2010 Oscar Predictions

Without any to-do:

BEST PICTURE
Will win: The Hurt Locker
Could win: Avatar
Should win: Inglourious Basterds
Should have been in the mix: Bright Star

BEST ACTOR
Will win: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Could win: no contest
Should win: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Should have been in the mix: Patton Oswalt, Big Fan

BEST ACTRESS
Will win: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Could win: Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia
Should win: Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia
Should have been in the mix: Michelle Monaghan, Trucker

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Will win: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Could win: no contest
Should win: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Should have been in the mix: Paul Schnieder, Bright Star

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Will win: Mo'Nique, Precious
Could win: no contest
Should win: Mo'Nique, Precious
Should have been in the mix: Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds

BEST DIRECTOR
Will win: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Could win: no contest
Should win: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Should have been in the mix: Jane Campion Bright Star

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Will win: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Could win: Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Should win: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Should have been in the mix: Jean Claude Carriere and Michael Haneke, The White Ribbon

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Will win: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up In The Air
Could win: Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
Should win: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up In The Air
Should have been in the mix: Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson, The Fantastic Mr. Fox

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Will win: Up
Could win: no contest
Should win: The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Should have been in the mix: Nine

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Will win: A Prophet (France)
Could win: The White Ribbon (Germany)
Should win: The White Ribbon (Germany)
Should have been in the mix: Still Walking (Japan)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Will win: Avatar (Mauro Fiore)
Could win: The Hurt Locker (Barry Ackroyd)
Should win: Inglourious Basterds (Robert Richardson)
Should have been in the mix: A Serious Man (Roger Deakins)

BEST ART DIRECTION
Will win: Avatar
Could win: Sherlock Holmes
Should win: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Should have been in the mix: Moon

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Will win: The Young Victoria
Could win: Coco Before Chanel
Should win: Bright Star
Should have been in the mix: An Education

BEST FILM EDITING
Will win: The Hurt Locker
Could win: Avatar
Should win: Inglourious Basterds
Should have been in the mix: Star Trek

BEST SOUND (EFFECTS) EDITING
Will win: Avatar
Could win: The Hurt Locker
Should win: The Hurt Locker
Should have been in the mix: 2012

BEST SOUND MIXING
Will win: The Hurt Locker
Could win: Avatar
Should win: The Hurt Locker
Should have been in the mix: 2012

BEST MAKEUP
Will win: The Young Victoria
Could win: Star Trek
Should win: Star Trek
Should have been in the mix: The Road

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Will win: Avatar
Could win: no contest
Should win: Star Trek
Should have been in the mix: Moon

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Will win: "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart
Could win: no contest
Should win: "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart
Should have been in the mix: “You’ve Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finger” from An Education

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Will win: Up
Could win: Avatar
Should win: The Hurt Locker
Should have been in the mix: The Informant!

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Will win: The Cove
Could win: Food, Inc.
Should win: The Cove
Should have been in the mix: The Beaches of Agnes

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Will Win: The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Could Win: China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
Should Win: Rabbit a la Berlin

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
Will Win: The Door
Could Win: Miracle Fish
Should Win: The Door

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Will Win: A Matter of Loaf and Death
Could Win: Logorama
Should Win: Logorama

Have fun on Sunday night!

My predictions for the 2010 Oscar Nominations

Here we are again--time for the Oscar nominations to be announced on Tuesday, February 2nd at 8:30 EST/5:30 PST. Now, after all the guild awards, critics awards and those pesky Golden Globes, lots of these picks are foregone conclusions. But I think we'll be seeing a few surprises here and there, particularly in those tech categories, where there's always a "whaaaa?" inclusion (I really wanted to include Bruno in the Best Costume Design lineup, but I really don't see it happening, much as I would love it).

