The 2010 Academy Awards Predictions

What better way to start my official blog than to make predictions about the Oscar race?  It’s a highly unusual year, and there are five films worthy of Oscar contention, any one of which I would be satisfied to see win.  However, ten films are nominated, leaving the whole process a bit like a little league baseball awards festival–everybody who played gets a trophy.  Although I have no room to complain about such trophies—I received one for my horrible performance on a middle-school football team—the Oscars are not about “feel good” awards.  For that reason, I will comment on and review the five films which deserve Best Pictures nominations and ignore the other five.

Up in the Air is charming, funny, and tight.  It will win Best Adapted Screenplay, and in any other year might be a solid competitor for Best Picture.  Clooney is as good as he’s ever been, but the highlights of the film include the performances by the two leading ladies, especially the marvelous Anna Kendrick.  Despite the film’s excellent performances and screenplay, it doesn’t stick with you long and is bound to be forgotten in the mass of nominees. 

Precious is the most emotionally draining movie of the year, dominated by two powerhouse performances by Mo Nique  (who will win  Best Supporting Actress), and Gabourey Sidibe, who, if  there were any justice, would win Best Actress  over Sandra  Bullock.  Oh, if only Sandra Bullock and the deserving Meryl Streep would cancel each other out. . .

Speaking of Bullock, I refuse to talk about Fourth Down and Goal, or whatever the heck her Cliché, er, film, is called .

Precious is disturbing, challenging, and off-putting, but it’s also clunky and sometimes sloppy.  Nevertheless, the performances alone make it one of the year’s top five.

My personal favorite film (not for  Best Picture, but favorite overall) of the year is Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds.  Christoph Waltz should walk away with  Best Supporting Actor.  The film has lived in my mind months and months after I first saw it; though I was somewhat troubled by pace and editing at first viewing, I quickly changed my mind.  Who but Tarantino would manage to change World War II in such a bold and dynamic manner?  As Walt’s  character shouts, “Oh, that’s a Bingo!”

The Hurt Locker is my choice for Best Picture for numerous reasons.  The extraordinary sense of tension throughout the film makes it one of the most memorable and enduring war movies in years.  Director Kathryn Bigelow masterfully directs “battle” scenes, bomb diffusion incidents, and heated exchanges among the soldiers, creating both a realistic atmosphere as well as a tight story.  Bigelow’s strength as a director is her refusal to preach or give in to cliché.  Although we’re in the middle of great fear and emotion, the soldiers are never overtaken by sentimentality and the film emphasizes reality without melodrama.  All performances are outstanding, as recognized by a Best Actor nod for Jeremy Renner.  Supporting cast member Anthony Mackie was overlooked and deserves a nod as well.

The winner of the   2010 Oscar, however, will be Avatar.   Why?  Because it’s the Academy. . . During a desperate economic time when Hollywood has been accused of straying further and further from Joe Public, the Academy decided to expand the nominations list to ten so it could include popular films; past fan favorites left off the list (think The Dark Knight from last year) caused an Oscar controversy, so to bring back the audience they’ve expanded the nominees—and it naturally follows they’ll give the award to the blockbuster rather than the low budget film nobody saw.

That said, Avatar is deserving; though an inferior film to Hurt Locker ( acting performances are inconsistent; the Cliché Monster rears his ugly head enough to devour the middle of the film; the script could have been improved by hiring a third grader to ghostwrite. . . Mr. Cameron, please—you’re so good at everything else:  Let someone else write your dialogue!), Avatar is nevertheless groundbreaking  technically, visually spectacular, entertaining, memorable, and magical.  I truly felt after Avatar the same way I felt about the original Star Wars. . . telling a cinematic story will never be the same.

So my predication:  Ms. Bigelow will get a much-deserved Best Director, while Cameron takes home the Best Picture prize.

Copyright 2010, by David J. LeMaster