I went 82/105 with my predictions (39/45 in the Big Eight), plus another 11 (4) where my first alternate got nominated. This is by a huge margin my best year ever, and proof, I think, of how intensely flat awards season has been this year.
Previously: After having sat out last year in a snit about the general anemia of the whole damn thing, I am back to join the fun of guessing what Tuesday's Oscar nominations shall bring. Commentary as seems necessary; and if you are for whatever reason looking for advice in winning some kind of pool, I'd advise you to look elsewhere. Last time I did this, I only got 68/99 - a decent batting average, but nothing to be too proud of. I only wish I'd gotten off my damn high horse last year, so I could have been one of the fairly small clutch of people predicting that ugly Blind Side nom for Best Picture; it would have raised my street cred something fierce. On the right kind of street.
Key:
Nomination I got right
Best Picture
127 Hours
Black Swan
Inception
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone
Nothing terribly exciting as far as the big category goes, though my gut was completely wrong.
Previously: In the great dilemma of 3 Films, 2 Slots, I think that Winter's Bone is just too small, and lacks the seasonal meta-narrative of last year's equally-small The Hurt Locker. I'm also not sure that 127 Hours started to lose its heat fast enough to miss. Plus, I feel like The Town is all sewn up, but maybe I'm just an idiot.
Best Director
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Joel & Ethan Coen, True Grit
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
David O. Russell, The Fighter
WOW. Nolan would definitely not have been my pick to go - I thought it was Coens v. Russell. The academy just really does not like him at all, do they?
Previously: If A Serious Man could get a Best Picture nomination last year, it doesn't do to write off the Coens' support in the Academy. Still, the smart money is probably with the conventional wisdom (I'd pick Russell as the most vulnerable; I might not understand all the support for The King's Speech, but it's obviously real).
Best Actor
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours
Not shocking, not really. I don't have an opinion on this until I see Biutiful next week.
Previously: Honor dictates I pick only one alternate, but Ryan Gosling was tempting, and not just because he'd be my favorite of the nominees. I still have a hard time seeing him or Wahlberg get traction (one is too depressing, one is too quiet).
Best Actress
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
Huzzah, my first perfect category of the morning. So goddamn happy to see Williams there, she absolute deserves it.
Previously: After Bening/Portman/Lawrence, this category gets rather confusing very quickly. I don't know if I buy the Hailee Steinfeld bumped to Lead theory, but it certainly wouldn't shock me.
Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, The Fighter
John Hawkes, Winter's Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech
Calling it: The Social Network is losing support, it's going to miss everything. Seriously, though, it's too bad, Garfield was good in the role, though Hawkes was better.
Previously: It seems awfully CW, but none of them seem even remotely weak.
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helen Bonham-Carter, The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
Dammit, that's what I had for, like, two days, and I changed it at the last second. But I'm terrifically glad for Weaver, she's easily the best person in this category.
Previously: I almost thought about buying the idea that Steinfeld's category confusion will lead to a shutout, but I chickened out at the last second. I do, though, think that the Black Swan women will cancel one another. As always, this is the hardest acting race to predict. I'd only be shocked if Leo and Adams both miss.
Best Original Screenplay
Another Year, by Mike Leigh
The Fighter, by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
Inception, by Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right, by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumber
The King’s Speech, by David Seidler
They do love their Mike Leigh. As should we all.
Previously: Oscar Predicting 101: don't leave the BP race for the screenplays if you don't have to.
Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours, by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network, by Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3, by Michael Arndt
True Grit, by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter’s Bone, by Debra Grainik & Anne Rosellini
The annoying thing is that I basically told myself in public to swap out Winter's Bone in BP. Whatever, I got another perfect round.
Previously: By my just-announced logic, I should switch my predictions here or in BP, but I think Winter's Bone is much too safe here.
Best Cinematography
Black Swan (Matthew Libatique)
Inception (Wally Pfister)
The King's Speech (Danny Cohen)
The Social Network (Jeff Cronenweth)True Grit (Roger Deakins)
Really, The King's Speech? Aw fucking come on. Most disappointing semi-surprise of the morning for me.