Lemme tell you, with Best Picture this year, expanding the race to 10 made it a little more difficult to come up with a viable list (let's just say 2009 was NOT the year during which to start this little experiment). But looks like the genre movie fans are gonna get their wish--all three of the major sci-fi films this year will likely make the cut (though it really pains me to include District 9 in the top slot, since I despised that movie almost as much as I did Avatar; however, I did love me some Star Trek, and I think it'll easily make the final cut). Luckily, Kathryn Bigelow's coming in to save the day with her underseen masterpiece The Hurt Locker, which is virtually locking the hurt on the other nominees (sorry--hadda have a pun there). I think the big surprise will be the inclusion of Crazy Heart in the Best Picture race (it's a latecomer that smalls like prime Oscar material; I really think it'll rack up at least five nominations, including one for Maggie Gyllenhaal in the supporting actress race).

I also think Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon has a good shot at at least three nominations (including one for the Haneke/Carriere script). And The Young Victoria will get three nods, I think, while the once high-flying Nine will only get two, maybe three nods, tops. The lead acting nods will match the Screen Actors Guild picks, while the supporting categories will hold some shocks (like the dropping of Stanley Tucci from Oscar consideration for The Lovely Bones AND Julie and Julia). Eastwood's Invictus once looked like an easy pick, but I can't see it only getting Best Pic and Best Actor nominations (I don't think it'll fit into any other categories), so I reluctantly handed its Picture slot to District 9. Otherwise, the other nine picks seem pretty solid to me (no way is the Coens' brilliant A Serious Man getting a Picture nom--much too esoteric for the Academy; a screenplay nod is all it'll manage).

By the way, as a side note: if you look at my picks for last year, you'll see that I predicted correctly THREE of the Special Award recipients for this year: Lauren Bacall, Gordon Willis, and Roger Corman (I missed the estimable John Calley for the Thalberg award). Next year, you can count on Peter Bogdanovich and James Ivory being in the mix, with maybe Albert Finney in there as well. Oh, and I didn't bother predicting the short film categories, since I haven't seen a short list of the eligible movies.

Anyway, enough of my yappin'. Here are the nominees, as I see them being announced on 2/2/10:

BEST PICTURE
Avatar (James Cameron and Jon Landau, producers)
Crazy Heart (T-Bone Burnett, Scott Cooper and Robert Duvall, producers)
District 9 (Carolynne Cunningham and Peter Jackson, producers)
An Education (Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, producers)
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicholas Chartier and Greg Shapiro, producers)
Inglourious Basterds (Lawrence Bender, producer)
Precious (Lee Daniels, Gary Magness and Sarah Siegel-Magness, producers)
Star Trek (J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, producers)
Up (Jonas Rivera, producer)
Up in the Air (Jeffrey Clifford, Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, producers)

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

BEST ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alec Baldwin, It's Complicated
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Anthony Mackie, The Hurt Locker
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Vera Farminga, Up In The Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds
Mo'Nique, Precious

BEST DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Hurt Locker (Screenplay by Mark Boal)
Inglourious Basterds (Screenplay by Quentin Tarantino)
A Serious Man (Screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen)
Up (Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson and Thomas McCarthy; screenplay by Bob Peterson and Pete Docter)
The White Ribbon (Screenplay by Jean-Claude Carriere and Michael Haneke)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Crazy Heart (Screenplay by Scott Cooper, based on the book by Thomas Cobb)
An Education (Screenplay by Nick Hornby, based on the book by Lynn Barber)
The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Screenplay by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, based on the book by Roald Dahl)
Precious (Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher, based on the book Push by Sapphire)
Up In The Air (Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, based on the book by Walter Kim)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Coraline
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Ponyo
The Princess and the Frog
Up

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Ajami (Israel)
A Prophet (France)
The Secret in Their Eyes (Argentina)
The White Ribbon (Germany)
The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (Bulgaria)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Avatar (Mauro Fiore)
Bright Star (Grieg Fraser)
The Hurt Locker (Barry Ackroyd)
Inglourious Basterds (Robert Richardson)
The White Ribbon (Christian Berger)

