Academy Awards for 2009

The reason I started this blog was... okay, there were a lot of reasons.  I like to write, I like movies, I like to write about movies, etc.  But one of the more prominent reasons was that every year I wrote a giant facebook note detailing my thoughts on the Academy Award nominations, and I wanted a better place to publish it.  It's that time of the year, so without further ado go check out this link.  I'll be here when you get back.

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Okay, ready?

First thing to note is that Steve Martin and Adam Baldwin are hosting.  That's awesome.  I think they're both funny, and they seem to work well together in the commercials.  There's no writers strike this year so we won't have another "John Stewart has nothing to say and it's awful because there were no writers" 2008 disaster.  I don't know, something about the hokey writing for the awards hosts makes me smile even though it's so bad.

Best Picture

Okay.  Guys.  WHAT THE FUCK. You nominated AVATAR?  For Best Picture?  What the fuck?  I understand that you increased the size of the nominations to 10, and that's great since it means sweet films like District 9 and An Education get more respect.  But did you seriously nominated AVATAR?  That movie makes me so mad every time I hear people talk about it being anywhere remotely in the neighborhood of good.  It was so boring for so long.  I want 90 minutes of badassery, not 100 minutes of exposition then 50 of badassery.  Damnit.

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Okay, other than that, I love the Best Picture list.  The Blind Side better not win, but I'm happy to see it nominated.  Up marks the first animated movie in freaking forever to get nominated, which is like the one thing about the change to 10 nominees I'm happy about.  We never would've seen District 9 nominated in previous years, but here it is - that makes 2 legitimate action movies nomianted for Best Picture.  That's fine, I just hope I don't live to see the day when something like Avatar is really considred a better movie than A Serious Man by more than the dumb fucks I avoid at school.  Inglourious Basterds, nice.  I still need to see An Education, but I'm always glad to see Nick Hornby do well.  The Hurt Locker is the only one of these I've never heard of, but I guess I'll have to check it out.  Maybe not since I don't tend to like "realistic" war movies, but whatever.  Finally, Up in the Air is supposed to be great (I'm watching it this weekend), and Precious is fine being nominated though like The Hurt Locker it's not my thing.

Best Actor

Honestly, I haven't seen any of these movies.  Awkward.


Best Supporting Actor

Dude, Christoph Waltz for life.  He was so good in Inglourious Basterds; easily the best performance of the year.  That I saw, anyway.  I hope he wins.


Best Actress

Sandra Bullock doesn't deserve this, though I did like her in that role.  I hear the Precious woman was really good.  Meryl Streep is always good (or so I'm told), but I'm a guy and therefore naturally prejudice against Julie & Julia.  Still gotta see An Education so I can make a judgement on the last nominee.  This is apparently a running them tonight.

Best Supporting Actress

Haven't seen any of these movies, but Up in the Air got 2 nominations.  Shit guys.  I need to go see that.  Good thing it's safe on my desktop as I type.  Also Maggie Gyllenhaal is awesome.  Still, I'm not qualified to comment here.


Best Animated Feature

One of these movies was nominated for Best Picture, too.  Guess which one is going to win?  And that's fine by me; Up deserves it.  Never heard of The Secret of Kells.  Something to add to the list of things to check out.  This is how I found The Triplets of Belleville after all.

Art Direction

Okay, now Avatar can win.  Nine and Sherlock Holmes were both real perty, though.  Oh, and brief mention of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus:  this was the movie Heath Ledger was working on when he died.  And it's directed by Terry Gilliam.  That's a kickass combination to me.

Cinematography

As a probably cinema major, I should know the differences between Art Direction and Cinematography.  But seriously, what are they?  Whatever.  Inglourious Basterds had real cool cinematography.  I think the difference is probably the difference between a movie like that or O Brother, Where Art Thou? and a movie like The Golden Compass or Avatar.  Special effects vs style.  And on that level, Basterds is better than Avatar.  Avatar will still win, though.

Costume Design

I don't care.

Best Director

Tarantino really doesn't need the ego boost, but he probably deserves it.  It's hard to see the effects of good direction since they tend to present themselves as other departments doing their job rather than the director doing his/hers.  Anyway, I'm again not very qualified to choose a winner here and am again upset that Avatar is on the list.

A Bunch of Awards I Don't Care About

I don't care about them wooooooooo

Except editing.  I care about that one, I just don't watch it very closely when viewing the movies and thus don't have an opinion.

Up should win Best Music.  Avatar should win Visual Effects.  In The Loop should win writing just because I want it to win something.  A Serious Man should win the other writing since Inglourious Basterd's strength was not it's writing but rather the art, direction, and acting and Up... Okay, maybe Up should win.  This one is tricky.  I think I stand by A Serious Man, though, since it's got so much more depth rather than doing one message really well.

That should about do it.  Now to decide on the best Oscar's night drinking game...