All the glamorous people in Hollywood got up early one morning this week to find out once and for all if this would be THEIR year, THEIR time, THEIR chance to win a naked gold man standing on a round pedestal to make them the envy of all their peers. Oh yes, my friends, it can get ugly fighting over that little man and there is plenty of lobbying and schmoozing done for months in advance in a political campaigning process to get it. Once you’ve gotten it, no one can take it away from you regardless if the rest of your career blows. You can take a poop and make it a movie and they will always be able to advertise it as starring “Oscar winning actor/actress so-and-so”. You can demand more money, more press time, and more time on the red carpet while people fawn over your weird draped sparkly dress.
Apart from all that, it can be a time of great recognition for those who till consider it a high honor awarded to the most deserving person. The nominees have been released and I’m going to dissect it for you with the list of those who SHOULD win and those who WILL win. These are my early predictions…
Best Picture:
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are Alright
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone
Fan favorite – Inception. The most mind-bending movie I saw all year. But it has too many special effects so it will suffer the Avatar-effect.
SHOULD win – The Social Network. It was the best movie I saw this year after Inception. The story, the acting, the script, the music, the directing was all amazing.
WILL win – The King’s Speech. The Academy loves period pieces, they love history, they love the story of one man’s struggle to overcome obstacles.
Best Director:
Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
David O. Russell – The Fighter
Tom Hooper – The King’s Speech
David Fincher – The Social Network
Joel & Ethan Coen – True Grit
SHOULD win – Christopher Nolan for Inception. Oh, wait, he’s not up there? Yeah, that’s a HUGE snub considering how many intricate factors there were in each screen.
WILL win – David Fincher. He deserves it out of the nominees, it was the best.
Best Actress:
Annette Bening – The Kids Are Alright
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine
SHOULD win – Natalie Portman. She threw everything into it and it was captivating in a scary way.
WILL win – Natalie Portman. It’s her time and this was her movie.
Best Actor:
Javier Bardem – Biutiful
Jeff Bridges – True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Colin Firth – The King’s Speech
James Franco – 127 Hours
SHOULD win – James Franco. Poor guy led an entire movie being stuck in one place by a rock and kept it flowing so you couldn’t look away from his performance.
WILL win – Colin Firth. He played a historical figure with a speech impediment and that earns big points with the Academy.
Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter – The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom
SHOULD win – Melissa Leo. There is no black and white with her role, it’s a lot of gray area as she isn’t 100% bad or good. She did a great job of owning that line without being self conscious about it.
WILL win – Hailee Steinfeld. This little girl actually had a lead role and was a big breakout performance in the movie. Sympathy for her category will get her a little extra credit, plus she’s in a Coen movie AND a western. Signed, sealed, delivered.
Best Supporting Actor:
Christian Bale – The Fighter
John Hawkes – Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner – The Town
Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are Alright
Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech
SHOULD win – Christian Bale. His best performance in years, completely absent of any chip on his shoulder.
WILL win – Christian Bale. Being a junkie isn’t easy and he has been super gracious acknowledging the actual people portrayed in the film on the campaign trail.
Best Film Editing:
Black Swan
The Fighter
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
SHOULD win – Inception, where the hell is it? Can YOU edit together four dream levels and have it make sense to the audience?
WILL win – The Social Network. Jumping back and forth in time and from two different lawsuits taking place simultaneously and the opening sequence with Zuckerberg designing a site while getting drunk and blogging and showing reactions all over campus earn this award.
Best Documentary Feature:
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land
SHOULD win – Exit Through the Gift Shop. This documentary kept you guessing the entire time if it even WAS a documentary and that act of pulling the wool over the audience’s eyes was a great achievement.
WILL win – I haven’t seen Gasland, Restrepo, or Waste Land so I don’t feel comfortable guaranteeing this one, but I’d really like to see Exit Through the Gift Shop win.
Best Animated Feature Film:
How To Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3
First off, why only three films? Can’t we do five like the other categories?
