You may have also heard that in a desperate attempt to get the general public more excited for the awards (see: make more money), the Academy saw fit to balloon the Best Picture category from five nominees to ten. Thank God. Finally a movie like The Blind Side (see: sappy true story) can get no votes from Academy members, but movie simpletons like my mom (sorry mom) and grandparents nationwide will tune in to see if it wins. Well played, Oscar. Well played.
(Side rage: What the hell is the appeal of the "based off of a true story" tag? This morning I woke up, rolled out of bed, and took a crap (clean break...high five!). I proceeded to eat a heaping bowl of Multi-Grain Cheerios and went to the gym to put myself through a pretty good (if you don't mind me saying) leg/core workout. Later on, I sat down to type this well-formed, eloquent thesis that is currently matriculating through that brain of yours. But I guarendamntee that if Warner Brothers wanted to get the Coen Brothers to direct "Boring Sunday: The Colin Thompson Story (Based off of a true story)" and throw $80 million into distrubtion and advertising, it would absolutely blow up at the theaters. And in February 2011, when there are 25 or 30 Best Picture nominees (don't think they won't), and the electric Austrailian award presenting team of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman are up there for the last award of the night, you'll hear the words "Boring," "Sunday," "Colin," and "Thompson." Which I guess won't be all bad, since they'll have to flash a shot of me drunk next to Tyrese Gibson (who obviously played me in the movie) somewhere in the fourth row.)
Whew, OK sorry I blacked out for a second there. What happened? Ooh that got a little angry, sorry. Happy thoughts...moving on. Let's break this ish down:
Best Achievement in Cinematography, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Editing, Art Direction, Costume Design, Makeup, Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, Animated Feature, Foreign Language Feature, Documentary Feature, Short Subject Documentary, Animated Short, and Live Action Short:
I don't know. Avatar will probably win eight or nine of these. I don't care. Moving on to the "Big Six" (see: the awards Colin feels like writing about).
Best Supporting Actress:
Penelope Cruz for Nine
Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhall for Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air
Mo'Nique for Precious
Admittedly, I only saw Up in the Air out of this bunch. The two ladies in it were certainly good, but the movie completely underwhelmed me as a whole. Word on the street is Mo'Nique will run away with this award. And why not? If you go by one name, it has an apostrophe randomly in the middle of it, AND you're nominated because of how convincinly you pulled off a few girl/girl rape scenes...then yeah, go ahead and take home a gold statue, you've earned it.
Best Supporting Actor:
Matt Damon for Invictus
Woody Harrelson for The Messenger
Christopher Plummer for The Last Station
Stanley Tucci for The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds
I've been saying this for months: if Christoph Waltz does not win this award, I am marching on Hollywood. Seriously.
Best Actress:
Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side
Helen Mirren for The Last Station
Carey Mulligan for An Education
Gabourey Sidibe for Precious
Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia
Yep, this self-proclaimed movie guru went 0 for 5 in this category. But Bullock wins in "lifetime achievement" fashion (she was criminally not nominated for a pair of great sequels...Speed 2: Cruise Control, and Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous). She's due.
Best Actor:
Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart
George Clooney for Up in the Air
Colin Firth for A Single Man
Morgan Freeman for Invictus
Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker
I think the poster here echoes my sentiments on Clooney. The guy was not acting. You know what? Lightning might strike me dead for this one, but neither was Morgan Freeman. Until Invictus came out, I actually thought he WAS Nelson Mandela. Talk about your most obvious casting ever. Really went out on a limb with that one, Clint Eastwood. My pick would definitely be Jeremy Renner here, he was amazing in that movie The Nemesis didn't like. But the dude abides, Jeff Bridges will win.
Best Director:
Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker
James Cameron for Avatar
Lee Daniels for Precious
Jason Reitman for Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds
Tarantino combined at least 15 movie genres into Inglourious Basterds (most of which I've never heard of), presided over the best performance anyone put on this year (my boy Christoph), and made a tired subject (World War II) thought provoking, exciting, and pretty funny.
Best Picture:
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air
Apparently the race is between The Hurt Locker and Avatar. Really? Does $300 million + 3D blue people + Pocahontas script = Best Picture? You can't hate on James Cameron for pushing the envelope with movie technology and making more money than God, but come on. Best Picture is pretty effing prestigious, I'd personally rather people not buy it. My vote (yeah I've got one) went to Inglourious Basterds, with The Hurt Locker a close second. (Thanks to collegehumor.com for these fake "honest movie posters." They're hilarious.)
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