Previously: I do not have the stomach to imagine the ASC nod for The King's Speech being replicated. Some nice framing, but that's not much to base a nomination on. And of course you're not supposed to let that kind of thing cloud your judgment in predicting, but we're all only human.
Best Editing
127 Hours (Jon Harris)
Black Swan (Andrew Weisblum)
The Fighter (Pamela Martin)
The King’s Speech (Tariq Anwar)
The Social Network (Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall)
Man, they just really didn't like Inception, huh? I was also thinking that it's been ages since all the Editing nominees were also up for Best Picture, but it turns out it was just last year.
Previously: I kind of wish I had one non-BP ringer in here, but I cannot begin to imagine what it would be.
Best Art Direction
Alice in Wonderland (Robert Stromberg; Karen O’Hara, Peter Young)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Stuart Craig; Stephanie McMillan)
Inception (Guy Dyas; Lisa Chugg, Paul Healy, Douglas A. Mowat)
The King’s Speech (Eve Stewart; Judy Farr)
True Grit (Jess Gonchor; Nancy Haigh)
Yessir, Alice in Wonderland is an Oscar nominee. How do you like that? But the Harry Potter nod is a pleasant surprise.
Previously: I would absolutely love to think that the tackiness of Alice in Wonderland can't take hold here and elsewhere, but I'm also not a fucking idiot.
Best Costume Design
Alice in Wonderland (Colleen Atwood)
I Am Love (Antonella Cannarozzi)
The King’s Speech (Jenny Beavan)
The Tempest (Sandy Powell)
True Grit (Mary Zophres)
Was not expecting I Am Love even the tiniest bit, probably my favorite surprise of the day. Though I am heartbroken that Burlesque missed out. And now we know: if Julie Taymor's next film is about nuns in sackcloth, it gets nominated for Best Costume.
Previously: Every Julie Taymor film has hit here, but Christ, The Tempest was SO BAD, and not least for its sometimes ghastly costumes...
Best Makeup
Barney's Version
The Way Back
The Wolfman
Conveniently, I'm seeing The Way Back in just a couple of hours. And who would have thought that the Makeup Branch would be the one to block Alice's march? They fucking nominated Norbit.
Best Score
127 Hours (A.R. Rahman)
How To Train Your Dragon (John Powell)
Inception (Hans Zimmer)
The King’s Speech (Alexandre Desplat)
The Social Network (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross)
Third perfect category. I am officially rooting hardest for Reznor and Ross out of everybody nominated for anything.
Previously: I honestly have no real bead on this category after Zimmer & Desplat; my gut tells me Reznor and Ross are simply not possible, but the film is beloved.
Best Song
From 127 Hours: "If I Rise"
From Country Strong: "Coming Home"
From Tangled: “I See the Light”
From Toy Story 3: “We Belong Together”
NO! How did Burlesque miss here? HOW? And now I have to see Country Strong, goddammit.
On the plus side: the unexpected snub of Waiting for "Superman" was awfully nice.
Previously: Who knows. It's a fucked-up category that deserves to die.
Best Sound
Inception
The King's Speech
SaltThe Social Network
True Grit
Best Sound Editing
Inception
Toy Story 3
TRON: Legacy
True Grit
UnstoppableThat is a remarkably small overlap between the two categories. Just two films? And one of them is True Grit? Fascinating. Shouldn't have dropped Unstoppable at the last minute.
Previously: So hard to say. I'd like it if I had more overlap between them, and having two animated films in Sound Editing is self-evidently asinine.
Best Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Hereafter
Inception
Iron Man 2
I just want everybody to make sure that I'm totally a genius for that Hereafter thing? All bow down in my honor, right? Though in retrospect, I shouldn't have picked Harry Potter as the film it would replace.
Incidentally, while the Academy doesn't like Inception, they want to shiv TRON: Legacy and drop its body in a ditch.
