiderman movies but in "Brothers" he gives a stirring performance as Sam Cahill, a marine who was held captive and presumed dead but is able to get home. The unique thing about this movie was that it didn't focus on Sam's escape as much as it built the tension the audience knows will happen as soon as his brother Tommy (Gyllenhall) starts getting close to Sam's wife (Natalie Portman). Maguire plays a hauntingly different man who fights with post traumatic stress disorder for the second half of the movie. One of the scenes that stole the show for me was how his daughters treated him as a different person after he got back from the war. Maguire has given one of the finest acting performances of his career. A definite must see if you are a fan of character driven movies and strong acting. 5 out of 5

[Yveva]

ooOOoo. I have watched 41!  There are some on that list that I definitely still want to watch, but wtf, Gigi was nominated?!? That was a steaming pile imho.

 

I am mad that they raised it to 10 movies. 5 was fine, and honestly, 5 was sometimes a stretch :) the popcorn flick were able to win on special effects or whatevies, so they weren't totally ignored.... but really, adding any of them to a Best Picture nomination just weakens the credibility of the award. If they combined best picture with foreign language film we might be talking, but that's not the route they're going. *sigh*

[Emperor]

Well not really wife.... there are basicially 10 nominees for best picture for Golden Globes... they just split it down the middle between Drama and Comedy/Musical.  I think 10 was a bit too high, but this isn't the first time we have had 10 nominees.

 

 

[Emperor]

Best Picture

 

Avatar

An Education

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

Invictus

The Messenger

Precious

A Serious Man

Up

Up in the Air

 

Oh, how much easier this would be if there were only five Best Picture nominees this year: It’d be Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker, Avatar, Precious, and Inglourious Basterds and we’d call it a day. It’s those other five slots that are tougher to suss out. An Education has strong support from actors (witness its SAG nod for best cast) and across-the-pond voters, and the delightfully strange A Serious Man will rally the Coen brothers’ fervent fan base. Invictus has the necessary prestige to make the cut, while Best Animated Feature front-runner Up should manage to break out of the cartoon ghetto. If voters want to go the populist route, the top contender is the adult romance It’s Complicated. But since it’s the No. 1 and No. 2 votes on the Academy’s ranked ballots that truly count, a film with a smaller cult of enthusiastic followers—think District 9 or, more likely, The Messenger—is poised to become a spoiler. Which means the flashy, filled-with-Oscar-faves musical Nine may fall victim to its nasty reviews and lackluster box office.

 

 

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

 

Four performances have dominated this race and show no signs of budging: George Clooney, Jeff Bridges,  Colin Firth, and Morgan Freeman all received the trifecta of Golden Globe, SAG Award, and Broadcast Film Critics Association nominations. Tobey Maguire also landed a Globe nod for Brothers, but the film has taken some knocks from critics, which hurts his chances; ditto BFCA nominee Viggo Mortensen for the drama The Road. In a race with another onscreen soldier, Ben Foster (so raw and moving in The Messenger), I think the last spot goes to Jeremy Renner.

 

Best Actress

 

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Helen Mirren, The Last Station

Carey Mulligan, An Education

Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

 

Meryl Streep will easily break her own record and earn Academy Award nomination No. 16. Though It’s Complicated is the more recent of her two starring roles this year, Streep’s channeling of a real person in Julie & Julia is likelier to get the voters’ attention. Meanwhile, Carey Mulligan and Gabourey Sidibe are the indie standouts of the year. Emily Blunt made the BFCA and Globe short lists for her impressive turn in The Young Victoria and could do the same here, but the Academy may round out the race with a past winner—Helen Mirren—and a first-time nominee: Sandra Bullock.

 

Best Supporting Actor

 

Matt Damon, Invictus

Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

Christopher Plummer, The Last Station

Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

 

Christoph Waltz and Woody Harrelson are the definites here, followed by Matt Damon, who’ll earn his first nomination in 12 years. With Me and Orson Welles‘ Christian McKay becoming more and more of a long shot, the last two slots will likely go to veterans who’ve never been nominated despite decades of strong work: Stanley Tucci (so fabulous in Julie & Julia but more likely to get noticed for his villainous role in The Lovely Bones), Christopher Plummer (resolute as a dying Tolstoy in The Last Station), or An Education’s Alfred Molina, who may find himself drawing the short straw this year.

 

Best Supporting Actress

 

Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air

Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

Mo’Nique, Precious

Julianne Moore, A Single Man

Samantha Morton, The Messenger

 

Mo’Nique and Anna Kendrick have monopolized the critics’ prizes, while Kendrick’s costar Vera Farmiga also seems a good bet. The Screen Actors Guild overlooked Julianne Moore, but her boozy BFF in A Single Man should do the trick with the Academy. As Nine’s buzz continues to fade, Golden Globe and  SAG Award nominee Penélope Cruz may find herself edged out. Inglourious Basterds‘ Diane Kruger made the SAG list, but the likeliest stealth contender is The Messenger’s Samantha Morton, who has snuck in at the last minute before.

 

Best Director

 

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

James Cameron, Avatar

Clint Eastwood, Invictus

Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

 

One certainty in this year’s Oscar race: A woman will be nominated for Best Director, for the fourth time ever, in the form of Kathryn Bigelow. Jason Reitman and Quentin Tarantino should each score their second nods in this race, while past winners James Cameron and Clint Eastwood stand the best shot at rounding out the category. Outside contenders include Precious‘ Lee Daniels, Up’s Pete Docter, and An Education’s Lone Scherfig, in which case there’d be two women nominated in the same year for the first time.

 

Best Original Screenplay

 

Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker

Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man

Pete Docter & Bob Peterson, Up

Scott Neustatder & Michael H. Weber, (500) Days of Summer

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

 

There are essentially six screenplays fighting for the five spots here. The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Up, and A Serious Man, all strong overall contenders, seem like foregone conclusions. Nancy Meyers scored a Golden Globe nomination for her insightful and funny It’s Complicated script, but the guys from (500) Days of Summer can see Meyers on insightful and funny and raise her another all-important adjective: inventive.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

 

Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach, Fantastic Mr. Fox

Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9

Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious

Nick Hornby, An Education

Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

 

Up in the Air, Precious, and An Education are the surest bets, while the writers’ branch has recognized both members of Fantastic Mr. Fox’s clever team before. For the fifth slot, it could be Nora Ephron for Julie & Julia or Tom Ford (co-credited with David Scearce) for his impressive overhaul of A Single Man. But if voters don’t want to let a designer into the club, Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell’s District 9 may be too unsettling to ignore.