BEST ART DIRECTION
Avatar (Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Stuart Craig; Stephanie McMillan)
Sherlock Holmes (Sarah Greenwood; Katie Spencer)
Star Trek (Scott Chambliss; Karen Manthey)
The Young Victoria (Patrice Vermette; Maggie Gray)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Coco Before Chanel (Catherine Leterrier)
An Education (Odile Dicks-Mireaux)
Nine (Colleen Atwood)
Sherlock Holmes (Jenny Beavan)
The Young Victoria (Sandy Powell)

BEST FILM EDITING
Avatar (John Refoua, Stephen E. Rivkin)
The Hurt Locker (Chris Innis, Bob Murawski)
Inglourious Basterds (Sally Menke)
Star Trek (Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey)
Up in the Air (Dana E. Glauberman)

BEST SOUND (EFFECTS) EDITING
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek
Transformer 2: Rise of the Machines
Up

BEST SOUND MIXING
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Star Trek
Transformer 2: Rise of the Machines
2012

BEST MAKEUP
District 9
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Somebody Else” from Crazy Heart (Music and lyrics by Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett)
"The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart (Music and lyrics by T-Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham)
“You’ve Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finger” from An Education (Music and lyrics by Beth Rowley)
“(I Want To) Come Home” from Everybody’s Fine (Music and lyrics by Paul McCartney)
“Cinema Italiano” from Nine (Music and lyrics by Maury Yeston)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Avatar (James Horner)
The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Alexandre Desplat)
The Informant! (Marvin Hamlisch)
Public Enemies (Elliot Goldenthal)
Up (Michael Giacchino)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Beaches of Agnes
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Mugabe and the White African

MASTER LIST #19: The 101 Best Films of the 2000s

On the heels of perusing so many "best of the decade" lists, I do get the impression that there is much more from this decade I need to see (particularly from Asia and Eastern Europe); I have passion for all these films listed, but I'm still left with a needling and probably wrongful suspicion that movies are a dying art form. I'm not making excuses here, but the fact is that, unless one is granted admission into the somewhat cloistered world of film festivals and metropolitan movie houses, the chance to see projected on screen films by, for instance, Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul or Taiwan's Hou Hsiao-hsien is somewhat close to nil. Even so, I feel confident that the majority of these titles stand strong as the best of this most recent, tumultuous, sometimes exasperating era in cinema. We can be thankful that the first 10th of the 21st gave us the opportunity to see stunning work from old hands like David Lynch, Michael Haneke, Quentin Tarantino, Darrin Aronofsky, Joel and Ethan Coen, Gus Van Sant, Jean-Pierre and Luc Darden, Mike Leigh, the crew at Pixar, Clint Eastwood, and Lars Von Trier. And the decade introduced us to thoughtful new talents like Kelly Reichardt, David Gordon Green, Paul Greengrass, Andrew Dominick, Richard Kelly, Todd Fields and Shane Meadows, among many others. And so, now, with my eventual growth in tastes perhaps to come (it's always a work-in-progress), here are my choices for the best movies of the aughties, in order of preference according to (1) personal affection, (2) historical influence, and (3) overall quality:

