Oscar Predictions Pt. 3- Best Picture

Didn't get the ball rolling on these blogs early enough to dig into all of the categories that I wanted to. So I'll just give my writing picks:

Adapted-Precious (Predicted winner Up in the Air)

Original- Inglorious Basterds (I think it's gonna win too…)

 

Best Picture

The field for the Best Picture Oscar was expanded to 10 from 5 this year, to give more films exposure, and to open things up for more "big" films. I don't think Avatar needed the help this year, and I'm mixed on whether the expansion was a good thing…

Why the field shouldn't have expanded:

The Blind Side- I saw ten minutes of this, and will not watch more…

A Serious Man- I was amused, the acting was good, interesting story structure, but one of the best movies of the year? Nah…

An Education- This was a very good movie with some very good (and one great) performances, but I didn't think that there was enough "there" there to put the movie in the class of the following flicks…

 

Why the field expanding was a good thing:

Up- I'm not a Pixar fan, but I am an Up fan. The first 15 minutes that tells the life story of one of the protagonisthttp://thescorecardreview.com/review/film-reviews/2009/06/12/up-disney-digital-3d/3910 was brilliant and the most touching scene I've seen all year. What comes after is fun, funny and has something to say. Up is a clearly deserving nominee that may not have made it with only 5 available slots.

District 9- This was my favorite movie of 2009 until the fall movie season came along. It was fresh, original, had a story that was timely and profound and the effects were pretty damn cool. It would not have made my final five though…

 

And the Final Five:

The Hurt Locker- I was all set to make this my predicted winner. My case was strong, high critical praise, a long list of previous awards, the historical factor, and the "Blockbuster Backlash" that Avatar might get . The fact that Avatar doesn't have a writing nomination looked like a strike against it too. But then I realized that Titanic didn't have a writing nomination either and it cleaned up. This would be the lowest grossing Best Picture winner ever if it won; if it couldn't really find an audience in the market, I don't think that it will find enough of an audience, even in the Academy, to overtake the biggest movie ever. I would fall into the "uncaptured audience" category; the movie was well acted, written and directed, had tension and something to say, but it just didn't resonate deep down with me. It's probably no better than 6^th on my list of these nominees, and I think more people agree with me than we realize…

Up in the Air- It was refreshing to see a movie that was really just about how we relate to each other, and what we expect from each other. How often those expectations aren't met, by your job or the people that you want more (or less) from than they want from you gets explored with skill by all involved. This movie is Oscar worthy, I just liked a couple of nominees even more…

Inglorious Basterds-It took the second viewing of this one before I realized how great this movie was. There were all of the Tarantino flourishes, the dialogue, the insane violence, the extreme scenarios. It was a WW II movie for our times, with Americans cast as the righteous "terrorist," illustrating that there may just be such a thing. I've already talked about Christopher Waltz, and about Tarantino's directing; add to that Tarantino's script that created this whole three ring circus, and kept things straight enough to make it all work as a cohesive story. Still, it didn't make the impact on me that the two films I put above it made on me…

Precious- Man, it felt like some seriously hard work getting through this movie, and I'm not so sure that I want to go thru seeing this movie again, but it was a great film. I was drained by the end because I was so drawn in by an emotionally immersive experience. The situations that Precious lived through were so unreal, but were delivered by such authentic performances that what was going on on the other side of the screen from me felt real. Precious felt like a real person that you wanted to help but couldn't because of the barrier between you and the reality on the other side of the screen. It was unbelievable to be totally depressed and uplifted by the same movie, but I was by Precious, my favorite movie of last year, until I was immersed by another movie going experience, this time even more fully (and more enjoyably)…

Avatar- (predicted/my winner) My favorite movie of the year, and the best movie of the year. There were better scripts out there, and the story wasn't the height of originality, but like a fresh new singer that breathes brand new life into an old jazz standard, Cameron takes this age old story into a whole new world. The literal new world is Pandora, but the new world for us is a 3D experience that is not focused on the "gotcha" moments of stuff shooting out at you, but is instead used to bring you all the way into the picture and into the film's world. It's used to advance the narrative, making the world of the Na'vi more vibrant, alive and layered than the life that the humans occupy, and it makes the flying scenes that much more thrilling and breathtaking. The technology that is even more important though, is what was used to create CGI performances of the Na'vi. These CGI characters, were so much more expressive, and "realistic" than the CGI performers that came before that it became easier to become invested in the characters emotionally. I "cared" a whole lot more about what was going on on-screen than I otherwise would have with the more "dead-eyed" CGI of the past. This is a movie that changed how filmmaking will be done from now on, it's a movie that captured the world's imagination, and it was the most pure joy I had watching a movie in a long time (plus it made me fall even deeper in love with Zoe Saldana). Avatar is the Best Picture of the year…