Previous: My understanding is that VFX experts LOVE Hereafter, and they vote the nominees in. Call it my No Guts, No Glory pick of the year.
Best Animated Feature
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3
Hooray! I feel bad for Tangled, but it was my #4, too.
Previously: I really think that all Tangled had to do was not suck. Becoming a good-size hit was just icing.
Best Foreign Language Film
Biutiful (Mexico)
Dogtooth (Greece)
In a Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Outside the Law (Algeria)
FUCK-ING A, DOGTOOTH IS AN OSCAR NOMINEE. Scratch what I said about I Am Love for costume, and Reznor/Ross as my rooting interest.
Previously: Or really, any of the eight finalists that aren't Simple Simon.
Best Documentary
Exit Through the Gift Shop
GaslandInside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land
You know what, Waiting for "Superman"? If you wanted an Oscar, maybe you should have tried not sucking so goddamn hard. Almost as good as the Dogtooth surprise, right there.
Previously: I'm probably too war-heavy; I'm definitely too wide-release heavy. Just about the only real prediction I have is that I strongly think Exit Through the Gift Shop is too hip.
No True Grit for Best Score?
ReplyDeleteM.C.: Apparently, the True Grit score is disqualified (along with some others that I don't really care about) for some bullshit reason that makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am bitter.
I suspect a song from Country Strong will make it: either Coming Home or Give In To Me (the title song, not so much). Strange how Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work didn't make the Documentary List.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I will be perpetually puzzled as to this obsession for The Social Network and for Eisenberg. Both were good, but this thing about it somehow being our generation's Citizen Kane is nonsense, and Eisenberg still, to my mind, is not much different here than he's been in anything else he's been in.
Unfortunately, given the cavalcade of pre-Oscar awards, whatever genuine suspense there used to be is gone.
John Hawkes is a pleasant enough surprise that I feel like I can declare myself unusually pleased with the nominees. And The Illusionist!
ReplyDeleteAlso Roger Deakins must be legally permitted to murder at least a few people by now if he loses to fucking Inception.
Wow, Tron Legacy got the shit kicked out of it. What's up with that?! Inception didn't make out as well as I thought it would either. They really don't like Nolan up there.
ReplyDeletetooticki- No worries, he's going to lose to Black Swan.
ReplyDeleteJeff- Apparently there was openly derisive laughter at the low quality of the Young Jeff Bridges effect at the Academy screening. Which is... fair, but shortsighted.
Why are there 10 best picture nominees, but only 3 best animated feature nominees? I thought it used to be 5, but had fewer if there were fewer good animated features that year. I can't quibble with the selections (okay, I think Tangled was a smidge better than How to Train Your Dragon), but if there are 4 or 5 great animated films, why not have 4 or 5 nominees?
ReplyDeleteSince no-one answered your question during my sick leave: there is a very specific rule that states that if a certain number of animated features are released in a year (I think it's 16), then there are five nominees. If there are fewer, then it's 3. This year was just one short, and that's after Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore was rather dubiously decreed an "animated feature".
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter if it's 2009 and they could have just come up with another five nominees almost as good as the first set, or if it's 2007, when things were so bad that Surf's Up made the top 3. It's all about meeting or missing that cut-off.
I'm with Tim in my surprise that no song from Burlesque was nominated...it's whole reason for being WAS to have songs! However, even though he didn't fall for the charms of Country Strong (sarcasm, sir, sarcasm), the songs were not bad (still prefer Give In To Me though).
ReplyDeleteAs for Documentary Feature, well, perhaps the Academy was tiring of films which set out to change the world. Regarding Nolan, the Academy is starting to look a tad petty in its hesitancy to acknowledge him.
Finally, though I have yet to see Winter's Bone it took a few moments for me to realize Andrew Garfield had not been nominated while Jesse Eisenberg was. Nothing will shake my belief that Eisenberg was doing a variation on a Jesse Eisenberg-type in The Social Network, our generation's alledged Citizen Kane.