SHOULD win – How to Train Your Dragon. It was moving, had a fantastic story, and it had DRAGONS. It was awesome for all kinds of reasons, but you should be satisfied just knowing there are DRAGONS are in it.
WILL win – Toy Story 3. Why? Because it was a Best Picture nominee. Why? Because it was made by Pixar and everything Pixar touches turns to gold like King Midas. Unfortunately, even though this movie was great, I don’t think it deserved it. This third movie in a series was NOT Return of the King.
Best Visual Effects:
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Hereafter
Inception
Iron Man 2
Now Iron Man 2 is an Oscar-nominated film. Wow.
SHOULD win – Inception. Did you perhaps see some buildings folding in on themselves to create an endless maze?
WILL win – Alice in Wonderland probably just to piss me off and prevent Inception from getting anything. But really, if Inception doesn’t get this, I’m going to punch someone in the face.
Best Original Song:
“Coming Home” – Country Strong
“I See the Light” – Tangled
“If I Rise” – 127 Hours
“We Belong Together” – Toy Story 3
SHOULD win – Tangled. That song and the lanterns floating through the air on screen were so beautiful, I almost teared up.
WILL win – Toy Story 3. It’s Pixar. And sorry, but 127 Hours was no Slumdog Millionaire so it’s not touching this.
Best Original Score:
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
SHOULD win: Inception. I liked the BUUUUUUMMM BUUUMMMMM BUUMMMM. There was no score more thrilling and recognizable than that.
WILL win: The Social Network. I hope. I only really noticed it upon the second viewing and it really captured the movie.
Best Cinematography:
Black Swan
Inception
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
True Grit
SHOULD win: Inception. It ought to win all technical awards.
WILL win: Black Swan I suspect. It did do some amazing little tricks and would be the only one I could see taking this away from Inception.
Best Sound Mixing:
Inception
The King’s Speech
Salt
The Social Network
True Grit
SHOULD win – Inception.
WILL win – Inception.
Best Sound Editing: (I don’t remember why these are even separate categories.)
Inception
Toy Story 3
Tron: Legacy
True Grit
Unstoppable
SHOULD win – Inception.
WILL win – Tron: Legacy. Just to mess with me.
Best Costume Design:
Alice in Wonderland
I Am Love
The King’s Speech
The Tempest
True Grit
SHOULD win: Alice in Wonderland. Simply for creativity.
WILL win: The King’s Speech. Period costumes win ALL.
Best Art Direction:
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
The King’s Speech
True Grit
SHOULD win: Inception
WILL win: The King’s Speech. It’s a period piece. Occasionally they used not symmetrical camera angles. They want to thwart me.
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy – 127 Hours
Aaron Sorkin – The Social Network
John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich – Toy Story 3
Joel & Ethan Coen – True Grit
Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini – Winter’s Bone
Snub that Never Let Me Go didn’t make this list.
SHOULD win: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network. Best, wordiest screenplay full of quotes I want on a giant poster in my room.
WILL win: Oh he better win.
Best Original Screenplay:
Mike Leigh – Another Year
Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson – The Fighter
Christopher Nolan – Inception
Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg – The Kids Are Alright
David Seidler – The King’s Speech
SHOULD win: Christopher Nolan for Inception. How do you even craft a story that complex?
WILL win: Christopher Nolan. But The King’s Speech might come from behind on this one because he may have written in all the stutters, but that would be a terrible choice, especially given the details of the ending (which would have been better ending RIGHT after the speech).
Best Makeup:
Who cares?
I’m skipping short films too. We all know those are categories we leave the room during to go get more snacks or go to the bathroom. So those are my picks for what oughta win and what probably will win. My track record isn’t perfect, but this is what my gut tells me right now at the end of January. Some things might change, after all Julia Roberts is campaigning for Javier Bardem by hosting screenings at her home and somehow got this foreign film hardly anyone saw recognized more widely. Crazier things have happened.
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