Hey Kids – Funtime Oscar Picks 2010!

This is an incredibly obvious statement, but when it comes to Oscar predictions there are 2 paths to take – what one thinks will win and what one wants to win. Sometimes a gut feeling is difficult to differentiate from a personal preference so on a few I’ve decided to denote the ones I’m the most up in the air about (no BEST PICTURE pun there – really).

1. BEST PICTURE:
THE HURT LOCKER

My gut has been sayng, no, shouting AVATAR, but I just have to go with my personal preference *. Many critics have been saying that it’s a coin toss between the 2, while others say that the vote will be split and INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS will pull a SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and shock everybody with its dark horse win. Despite recent controversy, I intensely hope the modestly budgeted, little seen THE HURT LOCKER gets the gold Sunday night.

* Of those 2 front contenders that is – my favorite film of the year – A SERIOUS MAN – was nominated, but in this particular race it’s by far a long shot.

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Kathryn Bigelow – Roger Ebert said of Bigelow on Oprah Tuesday: “If you vote against her , you’ll be going against years of precedent that say the winner of the Director’s Guild Award will win the Oscar.” So there’s that, but since even her ex-husband James Cameron thinks she should win she really is a shoo-in.

3. BEST ACTOR: Jeff Bridges

Everybody I see online seem to be calling it for Bridges – consider me among them. It would be so nice for the 5 time nominee to abide this time.

4. BEST ACTRESS: Sandra Bullock – THE BLIND SIDE was the only one of the 10 BEST PICTURE nominees that I didn’t see so I admit I’m jumping on the bandwagon here of all the folks who say its Bullock’s year. It does really feel like she’s got the momentum and support so like Bridges it’ll really be surprising if she doesn’t get it.

5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christoph Waltz

A personal preference AND a gut feeling. Although he had relatively little screen time, Waltz’s cold blooded yet sophisticated Nazi was as cutting and memorable as a supporting part can possibly be.

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Mo’Nique – Walking out of PRECIOUS last year, my first thought was that Mo’Nique was definitely going to get an Oscar. That thought has never waivered.

And the rest:

7. ART DIRECTION: SHERLOCK HOLMES
8. CINEMATOGRAPHY: AVATAR
9. COSTUME DESIGN: COCO BEFORE CHANEL

10. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: THE COVE

11. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: CHINA’S UNNATURAL DISASTER: THE TEARS OF SICHUAN PROVINCE

12. FILM EDITING: THE HURT LOCKER
13. MAKEUP: THE YOUNG VICTORIA
14. VISUAL EFFECTS: AVATAR

15. ORIGINAL SCORE: UP

16. ORIGINAL SONG: “The Weary Kind” from CRAZY HEART

17. ANIMATED SHORT: WALLACE AND GROMIT IN ‘A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH’

It would be easy to just go with Wallace and Gromit sight unseen, but after viewing all the animated shorts last night at the Carolina Theater in Durham it’s impossible to deny that it’s infinitely the most superior offering. LOGORAMA is kinda cool too though.

18. LIVE ACTION SHORT: THE NEW TENANTS – My gut feeling is the Cheronobyl tragedy THE DOOR, but I’m pulling for the dark comic THE NEW TENANTS. It has a great absurd edge to it and great turns by its spare cast including David Rakoff, Jamie Harrold, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Kevin Corrigan.

19. SOUND EDITING: STAR TREK

20. SOUND MIXING: AVATAR

21. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS by Quentin Tarantino

22. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: UP IN THE AIR by Jason Reitman

23. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: UP

24. BEST FOREIGN FILM: THE WHITE RIBBON

By the way, I don’t consider myself any kind of expert – I’m just a guy who loves movies and loves to write about them. My biggest prediction this year is that I’m going to get more wrong than usual. Tune in Monday to find out how many.

More later…

Quentin Tarantino’s World War II: Electric Boogaloo

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (Dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

Warning: This review is riddled with Spoilers!

“Once upon a time…in Nazi occupied France”. So begins Quentin Tarantino’s long awaited mock epic war movie in which slaughter and blood are upstaged by talky tension. This is expertly displayed in the first scene (or chapter as the title card calls it). An SS Colonel (Christoph Waltz) proud of his nickname “the Jew Hunter”, questions a French farmer (Denis Menochet) who is suspected of hiding a missing Jewish family. The scene takes its time with their back and forth before the camera pans down to show us that the farmer is indeed harboring the family beneath his floor boards. The set up and powerful payoff of this chilling opening confirm that the pulse and tone of Tarantino’s best work is intact and while subtlety was never a strength of his, he is learning to exercise some patience and restraint. However, patience and restraint both stand down for most of the rest of the film.

In the second “chapter” we meet Brad Pitt and his crew of “Basterds” – a team of Jewish American soldiers intent on killing as many Nazis as possible. As Pitt puts it in his unconvincing yet still appropriately comedic Southern accent: “We’re not in the taking prisoners business, we’re in the killing Nazi killing business, and business is boomin’!” Along the way a few big 3-D style block letter intros to characters like Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger) thrown in (with Samuel L. Jackson narration no less) prove that you can’t completely take the 70’s comic book cinema leanings out of Mr. Too Cool For Film School. The Basterd crew also includes Eli Roth, B.J. Novak, and Sam Levine (Freaks And Geeks) Once we fully get that our heroes are way into collecting scalps and branding Swastika’s into survivor’s heads it’s on to the next chapter.

The only hiding member of the first scene to escape, Mélanie Laurent ends up owning a Paris theater under a different identity. To her dismay when changing the marquee she catches the eye of a soldier (Daniel Brühl) who played himself in a film made by Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth). Despite voicing her disinterest, Brühl proceeds with his plan to premiere his film at her cinema with an Nazi audience topped off by Goebels and other German bigwigs like Hermann Göring, Martin Bormann, and the Furher himself, Adolf Hitler (a blustery red faced Martin Wuttke). Laurent with her projectionist boyfriend (Jacky Ido) plots to burn the theater down with all the Nazi’s locked inside. Meanwhile the Basterds have a plan of their own for the same event.

Even with his preposterous accent, Pitt’s performance is one of his finest. So much better as a Basterd than he was as Benjamin Button, mainly because here he actually has a character to play. His salt of the earth manner peppered with no holds barred brutality is a joy to behold. As the slick but slimy opportunist Colonel, Christoph Waltz has the most dialogue and he makes the most of every word of it, he’s definitely worthy of a nomination. The action primarily revolves around these 2 men with Laurent’s well timed turn rounding it out. There are few lulls as the story strands come together and the pace pleasingly pulsates quickly towards the end where an intensely satisfying conclusion (which I won’t spoil) awaits.

It’s too early to tell where INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS falls in Tarantino’s canon but it’s sturdier and significantly more solid than his last few films (the KILL BILL flicks and DEATH PROOF). If you go looking for historical accuracy or anything resembling reality you’ll definitely come up short, but if you go expecting Tarantino’s patented brand of film geek gusto infusing an alternate history graphic novel of a movie, you should do just fine.

More later…