Culture Blues

Preposterously Premature Oscar Predictions

It’s October! And that means it’s high time to start making Oscar predictions!

What? What do you mean “too early”? I disagree, gentle reader. I like to get my Oscar predictions out ahead of the pack; before the nominees are announced, without my opinion being unnecessarily colored by actually watching any of these movies. That makes it all the more amazing when I correctly predict a best actress nomination for Melissa Leo (true story) and predict the Best Picture field correctly to a single movie (last year I missed on The Road – yes, my predictions were so impressively early it hadn’t even been pushed back to 2009 yet).

You see, I understand those old fuddy-duddies that vote on the awards. I know how they think and, perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve managed to boil down their nomination philosophy into a few simple principles.

1. The Academy should appear to be progressive and liberal.
2. But not too progressive and liberal. Sorry Lars von Trier.
3. Oscars can be awarded as a make-good for past oversights. For instance:  Hey Denzel, sorry about Malcolm X, Philadelphia, Virtuosity, He Got Game, and The Hurricane. Here’s an Oscar for Training Day.
4. Nominations can be awarded if it makes for a compelling Oscar night storyline
5. Dead is a bonus.
6. The Academy likes to recognize blacks and other minorities but, you know, not too many at once, okay?
7. All period pieces will be nominated for, at the very least, a costuming award.
8. It is a necessity for all Best Actress candidates to play a historical character, get really uglied up, or both.
9. Gays are so last year. Also passé:  retards.
10. Sorry about Slumdog Millionaire.

With all that in mind, here are my preposterously premature Oscar predictions (winner-best alliteration).

Spoiler alert:

 

BEST PICTURE:
A Serious Man
An Education
Bright Star
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Invictus
Nine
Precious
Up
Up In The Air

 
This marks the first year that the Academy will be nominating 10 films for Best Picture rather than the usual 5. The move toward expansion serves dual purposes. For starters, it promises to double the number of films that get that extra “Oscar buzz” boost at the box offices, thus fluffing the balance sheets of studios that have suffered through a tough fiscal year. The move also promises to broaden the style of nominee. The Academy has lately been trying to shed its stuffy image by showing middlebrow detractors (and bloggers) that they like comedies and blockbusters as much as the next dumb American. By increasing the field, The Academy hopes to attract a wider audience to the telecast, thus improving the broadcast’s stagnant ratings (the 2009 Oscars garnered a 21.68 rating; 1999 a 28.51).

So what do average Americans like? Action and cartoons! The two big beneficiaries of the ten-nominee field will be Up and District 9. Up will actually serve as a (unnecessary) make-good to PIXAR after last year’s WALL-E snub. District 9 has the foreign credibility and thematic gravity (apartheid!) to make the Academy comfortable nominating an action blockbuster. Not to mention the support of Peter Jackson, whose mindless Lord of the Rings films long lorded over the Academy’s repressed inner-geeks.

The rest of my predictions are pretty standard fare. Invictus gets the nod purely because it’s an Eastwood movie (also about apartheid!), and the same goes for A Serious Man and the Coen Brothers, although A Serious Man definitely wouldn’t make a field of 5 (too jew-y).

Nine fulfills The Academy’s inexplicable penchant for nominating musicals. 

Bright Star and An Education are the kind of films that The Academy adores; quiet dramas with powerhouse performances. Mildly transgressive period pieces. Those are easy.

Precious has the weight of Oprah behind it. And the weight of it’s cast. Get it? It’s about a fat girl. 

Up in the Air is this season’s Juno or Little Miss Sunshine (in this comparison, George Clooney is the adorably precocious protagonist). It’s a safe, happy little movie that The Academy can feel good about nominating.

Finally, my long shot:  The Hurt Locker. This prediction is definite bias on my part as it’s my second favorite movie of the year (no way is Moon getting nominated, unfortunately). Regardless, The Hurt Locker has a lot going for it:  Iraq War, flawless reviews, female director, mainstream accessibility. The biggest argument against The Hurt Locker is that it’s a movie actually deserving of recognition. That hurts its chances.

BEST DIRECTOR:
Clint Eastwood - Invictus
Jane Campion – Bright Star
Jason Reitman – Up in the Air
Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
Rob Marshall – Nine

Rarely is someone nominated for Best Director if their film isn’t also nominated for Best Picture. That’s happened only twice in the last three years and, with the Best Picture field growing, is even less likely to happen now.

Eastwood is obvious. He was justly ignored for last year’s embarrassing Gran Torino. It won’t happen two years in a row. Rob Marshall is also a no-brainer, based on The Academy’s past history with movies like Chicago (a Rob Marshall joint) and Moulin Rouge. Musicals are, obviously, extremely difficult to direct.

Jason Reitman will get nominated as a make-good for Juno. Sure, he was previously nominated for Juno, but most of the attention went to that stripper-lady that wrote Jennifer’s Body.

