In Contention

By Josh Spiegel

February 1, 2010

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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.




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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.


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