Two things quickly before passing out invisible statues: 1) My favorite film of the year “500 Days of Summer” should have been recognized; and 2) By far the greatest acting performance of 2009 is buried in unfair anonymity. British actor Tom Hardy’s spellbinding work in a tiny indy film called “Bronson” was miles beyond the work of any of this year’s Oscar nominations. Hardy’s tour de force compares to Charlize Theron’s 2003 Oscar winning portrayal of lesbian mass murderer Aileen Wuornos. It’s a must-see performance.
The rest of this paragraph is stolen from Wikipedia, which is close enough when facts don’t matter: Bronson is a 2009 British biographical crime film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and starring Tom Hardy. The film follows the life of notorious prisoner Michael Gordon Peterson, who was re-named Charles Bronson by his fight promoter. Born into a respectable middle class family, Peterson became the United Kingdom‘s most dangerous criminal, and is known for having spent almost his entire life in solitary confinement.
Here we go with my picks for 2010. I’ve seen nearly all of these so I’ve earned the right to be wrong.
Leading Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart. Nice guy finishes first.
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds. Nasty guy finishes first. Carried the entire film on his shoulders. A brilliant performance start to finish.
Leading Actress: Sandra Bullock will win. Nice hottie finishes first. Carey Mulligan (An Education) and Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) were better. Toss a coin between those two; if it stands on end, give it to Sandra. Since ambivalence is slosh, I’d say Carey Mulligan by a tenth of a point because her character arc was bigger.
Supporting Actress: Easiest Oscar pick, any category, since Charlize Theron in Monster (2003): Mo’Nique, Precious. This woman’s performance is one of the greatest in modern American cinema.
Amimated Feature: Up. Art Direction: Avatar. Cinematography: Avatar. Costume Design: The Young Victoria.
Directing: Avatar (James Cameron). Hate to admit it but the guy changed filmmaking. Too bad he borrowed the storyline from Dances With Wolves in order to do it.
Documentary Feature: The Cove. Americans will award a trophy to any film where the Japanese are caught chopping up Flipper.
Documentary Short: The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner. Riveting story of the right-to-life tug-of-war.
Film Editing: The Hurt Locker. Nearly perfect in a category of odd choices. Many films were edited better than these nominees.
Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon. The test of any great movie is whether you keep thinking about it after it ends. This one lingered in my mind for days. A tribute to all elements of great filmmaking. Well worth a second and third watch.
Makeup: Adam Lambert. Just kidding. Star Trek. Who else could possibly be as deserving?
Original Score: Tiger Woods. Whoops, wrong category; he’s nominated seventeen times for Live Action Short. The Original Score Oscar goes to … Sherlock Holmes. Say what you want but director Guy Richie knows his tunes. The music was far better than the film, which was edited like an acid flashback.
Original Song: “The Weary Kind” (Crazy Heart). Hollywood loves to give awards to guys with names like T-Bone.
Short Film Animated: A Matter of Loaf and Death. Wallace and Grommit dominate this category.
Short Film Live Action: The New Tenants. All five nominees are flawed. I liked The Door but it’s too sad and ponderous for Oscar. I also liked Instead of Abracadabra but it wasn’t as eccentric as The New Tenants and Oscar likes eccentricity in obtuse categories.
Sound Editing: The Hurt Locker. Not too little, not too loud. Just right. Takes hard work to hit perfect sound notes for ninety minutes.
Sound Mixing: The Hurt Locker. Same deal. This film is a great example of how perfect sound turns a good film into a great film.
Visual Effects: Avatar. Impressed by what $600 million worth of technology can buy these days.
Screenplay Adapted: Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. This title reminds me of The Artist Formerly Known as Prince but even so, the film is powerful and took courage to tell. A deep bow of respect to this entire team for bringing the film to life.
Screenplay Original: This is the category 500 Days of Summer should have won. But it’s not in the bunch. I’m picking Quentin Tarantino for Inglorious Basterds. Up, I thought, was better written but Hollywood writers don’t vote for cartoons. They’ll read ’em all day and watch ’em ’til their eyes bleed, but but they will not vote for them.
Best Picture: I cringe at the thought of hearing a redux of “I’m king of the world!” but fear we may. James Cameron and Avatar.
There are 24 statues given out during the telecast. Hopefully I got a few right. But even if I don’t, I’ll see you at the movies!