Finally, I’ve got two women being nominated. The odds are against that – only three women have been nominated for Best Director, ever. But, this seems like a good year to significantly up the estrogen count. You see, The Academy has recently discovered that not only do women watch movies, but they are also sometimes allowed to participate in the production process. Crazy, right?! Also, telecast audiences will love the idea of a woman winning Best Director for the first time, and beating out another woman (and Clint Eastwood!) to do it. Great storyline.

 

BEST ACTOR:
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker
Robert DeNiro – Everybody’s Fine
George Clooney – Up in the Air
Daniel Day-Lewis - Nine
Morgan Freeman - Invictus

All of these are pretty obvious. Day-Lewis gets nominated every time he does a movie. Morgan Freeman is starring as Nelson fucking Mandela. George Clooney is really handsome.

The two oddities in this category are Renner and DeNiro. Renner is here to give the category an upstart, even though he’s got no chance of winning, and I’d like to hedge his slot by saying it could easily be filled with Ben Wishaw from Bright Star. As for DeNiro, he’s acting in an About Schmidt flavored “wah, I’m old”-fest. Luckily, aging actors exploring their own mortality is a favorite of the Academy. Also, DeNiro’s movies have been so lousy this decade that even a generic, sappy family drama where he’s able to play a little understated qualifies as a comeback. The Academy loves a comeback story, and they want DeNiro sitting front row during the telecast. His date will be Al Pacino.

 

BEST ACTRESS:
Abbie Cornish – Bright Star
Carey Mulligan – An Education
Charlotte Gainsborg - Antichrist
Hillary Swank - Amelia
Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia

Unlike a Best Actor category that is usually dominated by award season stalwarts, there is some room allowed in Best Actress for young “star-making” performances. Cornish and Mulligan should be easy choices for that

Also easy:  Swank and Streep. Obviously, dressing up as a notable woman in history with a funny voice/haircut is a classic Oscar stratagem. Also, I think Meryl Streep made a bet with Anjelica Huston that she could star in only half a movie, and the half without her could be complete tripe, and she could still garner an Oscar nod.

I’m going out on a limb with Charlotte Gainsborg. I think the Academy would rather not acknowledge the existence of Antichrist, especially in a year where they’re trying to go more mainstream. But, the film has its dedicated supporters (Satanists and gays, obviously), and I think they might be loud enough to get Gainsborg a nod for her willingness to debase and terrify. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just play a quirky chef?

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Alfred Molina  - An Education
Christoph Waltz – Inglorious Basterds
Matt Damon - Invictus
Keanu Reeves – The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Robert Duvall – The Road

Molina and Waltz seem to have a lot of buzz at this point. Reeves has no buzz, but I needed a fifth dude and decided to give Keanu a life-time achievement nomination for his role in Point Break. Duvall will probably have a small but powerful role in The Road, and I’m thinking since he’s going to die soon he’s a safe bet. I’m not sure whether Matt Damon will qualify for this or for Best Actor. How do they decide that? E-mail me the rules, Academy.

I made that stuff up about Robert Duvall dying. I’m sure he’s fine.

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Emma Thompson – An Education
Judi Dench - Nine
Mo’nique - Precious
Olivia Williams – An Education
Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air

Mo’nique has all the buzz at this early stage, even though she’s taken a very non-traditional approach to promoting her film (not showing up). My strategy for the rest of this category was British women, or women with names that sound like they could be British.

 

 

THE WINNERS:

So who do I like from my proposed fields of nominees? I’m taking Mo’Nique as the hilarious, child-abusing black woman for Best Supporting Actress and Christoph Waltz as the lovable nazi for the Best Supporting Actor.  For Best Actress I’m going with Carey Mulligan so that we can all spend a few weeks talking about what a huge star she’s going to be before stuffing her in the back of the closet with Marion Cotillard and that chick from Whale Rider. I’m riding with my homeboy Nelson Mandela for Best Actor, based on the theory that Morgan Freeman has never won before and might not get another chance before he makes like old Brooks.

It’s clear that The Academy is trying their best to modernize this year. They want to bring in more mainstream viewers and honor a broader array of films. They’ll succeed when they give Jane Campion the win for Best Director, making her the first ever female Best Director winner, and guaranteeing her speech as a future “Oscar Remembers” moment. I (not-so) secretly hope this honor goes to Kathryn Bigelow. Wouldn’t that really stick it to James Cameron?

Unfortunately, The Academy will also take a step back when they award Best Picture to Campion’s inaccessible Bright Star, a boring-ass love story about poetry or whatever. We don’t want that! Gross! This show is too long!

When does Transformers get its award? We’ve been waiting all night!

See it going a different way? Give us a shout!

Tagged as: A Serious Man, Academy Awards, An Education, Bright Star, District 9, Invictus, Kathryn Bigelow, Nine, Oprah, Oscar Predictions, Precious, Robert Duvall is dying, Up In the Air