In Contention
By Josh Spiegel
February 1, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Line?
As we finally get closer and closer to the big day, there's really only one question left to ask: what the hell is the Island? Seriously, can someone tell me? And why are there polar bears? What about Richard Alpert? The man DOESN'T AGE, people! Sigh. Okay, seriously, if you're a fan of Lost, February 2nd is just as important a day as for any fan of the Oscar season. In the morning, we get the Oscar nominations for the year in film; in the evening, three hours of Lost. And look, I just gave ABC free advertising. I expect a check in the mail, signed by Evangeline Lilly, for being in Lost and being in one of the probable Oscar nominees. I'm nothing if not a fan of synergy.

All right, let's get down to business. With so much of the Oscar season focused on either the Oscar nods or the various awards being handed out, let's spend today's column looking at something very, very dangerous: my Oscar predictions. It's a dangerous game because, as I've mentioned in the past, I am not a gambler. I don't have a problem making a decision, but making guesses is usually something I'm against, because if it's not a sure thing, I don't want to make a wild guess. The last time I made such a headlong guess, it was guessing the length of The Jay Leno Show. I was wrong; I figured it'd last a full season, as opposed to getting booted halfway through the winter. Still, in the spirit of making that mostly correct guess (though I was wrong about its end date, I was right that The Jay Leno Show would be a disaster), I shall begin predicting.

Perhaps, though, the reason why I'm cool with predicting is...well, I got bad news for you, dear reader. The Oscar season may be fraught with tension and twists around every proverbial corner; however, that doesn't discount the fact that a bevy of major Oscar awards are going to be very uneventful and lacking in suspense. The idea that there would be ten Best Picture Oscar nominees opened up the field, presumably, to every kind of movie, from The Hangover to Star Trek to Up to Precious. The problem is that, after all of the hullabaloo, only so many films have been awarded or nominated that it's not so hard to assume what movies will be in the top ten. Oh, there will be surprises, but only one or two. For the most part, the top ten are just about locked. Not fully, but mostly.

So, enough talk. My predictions for the ten Best Picture nominees are as follows, in alphabetical order: Avatar, An Education, District 9, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Invictus, Precious, Star Trek, Up, and Up in the Air. If you want me to tell you who's going to win? Well, if I was forced, I'd probably say Avatar, though The Hurt Locker could easily snatch it away. But we'll go with Avatar. The surprises on the list, if they match up with my choices, are District 9 and Star Trek. Is it possible for three science-fiction films to get nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in the same year? We'll soon see. Avatar is as close to a lock as anything is, science-fiction or otherwise. District 9 is the more likely candidate, as it's been showing up in various surprising categories, such as the Producers' Guild.

But what about Star Trek? Star Trek, if it makes its way onto the list, will do so because of personal preference. Unlike just about every other movie on this list, Star Trek does not have a message. Think about it. District 9? Apartheid. Avatar? Imperialism. Up? Being widowed (bit of a stretch, I know, but not nearly that much). The Hurt Locker? The horrors of war. Invictus? The lasting effects of apartheid. Precious? Racial relations. But what about Star Trek? There's no message there. Star Trek is just plain fun. And it's only about making you entertained. If we can imagine some people putting a movie like Drag Me To Hell on their Oscar ballots, why not Star Trek? The movie has showed up on some guild lists, but not as many as District 9. Still, Star Trek could land on the list, though it will be challenged by movies such as (500) Days of Summer and The Messenger. Don't count it out.

For Best Director, my predictions are that James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Jason Reitman, Quentin Tarantino, and Neill Blomkamp are going to be the nominees, for Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air, Inglourious Basterds, and District 9, respectively. Again, I'm seeing District 9 as a shocker here. Why? In some years past, the Academy has nominated directors whose films either don't show among the Best Picture nominees, or movies that are more mainstream. Granted, this year, it's almost completely impossible that the Best Director nominees won't be represented in the Best Picture nominees. Still, that doesn't mean that the five movies considered Best Picture frontrunners - Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, and Up in the Air - are all going to have their directors nominated. Lee Daniels is the odd man out, in my opinion.

For Best Actor, my predictions are that Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, Colin Firth, Morgan Freeman, and Jeremy Renner will be the nominees, for Crazy Heart, Up in the Air, A Single Man, Invictus, and The Hurt Locker, respectively. Bridges is, as I've said recently, now the man to beat in the category, having won some major awards in the last couple of weeks. He's riding a tide of good fortune and good timing, having made a movie that reminds people of his consistently awesome acting, while also reminding Oscar voters that he's never been an Oscar winner before. The idea that Bridges could win for the first time in his illustrious career is probably what will push him over. That said, Clooney could always surprise. Freeman and Renner are the shakier contenders; Invictus has not been getting lots of love in the guilds, and Renner, despite being awesome, is not being pushed as hard as the movie he's in.

So, if not Freeman and Renner, who could be the surprise nominees? If it's not the five I've listed above, my official predictions, then Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in (500) Days of Summer, or Viggo Mortensen, for The Road, could show up. However, I feel like the Best Actor category is one of the more solid and potentially unsurprising categories Oscar has this year. That's not to say that it's set in stone, but there are fewer surprise contenders here (and I'm sorry to disappoint anyone hoping I'd keep up the District 9 love by mentioning Sharlto Copley as a potential dark horse; his chances are minuscule at best). More than that, Bridges is the likely winner here, making this category something of a snooze.

For Best Actress, my predictions are that Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep, Carey Mulligan, Gaboury Sidibe, and Helen Mirren will be the nominees, for The Blind Side, Julie & Julia, An Education, Precious, and The Last Station, respectively. As with the previous category, there are few potential surprises here. Bullock and Streep are currently duking it out for their separately crowd-pleasing films. Mulligan, Sidibe, and Mirren are by the sidelines here, watching as two performers in two seemingly insubstantial movies are getting huge praise. I can't speak about The Blind Side, as I am one of the few people who haven't seen the movie; frankly, I'm better off not seeing it, as I harbor a few unpopular opinions: one of them is that I do not like Sandra Bullock at all. I'm biased to dislike her and the movie, so my opinion is not exactly reliable.

Another sneaky opinion of mine? I really don't think much of Meryl Streep's work in the past decade, with the exception of her supporting work in Adaptation. I find her work this decade to be wildly overrated, and Julie & Julia, in which she's only slightly better than Dan Aykroyd was in his stint on Saturday Night Live (and can someone explain to me why that entire sketch is played in the film? Please?), is no exception. Streep is getting nominated for playing a real person, for doing a funny voice, and for being Meryl Streep. Is hers the best female performance of the year? No. Is Bullock's? I can't say. Of the nominees, the most impressive is Sidibe, if only for the impressive emotion she brings to the role, and for being a relative newcomer. But the winner is probably going to be Streep. Or Bullock. Flip a coin, and make your choice.

For today, I'll cover only those predictions, but I'll also throw out the likelihood that Up in the Air will win Best Adapted Screenplay, Up will win Best Original Score and Best Animated Feature, The Hurt Locker will win Best Original Screenplay, and Avatar will win a boatload of technical awards. We'll discuss the actual nominations this coming week, as I'm sure that whatever the Academy has come up with, it'll be completely different from what I just threw out there. Surprises always come to those who don't think surprises are coming, so I'll likely be proven wrong. And, once we have an initial analysis of those nominations, we'll all watch Lost, right? Right? It's only the best show on television. Seriously, though, check back here next week for a thorough analysis of the nominees. It's bound to be exciting.