Arts and Entertainment

Oscar nominations come with surprises

BY Josh Brunsting GVL Columnist
2/3/2010

It's finally that time. With each year of film, each actor, producer, director and crew looks forward to a Tuesday morning, when their name or their project may garner an Academy Award nomination.

Instead of the historical five nominees, this year sees the controversial switch to 10 films up for the big award -- Best Picture. However, no matter how many films the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may add, this year is distinctly a four-horse race.

Along with the likes of the box office giant "Avatar," which has passed a gross of $2 billion worldwide and also received the coveted Golden Globe for Best Drama, the other three films truly in contention include Jason Reitman's "Up In The Air," Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War drama "The Hurt Locker" and Quentin Tarantino's World War II piece of masculine wish fulfillment, "Inglorious Bastards."

Each film already winning respective awards, at this point early in the game, it's a toss-up as to which will be the big winner. The frontrunner has to be "The Hurt Locker," as it shocked the world winning the Producer's Guild Award, previously thought as a lock for "Avatar."

The Academy moved to 10 nominees and is obviously trying to hit all demographics with the shock nomination of "The Blind Side," but it has no shot as this is a four-party fight through and through.

"The Hurt Locker" is also a frontrunner as its director, Bigelow, is a lock to win Best Director. Joining her in the category is Reitman, James Cameron for "Avatar," Tarantino and Lee Daniels for "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire."

Bigelow won the Director's Guild Award, and only six times in the past 60 years has the winner of that award not also won the Oscar for Best Picture, so "Hurt Locker" is set for a monster push.

The Best Actor category is also a rather uninteresting category, as Jeff Bridges' turn in "Crazy Heart" is on a rampage through all previous acting awards. While I think his compatriots, particularly George Clooney for "Up in the Air" and the best performance of the year, Colin Firth in "A Single Man," are better, Bridges deserves the award. It's a moving performance, similar to Mickey Rourke's turn in "The Wrestler" from last year.

Best Actress is a bit closer of a race. With the race becoming a two-person battle, it's a toss-up between two rather lackluster performances, Sandra Bullock in "The Blind Side" and Meryl Streep for "Julie and Julia."

Streep is great, but doesn't seem to push herself in a rather mediocre film, and the idea of Bullock, who is on a roll as of late, even being nominated is a travesty. The dark horse is Gabourey Sidibe for "Precious," who gave a brilliant performance, but it's the longest of long shots.

The only two true locks of the season come in the Supporting categories. Christoph Waltz will be on stage come March 7, for his turn as Hans Landa in "Bastards," and the comedian Mo'Nique will follow for her turn as the monster of a mother in "Precious." Both are power performances and truthfully two of the best.

All in all, this year is far from what we went through last year. All the races are somewhat open, especially Best Picture. This will make for a truly interesting race, that we won't be able to figure out until we see it March 7.

jbrunsting@lanthorn.com

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