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CINEMA SEEN - "Oscarizing 2010" By William Margold That I take the predicting of Oscar winners in the six major categories (Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Film) way too seriously should strongly suggest to you that my sanity is highly suspect. Nevertheless, my annual prognosticating of The Academy Awards (set for 5pm on Sunday afternoon March 7 on ABC), is a ritual long ago established (in fact, dating all the way back to the mid-1950’s), and despite momentary disappointments, when one of my picks is off-target---I have invariably gotten more many more right than wrong--- sometimes even surprising myself in the process. And so it is I that enter into this year’s fray, comfortable in the knowledge that after decades of analyzing movies, my choices are always a thoroughly thought out combination of insight, instinct and intuition that admittedly, every once in awhile, has been known to veer toward insanity...or something like that. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS---Among the performing categories, this is the easiest one to predict. Neither Vera Farmiga or Anna Kendrick were particularly special in "Up in the Air"...and even if they were, they fall victim to the "balancing each other out" syndrome. Maggie Gyllenhaal appeared to be an undeveloped afterthought in "Crazy Heart." And Penelope Cruz was perky but not particularly powerful in "Nine." No matter...because MO’NIQUE was devastating as the personification of misery and frustration in the miserable viewing experience called "Precious." BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR---A much more difficult category to figure out because history may well get in the way of common sense. Quickly eliminating a not creepy enough Stanley Tucci ("The Lovely Bones") and a bland Matt Damon ("Invictus"), I was genuinely moved by Woody Harrelson’s tortured bearer of bad news in "The Messenger" and admired Christopher Plummer’s bravado and even felt some of his anguish as Tolstoy in "The Last Station." However Christoph Waltz’s engagingly evil Colonel Klinky Nazi antics throughout Quentin Tarantino’s tedious "Inglorious Basterds" is the obvious "best", if it weren’t for the fact that I don’t think that anyone has ever won an Oscar for playing a member of the Third Reich. So...I’m going to play the "being rewarded for many years of service/strong screen presence" game here (think James Coburn and Alan Arkin), and pick CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER. BEST ACTRESS---Helen Mirren ("The Last Station"), Carey Mulligan ("An Education" and Gabourney Sidibe ("Precious") are simply filler here. I found Sandra Bullock, in the remarkably unmoving "The Blind Side" to be an annoying, very pale carbon copy of Julia Roberts’ Erin Brockovich effort. Luminously overshadowing everyone in this category is MERYL STREEP who quite amusingly (and achingly) consumed the role of Julia Child ("Julie and Julia"), and then served her up delectably...scene after scene after scene. Or perhaps I should say..."dish after dish after dish." BEST ACTOR---The weakest category of all. Jeremy Renner was way too enigmatic in "The Hurt Locker." Morgan Freeman was way too noble in "Invictus" (which I wound up calling "Inflictus"). The immensely likeable George Clooney appeared to be playing the immensely likeable George Clooney quite adequately, but not particularly memorably throughout "Up in the Air." Colin Firth’s semi-fastidious suffering through "A Single Man" would be my pick, but for the sake of making my record look good...I must predict the way over due to be honored JEFF BRIDGES as the self-battered but not completely beaten country singing warrior in the emotionally tone deaf "Crazy Heart." BEST DIRECTOR---It’s called "dancing with the one who brought you" as Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker"), Quentin Tarantino ("Inglorious Basterds"), Lee Daniels ("Precious") and Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air") all pale (and/or pall) in comparison to what JAMES CAMERON wrought with his monumentally magical "Avatar." When Michelle Rodriquez (a feisty character in the film) says "You should see the look on your faces" to a couple of her co-stars as they discover the spectacular rainbow-colored world of Pandora for the first time, I felt like she was directing that line to me, because I could feel my face absolutely glowing in wonderment over what JAMES CAMERON (whose picture is incorporated into a shot from his movie) created. BEST FILM--- In this ridiculously bloated/over-expanded to ten titles category that I called "Pandora and the Nine Dwarfs" in last week’s column, no other film but AVATAR should be anointed. But to leave no turn un-stoned, I will acknowledge all the sacrificial lambs that AVATAR will slaughter in ascending (from worst upwards) order of the minimal indelibility they had on my mind: "An Education" "District 9" "The Blind Side" "Inglorious Basterds" "The Hurt Locker" "Precious" "A Serious Man" "Up" and "Up in the Air." And as mentioned last week, J.J. Abrams’ "Star Trek" (to be discussed next week) was my favorite film of the past decade. But I must admit to feeling a certain amount of relief that it wasn’t even nominated in the Best Film group, as I’m sure it would have saddened me greatly when it wound up losing to AVATAR. end NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, March 4, 2010, issue. |