Much to my surprise, I find myself very excited by this year’s Oscar nominees.
I was pretty skeptical of the decision to expand the Best Picture category from five films to a whopping ten, since it seemed such an naked studio cash grab rather than a legit reconsideration of how this process works. But I didn’t realize that it would open the category up to films and genres outside the beaten path of your usual Oscar fare. A hardcore science-fiction movie like District 9, for Best Picture? That’s very exciting to me. (Avatar doesn’t count, because it made so much money it was BOUND to get nominated. Nothing succeeds like success!) It doesn’t really matter, even, that District 9 is a flawed work–as time has gone by, that fun but not terribly interesting action climax has overshadowed all the meatier stuff earlier on for me–because, c’mon, look at what normally gets nominated. If you’re going to have a contest between great works, flawed works, and sometimes out-and-out bad works, you might as well expand the pool from which you’re drawing.
All in all three of my four favorite films of the year were nominated: A Serious Man, Inglourious Basterds, and The Hurt Locker. I also liked District 9 and Up in the Air. I’m pretty happy with the choices. (For the record, Best Films of 2009 as of this very moment: 1) A Serious Man 2) Inglourious Basterds 3) The Lovely Bones 4) The Hurt Locker 5) Crank 2: High Voltage–1 & 2 especially are subject to change)
I’m thrilled that Jeremy Renner got a Best Actor nod. Loved him since Dahmer, in which he was really something special. Shit, I’d have nominated him for 28 Weeks Later. (Man, that was a finely acted horror film.)
Also thrilled about Stanley Tucci and Christoph Waltz getting nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the villains they played. Tucci was maybe the best serial killer since Renner in Dahmer? And Waltz, I mean, duh.
I’m a bit perplexed that A Serious Man earned a Best Picture nomination AND a Best Original Screenplay nomination for the Coen Brothers, but they didn’t get nominated for Best Director. Was that due to rules against co-directors, or was it felt that they should have done a better job?
Also a bit perplexed that BOTH Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick were nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Up in the Air. They were good, and as far as I’m concerned Kendrick should be nominated for nearly singlehandedly making the Twilight movies entertaining (her and Michael Welch), but I thought Farmiga didn’t have much to do but be sexy. Nudity tends to be rewarded, so I’m wondering, was the Academy unaware she used a body double?
I tend to care about the Oscars only to the extent that I have a dog in the race. When The Return of the King swept I was over the moon; most years since then I haven’t even watched. That seems to me like a healthy level of engagement with this thing and with award programs generally. So it looks like I’ll be watching this year. I don’t do picks or predictions, but I will say that The Hurt Locker‘s chances seem very strong and I’m glad of that. There were a few films I preferred, but that’s a totally worthy movie, and obviously it would be a huge, long-overdue deal for a woman director and/or her film to win. It’s not a terrible idea to reward an entertaining, non-didactic, but still powerful Iraq War movie, either.
“Nudity tends to be rewarded.”
Fire your Oscar pool handicapper. He’s making up shit and passing it off as cynically insight.
I’m trying to remember, and I’m guessing there’s only five nude BSA winners since 1970. In the last three decades, there’s only been one nude performance that won in each decade – and the Aughts already have their breast bearing winner: Rachel Weisz.
Seems to me that odds are against another flesh flasher taking home the little gold man. Not that it can’t happen mind you, but the argument that it will happen because the Oscar skews towards nudity is unsupported by the data.
But his writing is better edited than mine. That would “cynical insight” that he’s passing his shit off as. Sorry.
And “baring” is what Ms. Weisz did. Not bearing which, as the cast and crew of The Edge can tell you, is rarely rewarded at the Oscars.
Sheesh.
I can’t be the only one who was holding out a little hope for a Best Supporting Actor nod for Leonard Nimoy – it was hardly a classic performance, more a cameo, really – but come on. Last performance by and iconic American actor playing one of the most famous roles in TV / movie history. The Academy loves that shit.
“Last performance”?
Last I heard, Nimoy’s still alive and kicking – both in life and as Old Spock in the Trek rebootiverse. There’s still a chance for him to give us another tear-jerking death scene ala ‘Wrath of Kahn’.
CRwM: I’m not talking about handicapping the winners or a specific actress category, just the nominees for both.
I seriously doubt they’d use Nimoy again for another nu-Trek movie – since the point of that one was to wrap up the old and usher in the new. I may be wrong, but it would be massively counter-intuitive.