My Oscar List

I'm a Basterd. What can I say?

Best Picture – Inglourious Basterds. Hurt Locker is good, and I would love to see Bigelow slay the Avatar behemoth, but it ended up being a movie that I respect more than I enjoy. I don't know. Maybe the critical hype inflated my expectations. This kind of movie is what this award should be about instead of being a popularity contest.

Basterds, on the other hand, is a delight, for its mix of maturity and fantastical irresponsibility, complexity of storytelling (the importance of language to key twists of the plot), its tension, impeccable music selection, Christoph Waltz, Bonjourno, and an audacious finale that had me yelling in delight and then reconsidering it after the fact. Eli Roth notwithstanding, the movie is just stunning top to bottom.

Best Director – Quentin Tarantino. The first fifteen minutes of the movie. The Morricone-scored build-up to the Nazi soldier’s death by Bear Jew and the way it fucks with our sympathies. The reunion of Hans Landa and Shoshanna. King Kong. “Cat People.” The face of Jewish revenge. So many perfect moments.

Best Actor - Jeff Bridges. Haven’t seen Crazy Heart, but it sounds like he delivers the goods. And after watching his photo gallery video on the Big Lebowski DVD, Bridges seems like one of the coolest guys in the world. After thinking it over and realizing how great Jeremy Renner is in The Hurt Locker, and how stupid it would be to favor a performance I haven't seen, I'm rooting for Renner.

Best Actress - Gabourey Sidibe, because she doesn’t really care.

Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, because his Landa is endlessly fascinating.

Best Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique. I was hoping for one of the Basterdettes to be nominated, so in their absence I will demur to popular opinion.

Best Original Screenplay – A Serious Man. Since Basterds has gotten so much attention already, and in my perfect universe it would be getting best picture, I’d like this brilliant Coen Brothers oddity to get more attention than it has, the better for others to “Embrace the mystery.”

Best Adapted Screenplay –In the Loop. I’m hoping to watch it in the next few days, which technically means I shouldn’t be judging it, but…. Yeah. I have no excuse.

Best Animated Feature – Coraline. Up affected me in ways movies rarely do, but Henry Sellick’s work here is uncanny and deserves more attention than it got in theaters, having been forced off 3D screens by the fucking Jonas Brothers.

Best Original Score - Up. Try to imagine the wordless montage at the beginning without the delicately shifting moods of the score. Try it.

Best Film Editing – Basterds. Again, I’m a Tarantino partisan. That first scene is paced immaculately, and the editing plays a huge role in winding up the tension in the subsequent chapters.

I have no problem with awarding Avatar the other technical awards I think it will win. The only reason to see it, in 3D, is the immersive experience it gives you, and so on that front it deserves all the plaudits it will get.

Likely Oscar Winners

Alrighty. Narratives are key to the pseudoscience of predicting the Oscars, I considered three possible Oscar narratives: an Avatar sweep, a Bigelow upset, and a Basterds left-fielder, listed in order of likelihood and reverse order of preference. I’ll explain below and in my personal picks in the next post.

Best Picture - Avatar. Four years ago the Academy snubbed the frontrunner, a love story, in favor of the feel-good issue movie. There followed a backlash which factored into last year's awards. Three years ago was Martin Scorsese's coronation. Two years ago the Academy awarded a film the mainstream public had barely heard of and probably would have hated by the end, which--along with a painfully boring awards show--probably turned off audiences. Last year they sidestepped the issue movie and awarded the (underdog) favorite, a feel-good love story. Lessons learned? Audience favorites, love stories, feel-good flicks, manifest destiny. Avatar's a box office colossus, features CG cat-people sex, and ends with the whole rabble holding hands and swaying, grooving with the planet; oh, and James Cameron is king of the world.

Avatar's box office momentum makes it un-fucking-stoppable, and as Christopher Orr points out, with the expanded field of nominees, the opposition is split too much to mount an upset. My mistake last year was in betting on the political angle of the Academy's cynicism. The fact of the matter is they want to maintain relevance with the public whose ratings they crave, and they're not going to do that by awarding Best Picture to the movie people were too busy seeing Transformers 2 to see.

Best Director - James Cameron, because they'll want to be consistent in their Best Picture selection.
Best Actor - Jeff Bridges. He's the favorite.
Best Actress - Gabourey Sidibe an unlikely favorite, but favorite all the same. Sandra Bullock's getting some serious attention, and some would like Meryl Streep to take another statue home, but Precious is said to basically hinge on Sidibe's performance. She's an underdog, and the Academy loves them plenty.
Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, because people have been calling for it since Cannes.
Best Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique. Favorite once again.
Best Original Screenplay - Basterds. Not enough have heard of A Serious Man.
Best Adapted Screenplay - Up in the Air, because everyone's been talking about it, and it's gotta win something.
Best Animated Feature - Up, because Pixar always wins.
Best Foreign Language Film - The White Ribbon, because it's the only one of the nominees I've heard of, giving it a high profile.

Best Documentary Feature - Burma VJ – Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller. Because I read about it on the film-blogging site I read, and because Burma's (rightfully) a chic activist cause right now.
Best Documentary Short - China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province. Because everyone's scared about China.
Best Live Action Short - The New Tenants. Crapshoot.
Best Animated Short - A Matter of Loaf and Death. Because Nick Park always delivers the goods.
Best Original Score - Up. They're not going to give it to James Horner, are they? Even I’m not cynical enough to bet on that.
Best Original Song - "Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart. Favorite.
Best Sound Editing – Avatar, because 99% of its credits were computer programmers, and accordingly it’s going to sweep the technical awards.
Best Sound Mixing - Avatar
Best Art Direction - Avatar
Best Cinematography – Avatar
Best Makeup - Star Trek, because it makes us think of a time when William Shatner wasn’t price line negotiating.
Best Costume Design – Nine. With all that Golden Globe attention, it’s gotta win something.
Best Film Editing - The Hurt Locker. I think they’ll grant the importance of editing to establishing the movie’s sense of life out of balance.
Best Visual Effects – Avatar. Does this really require an explanation?