Moving Motion Pictures: The 82nd Annual Academy Awards

2009 was a great year for cinema. We saw one of the most accurate representations of the Iraq war and one of the least accurate representations of World War II. We were taken to an alien world and we saw aliens come to our world. We were told the story of a man who spent too much of his time in the air and the story of a man who spent too much of his time at home and the story of a man whose home was IN the air. That’s right, it’s Academy Awards season once more. So get strapped into your Oscar-chairs and prepare for my hilarious take on The 82nd Annual Academy Awards!

I’m just kidding, I have no hilarious take. But, you know who probably does? Steve Martin. I was thrilled to hear that he was hosting this year. I love seeing Steve in hosting gigs because it’s the closest we’ll ever get seeing him doing stand-up, his true calling, again (quick book recommendation: Born Standing Up. Check it out!). I was also happy to hear that a Mr. Alec Baldwin was coming along for the ride. I’m interested to see how that co-host dynamic plays out. Plus, Alec and Steve are the two most frequent hosts on Saturday Night Live and anyone who managed to read my most recent, incredibly long post (god bless you) knows how much I love that program.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, the powers that be have decided that there will be ten Best Picture nominees this year instead of the usual five. No doubt they did this to try to run my blog, but I have still managed to see all ten of the nominees. I normally can’t manage watching five! My prediction is that The Hurt Locker will win Best Picture and I won’t mind that. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t really mind if any of these films won Best Picture, but here’s a list the ones I like the best starting with my favorite:

1. Up in the Air
2. Inglourious Basterds
3. Up
4. A Serious Man
5. The Hurt Locker
6. An Education
7. District 9
8. Avatar
9. The Blind Side
10. Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

This year, there were two screenplays that were truly, masterfully written, two screenplays that stood above the rest, two screenplays that deserve the title “Best”. Luckily both these screenplays are nominated in separate categories. The scripts that I’m referring to are Inglourious Basterds nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Up in the Air nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. So, the Academy has no right to snub either of Quentin Tarantino or Jason Reitman for these awards (Original and Adapted respectively). Both these scripts were so well written, displaying such sharp and such real dialogue. I’ve always said that Tarantino is great director, but a better writer. In fact, both Tarantino and Reitman are writer-directors. I suppose that being a director can be a huge advantage to your writing and vise versa. If you’re a director writing a screenplay you’ll have a better idea of how it will play on the screen.

The Best Director category is an interesting one because if the Academy had gone with the usual five nominees for Best Picture, these five would be the ones nominated (Avatar, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air). I would be very surprised if something other than these five films won Best Picture. As for who’s winning Best Director, it’s tough to say. Obviously I would be happy if Reitman or Tarantino won. However, I would actually like to see Kathryn Bigelow win for The Hurt Locker. She is one of only a handful of women to be nominated in this category. Count ‘em, four! And we really need one of these women to win, but it’s not just that, she actually deserves this award. She’s managed to capture the messiness and relentlessness of war. She’s made some bold and extraordinary choices with her direction and she is obviously what made that film so good.

And now for the category that I’ve all been waiting for. That’s right, it’s the most important award of the night: Best Supporting Actor. I’m not entirely sure way this is always my favorite category, but it always seems to be the one I care the most about. I’ve always been fascinated in the art of acting and I feel that supporting roles are the most interesting and the most challenging. Look back at the last two years’ winners: Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men and Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight. They gave us arguably the greatest performances of their respective years. Supporting actors are not given as much screen time as the leads, but they are expected to be able to hold there own against the star and be as compelling as them. Often times, supporting roles are harder because are not the centre of the film; they don’t have to ground the film and therefore they can be far more complicated and unique.

No actor has proven my point more, this year, than Christoph Waltz as Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. Waltz oozes this kind of evil charm that steels every scene he’s in. And it takes a lot to out-charisma Brad Pitt! A while ago, I mentioned Tarantino’s incredible still for writing dialogue and one of Christoph’s major triumphs in this film was his spot-on delivery of that dialogue. The earliest and most compelling scene in Inglourious Basterds is a scene in which Colonel Landa is interrogating a man whom he believes to be hiding Jews. This scene is basically a Waltz monologue and is one of the most suspenseful and engaging scenes in the film. Hans Landa is arguably the most complex character in the movie and he has lines in over three languages. Tarantino almost abandoned the project because he couldn’t find anyone to play this character, possibly the greatest character he has ever written. So, if Waltz doesn’t win the Oscar I might cry.

Well, there you have it! My hilarious take on the Oscars, funny right? Anyway, I hope you all tune in tonight and enjoy the ceremonies. And I hope that my next blog entry is a little shorter. But, I’m not making any promises.