1) The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)
2) Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
3) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominick, 2007)
4) The House of Mirth (Terrence Davies, 2000 (U.K./France/Germany/U.S.))
5) United 93 (Paul Greengrass, 2006)
6) Russian Ark (Alexandr Sokurov, 2002 (Russia/Germany))
7) Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
8) You Can Count On Me (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000)The Fountain (Darrin Aronofsky, 2006)
9) Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009 (U.S./Germany))
10) Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003)
11) Old Joy (Kelly Reichardt, 2006)
12) Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
13) Nobody Knows (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2005 (Japan))
14) No Country For Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
15) The Fountain (Darrin Aronofsky, 2006)
16) The Fall (Tarsem Singh, 2008)
17) There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
18) Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood, 2004)
19) The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2001 (Germany/Poland/France/Austria))
20) L'Enfant (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2005 (Belgium/France))
21) Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)
22) Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, 2004 (U.K))
23) Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005 (U.S./Canada))
24) Children of Men (Alfonzo Cuaron, 2006 (Japan/U.K./U.S.))
25) A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
26) The Brown Bunny (Vincent Gallo, 2003)
27) Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier, 2000 (Denmark/Germany/Netherlands/U.S./U.K.))
28) In The Bedroom (Todd Fields, 2001)
29) All The Real Girls (David Gordon Green, 2003)
30) Max (Menno Meyies, 2002)
31) Cache (Michael Haneke, 2005 (France/Austria/Germany/Italy))
32) The Lives of Others (Florian Henkel von Donnersmark, 2006 (Germany))
33) Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, 2009)
34) Grindhouse (Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, 2007)
35) Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh, 2008 (U.K.))
36) Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Michael Winterbottom, 2006 (U.K.))
37) Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
38) Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)
39) Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, 2003)
40) Synecdoche, NY (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
41) To Be and To Have (Nicolas Philibert, 2002 (France))
42) Little Children (Todd Fields, 2006)
43) Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonzo Cuaron, 2002 (Mexico))
44) Requiem for a Dream (Darrin Aronofsky, 2000)
45) Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev, 2007)
46) In The Mood For Love (Wong Kar-Wei, 2000 (Hong Kong))
47) Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess, 2004)
48) Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2001)
49) Time Out (Laurent Cantet, 2002 (France))
50) Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009 (U.K./Australia/France))
51) Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008 (Sweden))
52) Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)
53) Monsters Inc. (Andrew Stanton, 2001)
54) George Washington (David Gordon Green, 2000)
55) The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003)
56) Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg, 2002)
57) In America (Jim Sheridan, 2003)
58) Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
59) Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
60) O Brother Where Art Thou? (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2000)
61) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
62) The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009)
63) Bad Santa (Terry Zwigoff, 2003)
64) Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, 2008)
65) No End In Sight (Charles Ferguson, 2007)
66) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, 2006)
67) Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)
68) Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, 2003)
69) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir, 2003)
70) Birth (Jonathan Glazer, 2004)
71) Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (Stephen Kijak, 2008 (U.K.))
72) Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
73) Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott, 2001)
74) 8 Women (Francois Ozon, 2002 (France))
75) This is England (Shane Meadows, 2007 (U.K.))
76) A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2009 (U.S./U.K./France))
77) The Son (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2003 (Belgium/France))
78) Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay, 2000 (Scotland))
79) City of God (Fernando Merilles, 2003 (Brazil))
80) The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Judd Apatow, 2005)
81) The Wrestler (Darrin Aronofsky, 2008)
82) Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)
83) Dogville (Lars Von Trier, 2003 (Denmark/Sweden/France/U.K./Germany/Netherlands))
84) Unbreakable (M. Night Shamalyan, 2000)
85) Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders (James D. Scurlock, 2006)
86) Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003 (South Korea))
87) Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008 (Japan))
88) Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004 (Germany))
89) Thanksgiving (Alex R. Johnson, 2001)
90) Series 7: The Contenders (Daniel Minahan, 2001)
91) Anvil!: The Story of Anvil (Sacha Gervasi, 2009)
92) The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach, 2005)
93) 12 (Lawrence Bridges, 2002)
94) The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009 (Austria/Germany/France/Italy))
95) The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004)
96) American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, 2003)
97) Somers Town (Shane Meadows, 2009 (U.K.))
98) Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004 (U.K.))
99) Hustle and Flow (Craig Anderson, 2005)
100) In Bruges (Martin McDonagh, 2008 (U.K.))
101) Sunshine (Danny Boyle, 2007 (U.S./U.K.)